PTAB

IPR2017-01701

Apple Inc v. Valencell Inc

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Petition
petition Intelligence

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Method and Systems for Monitoring Physiological and Environmental Information
  • Brief Description: The ’730 patent discloses wearable monitoring devices, such as earpieces or armbands, that integrate physiological, environmental, and motion sensors. The system is designed to process sensor data to remove motion-related artifacts and analyze the corrected information to identify or predict health issues associated with a user.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation of Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 14, and 15 by Stivoric

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Stivoric (Application # 2004/0039254).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Stivoric discloses every element of independent claim 1 and its challenged dependents. Stivoric describes a wearable monitoring apparatus with a housing, physiological sensors (for pulse rate, temperature, etc.), a motion sensor (accelerometer), a processor, a transmitter, and a power source. Petitioner asserted that Stivoric teaches a method of obtaining physiological data alongside subject motion information (e.g., from footfalls), processing the motion data to identify its type (e.g., running), using this identified motion to remove corrupted signals (artifacts) from the physiological data, and finally, analyzing the processed physiological data in context with the identified motion to determine health issues, such as sleep patterns and quality.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claims 3 and 7-13 over Stivoric in view of Mault

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Stivoric (Application # 2004/0039254) and Mault (Application # 2004/0254501).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that while Stivoric teaches the foundational system for monitoring and analyzing physiological data in context with motion, Mault provides the explicit teaching for claim 3’s limitation of "identifying a source of stress." Stivoric discloses determining a general "stress level" using sensor data, but Mault was cited for its method of quantifying stress and explicitly identifying its sources by correlating physiological data (e.g., metabolic rate) with environmental and motion-related events (e.g., noises, doctor visits). Similarly, for claim 7, Mault was argued to explicitly teach correlating environmental condition information with physiological information to identify relationships.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Stivoric and Mault as both relate to non-invasive physiological monitoring. A POSITA reviewing Stivoric's system, which already calculates a general stress level, would have been motivated to look to analogous art like Mault to implement more advanced analytical features, such as identifying the specific causes of that stress. This would have been a predictable improvement to enhance the utility of Stivoric’s device.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner argued that programming Stivoric's processor to perform the correlation and source-identification analyses taught by Mault would have been a routine task for a POSITA. It involved applying a known analytical technique to a known type of sensor device to yield the predictable result of a more detailed and useful health assessment.

Ground 3: Obviousness of Claim 16 over Stivoric in view of Scanlon

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Stivoric (Application # 2004/0039254) and Scanlon (Patent 5,853,005).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground focused on claim 16's requirement that the monitoring device is an "earpiece module." Petitioner argued that Stivoric teaches a versatile monitoring system attachable to various body parts (e.g., armband, chest strap) and even incorporates Scanlon by reference. Scanlon explicitly discloses a monitoring system with acoustic and movement sensors specifically configured to fit within a user's ear to monitor functions like heartbeat and breathing.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to configure the Stivoric monitoring system into the earpiece form factor taught by Scanlon. The ear is a well-known and advantageous location for physiological sensing due to its proximity to major arteries and relative stability during movement. Therefore, adapting Stivoric's versatile sensor technology to the specific, known earpiece form factor from Scanlon would have been an obvious design choice to improve performance and user convenience.
    • Expectation of Success: Modifying the housing of Stivoric's device to be an earpiece was presented as a simple and predictable combination of known elements. A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in implementing Stivoric’s sensor and processing capabilities within the earpiece form factor disclosed by Scanlon.
  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted further obviousness challenges for claims 17 and 18 based on combinations including Stivoric 2005 (Application # 2005/0245839) and Mault, relying on similar motivations to add explicit teachings for removing motion artifacts from environmental data and analyzing that data to identify stress sources.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "earpiece module": Petitioner proposed this term be construed as "any type of device that may be attached to or near the ear of a user and may have various configurations, without limitation," based on the patent's specification. This broad construction was used to support the argument that combining Stivoric's general wearable device with Scanlon's specific in-ear monitor was an obvious modification.
  • "monitoring": Petitioner argued for a broad construction of "a way of getting information via one or more sensing elements including measuring, quantifying, qualifying, estimating, sensing, calculating..." This supported the contention that the general data collection methods described in the prior art met the corresponding claim limitations.

7. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) for claims 1-18 of Patent 8,157,730 and cancellation of those claims as unpatentable.