Meta Platforms Ic v. Mullen Industries LLC

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2025-00737
• Patent #: 8,585,476
• Filed: March 25, 2025
• Petitioner(s): Meta Platforms, Inc.
• Patent Owner(s): Mullen Industries LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1, 2, 4-7, 13, and 17

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Location-Based Games and Augmented Reality Systems
• Brief Description: The ’476 patent describes a location-based augmented reality (AR) game system. The system determines a user’s physical location, for example via GPS, and uses that data to control the corresponding location of a virtual character, overlaying game indicia onto the user’s real-world view through a head-mounted display.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Jaszlics and Piekarski - Claims 1, 4, 5, and 13 are obvious over Jaszlics in view of Piekarski.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Jaszlics (Patent 6,166,744) and Piekarski (a 1999 technical paper titled “Integrating Virtual and Augmented Realities in an Outdoor Application”).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Jaszlics, which teaches a system for combining virtual images with real-world scenes for applications like war games, discloses most limitations of independent claim 1. This includes a head-mounted display (HMD) for overlaying virtual indicia (e.g., tanks) onto a physical playfield, game logic, a landscape detector (range scanner), and a locating device (GPS). Petitioner asserted that Piekarski, which describes an actual implementation of a wearable, outdoor AR computer system, supplies the "wearable processor" limitation. Piekarski's system used a laptop in a backpack, an HMD, and was designed for similar military simulation applications.
  • Motivation to Combine: A person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) reviewing Jaszlics’s mobile outdoor AR system would be motivated to make its computing components wearable to improve user mobility and create a more realistic, untethered simulation. Piekarski provided a known and readily available solution for creating such a wearable system for the same purpose. The combination represented a straightforward substitution of Jaszlics's stationary computer with Piekarski’s well-documented wearable computer.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a high expectation of success, as the combination involved the integration of known components (wearable computers, HMDs, GPS) for their established and intended functions in AR systems.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Jaszlics, Piekarski, and Morihira - Claim 2 is obvious over the combination for Ground 1 in view of Morihira.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Jaszlics (Patent 6,166,744), Piekarski (a 1999 technical paper), and Morihira (Patent 6,361,438).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground targets claim 2, which adds displaying a virtual object at "different transparencies depending on the perceived distance" of the object. Petitioner argued that Morihira explicitly teaches this concept in its "Video Game Transparency Control System for Images." Morihira addresses the known problem of virtual objects in a 3D game obscuring the player’s view by making them more translucent as they get closer to the viewpoint.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to incorporate Morihira’s technique into the base AR system of Jaszlics and Piekarski to solve the same known problem of view obstruction. This would improve the user experience and realism—goals consistent with the base references—by preventing virtual markers or characters from completely blocking the user's view of the real world or other game elements.
  • Expectation of Success: The combination would predictably result in an AR system with distance-based transparency, as it involved the routine application of a known software programming technique to solve a common problem in 3D graphics.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Jaszlics, Piekarski, and Robarts - Claims 6-7 are obvious over the combination for Ground 1 in view of Robarts.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Jaszlics (Patent 6,166,744), Piekarski (a 1999 technical paper), and Robarts (Application # 2004/0002843).

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground targets claims 6 and 7, which require a computer-controlled character to be "limited to visibility within a certain area" and to provide "a reaction to said physical location" when a user enters that area. Petitioner contended that Robarts, which describes a location-based game where users find virtual "ghosts," discloses these game mechanics. In Robarts, ghosts are only visible within a specific range (e.g., 300 feet) of the user and can be programmed to react (e.g., "jump away") when a user's location coincides with theirs.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to incorporate Robarts’s conventional game mechanics into the Jaszlics/Piekarski AR system to add variety, challenge, and suspense. Recognizing the strong similarities between the location-based AR platforms, a POSITA would find it a simple and logical step to implement well-known features like proximity triggers and limited visibility to enhance gameplay.
  • Expectation of Success: Success would be expected, as implementing these features involves standard software programming techniques commonly used in video games at the time.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge for claim 4 based on the Ground 1 combination in view of Ohshima (Patent 6,951,515) for controlling character behavior based on landscape features. A further challenge was asserted for claim 17 based on the Ground 1 combination in view of Muendel (WO 2001/042809) for adding an inertial movement system to the locating device.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under §314(a) based on the Fintiv factors is not warranted. The parallel district court litigation is in a very early stage, with the trial scheduled more than 18 months away (October 2026), and a pending motion to transfer would likely delay it further. Petitioner also committed not to pursue in litigation any invalidity defense that was or could have been raised in the inter partes review (IPR).
• Petitioner also contended that denial under §325(d) is inappropriate. The core prior art references for Ground 1, Jaszlics and Piekarski, were never presented to or considered by the Examiner during the original prosecution. For other references that were before the Examiner (e.g., Ohshima, Morihira), Petitioner argued they are being used in new combinations that present patentability questions in a new light.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1, 2, 4-7, 13, and 17 of Patent 8,585,476 as unpatentable.