PTAB

IPR2020-00411

Google LLC v. Hammond Development Intl Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Communications System and Method
  • Brief Description: The ’011 patent describes a communications system enabling a user's communication device (e.g., cell phone, PDA) to interact with a remote application server. The application server executes applications, which may be retrieved from a separate repository, to provide services and communicate information to the user.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation of Claims 11, 13, 16, and 17 by Gilmore

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gilmore (Application # 2003/0216923).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Gilmore discloses every element of independent claim 11. Gilmore teaches an interactive voice response (IVR) system where a user's communication device (e.g., cell phone) connects over a network to a voice gateway (application server). The voice gateway receives requests, fetches script-based voice applications (e.g., VoiceXML) from an application server (repository) over a second link, executes the application, and sends prompts (queries) back to the user to establish a communication session. Dependent claims 13 (mobile device), 16 (preliminary session to acquire user ID), and 17 (processing identification information) were also argued to be fully disclosed within Gilmore's teachings of an IVR system that authenticates users via PIN/passcode.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claims 1, 2, 4-24, and 26-28 over Gilmore and Dodrill

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gilmore (Application # 2003/0216923) and Dodrill (Patent 6,766,298).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground asserted that the combination of Gilmore and Dodrill renders the claims obvious. For independent claim 1, Gilmore was argued to teach most limitations, describing a method for a communication device to remotely execute an application. Dodrill was introduced to explicitly teach features that Gilmore implied or for which Dodrill provided an obvious alternative. Specifically, Dodrill was argued to render obvious the claim 1 preamble's requirement of a "device software program" on the communication device itself, as Dodrill describes voice browsers and other client-side software. For claim 11, Dodrill was argued to render obvious sending an executable "request for processing service" (e.g., XML tags with instructions) to the user device, as opposed to the simple audio prompts disclosed in Gilmore.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine Gilmore's IVR system with Dodrill's teachings to improve efficiency and functionality. A POSITA would incorporate Dodrill's client-side software into Gilmore's system to facilitate voice browsing, offload processing from the server to the client device, and reduce the computational load on the application server. For example, sending executable instructions for the client device to fetch audio files directly (per Dodrill) would be an obvious alternative to having the server stream all audio (per Gilmore), freeing up server resources and preventing audio degradation over unreliable connections.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner contended that a POSITA would have a high expectation of success because both references describe XML-based interactive voice applications operating over networks. Combining Dodrill's client-side executable instructions with Gilmore's server-side system involved applying well-known programming techniques to known components, merely distributing processing tasks in a predictable manner.

Ground 3: Obviousness of Claims 3 and 25 over Gilmore, Dodrill, and Dhara

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Gilmore (Application # 2003/0216923), Dodrill (Patent 6,766,298), and Dhara (Application # 2003/0202504).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the Gilmore and Dodrill combination by adding Dhara to explicitly teach hardware and software capabilities on the communication device. For claim 3, which requires capabilities like a display, speaker, and various input methods, Dhara was cited to confirm that a POSITA would understand that the types of devices in Gilmore (IP phone, PDA) inherently include a speaker. For claim 25, which requires the device software be capable of text-to-speech conversion, Dhara was cited for its explicit teaching of implementing text-to-speech functions on the client device itself.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued a POSITA would be motivated to add Dhara's client-side text-to-speech functionality to the Gilmore/Dodrill system to further improve efficiency. Sending text files to the client for conversion to speech, as taught by Dhara, would minimize data transfer compared to sending larger audio files from the server, an obvious design choice for optimizing network-based systems.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was expected because implementing text-to-speech on a client device was a known technique. Moving this function from the server (as in Gilmore) to the client (as in Dhara) was a predictable redistribution of processing among known system components.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge (Ground 4) against claims 12, 19, 29, and 30 based on Gilmore, Dodrill, and Ladd (Patent 6,269,336). Ladd was primarily introduced to teach storing user profile information in a database and using a plurality of specialized application servers (e.g., for news, weather) to handle different user menu selections.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-30 of the ’011 patent as unpatentable.