$2,000 for Fare Technologies prior art

On May 3, 2022, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent RE46727, owned by Fare Technologies, LLC, an NPE. The '727 patent generally relates to a taxi trip meter system that includes a taximeter and a location sensor connected to a computer loaded with street information and driver evaluation software. It has been asserted against Lyft and Uber.

The contest will expire on August 31, 2022. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

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B# On Demand abandons own Federal Circuit appeal

On April 22, 2022, the Federal Circuit granted B# On Demand LLC's motion to dismiss its Federal Circuit appeal in Case No. 22-1357 (see below). Unified had won on all issues at the PTAB (IPR2020-00995), which resulted in claims 1–10, 13–22, and 25–34 of U.S. Patent 9,553,880 being found unpatentable. The patent is related to on-demand distribution of subscription media and had been asserted against Spotify.

View B# On Demand’s district court litigation. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified was represented by Larissa Bifano of DLA Piper, and in-house counsel, Ellyar Barazesh, Alyssa Holtslander, and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

PTAB Discretionary Denials Fall; Board Time Spent on Issue Rises

In 2021, in more than 45% of all IPR institution decisions (420 of 918), the PTAB spent considerable time and resources dealing with the discretionary considerations under the NHK Spring-Fintiv rule. But with more than a year since Director Iancu stepped down from the USPTO, Fintiv and 314(a) denials have plummeted dramatically. In Q1 of 2022, only 37 petitions have been denied on procedural grounds, and such denials on procedural grounds are projected to decrease by 17% year-over-year as seen below.

In particular, there have been only ten 314(a) denials in the first quarter of 2022. 314(a) denials are projected to decrease by roughly 2/3rds when compared to last year. Conversely, there is an uptick in 325(d) denials, with a projected increase of 83% when compared to last year.

In total, there have been only 32 denials based on either 314(a) or 325(d) so far in 2022. Collectively, these denials are expected to drop by 25% when compared to last year and will be the lowest since 2019.

Since Q1 of 2021, 314(a) denials have dropped every quarter, unlike 325(d) denials which have increased most of the time. 

When looking at all denials, 12.2% of denials were based on 314(a), while another 24% were other procedural-based denials.

Procedural denials that rely on 325(d) now occur 6.3% of the time.

When looking at 314(a) denial framework, interestingly General Plastic was the most used framework. NHK Spring/Fintiv based denials are projected to decrease by 85% in 2022. While the Board is spending more time addressing NHK Spring/Fintiv, these types of denials are becoming less and less common.

Looking overall, nearly 30% of all NHK Spring/Finitiv based denials since 2016 are NPE-based litigation.

The patent owners involved in NHK Spring/Fintiv based denials include both Operating Companies and NPEs. The top 10 patent owners involved in Fintiv denials account for 44% of all Fintiv denials. 4 of those patent owners are NPEs.

The Top-10 Fintiv denied petitioners encompass 63% of all Fintiv denials. Most of these companies are often targets of NPEs.

Taking this a step further, Unified examined specific cases where a party had filed a district court case against a party/parties and an unnamed defendant to the suit filed a petition at the PTAB with either the defendants named or on their own accord over the same patent. Since 2015 only 9% of all PTAB filings were from serial petitioners.

When a serial petitioner does file, 65.6% of the time it is against an NPE

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Prior art found on D3D Technologies patent

Unified is pleased to announce prior art has been found on U.S. Patent 10,795,457. The patent is owned by D3D Technologies, an NPE. The '457 patent generally relates to an interactive 3D cursor facilitates selection and manipulation of a three-dimensional volume from any three-dimensional image. The ‘457 patent has been asserted against Microsoft.

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

$2,000 awarded for Acacia subsidiary prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Vibhor Dimri and Nikko Quevada, who split a cash prize of $2,000 for their prior art submissions for U.S. Patent 7,224,678. The patent is owned by Stingray IP Solutions, LLC, a subsidiary of Acacia Research Group, an NPE.

The '678 patent generally relates to wireless LAN with intrusion detection features. It has been asserted against TP-Link Technologies, Signify, and Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas.

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