PTAB

IPR2019-00318

CaptionCall LLC v. Ultratec Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System for Text Assisted Telephony
  • Brief Description: The ’380 patent discloses systems and methods for facilitating communication between a hearing user and a hard-of-hearing user. The system uses a hard-of-hearing user’s conventional phone device along with a separate, “independent” captioned device that receives and displays text transcriptions of the hearing user’s voice from a remote relay service.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Liebermann, Engelke '405, and Mukherji - Claims 1-50 and 52-63 are obvious over Liebermann in view of Engelke '405 and Mukherji.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Liebermann (Patent 5,982,853), Engelke '405 (Patent 5,724,405), and Mukherji (Patent 7,117,152).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the prior art combination teaches every element of the challenged claims. Liebermann discloses the foundational two-line communication system for a "deaf" user, where a first line connects to a hearing user and a second line connects to a voice-to-text transcription center (a relay). Engelke '405 teaches modifying such systems for "hard-of-hearing" users by providing simultaneous voice and text, and critically, discloses using an independent, stand-alone captioned device that can be coupled to a user's conventional phone. Finally, Mukherji teaches adding an activation button to a communication system to allow a user to initiate text assistance at any time during a call, not just at the beginning.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Liebermann and Engelke '405 to adapt a system for deaf users to the broader hard-of-hearing market by providing both voice and text. Engelke '405’s teaching of an independent device offered a known, flexible alternative to Liebermann’s integrated device, allowing users to keep their conventional telephones. A POSITA would further incorporate Mukherji's on-demand activation button to improve the combined system's usability, as it was a known technique for adding flexibility to systems that otherwise only allowed captioning to be on or off at the start of a call.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted that combining these known elements—a two-line system, an independent display device, and a mid-call activation button—involved applying known techniques to a known field (captioned telephony) and would have yielded predictable results.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claim 51 with POSITA Knowledge - Claim 51 is obvious over Liebermann in view of Engelke '405, Mukherji, and the knowledge of a POSITA.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Liebermann (Patent 5,982,853), Engelke '405 (Patent 5,724,405), Mukherji (Patent 7,117,152), and the general knowledge of a POSITA.
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds on the combination in Ground 1 to address dependent claim 51, which requires the captioned device to receive text from the relay on the first communication link (the voice link), in addition to the second link already required by its parent claim. The petition argued that while the primary references do not explicitly teach this, it was a known technique.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to send text communication on both links to provide redundancy. Petitioner explained that if a primary digital link for text (the second link) failed, the system could "failover" to receiving text audibly over the voice connection (the first link) using older but still viable protocols. This was a common technique in telecommunications to improve the reliability and likelihood of a user receiving captions, especially when a digital connection was unavailable.
    • Expectation of Success: The use of redundant links to ensure communication continuity was a well-understood and common practice in telecommunications, and a POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in implementing such a feature.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "independent": Petitioner argued this term, describing the relationship between the hard-of-hearing user's phone and the captioned device, should be construed to mean a "separate, stand-alone device." This construction is based on descriptions in the ’380 patent’s specification and figures, which illustrate the captioned device as a "separate stand-alone device" or "stand-alone appliance." This construction is central to the combination with Engelke '405, which explicitly teaches such an independent device.
  • "hard of hearing user" / "hearing user": Petitioner asserted these terms should be construed consistently with prior Board decisions in related cases. Specifically, "hard of hearing user" means "[t]he individual making use of the transcribed text, regardless of the individual's actual hearing abilities," and "hearing user" means "[t]he individual in communication with the hard of hearing user."

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-63 of the ’380 patent as unpatentable.