PTAB

IPR2022-00473

Google LLC v. EcoFactor Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: HVAC Control System
  • Brief Description: The ’186 patent discloses a system for controlling a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system. The system uses one or more remote server computers to receive inside and outside temperature measurements, calculate a predicted rate of temperature change for a building, and determine whether to pre-cool the building before reducing electricity demand.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1, 3-8, and 10-13 are obvious over Schurr in view of Ehlers

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Schurr (Patent 6,868,293) and Ehlers (Application # 2004/0117330).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Schurr disclosed the foundational elements of independent claim 1: a system with a remote server controlling an HVAC system to implement energy demand reduction (termed "curtailment events"). Schurr’s server receives inside temperature data from a thermostat and is associated with a database. However, Schurr did not explicitly teach calculating a predicted rate of temperature change or using pre-cooling. Petitioner asserted that Ehlers supplied these missing elements. Ehlers taught a system that calculates a "thermal gain rate"—a predicted rate of temperature change—based on inside/outside temperatures and HVAC status. Ehlers also explicitly taught using this data to "perform pre-cooling" prior to high-demand periods to manage energy costs and maintain occupant comfort.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Ehlers’s advanced calculation and pre-cooling techniques with Schurr’s established remote server architecture. The motivation was to improve the performance of Schurr’s system by enabling more intelligent energy management. Specifically, Ehlers's thermal gain calculations would allow Schurr’s system to determine more precise temperature offsets during curtailment events, tailor them to a specific building's thermal properties, and more accurately calculate recovery times, thereby improving both energy efficiency and user comfort.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success because implementing Ehlers’s data processing techniques on Schurr's server was a predictable application of known computer and energy management principles.

Ground 2: Claims 1-13 are obvious over Schurr and Ehlers, in further view of Rosen

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Schurr (Patent 6,868,293), Ehlers (Application # 2004/0117330), and Rosen (Patent 6,789,739).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground incorporated all arguments from Ground 1 and added Rosen primarily to address the limitations of dependent claims 2 and 9, which required receiving outside temperature data for geographic regions "based on ZIP codes." While Ehlers taught receiving "local weather forecast data," it did not specify the method for localizing that data. Rosen explicitly disclosed a thermostat system that retrieves location-specific weather information, including temperature, from an internet-based weather service by providing a ZIP code.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA, seeking to implement the "local weather" functionality taught by Ehlers within the Schurr system, would have been motivated to use a known, simple, and effective method for localizing the data. Rosen provided this well-understood method (ZIP code lookup), which was a common and cost-effective alternative to installing physical external sensors at each location. Combining Rosen’s teaching was a straightforward design choice to achieve the functionality already suggested by Ehlers.
    • Expectation of Success: Integrating a ZIP code-based weather data lookup into the combined Schurr/Ehlers system was argued to be a routine task for a POSITA with a high expectation of success.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that the Board should not exercise discretionary denial under the Fintiv factors. The petition was filed early in a co-pending district court litigation where no trial date had been set, no claim construction hearing had occurred, and substantial resources had not yet been invested by the parties or the court. Petitioner asserted that the merits of the petition were strong and that a stay of the litigation would likely be sought, favoring institution of the inter partes review (IPR).

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1-13 of the ’186 patent as unpatentable.