PTAB

IPR2022-01054

Samsung Electronics Co Ltd v. Scramoge Technology Ltd

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Wireless Antenna for Wireless Charging and NFC Communication and Wireless Terminal to which same is applied
  • Brief Description: The ’160 patent discloses a wireless antenna designed to support both wireless charging and near-field communication (NFC) simultaneously. The invention seeks to mitigate interference by using a nested coil structure where a wireless charging antenna is disposed between two separate wireless communication antenna coils.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation of Claims 1-3, 5, and 7-12 by Kim

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Kim (Korean Patent Application Publication No. KR10-2015-0010063).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Kim discloses every limitation of the challenged claims. Kim teaches an antenna structure for non-contact charging and NFC comprising a loop antenna unit (for NFC) and a non-contact power receiving coil (for charging). Critically, Kim’s NFC antenna is composed of a first (outer) loop antenna pattern and a second (inner) loop antenna pattern, with the charging coil disposed between them. Petitioner contended that Kim’s figures, which consistently depict the relative dimensions across multiple views, inherently disclose the claimed limitation that the winding of the second (inner) communication coil is narrower than the winding of the first (outer) communication coil. The dependent claims related to coil shapes, winding numbers, and series connections were also argued to be expressly or inherently disclosed in Kim’s figures and specification.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claim 4 over Kim in view of Shostak

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Kim (Korean Patent Application Publication No. KR10-2015-0010063) and Shostak (Patent 9,276,642).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Kim teaches all limitations of claim 3, upon which claim 4 depends, but discloses an inner communication coil with two windings, whereas claim 4 requires exactly one winding. Shostak, which addresses the same technical field, was introduced for its teaching of a similar nested antenna structure wherein the inner communication coil explicitly "forms a single loop."
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Shostak’s teaching with Kim’s design because both references seek to solve the same problem: avoiding a communication "dead zone" in the center of the antenna. Modifying Kim's design to use Shostak's single-winding inner coil would have been a routine optimization of a known result-effective variable (the number of windings) to achieve a desired performance characteristic.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success, as varying the number of windings to tune an NFC antenna's performance (e.g., inductance and resistance) was a well-understood and predictable design parameter.

Ground 3: Obviousness of Claims 1-12 over Shostak in view of Kim

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shostak (Patent 9,276,642) and Kim (Korean Patent Application Publication No. KR10-2015-0010063).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner presented an alternative ground where Shostak serves as the primary reference. Shostak was argued to teach the fundamental antenna structure of claim 1, including a wireless charging coil disposed between an outer and an inner wireless communication coil. However, Shostak is silent on the relative widths of the windings of its two communication coils. Petitioner argued that Kim was relevant for supplying this missing limitation, as its figures clearly depict the inner communication coil winding being narrower than the outer communication coil winding.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA implementing Shostak’s antenna would naturally look to analogous art like Kim for guidance on optimizing design parameters not specified in Shostak. Because selecting the relative winding width is a simple design choice with a finite number of predictable options (wider, narrower, or same), Kim’s disclosure would have directed a POSITA toward the claimed configuration to improve coil properties like resistance and quality factor.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was predictable because the antenna structures in Kim and Shostak are highly similar, and implementing the relative dimensions from Kim into Shostak’s design involves applying known principles of coil design without any technical difficulty.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted further obviousness challenges for claim 6 over Kim in view of Kim ’681 (Korean Patent No. 10-1185681) to teach winding count ratios between charging and communication coils, and for claim 11 over Kim in view of An (WO 2013/141658) to teach a specific connector structure on the flexible printed circuit board.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial would be inappropriate under both §314(a) (Fintiv factors) and §325(d).
  • Regarding Fintiv, Petitioner asserted that the parallel district court case was in its infancy, with minimal investment by the parties, a trial date far in the future, and no substantive overlap in arguments, weighing strongly in favor of institution.
  • Regarding §325(d), Petitioner argued that its grounds are not the same or substantially the same as those considered by the examiner during prosecution. The petition heavily relies on Kim, a reference never considered by the examiner. Furthermore, while Shostak and An were cited during prosecution, Petitioner contended they are presented here in new combinations and for different teachings than those the examiner relied upon, curing the alleged deficiencies in the prior prosecution record.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) and cancellation of claims 1-12 of the ’160 patent as unpatentable.