PTAB

IPR2015-00614

Leapfrog Product Development LLC v. LifeFactory Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Protective Sleeve for Containers
  • Brief Description: The ’133 patent describes an elastic protective sleeve for containers, particularly glass bottles like baby bottles. The sleeve features a molded tubular body, often made of silicone and including a plurality of holes, designed to protect the container from breaking, enhance grip, and allow viewing of the contents.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation by Thoreson - Claims 1-5, 7, 9-10, 12-17, and 19-21 are anticipated by Thoreson.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Thoreson (Patent 1,690,509).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Thoreson, a 1928 patent for a "Bottle Protector," discloses every limitation of the challenged claims. Thoreson teaches a protective "casing" for a glass nursing bottle made from a resilient material like "rubber or the like." Petitioner asserted this casing is a tubular sleeve that would be understood by a Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) to be moldable and that "rubber or the like" encompasses silicone. The casing's latticed frame of horizontal and vertical strips forms the claimed "holes," and its thickened bottom portion is configured to extend over the bottom edge of the bottle to retain it, thus teaching the claimed "lip." The upper portion narrows to clamp a nipple, meeting the limitation of a first opening smaller than the main body.

Ground 2: Anticipation by Tobias - Claims 1-7, 9, 11-16, and 18-19 are anticipated by Tobias.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Tobias (Application # 2006/0081640).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that Tobias, which discloses a protective sleeve for a glass ampoule, anticipates the claims. The sleeve is described as having an elastic sidewall and can be constructed in ways that include molding. Tobias teaches a top opening and a partially closed bottom end with a port (a second opening) to retain the ampoule. The sleeve is made from materials including "polymer," which a POSITA would understand includes silicone. Tobias explicitly teaches adding "windows" to the sidewall to view the contents, satisfying the "holes" limitation. The top end of the sleeve can be "tapered radially inward" to prevent the ampoule from slipping out, meeting the limitation for a first opening that is narrower than the main body when the container is absent.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Insulating Sleeves - Claims 1-20 are obvious over Brunner in light of Scheetz.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Brunner (Application # 2008/0047967) and Scheetz (Application # 2004/0084460).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Brunner and Scheetz are directed to the same concept of an insulating sleeve for beverage containers. Brunner teaches a flexible, molded sleeve made of elastic materials that uses slits to expand. Scheetz teaches a similar sleeve with slits that extends to cover the bottom of a bottle, forming a lip that folds under the container. Petitioner asserted that combining Brunner's molded, elastic sleeve with Scheetz's bottom-covering design and bottle-neck conforming shape would result in the claimed invention. The slits or open cells in both references provide the claimed "holes" and gripping elements.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Brunner and Scheetz to create an improved beverage sleeve. Both references address the same problem using similar slit-based expansion mechanisms. It would have been obvious to apply Brunner's disclosed elastic and molded materials to the bottle-shaped sleeve of Scheetz to better conform to a bottle's neck. Likewise, a POSITA would have been motivated to incorporate Scheetz's bottom-covering feature into Brunner's design to provide better protection and stability, a known goal in the art.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining these references, as it involved applying known features (molded elastic materials, bottom-covering designs) from analogous devices to achieve the predictable result of a durable, form-fitting protective sleeve.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including that claims 1-5 and 7-21 are obvious over Thoreson in view of Spiegel (to add explicit teaching of silicone and a carrying tab), that claim 6 is obvious over Thoreson, Spiegel, and Amberg (to add an inner coating layer), and that claims 1-5, 7, 10-11, 12-15, and 17-20 are obvious over Yang in view of Koenig (combining two protective bottle sleeves to achieve a molded, elastic sleeve with decorative holes).

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "lip": Petitioner argued this term should be construed as "any curved or thickened portion of a surface extending inward or outward from the surface." This position was based on the patent owner's argument during prosecution that a prior art reference (Spriegel) lacked a lip because its sleeve "simply comes to an end" without a "fold or curl," implying that such a feature would constitute a lip.
  • "sleeve": Petitioner argued the term should be given its plain and ordinary meaning as something that at least partially covers or fits around an object, consistent with its broad use throughout the prior art.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-21 of the ’133 patent as unpatentable.