PATROLL

$1,250 Awarded for FireNet Technologies prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Euclid Woo, who received a cash prize of $1,250 for his prior art submission for U.S. Patent 7,739,302. The patent is owned by FireNet Technologies, LLC, an NPE and entity of IPinvestments Group. The '302 patent relates to firewalls for protecting network attached devices and was being asserted against Kemp Technologies, Fortinet, Citrix, A10 Networks, and Fujitsu.

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

$1,500 Awarded for 21st Century Garage prior art

Unified is pleased to announce the PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Preeti Dua, who received a cash prize of $1,500 for her prior art submission for U.S. Patent 6,526,460. The ‘460 patent, formerly owned by Intellectual Ventures, is owned by 21st Century Garage, LLC, an NPE. The '460 patent generally relates to a vehicle communications system, in particular for a motor vehicle, having a plurality of equipment units for transmitting, receiving, acquiring and/or processing data for executing applications.

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

PATROLL Success: Defeating Low Quality Patents

In 2020, Unified Patents launched several strategic relationships with prior art vendors to increase the quality of the submissions for PATROLL. These vendors, Apex Standards, Techson IP, Amplified, Traindex, InQuartik, IPscreener, and now Google, have led to not only more submissions but high-quality prior art being announced against NPEs on a monthly basis. 

In 2018, there were 337 total submissions for various PATROLL contests. In 2019, that number dropped to 282. However, in 2020 that number climbed back up by nearly 40% to 389 submissions. 

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The increase in submissions allowed for more winners to be identified. While 2018 and 2019 saw only 11 and 18 announcements, 2020 had 24. This was a 50% increase from 2019. With 20 active contests and a new prior art tool that Unified has launched, that number is expected to be even higher.

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Interestingly, the addition of using the various vendors led to 282 unique submissions last year. This would account for nearly 73% of all submissions last year. Of these 282 submissions, 40 were identified as winning submissions. It should be noted that many times, multiple submissions are used for a contest winner. 

Of these 40 submissions, nearly half of them came from one or several of the prior art reports provided by the various vendors. By establishing these relationships with the vendors, it aided our searchers in finding high-quality art to defeat low-quality patents. PATROLL is just one of many tools that Unified provides in helping to improve patent quality. 

$2,250 Awarded for KinectUs prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Vibhor Dimri, who received a cash prize of $2,250 for his prior art submission for U.S. Patent 9,294,428. The patent is owned by KinectUs LLC. The '428 patent generally relates to a system and method for establishing a communication between mobile device users that register with a collaboration system, which determines a match between profile data of the first registered mobile device and profile data of the second registered mobile device. It is currently being asserted against Bumble Trading, LLC.

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

$3,000 for Cutting Edge Vision prior art

On April 21, 2021, Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $3,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 1 of U.S. Patent 7,697,827. This patent is owned by Cutting Edge Vision, LLC, an NPE.

The '827 patent generally relates to a camera system, including voice recognition, one or multiple microphones, gaze tracking, touch sensitive inputs and others. The voice recognition unit is operable for, among other things, receiving multiple different voice commands, recognizing the vocal commands, associating the different voice commands to one camera command and controlling at least some aspect of the digital camera operation in response to these voice commands. The gaze tracking unit is operable for, among other things, determining the location on the viewfinder image that the user is gazing upon. One aspect of the touch sensitive inputs provides that the touch sensitive pad is mouse-like and is operable for, among other things, receiving user touch inputs to control at least some aspect of the camera operation. Another aspect of the disclosed invention provides for gesture recognition to be used to interface with and control the camera system. It is currently being asserted against HTC and Sonim Technologies.

The contest will expire on September 1, 2021. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

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Apex StandardsPseudo Claim Charting
Techson IPLimestone|Report
Amplified Invalidity Report
Traindex Prior Art Report
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IPscreener Relevant Prior Art
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