PTAB

IPR2017-01974

Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Method and Apparatus for Discontinuous Reception of Connected Terminal in a Mobile Communication System
  • Brief Description: The ’588 patent discloses a method for power saving in a mobile terminal using a Discontinuous Reception (DRX) operation. The system controls the length of an active time period by starting and restarting a first timer and a second timer based on the detection of network activity and associated data transmissions.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation over Gollnick - Claims 1, 4, 5, 7, 10-11 are anticipated under 35 U.S.C. §102 by Gollnick.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gollnick (Application # 2004/0073933).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued Gollnick discloses all limitations of the independent claims. Gollnick teaches a power-saving standby mode for a roaming terminal that uses a one-second timer (the claimed "first timer") to actively monitor a shared channel for control data (e.g., a POLL frame). When control data indicating a new transmission is received while this first timer is active, Gollnick starts a ten-second timer (the claimed "second timer"). If subsequent transmissions are received while the ten-second timer is running, the timer is restarted. This process directly maps to the claimed method of starting a first timer to monitor a channel, and then starting or restarting a second timer upon receipt of control data.
    • Key Aspects: Petitioner contended that Gollnick's flowcharts (Figs. 29 and 30) explicitly show the two-timer system, where the first timer maintains an initial "awake" state for monitoring and the second timer extends this "awake" state upon data activity, directly reading on the core invention.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Gollnick and Harris - Claims 1, 4-7, and 10-12 are obvious over Gollnick in view of Harris.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gollnick (Application # 2004/0073933), Harris (Patent 6,871,074).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Gollnick teaches the core two-timer DRX functionality. To the extent Gollnick's system is not considered a "mobile communication system" as claimed, Harris explicitly teaches a DRX operation for energy conservation "within a cellular communication system" (e.g., UMTS or CDMA2000). Harris further teaches using a shared control channel in such a system.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Gollnick's efficient timer-based power management with the well-known cellular environment of Harris. The motivation was to gain the benefits of a more efficient, reliable, and higher-speed network for data transmission to roaming terminals, which was a known objective at the time. Applying Gollnick's power-saving scheme to an existing cellular standard like that in Harris would have been a predictable upgrade.
    • Expectation of Success: Combining a known power-saving method with a standard cellular network was a predictable implementation yielding no unexpected results, as both references addressed the common problem of battery conservation in mobile devices.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Gollnick and Muqattash - Claims 2-3, 8-9, and 11 are obvious over Gollnick in view of Muqattash.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gollnick (Application # 2004/0073933), Muqattash (Application # 2007/0160027).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground targets dependent claims requiring timer durations and starting information to be received from a "Node B." Petitioner argued that while Gollnick provides the base two-timer system, Muqattash teaches a "dynamic wakeup period" where a source device, such as a base station ("Node B"), sends recommendations for hibernation and active periods to a target device based on anticipated traffic patterns. This directly teaches receiving timer control information from the network.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Gollnick's timer mechanism with Muqattash's dynamic scheduling to further enhance power savings. Muqattash allows the network, which has superior information about pending traffic, to intelligently tailor the active/sleep periods. This would make the system in Gollnick more flexible and efficient than one relying on fixed, pre-set timer values, achieving the shared goal of minimizing transceiver active time.
    • Expectation of Success: Integrating network-controlled timer durations from Muqattash into the basic timer system of Gollnick would have been a straightforward optimization using known techniques to achieve a more efficient result.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, primarily building on the Gollnick reference. These grounds proposed combining Gollnick with TS 25.321 to explicitly teach a standardized High Speed-Shared Control Channel (HS-SCCH) and a "New Data Indicator," and with Libes to teach implementing the timers in separate software structures for code efficiency and readability.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Discontinuous Reception (DRX) Operation": Petitioner proposed construing this term as "an operation where a UE wakes up at a predetermined time, monitors a predetermined channel for a predetermined time period, and then enters again into a sleep mode in an idle state." Petitioner argued this construction is taken directly from the ’588 patent’s own description of conventional DRX.
  • "timer": Petitioner proposed the construction "a mechanism capable of determining the passage of a particular amount of time." Petitioner asserted this broad construction is appropriate as the patent does not limit timers to a specific hardware or software structure, and the claims recite multiple timers with different functions.
  • "Control Channel": Petitioner proposed construing this as "a channel that carries control information." It argued the specification shows this channel can also carry other information (e.g., user data packets), so it should not be limited to carrying exclusively control information.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-12 of Patent 8,457,588 as unpatentable.