PTAB

IPR2019-00963

Next Caller Inc v. TrustID Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Systems and Methods to Identify ANI and Caller ID Manipulation for Determining Trustworthiness of Incoming Calling Party and Billing Number Information
  • Brief Description: The ’913 patent discloses methods for verifying the trustworthiness of an incoming telephone call. The system receives a call request, accesses a database, and determines if a discrepancy exists between the calling party information in the call request and stored information to decide whether to suspend the call.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-20 are obvious over Martin

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Martin (Application # 2007/0201625)
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Martin disclosed every element of the challenged claims. Martin described a method for an alarm system's central monitoring station to process incoming calls by using call source identification information (e.g., caller ID, DNIS, ANI). The system received a call, read the caller ID, and looked for a match with caller ID information stored in memory. If a match was not found (i.e., a discrepancy existed), the call was transferred to an invalid alarm station or disconnected, effectively suspending call processing. Petitioner asserted that Martin’s system, comprising receiving circuits, processing circuits, and memory, constituted the claimed "discrepancy detector." The database of subscriber information in Martin's memory was argued to be the claimed "monitored called party number database."
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): This ground was presented as an obviousness challenge over a single reference. Petitioner contended that Martin’s teachings alone rendered the claimed invention obvious, as it described a complete system that performed all steps of the claimed method. A person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have found it obvious to apply Martin's call screening method for its stated purpose of increasing the efficiency of an alarm answering process by filtering invalid calls.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in implementing the claimed method based on Martin, as Martin described an existing, functional system for call verification.

Ground 2: Claims 1-20 are obvious over Martin in view of Lin

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Martin (Application # 2007/0201625) and Lin (Application # 2012/0287823)
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground relied on the teachings of Martin as described in Ground 1. Petitioner argued that to the extent Martin was found not to explicitly teach certain limitations, Lin supplied them. Lin disclosed a "verification method and system for screening internet caller ID spoofs and malicious phones calls." Lin's system captured incoming caller ID and other data, compared it with corresponding data in a "searching database," and determined whether the call was verified. Petitioner asserted that Lin provided a more explicit teaching of determining whether a call request to a specific called telephone number should be verified, a step allegedly also taught by Martin through its use of DNIS.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): Petitioner argued a POSITA would combine Martin and Lin to improve the reliability and efficiency of Martin's call verification system. While Martin's system screened calls, it relied on caller ID information that could be inaccurate or spoofed. Lin was directed specifically at solving this problem by providing an enhanced verification method to screen for such spoofs. A POSITA would combine Lin’s enhanced screening with Martin’s call processing framework to create a more robust system that better filtered invalid calls, which was the primary goal of Martin's invention.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): The combination would have been a routine and predictable integration of known call screening techniques, as both references used similar components (e.g., receiving call information, comparing it to a database) to achieve the common goal of call verification.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "ancillary to" (claims 1, 15): Petitioner proposed this term means "coupled as an adjunct to." This construction was based on specification language stating the "calling party verification system 100 may be coupled to service provider network element 220 as an adjunct to the element."
  • "info nation" (claim 11): Petitioner contended this was a typographical error in the patent and should be construed to mean "information."

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-20 of the ’913 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.