3g Licensing, S.A. v. Honeywell International Inc.

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
DecidedJuly 31, 2024
Docket23-1137
StatusUnpublished

This text of 3g Licensing, S.A. v. Honeywell International Inc. (3g Licensing, S.A. v. Honeywell International Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
3g Licensing, S.A. v. Honeywell International Inc., (Fed. Cir. 2024).

Opinion

Case: 23-1137 Document: 93 Page: 1 Filed: 07/31/2024

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

3G LICENSING, S.A., Appellant

v.

HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC., SIERRA WIRELESS, ULC, TELIT CINTERION DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, F/D/B/A THALES DIS AIS DEUTSCHLAND GMBH, Appellees ______________________

2023-1137 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2021- 00584. ______________________

Decided: July 31, 2024 ______________________

ANDREW PETER DEMARCO, Devlin Law Firm LLC, Wil- mington, DE, argued for appellant. Also represented by NEIL A. BENCHELL, TIMOTHY DEVLIN.

KOURTNEY MUELLER MERRILL, Perkins Coie LLP, Den- ver, CO, argued for all appellees. Appellee Sierra Wireless, ULC also represented by AMANDA TESSAR; TARA LAUREN Case: 23-1137 Document: 93 Page: 2 Filed: 07/31/2024

2 3G LICENSING, S.A. v. HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC.

KURTIS, Chicago, IL.

JEFFREY R. GARGANO, K&L Gates LLP, Chicago, IL, for appellee Honeywell International Inc. Also represented by BRIAN PAUL BOZZO, Pittsburgh, PA; ERIK HALVERSON, San Francisco, CA.

GUY YONAY, Pearl Cohen Zedek Latzer Baratz LLP, New York, NY, for appellee Telit Cinterion Deutschland GmbH. Also represented by KYLE AUTERI, I. ______________________

Before LOURIE, STOLL, and STARK, Circuit Judges. LOURIE, Circuit Judge. 3G Licensing, S.A. (“3G Licensing”) appeals from a fi- nal written decision of the United States Patent and Trade- mark Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) finding claims 16–19, 21, 22, 39, 40, and 42 of U.S. Patent 7,551,625 (the “’625 patent”) unpatentable as anticipated or obvious. Cradlepoint, Inc. v. 3G Licensing S.A., IPR2021-00584, 2022 WL 4137702 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 12, 2022) (“Decision”). For the reasons provided below, we affirm. BACKGROUND The ’625 patent relates to improvements in allocating network resources in cellular networks. The patent teaches a method where a cell tower provides user equip- ment (“UE,” e.g., cellular phone) with a “scheduling assign- ment” (also known as a “scheduling grant” or “grant”), which is generally “downlink” (meaning it goes from a cell tower or base station to user equipment). See ’625 patent, col. 1 ll. 45–46. There are two relevant scheduling assign- ments: relative grants and absolute grants. Appellant’s Br. at 7 (citing J.A. 3230, ¶ 40). A relative grant tells user equipment to increase, decrease, or maintain its usage of network resources relative to a previous grant. Id. An ab- solute grant tells user equipment the maximum amount of Case: 23-1137 Document: 93 Page: 3 Filed: 07/31/2024

3G LICENSING, S.A. v. HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC. 3

network resources the user equipment can use, regardless of any previous grant. Id. To help regulate the amount of network resources used by the user equipment via the up- link channels, the ’625 patent teaches the use of a dedi- cated downlink channel: the Enhanced Absolute Grant Channel (“E-AGCH”). The E-AGCH serves as a channel dedicated to telling the user equipment how much of the network’s resources the user equipment may use by provid- ing user equipment multiple identifiers so that it can issue scheduling assignments more efficiently. ’625 patent, col. 3 ll. 14–29, col. 4 ll. 4–7. Representative claim 16 reads as follows: 16. A method of scheduling an uplink packet trans- mission channel for user equipment (UE), the method comprising: receiving a scheduling assignment in an Enhanced Absolute Grant Channel (E-AGCH), wherein the scheduling assignment comprises an identifier for a plurality of UE; acquiring the contents of the scheduling assign- ment; and, transmitting an uplink data packet on an En- hanced Uplink Dedicated Channel (E-DCH) ac- cording to the contents of the scheduling assignment. ’625 patent, col. 7 ll. 40–48 (emphasis added). Honeywell International, Inc., Sierra Wireless, Inc., TCL Communication Technology Holdings Limited, TCT Mobile International Limited, TCT Mobile, Inc., TCT Mo- bile (US) Inc., TCT Mobile (US) Holdings, Inc., and Thales DIS AIS Deutschland GmbH 1 (collectively, “Honeywell”)

