Universal Remote Control, Inc.v.Universal Electronics Inc.

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Mar 12, 2015

10665650 (P.T.A.B. Mar. 12, 2015)

Trials@uspto.gov Paper 14
571-272-7822 Entered: March 12, 2015

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

UNIVERSAL REMOTE CONTROL, INC.,
Petitioner,

v.

UNIVERSAL ELECTRONICS, INC.,
Patent Owner.
____________

Case IPR2014-01084
Patent 7,126,468 B2
____________

Before HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP, SALLY C. MEDLEY, and
LYNNE E. PETTIGREW, Administrative Patent Judges.

PETTIGREW, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION
Denying Petitioner’s Request for Rehearing
37 C.F.R. § 42.71

Petitioner, Universal Remote Control, Inc., filed a Request for
Rehearing of our Decision (Paper 9, “Dec.”) instituting inter partes review
of claims 27, 28, 33, 35, 45, and 49 of U.S. Patent No. 7,126,468 B2
(Ex. 1001, “the ’468 patent”). Paper 11 (“Req.”). In its Request, Petitioner
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seeks reconsideration of the decision with respect to claims 1, 2, 11, 29, and
46, for which inter partes review was denied. Req. 1.
A request for rehearing “must specifically identify all matters the
party believes the Board misapprehended or overlooked, and the place where
each matter was previously addressed.” 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d). The party
challenging a decision bears the burden of showing the decision should be
modified. Id. For the reasons provided below, Petitioner’s request for
rehearing is denied.
Claims 1, 2, and 11
In our Decision, we concluded that the information presented did not
show a reasonable likelihood that Petitioner would prevail in establishing
that independent claim 1, and claims 2 and 11 depending therefrom, are
anticipated by Cohen.
1
Dec. 9–10. Specifically, we determined Petitioner
did not show sufficiently that Cohen discloses the following step of claim 1:
“determining at the recipient device if the transmission from the remote
control is intended to command an operation of one of the plurality of
intended target appliances.” Id.
Petitioner argues in its Request that our Decision “overlook[ed] the
substance of the disclosure of Cohen” cited by Petitioner and relied on in the
Petition to show that the “determining” step of claim 1 is disclosed in
Cohen. Req. 2. The disclosure of Cohen relied upon by Petitioner is the
following sentence: “The IR signal [received from the remote control] is
changed to electrical impulses that IR decoder 52 [of monitor 34] translates
to generate a signal indicating the component of the home entertainment

