PTAB

IPR2025-01236

Apple Inc v. Telcom Ventures LLC

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Adaptive Enablement of Communications Modes
  • Brief Description: The ’756 patent is directed to adaptively enabling functions on a device based on satisfying a proximity criterion. The challenged claims recite systems and methods for enabling financial transaction functionality when a user's device is proximate to a vendor's access point and a sensed physiological parameter satisfies a specific criterion.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-3, 5-8, and 10 are obvious over Carlson in view of Holloway and Jazayeri.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Carlson (Patent 8,229,852), Holloway (WO 02/49322), and Jazayeri (Application # 2008/0155268).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Carlson teaches a method for conducting financial transactions with a portable wireless device, including unlocking the device using biometric information like a fingerprint, but does not detail the hardware or authentication process. Holloway was argued to supply the missing detail by teaching a mobile device with an integrated fingerprint scanner for user identity verification before performing transactions. Jazayeri was argued to teach the specific authentication process, wherein captured fingerprint data is converted into a numeric value and compared against a stored template to verify a user. Responsive to a match (satisfying a criterion), functions are enabled while the lock function is disabled.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references to implement the secure and convenient fingerprint authentication expressly contemplated by Carlson. Holloway provides a known hardware solution (fingerprint scanner), and Jazayeri provides a known authentication process for use with such hardware. The combination would improve the security of Carlson's financial transaction system in a well-understood manner.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted a high expectation of success because fingerprint readers were common, low-cost components, and the authentication logic described by Jazayeri was a standard technique for implementing biometric security on devices like those in Carlson.

Ground 2: Claims 4, 9, and 11-17 are obvious over Carlson in view of Holloway, Jazayeri, and ISO-14443.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Carlson (Patent 8,229,852), Holloway (WO 02/49322), Jazayeri (Application # 2008/0155268), and ISO-14443 (an international standard for contactless cards).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds on the combination in Ground 1 to meet limitations requiring a proximity condition for conducting a transaction. Petitioner argued that Carlson teaches using short-range Near Field Communications (NFC) for transactions when a device is held in the vicinity of a contactless reader and expressly suggests doing so in accordance with the ISO-14443 standard. ISO-14443 provides the specific technical protocols for initializing a short-range link, where a device (PICC) is activated upon entering the magnetic field of a reader (PCD), thereby satisfying a proximity condition.
    • Motivation to Combine: The motivation was argued to be explicit, as Carlson directly points to ISO-14443 as a standardized protocol for implementing its NFC transaction capability. A POSITA seeking to implement Carlson's system would have naturally looked to the cited standard for the necessary low-level implementation details to establish the proximity-based communication link.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was argued to be expected, as implementing a standardized, well-known protocol like ISO-14443 for NFC communications was a routine task for a POSITA.

Ground 3: Claim 18 is obvious over Carlson in view of Holloway, Jazayeri, ISO-14443, and Sherman.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Carlson (Patent 8,229,852), Holloway (WO 02/49322), Jazayeri (Application # 2008/0155268), ISO-14443, and Sherman (Application # 2007/0232358).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground adds Sherman to the previous combination to address claim 18's limitation requiring communication over a long-range link using an orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) protocol. Petitioner contended that Carlson teaches using a long-range cellular network to request transaction authorization but does not specify the underlying technology. Sherman was argued to teach a mobile device using WiMAX, a known cellular technology based on the IEEE 802.16e standard, which operates using an OFDM protocol over a licensed spectrum.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA implementing Carlson’s long-range communication feature would combine it with a known and deployed cellular technology like the WiMAX system taught by Sherman. WiMAX was one of a finite number of predictable solutions for cellular data communication at the time.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted a reasonable expectation of success, as Sherman’s WiMAX module requires simple components commonly integrated into wireless devices like the one described in Carlson.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges (Grounds 4-6) based on substituting Murakami (WO 01/95246) for Holloway and Jazayeri. This combination was argued to address a narrower construction of "physiological state" by using Murakami's teaching of dynamic biometric authentication (e.g., sensing heart rate or blood pressure waveforms) instead of static fingerprint data.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Physiological State": Petitioner dedicated significant argument to this term. It contended that the patent's intrinsic evidence (listing parameters like blood pressure, heart rate, etc.) suggests the term should be construed to mean dynamic parameters that fluctuate over time. Petitioner contrasted this with the Patent Owner's alleged litigation position that the term also covers static biometric data, like a fingerprint. To address both possibilities, Petitioner structured its arguments such that Grounds 1-3 adopted the broader (static biometric) construction, while Grounds 4-6 adopted the narrower (dynamic parameter) construction.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-18 of the ’756 patent as unpatentable.