IP Investments entity, Distributed Media, media streaming patent challenge instituted

On January 8, 2024, less than one month after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding a substantial new question of patentability on the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 7,739,714, owned and asserted by Distributed Media Solutions, an NPE and entity of IP Investments Group. The ‘714 patent relates to methods and systems for encoding digital multimedia data for transmission over a network. The patent has been asserted against AMC Networks, CuriosityStream, and Fenix International.

View district court litigations by Distributed Media Solutions. Unified is represented by Drew Sommer of Greenberg Traurig, and by in-house counsel, Michelle Aspen and Jessica L.A. Marks, in this proceeding.

To view the reexamination request, visit Unified’s Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90019323

InterDigital AV1 patent held invalid after appeal in China

The Beijing Intellectual Property Court confirmed the invalidity of all challenged claims of CN101491099, owned by Interdigital. The CN’099 patent was previously deemed essential in the SISVEL’s VP9 and AV1 pools.

Unified was represented by Tao Chen, Yu Yan, and Peter Zhang of the Beijing Wei Chixue Law Firm, and the case was managed by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Roshan Mansinghani.

AiPi affiliate CTD Networks' cybersecurity patent found invalid

On December 13, 2023, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) entered a final rejection of the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,438,614, owned by CTD Networks, LLC, an affiliate of AiPi Solutions, LLC. The ‘614 patent relates to a network threat and response system and has been asserted against Akamai Technologies, Amazon, Cisco, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Musarubra US, Palo Alto Networks, AT&T, and Verizon.

View district court litigations by CDT Networks. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Michelle Aspen, Roshan Mansinghani, and Kelly Hughes.

To view the reexamination proceeding, visit Unified’s Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90015218

Competitive Access Systems Linux-related communications patent challenge instituted

On January 2, 2024, less than three months after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding substantial new questions of patentability on all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 10,868,908, owned by Competitive Access Systems, an NPE. The ’908 patent relates to multilink communications between a client and server and was asserted against Oracle's Linux offering.

View district court litigations by Competitive Access Systems. Unified is represented by in-house counsel Michelle Aspen and Roshan Mansinghani in this proceeding.

To view the reexamination request, visit Unified’s Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90019265

MemoryWeb decision reaffirms Unified as sole RPI

On Friday, December 8, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board issued another final written decision holding that Unified Patents was the sole real party-in-interest (RPI). Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. v. MemoryWeb, LLC, IPR2022-00222, Exhibit 2121 (public version, filed December 22, 2023). The decision is consistent with past decisions over the last decade holding that Unified acts independently, without influence from its members in its challenges against non-practicing entities.

Reversing a now-vacated ruling in an earlier case, the Board observed that Unified’s business was “designed to comply with RPI rules and to maintain its independence from its membership” and that its business model is “focused on deterrence rather than settlement of cases involving NPEs.” Ex. 2121, 45. The Board confirmed that Unified’s arms’-length relationship with its members—who do not communicate or coordinate about its filings or give any input to Unified regarding its decision to file petitions—supported that “no relationship between Petitioner and Unified that would give rise to the implication that Petitioner is a RPI in the Unified proceeding.” Id., 51. Further, they held that a member pays undesignated subscription fees did not show that the member directly funded Unified’s filing activities. Id., 52.

This decision, which considered a wealth of evidence, including membership agreements, press releases, reports, and written and deposition testimony, confirms that unlike RPX in AIT, Unified acts independently of its members to serve its ongoing mission of deterring assertions of broad, invalid patents.

Click HERE to read the decision.