INVT SPE LLC v. APPLE INC HTC HTC ZTE USA (2021)

INVT SPE LLC appeals from the final written decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board), holding that all six claims of U.S. Patent No. 7,764,711 (the ’711 patent) are unpatentable as obvious in light of the combined teachings of Paulraj,¹ Walton,² and Huang.³ See Apple Inc. v. INVT SPE LLC, No. IPR2018-01476, 2020 WL 1808193 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 8, 2020). We have reviewed the record and see no error in the Board's unpatentability findings. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard,⁴ the claims do not exclude the possibility in which the “plurality of data items,” like the “specific data item,” are subject to transmit diversity. See ’711 patent at claim 1. The specification defines “specific data” to include data transmitted under “poor channel quality” conditions, id. at col. 3 ll. 60–66, and such conditions, as INVT acknowledges, would dictate that “all of the data transmitted at any given time ․ be subject to transmit diversity,” see Appellant's Br. 58 (emphasis added). Rather than requiring simultaneous transmission of both higher and lower priority data, the Board's construction merely requires that the specific data be of higher priority than data not needing the increased accuracy afforded by transmit diversity—e.g., data transmitted under good channel quality conditions. Because the asserted prior art combination results in using transmit diversity on all data that is transmitted under poor channel conditions, substantial evidence supports the Board's findings that led to its obviousness determination. Accordingly, we affirm for the reasons stated by the Board.

AFFIRMED

FOOTNOTES

1.   U.S. Patent No. 6,067,290.

2.   U.S. Patent No. 7,095,709.

3.   Howard Huang et al., Achieving High Data Rates in DCMA Systems using BLAST Techniques, IEEE Global Telecommunications Conference – Globecom ’99 2316 (1999).

4.   See 37 C.F.R. § 42.100(b) (2018). The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office recently amended this regulation to require the Board to apply the claim construction standard articulated in Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc), to IPR petitions filed on or after November 13, 2018. See Changes to the Claim Construction Standard for Interpreting Claims in Trial Proceedings Before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, 83 Fed. Reg. 51,340 (Oct. 11, 2018) (codified at 37 C.F.R. § 42.100(b)). Because the petition challenging the ’711 patent was filed before November 13, 2018, the broadest reasonable interpretation standard applies to the Board decision on appeal.

Per Curiam.