PTAB

IPR2017-00796

InfoBionic Inc v. Braemer Mfg LLC

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Control Of Data Transmission Between A Remote Monitoring Unit And A Central Unit
  • Brief Description: The ’767 patent discloses methods for efficient remote patient monitoring by selectively transmitting data based on urgency. The system uses a remote monitoring unit (RMU) to analyze physiological data, create a smaller "derived data set," and transmit an initial data set to a central unit (CU). The CU then analyzes this initial data and can instruct the RMU to send additional, more detailed data either immediately or at a later time to conserve system resources like battery life and network bandwidth.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-6, 9, 11-14, 16-20, 22, 24, and 26 are obvious over Ferguson in view of Kehr.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ferguson (Patent 6,454,708) and Kehr (WO 98/38909).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Ferguson, a remote patient monitoring system, taught nearly every limitation of the independent claims. Ferguson’s system included an RMU that obtained physiological data (e.g., ECG), derived summary data (e.g., heart rate), and transmitted a summary to a CU upon detecting a threshold-violating event. Ferguson’s CU could then analyze the summary and request more detailed data for immediate upload.
    • Motivation to Combine: The primary limitation Petitioner argued Ferguson did not expressly teach was instructing the RMU to transmit additional data at a delayed time. Kehr was combined to supply this teaching, as it explicitly disclosed a CU sending an "execution command" instructing an RMU to provide additional data either promptly or at a subsequent time based on medical urgency. A POSITA would combine these teachings to predictably manage network bandwidth, reduce communication costs, and conserve the battery life of a portable RMU by deferring non-urgent data transfers.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted that because both references described analogous remote patient monitoring systems addressing similar problems, a POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in integrating Kehr’s urgency-based scheduling into Ferguson’s system.

Ground 2: Claims 7, 15, 21, 23, and 25 are obvious over Ferguson, Kehr, and Yasushi.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ferguson (Patent 6,454,708), Kehr (WO 98/38909), and Yasushi (Patent 6,485,418).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the Ferguson and Kehr combination to address dependent claims requiring the CU to use a patient’s personal history in its analysis. While Ferguson mentioned analyzing "historical data," Petitioner argued Yasushi explicitly taught the claimed feature: a CU analyzing an initial data set from an RMU in conjunction with the patient’s stored "historical diagnosis information" to determine whether more detailed data was needed.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Yasushi's teaching with the Ferguson/Kehr system to improve diagnostic accuracy and clinical efficiency. Using patient history allows for the identification of trends over time and helps reduce false positives that would otherwise trigger unnecessary data transmissions, thereby wasting system resources.
    • Expectation of Success: Integrating historical data analysis into a monitoring system was a known and logical method for improving medical diagnostics, making its incorporation into the base combination straightforward.

Ground 3: Claims 1-6, 9, 11-14, 16-20, 22, 24, and 26 are obvious over Walker in view of Kehr.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Walker (WO 98/50873) and Kehr (WO 98/38909).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: As an alternative primary combination, Petitioner asserted that Walker disclosed nearly all limitations of the challenged claims. Walker’s RMU monitors biometric parameters, establishes a communications link when an alarm limit is triggered, and transmits buffered data to a CU. Upon receiving the initial data, Walker’s CU could initiate a "confirmation sequence" to obtain additional data, such as patient answers to a Q&A sequence, to confirm the patient's condition.
    • Motivation to Combine: The motivation to add Kehr was identical to that in Ground 1. Walker's system instructed the immediate transmission of additional data, while Kehr provided the explicit teaching of scheduling that transmission based on urgency. A POSITA would have found it obvious to incorporate Kehr's flexible timing mechanism to make more efficient use of the Walker system's resources.
    • Expectation of Success: The systems were closely analogous in purpose and architecture, making the combination routine and predictable for a skilled artisan.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted that claim 8 was obvious over Ferguson and Kehr in view of Surwit (Patent 6,980,958), which taught using both land-line and radio frequency terminals for enhanced communication flexibility. Petitioner also asserted an additional ground that claims 7, 15, 21, 23, and 25 were obvious over the combination of Walker, Kehr, and Yasushi, mirroring the logic of Ground 2.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "selectively establishes a communications link": Petitioner argued this term should be construed as "establishes a communications link when specifically instructed." This was proposed to ensure the term retained meaning against a potential interpretation that it simply meant establishing a link whenever cellular coverage was available.
  • "instructing ... as to a time": Petitioner argued this term should be construed as "specifying a time." This was intended to prevent the limitation from being read out of the claims by an interpretation that would cover automatic data transmission without an explicit timing instruction from the central unit.
  • Petitioner’s Stance: Petitioner contended that its obviousness arguments would prevail even under the broadest reasonable interpretation of the terms and that its proposed constructions were not strictly necessary to find the claims unpatentable.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review of claims 1-9 and 11-26 of the ’767 patent and cancellation of those claims as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.