PTAB

IPR2014-00505

IntRado Inc v. 911 Notify LLC

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Petition
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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Real-Time Incident and Response Information Messaging in a System for the Automatic Notification that an Emergency Call has Occurred from a Telecommunication Device
  • Brief Description: The ’356 patent discloses systems and methods for automatically notifying designated parties when a subscriber places an emergency call. The system detects the call, collects "real-time" incident and response data, fetches a subscriber record, and sends a notification message containing the collected data to parties identified in the subscriber's record.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation by Markowitz - Claims 1, 5, and 15 are anticipated by Markowitz.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Markowitz (Patent 6,295,346).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Markowitz taught every limitation of independent claims 1 and 15. Markowitz disclosed a method and apparatus for automatically notifying selected parties when a calling party places a call to an emergency service provider. It taught receiving an alert signal (e.g., the caller's ANI), using that signal to fetch a subscriber record from a database containing the parties to be notified, collecting real-time data (such as the identity of the calling party and the emergency service contacted), and activating a message response system to send a notification with this data. Petitioner asserted that Markowitz also explicitly taught the additional limitations of claim 5, namely composing the notification message to include the calling phone number and the collected real-time data.
    • Key Aspects: This ground asserted that the core inventive concept of the ’356 patent was fully disclosed in a single prior art reference.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Markowitz and BellSouth - Claims 2 and 16 are obvious over Markowitz in view of BellSouth TR 73577.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Markowitz (Patent 6,295,346) and BellSouth TR 73577 (a 1993 technical reference).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the teachings of Markowitz for the base method of claim 1. Petitioner argued BellSouth TR 73577 supplied the limitations of dependent claim 2, which involved managing subscriber data. Specifically, BellSouth taught creating subscriber data packets with unique identifying information and periodically transferring these packets to update a subscriber database (e.g., for E911 ALI services). Markowitz already taught collecting subscriber data as part of its service.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would combine Markowitz's notification system with BellSouth's established method for managing E911 subscriber data to improve the efficiency and accuracy of the subscriber database used in the notification system. BellSouth provided a known, standardized method for updating the exact type of subscriber information that Markowitz’s system relied upon.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would have a reasonable expectation of success, as combining a known data management protocol with a notification system was a straightforward integration of complementary technologies within the same field of emergency telecommunications.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Markowitz, Antonucci, and Tsumpes - Claims 6, 8, 9, 10, 12-14, 20, and 22 are obvious over Markowitz in view of Antonucci and Tsumpes.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Markowitz (Patent 6,295,346), Antonucci (Patent 6,587,545), and Tsumpes (Patent 6,442,241).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed claims requiring more specific types of "real-time data" and user interaction features. Markowitz provided the foundational notification system. Petitioner argued Antonucci taught collecting and using location data for wireless calls, a key limitation in claims 6, 8, 10, 20, and 22. Tsumpes was cited for teaching the inclusion of time and date information in the notification message and for providing the notified party with an option to connect to a pre-programmed number (e.g., the PSAP), as required by claims 12, 13, and 14.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would be motivated to enhance Markowitz’s basic notification system to provide more useful information and functionality. It would have been obvious to add location data (from Antonucci) and time/date stamps (from Tsumpes) to the notification message to make it more informative for the recipient. Likewise, adding an option for the notified party to easily connect to an emergency service (from Tsumpes) was a logical improvement to increase the system's utility.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): Success was expected because each reference provided a discrete, known feature that could be integrated into an emergency notification system using conventional computer telephony integration techniques.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted numerous additional obviousness and anticipation challenges against all 28 claims, relying on various combinations of Markowitz, Antonucci, Tsumpes, Balachandran (WO 98/27714), BellSouth TR 73577, and NENA-04-001 (an emergency number association standard). These grounds followed similar rationales, combining references to add features like data from computer-aided dispatch (CAD) systems, automatic crash notification (ACN) databases, and voice recordings.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-28 of the ’356 patent as unpatentable.