IP Bridge reexamination request granted

On February 15, 2021, the PTAB granted Unified's request for ex parte reexamination, finding substantial questions of patentability for all claims of U.S. Patent 7,515,635, owned by IP Bridge. The patent is claimed to be essential as part of HEVC Advance’s patent pool (HEVC Advance patent list), as well as SISVEL’s VP9 and AV1 patent pools.

Unified is represented by Theodoros Konstantakopoulos of Desmarais LLP and in-house counsel, Roshan Mansinghani and Ashraf Fawzy, in this proceeding. Visit Unified’s Portal for more information about its Video Codec landscape (OPAL) and standard submission repository (OPEN).

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on PAIR, go to https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, enter 90/014,645, and click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab.

Granted Reexam Order_90014645 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

Cedar Lane patent held unpatentable

On February 12, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. holding the asserted independent claim of U.S. Patent 7,173,177 unpatentable. The ’177 patent was assigned to Cedar Lane from AVInnov, an NPE, and was previously owned by Intellectual Ventures. The ’177 patent, directed to indicating on a user interface whether items in a playlist are owned or unowned, had been asserted against several companies such as Spectrum (Charter Communications), T-Mobile, Disney, Dish Network, CBS Corp., and others.

View Cedar Lane's district court litigation. To view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified was represented in this proceeding by in-house counsel Michelle Callaghan and Roshan Mansinghani, and outside counsel Husch Blackwell.

Omnitek Partners patent determined to be likely invalid

On February 10, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all 4 grounds challenging claims 1-4 (all claims) of U.S. Patent 8,224,569, owned by Omnitek Partners LLC, an NPE. The ‘569 patent generally relates to mapping systems typically used in vehicles. The patent had been asserted in litigation against Toyota and is currently being asserted against Ford, GM, Here Global B.V., Mazda, Volvo, Apple, and Alpine Electronics.

View district court litigations by Omnitek Partners. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander, Ashraf Fawzy, and Jonathan Stroud, in this proceeding.

ETRI Chinese patent challenged

On February 19, 2021, Unified Patents filed a Chinese invalidity challenge against CN104219523. The CN’523 patent is owned by the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI). The CN‘523 patent is related to patents that are designated essential to the HEVC Advance patent pool as well as SISVEL’s AV1 and VP9 patent pools. It is also related to U.S. Patent 8,867,854, which Unified challenged in the recently instituted IPR2020-01048.

Unified is represented by Tao Chen at Wei Chixue Law Firm, and the case is managed by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Roshan Mansinghani.

Another GEVC Chinese patent challenged

On February 10, 2021, Unified Patents filed a Chinese invalidity challenge against CN105187829. The CN’829 patent is owned by GE Video Compression (GEVC) and is related to the CN’755 challenge that Unified filed on February 4, 2021. The CN‘829 patent is related to patents that are designated essential to the HEVC Advance patent pool as well as SISVEL’s AV1 and VP9 patent pools.

Unified is represented by Fanghua Zhou at Wei Chixue Law Firm, and the case is managed by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Ashraf Fawzy.

Unified invalidity challenge on CN105187829B by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd