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  • PTAB · Mar 24, 2021 · CBM2020-00027 · APJ Thomas L Giannetti · CBM · Institution

    The Board denied institution of CBM review for claims 1–7 because the patent did not qualify as a covered business method patent; it did not reach the § 101 challenge.

    RulingsInstitution decision
    • PTAB / AIA Trials › Institution threshold (reasonable likelihood / more likely than not)Institution denied meritsInstitution denied

      “covered business method patent review, the focus is on the claims. Blue Calypso, LLC v. Groupon, Inc., 815 F.3d 1331, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (challenged patent eligible for review because the claims recited “an express financial component in the form of a subsidy” that was “central to the operation of the claimed invention”). Thus, “§ 18 (d)(1) directs us to examine the claims when deciding whether a patent is a CBM patent.” Blue Calypso, 815 F.3d at 1340. More specifically, the focus is on the claims to determine whether there is anything “explicitly or inherently financial in the construed claim language.” Id. The claims of the ’341 patent are directed to “[a] method for sharing video over a structured hierarchical network.” Ex. 1001, 25:14–15. We are not persuaded that this a financial activity. We agree with Patent Owner that the focus of the claims is video sharing technology. Prelim. Resp. 21. The claims describe a series of method steps for sharing video content involving servers and video files. Nowhere do the claims discuss or suggest obtaining payment or remuneration. Thus, the claims are unlike those in Blue Calypso, 815 F.3d 1331. In Blue Calypso, the claims expressly recited the term “subsidy,” which the Board construed as “financial assistance given by one to another.” Id. at 1339–40. The Federal Circuit explained that based on this understanding, the Board had concluded that the claims “were financial in nature” and instituted CBM review. Id. at 1340. The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board’s analysis and affirmed its decision to institute CBM patent review: “Significantly, Blue Calypso has not challenged the Board’s interpretation of subsidy as ‘financial assistance given by one to another.’” Id.” slip op. at 6

    • BurdenDecided for patent owner

      “covered business method patent review, the focus is on the claims. Blue Calypso, LLC v. Groupon, Inc., 815 F.3d 1331, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2016) (challenged patent eligible for review because the claims recited “an express financial component in the form of a subsidy” that was “central to the operation of the claimed invention”). Thus, “§ 18 (d)(1) directs us to examine the claims when deciding whether a patent is a CBM patent.” Blue Calypso, 815 F.3d at 1340. More specifically, the focus is on the claims to determine whether there is anything “explicitly or inherently financial in the construed claim language.” Id. The claims of the ’341 patent are directed to “[a] method for sharing video over a structured hierarchical network.” Ex. 1001, 25:14–15. We are not persuaded that this a financial activity. We agree with Patent Owner that the focus of the claims is video sharing technology. Prelim. Resp. 21. The claims describe a series of method steps for sharing video content involving servers and video files. Nowhere do the claims discuss or suggest obtaining payment or remuneration. Thus, the claims are unlike those in Blue Calypso, 815 F.3d 1331. In Blue Calypso, the claims expressly recited the term “subsidy,” which the Board construed as “financial assistance given by one to another.” Id. at 1339–40. The Federal Circuit explained that based on this understanding, the Board had concluded that the claims “were financial in nature” and instituted CBM review. Id. at 1340. The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board’s analysis and affirmed its decision to institute CBM patent review: “Significantly, Blue Calypso has not challenged the Board’s interpretation of subsidy as ‘financial assistance given by one to another.’” Id.” slip op. at 6

    • Patent Eligibility (§101) › Alice/Mayo step one — 'directed to'Not reached

      “E. Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C. § 101 Petitioner contends that the challenged claims are directed to an abstract idea that is not eligible subject matter for a patent under 35 U.S.C. § 101. Pet. 77. According to Petitioner, “[t]he claims recite the abstract idea of including advertising with appropriately formatted video.” Id. at 80. Patent Owner responds that Petitioner has failed to show that the claims recite ineligible subject matter. Prelim. Resp. 64. According to Patent Owner, “[t]he ’341 Patent claims recite specific steps that improve the functioning of a video server providing shared video files.” Id. Because we have determined that the ’341 patent does not qualify for covered business method patent review, we do not address whether the claims recite eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101.” slip op. at 11

    § 101 eligibilityDiscretionary denial
    Patents in suitUS 10,362,341
  • PTAB · Mar 24, 2016 · IPR2015-01987 · APJ David C Mckone · IPR · Institution

    The Board denied institution for claims 16–28 because the petition did not show a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on the asserted obviousness grounds.

