Unified Patents Files to Invalidate Empire IP Patent

On September 29, Unified Patents (Unified) filed an inter-partes review (IPR) against patent owner Data Speed Technology LLC (Data Speed) in order to protect cloud storage technologies from NPE activity. Data Speed is a subsidiary Empire IP LLC. Data Speed claims its patent covers a mass storage device that is shared by a number of computers. Data Speed filed cases against 7 companies on January, 2014, in the Delaware District Court.  Unified believes that the prior art used in its September 29th IPR shows that Data Speed's patent, U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,686 ('686 patent), should never have issued.  Unified's IPR challenges claims 1-11 of the '686 patent.  A copy of the filing can be found below.