On January 2, 2020, Unified filed a petition (with WilmerHale serving as lead counsel) for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 9,414,066, owned by Velos Media, LLC (Velos), as part of Unified's ongoing efforts in its SEP Video Codec Zone.

The ‘066 patent and its corresponding extended patent family is one of the largest families known to be owned by Velos, representing nearly 5% of Velos’ total U.S. patent grants. Including this petition, Unified has now challenged patents representing over 42% of Velos’ total known U.S. assets.

Velos claims to have and seeks to license patents allegedly essential to the HEVC / H.265 standard. The ’066 patent is directed to video decoding techniques and was originally assigned to Ericsson before being transferred to Velos in 2018.  After conducting an independent analysis, Unified has determined that the ‘066 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 IPR2020-00352 on the Portal.