Portal Communications, a Dominion Harbor sub, patent held unpatentable

On July 22, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Portal Communications, LLC, holding all challenged claims of  U.S. Patent 7,376,645 unpatentable. The motion to amend was also denied with the Board finding the claim was obvious under both of the prior art grounds Unified presented. The ‘645 patent is owned and asserted by Portal Communications, LLC, a subsidiary of well-known NPE, Dominion Harbor. The ‘645 patent, directed to natural language processing techniques, had been asserted against SoundHound, Microsoft, and Apple.

Unified was represented by Ropes & Gray LLP and by in-house counsel, Jessica Marks, Roshan Mansinghani, and Ashraf Fawzy, in this proceeding. View all district court litigation involving the ‘645 patent here. To read the petition and view the entire case proceeding, see Unified’s Portal.

JustService patent challenged as likely invalid

On July 20, 2020, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 10,476,868, owned and asserted by JustService.net, LLC, an NPE. The '868 patent is related to cloud and data-storage technology and is currently being asserted against Dropbox.

View district court litigation by JustService.net. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Michelle Callaghan and Ashraf Fawzy, in this proceeding.

EPO challenge filed against Velos Media by Unified Patents

1st European challenge by an independent entity against an NPE

Unified believes patent quality is not just a U.S. issue but an international one. For those reasons, on July 17, 2020, Unified filed opposition proceedings against recently issued EP 2 347 591 B1, owned by Velos Media, LLC. The ‘591 patent is generally related to decoding data using macroblocks. This filing is a part of Unified's ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone.

In mid-July, Velos announced Technicolor as their first public HEVC patent licensee. However, in June, Technicolor declared bankruptcy in the U.S. because of higher than expected costs and lower revenue.

The ‘591 patent is also part of a family that Unified challenged and the PTAB instituted review on all claims as likely unpatentable, IPR2019-00757. This family is one of Velos’ largest and originally owned by Qualcomm. 

Read the entire filing below. Unified is represented by Dr. Simon Q. Lud, European Patent Attorney at Maiwald Intellectual Property, and by in-house counsel, Jonathan Stroud and Ashraf Fawzy.

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2020 First-Half Transport Zone Update: Litigation Doubles

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Overview

As patent litigation continues to rise, the Transport Zone is expected to see an 105% increase by the end of 2020. At the halfway point of the year (78 cases), litigation has already reached last year high (76 cases). This means that based on current numbers litigation is expected to hit  150+ cases reaching near all-time highs in this zone.

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Transport manufacturers continue to be the main targets of litigation. These manufacturers comprise 89% of all first-named defendants. Manufacturers are defined as companies such as Toyota, Honda, Ford, and Tesla. Dealerships are defined as a company that primarily sells for the manufacturer. These would include Kinsel Ford and Zimbrick Honda. Suppliers are companies such as Bosch Automotive, ABB, and even Uber that provide components or services.

NPEs continue to bring the majority of the lawsuits against Transport manufacturers and suppliers. NPEs are responsible for almost 77% of all transport litigation.

Looking at the year-by-year trends, NPE litigation has doubled in the first half of the year since last year in the Transport Zone.

The top-five plaintiffs in 2020, four are prolific NPEs, continually attack this zone. Those four NPEs account for 37% (29 cases out of 78) of litigation brought this year alone. The top-five plaintiffs are:

  1. JG Technologies (NPE): 11

  2. Display Technologies (NPE): 9

  3. Noco Company (Operating Company): 6

  4. Omnitek Partners (NPE): 5

  5. 2BCOM (NPE): 4

The top-five defendants in 2020, all manufacturers account for 25% of first-named defendants. The manufacturers are:

  1. Tesla: 5

  2. Ford: 5

  3. BMW: 4

  4. Hyundai: 3

  5. Jaguar Land Rover: 2

METHODOLOGY

Unified looked at all major Transport manufacturers and the top 10 Transport suppliers by revenue since 2012.

Total number of reported cases can vary. Unified made its best attempt to eliminate mistaken or duplicative filings.

Statistics include litigations initiated by NPEs or Declaratory Judgments (DJs) initiated by operating companies against NPEs.

Unified strives to accurately identify NPE through all available means, such as court filings, public documents, and product documentation.

LEGEND

Non Practicing Entity (NPE) = Company which derives the majority of its total revenue from Patent Licensing activities.

Operating Company or Op. Co. = Company which derives most of its total revenue from Product Sales or Services. Could be an SME or a large company.

NPE (Patent Assertion Entities) = Entity whose primary activity is licensing patents and acquired most of its patents from another entity

NPE (Small Company) = Entity whose original activity was providing products and services, but now is primarily focused on monetizing its own patent portfolio.

NPE (Individual) = Entity owned or controlled by an individual inventor who is primarily focused on monetizing inventions patents by that individual inventor.

Copyright © 2020, Unified Patents, LLC. All rights reserved.

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Q2 2020 Developer Updates

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New Portal Product and Features

Unified’s Portal PTAB docket now includes access to all the exhibits for the entire case. To view the exhibit simply click on the paper number. Users can browse through the exhibits and download them for their own use.

In addition to viewing all the exhibits, users are now able to download the entire PTAB docket for cases. 

In monitoring trends at the PTAB, Unified’s Portal now tracks specific procedural denials including 314(a) and 325(d).

Unified’s Portal also now tracks the petitioner entity type at the PTAB.

OPEN HEVC and AVC now includes improved analytics to understand the HEVC/H.265 & AVC/H.264 landscape.

Copyright © 2020, Unified Patents, LLC. All rights reserved.