PATROLL

CNCF launches Cloud-Native Heroes Challenge with Unified Patents

On November 13, 2024, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (CNCF) announced the Cloud Native Heroes Challenge at their KubeCon+CloudNativeCon North America 2024 conference. This challenge will be a series of crowdsourced prior art contests utilizing Unified Patents’ PATROLL website. To learn more, visit www.cncf.io/heroes and read about the inaugural contest here.

PATROLL is the world’s first crowd-sourced prior art contest forum where Unified Patents puts a monetary bounty on PAE- and NPE-owned patents. We engage the general public to submit prior art to improve overall patent quality. All submissions are reviewed by Unified's legal team to identify winning prior art, and we provide the invalidity claim chart to the world on the PATROLL portal.

CNCF is co-hosting this program with Unified Patents, the Linux Foundation’s partner in patent troll deterrence since 2019. Unified Patents is the only organization that uses offensive community-driven strategies to deter patent trolls.

Find more information on CNCF and the inaugural challenge within the links below:

$2,000 awarded for Digimedia Tech TV programming patent prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Nitish Jaswal, who was awarded $2,000 for his prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 7,065,778, owned and asserted by Digimedia Tech LLC, an NPE. The ‘778 patent relates to utilizing personalized video recorders and other similar types of devices to distribute television programming. It was asserted against WideOpenWest Finance and Midcontinent Communications.

We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on this patent. The ongoing contests are open to anyone, and include tens of thousands of dollars in rewards available for helping the industry to challenge NPE patents of questionable validity by finding and submitting prior art in the contests. Visit PATROLL today to learn more about how to participate.

WINNING SUBMISSIONS

TG--2006 Holdings info tracking patent prior art found

Unified is pleased to announce prior art has been found on U.S. Patent 9,454,741, owned by TG--2006 Holdings, LLC, an NPE. The ‘741 patent relates generally to information tracking, and in particular, to a system and method of tracking information in a business environment. The patent had been asserted against Carbonite, Wrike, Box, Acronis, pCloud AG, Microsoft, and Siber Systems.

We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on this patent. The ongoing contests are open to anyone, and include tens of thousands of dollars in rewards available for helping the industry to challenge NPE patents of questionable validity by finding and submitting prior art in the contests. Visit PATROLL today to learn more about how to participate.

WINNING SUBMISSION

PATROLL’s Crowd-Sourced Submissions Available For Download

Now Zone Members can download any PATROLL contest submissions anytime they want

PATROLL is the world’s first crowd-sourced prior art contest forum where Unified Patents puts a monetary bounty on PAE- and NPE-owned patents. We engage the general public to submit prior art to improve overall patent quality. All submissions are reviewed by Unified's legal team to identify winning prior art, and we provide the invalidity claim chart to the world on the PATROLL portal.

Over the last decade, PATROLL has evolved into a massive platform with hundreds of contests and nearly 5,000 submissions, establishing itself as the world’s largest repository of crowdsourced prior art. 

*Projected 2024

Previously, Zone Members would have to wait for results since Unified would review and identify a winner before an invalidity chart was published. Now, Zone Members can view and download unfiltered user submissions at any time before Unified declares a winner. This provides our Zone Members with the capability to view thousands of submissions as they arrive rather than wait till we publish the results.

To view unfiltered user submissions, simply log in to PATROLL and select ‘Download All Submissions’ from any contest. This allows Zone Members to use the crowd faster and to independently create their own charts.   

PATROLL is just one of many tools that Unified provides to help improve patent quality. Click on the links below to find out about a few more:

PATROLL aims to shatter records in 2022

PATROLL, Unified Patents’ only Crowd Sourced Prior Art platform, has hit numerous milestones since being launched in 2018. So far in 2022, there have been 81 contests announced, versus 42 in 2021, and currently 34 active contests with $68,000 in total prizes. We are extremely happy to announce that over the last month, 29 contests have ended with over 170 total submissions, and nearly $30,000 paid to winning submissions. That averages nearly 6 submissions per contest. 

Remarkably, 2022 has seen over 340 total submissions, only 83 shy of the 2021 record high total of 425.

With almost 60 contests in the final stages of review, it is expected that PATROLL will shatter every record in terms of total contests, total submissions per contest, and total prizes awarded in a calendar year. This would not be possible without the research and due diligence of our prior art vendors and the dozens and dozens of prior art searchers across the globe.