Patent Filings Roundup: Supercell Locked in Dispute with Gree, Vudu Fends off Uniloc, BASF PGRs Ingevity Patents

Every week, Unified Patents compiles all Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) and district court filings, lists them, and releases them daily to subscribers. Each Wednesday, IP Watchdog will post the list, with a handful of interesting cases highlighted with context. To see the docket, filings, and learn more about the case, click on the links provided below. Litigation financing or patent aggregator parent data is provided where known and confirmable. The results appear in chronological order, below.

Given that filings were light this week (perhaps the Coronavirus or the cancellation of the PTAB Bar Association’s annual meeting are to blame), here are the highlights:

Supercell OY, the company behind the wildly popular “Clash of Clans” mobile game, has true to its name been locked in an epic patent dispute with Japanese game maker Gree Inc., in which it appears Supercell OY is seeking to invalidate an entire portfolio of patents that Gree has asserted (this time in their fifth amended complaint before Judge Gilstrap in ED Tex.). This week, it has filed another four post-grant reviews (PGRs) on recently-issued Gree patents.

Vudu—Walmart’s streaming service—is the latest to try and stave off the litigious Uniloc’s [i.e., Fortress IP’s] ‘609 patent, which has been asserted in 10 staggered complaints over the past three years against plenty of defendants. While (now) four PTAB petitions have been filed by various defendants, here Vudu simply sought to join an earlier-instituted petition and earn a seat at the table.

In somewhat International Trade Commission (ITC)-related PGRs, BASF Corporation has challenged two recently minted Ingevity South Carolina, LLC patents. BASF and Ingevity have been locked in an ITC dispute (along with other auto parts companies) since November of 2018 on fuel vapor canister systems—the original complaint relying only on a single reissue patent, which was IPRed separately by BASF and respondent Mahle Filter Systems North America Incorporated after the ITC complaint, but of which both were denied. The newly challenged patents don’t appear to be part of any litigation as of yet.

PTAB (14)