1
U.S. Patent No. 5,235,414, issued Aug. 10, 1993 (Ex. 1005, “Cohen”).
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Patent 7,126,468 B2
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center being operated on and in what manner.” Ex. 1005, 4:51–55; see
Paper 1, 22 (“Pet.”). Petitioner now contends that, according to this
sentence, decoder 52 in Cohen identifies the component of the home
entertainment system, i.e., the target appliance, operated by the signal, and
“if there is no identification, then the device that the signal is intended for is
not a target.” Req. 2–3.
We are not persuaded that we overlooked a matter previously
addressed by Petitioner. First, Petitioner did not present this argument in the
Petition, which merely quotes the relied-upon sentence from Cohen and
states that decoder 52 receives transmissions from remote controls, decodes
them, and communicates with microprocessor 53. See Pet. 22. Moreover,
we are not persuaded Petitioner has shown sufficiently that Cohen discloses
a system that operates as Petitioner suggests. In explaining how its system
functions, Cohen describes step 74, in which microprocessor 53 checks if the
received signal is valid, and thus should be logged, by “determin[ing] if the
received IR signal is intended for a device that is not being monitored by the
present invention,” such as a children’s toy. Ex. 1005, 5:62–67. In contrast,
the sentence relied on by Petitioner for disclosing the “determining” step
does not indicate decoder 52 performs a similar function of determining if
the signal is intended for a target device or some other device.
We further note that although step 74 might appear to correspond to
the recited “determining” step, Petitioner relies on step 74 as disclosing the
limitation following the “determining” step in claim 1: “when the
transmission from the remote control is determined to be intended to
command an operation of one of the plurality of intended target appliances,
comparing the transmission from the remote control against a plurality of
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commands maintained within the recipient device.” Pet. 22–23 (emphasis
added). Because Petitioner contends step 74 satisfies the “comparing” step
of claim 1, Petitioner cannot also rely on step 74 for disclosing the
“determining” step of claim 1. Cf. Net MoneyIN, Inc. v. VeriSign, Inc., 545
F.3d 1359, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2008) (holding that a reference cannot anticipate
unless it discloses all of the claim limitations arranged or combined in the
same way as recited in the claim).
For these reasons, Petitioner has not shown that we misapprehended
or overlooked any argument in the Petition regarding the “determining” step
of claim 1 or the substance of the disclosure in Cohen relied upon in the
Petition. Thus, Petitioner has not demonstrated we should modify our
Decision with respect to independent claim 1 and dependent claims 2 and
11.
Claims 29 and 46
In our Decision, we also concluded that the information presented did
not show a reasonable likelihood that Petitioner would prevail in
establishing that Cohen anticipates dependent claims 29 and 46, which recite
“wherein the data is maintained within a state table.” Dec. 13. Petitioner
proposed that a “state table,” under its broadest reasonable construction,
“simply associates one or more functions each with a corresponding state.”
Pet. 11. Although we did not provide in our Decision an explicit
construction of the term “state table,” we agreed with Patent Owner that to
the extent Petitioner argued a “state table” could be something other than a
table, Petitioner ignored the plain language of the term, which requires a
“table.” Dec. 6 (citing Prelim. Resp. 5). We further determined that
Petitioner had not shown sufficiently that Cohen discloses storing channel
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selection information, alleged by Petitioner to be state data, in a “table.”
Id. at 13.
Petitioner now argues, without support, that a “table” is “merely a
graphical illustration of associations between bits of data.” Req. 5.
According to Petitioner, the state table in Figure 4 of the ’468 patent is a
graphical illustration of data with associations to other data stored in
memory. Id. Based on this, Petitioner appears to conclude that any data
stored in memory is stored in a table, and, therefore, Cohen’s channel
selection information, stored in memory, is data “maintained within a state
table,” as recited in claims 29 and 46. Id. at 5–6.
We are not persuaded by Petitioner’s argument that any data stored in
memory is stored in a table. In the context of computer programming, one
ordinary and customary meaning of “table” is “a data structure usually
consisting of a list of entries, each entry being identified by a unique key and
containing a set of related values, . . . often implemented as an array of
records [or] a linked list.”
2
The disclosure in Cohen upon which Petitioner
relies indicates that channel selection information is stored in memory, but
does not specify that the information is stored in a “table,” as that term is
understood by a person of ordinary skill in the art. See Pet. 25 (citing
Ex. 1005, 4:4–5, 5:22–25). Thus, we are not persuaded that we
misapprehended or overlooked Petitioner’s argument when we determined
that Petitioner did not show sufficiently in its Petition that Cohen’s channel
selection information is stored in a state table. See Dec. 13. Accordingly,
Petitioner has not demonstrated we should modify our Decision with respect
to claims 29 and 46.

2
MICROSOFT COMPUTER DICTIONARY 510 (5th ed. 2002).
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ORDER
Accordingly, it is:
ORDERED that Petitioner’s Request for Rehearing is denied.

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FOR PETITIONER:
Douglas A. Miro
dmiro@ostrolenk.com

Keith J. Barkaus
kbarkaus@ostrolenk.com

Peter H. Kang
pkang@sidley.com

Theodore W. Chandler
tchandler@sidley.com

Ferenc Pazmandi
fpazmandi@sidley.com

FOR PATENT OWNER:
Eric J. Maiers
maierse@gtlaw.com

Michael A. Nicodema
nicodemam@gtlaw.com

James J. Lukas
lukasj@gtlaw.com

Robbie R. Harmer
harmer@gtlaw.com