Qualcomm Inc v. Bandspeed Inc

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2015-01580
• Patent #: 7,477,624
• Filed: July 13, 2015
• Petitioner(s): Qualcomm Incorporated
• Challenged Claims: 5-8 and 17-20

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Approach for Managing the Use of Communications Channels Based on Performance
• Brief Description: The ’624 patent discloses a system for managing channel usage in a frequency hopping (FH) wireless communications network. The system periodically assesses channel performance and selects a preferred set of channels (e.g., "good" channels) for subsequent communication between network participants.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation - Claims 5, 8, 17, and 20 are anticipated by Gerten

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Gerten (Patent 6,760,319).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Gerten discloses every limitation of the challenged claims. Gerten describes a system for improving interference immunity in an FH network where a master mobile unit identifies channels with strong interference based on signal strength measurements. It then selects a set of channels to avoid, effectively selecting a first set of "good" channels (the remaining ones) for communication with a slave unit. Gerten further teaches periodically updating the list of avoided channels, which constitutes selecting a second set of channels at a later time. The system’s ability to operate in a "normal mode" using all channels for legacy devices was argued to meet the "default set" limitation, and its piconet structure meets the requirements for first, second, and third participants. Petitioner asserted that Gerten's disclosure of loading synthesizer codes into an alternate register bank to modify the hopping sequence meets the claim 8 limitation of loading channels into a register.

Ground 2: Obviousness - Claims 6, 7, 18, and 19 are obvious over Gerten in view of Cuffaro

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Gerten (Patent 6,760,319), Cuffaro (Patent 6,418,317).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted Gerten teaches the foundational adaptive FH system but lacks explicit disclosure of two key features. First, for claims 6 and 18, Cuffaro was cited for its teaching of transmitting channel performance data from a remote (slave) device back to a master device to inform channel selection. Second, for claims 7 and 19, Cuffaro was cited for its disclosure of a channel selection criterion based on "voting." Cuffaro describes a system where interference measurements are used to cast votes for or against swapping an assigned frequency with an unassigned one, with a channel being selected for a swap after receiving a specified number of votes (e.g., reaching a maximum positive vote margin).
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Gerten and Cuffaro to improve the performance of Gerten’s system. Incorporating Cuffaro's slave-based reporting would provide more accurate channel performance data from the receiver's perspective, leading to a more robust identification of "bad" channels. Adding Cuffaro's voting mechanism would provide a known and effective criterion for making channel selection decisions.
  • Expectation of Success: The combination would have yielded predictable results, as both references operate in the same field of interference avoidance in wireless systems. The proposed modification was characterized as a simple substitution of one known element (master-only measurement) with another (slave-reported measurement) to gain a known benefit.

Ground 3: Obviousness - Claims 5, 7, 8, 17, 19, and 20 are obvious over Gendel in view of Haartsen

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

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued Gendel discloses a system that dynamically modifies an FH pattern by replacing "segments" of frequencies (a plurality of channels) that exhibit high reception error rates with unused segments. This process of identifying and replacing bad segments based on performance data was argued to meet the core "means for selecting" limitations. Gendel, however, describes this functionality via a "spreading code control unit" without explicitly disclosing a processor-based implementation. Haartsen was introduced to supply the explicit teaching of using a processor executing stored instructions to perform these exact types of hop selection and post-processing functions in an FH system. For claim 8, Petitioner argued that using a register to store the hopping table (as taught by Haartsen) would be an obvious design choice for Gendel's system to achieve the required access speed.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have found it obvious to implement the functional blocks described in Gendel using the processor-based architecture disclosed in Haartsen. This combination represents the implementation of a known algorithm on a general-purpose processor, a well-known and predictable approach in the art.
  • Expectation of Success: Success was expected because the combination merely applies a well-understood implementation (a processor) to a compatible system (Gendel's FH algorithm) within the same technical field.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge against claims 6 and 18 based on the combination of Gendel, Haartsen, and Sage (Patent 5,781,582). This ground used Sage to add the teaching of a remote device transmitting error-rate statistics back to a master device to inform the channel selection process of the Gendel/Haartsen system.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• "vote" (claims 7 and 19): Petitioner proposed that "vote[s] to use the particular communications channel" should be construed to 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 teachings of Cuffaro and Gendel to the voting limitations.
• Means-Plus-Function Limitations: For the numerous "means for..." limitations in the challenged claims, Petitioner identified the corresponding structure in the ’624 patent as a processor executing one or more sequences of instructions. This position was leveraged in the obviousness grounds to argue that implementing prior art functions on a processor (e.g., as taught by Haartsen) would be obvious.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 5-8 and 17-20 of Patent 7,477,624 as unpatentable.