PTAB

IPR2015-00947

Vitro Packaging LLC v. SAVerGlass Inc

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Petition
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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Bottle
  • Brief Description: The ’197 patent claims an ornamental design for a bottle. The design features a generally cylindrical main body with a slight top-to-bottom taper, relatively square upper shoulders, a cylindrical neck with an annular transfer ring at its top, and a "double concave" bottom where the surface is concave facing both downwardly and upwardly.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Round Ink, CH-146, and CH-284 - Claim 1 is obvious over Round Ink in view of CH-146 and CH-284.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Round Ink (a bottle from a 1906 Illinois Glass Company catalog), CH-146 (a bottle from a pre-1930 Illinois Glass Company catalog), and CH-284 (a bottle from a pre-1930 Illinois Glass Company catalog).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the Round Ink bottle serves as a primary reference because its overall design is "basically the same" as the design of the ’197 patent. Round Ink disclosed a bottle with similar proportions, a square upper shoulder, and a cylindrical neck. To arrive at the claimed design, Petitioner asserted a POSITA would have modified Round Ink with features from CH-146 and CH-284. Specifically, CH-146 taught the slight top-to-bottom taper of the main body and the squarer shoulders seen in the claimed design. CH-284 taught the specific shape and proportions of the transfer ring at the top of the neck. Petitioner contended that after this combination, the only arguable difference from the claimed design was the "double concave" bottom, which it characterized as an insignificant feature insufficient to render the overall design non-obvious.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted that because all three prior art bottles have generally the same overall shape and are from the same field of bottle design, a POSITA would have found it obvious to combine their respective attributes. The combination was presented as a simple adaptation of known design elements common in the art.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner argued that combining these known bottle features was a matter of simple design choice and adaptation that would predictably result in the claimed design without any unexpected results.

Ground 2: Obviousness over CH-146 and CH-284 - Claim 1 is obvious over CH-146 in view of CH-284.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: CH-146 (a bottle from a pre-1930 Illinois Glass Company catalog) and CH-284 (a bottle from a pre-1930 Illinois Glass Company catalog).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: In this alternative ground, Petitioner used CH-146 as the primary reference, arguing its design characteristics are "basically the same" as the claimed design. CH-146 disclosed a cylindrical bottle with the claimed slight top-to-bottom taper and relatively square shoulders. The primary differences were identified as the neck width and the thickness of the transfer ring. Petitioner argued it would have been obvious to modify CH-146 by substituting the neck and thicker transfer ring disclosed in CH-284. The resulting combination would be a bottle design identical to the ’197 patent except for the double concave bottom, which Petitioner again dismissed as insufficient to confer patentability.
    • Motivation to Combine: The motivation to combine was argued to be particularly strong because both CH-146 and CH-284 were perfume bottles shown on the same page, opposite one another, in the same prior art catalog. Petitioner contended this presentation suggested they were variations of the same design, making it obvious for a designer to apply features from one to the other.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination involved substituting a known neck design onto a highly similar bottle body. Petitioner argued a POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in creating a functional and aesthetically consistent final design.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted two additional obviousness challenges that incorporated Trayser (Patent D509,433). These grounds added Trayser to the combinations above, arguing that should the Board find the shoulders of the primary references to differ from the claim, Trayser disclosed a shoulder and transition region that was identical to the claimed design and would have been obvious to incorporate.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests the institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claim 1 of the ’197 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.