Bonum Certa Men Certa

Unified Patents Targets Patents of Patent Trolls, Including Some That Are Connected to Microsoft

Green



Summary: Hiding behind a thick layer of proxies are a large bunch/thickets of patent trolls, some of which are armed and financed by Microsoft, the company that claims to have reached "truce" on the patent front

Putting aside for a moment all the European matters (such as EPO President António Campinos promoting software patents in Europe), we'd like to highlight this new article titled "Coordinating Patent Strategies Across PTAB And EPO" by Drew Schulte. Outside the paywall it alludes to Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) inter partes reviews (IPRs) -- akin in a sense to what the Boards of Appeal are supposed to do:



Of all the changes introduced by the America Invents Act, arguably the most impactful, from a procedural standpoint, has been the introduction of new post-grant proceedings. Inter partes reviews, post-grant reviews...


Using these processes Unified Patents (not the Unitary/Unified Patent Court we've just mentioned) and others have been axing a lot of dubious patents that are sparingly "asserted against" (fancy term for sued with) a bunch of companies, almost always by patent trolls. The Federal Circuit rarely opposes such motions and months ago efforts to deny Unified Patents access to IPRs truly failed miserably.

In 2019 we intend to focus less on pertinent legal cases in the US, but this one from last week (published today) stood out because it reveals a Microsoft-connected patent troll, Dominion Harbor, hiding behind lots more proxies (we've named some before. "On December 28," Robert Jain wrote, "Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,035,479 owned by well-known NPE Dominion Harbor subsidiary Clean Energy Management. The ‘479 patent, directed to a mesh network door lock, has been asserted against over 15 companies including Crestron, Cisco Systems, and Lowe's."

So Dominion Harbor is quite a litigation pipeline, but it doesn't sue directly. Like the Microsoft troll that armed it (Intellectual Ventures), it's working through an extensive network of shells.

Just to be clear, Unified Patents deals with a lot more than just Microsoft-connected trolls. To give some numbers, in their own words: "In the final month of 2018, Unified filed an unprecedented 22 new inter partes review challenges — each challenging a different NPE-controlled patent — setting a new record for the most petitions filed by a company in a single month since the PTAB’s inception."

"Patent litigation in 2018 decreased by 5% overall compared to 2017 due to a drop in the number of new filings at both the district court and Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB)," Robert Jain wrote. Here's more:

The number of new patent disputes at the district courts and PTAB decreased by 5% overall.

NPEs account for approximately 55% of all new patent disputes in 2018.


So the majority are trolls. Earlier today Jain named Bradley Liddle as another patent troll with questionable patents that PTAB will likely squash. This one too is a proxy, as has been made clear: "On December 29, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,454,430 owned by Recursive Web Technologies and formerly asserted by Spider Search Analytics (owned by well-known NPE Bradley Liddle)."

And another proxy of the same troll:

On December 30, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 8,023,647 owned by Universal Cipher LLC and formerly asserted by Cumberland Systems LLC (owned by well-known NPE Bradley Liddle).


Last but not least there's Synchview, which also seems to be a proxy. In Jain's words: "On December 30, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 6,788,882, owned and asserted by Synchview Technologies, LLC, an affiliate of IP Investments Group LLC, a well-known NPE. The ‘882 patent, directed to a digital video recorder (DVR) that stores several programs at the same time in synchronization with each other, has been asserted against a number of broadcasting and cable companies such as Charter Communications (Spectrum), Mediacom, Atlantic Broadband, Cable One, and Blue Ridge Cable."

The above is a reminder of how valuable PTAB can be when combating trolls; curiously enough, Intellectual Ventures' connection to Dominion Harbor is rarely noted; it has literally thousands of proxies, based on the established media.

Recent Techrights' Posts

An Illusion and Cult Worship of Magnitude (Ubiquity as "Victory")
GNU has been around for over 40 years and it'll likely continue to exist for another 40 (in some form)
Wall Street Does Not Care About Microsoft's Impending (August) Layoffs, It Believes Lies From Microsoft, Whose Debt Grows Rapidly
If Microsoft is doing so well and swimming in money, why so many cuts (about 29,000 layoffs so far this year)?
Riot for peace & Love: Catholic Influencers and Digital Missionaries welcome Jubilee of Youth
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
 
