$2,000 for Estech System VoIP patent prior art

Unified Patents added a new PATROLL contest, with a $2,000 cash prize, seeking prior art on at least claim 42 of U.S. Patent 7,068,684, owned and asserted by Estech Systems IP LLC, an NPE. The ‘684 patent relates to information processing systems for the use of Voice over IP technology to transmit voice conversations. It has been asserted in over 50 cases, but most recently against Zoom, Sangoma Tech, 8x8, Ooma, Zultys, Dialpad, Intermedia.net, Polycom, and Yealink Network.

The contest will expire on July 20, 2024. Please visit PATROLL for more information and to submit an entry for this contest.

DKR Consulting e-commerce patent challenge instituted

On May 16, 2024, less than six weeks after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding substantial new questions of patentability on the challenged claims of U.S. Patent 11,455,678, owned and asserted by DKR Consulting, LLC. The ‘678 patent relates to the generation and distribution of widgets for commerce over the internet. The patent has been asserted against Shopify.

View district court litigations by DKR Consulting. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Matthew Beck and Roshan Mansinghani, in this proceeding.

To view the reexamination request, visit Unified’s Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90019476

Four separate CellSpinsoft data transfer patents challenged

On April 17, 2024, Unified Patents filed ex parte reexamination proceedings against U.S. Patent 8,862,757 and U.S. Patent 8,898,260, owned and asserted by Cellspinsoft, Inc., an NPE. The claims of the ‘757 and ‘260 patents are directed to uploading multimedia content from a mobile device as segmented data packets and addressing how to handle transmission errors during the uploads.

On April 30, 2024, Unified filed a third ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 8,904,030. The ‘030 patent is generally directed to uploading data to a remote server, where the data comes from a device that does not have network connectivity. The data is transferred from the capturing device to a mobile device via Bluetooth and then the mobile device uploads the data. The system is set up so that the capturing device can notify the mobile device when new data is available to upload.

On May 6, 2024, Unified filed a fourth ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 11,659,381. The ‘381 patent, similar to the '030 patent, is directed to uploading data to a remote server using a mobile device as an intermediary, where the data comes from a device that does not have network connectivity.

View district court litigations by Cellspinsoft. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, Alyssa Holtslander, Jessica L.A. Marks, and Roshan Mansinghani, in these proceedings. Raghav Bajaj, of Haynes Boone, drafted the ‘030 and ‘381 reexamination requests.

$1,000 awarded for Vision Works sensor patent prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winner, Dinesh Swami, who was awarded $1,000 award for his prior art submission on U.S. Patent 8,682,558, owned by Vision Works IP, an NPE. The ‘558 patent generally relates to acceleration sensors for use within moving vehicles. It has been asserted against Subaru, Volvo, Nissan, and Mercedes-Benz.

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

• US 6768944

• US 20050085950

AiPi entity Pedersen message distribution patent found invalid

On May 10, 2024, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued a final written decision in Unified Patents, LLC v. Peter Henrik Pedersen holding all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 6,965,920 unpatentable. Owned and asserted by Peter Henrik Pedersen, believed to be associated with AiPi Solutions, the '920 patent is generally directed to the specification and management of how messages are distributed to recipients. The ’920 patent is currently asserted against Zoho Corp., Ziff Davis, Intuit, Salesforce, Blackbaud, Constant Contact, Monday.com, Zendesk, and Aurea Software. It was previously asserted against Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Oracle, Adobe, Wix.com, and others.

View district court litigations by Pedersen. To read the petition and view the case record, see Unified’s Portal. Unified was represented by Jon Bowser, Angela Oliver, Michael McCarty, and Matt Beck (now at Unified Patents) of Haynes and Boone, and by in-house counsel, Kelly Hughes and Alyssa Holtslander, in this proceeding.