5G RAN SEPs Likely to Encourage a Frenzy of Activity

The rapidly changing 5G RAN and the growth forecasts for the equipment market promises to attract 5G RAN SEP monetization. The large number and diverse ownership of 5G RAN SEPs should encourage a frenzy of monetization activity.

As of January 2021, nearly 33,000 active patent families have been self-declared to 5G. Of those families, over 63% or 20,750 families have been self-declared specifically to 5G RAN infrastructure. These families comprise nearly 70,000 active patents and applications. The pie chart below developed from Unified Patents’ objective patent landscaping tool (OPAL) shows the top 20 ownership of those families.

Continue reading the full article on IPWatchdog’s website HERE. This article is the second part in a series written by Craig Thompson, General Manager and COO for Unified Consulting.

Caselas, a Raymond Anthony Joao entity, patent challenged

On April 15, 2021, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 9,715,691, which is being asserted by Caselas, LLC, a Raymond Anthony Joao entity. The '691 patent is generally directed to providing transaction history information including charge-back information.

Caselas is asserting the '691 patent against 25 banks and merchant services companies, including First Citizens Bank, UBS Bank, First National Bank of Omaha, TruWest Credit Union, and Electronic Merchant Systems.

View district court litigations by Caselas. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by Larissa Bifano and Zach Conrad of DLA Piper and by in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and Jordan Rossen, in this proceeding.

Flexiworld Technologies patent challenged

On April 13, 2021, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination against U.S. Patent 10,346,114, owned by Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. The ‘114 patent relates to transmitting or streaming protected digital content to client devices over the internet. It has been asserted against Roku.

View district court litigations by Flexiworld. Unified is represented by Wilson Sonsini and by in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and David Seastrunk.

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on PAIR, go to https://portal.uspto.gov/pair/PublicPair, enter 90/014,721, and click on the "Image File Wrapper" tab.

$3,000 Awarded for Cedar Lane prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Vibhor Dimri, who received a cash prize of $3,000 for his prior art submission for U.S. Patent 8,165,867. This patent is owed by Cedar Lane Technologies, Inc., an NPE. The '867 patent relates to wirelessly controlling an electronic device with another electronic device in real time. The '867 patent has been asserted against D-Link, Disney, Dish Network, Comcast, LG, iHeart Media, ViacomCBS, TCL Communication, and SiriusXM.

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

Fat Statz patent determined to be likely invalid

On April 16, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all grounds challenging certain claims of U.S. Patent 9,757,066, owned by Fat Statz, LLC, an NPE. The ’066 patent is generally directed to a behavior management system that allows users to track and compare fitness and health-related data. The ‘066 patent was asserted against Samsung in early 2020.

While the patent owner attempted to thwart institution by raising an RPI issue at the preliminary stage, the Board noted that the patent owner does not allege that any time bar or estoppel applies in this case and declined to reach the issue, relying on the precedential decision in SharkNinja Operating LLC v. iRobot Corp., IPR2020-00734, Paper 11 (Oct. 6, 2020).

View district court litigations by Fat Statz. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Jung Hahm, Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.