PTAB

IPR2025-00408

Dabico Airport Solutions Inc v. AXA Power ApS

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Preconditioned Air Unit with Variable Frequency Driving
  • Brief Description: The ’169 patent relates to preconditioned air (PCA) units used to supply cooled air to parked aircraft. The invention applies variable-frequency drives (VFDs) to control compressors in a PCA unit that features multiple refrigeration systems.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 2-9 and 11-12 are obvious over Kreymer in view of Taras

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Kreymer (Patent 5,715,701) and Taras (International Publication No. WO 2007/046794).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Kreymer taught a PCA unit with all the basic structural components, including a housing, blower, and multiple refrigeration circuits that could be selectively enabled to meet the cooling demands of different aircraft sizes. Taras taught the well-known benefits of using VFDs to efficiently control compressors and fans in standard HVAC systems. The combination of Kreymer’s PCA structure with Taras’s VFD control rendered obvious a VFD-driven PCA with a central controller that automatically adjusts cooling based on a selected aircraft type, a feature suggested by Kreymer's "mode selector switch."
    • Motivation to Combine: A person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine Taras's VFD technology with Kreymer's PCA to improve energy efficiency, provide finer control, and reduce mechanical stress compared to Kreymer's simpler on/off control method.
    • Expectation of Success: Success would be predictable because the combination involved applying a known efficiency solution (VFDs) from Taras to the conventional refrigeration circuits already present in Kreymer's system.

Ground 2: Claims 14-22 are obvious over Kreymer, Taras, and Takahashi

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Kreymer (Patent 5,715,701), Taras (WO 2007/046794), and Takahashi (Patent 5,351,498).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This combination augmented the Kreymer/Taras system with the fault-tolerant control system taught by Takahashi. Takahashi disclosed a multi-unit cooling system where individual unit controllers monitor for failures, transmit a failure signal to a central controller upon detecting an abnormality, and the central controller then commands the remaining operational units to increase their output to compensate for the lost cooling capacity. This architecture directly mapped to the failure detection and automatic cooling adjustment limitations recited in claims 14-22.
    • Motivation to Combine: Kreymer expressed a desire for redundancy in its multi-circuit design. A POSITA seeking to implement a robust, fault-tolerant version of the VFD-based PCA from Kreymer/Taras would be motivated to incorporate Takahashi's established fault-tolerant control architecture.
    • Expectation of Success: The controller architecture in Takahashi used well-known elements (sensors, controllers, communication lines) and logic, making its application to the analogous multi-unit Kreymer/Taras system predictable.

Ground 3: Claims 1, 2, and 13 are obvious over Lechmotoren in view of Taras

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Lechmotoren (German Utility Model DE29622089) and Taras (WO 2007/046794).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted Lechmotoren disclosed a base PCA unit with multiple "air-conditioning packs" and, critically, an explicit power-sharing capability not found in Kreymer. Lechmotoren’s controller measured an aircraft's power demand and adjusted the PCA's power consumption to use only the available "residual energy," which directly taught the "power sharing control input" limitation of claim 1. Combining this system with Taras provided the VFD control and detailed refrigeration circuit components (e.g., evaporator, expansion valve) that were only described at a high level in Lechmotoren.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would supplement Lechmotoren's high-level disclosure with the specific, well-known VFD-based refrigeration system details from Taras to create a more efficient, fully realized, and controllable system.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was expected as it involved implementing a conceptual system (Lechmotoren) with a standard, proven technological solution (Taras's VFD-controlled refrigeration circuits).
  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges based on a combination of Kreymer, Taras, and Carrier to teach specific multi-pulse rectifiers (claims 9-10), and a combination of Lechmotoren, Taras, and Takahashi which applied the same fault-tolerance logic to the Lechmotoren-based system (claims 14-22).

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial of the petition would be inappropriate. The petition contended that no factors support denial under Fintiv, as the ’169 patent was not subject to any parallel proceeding, and that the asserted prior art references and invalidity arguments were never previously presented to the Patent Office.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) and cancellation of claims 1-22 of Patent 9,771,169 as unpatentable.