PTAB

IPR2016-00721

Bedgear LLC v. Sheex Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Bed Sheet Made From Performance Fabric
  • Brief Description: The ’982 patent discloses methods for making wide bed sheets from performance fabrics. The invention addresses the difficulty of manufacturing wide, circular-knit elastic fabrics (e.g., containing spandex), which tend to sag and distort during finishing processes, by forming at least two narrower discrete fabric portions and joining them together to create a finished fabric at least 90 inches wide.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Haggerty, Stewart, and Fleissner - Claims 1-17 are obvious over Haggerty in view of Stewart and Fleissner.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Haggerty (Patent 7,200,883), Stewart (Application # 2005/0284189), and Fleissner (Patent 3,696,475).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the primary references disclose the core elements of the challenged claims. Haggerty teaches "bi-sectional bed sheets," including king-size flat sheets over 90 inches wide, formed by joining two separate fabric sections along their edges. Stewart teaches making bed sheets from circular-knit fabrics that include spandex, i.e., elastic performance fabrics. The combination of Haggerty and Stewart thus taught joining two discrete portions of circular-knit performance fabric to form a finished bed sheet over 90 inches wide. Fleissner, which describes finishing processes for knit fabrics, was cited to demonstrate the well-known problem that wider knit fabrics have a tendency to sag, and this sag interferes with finishing by causing distortions. This combination allegedly taught every limitation of the independent claims.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted a POSITA would combine Haggerty and Stewart to construct a bed sheet with different fabric characteristics in each section, a benefit explicitly taught by Haggerty. A POSITA would have been further motivated to consult Fleissner to understand the known finishing limitations of wide-knit fabrics, like those in Stewart. This knowledge of sag-related finishing problems would provide the rationale for adopting Haggerty's method of joining narrower fabric panels to produce a wide sheet, thus avoiding the issues described in Fleissner.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success, as the combination involved using a known fabric type (Stewart) in a known multi-panel product construction (Haggerty) to overcome a well-understood manufacturing problem (sag in wide fabrics, as detailed in Fleissner).

Ground 2: Obviousness over Haggerty and Laycock - Claims 1-17 are obvious over Haggerty in view of Laycock.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Haggerty (Patent 7,200,883) and Laycock (Patent 7,117,695).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued this combination also taught all claim limitations. Haggerty again provided the foundational teaching of joining two fabric sections to create bed sheets wider than 90 inches. Laycock taught methods for making circular-knit elastic performance fabrics using spandex and high-gauge (e.g., 24 and 28 gauge) knitting machines. Critically, Laycock explicitly explained that the properties of spandex-based fabrics (e.g., increased elongation or sag) could render the fabric "inappropriate for subsequent cut and sew operations," which Petitioner equated with the claimed interference with a "finishing process." The combination of joining Laycock's high-gauge performance fabric using Haggerty's bi-sectional method allegedly rendered the claims obvious.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to combine these references for reasons described in Haggerty, such as creating a bed sheet with differential warming or cooling zones by using Laycock's performance fabric for one or both sections. The known width limitations associated with manufacturing and finishing elastic performance fabrics, as acknowledged in Laycock, would have provided a strong motivation to adopt Haggerty's technique of joining narrower fabric portions to create a wider finished product.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner contended the combination amounted to a simple substitution of one known fabric type (Laycock) into a known product configuration (Haggerty) to achieve predictable benefits and overcome known manufacturing hurdles.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner argued for a specific construction of the limitation requiring a "performance fabric having an elasticity such that the performance fabric has a tendency to sag ... such that the sag would interfere with the finishing process if the performance fabric were circularly knit at greater than a 72.5 inch circumference."
  • Petitioner contended this limitation does not describe a novel feature but is merely a recitation of the well-known, inherent properties of prior art spandex-based performance fabrics. The petition asserted that the patent’s own specification and prosecution history confirm that these sag characteristics were a known problem that the invention sought to solve, not a novel property of the fabric itself. This construction was central to Petitioner's argument that prior art teaching spandex-based fabrics inherently disclosed this limitation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-17 of the ’982 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.