CALLCOPY, INC.v.Verint Americas, Inc.Download PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardFeb 5, 201411509549 (P.T.A.B. Feb. 5, 2014) Copy Citation Trials@uspto.gov Paper 14 571-272-7822 Date Entered: February 5, 2014 UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ CALLCOPY, INC. Petitioner v. VERINT AMERICAS, INC. Patent Owner ____________ Case IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E ____________ Before JENNIFER S. BISK, MITCHELL G. WEATHERLY, and PATRICK M. BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judges. BOUCHER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review 37 C.F.R. § 42.108 IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 2 On August 2, 2013, CallCopy, Inc. (―Petitioner‖), filed a petition (Paper 1) to institute an inter partes review of claims 18–39 of U.S. Patent No. RE43,324 E (―the ’324 patent‖) pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319. A corrected petition was filed on August 14, 2013, and a second corrected petition was filed on September 5, 2013 (Paper 13, ―Pet.‖). Verint Americas, Inc. (―Patent Owner‖) did not file a preliminary response. For the reasons that follow, the Board has determined not to institute an inter partes review. I. BACKGROUND The standard for instituting an inter partes review is set forth in 35 U.S.C. § 314(a): THRESHOLD—The Director may not authorize an inter partes review to be instituted unless the Director determines that the information presented in the petition filed under section 311 and any response filed under section 313 shows that there is a reasonable likelihood that the petitioner would prevail with respect to at least 1 of the claims challenged in the petition. Petitioner challenges claims 18–23 and 33–36 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) and challenges claims 18–39 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Pet. 5–7. A. The ’324 patent (Ex. 1001) The ’324 patent, titled ―VOIP Voice Interaction Monitor,‖ issued on April 24, 2012, as a broadening reissue of U.S. Patent No. 6,757,361 (―the ’361 patent‖). The ’324 patent discloses signal-monitoring apparatus, including ―telecommunications monitoring apparatus which may be IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 3 arranged for monitoring a plurality of telephone conversations.‖ Ex. 1101, col. 1, ll. 34–36. Figure 1 of the ’324 patent is reproduced below: Figure 1 illustrates a recording and analysis system such as may be used in association with a call center. Id. at col. 6, ll. 19–20. Multiple telephone terminals 12 may be used in customer transactions via exchange switch 14. Id. at col. 6, ll. 20–24. Digital voice recorder 18 monitors conversation traffic through exchange switch 14 with high-impedance taps 20 and 22, and is interfaced though network 30 with replay station 32, configuration management application 34, and speech and/or data analysis engine 36. Id. at col. 6, ll. 25–52. Speech or other captured data are stored in a formatted IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 4 packet, id. at col. 6, ll. 53–64, which may be analyzed by the speech and/or data analysis engine 36 to identify such features as the frequency of use of certain keywords and variations in a party’s speech pattern, id. at col. 9, ll. 4–31. B. Exemplary Claim Claim 18 of the ’324 patent is exemplary of the claims at issue: 18. A method for capturing a telephone interaction, comprising: receiving audio data packets at a switch that are transmitted over a first network, wherein the audio data packets include packet headers and packet bodies; identifying data within the audio data packets at a data analysis engine that is communicatively connected to the switch by a second network, the identifying being based on at least one predetermined parameter associated with a payload of the audio data packets; and recording for analysis, at a recorder, any of the received audio data packets that include the at least one predetermined parameter, wherein the recorder is communicatively connected to the data analysis engine by the second network. C. Asserted Grounds of Unpatentability 1. References Relied Upon Petitioner relies on the following references as evidence of unpatentability: Bell (Ex. 1113) US 3,971,034 Sep. 5, 1972 Williamson (Ex. 1112) US 4,093,821 June 14, 1977 Bronson (Ex. 1105) US 5,136,655 Mar. 26, 1990 IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 5 Nunokawa (Ex. 1115) US 5,412,642 June 21, 1993 Alger (Ex. 1108) US 5,396,542 Aug. 31, 1993 Russell (Ex. 1116) US 5,526,407 Mar. 17, 1994 McDonough (Ex. 1109) US 5,625,748 Apr. 18, 1994 Henley (Ex. 1106) US 5,526,353 Dec. 20, 1994 Dev (Ex. 1118) US 5,627,819 Jan. 9, 1995 Gainsboro (Ex. 1107) US 5,655,013 Aug. 2, 1995 Chino (Ex. 1111) US 5,761,637 Aug. 2, 1995 Howe (Ex. 1104) US 5,590,171 Aug. 21, 1995 Dezonno (Ex. 1110) US 5,712,954 Aug. 23, 1995 Power (Ex. 1114) US 5,848,388 Dec. 19, 1995 McCreery (Ex. 1117) US 5,787,253 May 28, 1996 Rous (Ex. 1119) EP 0194785 Feb. 28, 1986 2. Asserted Grounds Petitioner challenges claims 18–39 on the following grounds: Reference(s) Basis Claims Challenged Howe § 102(e) 18–23, 33–36, 38, and 39 Howe and Bronson § 103(a) 18–23, 27, 29, 33– 36, 38, and 39 Howe, Bronson, and Nunokawa § 103(a) 37 Howe, Bronson, and McDonough § 103(a) 24 Howe, Bronson, and Dezonno § 103(a) 25 Howe, Bronson, and Chino § 103(a) 26 Howe, Bronson, and Rous § 103(a) 28 IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 6 Reference(s) Basis Claims Challenged Howe, Bronson, and Williamson § 103(a) 30 Howe, Bronson, and Bell § 103(a) 31 Howe, Bronson, and Power § 103(a) 32 Henley, Gainsboro, and Alger § 103(a) 18–23, 27, 29, and 33–39 1 Henley, Gainsboro, Alger, and McDonough § 103(a) 24 