Another former Velos EP patent successfully challenged at the EPO

On May 19, 2022, all of the original claims of EP 2 347 592 B1, formerly owned by Velos Media, LLC and now owned by Qualcomm, were found unpatentable based on a challenge filed by Unified. Only after several failed attempts to amend the claims was Qualcomm able to gain allowance by adding significant narrowing limitations to the claims. However, the narrowing amendments forced into the claims means that these are no longer standard essential. This filing is a part of Unified's ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone.

Only after several failed attempts to amend was Qualcomm able to gain allowance of significantly narrowed claims. These amendments affect the essentiality of claims. For example, the claims now require “selecting the combination of encoding modes and partitioning with the best rate-distortion cost for the video block.” But the H.264 standard does not specify a particular encoding mode for macroblocks, much less require selection via rate-distortion cost.

Unified was represented at the opposition hearing by Dr. Susan Keston and Dr. Andrew McGettrick of HGF. In-house support was provided by Jessica L.A. Marks and Roshan Mansinghani.

GEVC EP'416 and EP'179 successfully challenged at the EPO

On May 19, 2022, all of the original claims of EP 3 471 416 and EP 3 487 179, owned by GE Video Compression LLC (GEVC), were found unpatentable based on two separate challenges filed by Unified. Only after several failed attempts to amend the claims was GEVC able to gain allowance by adding significant narrowing limitations to the claims. The two EP patents were related to U.S. patents that are designated essential to the Access Advance (previously HEVC Advance) patent pool and Sisvel's AV1 and VP9 pools.

Only after several failed attempts to amend was GEVC able to gain allowance of significantly narrowed claims. These amendments affect the essentiality for both sets of claims. For example, the claims of both patents now require for a "transform coefficient block,” context adaptive entropy decoding that uses contexts “selected…depending on a number of positions at which according to the previously extracted and associated first-type syntax elements significant transform coefficients are situated in a predetermined neighborhood” where "the predetermined neighborhood” is “inside” (for EP’416) or “within” (for EP’179) "the transform coefficient block." But the H.265 standard considers only whether another neighborhood has a significant coefficient (not the significant coefficients within the same transform coefficient block) and provides that information via a single sub-block flag (not a specific number). See Section 9.3.4.2.5. Moreover, although the H.264 standard used a technique of keeping track of the number of previously decoded syntax elements, the claims explicitly recite that “the transform coefficient block is larger than 8x8,” and H.264 only handles blocks up to 8x8.

Unified was represented by Dr. Andrew McGettrick and Dr. Susan Keston of HGF Law LLP, and by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Roshan Mansinghani.

Acacia entity, Monarch Networking Solutions, patent held invalid

On May 27, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Monarch Networking Solutions LLC holding all of the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 7,756,507 unpatentable. Owned by Monarch Networking Solutions LLC, an NPE and an Acacia Research entity, the ‘507 patent is related to two-step authentication. The ‘507 patent was asserted against Cisco, Meraki, and Duo Security.

View district court litigations by Monarch Networking Solutions. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by John Baird, Patrick McPherson, and Paul Belnap of Duane Morris LLP, and by in-house counsel, Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

Unified v Monarch - Final Written Decision 5-27-2022 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

IP Edge entity, Savannah Licensing, patent challenged

On May 27, 2022, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 9,454,777, owned and asserted by Savannah Licensing, an NPE and IP Edge entity. The '777 patent relates to using feedback based on a user's indication of frustration with a device and has been asserted against Nuu Mobile, Atlassian, Snapchat, Instagram, and Sony.

View district court litigations by Savannah Licensing. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel Jung Hahm and Michelle Aspen.

Speir Technologies patent challenged

On May 27, 2022, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,321,777, owned and asserted by Speir Technologies Ltd., an NPE and Magnetar Capital entity. The ’777 patent relates to using a wireless device to locate a remote wireless device and has been asserted against Samsung and Apple.

View district court litigations by Speir Technologies. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel Alyssa Holtslander and Roshan Mansinghani.