VVC royalty report by Charles River Assoc. estimates lower rates due to AV1 adoption

Unified is pleased to announce the release of a new economic royalty rate report estimating the aggregate royalty burden for all standard-essential patents (SEPs) covering the video codec standard H.266, also called Versatile Video Coding (VVC). The report is a part of Unified’s Video Codec Zone, the goal of which is to provide objective, independent evidence of reasonable royalty rates, thus refuting unsubstantiated SEP licensing demands. 

VVC (H.266) constitutes the latest installment in a series of video codec standards released by the ITU and ISO/IEC and is regarded as the direct successor to HEVC (also H.265).

The fragmented licensing landscape for HEVC with three different patent pools has resulted in a significant degree of uncertainty about HEVC’s licensing terms and very high aggregate royalties. The issues revolving around its licensing have not only significantly hampered HEVC’s adoption but also likely have further boosted the significant momentum around royalty free video codecs like AV1. Against this background, the future uptake of VVC will strongly depend on whether the VVC SEP holders will be able to set clear and transparent licensing terms and royalties that are not excessive, but FRAND. VVC’s estimated FRAND royalty rates range from $0.05 for cellular devices to $0.17 for streaming devices.

In addition, AV1, often considered equivalent to HEVC, is already being implemented in many recent TVs. As adoption of alternative codecs increases, the value of VVC decreases. In this case, AV1 adoption lowers the cellular FRAND rate of VVC 40% to $0.03.

Read the executive summary below. Members of Unified's Video Codec Zone receive a full copy of this economic report. Email info@unifiedpatents.com for more info.

VVC Report - Public by Jennifer M Gallagher on Scribd

$1,125 Awarded for StratosAudio '081 prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Mani Manikandan and Harsimran Dhaliwal, who split a cash prize of $1,125 for their prior art submissions for 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.

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

• US 8060407

• US 20070107010

Unified Patents StratosAudi... by Jennifer M Gallagher

The Waco Patent Court: Super NPEs Rush West to Stake their Claims

Waco, the once-frontier town of roughly 135,858, has had its share of both tragedy and overcoming adversity.  Home of Baylor, army bases, and a rich, diverse, and sometimes fraught local history, the relatively small West-Texas town was (unfortunately) once best known in popular culture for the Federal standoff with the Branch Dividians, and the subsequent fallout from those events.  But no matter the ups or downs, Waco seems to have never lost its Wild West mentality.  That is no less true for what it is quickly becoming most famous for—a steady deluge of patent litigation.  There appears to be a new sheriff in town, and his plaintiff-friendly procedures and pronouncements are attracting some of the most notorious patent trolls. 

Judge Alan D. Albright, a former patent litigator who resides in Austin, was sworn in on September 18, 2018, as the sole judge in the Waco division of the Western District of Texas.  Because of a quirk in the local rules, any case filed in Waco is assigned solely to him; thus, forum-shopping entities can rest assured he will be the Judge to hear their case.  After being sworn in, he gave a steady stream of interviews to patent firms and associations, in which he unveiled a series of standing orders adopting aggressive trial schedules and “streamlined” procedures in an attempt to attract patent litigation. Patent litigants quickly accepted his invitation; in particular, large patent aggregators, NPEs, and litigation-financed campaigns have quickly adopted it as their primary friendly jurisdiction, one in which they can, and do, widely assert various patents.  

As identified in our Q2 2021 report, the Western District of Texas is now responsible for one quarter of all U.S. patent filings—driven practically single-handedly by the single-judge Waco division, over which Judge Albright solely presides—of which 82% are related to a NPE.  It has eclipsed the District of Delaware as the nation’s top destination for patent filings, and despite the Division’s relative size, is now hosting billion-dollar disputes between some of the nation’s top companies.  And as the data shows, the favorable procedures have primarily attracted non-practicing entities, patent aggregators, and of course, litigation-funded entities seeking tactical litigation advantage based on divisional forum shopping.

When looking at his impact on litigation, it has, importantly, attracted a new breed of NPEs—ones that leverage the COVID pandemic and relative availability of free private capital, as investors began looking for ways to invest in non-cyclical returns, and the traditional opprobrium surrounding litigation financing in the U.S. waned. Since taking the bench, filings in the Western District by patent aggregators have has increased a whopping 11,900%—unsurprising when you note that his court is on pace to attract more than 1,000 new filings to his single-judge docket, suddenly making his court one of the most congested in the nation.

This has resulted in over 60% being tied to aggregation entities.

And of those known aggregator cases, nearly all are associated with known third-party financing (based on all ownership and investment available data). This means a substantial portion of the cases that Judge Albright hears are backed by (often undisclosed) third-parties.  

With that said, it seems that the Albright effect has been carried over to other judges in the Western District of Texas. From 2018 to 2020, the dockets of the other judges in the District have seen a 719% increase in aggregator filings, and an overall increase in general

This means that 65% of all cases that the other judges see are related to an aggregator.

Third-party financing has also increased 715% from 2018 to 2020. 

Nearly, 47% of all cases are backed by a known third-party.

The immediate effects of Judge Albright’s decisions seem to have led to an explosive growth of Super NPEs that have a complex web of entities and financing. The long-term effects still remain unknown, besides more and more defendants being dragged out into the Wild West. But it seems clear that even with quick telephone Markman hearings and high settlement rates, it is practically impossible for the Waco division to keep up with the caseload and maintain the aspirational time-to-trial their standing orders profess to offer. 

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Definitions

NPE aggregators were defined as NPEs that have more than one affiliated subsidiary also bringing patent litigation. 

Third-Party Financing was defined as any third party with a financial interest, other than the assertors. 

Super NPEs are defined as those that are an aggregator and have access to third-party financing. 

Copyright © 2021, Unified Patents, LLC. All rights reserved.

$2,500 for prior art on IP Edge subsidiary, Dedicated Licensing

On June 29, 2021, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,500 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 9,397,627. The patent is owned by Dedicated Licensing, LLC, an NPE and IP Edge subsidiary. The '627 patent generally relates to a network-enabled audio device that provides a display device that allows the user to select playlists of music much like a jukebox. It is currently being asserted against Rhapsody, Vimeo, iHeartMedia, SoundCloud, Sound Hound, and Genius Media Group.

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

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Apex Standards	Pseudo Claim Charting
Techson IP	Limestone|Report
Amplified	Invalidity Report
Traindex	Prior Art Report
InQuartik	Semantic Prior Art
IPscreener	Relevant Prior Art
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AutoBrilliance patent held unpatentable

On July 6, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Autobrilliance, LLC, holding all challenged claims (claims 1, 2, and 4-7) of U.S. Patent 6,792,351 unpatentable. The ‘351 patent, directed to multi-vehicle communication, had been asserted in district court litigation against Toyota.

View AutoBrilliance's district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified was represented by Raghav Bajaj and David McCombs at Haynes and Boone, and by in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander, Roshan Mansinghani, Jess Marks, and Jung Hahm, in this proceeding.