Patent Filings Roundup: Porn Sites Head for PTAB; All-or-Nothing Post Grant Review Institution

Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) filings have settled into a relatively steady-state of roughly 20-30 petitions, occasionally punctuated by a big burst of litigation-related activity. Notably, five of the 34 petitions filed were post grant reviews (PGRs), as the numbers there continue to (very slowly) creep up from nothing. In the district courts, a relatively typical 76 patent filings hit dockets across the nation, including some newer names—and some old ones just now resurfacing. For example, Computer Circuit Operations LLC is back (after filing and settling six suits last year, five in the Western District of Texas). Acacia has a new(ish) campaign (Stingray IP Solutions, LLC) and some new suits in an old campaign (R2 Solutions LLC).

All and/or Nothing Institution: The rare PGR denial under the Board’s discretion whether to institute, Hunting Titan, Inc. v. DynaEnergentics Europe GmBH is that rare denial where the way the petition was drafted procedurally was defective enough to merit denial. Available here, this decision revolved around Hunting Titan’s decision to file all of their grounds in a branched “and/or” style that could, under one count, result in upwards of 1,600 different combinations (per the patent owner). The Board, pointing to their concerns related to the statutory timeline and the inability to limit the number of grounds after SAS v. Iancu, faulted Hunting Titan for failing to meet their procedural requirements.

Pornography Streamers Strike Back: Months ago, Scorpcast LLC (d/b/a HaulStars, a great name, though you’d expect it to be a private junk removal service) sued 18 various (and mostly wildly successful) pornographic video content creators and distributors, including Pornhub partners All 4 Health, Boutique Media, Bravomax Services, Fusee, HMZ Investments, Hot G Vibe, KB Productions, Logical, Manica Media, Media Solutions Canarias, Miriskana, Oanasun Entertainment, PMG Entertainment, Panda Hosting, Pioneer Stream Technologies, Quicksol, Straplezz, and WebTwo. The complaint revolved around a single patent that allows posters to define images or text that appear at certain points in a given video (collectively, “tags”) that when clicked take the user to a certain part of a video, and that allow creators to select video thumbnails.

While Scorpcast’s website claims it provides “interactive shoppable video” technology and lists six brands as using its platform: Adriano Goldschmied, Comcast Technology Solutions, Condé Nast, Disney, Nylon, and Yahoo (Comcast Technology Solutions does list HaulStars as a partner on its own website), it’s unclear if this is a currently licensed technology or not. What is clear is that one of those companies, MG Freesites Ltd., went to the Board and filed SIX IPRs on five patents: IPR2021-00512, IPR2021-00515, IPR2021-00510, IPR2021-00514, IPR2021-00517, and IPR2021-00516. It will be interesting to see if this company is indemnifying others or how they fit into the bigger picture here.

Image Source: Deposit Photos
Author: gunnar3000
Image ID: 3834376