PTAB

IPR2019-00586

Rogue Fitness v. Jump Rope Systems LLC

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Jump Rope System
  • Brief Description: The ’809 patent discloses a jump rope system where the rope is attached to each handle via a spherical bearing. The spherical bearing is positioned at the end of a shaft that rotates within bearings inside the handle, which is intended to allow for both pivoting and swiveling motion of the rope.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-10 are obvious over Wolf in view of Terper

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wolf (German Application # 2,641,383) and Terper (French Application # 2,408,362).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Wolf discloses a jump rope with handles containing a rotatable shaft supported by bearings, satisfying limitations [1.a], [1.a.i], and [1.a.ii] of claim 1. However, Wolf’s shaft connects to the rope via a simple hinge joint, which only allows pivoting, not swiveling. Terper discloses a jump rope that uses a spherical bearing, referred to as a "swivel joint," to attach the rope to the handle, allowing both pivoting and swiveling motion. Petitioner argued that substituting Terper's spherical bearing for Wolf’s hinge joint would result in the claimed invention. The flat, disk-like housing of Terper’s spherical bearing would serve as the claimed "blade element," and its internal ball would be the "ball element pivotally coupled" therein.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Wolf and Terper to incorporate the known benefits of a swivel joint into Wolf’s design. Terper explicitly teaches that its swivel joint avoids "shearing forces" and premature rope wear. Allowing the rope to both pivot and swivel, instead of only pivoting as in Wolf, would predictably extend the life of the jump rope and make it easier to use by preventing the rope from winding onto itself. A secondary motivation was to eliminate the second arm of Wolf's hinge design, thereby reducing parts, cost, and a likely point of failure.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a high expectation of success because the combination involves the simple substitution of one known rope-to-handle connection (a hinge joint) for another known type (a spherical bearing) to gain a predictable advantage. The resulting structure, a spherical bearing on the end of a rod, was a well-known "rod end" component.

Ground 2: Claims 1-10 are obvious over Wolf in view of Bradley

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wolf (German Application # 2,641,383) and Bradley (Patent 4,248,496).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground presented a similar argument to Ground 1, again starting with Wolf's jump rope design featuring a rotating shaft within the handle. Instead of Terper, Petitioner proposed modifying Wolf with the teachings of Bradley. Bradley discloses a generic spherical bearing in the form of a "rod end assembly," which includes a ball encased in a housing with opposite planar faces. Petitioner argued a POSITA would attach Bradley’s rod end assembly to the end of Wolf’s rotating shaft. The housing of the Bradley bearing, with its flat planar faces, would meet the "blade element" limitation, and the combination would provide the claimed pivoting and swiveling motion. The rope would then be coupled to the ball element of Bradley.
    • Motivation to Combine: The primary motivation was identical to that in Ground 1: to improve the durability and usability of Wolf’s jump rope by allowing the rope to swivel as well as pivot. The prior art, including Terper, taught that this functionality prevented rope wear and tangling. A POSITA seeking to add this feature to Wolf's design would have been motivated to look to common, off-the-shelf components like the rod end disclosed in Bradley, which was known to provide such multi-axis motion and was used in related fitness equipment.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination required only coupling a standard mechanical component (Bradley's rod end) to the end of a shaft (Wolf's rotating pin), a simple and routine task for a POSITA. The result of the combination was predictable, as the properties of both Wolf’s rotating handle and Bradley's spherical bearing were well understood.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Blade Element": Petitioner argued this term should be construed as "a flat element providing a pair of planar surfaces disposed in substantially opposed parallel relation." This construction was asserted to be consistent with the specification’s description and figures, as well as the prosecution history, where the examiner distinguished prior art based on the absence of such a flat element. This construction was critical for mapping the flat, disk-like housings of the spherical bearings in Terper and Bradley to this claim limitation.
  • "Pivotally Coupled": Petitioner contended this term should be construed as "coupled to allow at least some swiveling and pivoting movement." This construction was based on explicit definitions within the ’809 patent’s specification, which describes the term "pivot" as encompassing both a "pivot range" (changing the angle between the rope and handle) and a "swivel range" (rotation of the rope about its own axis). This broader construction was essential to argue that the spherical bearings of Terper and Bradley met the limitation, whereas Wolf's simple hinge did not.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-10 of the ’809 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.