Fortress entity, Uniloc, patent held unpatentable

On December 8, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Uniloc 2017 LLC holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 6,519,005 unpatentable. The ‘005 patent, owned and asserted by Uniloc 2017 LLC, a Fortress Investment Group affiliate and owned by SoftBank Group, relates to a method for motion estimation for a digital video encoder. The ‘005 patent has been asserted against numerous streaming and multimedia companies, including Amazon, American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Bitmovin, Google, Hulu, Netflix, Roku, Sling TV, and Vudu. The cases against Google, Sling, Verizon, AT&T, and Netflix are still open.

Unified is represented by Scott McKeown and Victor Cheung at Ropes and Gray, and by in-house counsel, Jordan Rossen and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding. View Uniloc's district court litigation. To read the petition and view the entire case proceeding, see Unified's Portal.

B# On Demand patent determined to be likely invalid

On December 8, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 9,553,880. Owned and asserted by B# On Demand, LLC, an NPE, the ’880 patent discloses a system that transmits a catalog of electronic files to a requesting user, sets up customer accounts, processes payments from customers to establish file access authorizations, and enables transmission of user-selected files to customers. It is currently being asserted against Spotify.

View B# On Demand’s district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified is represented by Larissa Bifano and Mike Van Handel of DLA Piper, and in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

Arsus patent determined to be likely invalid

On December 4, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 10,259,494. Owned and asserted by Arsus, LLC, an NPE, the ‘494 patent is generally directed towards a rollover prevention apparatus for an automobile. The ‘494 patent is currently being asserted against Tesla Motors. Prior patents in this family were asserted in a case against a BMW dealership in Utah (dismissed on non-infringement).

View Arsus’s district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by Unified’s in-house counsel, David Seastrunk and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

Kojicast patent held unpatentable

On December 4, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Kojicast, LLC holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,749,380 unpatentable. The ‘380 patent is owned and asserted by Kojicast, LLC, an NPE, and is directed to streaming multimedia content from a server to a media playing device through operation of a portable device such as a tablet or smartphone.

Unified is represented by David O’Dell, Clint Wilkins, and Jon Bowser at Haynes and Boone and by in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and Jessica L.A. Marks, in this proceeding. View Kojicast's district court litigation. To read the petition and view the entire case proceeding, see Unified's Portal.

Unified files two Japanese oppositions against GE Video Compression patents

As part of Unified's ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone, Unified filed two Japanese oppositions, challenging JP6700341 and JP6700342, on November 27, 2020. Both patents are owned by GE Video Compression LLC (GEVC). The ‘341 and ‘342 patents are in the same patent family and they are related to U.S. patents that have been designated as essential in the HEVC Advance patent pool.

Read the entire filings below. Unified is represented by Yukihiro Takemoto of Ace-ai IP Law Firm in Japan, and by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Ashraf Fawzy.

20201127_JP6700341_Opposition_vf2 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

20201127_JP6700342_Opposition_vf2 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd