$2,000 awarded for Vilox search engine patent prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Dinesh Swami and Ekta Aswal, who split a $2,000 award for their prior art submissions on U.S. Patent 6,760,720, owned by Vilox Technologies LLC, a Texas-based NPE managed by inventor Joseph De Bellis. The ‘720 patent relates to a method and system for a dynamic search engine that facilitates search-on-the-fly/sort-on-the-fly capabilities. The invention is about enhancing search and data display techniques, particularly on various devices including handhelds, phones, GPS devices, and computers. The patent has been asserted against Salesforce and Oracle.

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

InfoGation navigation patent challenge instituted

On April 11, 2024, 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 8,406,994, owned and asserted by InfoGation Corporation, an NPE. The '994 patent is generally directed to displaying maps on GPS receivers. It has been asserted against Toyota, Honda, BMW, and Changan Ford Automobile Company.

View district court litigations by InfoGation. Unified is represented by Slater Matsil, LLP, and by in-house counsel, T.J. Murphy and Roshan Mansinghani.

To view the reexamination request, visit Unified’s Portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90019433

$4,000 awarded for Intellectual Ventures networking patents prior art

Unified is pleased to announce PATROLL crowdsourcing contest winners, Ekta Aswal and Dinesh Swami, sharing a cash prize of $4,000 for their submissions on the patents below. The patents are owned by Intellectual Ventures LLC, an NPE, and have been asserted against JP Morgan Chase.

We would also like to thank the dozens of other high-quality submissions that were made on these patents. 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.

US 7280998 - Virtual Data Warehousing

Winning Submission: US 20020038308; US 6671689

DOWNLOAD WINNING PRIOR ART

US 7314167 - Secure Transactions

Winning Submission: US 20050071283; US 7207477

DOWNLOAD WINNING PRIOR ART

DKR Consulting e-commerce patent challenged

On April 9, 2024, Unified Patents filed an ex parte reexamination proceeding against 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.

Open Source Zone continues to enjoy wide industry support after 5 years

A recent article discussed how Open Invention Network (OIN), The Linux Foundation, Microsoft and a growing list of companies have renewed their support of Unified’s Open Source Zone for the fifth consecutive year.

Created to protect open source from invalid assertions by NPEs and patent trolls, the Open Source Zone has successfully invalidated over 50 NPE-owned patents that threatened innovation in open source technologies. The continued goal is to deter further invalid assertions in the technology space. The full article can be found in the link below: