PTAB

IPR2018-01140

Apple Inc v. Corephotonics Ltd

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Key Events
Petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Optical Lens Assembly
  • Brief Description: The ’032 patent describes a compact, five-element telephoto lens assembly intended for electronic devices like mobile phones. The invention is directed to achieving good imaging quality in a small form factor by defining specific optical parameters, including a total track length (TTL) to effective focal length (EFL) ratio of less than 1.0.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1 and 13 are anticipated under 35 U.S.C. §102 by Ogino.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ogino (Patent 9,128,267).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the "Example 6" embodiment described in Ogino explicitly discloses each and every limitation of independent claim 1 and dependent claim 13. Ogino was asserted to teach a five-lens telephoto assembly with a TTL of 4.387 mm (less than the claimed 6.5 mm) and an EFL of 4.428 mm, resulting in a TTL/EFL ratio of 0.99 (less than 1.0). Petitioner further mapped Ogino’s disclosure of a first lens with positive refractive power, a second lens with negative refractive power, and a focal length of the first lens (2.17 mm) that is smaller than half the TTL (2.1935 mm). For dependent claim 13, Petitioner pointed to Ogino's Table 11, which expressly provided an Abbe number of 54.87 (greater than 50) for the first lens and 23.63 (smaller than 30) for the second lens.

Ground 2: Claims 14 and 15 are obvious over Ogino in view of Chen II.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ogino (Patent 9,128,267) and Chen II (Patent 8,233,224).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that Ogino’s Example 6 provides a base system that meets all limitations of the parent claims, while Chen II provides the motivation and teaching for the specific lens shapes recited in the dependent claims. Claim 14 adds limitations that the first lens is a meniscus shape (taught by Ogino) and the second lens is a meniscus lens with a convex object-side surface. Petitioner argued this second lens configuration is explicitly taught by Chen II as a way to improve optical performance. Claim 15 adds a requirement for an F-number smaller than 2.9. Petitioner asserted that Ogino’s Example 6 explicitly discloses an F-number of 2.64, which would be maintained in the proposed combination.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would recognize that while Ogino’s telephoto system is compact, it suffers from significant vignetting (light blockage) and low relative illumination (falling below the 50% industry-standard threshold for mobile cameras). Chen II teaches a highly similar five-lens system that uses a meniscus-shaped second lens specifically to avoid vignetting and maintain high illumination. Petitioner argued a POSITA would be motivated to modify Ogino’s biconcave second lens with the meniscus-shaped second lens taught by Chen II to solve the known problems of vignetting and poor illumination, thereby improving the overall performance of Ogino’s design for its intended mobile device application.
    • Expectation of Success: The proposed modification was framed as a routine adjustment—substituting one known lens shape for another to achieve a predictable improvement in optical properties. Petitioner provided ray-tracing simulations (using Zemax software) to demonstrate that this combination would successfully reduce vignetting, mitigate ray aberration, and increase relative illumination to over 50%, all while maintaining the key telephoto characteristics of the Ogino system. This demonstrated a high likelihood of success.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Total Track Length (TTL)": Petitioner asserted this term should be construed as "the length of the optical axis spacing between the object-side surface of the first lens element and the image plane." This construction was based on the patent’s specification and its consistent meaning in the relevant art.
  • "Effective Focal Length (EFL)": Petitioner asserted this term, which was not expressly defined in the specification, should be construed as "the focal length of a lens assembly." This was argued to be the well-known, plain and ordinary meaning of the term to a person of ordinary skill in the art of optical design.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) and cancellation of claims 1 and 13-15 of the ’032 patent as unpatentable.