PTAB

IPR2018-00464

RPX Corp v. Virtual Immersion Technologies LLC

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System and Method for Enabling Communication Between a Performer and a Participant in an Immersive Environment
  • Brief Description: The ’599 patent describes a system and method for enabling interactive, two-way communication between a "performer" and one or more "participants" within an immersive virtual reality (VR) environment. The system integrates live or prerecorded video and audio of the performer into a shared virtual space, allowing participants to interact with the performer and the environment.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1, 2, 8, and 9 are obvious over Ritchey

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ritchey (Patent 5,495,576).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Ritchey, which discloses a VR audio-visual system for telepresence, teaches every limitation of the independent claims. Ritchey’s system immerses users (termed "viewers," analogous to the ’599 patent’s "participants" and "performers") in a virtual scene using 3D audio/video sensors and outputs. These viewers can manipulate virtual objects via input devices (e.g., keyboards, data gloves) and communicate with each other through a teleconferencing function that transmits live video and audio over a network. Petitioner contended that Ritchey's disclosure of a symmetric system where all viewers can send and receive video and audio meets the limitations for performer/participant inputs, outputs, and live interaction. The "immersive environment" was allegedly met by Ritchey’s head-mounted displays (HMDs) and large display assemblies.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): Not applicable for a single-reference obviousness ground. Petitioner argued that Ritchey alone discloses or renders obvious all elements. To the extent an asymmetry between "performer" and "participant" was required by the claims (i.e., only the performer can send video), Petitioner argued a POSITA would find it obvious to simply omit the video capture hardware from one user's station in Ritchey's system to reduce cost and bandwidth, a predictable design choice.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in implementing Ritchey's disclosed telepresence features, as they were based on well-understood VR and networking technologies of the time.

Ground 2: Claims 3, 4, and 5 are obvious over Ritchey and Goldfarb

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ritchey (Patent 5,495,576) and Goldfarb (Patent 6,075,868).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground challenged dependent claims that add specific output devices. Ritchey provided the base VR system as established in Ground 1. Goldfarb was introduced to teach the limitations of a participant output device comprising "at least one seat" (claim 3) and a "rumble seat" providing sound and movement (claim 5). Goldfarb discloses a VR seating system with an integrated audio system and an electromechanical vibrational transducer for tactile feedback, directly corresponding to the "rumble seat" limitation.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would combine Ritchey and Goldfarb because both references are directed to the same field of VR and share the common goal of enhancing user immersion. Petitioner asserted it would have been an obvious and predictable step to augment the audio-visual immersion of Ritchey’s system with the known haptic and tactile feedback technology taught by Goldfarb to create a more compelling user experience.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): Integrating a haptic feedback seat like Goldfarb's into a VR system like Ritchey's was a straightforward application of known technologies, presenting no undue technical hurdles.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges against claims 6 and 7. These grounds built upon the Ritchey and Goldfarb combination by adding further references—Tompkins (Patent 4,710,917) and Seligmann (Patent 6,330,022) for claim 6, and Leahy (Patent 6,219,045) for claim 7—to teach conventional processing components (e.g., audio/video switchers, control computers) and functionalities (e.g., user registration systems) not explicitly detailed in the primary references.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "performer" and "participant": Petitioner argued that under the broadest reasonable interpretation, there is no substantive difference between these roles, as both users have largely the same capabilities to interact with the environment. The only explicit distinction in the claims is that the environment must include a video image of the "performer." Petitioner proposed that a "performer" is simply "a participant who is capable of sending a video image of him or herself." This construction was central to mapping Ritchey's symmetric two-way telepresence system, where both viewers can send video, onto the claims.
  • "immersive virtual reality environment": Petitioner contended this term was defined by the patentee as its own lexicographer. The proposed construction was "a computer generated graphical environment wherein a participant is ‘immersed’... so as to provide... a sensation of being physically located within the graphical environment, such that a 25-degree diagonal field of view is provided no more than 10 feet from the viewer." This specific field-of-view requirement was used to argue that Ritchey’s HMDs and large-screen displays met the claim limitation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests the Board institute an inter partes review and determine that claims 1-9 of the ’599 patent are unpatentable.