$6,000 for Patent Armory patents prior art

Unified has added 3 new PATROLL contests, with a $2,000 cash prize for each, seeking prior art on the list below. The patents are owned by Patent Armory, Inc., an NPE. The contests will end on October 1, 2023. Please visit PATROLL for more information or click on each link below.

US 7,130,430 - Sound Production Control

The ‘430 patent relates to systems for reproducing sound in general and to systems which can control sound production to localized regions in particular. It has been asserted against Yamaha, Panasonic, K-array, Sennheiser Electronic, Holoplot, Sonos, Guangzhou DSPPA Audio, Hisense, Devialet, Creative Technology, Sony, Boss Audio, Bose Corporation, Bang & Olufsen, Pioneer, LG, and Samsung.

US 8,831,205 - Computer Integrated Telecommunications Systems

The ‘205 patent relates generally to computer integrated telecommunications systems and more particularly to a system and method employing an intelligent switching architecture. It has been asserted against Snap Inc., Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora, and Meta.

US 10,237,420 - Intelligent Switching Architecture

The ‘420 patent relates generally to computer integrated telecommunications systems and more particularly to a system and method employing an intelligent switching architecture. It has been asserted against Snap Inc., Twitter, Pinterest, Reddit, Quora, and Meta, Booking Holdings, Teledyne FLIR, Seek Thermal, and OnePlus Technology.

Intellectual Ventures vehicle monitoring patent held invalid

On August 9, 2023, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. v. Intellectual Ventures II LLC holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 9,291,475 unpatentable. The ’475 patent relates to alerting a recipient regarding a violation of a vehicle, such as a speeding violation, and had been asserted in district court against Toyota, GM, and Honda.

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

Ideahub entity, AX Wireless, OFDM patent - prior art found

Unified is pleased to announce prior art has been found on U.S. Patent 9,584,262 owned by AX Wireless, LLC, an NPE and IdeaHub subsidiary. The ‘262 patent generally relates to a method and apparatus for use within a wireless OFDM network that transmits and receives first and second packets each having header bits and utilizing variable header repetition. It has been asserted against Acer, HP Inc., Lenovo, and Dell.

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

Route Guidance Systems vehicle guidance patent found invalid

On August 3, 2023, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) entered a final rejection of all claims of U.S. Patent 6,917,876, owned by Route Guidance Systems LLC, an NPE. The ’876 patent is directed to route guidance systems for vehicles where the calculated route is transmitted from a central computer to a vehicle over a channel of communication in a short burst and is then closed, so that transmission to the vehicle ceases, unless and until a need for further transmission arises. The patent has been asserted against ExxonMobil, Verizon, MyPizza Technologies, Honda, Salesforce, Grubhub, HERE Global, DoorDash, MapleBear, Waitr, and others.

View district court litigations by Route Guidance Systems. Unified was represented by in-house counsel, Kelly Hughes, Michelle Aspen, and Roshan Mansinghani.

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on Unified's Portal, go to https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90015113.

VDPP video codec patent reexam granted

On July 26, 2023, less than two months 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 9,699,444, owned and asserted by VDPP LLC, an NPE. The '444 patent generally relates to processing image frames from a video stream and generating bridge frames for motion smoothing. The patent has been asserted against Microsoft, Vizio, Lenovo, Roku, Philips, Panasonic, Sharp, and others.

View district court litigations by VDPP. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, David Seastrunk and Alyssa Holtslander, in this proceeding.

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on Unified's Portal, go to https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90015245.