GEVC patent successfully challenged at the EPO

On January 20, 2022, all of the original claims of EP 3 410 716 B1, owned by GE Video Compression LLC (GEVC), were found unpatentable based on a challenge filed by Unified. The EP‘716 patent is generally related to coding of significance maps and transform coefficient blocks and was claimed as essential to HEVC as part of the Access Advance patent pool. This filing is a part of Unified’s ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone.

Read the entire filing below. Unified is represented by Dr. Simon Q. Lud, European Patent Attorney at Maiwald Intellectual Property, and by in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and Roshan Mansinghani.

Helios Streaming/Ideahub patent held invalid

On February 7, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Ideahub Inc. holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 8,645,562 invalid and denying Helios' motion to amend the claims. The ‘562 patent is owned by Ideahub, Inc., and licensed to and asserted by Helios Streaming, LLC, an NPE. The patent is directed to an adaptive streaming service using metadata and is being asserted against Showtime, Vudu, Crackle, and Starz. Helios is asserting the ‘562 patent against streaming media content in accordance with the MPEG-DASH standard and video-on-demand (VOD) systems. 

View district court litigation by Ideahub and Helios. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by WilmerHale and by in-house counsel, Ashraf Fawzy and Jung Hahm, in this proceeding.

Dynamic IP Deals subsidiary, AuthWallet, patent likely invalid

On February 4, 2022, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 9,292,852, owned by AuthWallet, LLC, an NPE and subsidiary of Dynamic IP Deals. The '852 generally relates to transaction processing services. It has been asserted against CitiGroup, Square, American Express, Starbucks, and Nordstrom.

View district court litigations by AuthWallet, LLC. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified is represented by Jason Mudd of Erise IP and by in-house counsel, Roshan Mansinghani and Jordan Rossen.

$2,000 Awarded for DatRec prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Vibhor Dimri, who received a cash prize of $2,000 for his prior art submission for U.S. Patent 8,156,158. The patent is owned by DatRec, LLC, an NPE and subsidiary of Nacar IP LLC. The '158 patent generally relates to the use of a database of individuals in personalized medicine based on authenticated medical and other personal data. It has been asserted against companies like Athenahealth, Philips, AdvancedMD, and Ancestry.com.

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

Open Source Zone - 2 Years Later

When Unified launched its Open Source Zone a little over 2 years ago, companies such as IBM, Microsoft, and the Linux Foundation teamed up with Open Invention Network to stop NPEs, specifically Patent Assertion Entities. At the time Unified found that 59% of litigation in this area was attributed to NPEs.

While the term “Open Source” can be ubiquitous with the current advances in technology, the Covid pandemic created the perfect storm of operating companies trimming resources and patents. NPEs, being backed by 3rd-party litigation financing, saw this opportunity to pounce on these patents making Open Source a viable target.

Using CPC codes related to Open Source patents, litigation by NPEs (Patent Assertion Entities) has increased 22%, while Operating Company litigation has decreased by 9%.

NPE litigation in Open Source has reached an all-time high of 721 cases. This is a nearly 28% increase from last year.

Top plaintiffs include prolific NPEs, including ones that are financed like Uniloc. Typically players, like multiple Rothschild entities, can be found in the top-10 most aggressive entities attacking Open Source.

Since Open Source can be defined broadly using CPC codes, a keyword search was done to understand the true impact of NPEs suing Open Source companies. Keywords such as “Open Source”, “Royalty Free Agreement/Software”,  and “License or GNU or Android or Linux” were used. 

Again, NPE litigation increased nearly 16% while Operating Company Litigation remained the same from last year.

This means that over 70% of all cases are brought by NPE.

Majority of assertions are brought by NPEs, with 8 out of the top-10 being defined as a NPE. It is no surprise that companies like Uniloc and WSOU appear in the top-10.

Most of the defendants are well-known technology companies, such as Google, Samsung, and Apple.

Unified Patents launched this zone two years ago in response to the increased litigation. Our efforts have led to 10 related PATROLL contests to find prior on several highly litigated patents. In addition, Unified has filed many challenges which has deterred NPEs.

Some of the PATROLL contests include Cedar Lane Technologies - US 8,165,867, R2 Solutions - US 8,341,157, R2 Solutions - US 8,341,157, and Rothschild Patent Imaging - US 9,936,086.

Recent IPR challenges include DataCloud Technologies, an IP Investment Group entity. DataCloud asserted US 6,560,613 relating to disambiguating file types on a computer system (accuses Linux kernel KVM and QEMU modules). This NPE asserted the patent against 10 companies, including Box, Extreme Networks, F5 Networks, 1&1 Ionos, Wix.com, Arista, Squarespace, Limelight Networks, Check Point Software, and Newfold Digital. Unified filed this challenge on December 22, 2020, and it was instituted on July 21, 2021.

Another example is Accelerated Memory Tech, which is also a subsidiary of IP Investment Group. This NPE asserted US 6,513,062 relating to managing resources to cache information to the cloud (accused use of open source project, Redis). There were five entities sued including Hulu, Citrix Systems, Barracuda Networks, Kemp Technologies, and F5 Networks. The IPR was terminated due to the patent owner disclaiming all claims of the patent.

Unified has also expanded its efforts and recently filed an Ex Parte Reexamination against Sound View Innovations. This NPE asserted US 6,725,456 relating to ensuring quality of service in an operating system (accused Apache Hadoop). The patent was originally owned by Nokia, and was asserted against Vudu, Walmart, Delta Air Lines, Cigna, Sling TV, and DISH Network. Unified filed the reexamination on August 6, 2020.

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