Bonum Certa Men Certa

Unified Patents Goes After Patent Trolls Funded and Armed (Given Patents) by Microsoft

Microsoft and trolls



Summary: Opposition to dubious patents (typically on software) comes from a firm that crowd-funds the process; it's curious to see several of Microsoft's trolls being challenged

A COUPLE of days ago we wrote about patent trolls that Unified Patents had tackled just before the year's end. Another proxy (among many) of the patent troll Bradley Liddle was mentioned 3 days ago and then we learned more about Uniloc, which is just a litigation pipeline that ought not exist. We might take a closer look at it some time in the near future because readers sent us relevant information.



Unified Patents wrote that on the final day of the year, "December 31, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,020,252 owned by well-known NPE Uniloc 2017 LLC. The ‘252 patent, directed to group voice messaging, has been asserted against Hike, Microsoft and Apple."

Microsoft has already paid this troll a lot of money; apparently not enough to keep it away. But make no mistake; Microsoft isn't the victim because Microsoft actively contributes to this problem. Microsoft spent a tremendous amount of time and money promoting software patents and now there's this big mess. Unified Patents has just tackled this patent on "verifying electronic forms" (obviously abstract) and even if courts would reject such patents, their very existence is a major nuisance as they can be leveraged for extortion. It's widely known by now (even IAM admitted it a few days) that patent litigation has collapsed, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the extortion is winding down (it's impossible to reliably measure/quantify). "2018 US patent cases down 41% from 2015," patent maximalists noted some days ago, but what about the extortion?

The decrease in district court patent cases was proportionally smaller last year than the year before, suggesting the volume of new patent disputes is levelling out


They're just looking for some positive spin to make this decline sound like good news for patent maximalists. Here comes another troll, whose sole apparent 'business' will be challenged by an inter partes review (IPR) at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB):

On December 28, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 6,411,871 owned by American GNC Corporation (an NPE). The ‘871 patent, directed to vehicle sensors, has never been asserted.


Maybe not in court. Extortion is still a possibility.

New IPRs that we find more interesting, however, were published no sooner than Friday. Intellectual Ventures, Microsoft's main patent troll (which is arming proxies and shells that sue everyone), is also targeting automobile companies:

On December 31, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,925,416 owned and asserted by Carrum Technologies, LLC after it was transferred from an Intellectual Ventures subsidiary. The ‘416 patent, directed to vehicle sensors, was asserted in October against BMW, FCA, and Ford.


A Microsoft patent troll-armed (by Intellectual Ventures) patent troll rears its ugly head again. It's this troll that nowadays uses shells that sue everyone and an IPR against it was also noted on Friday:

On December 31, Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 7,376,645 asserted by Portal Communications LLC (owned by well-known NPE Dominion Harbor). The ‘645 patent, directed to natural language processing techniques, has been asserted against SoundHound, Microsoft, and Apple.


Again it's curious to see Microsoft among those targeted because Microsoft's own patent troll gave patents to Dominion Harbor. Has Microsoft lost control of the mess it created? Either way, this mess helps sell “Azure IP Advantage” [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18].

There's one more newly-advertised IPR. "On December 31," Robert Jain wrote "Unified filed a petition for inter partes review (IPR) against U.S. Patent 9,324,365 owned by Hertl Media LLC. The ‘365 patent, directed to techniques for buffering multiple audio tracks of a video, has been asserted against several companies with streaming media services such as Cox, Netflix, and Amazon."

A lot of the above are abstract patents, but Unified Patents often leverages prior art to squash such patents. Considering the very high success rates of IPRs, one might assume that few (if any) of the above patents will endure PTAB's scrutiny.

Recent Techrights' Posts

More on "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
"pepe the frogs"
Dalai Lama Succession as Evidence That Determined, Motivated People Can Reach Their Nineties
And we need to quit talking about their death all the time
Many Lawyers (for Microsoft) and 1,316 Pages to Pick on a Litigant in Person Who Exposed Serious Microsoft Abuses
Answers must be given
Layoffs and Shutdowns at IBM, Not Just Microsoft
Same as Microsoft
With Workers Back From a Holiday Weekend, Microsoft Layoffs Carry on, More Waves to Come
Now it's Monday and people are bad to work, even some journalists
You Need Not Wave a Rainbow Flag This Month to Basically Oppose Arseholes Looking to Disrupt and Divide the Community
Don't fall for it
What Miguel de Icaza and Microsoft Lunduke Have in Common
Similar aims, different methods
 
Links 08/07/2025: "Cyberattack Deals Blow to Russian Firmware" and "Cash Remains King"
Links for the day
FSF40 T-shirt message
by Alex Oliva
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Creativity, Gotify with NUT Server, and Sudo Bugs
Links for the day
Links 08/07/2025: Sabotage of Networking Infrastructure, Microsoft XBox Game Pass Deemed “Unsustainable”
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/07/2025: Ancillary Justice and Small Web July
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 07, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 07, 2025
The FSF's (Free Software Foundation, Inc.) 2025 Summer Fundraiser Already Past Halfway Line
This is where GNU/Linux actually started
Mozilla Had No Good Reason to Outsource Firefox Development to Microsoft
What does Mozilla plan to do when GitHub shuts down?
Mozilla Firefox Did Not Die, It Got Killed
To me it'll always look like Mozilla got killed by its sponsors, especially Google, which had a conflict of interest as a sponsor
Dan Neidle, Whom Brett Wilson LLP SLAPPed (on Behalf of Corrupt Rich Tax Evaders), Still Fighting the Good Fight
Neidle fights for the poor people
Wayland Should Start by Dumping Its Very Ugly Logo
Wayland wins the "ugliest logo" award every year
Stop Focusing on Hair Colours, Focus on Corporate Agenda
If someone commits a crime, it does not matter if his or her hair was mostly white or there was no hair or a wig or whatever
Links 07/07/2025: Science, Conflicts, and a Fictional K-pop Group
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: Being a Luddite and Announcement of Gotify
Links for the day
Links 07/07/2025: XBox Effectively 'Dead', DMCA Subpoena Versus Registrar
Links for the day
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.