On February 12, the PTAB instituted Unified's Inter-Partes Review (IPR) against Dragon Intellectual Property, LLC (Dragon)'s Patent #5,930,444 ('444 patent) on all challenged claims. Dragon claims its patent covers streaming media recording and playback and filed cases against 10 companies on December 20, 2013. Unified's IPR challenges claims 1, 2, 7, 8, 10, 13 and 14 of the '444 patent. Unified filed this IPR as part of its NPE deterrent strategy in its Content Delivery Zone.

In addition to instituting on the merits, the Board also rejected the Patent Owner's challenge under Real Party in Interest. As discussed in the decision, Unified provided Dragon with extensive discovery of Unified's business and its relationship with its membership and the Board found Unified to be the only Real Party in Interest.

A copy of the institution decision can be found below.