NEWS & VIEWS
Unified News, Views, & Blogs
On February 23, 2018, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,549,310 owned and asserted by Certified Measurement, a subsidiary of Walker Innovation and well-known NPE. The '310 patent, directed to a "method and apparatus for secure measurement certification," has been asserted in multiple cases against such companies as Yokogawa America, ABB, and Alstom.
To read the petition and view the entire case proceeding, see our PTAB Portal.
On February 23, 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 8,838,976 owned and asserted by Uniloc Luxembourg S.A., a well-known NPE. The '976 patent, directed to an online service user authentication system, belongs to the Etchegoyen portfolio that Uniloc has asserted against Apple. The '976 was removed from the litigation following Unified's IPR petition, although the litigation continues.
To read the decision and to view the entire proceeding, visit our PTAB Portal.
On February 22, 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 7,860,648 owned and asserted by Location Based Services, LLC, a Leigh Rothschild entity and NPE. The '648 patent, directed to a mapping display system and method, was originally obtained by Intellectual Ventures (Invention Science Fund I LLC) and then transferred to Rothschild. It belongs to a broader patent family that has been asserted against several carriers including Verizon, as well as Rand McNally, Garmin, Niantic, and Trimble.
To read the decision and to view the entire proceeding, visit our PTAB Portal.
Unified Patents recently launched its 2nd public law school project to curb patent abuse against SMEs. In conjunction with University of Detroit Mercy School of Law and Brooks Kushman, Unified is working to help educate students on PTAB practice.
It was recently announced here.
As part of the project students will be focused on identifying prior art and properly making arguments which could be used at the PTAB to invalidate such patents. The targeted patent(s) are ones which have been identified as being asserted against SMEs who are asking for low dollar amounts. Much of these cases can be considered patent abuse since most of the time the patent owners know that their patents would not survive a challenge and price their demands to avoid a trial of the merits or validity challenge since the cost is much higher than the settlement amount. For SMEs this is especially onerous and requires them to expend substantial time and resources which instead can be used to hire or invest in the future.
Unified is working more law schools to educate students on the PTAB and help improve patent quality. Previously we worked with Berkeley Law on a similar project in which was mentioned in the Recorder.
For more information on this project please contact:
Wissam Aoun, Assistant Professor of Law and Clinic Director, University of Detroit - Mercy School of Law. aounwj@udmercy.edu
To contact Unified about creating a similar program at your law school contact us at info@unifiedpatents.com
On February 14, 2018, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 7,681,124 owned and asserted by Wordlogic Corporation, an NPE. The '124 patent, directed to a user interface for predicting and presenting text completion candidates in response to a user’s partial text entry, has been asserted in multiple district court cases against such companies as Fleksy, Touchtype, Chicago Logic.
To read the decision and to view the entire proceeding, visit our PTAB Portal.
