PTAB

IPR2025-01430

Apple Inc v. MessageLoud Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System for Audibly Presenting Queued Messages
  • Brief Description: The ’964 patent relates to a computer-implemented method for managing communications to reduce user distraction. The method involves automatically detecting the receipt of various message types (e.g., text, email, messenger), placing them into a single queue in order of receipt, and audibly presenting them to a user without initial user input.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-14 are obvious over Boelter in view of Gruber

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Boelter (Application # 2014/0303842) and Gruber (Application # 2013/0275138).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Boelter discloses the core framework of the challenged claims, including a system for in-vehicle use that receives multiple message types (e.g., email, text messages), analyzes their content, and places them in a chronological queue for presentation to a driver. Boelter’s system presents this queue visually on a screen. Petitioner contended that Gruber renders this system obvious by teaching the missing element of audible playback. Gruber discloses a virtual assistant that reads various message types aloud to a user, including reading from lists of messages, announcing the sender's identity before the message body, and pausing to allow the user to interrupt or stop the playback.
    • Motivation to Combine: A person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine Gruber’s audio-notification features with Boelter’s message-queuing system to advance Boelter’s stated goal of minimizing driver distraction. Replacing Boelter's visual display with Gruber's audible playback is a logical and predictable improvement for an in-vehicle system, as it reduces the need for a driver to look at a screen. This combination simplifies message management by unifying notifications from different applications into a single, hands-free audible stream.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success because implementing text-to-speech functionality was a well-understood and routine programming task by the priority date. The combination required only software modification to Boelter’s system, which already disclosed the necessary hardware (processor, memory).

Ground 2: Claims 1-14 are obvious over Boelter in view of Gruber and Polak

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Boelter (Application # 2014/0303842), Gruber (Application # 2013/0275138), and Polak (Application # 2015/0350400).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground was presented as an alternative, asserting that Polak reinforces and supplements the teachings of Gruber. Petitioner argued that Polak explicitly teaches automatically reading messages aloud to a driver upon receipt without any user input. Polak discloses that upon a message's arrival, sender details like name or phone number "may be sounded to the user first" before the user engages with the application. This strengthens the argument that the initial notification and reading of the sender's identity, as required by independent claim 1, occurs automatically.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to incorporate Polak's automatic read-aloud functionality into the Boelter/Gruber system to further enhance safety and convenience. Polak's approach removes the step of a user needing to select a message from a queue to hear it, further reducing driver interaction and cognitive load. This directly aligns with the primary goal of creating a safer in-vehicle messaging system.
    • Expectation of Success: The expectation of success was high for the same reasons as the primary combination. Integrating Polak’s teachings would involve applying known techniques and routine software programming, building upon a system that already queues multiple message types.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) and cancellation of claims 1-14 of the ’964 patent as unpatentable.