KCG Techs. "virtual smart phone" patent added to PATROLL

On September 18, 2019, Unified added a new PATROLL contest with a $1,100 cash prize for prior art submissions for US 10,394,447. The '447 patent, directed to a virtual smart phone system for use in automobiles, is owned by KCG Technologies (an NPE) that has asserted similar patents against automotive companies in district court. To protect innovation and deter future frivolous assertions, Unified is offering a $1,100 cash prize for the best prior art on this patent.

The contest will expire on December 18, 2019. Please visit PATROLL for more information or to submit an entry for this contest.

Submit Prior Art

Finjan cyber security patent challenged as likely unpatentable

On September 18, 2019, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against US Patent 8,079,086, owned by Finjan Holdings, Inc., a well-known NPE. The ‘086 patent, generally directed to a system and method for the secure download of executable files, has been asserted in district court against various cyber security companies such as AVG Technologies, Rapid7, FireEye and Fortinet.

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

KAIST and KBS patent determined to be likely unpatentable

On September 16, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial in an IPR filed by Unified against all claims of U.S. Patent 9,838,720, owned by the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS). KAIST claims to have and seeks to license patents allegedly essential to the HEVC / H.265 standard (such as the ‘720 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 ‘720 patent is likely unpatentable.

The '720 patent and its corresponding extended patent family is one of the largest families known to be owned by KAIST and represents approximately 42.9% of KAIST’s known U.S. assets. Including this petition, Unified has now challenged patents representing 64.3% of KAIST’s total known U.S. assets.

Unified is represented by Akin Gump 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 proceeding, view IPR2019-00725 on the Portal.

[1] An earlier version of this post incorrectly listed U.S. Patent 9,544,595 (owned by KAIST and ETRI) as the subject of IPR2019-00725. The ‘595 patent has been separately challenged by Unified in IPR2019-01071. This post was updated on September 27, 2019 to reflect the correct patent number.

Prior art found for Packet Intelligence patent

Unified is pleased to announce the PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, John Mayes, who received a cash prize of $8,000 for his prior art submission for U.S. Patent 6,839,751, owned by Packet Intelligence, LLC, an NPE. The '751 patent, directed to a method for analyzing a flow of packets passing through a connection point on a computer network, has been widely asserted in 11 district court cases. 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

New portfolio valuation tool available on Unified's Portal

Unified is pleased to announce the latest addition to its patent analytics tools, the Portfolio Value IndeX (PVIX).  As recently featured by IAM, PVIX is an internally developed tool designed to measure the relative value for a patent portfolio based on research derived from published empirical studies. The score evaluates three key components — (1) Family, (2) Market, and (3) Reputation — for each patent to create a composite PVIX score. More details are available in the methodology.

Test PVIX for Free!

PVIX is a powerful tool that can be used in conjunction with Unified’s APIX (validity), CITX (value) and BRIX (broadness) ratings to instantly identify the relative value of an entire portfolio as well as the most significant patents within that portfolio. For example, a user can use the APIX, BRIX, and CITX ratings to assess the validity and broadness of potential licensor’s portfolio. Next, using PVIX, a user can determine the value of those patents relative to their own portfolio within the same technology field in order to inform their buying strategy (see more examples here).

This chart shows the companies with the highest average PVIX value. However, portfolio size is also an important consideration in assessing portfolio value. Hence, Unified’s Portal allows users to switch between these views to gain a better understanding of the quantity and quality of any given portfolio.

Users can search PVIX ratings for any custom group of patents, creating a range of potential applications. Unified’s objective with this tool is to enable users to compare different portfolios and provide an efficient evaluation for patent assets as may be necessary in the course of due diligence and financial transactions.

For more information about PVIX, visit Unified’s Portal or read this report published by IAM.