5G RAN Developments: Challenges and Opportunities for Patent Licensing in a 5G Future

Much has been said about how 5G will better use the airwaves, giving wings to new communications between people and between devices. Little has been said though about how 5G could change markets and industries. The equipment market for the radio access network (RAN) is a good example of just one market that is now caught in the updraft of such change. Another market bound to rise is the market for patent licensing—and, in particular, standard essential patent licensing for 5G RAN. To help make sense of the 5G patent licensing market, we have developed an AI-based 5G landscaping tool to help identify and weigh the relative patent portfolios (OPAL) and an indexed repository of all technical contributions made to 3GPP 2G-5G standardization work (OPEN).

Continue reading the full article on IPWatchdog’s website HERE. This is article is the first in a series written by Craig Thompson, General Manager and COO for Unified Consulting. In Part II of this series, he will address the licensing challenges unique to the RAN market.

Federal Circuit dismisses Uniloc 2017's appeal

On March 31, 2021, the Federal Circuit granted a motion to dismiss Uniloc 2017's appeal in Case No. 21-1644 (see below). The appeal stemmed from IPR2019-01126, in which Unified received a final written decision finding all of the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 6,519,005 unpatentable under two independent grounds. The patent relates to a method for motion estimation for a digital video encoder.

The '005 patent has been asserted against a large number of defendants, including Netflix, Google, Sling, Verizon, AT&T, ABC, Vudu, Roku, Brightcove, Telestream, Hulu, Bitmovin, Dailymotion, ESPN, and Amazon.com.

Unified was 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.

CAFC 21-1644 Uniloc (Bakhmutsky) Appeal Terminated by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

Interdigital patent challenged in China

On March 25, 2021, Unified Patents filed a Chinese invalidation request for CN101491099 owned by Interdigital. CN101491099 has been designated as essential in the SISVEL’s VP9 and AV1 pools.

Unified is represented by JZMC Patent and Trademark Law Office, and the case is managed by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Ashraf Fawzy.

$1,875 Awarded for Peoplechart prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Sukhdeep Singh, who received a cash prize of $1,875 for his prior art submission for US 8,869,249. This patent is owed by Peoplechart Corporation, an NPE. The '249 patent generally relates to protecting personal information using user authentication methods related to mobile banking. The patent is currently be asserted against Wintrust Bank for their use of a mobile banking application.

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 SUBMISSION

• US 7,587,368

• US 6,098,056

• US 5,960,085

UPDATED_Unified Patents_Winning Submission for US8869249 PeopleChart_03.26.2021 by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

UnifieDisco has arrived

The Unified Network is proud to announce its newest service UnifieDisco, the Anti-Techno. An innovative and new business model to deter bad music and dance floor trolling. Completely complementary with Unified’s existing services such as Patents, Brands, and Consulting, UnifieDisco will seamlessly overlay them all with music, food, and cocktails to enhance their value and the increase adoption in the Intellectual Property community.

The initial venue will be located in Dublin, California, an up and coming city in Northern California situated at the intersection of two major East Bay freeways and home to a Korean BBQ, Hobby Lobby, and Tesla dealership which demonstrates its clear diversity. The actual location will be kept secret for now to avoid the inevitable trolls, but luckily there was an abandoned bowling alley within striking distance of an Outback Steakhouse, Starbucks, and a BART entrance available which has the deep acoustics necessary to house the next major stop on the Top 100 DJs circuit and some serious BASS. Also, local zoning allowed for the easy addition of soap and gelatin machines.

Rumors that DJ Iancu might take up residence are unfounded. Instead, we were lucky to have DJ Apix agree to be the resident spinner. A local legend in the greater Tri-Valley area, he brings a deep and some might say unnecessary knowledge of late 90’s, early 2000s hip-hop. International visitors can take advantage of Livermore Regional Airport, located only minutes away with full support for G6s. Stayed tuned for more shortly. Or not.