Virtual Creative Artists social networking patent invalidated

On February 9, 2024, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Virtual Creative Artists, LLC holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 10,339,576 unpatentable. The '576 patent is directed towards a process for creating and publishing media content on an electronic exchange. It had been asserted against Meta, Bumble, Pinterest, Snap, TikTok, and Tumblr.

View district court litigations by Virtual Creative Artists. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified was represented by Eric Buresh and Nick Apel of Erise IP, and by in-house counsel, David Seastrunk and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

VideoLabs MPEG patent claims invalidated

On December 18, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. VL Collective IP LLC holding challenged claims 1, 3, 5, 9, 12, 13, and 15 of U.S. Patent 8,605,794 unpatentable. Owned and asserted by VL Collective IP LLC, a VideoLabs Inc. entity, the '794 patent is generally directed to synchronizing data segments and references MPEG1.

View district court litigations by VL Collective IP. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified was represented by Raghav Bajaj, Jon Bowser, and David McCombs of Haynes and Boone, LLP and by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Roshan Mansinghani.

Proposed USPTO Rules and Legislation Would Increase Government Costs

Recently proposed rulemaking and legislation would increase discretionary denial of institution of inter partes review (IPR) matters based on the criteria set forth in the Apple, Inc. v Fintiv, Inc. (Fintiv) matter and similar provisions. The Fintiv guidelines and related restrictions can make it difficult for claims to be fully considered even in cases where there is a substantial probability of success for the petitioner. If the proposed guidelines were implemented, the result would be a reduction in IPR proceedings even for cases that are otherwise meritorious. As a consequence, the economic efficiency benefits associated with the IPR process would be substantially diminished.

An additional issue with reducing IPR is that it will lead to higher costs of procurement for the US government. The Perryman Group estimates that the direct increased costs to the federal government associated with federal spending over the 2023-32 period would be -$106.4 million.

When summed with the estimated tax effects previously described, the total cost to the federal government was found to be almost -$202.9 million.

For more details please refer to the full report.

Magnetar Capital entity Togail Technologies 3GPP patent likely invalid

On August 18, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 10,791,502, owned by Togail Technologies Ltd., a Magnetar Capital entity. The ’502 patent relates to error-handling procedures for system information requests in communications and has been asserted against 3GPP devices. It is currently being asserted against Apple and had been asserted against TCL Technology Group.

View district court litigations by Togail Technologies. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified was represented by John Baird, Nicole Candelori, and Patrick McPherson of Duane Morris and by in-house counsel, Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

Intellectual Ventures vehicle monitoring patent held invalid

On August 9, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. v. Intellectual Ventures II LLC holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,291,475 unpatentable. The ’475 patent relates to alerting a recipient regarding a violation of a vehicle, such as a speeding violation, and had been asserted in district court against Toyota, GM, and Honda.

View district court litigations by Intellectual Ventures. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified was represented by in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander, Roshan Mansinghani, and Michelle Aspen.