PTAB

Flexiworld Technologies patent challenged

On April 13, 2021, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination against U.S. Patent 10,346,114, owned by Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. The ‘114 patent relates to transmitting or streaming protected digital content to client devices over the internet. It has been asserted against Roku.

View district court litigations by Flexiworld. Unified is represented by Wilson Sonsini and by in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and David Seastrunk.

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on PAIR, go to https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, enter 90/014,721, and click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab.

Fat Statz patent determined to be likely invalid

On April 16, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all grounds challenging certain claims of U.S. Patent 9,757,066, owned by Fat Statz, LLC, an NPE. The ’066 patent is generally directed to a behavior management system that allows users to track and compare fitness and health-related data. The ‘066 patent was asserted against Samsung in early 2020.

While the patent owner attempted to thwart institution by raising an RPI issue at the preliminary stage, the Board noted that the patent owner does not allege that any time bar or estoppel applies in this case and declined to reach the issue, relying on the precedential decision in SharkNinja Operating LLC v. iRobot Corp., IPR2020-00734, Paper 11 (Oct. 6, 2020).

View district court litigations by Fat Statz. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Jung Hahm, Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

Another IP Bridge patent challenged in China

On April 13, 2021, Unified Patents filed a Chinese invalidation request for CN100581260 owned by IP Bridge. CN100581260 has been designated as essential in the SISVEL’s VP9 and AV1 pools. It is related to patents that have been designated as essential to HEVC Advance as well.

Unified is represented by JZMC Patent and Trademark Law Office, and the case is managed by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Ashraf Fawzy.

Pebble Tide, an IP Edge affiliate, loses PGR at Board

On April 13, 2021, the Board granted Pebble Tide's request for adverse judgment against itself and terminated PGR2020-00011, Unified Patents, LLC v. Pebble Tide LLC. After Unified filed the PGR petition, the claims in the challenged patent, U.S. Patent 10,303,411, were judged by the district court to be invalid and while Pebble Tide appealed the district court's decision, the Federal Circuit dismissed the appeal with prejudice. The Board instituted Unified's PGR in July 2020, before the Federal Circuit’s dismissal, and Pebble Tide attempted to file amended claims more than two months after the Federal Circuit's dismissal. However, Pebble Tide now agrees that its motion to amend is moot and requested adverse judgment.

The ‘411 patent had been asserted against over 25 companies, involving remote monitoring camera systems, mobile banking apps, online photo-sharing services, and auto insurance claims submission apps. All of the district court litigations have been terminated and the challenged patent is now owned by FlexiJet Technologies, Inc.

Unified is one of the top petitioners for inter partes review proceedings with over 200 petitions filed against bad NPE-controlled patents. This filing was the first occasion that Unified filed an early, post-grant review petition challenging a patent’s validity.

View Pebble Tide's district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Jung Hahm and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.