Unified Patents Challenges America’s Most Litigious Patent Assertion Entity
Los Altos, CA (PRWEB) October 01, 2013 -- Unified Patents (Unified) announced today that it will challenge a patent held by Parallel Iron and backed by notorious patent assertion entity (PAE) IPNav. IPNav and Parallel Iron have asserted the challenged patent, which covers “methods and systems for a storage system,” against many companies including Google, Amazon, Netflix, NetApp, and Rackspace, among others. IPNav and Parallel Iron broadly claim the patent covers a widely used cloud computing technology, the Hadoop Distributed File System.
Unified filed an Inter-Partes review with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) today referencing prior art that raise substantial new questions about the validity of the patent, U.S. Patent No. 7,197,662 (“‘662 Patent”). The review, the second filed by Unified in two weeks, is part of Unified’s strategy to protect cloud storage technologies from PAE encroachment.
“We want companies, big and small, to get back to innovating instead of litigating, and they can’t do that with the distraction of PAEs,” said Kevin Jakel, founder of Unified. “In the case of the ‘662 patent, Unified believes that IPNav is asserting an invalid patent against cloud storage products and services.”
Parallel Iron’s broad interpretation of the ‘662 Patent and the widespread use of Hadoop have struck a nerve with many companies. Parallel Iron has asserted this patent in district court litigation against companies such as NetApp, Hitachi Data Systems, Amazon, EMC, Google, Facebook, Oracle, Adobe, LinkedIn, Cloudera, NetFlix, AT&T, LSI, and RackSpace.
“Cloud computing is extraordinarily important to consumers, apps, and the app economy,” said Jon Potter, President of the Application Developers Alliance. “All app developers and publishers should applaud Unified Patents activity to protect cloud computing and to challenge trolls that seek to impose a tax on cloud storage and innovation.”
Parallel Iron and IPNav owner Erich Spangenberg were recently profiled in a July 13, 2013 New York Times article about Patent Assertion Entities (PAE): “Has Patent, Will Sue.”
ABOUT UNIFIED PATENTS
Unified Patents (Unified) counters the risk and cost of Patent Assertion Entity (PAE) and/or Patent Troll litigation by protecting strategic technologies. Unified’s unique solution partners startups, SMBs and large companies and then proactively deters PAE/Patent Troll activity using deep patent expertise, monitoring, market intelligence, advisory services, and USPTO challenges in specific technologies. By protecting a strategic technology, Unified mitigates patent assertion risk for its members’ most important products and services. More information can be found at http://www.unifiedpatents.com
Shawn Ambwani, Unified Patents, http://www.unifiedpatents.com, +1 4152504245, [email protected]
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