Trials@uspto.gov
`Tel: 571-272-7822
`
`
`Paper 11
`Entered: March 19, 2016
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`_______________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`_______________
`
`APPLE INC.,
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`TRACBEAM, LLC,
`Patent Owner.
`_______________
`
`Case IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`_______________
`
`
`
`Before KEVIN F. TURNER, RICHARD E. RICE, BARBARA A. PARVIS,
`and MATTHEW R. CLEMENTS, Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`CLEMENTS, Administrative Patent Judge.
`
`DECISION
`Request for Rehearing
`37 C.F.R. § 42.71
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`Tel: 571-272-7822
`
`
`Paper 11
`Entered: March 19, 2016
`
`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`_______________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`_______________
`
`APPLE INC.,
`Petitioner,
`
`v.
`
`TRACBEAM, LLC,
`Patent Owner.
`_______________
`
`Case IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`_______________
`
`
`
`Before KEVIN F. TURNER, RICHARD E. RICE, BARBARA A. PARVIS,
`and MATTHEW R. CLEMENTS, Administrative Patent Judges.
`
`CLEMENTS, Administrative Patent Judge.
`
`DECISION
`Request for Rehearing
`37 C.F.R. § 42.71
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`
`IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`
`I. INTRODUCTION
`Pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d), Apple Inc. (“Petitioner”) requests
`rehearing of the Decision (Paper 8, “Dec.”) denying institution of inter
`partes review of independent claims 25, 45, and 49 of U.S. Patent No.
`7,525,484 B2 (Ex. 1001, “the ’484 patent”), and the challenged claims
`depending therefrom. Paper 10 (“Rehg. Req.”).
`For the reasons set forth below, Petitioner’s Request for Rehearing is
`denied.
`
`II. STANDARD OF REVIEW
`A party requesting rehearing bears the burden of showing that the
`decision should be modified. 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d). The party must identify
`specifically all matters we misapprehended or overlooked, and the place
`where each matter was addressed previously in a motion, an opposition, or a
`reply. Id. When rehearing a decision on a petition, we review the decision
`for an abuse of discretion. See 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(c). An abuse of discretion
`may be indicated if a decision is based on an erroneous interpretation of law,
`if a factual finding is not supported by substantial evidence, or if the
`decision represents an unreasonable judgment in weighing relevant factors.
`See Star Fruits S.N.C. v. United States, 393 F.3d 1277, 1281 (Fed. Cir.
`2005); Arnold P’ship v. Dudas, 362 F.3d 1338, 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2004); In re
`Gartside, 203 F.3d 1305, 1315–16 (Fed. Cir. 2000). With this in mind, we
`address the arguments presented by Petitioner.
`
`III. ANALYSIS
`A. Independent Claims 25 and 45
`Independent claim 25 recites, “neither of the first and second position
`information is dependent upon the other.” Ex. 1001, 174:38–39.
`
`2
`
`
`
`IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`Independent claim 45 recites “neither of the first and second position
`information varies substantially as a result in a change in the other.” Id. at
`178:36–38. Petitioner’s analysis for these limitations of claims 25 and 45
`states “Bruno discloses receiving estimated location information from
`software instances using GPS, broadcast signals, and RF signpost
`techniques, which are independent and use wireless signal measurements
`between the mobile terminal and a communication station. See 2:17-63,
`3:52-56, 4:1-67, 8:48-9:4, 10:8-11, Fig. 2, (Nos. 17, 18, 20), Fig. 9.”
`Pet. 17, 28. In our Decision, we determined, based on this analysis, that
`“Petitioner has not shown sufficiently that Bruno teaches ‘neither of the first
`and second position information is dependent upon the other,’ as required by
`claim 25.” Dec. 10–11; see also id. at 14 (addressing claim 45).
`On rehearing, Petitioner argues that
`The Board determined that Bruno did not disclose these features
`primarily because Bruno’s circuitry is shared among different
`techniques. But the listed claim limitations require that the
`determined position information that is output from the location
`estimators be independent from one another, not that the circuitry
`of the estimators be independent. Thus, it is respectfully
`submitted that the Board misapprehended the teachings of Bruno
`as applied to claims 25 and 45.
`Rehg. Req. 1. Specifically, Petitioner contends that it explained, in its
`Petition, that Bruno’s GPS, cellular, and RF Signpost techniques are
`independent. Id. at 3–4 (citing Pet. 17; Ex. 1007, Fig. 9); see also id. at 6–7
`(addressing claim 45). The analysis in the Petition, however, merely asserts
`that the techniques are independent without further explanation. We
`reviewed the evidence cited by Petitioner, but were not persuaded that it
`supported Petitioner’s conclusory assertion.
`
`3
`
`
`
`IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`On rehearing, Petitioner elaborates by arguing that there is no
`disclosure in Bruno of shared circuitry causing dependency among the
`outputs of the various techniques (id. at 4–5 (citing Pet. 14, 16, 17)), and that
`“the use of slaved GPS timing information is not a disclosure that an output
`of one location evaluator ‘is dependent’ on the output of another evaluator”
`(id. at 5–6). We could not have overlooked or misapprehended these
`arguments or evidence because they were not presented in the Petition.
`Even if we were to consider Petitioner’s arguments, we still would not
`be persuaded that the cited portions of Bruno disclose sufficiently that its
`GPS, cellular, and RF Signpost techniques are independent. Bruno
`discloses, for example, that Path B, i.e., GPS RF Front End 9-17, “could also
`receive transmissions of the RF Signposts as well, if on that frequency,” and
`that Path C, i.e., Other RF Front End 918, “uses an RF path at an alternative
`frequency . . . to receive, either GPS-like signals or other Signpost signals at
`that frequency.” Ex. 1007, 8:65–9:2 (emphasis added). As a result, a
`position derived from data received on Path B may depend on both GPS data
`and RF Signpost data. Likewise, a position derived from data received on
`Path C may depend upon both GPS data and RF Signpost data. A change in
`GPS data could, therefore, affect a position determination both by Path B
`and by Path C. Likewise, a change in RF Signpost data could affect a
`position determination both by Path B and by Path C. For that reason, we
`are not persuaded that the position determined by Path B is not “dependent
`upon” the position determined by Path C, and vice-versa. Moreover, Bruno
`discloses that the shared “middle and end stages of the GPS receiver . . .
`acquire[] and track[] the signals,” plural, and “demodulates and interprets
`the received data,” plural. Id. at 9:3–8. This disclosure is consistent with
`the middle and end stages performing pseudorange measurements and
`
`4
`
`
`
`IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`position calculations based on inputs from all three front ends, if signals are
`received on all three front ends concurrently.
`
`
`B. Independent Claim 49
`In our Decision, we determined that
`For multiple elements of claim 49, Petitioner states only “See
`above.” or “See below.” Pet. 22–23. It is not clear, however,
`what portions of Bruno Petitioner is referring to as these exact
`limitations are not found above and Petitioner provides no
`explanation of which other
`limitation(s)
`it believes
`is
`commensurate in scope and why. On this record, Petitioner has
`not adequately identified any teaching in Bruno of these various
`limitations. As a result, we are not persuaded that Bruno teaches
`these limitations of independent claim 49.
`Dec. 11.
`On rehearing, Petitioner argues that “[t]he limitations for which Apple
`cited ‘See above’ or ‘See below’ are readily met by Bruno and identified by
`citations to Bruno for adjacent limitations in the same claim,” (Rehg. Req. 8
`(emphasis original)), that similar limitations are recited in claims 25 and 45,
`and that “for the immediately previous claim limitation, the Petition stated
`that Bruno discloses location estimates from various techniques that are
`independent from one another.” Id. at 8. Petitioner also provides an
`annotated version of the claim chart in the Petition indicating the arguments
`and evidence that “See above.” was intended to reference. Id. at 9.
`We could not have misapprehended or overlooked the arguments and
`evidence that Petitioner intended to reference because they were not
`identified adequately in the Petition. Although similar limitations exist in
`claims 25 and 45, the limitations of claim 49 use language not found in those
`claims. For example, claim 25 uses the phrase “mobile station location
`
`5
`
`
`
`IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`evaluator,” while claim 45 uses the phrase “mobile station location
`technique,” and claim 49 uses the phrase “mobile station location
`estimators.” Likewise, the first limitation of claim 49, which Petitioner
`contends was the intended reference, does not recite “mobile station location
`estimators” and other claim terms and phrases used in the later limitations of
`claim 49. As a result, Petitioner’s mapping of Bruno to elements of these
`limitations in claim 49 was not sufficiently clear.
`
`
`IV. ORDER
`For the reasons given, it is:
`ORDERED that Petitioner’s Request for Rehearing (Paper 10) is
`denied.
`
`
`
`
`6
`
`
`
`7
`
`IPR2015-01697
`Patent 7,525,484 B2
`PETITIONER:
`David L. Fehrman
`Martin M. Noonen
`MORRISON & FOERSTER LLP
`dfehrman@mofo.com
`mnoonen@mofo.com
`10684-TracBeam-IPR@mofo.com
`
`
`
`PATENT OWNER:
`Sean Luner
`DOVEL & LUNER, LLP
`sean@dovellaw.com
`
`Steven C. Sereboff
`SOCAL IP LAW GROUP LLP
`ssereboff@socalip.com
Accessing this document will incur an additional charge of $.
After purchase, you can access this document again without charge.
Accept $ Charge
Still Working On It
This document is taking longer than usual to download. This can happen if we need to contact the court directly to obtain the document and their servers are running slowly.
Give it another minute or two to complete, and then try the refresh button.
A few More Minutes ... Still Working
It can take up to 5 minutes for us to download a document if the court servers are running slowly.
Thank you for your continued patience.
This document could not be displayed.
We could not find this document within its docket. Please go back to the docket page and check the link. If that does not work, go back to the docket and refresh it to pull the newest information.
Your account does not support viewing this document.
You need a Paid Account to view this document. Click here to change your account type.
Your account does not support viewing this document.
Set your membership
status to view this document.
With a Docket Alarm membership, you'll
get a whole lot more, including:
- Up-to-date information for this case.
- Email alerts whenever there is an update.
- Full text search for other cases.
- Get email alerts whenever a new case matches your search.
One Moment Please
The filing “” is large (MB) and is being downloaded.
Please refresh this page in a few minutes to see if the filing has been downloaded. The filing will also be emailed to you when the download completes.
Your document is on its way!
If you do not receive the document in five minutes, contact support at support@docketalarm.com.
Sealed Document
We are unable to display this document, it may be under a court ordered seal.
If you have proper credentials to access the file, you may proceed directly to the court's system using your government issued username and password.
Access Government Site
