PTAB

IPR2017-02146

Ciena Corporation v. Oyster Optics, LLC

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Optical Fiber Communications
  • Brief Description: The ’511 patent is directed to methods and systems for secure optical fiber communications. The invention purports to provide tapping detection capabilities by using an "energy level detector" that monitors the average optical power of a signal and compares it to reference levels to identify potential taps, tampering, or other signal degradation.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-7 and 9-15 are obvious over Corke in view of Wan.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Corke (Patent 5,510,917) and Wan (Patent 6,819,879).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Corke disclosed a foundational wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) optical communication system with transmitters, receivers, and route protection, but lacked certain claimed details. Wan, in the same technical field, allegedly supplied these missing elements. Specifically, while Corke taught tapping a portion of an optical signal for monitoring, Wan taught the specific technique of using a low-pass filter (LPF) on the tapped signal to determine its average power, directly corresponding to the ’511 patent’s energy detection method. Furthermore, Petitioner contended that modifying Corke’s system to use a transmitter like Wan’s, which handles both payload and non-payload data and uses a controller to modulate a laser, would have been an obvious improvement. The petition asserted that enclosing these components in a "telecommunications box" was a well-known, conventional practice for protection and modularity.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Wan’s sophisticated signal processing and modulation techniques with Corke’s established WDM architecture. This combination would predictably result in a more feature-rich and robust system capable of transmitting non-payload supervisory data alongside payload data, a known objective in the field.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success because both references operate in the same field of optical networking, utilize compatible WDM technologies, and the combination represents the application of known techniques to achieve a predictable improvement in system functionality.

Ground 2: Claims 8 and 16 are obvious over Corke, Wan, and Large.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Corke (Patent 5,510,917), Wan (Patent 6,819,879), and Large (Patent 4,749,247).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the system established in Ground 1 and introduced Large to address the additional limitations of claims 8 and 16, which required "continuously operating an OTDR to monitor the optical fiber." The combination of Corke and Wan provided the base optical communication system. Large was cited for its explicit disclosure of a self-monitoring fiber optic link that continuously monitors the fiber using an Optical Time Domain Reflectometry (OTDR) signal to detect perturbations.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to incorporate the continuous OTDR monitoring taught by Large into the Corke-Wan system. This would enhance network security and fault detection, which are the stated goals of the ’511 patent, by providing an independent and well-known method for detecting physical disturbances to the fiber.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was presented as obvious, as it involved adding a standard, known monitoring component (an OTDR) to an existing communication system to gain a well-understood benefit (continuous monitoring), representing a predictable implementation.

Ground 3: Claims 1-3 and 9-11 are anticipated by Wan.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wan (Patent 6,819,879).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Wan, standing alone, disclosed every element of these claims. Wan was argued to teach a method for operating an optical multiplexer, including feeding input data (both payload and non-payload) to controllers that modulate a laser as a function of the data. For the phase-modulation-specific claims (9-11), Wan’s use of a BPSK modulator was cited. Petitioner contended that Wan’s transmitter and multiplexer constituted the claimed "telecommunications box" and that its output—an optical signal carrying an electronic data stream—met the limitation of an "electronic data output." Wan also disclosed tapping a portion of the signal, converting it to an electrical signal, and filtering it with an LPF to measure its mean power, thus anticipating the energy detection and filtering limitations.
    • Key Aspects: This ground relied on a broad interpretation of "telecommunications box" and "electronic data output," which Petitioner argued was consistent with the ’511 patent’s specification.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges based on the combination of Wan and Ade (Patent 5,347,601), arguing Ade provided an explicit integrated transceiver design that could be incorporated into Wan's system to satisfy the "telecommunications box" limitation even under a narrower construction.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "electronic data output": Petitioner argued this term should not be narrowly construed to require non-optical data. Based on the ’511 patent’s own specification acknowledging that an optical signal can carry an electronic data stream, Petitioner contended that an optical output signal from a multiplexer, like that in Wan, qualifies as an "electronic data output." This construction was critical to Petitioner's anticipation argument in Ground 3.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-16 of the ’511 patent as unpatentable.