Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $3,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 8,379,538, owned and asserted by Valtrus Innovations Ltd., an NPE and a New PP Licensing LLC entity. The '538 patent relates to using a machine-readable monitoring model to store and maintain the configuration of a monitoring environment. A monitoring element reads that model and automatically adjusts how it operates based on the defined configuration. It has been asserted against Kubernetes implementations within applications owned or created by SAP America. Both Starbucks and Google have filed declaratory judgment actions against the ‘538 patent.
The contest will expire on July 10, 2026. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for the contest. PATROLL researchers are required to use Pearl to generate claim charts. Submitted invalidity charts must address every limitation of the challenged claim. This may require using more than one prior art reference. Each PATROLL researcher can generate up to 30 invalidity claim charts per month using Pearl. These charts can be downloaded then submitted to PATROLL.
This PATROLL contest is co-sponsored by the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) and is a part of a continuing series of contests in their Cloud Native Heroes Challenge program. Cloud native developers can earn swag and prizes by helping us defeat patent trolls. Find more information on CNCF and the challenges within the links below: