In light of the serious public interest involved in ensuring that questionable patents are not used to extract money and resources from those deploying important diagnostics tests, we at Unified have launched special PATROLL crowdsourcing contests against Labrador Diagnostics / Fortress Investments / Softbank (Fortress) patents U.S. 8,283,155 and U.S. 10,533,994. Rather than offer a reward, we believe it is in the best interest of the community (and the world) to widely, freely, and quickly publish the results to help eliminate invalid patents that could hinder COVID-19 diagnostics tests in these trying times.

Fortress recently acquired the Theranos patents (listing Elizabeth Holmes as the lead inventor) and has asserted them against U.S. diagnostics companies through a newly formed NPE called Labrador Diagnostics LLC. Shortly after they filed suit, a defendant announced it was making COVID-19 diagnostics tests for the government based on the technology at issue. In response, Fortress announced they would offer royalty-free licenses for COVID-19 testing, but they refuse to drop the suit, and are seeking to enjoin the company from making, using, or selling a wide array of diagnostics. We believe everyone should chip in to deter such bad behavior, especially from entities like Fortress that have a long history of asserting patents often found invalid when challenged.

We kindly ask our crowdsourcing community of thousands of prior art searchers to take a few minutes to help identify prior art on these patents that never should have issued and help rid the world of them, in the process improving the world’s chances of testing for and containing COVID-19 and other dangerous public health concerns.

The contest will expire on April 30, 2020. Please visit PATROLL for more information or to submit an entry for this contest.