1 Petitioners also included Cradlepoint, Inc. but they are not a party to the appeal. Case: 23-1137 Document: 93 Page: 4 Filed: 07/31/2024

4 3G LICENSING, S.A. v. HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC.

petitioned for inter partes review (“IPR”) of the ’625 patent, asserting anticipation or obviousness based on three Third Generation Partnership Project documents (“3GPP Refer- ences”) 2 and optionally Chen. 3 The 3GPP References are documents publishing the results of several working group meetings by the cellular standard-setting organization 3GPP in 2004 and early 2005. Appellant’s Br. at 13–15; Appellee’s Br. at 1. Specifically, the three 3GPP References were uploaded and publicly accessible no later than No- vember 21, 2004, December 3, 2004, and January 7, 2005, respectively. Decision at *3 nn.5–7, *6, *12–13. 3G Licensing responded that the 3GPP References did not qualify as prior art because they post-dated the priority date of the ’625 patent. The ’625 patent was filed on March 31, 2005, but claims priority from a foreign patent applica- tion (the “Korean Application”) that was filed on April 2, 2004. But Honeywell argued that the ’625 patent was not entitled to the April 2, 2004 filing date of the Korean Ap- plication because that application did not provide sufficient support for the challenged claims, as it failed to disclose an E-AGCH. 3G Licensing then argued that the ’625 patent is entitled to its earlier priority date because the Korean Application teaches the use of a grant channel sharing the properties of the E-AGCH, even if does not call the channel by that specific name. J.A. 260. A central element of the parties’ dispute regarding pri- ority was the proper claim construction of E-AGCH. In its Preliminary Patent Owner Response, 3G Licensing first ar- gued that E-AGCH should be construed as “a single com- mon grant channel capable of assigning multiple identifiers to a single UE that transmits scheduling grants to a single user equipment, groups of user equipment, or

2 See Decision at *3, *3 nn.5–7 for the precise grounds and references. 3 U.S. Patent 7,155,236. Case: 23-1137 Document: 93 Page: 5 Filed: 07/31/2024

3G LICENSING, S.A. v. HONEYWELL INTERNATIONAL INC. 5

all user equipment on the channel.” Decision at *4. Hon- eywell argued that E-AGCH was a term of art that required no construction beyond its plain and ordinary meaning. Id. According to Honeywell, “3GPP first coined the term ‘En- hanced Absolute Grant Channel’ or ‘E-AGCH’ in late 2004, defining and standardizing that term in the process.” Ap- pellee’s Br. at 1. In its Institution Decision, the Board pre- liminarily determined that “the E-AGCH disclosed in the ’625 patent ha[s] ‘the same definition as disclosed in the 3GPP standard documents,’ and [thus] that it requires an absolute grant.” Decision at *5 (quoting J.A. 366). Following institution, 3G Licensing revised its pro- posed construction of E-AGCH to “a single common grant channel that transmits scheduling grants to a single user equipment, groups of user equipment, or all user equip- ment on the channel, said channel supporting a single UE being assigned multiple identifiers.” Id. (quoting J.A. 483) (emphasis omitted). In response to the Board’s findings at institution, 3G Licensing argued that E-AGCH, regardless whether or not it was a term of art, did not have a single accepted meaning at the time of invention and that the pa- tentee had acted as its own lexicographer, defining it dif- ferently than in the 3GPP References. Id. at *5, *7.

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