PTAB

IPR2018-00898

Shenzhen Silver Star Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. v. iRobot Corporation

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Autonomous Coverage Robot
  • Brief Description: The ’553 patent discloses an autonomous coverage robot featuring a drive system, a bump sensor, and a proximity sensor. The system is designed to reduce the robot's speed in response to a signal from the proximity sensor indicating a potential obstacle, and to alter the robot's heading in response to a signal from the bump sensor indicating physical contact with an obstacle.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Jones-877, Kawakami, and Jones-355 - Claims 1, 4, 10-13, 22, and 25 are obvious over Jones-877 in view of Kawakami and Jones-355.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Jones-877 (Application # 2004/0049877), Kawakami (Patent 5,652,489), and Jones-355 (Application # 2004/0207355).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the combination of these three references rendered the claims obvious. Jones-877 was asserted to disclose the basic elements of independent claim 1, including an autonomous floor-cleaning robot with a drive system, bump sensors (obstacle detection sensors 52OD), and proximity sensors (wall sensing assembly 52WS). Kawakami was cited to teach the limitation of reducing the robot's speed upon detecting an obstacle with a proximity sensor. Jones-355 was introduced for its disclosure of various operational modes, such as slowing the robot to 77% of its normal speed for a preset distance and then ramping back to normal speed. Petitioner contended that the claimed feature of increasing the speed setting if the drive system does not receive a subsequent signal from the bump sensor was taught by the combined logic of Kawakami (resuming speed when an obstacle is no longer detected) and Jones-355 (ramping back to normal speed after a timed slow-down). Finally, the claimed feature of altering heading upon contact was taught by the "bounce" mode in Jones-877, which caused the robot to turn and evade an obstacle upon bumper displacement.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would be motivated to combine these references, all directed to autonomous cleaning robots, to create a product with more efficient cleaning and superior obstacle avoidance. The integration of known sensor-based speed and directional control logic from Kawakami and Jones-355 into the foundational robot design of Jones-877 was presented as a predictable and logical design choice to improve performance.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in making this combination because it involved the application of known sensor systems and control routines to improve a known device, which is a common and predictable technique in the field of robotics.

Ground 2: Anticipation by Suckmaster - Claims 1, 4, 11-13, 22, and 25 are anticipated by the Suckmaster Article and incorporated Suckmaster Code.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: "Suckmaster Article" ("Dale's Homemade Robots - Suckmaster II Vacuum Robot") and the incorporated "Suckmaster Code" ("suckmaster2.c"), both of which were asserted to be publicly available as early as June 20, 2002.

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that the Suckmaster prior art, describing a homemade vacuum robot built for a competition, disclosed every limitation of the challenged claims. The Suckmaster robot was described as having a drive system (motors, CPU, driver chip), a bump sensor (two front bump switches), and a proximity sensor (six-channel sonar). The petition provided detailed mapping from the prior art to the claim limitations. For example, the vacuum_random routine in the Suckmaster Code was shown to reduce the robot's speed from full speed (FWD5) to a lower speed (FWD3 or FWD2) upon sonar detection of an object within 20 or 12 inches, respectively, while continuing to move forward. The code also taught increasing the speed back to full (FWD5) on a subsequent program loop if the object was no longer detected, satisfying the speed resumption limitation. The code's avoid_object routine, in conjunction with descriptions in the article, explicitly instructed the robot to turn in response to a "bump switch detection," thereby altering its heading as claimed.
    • Key Aspects: The argument's foundation was the detailed and explicit disclosure within the publicly available source code. Petitioner leveraged specific code excerpts and function calls to demonstrate a direct one-to-one mapping with the claimed control logic, arguing that no modification or combination was necessary to arrive at the invention.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including that claim 22 is obvious over the Suckmaster references in view of Jones-355, and that claim 10 is obvious over the Suckmaster references alone. These grounds relied on the core teachings of Suckmaster and argued it would be obvious to a POSITA to modify its speed parameters or add a timer based on known robotic control principles.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 4, 10-13, 22, and 25 of Patent 8,600,553 as unpatentable.