In-House Only CLE Luncheon - Austin, TX - October 8th

PTAB DISCRETION - WHAT IN-HOUSE COUNSEL SHOULD KNOW

Over the past several months, the PTAB has markedly changed how it applies its discretion to deny institution of petitions of a patent that has been challenged previously.  The changes will be summarized and developing strategies for when and whether to file IPR petitions in view of these changes will be discussed.

Join us for a private CLE luncheon in Austin, TX presented by Roshan Mansinghani at Fleming's Steakhouse at the Domain on Tuesday, October 8th, at 11:30a. This is our fourth in a series of private CLE luncheons for in-house counsel and a great opportunity to meet and network with other Austin-based in-house counsel all while earning CLE credits. Previous attendees to our luncheons have been from NetApp, CA Technologies, Magento, HPE, Dell, and several others.

Register HERE and we look forward to seeing you in Austin!

KCG Technologies patent challenged as likely invalid

On September 6, 2019, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against US Patent 9,671,955, owned by KCG Technologies LLC, an NPE. The ‘955 patent, generally directed to a virtual smart phones used in in-vehicle systems, has been asserted against CarMax in district court.

View KCG Tech’s district court litigation here. Alyssa Holtslander is lead counsel for Unified in this proceeding. To read the petition and view the entire case proceeding, see Unified's Portal.

Inventergy patent added to PATROLL

On September 9, 2019, Unified added a new PATROLL contest with a $1,500 cash prize for prior art submissions for US 8,760,286. The '286 patent, directed to a location tracking system, is owned by Inventergy Lbs, LLC (a well-known NPE) and has been asserted in multiple district court cases. To protect innovation and deter future frivolous assertions, Unified is offering a $1,500 cash prize for the best prior art on this patent.

The contest will expire on November 30, 2019. Please visit PATROLL for more information or to submit an entry for this contest.

Submit Prior Art

Prior art found for Tamabo patent

Unified is pleased to announce the PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Rajesh Singh, who received a cash prize of $2,000 for his prior art submission for U.S. Patent 6,599,130, owned by Tamabo, Inc., an NPE. The '130 patent, directed to a tutorial or diagnostic aid based on the representation and iterative interpretation of visual images, has been asserted in district court litigation. To help the industry fight bad patents, we have published the winning prior art below.

We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on this patent. The ongoing contests are open to anyone, and include tens of thousands of dollars in rewards available for helping the industry to challenge NPE patents of questionable validity by finding and submitting prior art in the contests. Visit PATROLL today to learn more about how to participate.

WINNING SUBMISSION

Velos Media patent determined to be likely invalid

On September 3, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial in an IPR filed by Unified against all independent claims and several dependent claims of US Patent 8,964,849, owned by Velos Media, LLC. The ’849 patent, generally directed to techniques for video encoding and decoding, was originally assigned to Blackberry before being transferred to Velos in 2017.

Velos claims to have and seeks to license patents allegedly essential to the HEVC / H.265 standard (such as the ‘849 patent). Unified filed this challenge as part of its ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone after independently determining that the allegedly standard essential ‘849 patent is likely unpatentable.

Unified is represented by David Cavanaugh and Theodoros Konstantakopoulos from Wilmer Hale 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 case record, view IPR2019-00710 on the Portal.