IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: Obviousness of wireless network patent claims affirmed, (Jul 14, 2022)

By Cheryl Beise, J.D.

The PTAB properly found that prior art disclosed the patent’s ghost-mobile node triggering limitation.

Substantial evidence supported the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s determination following inter partes review that five claims of a wireless network patent owned by Mobility Workx, LLC were unpatentable as obvious, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit has determined. The Board properly found that the relevant prior art taught the “the ghost-mobile node triggering signals based on a predicted physical location of such mobile node or distance with relation to the at least one foreign agent” limitation (Mobility Workx, LLC v. Unified Patents, LLC, July 14, 2022, Dyk, T.).

Mobility Workx, LLC is the owner of U.S. Patent No. 8,213,417 (the ’417 patent), titled “System, Apparatus, and Methods for Proactive Allocation of Wireless.” The patent is generally directed to allocation of communication resources in a communications network. In June 2018, Unified Patents, LLC (“Unified”) filed a petition seeking inter partes review of claims 1–7 of the ’417 patent. On December 2, 2019, the Board issued its final written decision, finding that claims 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 were unpatentable as obvious, but that claims 3 and 6 were not shown to be unpatentable.

Mobility appealed. In addition to challenging the Board’s decision on the merits, Mobility raised several constitutional challenges regarding the Board based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Tumey v. Ohio, 237 U.S. 510 (1927), and additionally requested a remand under United States v. Arthrex, Inc., 141 S. Ct. 1970 (2021). The Federal Circuit rejected Mobility’s Tumey arguments and, without reaching the merits, remanded to the Board “for the limited purpose of allowing Mobility the opportunity to request Director rehearing of the final written decision.” On the remand, Mobility did not request Director rehearing and, accordingly, the Board’s final written decision in the case remained the final agency decision. The Federal Circuit lifted the stay it had imposed and reinstated the appeal.

Obviousness finding. Turning to the merits, the Federal Circuit reviewed the Board’s obviousness findings. The ’417 patent explains that mobile communication systems are typically composed of mobile nodes (e.g., cell phones) that communicate with one another through a series of base stations. The patent attempts to prevent delays and data losses that can occur when a mobile node moves from one foreign network to another. The patent describes a ghost foreign agent and a ghost mobile node that “can be configured to register the mobile node and allocate resources for communicating with the mobile node according to a predicted future state of the mobile node.”

During the Board proceedings, Mobility argued that the claims were not obvious because the prior art failed to disclose the ghost-foreign agent limitation. The Board concluded that claims 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7 were shown to be obvious over U.S. Patent No. 5,825,759 (“Liu”) in combination with U.S. Patent Application Publication 2002/0131386 A1 (“Gwon”), and various other references.

On appeal, Mobility argued that the Board erred with respect to claim 1 because Liu, the relevant prior art reference, does not teach the “the ghost-mobile node triggering signals based on a predicted physical location of such mobile node or distance with relation to the at least one foreign agent” limitation (“the triggering limitation”). it was undisputed that the validity of dependent claims 2, 4, and 5 stood or fell with that of independent claim 1.

Liu relates to “methods and apparatus for supporting data and service mobility to users of mobile networks.” Liu describes distribution of network services and resources to a mobile user in a mobile communication system by providing the mobile user with a mobility (M)-agent executing on a home fixed host or router. Liu discloses that the M-Agent is “responsible in part for creating, deleting, and managing the MF-agents on behalf of mobile users” and that “MAgent requests creation or assignment of MF-agents. The Board determined that Liu’s M-Agent teaches the “ghost-mobile node” limitation, which includes the triggering limitation.

The Federal Circuit agreed with the Board. The ’417 patent claims a ghost-mobile node “handling signaling required to allocate resources and initiate mobility on behalf of the mobile node, the ghost-mobile node triggering signals based on a predicted physical location of such mobile node or distance with relation to the at least one foreign agent.”

Unified’s expert testified that “[t]he M-Agent acts on behalf of the mobile device by initiating registration with a foreign agent in the foreign network.”

Noting that Mobility did not request claim construction of the triggering limitation before the Board, the court observed that, according to Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019), the plain meaning of “trigger” is “[a]n event or situation that upon its occurrence activates a thing or a process.” “The M-Agent (i.e. ghost-mobile node) plainly triggers signals ‘to allocate resources and initiate mobility on behalf of the mobile node based on a predicted physical location’ when it registers and forwards the assignment request from mobile nodes (cell phones) to MF-agents,” the Federal Circuit said. “Nothing in the plain meaning of the triggering limitation forecloses the MAgent in turn being triggered by a request from the mobile node (cell phone).”

Finding no error, the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board’s obviousness determination.

The Case is No. 0:21-cv-60914-WPD.

Attorneys: David A. Randall (Hackler Daghighian Martino & Novak, P.C.) for Mobility WorkX, LLC. Jason R. Mudd (Erise IP, P.A) for Unified Patents LLC.

Companies: Mobility WorkX, LLC; Unified Patents LLC

Cases: Patent FedCirNews