Dali Wireless Inc. v. Commscope Technologies LLC

Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit·Decided September 6, 2023·No. 20-1045·Unpublished

Opinion

NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

DALI WIRELESS INC.,

Appellant

v.

COMMSCOPE TECHNOLOGIES LLC, Appellee

KATHERINE K. VIDAL, UNDER SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED STATES PA-

TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE, Intervenor

2020-1045

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2018- 00571.

Decided: September 6, 2023

STEFAN SZPAJDA, Folio Law Group PLLC, Seattle, WA, argued for appellant. Also represented by ALEXANDRA O. FELLOWES, CRISTOFER LEFFLER, DAVID DOUGLAS 2 DALI WIRELESS INC. v. COMMSCOPE TECHNOLOGIES LLC

SCHUMANN, CLIFF WIN, II; ERIC F. CITRON, Gupta Wessler PLLC, Washington, DC; KEVIN RUSSELL, Goldstein, Russell & Woofter LLC, Washington, DC.

PHILIP P. CASPERS, Carlson, Caspers, Vandenburgh & Lindquist PA, Minneapolis, MN, argued for appellee. Also represented by WILLIAM F. BULLARD, SAMUEL A. HAMER.

SARAH E. CRAVEN, Office of the Solicitor, United States Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for intervenor . Also represented by THOMAS W. KRAUSE, FARHEENA YASMEEN RASHEED.

Before HUGHES, LINN, and STARK, Circuit Judges.

LINN, Circuit Judge.

Dali Wireless Inc. (“Dali”) appeals from a Final Written Decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“Board”) holding that claims 6–8, 11–13, and 18–21 of Dali’s U.S. Patent Number 9,531,473 (“’473 patent”) are anticipated and obvious over prior art reference Wu, 1 and claims 9, 10, 14–17 of the same patent are obvious over a combination of Wu and Sabat. 2 See CommScope Techs. LLC v. Dali Wireless Inc., IPR No. 2018-00571 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 12, 2019) (“Board Opinion”). We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A) and 35 U.S.C. §§ 141(c) and 319.

Because substantial evidence supports the Board’s determinations of anticipation and obviousness of claims 6– 8, 11–13, and 18–21 over Wu, and because substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination of obviousness of claims 9, 10, 14–17 over the combination of Wu and Sabat, we affirm.

1 U.S. Pat. Pub. 2010/0128676. 2 U.S. Pat. Pub. 2009/0180426.

DALI WIRELESS INC. v. COMMSCOPE TECHNOLOGIES LLC 3

DISCUSSION

I

The ‘473 patent discloses a distributed antenna system that “enables a high degree of flexibility to manage, control, enhance, [and] facilitate the usage and performance of a distributed wireless network.” ’473 patent, Abstract. In such systems, downlink data is sent from a base station to any number of digital access units and, in turn, to various remote units located about an area of desired coverage. The remote units convey select information to user devices, such as cell phones. Software embedded in the digital access units and remote units determines “the appropriate amount of radio resources . . . to meet desired capacity and throughput objectives.” Id. at 11:44–50.

A single limitation of independent claim 11 is at the center of the debate over the unpatentability of claims 6–8, 11–13, and 18–21. That limitation is referred to as the “capable of sending” limitation: “wherein the host unit is capable of sending a digital representation of any downlink signal it receives to any of the plurality of remote units.” (Emphases added). 3 Dali also argues error in the Board’s treatment of the “packetizing” limitations of dependent claims 9, 10, 14–17. 4

3 Dali also cited at oral argument the so-called “configurable to transmit” limitation at the end of claim 11 but conceded that it did not challenge that limitation in its brief as part of this appeal. Oral Arg. at 2:46–55, 3:15–30, No. 20-1045, available at https://oralarguments .cafc.uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=20-1045_0710202 3.mp3.

4 Claims 15 and 17 depend from claims 14 and 16, respectively. The parties do not raise any issues on appeal concerning claims 15 or 17 that differ from their contentions regarding claims 14 and 16.

4 DALI WIRELESS INC. v. COMMSCOPE TECHNOLOGIES LLC

II

Beginning with the “capable of sending” limitation, we note that Dali first asked the Board to construe that limitation as requiring a “host unit . . . capable of sending a digital representation of a specific downlink signal it receives to a specific one of the plurality of remote units.” Board Opinion at 12 (emphasis added). Dali explained that its construction required the host unit to be capable of sending a specific signal to “only one remote unit without sending it to any other remote units.” Id. at 13. The Board rejected this construction because the specification describes upconverters at the remote units that can selectively broadcast from among the resources the remote unit receives and thus control the uplink resources themselves. Id. at 13–14. The Board concluded that it need not explicitly construe the claim in the manner requested by Dali. Id. at 14.

The Board then held claims 6–8, 11–13, and 18–21 anticipated and obvious over Wu. Wu describes a “carrier channel distribution system” to route channels to remote transceiver units (“RTUs”). Wu at ¶ 11. Wu’s base transceiver station (“BTS”) has a matrix switch, 250, and host units, 230 and “can include multi-band transceiver 260.” Id. at ¶¶ 15, 34. The transceiver sends analog channels to a matrix switch, which “routes analog channels 270 to an appropriate host unit 230 according to a [routing] policy 255 for distribution to remote regions or RTUs.” Id. at ¶¶ 38, 40. The Board held that Wu disclosed all the limitations of claim 11: the signal source read on the transceiver , the claimed host unit read on the combination of Wu’s matrix switch and host unit 230, and the claimed remote units read on the RTUs. Board Opinion at 17–22. As particularly relevant here, the Board held that Wu disclosed the “capable of sending” limitation because “Wu’s matrix switch allows individual carrier channels to be routed, via host units, to specific connected remote units.” Id. at 23.

DALI WIRELESS INC. v. COMMSCOPE TECHNOLOGIES LLC 5

The Board next addressed claims 9, 10, and 14–17 and construed the term “packetizing” as framing data and adding information that describes the source or destination of the data. Id. at 9–12. The Board then held claims 9, 10, 14–17 obvious over a combination of Wu and Sabat. Sabat discloses a communication system with distributed remote units using a DDR hub between a host digital base station and the digital remote units and vice versa. Sabat at ¶¶ 15, 16, 34–37, FIGs 3, 6. Sabat teaches that the hub may use the CPRI standard for communications and incorporates the specifications of that standard by reference into the patent . Id. at ¶¶ 14, 31, 32. As discussed further, infra, the CPRI specification discloses but does not require using “addresses ” such as ethernet addresses and an “address table” that “maps a CPRI port to an address.” J.A. 1161.

The Board held that Sabat taught using CPRI for communications between a host unit and base station. The Board also held that CPRI disclosed using addressing information , which “would have taught or suggested to one of ordinary skill in the art that the host unit would frame data being transmitted to the base station and address that data . . . so that packets arrive at their intended destination.” Board Opinion at 34.

III

The parties treat claim 11 as representative of claims 6–8, 11–13, and 18–21 and argue claims 9, 10, 14–17 together . Board Opinion at 24, 31, 35; Appellant’s Opening Br. at 13. Dali raises several arguments on the merits of the Board’s unpatentability determinations.

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