PTAB

IPR2020-00762

Cirrus Design Corp v. Fleming Hoyt

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Key Events
Petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Intelligent Ballistic Parachute System That Performs Pre-Activation and/or Post-Activation Actions
  • Brief Description: The ’474 patent is directed to an aircraft equipped with a whole-aircraft ballistic parachute. Upon receiving a deployment request, one or more processors execute instructions to determine if pre-activation actions are required, command their performance, and then command parachute deployment, which may be followed by post-activation actions.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 95-131 are obvious over the SR22 Pilot’s Operating Handbook, James, and Hoffmann.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: SR22 Pilot’s Operating Handbook (“POH”), James (Patent 6,460,810), and Hoffmann (Patent 7,584,928).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the combination of these references teaches every element of the challenged claims. The POH, an operator’s manual for the Cirrus SR22 aircraft, disclosed an aircraft with a whole-aircraft ballistic parachute system and taught the standard manual pilot actions to be taken before deployment to ensure safety, such as reducing airspeed, achieving wings-level attitude, and increasing altitude if too low. James disclosed a processor-based “Semiautonomous Flight Director” for automating pilot actions, including an “emergency shutdown/deploy parachute” function that could shut off engines and activate beacons. Crucially, James taught that its software routines were customizable to account for the specific flight laws of a particular aircraft to ensure automated operations were safe and logical. Hoffmann taught an automated parachute deployment system with specific logic, disclosing deployment either when airspeed (measured via drogue parachute drag) drops below a predetermined threshold or, as a redundant safety feature, after a preset time period has elapsed even if the airspeed remains too high.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner contended a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSA) would combine these references to improve flight safety. The primary motivation was to automate the well-known, manual safety procedures described in the POH for use in an emergency, particularly for an unskilled or incapacitated pilot. A POSA would look to an automation system like James, which was explicitly designed for this purpose and was intended for use in any aircraft with a digital autopilot, such as the SR22 aircraft described in the POH. To make the automation safe and logical, the POSA would program the system of James with the pre-deployment conditions from the POH (e.g., target airspeed, altitude, attitude). Furthermore, a POSA would incorporate the safety logic from Hoffmann—specifically, the concept of deploying based on achieving a target airspeed or a time-out override—to enhance the robustness of the automated system.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted that a POSA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in making this combination. The integration involved applying known automation techniques (James) and safety logic (Hoffmann) to well-established manual flight procedures (POH). This would primarily require routine software programming to implement the decision-making steps within the existing framework of an autopilot and processor, which was a predictable and well-understood task for a POSA at the time.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial of this petition, a follow-on to IPR2019-01566 (“First IPR”), was unwarranted. The challenged claims in this petition (95-131) were different from those in the First IPR.
  • The need for a second petition arose because the Patent Owner asserted this new set of claims in related district court litigation only weeks before the First IPR was filed. This timing precluded their inclusion in the original petition.
  • Petitioner maintained it was not leveraging the Board’s feedback from the First IPR to modify its arguments, but was instead presenting consistent arguments and adding the Hoffmann reference only to address new limitations present in the newly asserted claims, such as those related to airspeed sensing and time-triggered deployment.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) and cancellation of claims 95-131 of the ’474 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.