PTAB

IPR2021-00527

Google LLC v. Kewazinga Corp

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Telepresence Systems and Methods
  • Brief Description: The ’234 patent describes systems that permit users to virtually navigate through imagery of an environment. The system uses an array of cameras to generate mosaic imagery, allowing a user to select a path and view images representing progressively different perspectives to simulate movement and create a sense of "telepresence."

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness of Claims 1, 4, and 9 over Moezzi-1, Moezzi-2, and Kellogg

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Moezzi-1 (Patent 5,745,126), Moezzi-2 (Patent 5,850,352), and Kellogg (a 1993 MIT thesis titled “Visual Memory”).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the combination of Moezzi-1 and Moezzi-2 disclosed the core limitations of the challenged claims, including a system for providing users with views of a remote environment generated from multiple cameras. Moezzi-1 was asserted to teach a system that allows a user to select a perspective and view a synthesized image, and also discloses support for multiple users. Moezzi-2 was argued to build on Moezzi-1 by explicitly teaching the generation of "mosaic" imagery from multiple camera streams. Petitioner contended that Kellogg disclosed a visual memory database system supporting simultaneous, independent access for multiple concurrent users ("concurrency control").
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Kellogg with the Moezzi system to enhance Moezzi-1’s rudimentary multi-user capabilities. Kellogg’s teachings on concurrency control would have been recognized as providing a known solution to improve the performance and reliability of a multi-user telepresence system, motivating its integration to augment or replace Moezzi’s video database.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a reasonable expectation of success because Moezzi-1 and Moezzi-2 already included video databases, and Kellogg’s visual memory was designed for storing and retrieving the same type of spatiotemporal information, making integration straightforward.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claim 5 over Moezzi-1, Moezzi-2, Kellogg, and Peleg

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Moezzi-1, Moezzi-2, Kellogg, and Peleg (Patent 6,532,036).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the combination in Ground 1 to address the limitations of claim 5, which required "mixing" imagery to "smooth" a user's navigation between different perspectives. Petitioner asserted that while Moezzi-2 suggested smoothness was a desirable quality for the viewer, Peleg explicitly taught techniques for achieving it. Peleg disclosed methods for creating smooth panoramic mosaics by synthesizing "in-between" views, even when original frames were taken from different viewpoints with substantial parallax.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA, seeking to implement the desired "smoothness" mentioned in Moezzi-2, would have been motivated to look to known solutions in the art for creating seamless mosaics. Peleg provided just such a solution, making it an obvious addition to the core Moezzi/Kellogg system to improve the user experience during virtual navigation.

Ground 3: Obviousness of Claims 6 and 7 over Moezzi-1, Moezzi-2, Kellogg, Kumar, and Hanna

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Moezzi-1, Moezzi-2, Kellogg, Kumar (Patent 6,522,787), and Hanna (Patent 5,259,040).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed claim 6’s requirement for "tweening" imagery to smooth navigation and claim 7's further requirement that the tweening use "local scene characteristics." Petitioner argued that Kumar explicitly disclosed tweening as a method to warp mosaics to a synthetic viewpoint to create smooth transitions. For claim 7, Petitioner pointed to Hanna, which taught using local scene characteristics to accurately determine motion and refine tweening processes.
    • Motivation to Combine: Similar to the motivation for adding Peleg, a POSITA would incorporate Kumar’s known tweening techniques to achieve the desired navigational smoothness. To further refine this process and improve accuracy, a POSITA would have been motivated to incorporate Hanna's teachings on using local scene characteristics, as this was a known method for improving image warping and motion modeling.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted numerous additional obviousness grounds based on the core Moezzi-1/Moezzi-2/Kellogg combination. These grounds added other prior art references to meet specific dependent claim limitations, such as: Conley for adding data from a non-camera device (e.g., a microphone); Taylor for adding motion blur to smooth transitions; and Lewis for dissolving images between different perspectives.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "View of the environment": Petitioner proposed this term means "images arranged to represent a scene."
  • "View through the environment": Petitioner proposed this term means "an ordered sequence of images arranged to represent a user selected path within a scene."
  • "Navigate/Navigation": Petitioner proposed this term means "select different images for viewing in a determined order."
  • These constructions were central to Petitioner's argument that the patent was directed to virtual movement through a collection of stored images, a concept well-established in the prior art, rather than physical navigation.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial would be inappropriate. It noted that the related district court litigation had no trial date or case schedule set beyond claim construction at the time of filing, suggesting that an IPR would be a more efficient resolution and would not be duplicative of advanced proceedings in the district court.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 4-7, 9, 12, 17, 19-20, 22, 24, 27, and 30 of the ’234 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.