PTAB

IPR2015-00316

Marvell Semiconductor Inc v. Bandspeed Inc

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Approach for Managing the Use of Communications Channels Based on Performance
  • Brief Description: The ’624 patent describes systems and methods for managing channels in a frequency hopping (FH) communications network, such as a Bluetooth piconet. The technology involves periodically testing channel performance, classifying channels as "good" or "bad," and selecting a set of channels for communication based on these performance classifications to avoid interference.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation of Claims 9, 12, 21, and 24 by Gerten

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gerten (Patent 6,760,319).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Gerten discloses all limitations of the challenged claims. Gerten teaches a wireless communication system (a piconet) with a master and slaves that manages channels in an FH scheme to avoid interference. Its central control system, including a processor and memory, constitutes the claimed computer-readable medium with instructions. Gerten’s master device selects a first set of "good" channels by identifying and avoiding "bad" channels based on performance (signal strength) at a first time. It then "periodically updates the channels to be avoided," thereby selecting a second set of channels at a later time. Gerten also discloses loading synthesizer codes corresponding to the selected channels into registers in both master and slave devices, meeting the limitations of claims 12 and 24.
    • Key Aspects: Petitioner contended Gerten's "normal mode" (using all N channels) and "interference avoidance mode" (using N-M good channels) map directly to the ’624 patent's concept of a default channel set and a performance-based selected channel set.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Gerten and Cuffaro

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gerten (Patent 6,760,319) and Cuffaro (Patent 6,418,317).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground asserted that claims 10, 11, 22, and 23 are obvious over the combination of Gerten and Cuffaro. Gerten was argued to teach the base system of selecting channel sets based on performance. For claims 10 and 22, Cuffaro was added to supply the teaching of transmitting channel performance data. Cuffaro explicitly discloses a mobile station measuring channel quality and reporting the measurements back to a base station, which then uses the data to manage channel allocation. For claims 11 and 23, Cuffaro was added to teach the "voting" limitation. Cuffaro describes a channel selection process where a device "makes a vote" for or against using a channel based on performance comparisons, and a channel is swapped after a certain threshold of votes is reached.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Gerten and Cuffaro to improve Gerten’s system. Incorporating Cuffaro’s teaching of having the slave device report performance data would provide more accurate, real-world channel information to the master device. Similarly, incorporating Cuffaro’s established voting mechanism would be a known and predictable method to enhance Gerten’s channel selection criteria.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was presented as a predictable substitution of known elements, as both references are in the same field of channel selection to avoid interference and address the same fundamental problems.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Gendel and Haartsen

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gendel (Patent 6,115,407) and Haartsen (Patent 7,280,580).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground asserted that claims 9, 11, 12, 21, 23, and 24 are obvious over Gendel in view of Haartsen. Gendel discloses a primary system communicating with secondary systems in an FH network, where hopping patterns are modified based on performance (reception errors). Gendel’s system selects a first set of channels (segments), uses them, and later selects a second set by replacing a poor-performing segment with an unused one. Haartsen was cited to explicitly teach implementing such channel selection functions using a processor executing instructions stored on a computer-readable medium, which Gendel describes functionally. For the voting limitations (claims 11 and 23), Petitioner argued that Gendel's process, where the primary system proposes a channel swap and the secondary system must send an acknowledgment to confirm it, constitutes a "vote" from each participant.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine the references because they address the same FH technology. It would have been obvious to implement Gendel's functional system using the explicit processor and memory architecture taught by Haartsen, as this was a well-known implementation method.
    • Expectation of Success: Implementing Gendel's disclosed flowcharts using Haartsen's standard processor-based architecture would be a predictable variation yielding no unexpected results.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge (Ground 4) against claims 10 and 22 based on the combination of Gendel, Haartsen, and Sage (Patent 5,781,582). Sage was added to this combination to explicitly teach transmitting channel performance data (error-rate statistics) from a mobile station to a base station.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Hopping Sequence": Petitioner argued this term should be construed as "the order in which the network hops among a set of frequencies," consistent with its well-understood meaning and the patent's specification.
  • "Vote": Petitioner argued this term, not explicitly defined, should mean "at least an indication whether to use (or not to use) the communications channel or an indication whether the communication channel is good or bad." This construction was central to mapping the prior art's channel selection and acknowledgment mechanisms to claims 11 and 23.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 9-12 and 21-24 of Patent 7,477,624 as unpatentable.