PTAB

IPR2019-00454

Intex Recreation Corp v. Bestway USA Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Air Bed With Stable Supporting Structure
  • Brief Description: The ’866 patent discloses a double-chambered inflatable airbed designed for improved stability. The structure includes upper and lower air chambers separated by a middle sheet, with internal extending strips for support and a key "oblique extending strip" in the lower chamber to create a stable, inverse cone shape.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Yuan and Metzger - Claims 1-4 are obvious over Yuan in view of Metzger.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Yuan (Application # 2005/0076449) and Metzger (Patent 7,089,618).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Yuan, which was not considered during prosecution, disclosed a double-chambered airbed that met most limitations of claim 1. Yuan taught an inflatable mattress with upper and lower chambers, a middle sheet structure, a loop of an outer extending strip in the upper chamber, and parallel extending strips in both chambers. However, Yuan’s lower chamber support structure was not oblique. Metzger was argued to supply this missing element by teaching side support beams with an oblique orientation to limit outward expansion and enhance stability. The combination of Yuan and Metzger would result in an airbed where the oblique strip inherently forms an inverse cone shape and creates a concave bottom surface, satisfying all limitations of claim 1. For dependent claims 2 and 3, Petitioner asserted that air-holes in the extending strips would be inherently necessary for air to pass between the main and peripheral chambers, which are inflated via a single valve.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSA) would combine Metzger's teachings with Yuan's design to solve the known problem of side instability in raised-height, double-chambered airbeds. Metzger explicitly taught that its oblique support beams provide strength and stability. A POSA would have recognized this as a known solution to a known problem and applied it to Yuan's similar structure to achieve the predictable result of improved bed stability.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSA would have had a high expectation of success, as the combination involved applying a known stability-enhancing feature (Metzger's oblique strips) to a standard airbed design (Yuan) to achieve its well-understood function.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Yuan, Hsu, and Metzger - Claims 1-4 are obvious over Yuan in view of Hsu and Metzger.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Yuan (Application # 2005/0076449), Hsu (Patent 6,671,910), and Metzger (Patent 7,089,618).

  • Core Argument for this Ground: This ground was presented as an alternative to Ground 1, contingent on the Board construing the terms "a periphery sheet" and "a middle sheet" as being limited to a single sheet each, which is contrary to Petitioner's primary proposed construction.

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Yuan’s structure, which uses separate sheets for the upper and lower mattresses that collectively form the middle and periphery, would not meet this narrower construction. Hsu was argued to teach the use of a single, common middle sheet shared between an upper mattress and a lower box spring, as well as a single periphery sheet. The analysis for the remaining limitations mirrors Ground 1, with Yuan’s structure being modified first by Hsu’s single-sheet design and then by Metzger’s oblique strips.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSA would have been motivated to replace Yuan’s more complex and costly two-part middle sheet structure with Hsu’s simpler single-sheet design. This modification would reduce manufacturing costs and complexity by requiring fewer materials and welds, which were known design considerations. This simpler design would still achieve Yuan's stated objective of allowing a standard bedcover to fit. A POSA would then incorporate Metzger for the same stability reasons articulated in Ground 1.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSA would have reasonably expected success in simplifying Yuan's design with Hsu's well-known single middle sheet configuration, as it represented a common and more efficient manufacturing approach for double-chambered airbeds.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including grounds substituting Reed (Patent 2,604,641) for Hsu to teach a single middle sheet. Further grounds added Davis (Application # 2005/0132490) to the primary combinations to explicitly teach providing a plurality of air-holes on extending strips, in the event the Board found this feature was not inherently disclosed.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "a periphery sheet" / "a middle sheet": Petitioner argued these terms should be construed to mean "one or more" sheets. This position was based on the standard rule that "a" means "one or more" in a claim using the open-ended transitional phrase "comprising," and the specification lacks any clear intent to limit these terms to a single sheet.
  • "concave" limitation: Petitioner argued that claim 1 is indefinite because the limitation describing the bottom surface is internally inconsistent and confusing. The claim requires the lower main air-chamber's outer surface to be "concave with respect to" the peripheral auxiliary air-chamber's outer surface, but a "that is" clause then attempts to define this by stating that the peripheral chamber's surface "extends beyond" the bottom sheet of the main chamber. Petitioner contended that these two clauses describe different relationships using inconsistent language, leaving a POSA unable to determine the scope of the claim with reasonable certainty. As an alternative, Petitioner applied constructions based on both clauses to the prior art.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-4 of the ’866 patent as unpatentable.