MasterObjects patent challenged as likely invalid

On June 30, 2020, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 10,311,073, owned and asserted by MasterObjects, Inc., an NPE. The ‘073 patent is directed to partial search technology, including asynchronous retrieval of information from a database. MasterObjects has filed suit involving the '073 patents and others against several companies, including Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, Facebook, and eBay.

View district court litigation by MasterObjects. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by Trenton Ward and Gracie Mills from Finnegan and Unified’s in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and Jung Hahm, in this proceeding.

Quartz Auto Technologies patent challenged as likely invalid

On June 30, 2020, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,370,085, owned and asserted by Quartz Auto Technologies, LLC, an NPE. The ‘085 patent is generally directed to personal information management systems that track a user’s locations and activities. The patent is currently being asserted against Uber and Lyft for their rider/passenger applications.

View district court litigation by Quartz Auto Technologies. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by Unified’s in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander and Jessica Marks, in this proceeding.

Unified is Hiring: New full-time Senior Patent Counsel position, internships

Senior Patent Counsel - Click HERE to apply

Unified is again growing its legal department and seeks to add another experienced, registered patent attorney to the team to prosecute and litigate matters in-house. Pay is competitive and counsel will have flexible hours and may work remotely. Ideal applicants should be historically underrepresented in the patent field, and should generally have at least five years of firm or other relevant experience practicing before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) working on post-grant petitions (IPR, PGR, and CBM), reexaminations, or other administrative drafting and litigation experience. Deposition and oral hearing experience are preferred.

Applicants should have a strong technical background and be willing to explore diverse new technologies; experience with video codecs, coding, cryptography, compression, signals, wireless communications, or other algorithmic subject matter is a plus. Patent examination experience is a plus; a registration number is a plus; clerking experience is a plus; familiarity with ongoing appellate issues affecting PTAB practice is a plus.

Legal Interns - Click HERE to apply

Unified is now accepting applications for legal internship and fellowship positions for assisting with its legal and database activities, including PATROLL prior art search contests. A technical background is highly preferred, although some training will be given (e.g., how to search for prior art). Experience with Excel and/or Google Sheets is a must. Interns and fellows will potentially have the ability to assist with PTAB analytics and drafting of papers in IPR proceedings. While the internships are non-paid, we offer flexibility and the option to work remotely. During the position, there will be opportunities to win prize money for contests to find successful prior art on specific patents. For more information and instructions on how to apply, click here.

The Legal Internship has generally been an unpaid position, but Unified will offer tuition stipends per semester for historically underrepresented students entering the patent field currently enrolled in law school. These diversity scholarship stipends will be awarded based on need and availability.

Requirements

• Experience with MS Excel, Google Sheets

• JD candidate or graduate

  • Highly preferred to have completed at least one intellectual property course

• Undergraduate degree in a field of science or engineering highly preferred

• Experience with prior art searching and analysis preferred

SISVEL patent held unpatentable

On June 25, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC et al. v. S.I.SV.EL. Societa Italian Por Lo Sviluppo Dell Elettronica S.P.A. et al., holding all but one dependent claim as unpatentable of U.S. Patent 7,734,680, owned by S.I.SV.EL. S.p.A., an NPE. The ’680 patent, directed to a recommendation engine that generates a user profile based on a user’s interests and suggests content based on similar user profiles, has been asserted against Spotify, Rhapsody, and Rakuten in district court. At the time of this decision, only Rhapsody is in active litigation.    

Unified was represented by in-house counsel, Michelle Callahan, and by Jason Mudd from Erise IP in this proceeding. View district court litigation for the ‘680 patent. To read the petition and view the entire case proceeding, see Unified’s Portal.