PTAB

IPR2018-00504

Blasters Inc v. Waterblasting LLC

Log In
Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Cleaning System for Removing Coatings from a Hard Surface by High Pressure Liquid
  • Brief Description: The ’116 patent discloses a mobile cleaning system for removing coatings from surfaces like pavement. The system comprises a small, self-propelled tractor with a front-mounted blast head, which is tethered by hoses to a larger support truck that carries the water supply, high-pressure pump, and vacuum recovery system.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Jones, Breither, and NLB - Claims 1, 2, and 10 are obvious over Jones in view of Breither and NLB.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Jones (Patent 3,902,219), Breither (Patent 3,011,206), and NLB (StripeJet™ Brochure).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Jones disclosed the core system architecture: a motorized utility vehicle (tractor) with a cleaning head tethered to a separate service truck that houses the pumps and tanks. However, Jones relied on an external water source. Breither was cited for teaching a truck with a self-contained, partitioned tank for both a fresh liquid reservoir and a waste sump, solving the external source problem. NLB was introduced for its disclosure of a commercially available system (StripeJet™) using "ultra-high-pressure" water (up to 40,000 psi) and a high-power vacuum pump specifically for coating removal, teaching the "high pressure" and "high power" limitations of the claims.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Jones and Breither to make the portable cleaning system of Jones self-contained and independent of an external water supply, a clear improvement. A POSITA would then incorporate the high-power pumps and high-pressure nozzles from NLB into the Jones/Breither system to increase its power and expand its capability from general cleaning to the more demanding task of coating removal, a well-established path for improving such systems.
    • Expectation of Success: The proposed modifications involved the simple substitution of known components (e.g., replacing Jones's pump with NLB's more powerful pump) that would perform their known functions predictably, requiring no undue experimentation.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Clemons and NLB - Claims 1-4 and 10 are obvious over Clemons in view of NLB.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Clemons (Patent 6,381,801) and NLB (StripeJet™ Brochure).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground presented an alternative starting point. Clemons disclosed a large, single-vehicle cleaning system with onboard water delivery and vacuum recovery. Petitioner argued this system was ill-suited for cleaning areas with limited access. NLB, as in Ground 1, disclosed a compact, maneuverable tractor (StripeJet™) specifically designed for such tight spaces. The combination mapped to the claims by using the large Clemons vehicle as the support truck and the smaller NLB tractor as the tethered cleaning vehicle.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to improve the versatility of the large Clemons system by incorporating the smaller, more maneuverable NLB tractor. This would allow a single system to efficiently clean both large, open areas (using the main Clemons vehicle) and areas with limited access (using the tethered NLB tractor), with the Clemons vehicle providing the necessary water, power, and vacuum support.
    • Expectation of Success: Tethering a smaller cleaning apparatus to a larger support vehicle was a known and predictable system architecture in the art. Coupling the hoses of the NLB tractor to the corresponding pump and tank outlets on the Clemons vehicle was a straightforward engineering task with a high expectation of success.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges. Ground 2 added Herhold (Patent 6,889,914) to the Jones combination to teach a shroud for the blast head (claim 3). Ground 3 added Schrunk (Patent 5,494,393) to the Jones/Herhold combination to teach the transverse docking of a utility vehicle on a truck bed (claims 5-6). Ground 5 added Schrunk to the Clemons/NLB combination for the same purpose.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "high pressure": Petitioner argued this term should be construed broadly according to its plain and ordinary meaning as "pressures higher than normal, especially higher than atmospheric pressure." This construction was proposed to prevent the Patent Owner from improperly importing a specific numerical pressure range (e.g., "25,000-40,000 psi") from the specification's examples, a range the patentee had not included in the claims themselves.
  • "mobile frame": The specification provided conflicting definitions, stating the mobile frame is both a "self-propelled tractor" and an "integral part of a truck." Petitioner argued that in the context of claim 1, which requires the frame to be part of the truck, a POSITA would resolve this drafting error by understanding "mobile frame" to mean the truck's chassis, consistent with its dictionary definition.
  • "articulating link": Petitioner proposed construing this term as "a connecting structure that connects two parts in such a way as to permit relative movement." This construction was central to arguing that the simple swivel joints disclosed in the prior art, which allow for horizontal and vertical rotation, met the claim limitation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-6 and 10 of the ’116 patent as unpatentable.