Patent Troll Nemesis Files For Review Of Troublesome ‘799 Patent

On the anniversary of the patent reform legislation in the United States, a US service that uses patent pools to help companies fight litigation by patent assertion entities (PAEs or patent trolls) today (17 September) announced an inter-partes review of a patent used widely in litigation by a leading PAE.

Unified Patents filed the review with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) “in an effort to combat widespread litigation by the notorious patent troll Clouding IP,” the service said in a release. The 16 September filing requests review of Clouding IP’s U.S. Patent No. 6,738,799 (“‘799 Patent”).

Unified’s petition is available here [pdf].

According to Unified: “Clouding IP has sued many companies including Oracle, Apple, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Rackspace, SAP, Dropbox, Verizon, and EMC over its disputed cloud storage patents. The ‘799 Patent claims allegedly cover file synchronization technology used in the solutions of some of the most successful cloud storage companies. Unified’s request states that prior art references available before the ‘799 patent’s earliest priority date raise substantial new questions about the patentability of the patent’s claims.”

Clouding IP’s ‘799 patent has been the target of two previous such reviews, which Unified said showed its invalidity before being settled.

“Clouding IP has gained a reputation as a patent ‘troll’ and is pursuing litigation against a number of defendants for allegedly infringing a patent we firmly believe to be invalid,” said Kevin Jakel, founder of Unified. “We want all non-practicing entities (NPEs) to know that Unified will vigorously challenge invalid patents being asserted in cloud storage.  We are pleased to be at the forefront of protecting strategic technologies from NPE activity.”