    RulingsInstitution decision
    • PTAB / AIA Trials › Institution threshold (reasonable likelihood / more likely than not)Institution denied meritsInstitution denied

      “any explanation as to why a person of ordinary skill in the art would come to the conclusion that the priority field of a Packet Resource Request is a requested quality of service parameter for a TBF.” Prelim. Resp. 12. We agree. Petitioner’s only support for this argument is the testimony of Dr. Fuja who states, in conclusory fashion, and without citation to evidence, that “[a person of ordinary skill in the art] would recognize that in the context of a connection in the form of a TBF the PRIORITY field is a requested quality of service parameter that is part of request messages communicated by a mobile station to a decision making device.” Ex. 1009 ¶ 76. Dr. Fuja’s testimony includes little persuasive evidence or reasoning. Accordingly, we assign it little weight. See 37 C.F.R. § 42.65(a) (“Expert testimony that does not disclose the underlying facts or data on which the opinion is based is entitled to little or no weight.”). On this record, Petitioner is not reasonably likely to show that GSM 04.60’s description of establishment of a TBF teaches a request message “indicating at least one requested quality of service parameter associated with the requested communication connection,” as recited in claim 16. Each of independent claims 20, 24, and 25 includes a limitation substantially similar to claim 16’s “indicating at least one requested quality of service parameter associated with the requested communication connection.” For the same reasons, GSM 04.06’s disclosure of TBF establishment does not teach these similar limitations of claims 20, 24, and 25.” slip op. at 12

    • BurdenNot shown unpatentable

      “We agree with Patent Owner. Claim 16 requires that the apparatus be encoded to receive from a decision making device “a channel coding scheme corresponding to said at least one quality of service parameter.” Thus, Petitioner must show that the Channel Coding Command corresponds to the QoS Information Element, or its sub-fields, identified as the at least one quality of service parameter. Petitioner’s only identified evidence of such a correspondence is Dr. Fuja’s testimony that: A POSITA would understand that the channel coding scheme that is included in the CHANNEL_CODING_COMMAND as part of the PACKET UPLINK ASSIGNMENT and the Packet Uplink Ack/Nack message is selected by the network to satisfy the QoS Profile that was negotiated during the PDP context activation procedure under the existing channel conditions. Ex. 1009 ¶ 81. As Patent Owner argues (Prelim. Resp. 9), this testimony is conclusory and lacks any explanation as to why the Channel Coding Command is selected to satisfy the QoS profile. Prelim. Resp. 9. Aside from this conclusory statement, neither Petitioner nor Dr. Fuja points to any evidence that the selection of the Channel Coding Command of GSM 04.60 has any relationship to the QoS Information Element of GSM 03.60. Petitioner’s evidence and argument is insufficient to show that the Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications or Olofsson teach this limitation. Moreover, as explained above, Petitioner has not shown sufficiently that the Channel Coding Command is received from the SGSN, which Petitioner identifies as the “decision making device” of claim 16.” slip op. at 16

    • Expert testimonyPetitioner expert discountedDecided for patent owner

      “Patent Owner responds that “neither Petitioner nor its declarant offer any explanation as to why a person of ordinary skill in the art would come to the conclusion that the priority field of a Packet Resource Request is a requested quality of service parameter for a TBF.” Prelim. Resp. 12. We agree. Petitioner’s only support for this argument is the testimony of Dr. Fuja who states, in conclusory fashion, and without citation to evidence, that “[a person of ordinary skill in the art] would recognize that in the context of a connection in the form of a TBF the PRIORITY field is a requested quality of service parameter that is part of request messages communicated by a mobile station to a decision making device.” Ex. 1009 ¶ 76. Dr. Fuja’s testimony includes little persuasive evidence or reasoning. Accordingly, we assign it little weight. See 37 C.F.R. § 42.65(a) (“Expert testimony that does not disclose the underlying facts or data on which the opinion is based is entitled to little or no weight.”).” slip op. at 12

    • Obviousness (§103) › Motivation to combine / reasonable expectation of successNot reached

