PTAB

IPR2018-01414

DiTec Solutions LLC v. WobbleWorks Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: HAND-HELD THREE-DIMENSIONAL DRAWING DEVICE
  • Brief Description: The ’444 patent relates to a hand-held 3D drawing device that uses a motor-driven gear train to accept, melt, and extrude a thermoplastic strand through a nozzle. This mechanism allows a user to create free-form, three-dimensional objects.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

The petition asserted a single ground for unpatentability, arguing that all challenged claims are obvious under 35 U.S.C. §103.

Ground 1: Obviousness over Di Miceli - Claims 1-20 are obvious over Di Miceli.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Di Miceli (Application # 2010/0147465).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Di Miceli, which discloses a hand-held thermoplastic welding extruder, teaches every element of the challenged claims. Independent claims 1 and 18 call for a hand-held housing, a motor, a gear train, actuators, and a nozzle assembly to heat and extrude a material strand. Petitioner mapped these elements directly to Di Miceli’s corresponding components: its bar-shaped housing with a grab handle, an internal electric motor, a gearbox connected to an extruder screw, at least one "operating element" (switch/selector) on the handle, and a heated plasticization unit with an exit nozzle. Petitioner contended that Di Miceli's "cooled guard tube," through which supplied air flows, meets the "cooling port" limitation.
    • Motivation to Combine (or Modify): As a single-reference obviousness challenge, the argument focused on the motivation to make minor modifications to Di Miceli. Petitioner asserted that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have recognized Di Miceli's hand welding tool as being capable of functioning as a 3D drawing device. For limitations not explicitly shown, such as having two distinct actuators for different extrusion speeds (claim 6), Petitioner argued a POSITA would find it obvious to modify Di Miceli’s disclosed "at least one operating element" to include two buttons. This modification would be a simple, predictable way to improve user control, a known objective for such devices. Similarly, adding a motor-reverse feature (claim 7) was presented as an application of a well-known technique to retract filament, motivated by the desire to reduce unwanted material extrusion.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted that any modifications required to align Di Miceli with the claims would have been simple design choices with a high expectation of success. For example, substituting common buttons for Di Miceli's switches (claim 13) or adding an internal fan for cooling (claim 16) instead of relying on an external air supply were described as routine engineering tasks that would yield predictable and desirable results.
    • Key Aspects: Petitioner emphasized that while Di Miceli was cited during the prosecution of the ’444 patent, it was never substantively analyzed or applied by the examiner. Therefore, the detailed teachings of this reference were not previously considered in the manner presented in the petition.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner argued for a broad construction of the terms "upper housing" and "lower housing" (recited in dependent claim 3) to mean "distinct components of the housing that together form an internal volume and whose orientation is not bound by the ordinary gravitational frame of reference."
  • This construction was critical to Petitioner's obviousness argument, as it allowed Di Miceli’s distinct front "welding segment" and rear "grab handle" to be interpreted as satisfying the "upper" and "lower" housing limitations, respectively, even though they are arranged longitudinally rather than vertically in a gravitational sense.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-20 of the ’444 patent as unpatentable.