The Patent Trial and Appeal Board of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office issued a final written decision ending an Inter Partes Review (IPR) trial and rejecting challenge by Netflix Inc. and Hulu LLC to U.S. patent No. 8,139,651. This win comes after LW also secured a complete trial win in a parallel IPR challenging the same patent filed by Unified Patents LLC, where both Netflix and Hulu are members. The patent, owned by DivX LLC, protects an invention that improves the quality of decompressed video. Challenges by Netflix, Inc., Hulu LLC and Unified Patents LLC were filed after DivX had gone to court to seek compensation for infringement of the patent against Netflix and Hulu. After full trial, the Board rejected petitioners’ unpatentability arguments, finding that they were unpersuasive, were untimely, were inconsistent with evidence of record, and failed to address “fundamental” aspects of petitioner’s asserted references. The Board upheld the patentability of the claims. DivX is represented by Parham Hendifar, Kenneth Weatherwax, and other attorneys of Lowenstein & Weatherwax LLP. The Board’s April 22, 2021 decision may be accessed below.
