PTAB

IPR2015-00461

Morris & Associates Inc v. Cooling & Applied Technology Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Auger Type Food Product Chiller
  • Brief Description: The ’622 patent discloses an auger-type chiller for food products, particularly poultry carcasses. The system uses a semi-cylindrical tank with a rotating auger to move carcasses in a counter-flow direction to chilling water, which is externally refrigerated and recirculated.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1 and 3-8 are obvious over Innes in view of Crawford.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Innes (Patent 4,860,554) and Crawford (Patent 4,788,831).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Innes, an auger-style poultry chiller, disclosed the core structure of challenged claim 1, including a semi-cylindrical tank, a rotating auger for moving product, a specific water level, and a tank inner surface that conforms closely to the auger. Petitioner argued that Innes’s disclosure of a coaxial arrangement between the auger and tank met the claim limitation requiring the tank wall to be "parallel" to the auger edges. Crawford was introduced to supply the remaining elements of claim 1, specifically an external water recirculation and refrigeration system, which Crawford teaches for use with a poultry chiller. Petitioner contended that Crawford’s external heat exchanger, pumps, and water lines met the means-plus-function limitations for discharging, refrigerating, and re-circulating the chilling water.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine Crawford's external water refrigeration and recirculation system with the chiller of Innes to improve chilling efficiency and conserve water. Innes itself suggested using pre-chilled water from an external source, and Crawford disclosed a well-understood, common method for achieving this. The combination was presented as a predictable substitution of one known chilling system for another to achieve a known benefit.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a reasonable expectation of success because combining these known elements involved applying a conventional chilling system (Crawford) to a conventional chiller (Innes) for its intended purpose, requiring no undue experimentation.

Ground 2: Claims 1 and 3-8 are obvious over Innes in view of Morris ’000.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Innes (Patent 4,860,554) and Morris ’000 (Patent 5,868,000).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground presented an alternative combination where Innes again supplied the primary auger chiller structure. Morris ’000, another counter-flow auger chiller, was used to teach the external refrigeration and recirculation system, as well as an unloader for removing carcasses. Petitioner asserted that the refrigeration unit and associated water lines in Morris ’000 explicitly disclosed the means for discharging, refrigerating, and re-circulating chilling water. For claim 3, Petitioner argued that the unloaders taught in both Innes and Morris ’000 met the claimed "means for removing the food product," making the combination of the Morris ’000 unloader with the Innes chiller a simple substitution of equivalent components.
    • Motivation to Combine: The motivation was similar to Ground 1: a POSITA would be motivated to incorporate the more efficient external refrigeration/recirculation system of Morris ’000 into the Innes chiller to achieve greater chilling capabilities and conserve water. Petitioner noted that the ’622 patent’s own background section cites systems like Morris ’000 as common in the art. The combination would also involve substituting one known unloader for another equivalent unloader.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was argued to be predictable, as it involved integrating known systems to perform their respective, known functions without changing their principles of operation.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including that claim 2 is obvious over the combination of Innes, Crawford, and Morris ’101 (Ground II) and over the combination of Innes, Morris ’000, and Morris ’101 (Ground IV). In both grounds, Morris ’101 (Patent 3,410,101) was added solely to teach the claimed "means for sloping said tank," a feature known in the art to facilitate draining and cleaning.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner argued for constructions under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard. For several key terms, Petitioner adopted the definitions previously advanced by the Patent Owner during ex parte reexamination of the ’622 patent.
  • "parallel": Petitioner adopted the Patent Owner's definition of "everywhere equally distant." This construction was central to the argument that the coaxial arrangement of the auger and tank in Innes—where the components share a common axis— inherently met this limitation for the inner tank surface and the outer auger edges.
  • Means-Plus-Function Terms: For multiple limitations written in means-plus-function format (e.g., "means for removing," "refrigerating means"), Petitioner identified the corresponding structures from the ’622 patent’s specification, often adopting positions the Patent Owner had taken in co-pending district court litigation.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that the Board should institute review despite a prior ex parte reexamination of the ’622 patent. The petition asserted that the arguments and prior art combinations presented were not previously considered by the Patent Office. Specifically, Petitioner noted that after the Patent Owner substantially amended the claims during reexamination, the Examiner did not rely on Innes or Crawford as a basis for rejection. Therefore, the core combinations asserted in the petition (e.g., Innes with Crawford) had not been evaluated against the challenged claims in their current form, presenting new issues for the Board to consider.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-8 of the ’622 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.