PTAB

IPR2023-01374

Google LLC v. Nariste Networks Pty Ltd

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Power Conservation for GPS-Enabled Devices
  • Brief Description: The ’206 patent discloses a method for conserving battery power in GPS-enabled mobile devices. The system acquires an initial position using lower-power, terrestrial-based techniques (e.g., a cellular network) and then selectively powers on the embedded GPS module to refine the position, thereby avoiding continuous, power-intensive GPS operation.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Watters - Claims 37-45 are obvious over Watters.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Watters (Patent 5,982,324).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Watters teaches all limitations of the challenged claims. Watters discloses a mobile terminal with both a GPS receiver and a mobile cellular portion, with the goal of reducing power consumption. Its system defaults to using the cellular network for positioning and only turns on the GPS receiver when necessary. Petitioner asserted this determination is based on factors that meet the claim limitations of using "at least one of a current radio position and a position error." Watters teaches powering on the GPS if the mobile terminal has moved a predetermined distance (e.g., 100 meters) since the last GPS update, which corresponds to the claimed "current radio position." Watters also teaches that the frequency of GPS updates depends on the "accuracy" of the cellular signals, with more frequent updates needed when accuracy is low (e.g., due to multi-path errors), which corresponds to the claimed "position error."
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): Not applicable as this is a single-reference ground. Petitioner argued Watters alone renders the claims obvious.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): Not applicable.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Nohara - Claims 37, 40, and 43 are obvious over Nohara.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Nohara (Application # 2002/0151314).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that Nohara, like the challenged patent, discloses a system for conserving power by switching between cellular and GPS positioning. Nohara’s mobile station operates in a "base-station positioning mode" and determines whether to power on its GPS unit based on a calculated "positioning error," specifically the Horizontal Dilution of Precision (HDOP). If the HDOP value determined from the wireless network exceeds a predetermined threshold, indicating the cellular-based position is not sufficiently accurate, the system switches to "GPS positioning mode" and powers on the GPS unit. Petitioner argued this explicit use of a quantified "positioning error" from the wireless network to trigger GPS power-on directly teaches the core limitation of the independent claims.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): Not applicable as this is a single-reference ground.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): Not applicable.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Watters and Nohara - Claims 37-45 are obvious over Watters in view of Nohara.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Watters (’324 patent) and Nohara (’314 application).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that to the extent Watters is found not to explicitly teach using both a current radio position and a position error (the "conjunctive" interpretation), the combination with Nohara renders the claims obvious. Watters provides the complete framework of a hybrid cellular/GPS system that uses distance traveled ("current radio position") and a qualitative assessment of signal accuracy ("position error") to trigger GPS updates. Nohara supplies a specific, well-known quantitative method (HDOP) for measuring the position error that Watters describes more generally.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would combine the references to improve the system in Watters. Watters leaves open the specific implementation of how to determine if cellular signals are of "good accuracy." A POSITA would look to known techniques and find Nohara’s express teaching of using HDOP as a routine, objective approach to quantify this positioning error. This would make Watters' power-saving algorithm more robust and reliable, a predictable improvement.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would have a high expectation of success, as implementing Nohara’s mathematical error calculation into the decision-making logic of Watters's processor-controlled system was a routine design choice involving known technologies for a common purpose.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including that claims 38, 41, and 44 are obvious over Watters in view of Lau (Patent 6,975,941) to add specific teachings of low-power sleep modes for the GPS module.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "means for determining when said embedded GPS module should be powered on" (Claim 40): Petitioner argued this is a means-plus-function term under §112, ¶6. The recited function is determining when to power on the GPS based on network-derived position and/or position error. Petitioner proposed the corresponding structure is a CPU or other processing unit programmed with a thresholding algorithm that compares at least one of a position and position error to one or more thresholds.
  • "at least one of a current radio position and a position error" (Claims 37, 40, 43): Petitioner noted this phrase could be interpreted "disjunctively" (requiring dependence on position OR error) or "conjunctively" (requiring dependence on position AND error). Petitioner argued that the asserted prior art grounds render the claims obvious under either interpretation, as the references teach using each factor alone and in combination to decide when to power on a GPS module.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued the Board should not exercise discretionary denial under Fintiv. The arguments centered on the fact that co-petitioner Google is not a party to the parallel district court litigation, making the IPR its only forum to challenge the patent. For co-petitioner Samsung, Petitioner asserted that the Fintiv factors weigh against denial because: (1) the district court case is in a very early stage with minimal investment in validity issues; (2) the trial date is approximately 13.5 months after the petition filing, with a Final Written Decision (FWD) likely to issue well before trial; and (3) the petition presents compelling merits, particularly because the single-reference grounds (Watters and Nohara) allegedly teach the exact limitation the patent examiner found missing during prosecution.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 37-45 of the ’206 patent as unpatentable under §103.