On August 1, 2019, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against US Patent 9,729,891, owned by GE Video Compression, LLC (GEVC), which is participating in the HEVC Advance patent pool (HEVC Advance patent list). Unified filed this challenge as part of its ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone after independently determining that the allegedly standard essential ‘891 patent is likely unpatentable.

The ‘891 patent and its corresponding extended patent family is one of the largest families known to be owned by GEVC, representing approximately 8.7% of GEVC's known U.S. assets. The ’891 patent, originally assigned to Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, was transferred to GEVC in 2015.

Unified is represented by Erise IP in this proceeding. Visit Unified’s Portal for more information about its Video Codec landscape (OPAL) and standard submission repository (OPEN). To read the decision and review the case record, view IPR2019-00617 on the Portal.