$3,000 Awarded for IP Edge Entity Prior Art

Unified is pleased to announce the PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Rahul Vijh and Candy Khemka, who split a cash prize of $3,000 for their prior art submissions for U.S. Patent 7,567,622. This former Panasonic patent is now owned by Swirlate IP, LLC, an NPE and IP Edge entity. The '622 patent generally relates to digital modulation and transmission errors in wireless communication systems (e.g. cellular radios).

The patent has been asserted in district court over 10 times against ResMed, Livongo Health, Corning Optical Communications, Badger Meter, Continental Automotive, and others. The accused products include ventilators (ResMed) and blood glucose monitors (Livongo Health).

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 SUBMISSIONS

• US20030072292A1

• KR100526525B1

• US6298092B1

Winning Submission for US7567622_Swirlate IP LLC by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

Fortress entity, Uniloc, patent held unpatentable

On December 8, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Uniloc 2017 LLC holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 6,519,005 unpatentable. The ‘005 patent, owned and asserted by Uniloc 2017 LLC, a Fortress Investment Group affiliate and owned by SoftBank Group, relates to a method for motion estimation for a digital video encoder. The ‘005 patent has been asserted against numerous streaming and multimedia companies, including Amazon, American Broadcasting Company (ABC), Bitmovin, Google, Hulu, Netflix, Roku, Sling TV, and Vudu. The cases against Google, Sling, Verizon, AT&T, and Netflix are still open.

Unified is represented by Scott McKeown and Victor Cheung at Ropes and Gray, and by in-house counsel, Jordan Rossen and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding. View Uniloc's district court litigation. To read the petition and view the entire case proceeding, see Unified's Portal.

B# On Demand patent determined to be likely invalid

On December 8, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 9,553,880. Owned and asserted by B# On Demand, LLC, an NPE, the ’880 patent discloses a system that transmits a catalog of electronic files to a requesting user, sets up customer accounts, processes payments from customers to establish file access authorizations, and enables transmission of user-selected files to customers. It is currently being asserted against Spotify.

View B# On Demand’s district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified is represented by Larissa Bifano and Mike Van Handel of DLA Piper, and in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

Unified Comments on USPTO Discretionary Denials

On December 3, 2020, Unified, along with over 800 commenters, answered the USPTO's request for comments (RFC) related to their recent use of "discretionary" non-merits denials and potential future rulemaking. Early analysis of the 832 comments submitted reveals the breakdown was relatively evenly split for and against, with many form-filled or irrelevant comments. In our comments, Unified highlighted the prejudicial nature of the RFC itself, the lack of statutory authority to implement discretionary denial rules, and the USPTO's lack of data supporting the policy behind their new de facto rules.

Many Unified members submitted their own helpful comments. Thanks again to in-house counsel, Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani, and everyone who contributed to putting the comments together. Read Unified’s comments below.

Comments of Unified Patents to USPTO RFC by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

Arsus patent determined to be likely invalid

On December 4, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 10,259,494. Owned and asserted by Arsus, LLC, an NPE, the ‘494 patent is generally directed towards a rollover prevention apparatus for an automobile. The ‘494 patent is currently being asserted against Tesla Motors. Prior patents in this family were asserted in a case against a BMW dealership in Utah (dismissed on non-infringement).

View Arsus’s district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by Unified’s in-house counsel, David Seastrunk and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.