On February 28, 2019, Unified filed a petition (with Akin Gump serving as lead counsel) for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 9,838,720 as part of Unified’s ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone. The ‘720 patent is owned by the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) and the Korean Broadcasting System (KBS) which are participating in both the MPEG-LA and HEVC Advance patent pools.

The '720 patent and its corresponding extended patent family is the largest families known to be owned by KAIST and represents approximately 42.8% of KAIST’s known U.S. assets. MPEG-LA and HEVC Advance claim that certain claims of the '720 patent are essential to the HEVC standard. After conducting an independent analysis, Unified has determined that the ‘720 patent is likely unpatentable.

Visit Unified’s Public Portal for more information about its Video Codec landscape (OPAL) and standard submission repository (OPEN). To read the petition and review the case record, view IPR2019-00725 on the Portal.