Supercell Oy v. GREE Inc

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2020-00310
• Patent #: 10,286,302
• Filed: December 16, 2019
• Petitioner(s): Supercell Oy
• Patent Owner(s): GREE, Inc.
• Challenged Claims: 1-17

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Shooting Game Control Method and Game System
• Brief Description: The ’302 patent discloses a control method for shooting games on touch-screen devices. The method involves a first touch operation that causes the display of a frame indicative of a shooting range, followed by a second touch operation that is identified as an instruction to attack a target within that frame.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Hall and Detwiller - Claims 1, 5-7, 11, and 15-17 are obvious over Hall in view of Detwiller.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Hall (Patent 8,751,159) and Detwiller (Application # 2011/0173587).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Hall discloses the core elements of the independent claims. Hall teaches an artillery simulation "geogame" where a player's first touch on a map (the "first touch operation") causes an "aiming reticle" to be displayed at that location. This reticle defines a "damage effect area," which Petitioner asserted is a "frame indicative of a shooting effective range." Hall then discloses a separate, on-screen "fire" button to trigger the attack. Petitioner argued that Detwiller, which discloses a game development tool, remedies Hall's lack of a specific second touch instruction by teaching that virtual attack buttons on a touch screen can be used to provide an instruction for an attack, such as firing a projectile.
  • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine these references to provide a more intuitive and complete user interface. Petitioner contended it would have been a simple and obvious substitution to replace Hall's generic "fire" button with Detwiller's well-understood concept of a touch-activated virtual attack button to trigger the attack after aiming.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success, as the combination merely integrates a standard user interface element (a virtual attack button) into a touch-screen game, a predictable design choice that would make the game development process easier.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Hall, Detwiller, and Kolmykov-Zotov - Claims 2-4 and 12-14 are obvious over Hall in view of Detwiller, in further view of Kolmykov-Zotov.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Hall (Patent 8,751,159), Detwiller (Application # 2011/0173587), and Kolmykov-Zotov (Patent 7,489,306).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds upon the Hall/Detwiller combination to address dependent claims related to moving the aiming frame. Petitioner asserted that Kolmykov-Zotov discloses a "cursor handle" (e.g., a circle displayed around a cursor) that allows a user to perform a "slide operation" to precisely move the cursor without obscuring it. Petitioner argued this cursor handle directly teaches the claimed "movement operation graphic indicia" added to the frame. The action of dragging this handle corresponds to the claimed "slide operation" to move the frame.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to add Kolmykov-Zotov's cursor handle to the aiming reticle of the Hall/Detwiller combination to solve the known problem of imprecise aiming on touch screens. This addition would provide players with more precise control for adjusting the aiming reticle, a clear improvement to gameplay.
  • Expectation of Success: The result of the combination would be predictable, as it involves applying a known method for precise cursor control to another on-screen element (an aiming reticle) to achieve its intended and known function.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Hall, Detwiller, and Sakurai - Claims 8-10 are obvious over Hall in view of Detwiller, in further view of Sakurai.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Hall (Patent 8,751,159), Detwiller (Application # 2011/0173587), and Sakurai (Patent 9,149,720).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addresses claims reciting a client-server architecture. Petitioner argued the combination of Hall and Detwiller teaches the local gameplay elements, while Sakurai explicitly discloses a client-server system for a shooting game. Sakurai teaches that a game system can include a game device (client) and a game server connected by a network. Crucially, Sakurai states that main process steps, such as an "attack associated process," may be executed on the server side while other steps are executed on the client side. This directly maps to the claimed division of tasks where the terminal device handles displaying the frame and identifying the attack instruction, while the server controls the attack itself.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine the references to implement the Hall/Detwiller game in a standard online architecture. Petitioner argued that using a server to handle attack calculations, as taught by Sakurai, would be an obvious design choice to reduce computational load on client devices and to mitigate cheating by moving sensitive game logic to a secure server.
  • Expectation of Success: Applying a well-known client-server architecture to an online game is a conventional and predictable implementation that a POSITA could achieve with a reasonable expectation of success.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• "in accordance with...the first touch operation" (claims 1, 8-11): Petitioner argued this phrase should be construed to mean the touch operation "causes the frame to be displayed." This position was based on statements made by the applicant during the prosecution of the ’302 patent and a parent patent, where the applicant distinguished prior art by emphasizing that the claimed feature only displays a frame upon a first touch detection, unlike prior art where an aiming mark was always present. This construction was critical to mapping the limitation to Hall, where the aiming reticle is rendered upon the user's tap.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that the Board should not exercise its discretion to deny institution under §314(a) or §325(d).
• Under §325(d): Petitioner asserted denial is inappropriate because the petition raises new art and arguments not previously considered by the USPTO. The primary references in Grounds 1 and 2 (Hall, Detwiller, Kolmykov-Zotov) were never before the examiner. While Sakurai (Ground 3) was cited during prosecution, it was never substantively discussed or applied in a rejection.
• Under §314(a): Petitioner contended that denial based on the parallel district court litigation would be improper. The litigation was in its initial stages, and the IPR challenges all 17 claims of the patent, whereas the district court case involves only a subset of those claims.

6. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-17 of Patent 10,286,302 as unpatentable.