      “encoded to receive from a decision making device “a channel coding scheme corresponding to said at least one quality of service parameter.” Thus, Petitioner must show that the Channel Coding Command corresponds to the QoS Information Element, or its sub-fields, identified as the at least one quality of service parameter. Petitioner’s only identified evidence of such a correspondence is Dr. Fuja’s testimony that: A POSITA would understand that the channel coding scheme that is included in the CHANNEL_CODING_COMMAND as part of the PACKET UPLINK ASSIGNMENT and the Packet Uplink Ack/Nack message is selected by the network to satisfy the QoS Profile that was negotiated during the PDP context activation procedure under the existing channel conditions. Ex. 1009 ¶ 81. As Patent Owner argues (Prelim. Resp. 9), this testimony is conclusory and lacks any explanation as to why the Channel Coding Command is selected to satisfy the QoS profile. Prelim. Resp. 9. Aside from this conclusory statement, neither Petitioner nor Dr. Fuja points to any evidence that the selection of the Channel Coding Command of GSM 04.60 has any relationship to the QoS Information Element of GSM 03.60. Petitioner’s evidence and argument is insufficient to show that the Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications or Olofsson teach this limitation. Moreover, as explained above, Petitioner has not shown sufficiently that the Channel Coding Command is received from the SGSN, which Petitioner identifies as the “decision making device” of claim 16. We cannot conclude, on this record, that Petitioner is likely to show that the GSM/GPRS Specifications or Olofsson teach an apparatus encoded to “receive from said decision making device a channel coding scheme corresponding to said at least one quality of service parameter,” as recited in claim 16. The remaining independent claims have analogous limitations that Petitioner, for the same reasons, has failed to show in the Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications or Olofsson. Specifically, independent claim 20 recites “a receiver configured to receive from the network element, a channel coding scheme corresponding to said at least one quality of service parameter”; independent claim 24 recites “receive from said decision making device at least one of a channel coding and interleaving scheme corresponding to said at least one quality of service parameter”; and independent claim 25 recites “receiving from said decision making device a channel coding scheme corresponding to said at least one quality of service parameter.”” slip op. at 16

    Claim construction§ 102 anticipation§ 103 obviousnessDiscretionary denialcites KSR · Graham
  • PTAB · Dec 30, 2015 · CBM2015-00162 · APJ Timothy J Goodson · CBM · Institution

    The Board denied institution on all challenged claims because the Petition did not establish that the ’246 patent qualifies as a covered business method patent.

    RulingsInstitution decision
    • PTAB / AIA Trials › Institution threshold (reasonable likelihood / more likely than not)Institution denied meritsInstitution denied

      “We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 324. Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 324(a), the Director may not authorize a covered business method patent review unless the information in the petition, if unrebutted, “would demonstrate that it is more likely than not that at least 1 of the claims challenged in the petition is unpatentable.” As explained below, we do not institute a covered business method patent review because the Petition does not establish that the ’246 patent qualifies as a covered business method patent.” slip op. at 2

    • Novelty / Anticipation (§102) › Prior-art status of a reference › Printed publication / public accessibilityPrinted publication not establishedNot shown unpatentable

      “remains deficient. The Petition relies on the Oracle Pro*C reference as disclosing the script template limitations of the independent claims, but as Patent Owner points out, the Petition does not present evidence establishing that Oracle Pro*C qualifies as a prior art printed publication. See Pet. 32– 34; Prelim. Resp. 50–53. Petitioner asserts that Oracle Pro*C “was published in 2002” but does not point to any specific evidence of its publication or public availability in 2002. Id. at 33. If Petitioner’s assertion is based on the “March 2002” statement that appears on the cover of the Oracle Pro*C reference, that statement is hearsay, and Petitioner does not argue that any hearsay exception or exclusion applies. See Ex. 1041, 1; see also ServiceNow, Inc. v. Hewlett-Packard Co., Case IPR2015-00716, slip op. at 16 (PTAB Aug. 26, 2015) (Paper 13) (“To the extent that Petitioner relies on the date on the face of each exhibit and the indications of availability of these references for download . . . for the truth of that information, and considering that Petitioner has not established that any hearsay exception or exclusion applies, we agree [that the statements are inadmissible hearsay].”). Petitioner also argues, with citation to the testimony of Dr. Smyth, that Oracle Pro*C is a reference used by programmers who develop applications in Oracle database environments. Pet. 33 (citing Ex. 1030 ¶ 57). However, neither the Petition nor Dr. Smyth explains how or when the specific Programmer’s Guide, Release 9.2 that Petitioner relies on as the Oracle Pro*C reference (Ex. 1041) was made available to skilled artisans. Because the Petition does not establish that Oracle Pro*C qualifies as prior art, Section VIII.B. of the Petition does not remedy the deficient showing in Section III.D. of the Petition on the first consideration of the technological” slip op. at 11

    § 102 anticipationDiscretionary denial
    Patents in suitUS 8,214,246

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