Takeaway: The Patent Owner should include arguments that a Petitioner has not established that a cited reference is prior art, in its Preliminary Response or its Response to the Decision on Institution, not in a Motion to Exclude.

In its Final Written Decision, the Board concluded that Petitioner has shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1, 3, 6, 8–11, 14–16, 18–29, 31, 32, 34, 35–41, 44, 46, and 47–50 (“the instituted claims”) of U.S. Patent No. 8,386,114 are unpatentable. “The ’114 patent relates generally to vision or imaging systems for vehicles and, more particularly, to imaging systems that are operable to determine if a vehicle or object of interest is adjacent to, forward of, or rearward of the subject vehicle to assist the driver in changing lanes or parking the vehicle.”

The Board began by considering Patent Owner’s motion to exclude Broggi, one of the references relied upon by Petitioner. As the movant, Patent Owner had the burden of proof to establish that it is entitled to the requested relief. According to the Board, Patent Owner argued that “Broggi should be excluded because Petitioner

fails to demonstrate, as required by 35 U.S.C. § 102(a), that Broggi was published or made publicly accessible prior to the December 23, 2004 priority date of the ’114 patent . . . and Broggi only lists the date of the 2004 IEEE Intelligent Vehicles Symposium in Parma, Italy (June 14-17), which provides no evidence to support that the paper was published at or prior to the conference”

After reviewing the parties’ arguments concerning the reference, the Board concluded that “[i]n large part, Patent Owner argues that Petitioner has not established that Broggi is prior art.” The Board then explained that “[s]uch arguments go to the weight and sufficiency of the evidence and not to admissibility,” and that “[a] motion to exclude deals with admissibility of evidence, not the sufficiency of evidence.” The Board determined that a declaration submitted by Petitioner established sufficiently that Broggi is what Petitioner claims it to be and that Patent Owner had not met its burden of proof to establish that Broggi is inadmissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence.

The Board then turned to claim construction, adopting the claim constructions for “edge detection” and “adjusts said processing of captured image data” that it used in its Decision on Institution.

Next, the Board considered the proposed grounds of unpatentability. After considering the parties’ arguments, the Board concluded that Petitioner established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that each of the instituted claims is unpatentable on the instituted grounds. In reaching these conclusions, the Board rejected Patent Owner’s arguments that the Petition does not provide detailed enough explanations, that Petitioner does not sufficiently articulate reasons to combine the cited references, and that certain limitations are not disclosed by the cited references.

Accordingly, the Board ordered that claims 1, 3, 6, 8–11, 14–16, 18–29, 31, 32, 34, 36–41, 44, 46, and 48–50 of the ’114 patent are held unpatentable.

Valeo North America, Inc. v. Magna Electronics, IPR2014-00222
Paper 55: Final Written Decision
Dated: May 28, 2015
Patent: 8,836,114 B2
Before: Jameson Lee, Phillip J. Kauffman, and Matthew R. Clements
Written by: Clements
Related Proceedings: Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. PNC Financial Services, Inc., No. 2:13-cv-11376 (E.D. Mich.., filed March 28, 2013); IPR2014-01204; IPR2014-00220 (U.S. Patent No. 7,859,565 B2), IPR2014-00221 (U.S. Patent No. 7,991,522 B2), IPR2014-00223 (U.S. Patent No. 8,386,114 B2), IPR2014-00227 (U.S. Patent No. 7,877,175 B2), and IPR2014-00228 (U.S. Patent No. 7,877,175 B2).