Carucel Investments patent held unpatentable

On November 6, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Carucel Investments, L.P. holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 7,979,023 unpatentable. The ‘023 patent is owned by Carucel Investments, an NPE, and relates to mobile communication systems for vehicles. The patent had been asserted against numerous automotive companies such as Fiat Chrysler, General Motors, and Mercedes-Benz.

Unified was represented by Raghav Bajaj and David McCombs from Haynes and Boone, and by in-house counsel, Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding. View Carucel's district court litigation here. To read the decision and view the entire case proceeding, visit our Portal.

DigiMedia Tech patent challenged as likely invalid

On November 6, 2020, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,715,476, formally owned by Intellectual Ventures but now owned by DigiMedia Tech LLC, an NPE and an IP Investments Group entity. The ‘476 patent is generally related to displaying video images generated by a camera on a display, and more particularly to tracking a head portion of a person image in camera-generated video images. The ‘476 patent has been asserted against Olympus Corp., Fujifilm Holdings, Sakar International, Nikon, JK Imaging, and Elite Brands.

View district court litigations by DigiMedia Tech. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by Trenton Ward at Finnegan, and by in-house counsel, David Seastrunk and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

Second Fortress Amicus Filed

On November 3, 2020, Unified Patents, together with CableLabs, filed a second amicus brief in the refiled Intel Corp. v. Fortress Investment Group LLC, et al., and took the opportunity to help educate the Court on Fortress' now-frequent practice of using high-interest recourse loans to acquire questionable patents for serial assertion. A copy of the as-filed brief can be found below, and a copy of the original brief, which went into detail about litigation financing and other forms of serial NPE assertion, is also listed below.

Unified's Patent Quality Initiative aims to provide data, studies, and testimonials to give policymakers and practitioners a clear picture of the state of the patent system. More information about our PQI efforts can be found here.

Motion to File Amicus in Intel v. Fortress 3Nov2020 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

Second Amicus of Unified Et Al. in Intel v. Fortress 3Nov2020 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

First Amicus Brief - Unified March2020 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

$3,500 for PerDiemCo Prior Art

On October 30, 2020, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $3,500 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least Claim 1 of U.S. Patent 10,104,198. This patent is owned by PerDiemCo LLC, an NPE. The '198 patent generally relates to tracking information of a plurality of users and giving users different administrative privileges for maintaining information sharing and describing event condition. The '198 patent has been asserted against CalAmp Corp. and GPS Insight.

The contest will expire on December 15, 2020. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

Prior Art Provider	Claim Chart Link
Apex Standards	Pseudo Claim Charting
Techson IP	Limestone|Report
Amplified	Invalidity Report
Traindex	Prior Art Report
InQuartik	Semantic Prior Art

$2,000 for Hawk Technology Systems Prior Art

On October 30, 2020, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 10,499,091. This patent is owned by Hawk Technology Systems, LLC, an NPE that focuses its assertions against various school districts (e.g., DeSoto County School District, 3:18-cv-00132 ND Miss.) and charitable organizations, such as Goodwill (3:16-cv-00279 SD Miss.), for simply using a security camera.

The contest will expire on December 15, 2020. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

Prior Art Provider	Claim Chart Link
Apex Standards	Pseudo Claim Charting
Techson IP	Limestone|Report
Amplified	Invalidity Report
Traindex	Prior Art Report
InQuartik	Semantic Prior Art