PTAB

Acacia patent determined to be likely invalid

On September 24, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 8,948,684, owned and asserted by Targeted Radio LLC, an Acacia Research Corporation affiliate and well-known NPE. The ’684 patent is generally directed to the insertion of advertising or other content into an Internet radio stream based on the user's location. This patent was asserted against Pandora Media but the case was terminated on July 8, 2020.

Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Jessica Marks and Jung Hahm, in this proceeding. View Targeted Radio’s district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified's Portal.

Omnitek Partners patent challenged as likely invalid

On September 18, 2020, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,224,569, owned by Omnitek Partners LLC, an NPE. The ’569 patent is generally directed towards a method for generating and displaying driving directions. The patent is currently being asserted in litigation against Ford, GM, Here Global B.V., Mazda, Toyota, Volvo, Apple, and Alpine Electronics.

View district court litigations by Omnitek Partners. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander, Ashraf Fawzy, and Jonathan Stroud, in this proceeding.

Ideahub patent determined to be likely invalid

On September 17, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 9,641,849, owned by Ideahub Inc. The IPR was filed as part of Unified's ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone. The '849 patent relates to a video compression technique known as intra prediction.

The '849 patent is a part of the HEVC Advance patent pool. HEVC Advance claims that certain claims of the '849 patent are essential to the HEVC standard.

Unified is represented by Raghav Bajaj, David McCombs, and Jon Bowser from Haynes and Boone, and by in-house counsel, Roshan Mansinghani and Ashraf Fawzy, in this proceeding. Visit Unified’s Portal for more information about its Video Codec landscape (OPAL) and standard submission repository (OPEN). To read the petition and review the case record, view IPR2020-00702 on Unified’s Portal.

KAIST and KBS patent held unpatentable

On September 14, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) holding all claims of US Patent 9,838,720 unpatentable. The ‘720 patent is owned by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS), which have participated in the HEVC Advance and MPEG-LA patent pools. Unified filed this challenge as part of its ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone.

Unified was represented by Cono Carrano and Clark Gordon from Akin Gump, and by in-house counsel, Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding. Visit Unified’s Portal for more information about its Video Codec landscape (OPAL) and standard submission repository (OPEN). To read the decision and review the proceeding, view IPR2019-00725 on the Portal.

Another Sound View patent determined to have substantial questions of patentability, reexamination request granted

On September 11, 2020, the Central Reexamination Unit of the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted Unified Patents' request for ex parte reexamination of U.S. Patent 6,725,456, owned and asserted by Sound View Innovations, LLC, finding substantial new questions of patentability for the challenged claim. The request was filed in an effort to protect Open Source technologies from invalid NPE assertions. The ’456 patent generally relates to ensuring quality of service in an operating system. Sound View recently asserted this patent against Cigna, Walmart, Vudu, Delta Air Lines, DISH Network, and Sling TV. 

View district court litigations by Sound View. Read the order below. Unified is represented by Haynes and Boone and by in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on PAIR, go to https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, enter 90/014,560, and click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab.