PTAB

IPR2013-00634

Sony Computer Entertainment America LLC v. Game ContRoller Technology LLC

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Optical Tracking System with Dynamic Color Selection
  • Brief Description: The ’885 patent discloses an optical tracking system for translating a user’s manipulation of a remote control object into computer inputs. The system uses a camera to track a light-emitting element (e.g., an LED) on the controller and features a calibration process where the system analyzes the background scene to select a color for the light that is least common, thereby improving tracking accuracy.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation of Claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11 under 35 U.S.C. §102

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Hashimoto (Japanese Unexamined Publication No. H07-244557).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Hashimoto, published in 1995, discloses every element of the challenged claims. Hashimoto describes an optical tracking system comprising a camera ("imaging device"), a processor ("position detecting part"), and a user-manipulated input device with a multi-color LED. Crucially, Hashimoto teaches a "color-of-light control part" that performs a color spectrum analysis of the background scene to select a light color for the LED that "does not exist" or is "very rare" in the background. Petitioner contended this directly anticipates the core limitation of claim 1, which requires selecting "a least represented color in the scene." This same teaching was argued to anticipate claim 3’s limitation of selecting a color pertaining to the "optical characteristics of the background."
    • Key Aspects: The petition emphasized that during the original prosecution of the ’885 patent, the Examiner only had access to an English-language abstract of Hashimoto, which did not disclose the salient teachings regarding background color analysis and selection.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claims 2 and 9 under 35 U.S.C. §103

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Hashimoto (Japanese Unexamined Publication No. H07-244557) and Marks ’859 (Patent 7,965,859).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that while Hashimoto teaches the initial selection of an optimal color, it is silent regarding the reselection of a new color in response to changes in the background, a key limitation of independent claim 2. Marks ’859 was introduced to supply this missing element. Marks ’859 explicitly addresses the problem of changing environmental lighting conditions negatively affecting tracking performance. It teaches a system that periodically "re-samples" the scene to detect such changes and dynamically adjusts lighting or color parameters to maintain tracking quality.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued a POSITA would combine Hashimoto's initial color selection with the dynamic re-sampling taught by Marks ’859 to solve a known problem. The combination would enhance the robustness of Hashimoto's system, making it adaptive to changing conditions, which was a well-understood goal in the field.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success because combining the two systems involved applying a known technique (dynamic adjustment) to a known system (optical tracking) to achieve the predictable result of improved performance in variable lighting environments.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 10, and 11 over Wang (EP1402929A1) in view of Hashimoto, and claims 5 and 8 over Hashimoto in view of Marks ’126 (Patent 8,062,126), which argued for the obviousness of manual color selection.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner argued that language in independent claim 3 is confusing and potentially indefinite under 35 U.S.C. §112. The claim recites "wherein the selection complies with data received by the controlling object and pertaining to the optical characteristics of the background."
  • Petitioner contended that in all embodiments described in the ’885 patent, the processor—not the controlling object—receives and processes the background data to select a color.
  • For the purpose of the IPR, Petitioner proposed construing "complies with" to mean "in agreement with." Under this construction, the limitation would be met when the controlling object simply receives data identifying the color that the processor has already selected based on its analysis of the background. This interpretation aligns the claim language with the specification's disclosure.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) and cancellation of claims 1-11 of the ’885 patent as unpatentable.