Henley, Gainsboro, Alger, and Dezonno § 103(a) 25 Henley, Gainsboro, Alger, and Chino § 103(a) 26 Henley, Gainsboro, Alger, and Rous § 103(a) 28 Henley, Gainsboro, Alger, and Williamson § 103(a) 30 Henley, Gainsboro, Alger, and Bell § 103(a) 31 Henley, Gainsboro, Alger, and Power § 103(a) 32 Russell, McCreery, and Dev § 103(a) 18–23, 27, 29, and 33–39 Russell, McCreery, Dev, and McDonough § 103(a) 24 Russell, McCreery, Dev, and Dezonno § 103(a) 25 Russell, McCreery, Dev, and Chino § 103(a) 26 Russell, McCreery, Dev, and Rous § 103(a) 28 Russell, McCreery, Dev, and Williamson § 103(a) 30 Russell, McCreery, Dev, and Bell § 103(a) 31 Russell, McCreery, Dev, and Power § 103(a) 32 D. Related Proceedings The ’324 patent is currently a subject of the litigation, Verint Systems, Inc. v. CallCopy, Inc., Case No. 1:13-cv-00562-GMS, in the District of Delaware. Pet. 1. 1 A typographical error appears in ground 4 on page 5 of the petition. IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 7 II. DISCUSSION Petitioner presents insufficient reasoning to satisfy its burden of demonstrating a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on any of its contentions that the claims of the ’324 patent are unpatentable. Petitioner’s asserted grounds can be grouped into (1) grounds based on Howe; (2) grounds based on Henley, Gainsboro, and Alger; and (3) grounds based on Russell, McCreery, and Dev. Because the grounds asserted against the dependent claims suffer from the defects of the grounds asserted against the independent claims, we need to address only the grounds asserted against independent claims 18, 33, and 39 below. With respect to the grounds based on Howe, several of Petitioner’s claim charts simultaneously address grounds that Howe anticipates a claim, that the claim is obvious over Howe alone, and that the claim is obvious over the combination of Howe and Bronson. 2 See Pet. 19–22, 40, 41, 53–55 (claim charts for claims 18, 33, and 39). The claim charts conflate the three grounds without providing a clear distinction how the identified disclosures are applied to the individual grounds, and thus none of the grounds are supported by sufficient reasoning how the identified disclosures relate to the claim limitations. We are unwilling to engage in supposition of how to effect such analysis for the individual grounds as a substitute for Petitioner’s 2 Petitioner includes a claim chart that asserts that claim 38 is anticipated by Howe, and includes claim charts that assert that claims 18, 33, and 38 are obvious over Howe alone, but does not identify such grounds in its statement of ―Specific Grounds of [Unpatentability]‖ at pp. 5–7 of the petition. IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 8 analysis. 35 U.S.C. § 312(a)(3); 37 C.F.R. § 42.104(b)(4). We additionally note that Petitioner’s expert provides no analysis for the anticipation ground or the grounds that claims are obvious over Howe alone. See Ex. 1120. In addressing the combination of Howe and Bronson, Petitioner states: One of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that the audio processing disclosed in Bronson could have been implemented on the service node of Howe for word recognition, indexing of the recorded audio data, and would have been motivated to combine Bronson with Howe to limit the amount of information to be recorded and/or reviewed. Pet. 22 (citing Ex. 1120 ¶ 100). Such a conclusory statement does not articulate sufficient reasoning with rational underpinnings to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See KSR Intern.l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 418 (2007). Further, because Petitioner’s expert, Dr. Mangione- Smith, testifies only about Howe in paragraph 100 of his declaration, that testimony fails to establish that a skilled artisan would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Howe and Bronson. With respect to the grounds based on Henley, Gainsboro, and Alger, Petitioner states: One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine the packet-based audio communication system (Henley) with the monitoring and recording of telephone calls based on identified keywords or other parameters (Gainsboro, Alger) to provide a more efficient monitoring system. IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 9 Pet. 24. With respect to the grounds based on Russell, McCreery, and Dev, Petitioner states: It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the method of analyzing speech information disclosed by Russell, with the packet monitoring and/or switched network tapping features of McCreery and Dev to provide call monitoring and recording for audio data transmitted in a packet- switched network. Pet. 26. Such conclusory statements similarly fail to articulate sufficient reasoning with rational underpinnings to support the legal conclusion of obviousness. See KSR at 418. We conclude that Petitioner has not demonstrated a reasonable likelihood that at least one of the challenged claims is unpatentable based on the asserted grounds. Therefore, we do not institute an inter partes review on any of the asserted grounds as to any of the challenged claims. III. ORDER In consideration of the foregoing, it is hereby: ORDERED that the petition is denied as to all challenged claims of the ’324 patent. IPR2013-00492 Patent RE43,324 E 10 PETITIONER: Error! Reference source not found. Rex W. Miller, II ERROR! REFERENCE SOURCE NOT FOUND. Error! Reference source not found. rmiller@hahnlaw.com PATENT OWNER: Error! Reference source not found. Error! Reference source not found. ERROR! REFERENCE SOURCE NOT FOUND. Error! Reference source not found. Error! Reference source not found. Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation