Case: 20-1881 Document: 52 Page: 1 Filed: 04/08/2021
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
INVT SPE LLC,
Appellant
v.
APPLE INC., HTC CORPORATION, HTC AMERICA,
INC., ZTE (USA) INC.,
Appellees
______________________
2020-1881
______________________
Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2018-
01476.
______________________
Decided: April 8, 2021
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JOHN K. HARTING, Robins Kaplan LLP, Minneapolis,
MN, argued for appellant. Also represented by BRENDA L.
JOLY, CYRUS ALCORN MORTON, CHRISTOPHER SEIDL.
PAUL R. HART, Erise IP, P.A., Greenwood Village, CO,
argued for all appellees. Appellee Apple Inc. also repre-
sented by ADAM PRESCOTT SEITZ, Overland Park, KS.
STEPHEN S. KORNICZKY, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter &
Case: 20-1881 Document: 52 Page: 2 Filed: 04/08/2021
2 INVT SPE LLC v. APPLE INC.
Hampton LLP, San Diego, CA, for appellees HTC Corpora-
tion, HTC America, Inc. Also represented by MARTIN
BADER, ERICKA SCHULZ.
JOHN PETER SCHNURER, Perkins Coie LLP, San Diego,
for appellee ZTE (USA) Inc. Also represented by KEVIN
PATARIU.
______________________
Before PROST, Chief Judge, PLAGER and CHEN, Circuit
Judges.
PER CURIAM.
INVT SPE LLC appeals from the final written decision
of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board), holding that
all six claims of
U.S. Patent No. 7,764,711 (the ’711 patent)
are unpatentable as obvious in light of the combined teach-
ings of Paulraj, 1 Walton, 2 and Huang. 3 See Apple Inc. v.
INVT SPE LLC, No. IPR2018-01476,
2020 WL 1808193
(P.T.A.B. Apr. 8, 2020). We have reviewed the record and
see no error in the Board’s unpatentability findings. Under
the broadest reasonable interpretation standard, 4 the
1
U.S. Patent No. 6,067,290.
2
U.S. Patent No. 7,095,709.
3 Howard Huang et al., Achieving High Data Rates
in DCMA Systems using BLAST Techniques, IEEE GLOBAL
TELECOMMUNICATIONS CONFERENCE – GLOBECOM ’99 2316
(1999).
4 See
37 C.F.R. § 42.100(b) (2018). The U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office recently amended this regulation to
require the Board to apply the claim construction standard
articulated in Phillips v. AWH Corp.,
415 F.3d 1303 (Fed.
Cir. 2005) (en banc), to IPR petitions filed on or after No-
vember 13, 2018. See Changes to the Claim Construction
Standard for Interpreting Claims in Trial Proceedings Be-
fore the Patent Trial and Appeal Board,
83 Fed. Reg. 51,340
Case: 20-1881 Document: 52 Page: 3 Filed: 04/08/2021
INVT SPE LLC v. APPLE INC. 3
claims do not exclude the possibility in which the “plurality
of data items,” like the “specific data item,” are subject to
transmit diversity. See ’711 patent at claim 1. The speci-
fication defines “specific data” to include data transmitted
under “poor channel quality” conditions,
id. at col. 3 ll. 60–
66, and such conditions, as INVT acknowledges, would dic-
tate that “all of the data transmitted at any given time . . .
be subject to transmit diversity,” see Appellant’s Br. 58
(emphasis added). Rather than requiring simultaneous
transmission of both higher and lower priority data, the
Board’s construction merely requires that the specific data
be of higher priority than data not needing the increased
accuracy afforded by transmit diversity—e.g., data trans-
mitted under good channel quality conditions. Because the
asserted prior art combination results in using transmit di-
versity on all data that is transmitted under poor channel
conditions, substantial evidence supports the Board’s find-
ings that led to its obviousness determination. Accord-
ingly, we affirm for the reasons stated by the Board.
AFFIRMED
(Oct. 11, 2018) (codified at
37 C.F.R. § 42.100(b)). Because
the petition challenging the ’711 patent was filed before
November 13, 2018, the broadest reasonable interpretation
standard applies to the Board decision on appeal.
