$2,000 awarded for Raymond Anthony Joao entity, Amadora Systems security patent prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Ketan Sachdeva, Calvin Zhong, and Deepika Palanisamy, who split a cash prize of $2,000 for their prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 11,922,429, owned by Amadora Systems LLC, an NPE and entity of Raymond Anthony Joao. The ‘429 patent relates relates to a transaction security apparatus that transmits a notification message to a communication device associated with an account holder of the account. The central processing computer provides for a retrieval, by the user or the operator via the display, of the information regarding the transaction and the photograph or the video clip of the individual involved in the transaction. It had been asserted against JP Morgan Chase, Bank Ozk, Frost Bank, Austin Bancorp, Regions Financial, Texas National Bank of Jacksonville, Bank of Texas, VeraBank, Truist Bank, and Texas Bank & Trust.

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

Better Browsing web browser patent affirmed invalid in ex parte appeal

On January 28, 2025, the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) affirmed the Examiner’s final rejection of all claims of U.S. Patent 8,838,736, owned and asserted by Better Browsing LLC. The '736 patent relates generally to a zoom feature for an internet browser and had been asserted against Samsung, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, Opera Norway AS, Toshiba, Acer, Razer, and ASUSTeK.

View district court litigations by Better Browsing. Unified was represented by Chris Coulson at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, and by in-house counsel, David Seastrunk and Roshan Mansinghani.

To view any documents for the reexamination proceedings on Unified's Portal, go to https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90020154.

IP Bridge HEVC/AV1 patent invalidity confirmed by Fed. Circuit

On December 3, 2024, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit summarily affirmed the PTAB’s ruling that all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 7,515,635 are unpatentable under Rule 36. The patent is owned by Godo Kaisha IP Bridge. The patent was claimed to be essential as part of the Access Advance patent pool, as well as SISVEL’s VP9 and AV1 patent pools.

Unified was represented by Theodoros Konstantakopoulos of Desmarais LLP and in-house counsel, Roshan Mansinghani and Jessica L.A. Marks, in this proceeding.

To view any documents of the reexamination proceedings, visit Unified’s portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90014645

Eric Zautner entity, e-Beacon, location detection patent challenge instituted

On January 30, 2025, less than two months after Unified filed an ex parte reexamination, the Central Reexamination Unit (CRU) granted Unified’s request, finding substantial new questions of patentability on all challenged claims of U.S. Patent 8,515,386, owned and asserted by e-Beacon LLC, an NPE and entity of Eric Zautner. The '386 patent is directed to using multiple location detection techniques to locate a VoIP phone in an emergency scenario and transmitting that location to emergency services. It has been asserted against Samsung, OnePlus, NEC, Sony, and Progressive Casualty Insurance Co.

View district court litigations by e-Beacon. Unified is represented by in-house counsel, David Seastrunk and Alyssa Holtslander.

To view the reexamination request, visit Unified’s Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90019784

IdeaHub video codec patent challenged

On January 31, 2025, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against U.S. Patent 10,904,539, owned by Ideahub Inc., an NPE. The ‘539 patent relates to video coding techniques that apply linear method (LM) prediction modes and particularly to the prediction of a chroma pixel value using a LM chroma mode or a low-pass-filtered LM chroma mode. It has been designated as essential to the VVC standard in the Access Advance’s VVC patent pool.

Unified is represented by Dagim Tilahun and Jon Bowser of Haynes and Boone, and by in-house counsel, Jessica L.A. Marks and Michelle Aspen, in this proceeding.