Unified Patents is a member-based organization whose goal is reducing the number of
non-practicing entity (NPE) assertions in specific technology areas.
Background
Instances of NPE patent litigation have grown recently: NPEs (commonly referred to as
patent troll
In international law and business, patent trolling or patent hoarding is a categorical or pejorative term applied to a person or company that attempts to enforce patent rights against accused infringers far beyond the patent's actual value or ...
s) accounted for the majority of patent infringement litigation in the U.S. in 2012, compared to less than a quarter in 2007. This is because NPEs can achieve a quick return on investment since most companies settle rather than fight, even if they believe the assertion to be invalid.
Unified permits small and large companies alike to become members. Smaller members act as an early warning system by notifying Unified of
NPE demand letter
A demand letter, letter of demand, (of payment), or letter before claim, is a letter stating a legal claim (usually drafted by a lawyer) which makes a demand for restitution or performance of some obligation, owing to the recipients' alleged bre ...
s in exchange for notifying Unified if they ever plan to sell a Patent to an NPE. Unified defines discrete technology zones for members to join, including cloud storage, content delivery, or electronic payments to ensure Unified’s deterrence is focused.
Unified also directly challenges the validity of NPE patents. By filing several
inter partes review
An inter partes review (IPR) is a procedure for challenging the validity of a United States patent before the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
History
The inter partes review procedure was enacted on September 16, 2012 as part of the Ame ...
s (IPRs) against patents owned by NPEs, Unified seeks to increase the costs that NPEs face when asserting invalid patents and to deter future NPEs from doing the same thing again. Unified also publishes monthly newsletters summarizing NPE activity against small businesses and technology companies.
History
Unified Patents was founded in 2012 by Kevin Jakel and Brian Hinman. Mr. Jakel is the former head of intellectual property litigation at
Intuit
Intuit Inc. is an American business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application Tu ...
. Mr. Hinman formerly worked as a vice president of
InterDigital. In January 2013, Unified signed its first member. Since 2012, Unified has grown to more than 60 members including NetApp and Google. Unified Patents filed its first
IPR against Clouding IP's patent 6,738,799. Since then Unified has filed several IPRs against patent trolls (e.g. against PersonalWeb regarding patent 5,978,791). In June and July 2016 Unified filed IPRs on patents belonging to the three most litigious NPEs of 2016:
Uniloc
Uniloc Corporation was a company founded in Australia in 1992.
History
The Uniloc technology is based on a patent granted to the inventor Ric Richardson who was also the founder of the Uniloc Company. The original patent application was date ...
, Sportbrain Holdings, and Shipping & Transit LLC, who together sued more than 200 companies in 2016.
Business
Unified Patents seeks to deter patent trolls from asserting poor quality patents in certain technology zones through a number of strategies. Unified collects annual fees from its members to fund its activities. Small companies are not charged by Unified. Unified assesses the risk posed by NPEs by monitoring NPE assertions. This information is used to challenge NPE owned patents. Some of Unified IPRs have already ended in settlement. Unified Patents does not pay for purchasing or licensing patents from patent trolls or NPEs.
References
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Patent law firms