Dominion Harbor's entity Liberty Peak Ventures patent challenged

On October 21, 2021, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,066,181, owned and asserted by Liberty Peak Ventures, LLC, a Dominion Harbor entity. The '181 patent relates to generating an authentication tag for use in contactless transactions and has been asserted against Citigroup.

View district court litigations by Liberty Peak Ventures. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by in-house counsel Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani.

Joao entity Caselas' patent likely invalid

On October 19, 2021, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims of 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 33 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.

Dynamic IP Deals entity, mCom IP, patent challenged

On October 15, 2021, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,862,508, owned and asserted by mCom IP, LLC, a Dynamic IP Deals entity. The '508 patent is directed to using e-banking touchpoints to provide personalized financial services and has been asserted 24 times against various banks and financial services companies, including Wells Fargo, US Bank, PNC, IBM, and NCR Corp.

View district court litigations by mCom. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by David Tennant of Allen and Overy and by in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and David Seastrunk.

$3,000 Awarded for Safe Driving prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Arpit Jain, who received a cash prize of $3,000 for his prior art submission for U.S. Patent 9,713,994. This patent is owned by Act-IP, an NPE. The '994 patent generally relates to a system of sensors to allow a driver to safely drive their vehicle while being able to use smart applications. This patent is currently being asserted against Ford Motor Company in the Delaware District Court.

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

Unified Defeats PTAB Bias Arguments at Federal Circuit

On October 13, 2021, the Federal Circuit (2-1 majority) ruled in favor of Unified Patents, rejecting Mobility Workx's arguments that the PTAB has a financial interest in instituting IPRs. All of Mobility Workx's constitutional arguments were found to be "without merit."

In line with other Arthrex cases, the PTAB's finding the patent is unpatentable has been remanded back to the Acting Director for the limited purpose of determining whether review is warranted. The arguments, which appear copied verbatim from another appeal, were not raised below.

The complete opinion can be found below: