PTAB

IPR2016-00592

Xactware Solutions Inc v. Eagle View Technologies Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Concurrent Display Systems and Methods for Aerial Roof Estimation
  • Brief Description: The ’737 patent describes systems and methods for determining roof measurement information from one or more aerial images of a building. The technology involves generating a three-dimensional model based on correlations between at least two images and concurrently displaying specified roof features on the images shown to the user.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Hsieh and Applicad - Claims 1, 8-10, 16, 19, 22, 25-28, 31, and 33-36 are obvious over Hsieh in view of Applicad.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Hsieh (a 1995 publication from Carnegie Mellon titled “Design and Evaluation of a Semi-Automated Site Modeling System”) and Applicad (a Nov. 2002 publication titled “Product Bulletin – November 2002: Key features of our Roofing Software”).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Hsieh taught all limitations of the challenged claims except for generating and outputting a detailed roof estimate report. Hsieh disclosed a semi-automated system that could model roofs from multiple aerial images, concurrently displaying them and allowing a user to construct and manipulate three-dimensional building models as line drawings. When a user modified a line drawing on one image, Hsieh’s system would make a corresponding change on the other images. Petitioner contended that Applicad, a commercial roofing software, taught the missing element: a system that uses a 3D drawing to automatically calculate roofing materials and generate a detailed report with numerical values for slope, area, and edge lengths for the purpose of repair or construction.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine the roof reporting functionality of Applicad with the interactive, multi-image line-drawing features of Hsieh to create a more efficient and commercially useful system. This would involve a predictable integration of known methods to yield expected results. Petitioner noted that Applicad explicitly taught the ability to import roof models from other systems, suggesting a motivation for such a combination.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in this combination, as it amounted to using a known reporting engine (Applicad) to process the output of a known 3D modeling system (Hsieh).

Ground 2: Obviousness over Avrahami and Applicad - Claims 1, 9-10, 16, 19, 22, 25-28, 31, and 34-36 are obvious over Avrahami in view of Applicad.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Avrahami (a 2005 publication titled “Extraction of 3D Spatial Polygons Based on the Overlapping Criterion for Roof Extraction from Aerial Images”) and Applicad (a Nov. 2002 publication).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: As an alternative to Hsieh, Petitioner argued that Avrahami taught a semi-automatic system that extracts 3D spatial polygons of a roof from a pair of aerial images. A user manually points to a seed point in a first image, and the system segments the area, extracts a polygon, and then finds the corresponding polygon in the second image through an iterative matching process. This process involved displaying line drawings over aerial images from different views and interactively generating roof models. As in Ground 1, Petitioner asserted that Applicad supplied the missing claim limitation of generating a detailed numerical roof estimate report for construction or repair purposes.
    • Motivation to Combine: The motivation to combine Avrahami and Applicad was substantially the same as for Hsieh and Applicad. A POSITA would have been motivated to integrate the 3D roof extraction capabilities of Avrahami with the robust report-generation features of Applicad to create a comprehensive and practical tool for roof estimation. This combination would represent a simple application of a known technique to an existing device to improve its functionality.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner argued that the combination would have been predictable, as Applicad’s software was designed to process 3D models and would function as intended when provided a model generated by the methods taught in Avrahami.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges for claim 10 based on the primary combinations of Hsieh/Applicad and Avrahami/Applicad, with the further addition of Perlant (a 1990 publication) to teach registering images to a reference grid using a user-specified marker.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "wire frame": Petitioner proposed that this term should be construed as "a type of model of an object represented by lines." This construction was argued to be consistent with the patent’s specification and necessary for mapping the term to the line-drawing and wireframe representations disclosed in Hsieh.
  • "reference grid": Petitioner proposed this term be construed as "a data structure to which one or more images are registered." This construction was central to the arguments for claim 10, particularly those involving Perlant, which taught registering aerial images to a reference grid to facilitate 3D model generation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 8-10, 16, 19, 22, 25-28, 31, and 33-36 as unpatentable.