Precision Planting LLC v. Deere & Co

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2019-01054
• Patent #: 10,004,173
• Filed: June 3, 2019
• Petitioner(s): Precision Planting, LLC and AGCO Corp.
• Patent Owner(s): Deere & Company
• Challenged Claims: 1-4, 6-9, and 11-20

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Seed Planting Improvement
• Brief Description: The ’173 patent discloses a seeding machine that purports to improve seed spacing accuracy. The technology aims to solve the problem of uneven planting caused by uncontrolled seed movement by using a seed delivery system with an "endless member," such as a brush belt, that provides a "controlled descent" for seeds from a metering system to the ground.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Hedderwick, Koning, and Benac - Claims 1-4, 6-9, and 11-20 are obvious over Hedderwick in view of Koning and Benac.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Hedderwick (U.K. Published Application No. GB 2,057,835A), Koning (Patent 4,193,523), and Benac (French Published Application No. 2,414,288).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that the combination of these three references discloses every element of the challenged claims. Hedderwick was presented as the foundational system, disclosing a "precision seeder" with a vacuum seed metering system, an endless belt with fins, and a housing with intake and discharge openings. However, Hedderwick’s finned belt allowed for undesirable seed movement. To remedy this, a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have looked to Koning, which explicitly teaches a driven brush belt with bristles that "hold" seeds to ensure uniform spacing until the moment of release. This brush belt is the "endless member" recited in the claims. Furthermore, to address the known problem of seeds getting stuck in vacuum metering systems like Hedderwick’s, a POSITA would incorporate the "paddle wheel" from Benac, which functions as the claimed "seed transfer device" to reliably extract seeds from the meter and transfer them to the delivery system.
  • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued that a POSITA would be motivated to combine these references because they all exist in the same field of agricultural seed planting and address the identical problem of suboptimal seed spacing. A POSITA would have sought to improve the precision of Hedderwick’s seeder by incorporating known solutions for known problems. Benac provided a known solution (a paddle wheel) for the problem of unreliable seed release from a vacuum meter. Koning provided a known, superior component (a brush belt) for achieving finer seed spacing control than Hedderwick’s finned belt. The express teachings in Benac and Koning about the benefits of their respective features would have motivated a POSITA to integrate them into Hedderwick's foundational system to achieve the predictable result of more accurate seed planting.
  • Expectation of Success: Petitioner contended that a POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success. The combination involved substituting known components (Koning's brush belt, Benac's paddle wheel) into a conventional seeding machine (Hedderwick) to achieve the well-understood and predictable benefits of improved seed transfer and spacing control. The integration was described as a straightforward application of known mechanical principles to yield a predictable improvement.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• Petitioner argued that several key terms should be construed as means-plus-function terms under 35 U.S.C. §112, para. 6, because the claims use generic nonce words (e.g., "device," "system") and describe the elements in purely functional terms without reciting sufficient corresponding structure.
• “seed transfer device”:
  • Function: "transferring seed from the seed metering system to the seed delivery system through the first opening of the seed delivery system"
  • Structure: "loading wheel 86 in Figure 3, insert 246 in Figure 7, or equivalents thereof"
• “seed metering system”:
  • Function: "metering seed"
  • Structure: "seed meter with a vacuum disk as shown in Figure 3, seed meter with a vacuum belt as shown in Figure 9, or equivalents thereof"
• “seed metering device” (Claim 17):
  • Function: "metering seed received from the seed hopper"
  • Structure: "vacuum disk 50 in Figure 3, vacuum belt 302 in Figure 9, or equivalents thereof"

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-4, 6-9, and 11-20 of the ’173 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.