PTAB

IPR2015-01987

LG Electronics Inc v. Core Wireless Licensing SARL

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Petition
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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Method and Arrangement for Choosing a Channel Coding and Interleaving Scheme for Certain Types of Packet Data Connections
  • Brief Description: The ’828 patent discloses a method and apparatus for use in a mobile device to dynamically select a channel coding and/or interleaving scheme for a packet data connection. The selection is based on Quality of Service (QoS) parameters requested by the mobile device, allowing the communication characteristics to be adapted to the specific needs of the connection, such as real-time voice or data transfer.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over GSM/GPRS Specifications and Olofsson - Claims 16-28 are obvious over the Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications in view of Olofsson.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications (a collection of five European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) standards published between 1997 and 1999) and Olofsson (Patent 6,134,230).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications collectively describe the standard operating procedure for a mobile station to establish a data connection in a General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) network, which mirrors the limitations of the challenged claims. The Specifications detail how a mobile station initiates a connection by sending an "Activate PDP Context Request" message containing a "Quality of Service Information Element" to a network decision-making device (the SGSN). The network then responds with a "Negotiated QoS" and subsequently sends messages containing a "Channel Coding Command," which dictates the coding scheme the mobile station must apply. Petitioner asserted this process directly teaches the claimed steps of communicating a request with QoS parameters, receiving a corresponding channel coding scheme, and applying that scheme upon connection establishment.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner contended that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have been motivated to combine the hardware disclosures of Olofsson with the protocols of the Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications. The Specifications define the functional requirements of a GPRS system, and a POSITA would have naturally looked to existing art like Olofsson—which explicitly discloses a mobile telephone with a microprocessor, transmitter, and receiver for use in a GSM/GPRS system—to find the necessary hardware components to implement those standards. Olofsson provides the enabling hardware for the standard’s functional protocol.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in making this combination. The effort would involve implementing a well-defined and public set of standards (the Prior GSM/GPRS Specifications) on hardware that was expressly designed for that very purpose (Olofsson). The combination was merely the practical application of a public standard using conventional technology.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Admitted Prior Art - Claims 16-28 are obvious over the Admitted Prior Art (APA) described in the ’828 patent.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: The ’828 patent’s own admissions regarding the state of the art, which Petitioner termed the Admitted Prior Art (APA).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the ’828 patent specification explicitly describes a "known procedure of QoS negotiation" as being part of the prior art. This admitted procedure involves a mobile station initiating a request for a new connection by selecting and suggesting QoS parameter values to a network device, which then decides on an appropriate channel coding scheme. Petitioner contended that the challenged claims (e.g., claim 16) only recite the elements of this admittedly "known" negotiation procedure. Crucially, the claims do not include the patent's purported inventive concept, which the specification describes as an "extension" to the known procedure wherein the mobile station chooses QoS parameters that "take into account the real time/non-real time nature of the desired connection."
    • Motivation to Combine: This argument did not rely on a combination of references. Instead, it asserted that the claims were obvious because they merely recited subject matter that the patentee had already conceded was in the public domain before the invention. The motivation was simply to use the known, standard procedure.
    • Expectation of Success: Not applicable in the traditional sense, as the argument was that the claimed method was already a known and successfully implemented procedure, as admitted by the patent owner in the patent’s own text.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 16-28 of the ’828 patent as unpatentable.