$1,500 for StratosAudio '081 prior art

On February 3, 2021, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $1,500 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claims 9-11 of U.S. Patent 8,166,081. The patent is owned by StratosAudio, an NPE. The '081 patent generally relates to media advertising and in particular to systems and methods for associating an advertising media signal with another media signal. It is currently being asserted against Volvo, Hyundai, Subaru, Volkswagen, and Mazda.

The contest will expire on April 30, 2021. 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
IPscreener	Relevant Prior Art

JustService patent determined to be likely invalid

On February 18, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims of 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.

In the decision, the Board analyzed real party in interest and Fintiv trial-date discretionary denials, and found that neither were a bar to institution; on Fintiv, the Board found that the petition was filed early enough that the Western District trial schedule presented no conflict with the proceeding before the Board.

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 Aspen and Ashraf Fawzy, in this proceeding.

Crandall Technologies reexamination request granted

On February 19, 2021, the USPTO granted Unified's request for ex parte reexamination, finding substantial questions of patentability for all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,645,720, owned and asserted by Crandall Technologies LLC, an NPE. The ’720 patent is related to digital data sharing and has been asserted against Vudu.

View district court litigations by Crandall Technologies. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Ellyar Barazesh, Jessica L.A. Marks, and Jonathan Stroud, in this proceeding.

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on PAIR, go to https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, enter 90/019,007, and click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab.

90019007 Reexam Ordered - Crandall by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

Richman Technology settles with Unified

On February 17, 2021, the Board issued an order terminating IPR2020-01704 pursuant to a joint settlement request filed by Unified Patents and Richman Technology Corporation. U.S. Patent 9,449,484, generally related to security hardware and real-time security monitoring software systems, has been asserted against security system makers such as ADT, Assa Abloy, Skylink Technologies, Google, and others.

Unified was represented by in-house counsel Ellyar Barazesh, Roshan Mansinghani, and Jessica L.A. Marks in this proceeding. View district court litigations by Richman Technology. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal.

Economic PTAB Analysis Demonstrates Post-Grant Challenges Save Litigation Costs Regardless of Stay

Leading Economic Expert finds that PTAB challenges lower total costs and benefit the US Economy almost $2 billion regardless of whether litigation stays are granted

The Perryman Group, in a recent economic study commissioned by Unified, found substantial cost savings in district court cases when there is a copending IPR proceeding regardless of whether a stay is granted or not. 

The study found either outcome resulted in substantial benefits to the U.S. economy by improving business activity $1.87 billion and saving 8,530 job years.  That included where an IPR was conducted parallel to an ongoing district court proceeding, where the Perryman Group estimated the economic benefits of cost savings over the 2014-19 period of $135.4 million in US gross product and 617 person-years of employment. The study also found these benefits are primarily concentrated in the manufacturing sector.

Source: The Perryman Group

The full study is available here, and complements Perryman Group’s earlier work demonstrating the quantifiable economic benefits of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act’s post-grant proceedings in the years following their implementation.

Source: The Perryman Group

The Perryman Report is part of Unified Patents’ Patent Quality Initiative (PQI), an effort to gather and provide objective data and research demonstrating how lowering patent quality will inevitably lead to even higher cost and risk for U.S. SMEs, inventors, and manufacturers, and can lead to less innovation, fewer U.S. jobs, and a drain on the U.S. economy. Our PQI 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.

For far greater detail, read the entire report HERE.

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