On March 18, 2020, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) instituted trial on all challenged claims in an IPR filed by Unified against U.S. Patent 7,173,177, owned and asserted by Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., an NPE.

The ’177 patent, directed to indicating on a user interface whether items in an playlist are owned or unowned, has been asserted against Spectrum (Charter Communications). The ’177 patent was recently assigned to Cedar Lane from AVInnov (an NPE), and was previously owned by Intellectual Ventures.

View Cedar Lane's district court litigation. To read the institution decision and view the case record, see Unified's Portal. Unified is represented in this proceeding by in-house counsel Michelle Callaghan and Roshan Mansinghani, and outside counsel Husch Blackwell.