Links 31/07/2025: Spotify Collapses and Spotify Now Forcing Some Users to Undergo Face-Scanning
Links for the day
A Lot of Supposedly "Successful" Businesses Are Just Debt-Racking Vessels Without Any Prospects of Financial Sustainability
The probability of bankruptcy of any business is more than 0%
theregister.com: The Voice of Microsoft US?
It basically sold out
Yes, You Can Love and Adore Things Whilst Also Criticising Them
Is society being divided and groomed/primed to be resistant to constructive criticism?
Links 31/07/2025: War in Ukraine, Security News, and Cyberattacks Against Journalists on the Rise
Links for the day
Gemini Links 31/07/2025: Fake Money and Gemini Diaries
Links for the day
Google: From Pointing to Relevant Sites to Pointing to Social Control Media to Actually Parroting Social Control Media as "Facts"
Google has become a misinformation company
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, July 30, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, July 30, 2025
How to Report Apple Layoffs Without Saying the "L" Word
don't look for the "L" word
Wayland Considered Harmful (to GNU/Linux Adoption)
it's not limited to games
My Experience With Judges Has been Positive, But We Must Still Pursue SLAPP Reform in the United Kingdom
We believe it'll be a "feather in the cap" if we can help change laws in the UK to better protect investigative reporters
Slopwatch Makes the Web Better
Remember what happened to BetaNews?
Slopwatch: Google News is Pumping in Lots of Web Traffic Into Fake Sites That Say "Linux"
somewhere between 30% and 40% of today's "news" about "Linux", as seen by Google News, is LLM slop
Links 30/07/2025: Climate Calamities Highlighted, Kyrgyzstan Crackdown on Expression/Freedoms
Links for the day
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Watson’s List of Limits, Lysenko 2000
Links for the day
Some People See What Others See... But Only 40 Years Later
When people deviate from "the norm" they typically get ridiculed and dismissed as "crazy"
Links 30/07/2025: Tea Class Action and Google Killing the Web With Slop
Links for the day
Last Month Our IRC Community Turned 17
Funnily enough we never missed a single day when it comes to logging
"The Unix Kernel"
Linux was inspired by MINIX
The Register Relays Microsoft Marketing, Dubs That Marketing "Research"
Hours ago they did a "Microsoft sez" piece
Dealing With Sociopaths, Liars, and Cranks
A dysfunctional society such as this would never develop
Not Owning Mobile Phones
It's not about resistance; it's common sense
Google 'Search' is Fast Becoming No Better Than Social Control Media Infested With Bots
Google emerged almost 30 years ago as a company looking to organise the Web and direct people towards informative pages. That Google is dead.
PCLinuxOS Had Functional Backups Before the House Fire, the Site Will be Restored in New Webhost
This is the direction we want for GNU/Linux, not some IBM sales strategy
Gemini Links 30/07/2025: Two Sides of Me and "Hooked on Cosmic Voyage"
Links for the day
Microsoft Will Continue Resorting to Crimes in Order to Keep GNU/Linux Usage Down
It is a real problem and we'll revisit it later this week
GAFAM 'Revolving Doors' at The Register and a "Bribe Price List"
"an analyst at Microsoft"
Microsoft Rapidly Shrinking (No, It's Not About Efficiency, It's About Unbearable Debt)
We'll soon see how much debt grew in the past quarter
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, July 29, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, July 29, 2025
Corruption is the Standard Operating Procedure at the European Patent Office (EPO)
The EPO is a dictatorship that stains Europe
Local Staff Committee Munich (LSCMN) at the European Patent Office (EPO) Requests an Urgent Meeting to Avoid Abolishing the Office
This is dictatorship led by the most corrupt
Slopwatch: Fake 'Linux' 'Articles' and Spamfarms/Slopfarms
at least 5 fake articles in one day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Wayland Unfit for Use and LLM Slop Faking One's Language Skills With Robot Communications
Links for the day
Before the OSI Was Bribed and Hijacked by Microsoft via GitHub and Compromised Management...
The OSI isn't even remotely "woke"
Nailing the "Hey Hi" (AI) Hype Bubble
So-called "hey hi" as they define it now is all about large companies or regimes remotely controlling the processes running on your machine and even your very own behaviour on your machine, which is in effect no longer your machine but some remotely controlled apparatus
The OSI Has Been Silent for Over 3 Weeks, It Has a Severe Trust Issue After Promoting Microsoft and Proprietary GitHub
OSI took a lot of money from Microsoft to become a Microsoft lobbyist
"Four decades; Four freedoms; For all users" Now as a T-shirt
That's shown along the sidebar
Bribery is OK If You Work for Microsoft (No Punishment Expected)
It's very troubling and a symptom of a broken society/system when particular laws or rules are applied and enforced against some people but not against others
Links 29/07/2025: Bad Climate and "Fair Software Licensing" Blasts Microsoft
Links for the day
Links 29/07/2025: Data Brokers Gone Wrong/Rogue and "Copyright Thicket"
Links for the day
Slopwatch: Linuxconfig.org, Linuxsecurity.com, Fagioli, The Register
Today's "Slopwatch" isn't the first article about LLM slop
Someone Should Remind Microsoft Lunduke That Microsoft Hires Many Sexual Criminals and Pedophiles as Well
Microsoft Lunduke on an "expedition" to find one or more perverts, then generalise to everyone in the "community"
Cash Machines (ATMs) Make Mistakes and They're Proprietary Software
Correcting mistakes is a colossal challenge
We Cover Topics Other Sites Are Too Afraid to Cover (Even When They Know the Facts)
It's not that they doubt the truth, they just realise there may be consequences for talking about it
They Try to Tell Us the Free Software Foundation Inc is Dying, But Its Revenue Doubled Since the Dot-Com Bubble Burst
Being in "Activism" is never easy; but it does positive things for society
Yes, Microsoft is the Problem
"I am no MS shill."
It's About the Cost of Workers, Not the Fictional Skills Shortage (That Does Not Exist, the Media Spreads False and Sometimes Self-Fulfilling Narratives)
This issue isn't limited to computing, some dub it "globalism"
Another Failed Use Case for Chatbots (LLM): Legal Advice and Analysis
They're just some self-discrediting toy that costs way too much to operate
Links 29/07/2025: More Pushbacks Against Slop and More Praises of Tom Lehrer
Links for the day
Gemini Links 29/07/2025: Purple Yarrow and Understanding Op Amps
Links for the day
This Monday WebProNews Absolutely Flooded the Web With Fake (LLM Slop) 'Articles' About "Linux", Google News Promoted Them as Legitimate
All of the following are fake articles attributed to pseudonyms or authors that don't exist; the images are also slop. Why does Google promote these?
Linuxiac is Not a Slopfarm, But at Least Some of Its Articles Are Machine-Generated Fakes
what we said about it was correct
Expect More Microsoft Layoffs
"Are more job cuts coming?"
Microsoft Behaving Like It's Running Out of Money to Pay Salaries
Does that seem like the behaviour expected from a company which claims it is "worth" trillions?
LWN Downtime Due to Linode, Not LLM Bots
"I’ve received an email letting me know that there is a potential for data loss."
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 28, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 28, 2025