Breaking the 5G Curve by Looking Beyond the U.S. Patent System

Unified’s Shawn Ambwani and Sam Jaffna published an article in IPWatchdog.com analyzing the growth in 5G Self-Declared Standard Essential Patents (SD-SEPs) and the idea that strategic oppositions and invalidity proceedings filed outside the U.S. could prove useful to manufactures/equipment makers of 5G technology. There are 94,000 active grants and applications (25,700 families) 5G SD-SEPs as of September 2020.

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While successful validity challenges of a patent in foreign countries do not conclusively prove the invalidity of the U.S. counterpart, the successful arguments used in these challenges have been effective in the U.S. and used to argue lower portfolio values.

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“Manufacturers of equipment implementing 5G technologies should consider strategic oppositions and invalidity proceedings outside the United States against SEPs held by major licensees. These challenges cost a tenth or more less than typical U.S. challenges and could impact the licensing value of up to 50% of the self-declared families of the major SEP holders.”

Click HERE to read the entire article posted on IPWatchdog.com.

$3,000 for Texas Secure Authentication Prior Art

On December 15, 2020, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $3,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least Claim 1, 6, and 7 of U.S. Patent 7,873,682. This patent is owed by Texas Secure Authentication, LLC, an NPE. The '682 patent generally relates to determining identification information through a plurality of container registers using multi-factor authentication methods in online banking and internet services. It is being asserted against FCT Bancshares, Inc. and its subsidiary, First National Bank of Central Texas, in the Western District of Texas. The complaint acknowledges that the '682 patent expired on February 25, 2019.

The contest will expire on February 1, 2021. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

Prior Art ProviderClaim Chart Link
Apex StandardsPseudo Claim Charting
Techson IPLimestone|Report
Amplified Invalidity Report
Traindex Prior Art Report
InQuartik Semantic Prior Art

$3,500 for Trust & Verify Data Protection Prior Art

Unified Patents has a PATROLL contest, with a $3,500 cash prize, seeking prior art on all of the limitations of dependent Claim 10, and including all of the limitations of independent Claim 4, of U.S. Patent 7,162,735. The patent is owned by Trust & Verify Data Protection, LLC, an NPE. The '735 patent generally relates to an arrangement with a protected code that comprises incomplete executable code and a call instruction to a security code such that when the security code is executed, it replaces the call instruction such that the executable code of the protected code is complete.

The ‘735 patent is currently being asserted against Best Buy, McAfee, and Buzzfeed.

The contest will expire on January 15, 2021. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

Prior Art ProviderClaim Chart Link
Apex StandardsCorresponding Claim Chart
Techson IPLimestone|Report
AmplifiedCorresponding Claim Chart
TraindexCorresponding Claim Chart

Voice Tech Corp patent determined to be likely invalid

On December 14, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 10,491,679, owned by Voice Tech Corp, an NPE. The ’679 patent relates to voice-activated computing. The patent is currently asserted against Mycroft AI Inc. for using open source, voice-related technologies.

View Voice Tech Corp’s district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Jordan Rossen, Roshan Mansinghani, and Michelle Aspen, in this proceeding.


$2,000 Awarded for SITO Mobile Prior Art

Unified is pleased to announce the PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Sachin Srivastava and Preeti Dua, who split a cash prize of $2,000 for their prior art submissions for U.S. Patent 9,026,673. The patent is owned by SITO Mobile R&D IP, LLC, an NPE. The '673 patent generally relates to the transmission of multiple digital media streams from a server to a client device, e.g., where one media stream may be a piece of requested media, and another media stream may be an advertisement. This patent has been asserted in district court against Hulu, Blue Scout Media, and FloSports for their respective streaming platforms and content distribution methods.

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