LG Electronics Inc v. Wi LAN Inc

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2018-00709
• Patent #: 8,867,351
• Filed: February 27, 2018
• Petitioner(s): LG Electronics, Inc., LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc., LG Electronics Mobilecomm U.S.A., Inc.
• Patent Owner(s): Wi-LAN Inc., Wi-LAN USA, Inc., Wi-LAN Labs, Inc.
• Challenged Claims: 1, 3-7, 9-12

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Apparatus, System and Method for the Transmission of Data with Different QOS Attributes
• Brief Description: The ’351 patent relates to a method and device for transmitting data from multiple logical channel queues over an output link. The system uses a prioritization and queuing engine where each queue is associated with different Quality of Service (QoS) attributes.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Pagan, Aatresh, and Bauman - Claims 1 and 3 are obvious over Pagan in view of Aatresh and Bauman.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Pagan (Patent 8,713,641), Aatresh (Patent 6,067,301), and Bauman (Patent 7,474,668).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the combination of these references taught all limitations of the challenged claims. Pagan taught a "nomadic router" for a mobile device capable of queuing and transmitting data. Aatresh taught a more sophisticated method of managing logical channel queues using a combination of priority and weighted fair queuing (WFQ) to allocate bandwidth and provide specified QoS. Bauman supplemented this by teaching the implementation of WFQ using a "leaky bucket" algorithm, which provides a priority-specific rate limit for each queue. This rate limit functions as the claimed "traffic shaping rate," and allocating bandwidth is limited by this rate, the available data, and the total transmission capacity, as claimed.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Aatresh’s detailed QoS queuing method with Pagan’s general-purpose nomadic router to achieve the predictable benefit of improved bandwidth management and avoidance of data starvation. Subsequently, a POSITA would be motivated to implement the known WFQ scheme of the Pagan/Aatresh combination using Bauman’s well-understood leaky bucket technique. This would predictably achieve the desired benefits of traffic shaping and a higher level of QoS control.
  • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying known queuing and traffic shaping techniques (Aatresh, Bauman) to a standard mobile routing device (Pagan) to improve its performance in a predictable way.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Pagan, Aatresh, Bauman, and Blaney - Claims 7 and 9 are obvious over the combination of references.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Pagan (’641 patent), Aatresh (’301 patent), Bauman (’668 patent), and Blaney (Patent 5,608,606).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds on the core combination of Pagan, Aatresh, and Bauman, which established the queuing and traffic shaping method within a mobile device. Blaney was introduced to teach a "radio transceiver for transmitting and receiving data," a limitation in claim 7. Blaney taught embedding a wireless transceiver into a PCMCIA card—the same type of hardware interface used for the nomadic router in Pagan—to provide cellular communication for a portable computer.
  • Motivation to Combine: Pagan explicitly contemplated that its nomadic router would operate in various networks, including "cellular." A POSITA seeking to implement this functionality would have been motivated to look to known solutions like Blaney, which taught integrating a radio transceiver into a PCMCIA card for this exact purpose. Combining Blaney with Pagan was presented as a straightforward integration of a known component to enable a disclosed capability, resulting in a smaller, more portable, and cost-effective device.
  • Expectation of Success: Incorporating a known transceiver technology into a mobile device to enable wireless communication was a common and well-understood practice, ensuring a high expectation of success.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Pagan, Aatresh, Bauman, and Chuah - Claims 4-6 are obvious over the combination of references.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Pagan (’641 patent), Aatresh (’301 patent), Bauman (’668 patent), and Chuah (Patent 6,327,254).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground adds the teachings of Chuah to the core combination to address limitations related to dynamic bandwidth allocation. Chuah taught that in a cellular network, a base station can dynamically allocate uplink bandwidth on a frame-by-frame basis. This addresses claim 6 ("data transmission capacity is allocated by a base station") and claim 4 ("capacity may change from a first frame to a second frame"). Chuah also taught segmenting data packets to fit within the allocated bandwidth for a given frame, meeting the limitation of claim 5.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to incorporate Chuah’s dynamic, base station-controlled bandwidth allocation into the Pagan/Aatresh/Bauman system to optimize the use of limited wireless bandwidth. This approach was argued to provide predictable benefits, such as more precise resource management, better QoS assurance, and collision avoidance in a multi-user cellular environment.
  • Expectation of Success: Dynamically allocating bandwidth from a base station was a known technique for managing network resources, and its application to a mobile device operating in a cellular network would have yielded predictable improvements in efficiency.
• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge against claims 10-12 based on the combination of Pagan, Aatresh, Bauman, Blaney, and Chuah. The arguments for these dependent claims relied on the same combinations and design modification theories established in the primary grounds.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that institution was warranted and discretionary denial under §325(d) would be improper. Petitioner disclosed that it was concurrently filing another IPR petition (IPR2018-00710) challenging the same claims but argued the petitions were not redundant. This petition relied on prior art predating the earliest claimed priority date, whereas the concurrent petition relied on different prior art and a central argument that the ’351 patent was not entitled to its claimed priority date.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 3-7, and 9-12 of Patent 8,867,351 as unpatentable.