Uniloc 2017 LLC v. Apple Inc.

Case: 20-1403 Document: 72 Page: 1 Filed: 05/12/2021
United States Court of Appeals
for the Federal Circuit
______________________
UNILOC 2017 LLC,
Appellant
v.
APPLE INC.,
Cross-Appellant
ANDREW HIRSHFELD, PERFORMING THE
FUNCTIONS AND DUTIES OF THE UNDER
SECRETARY OF COMMERCE FOR
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND DIRECTOR OF
THE UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK
OFFICE,
Intervenor
______________________
2020-1403, 2020-1404
______________________
Appeals from the United States Patent and Trademark
Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2018-
00884.
______________________
Decided: May 12, 2021
______________________
BRIAN MATTHEW KOIDE, Etheridge Law Group, South-
lake, TX, argued for appellant. Also represented by JAMES
ETHERIDGE, RYAN S. LOVELESS, BRETT MANGRUM, JEFFREY
A. STEPHENS.
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2 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
KEVIN SCOTT PRUSSIA, Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale
and Dorr LLP, Boston, MA, argued for cross-appellant.
Also represented by MARK CHRISTOPHER FLEMING;
CRISTINA SALCEDO, Los Angeles, CA.
MARY L. KELLY, Office of the Solicitor, United States
Patent and Trademark Office, Alexandria, VA, for interve-
nor. Also represented by SARAH E. CRAVEN, MICHAEL S.
FORMAN, DANIEL KAZHDAN, THOMAS W. KRAUSE, FARHEENA
YASMEEN RASHEED.
______________________
Before PROST, Chief Judge, BRYSON and REYNA, Circuit
Judges.
BRYSON, Circuit Judge.
Uniloc 2017 LLC appeals from a decision of the Patent
Trial and Appeal Board in an inter partes review of Uniloc’s
U.S. Patent No. 8,539,552 (“the ’552 patent”). The Board
held claims 1–17 and 23–25 of the ’552 patent invalid for
obviousness in view of U.S. Patent No. 6,324,279 to Kal-
manek et al. (“Kalmanek”). Uniloc argues that the Board’s
decision as to those claims resulted from an erroneous con-
struction of a claim term. In its cross-appeal, Apple Inc.
argues that the Board erred by holding that Apple failed to
show that the remaining claims of the ’552 patent, claims
18–22, would have been obvious in view of Kalmanek. We
affirm.
I
A
Modern telecommunications systems using Voice over
Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) offer clients various optional fea-
tures, such as caller-ID, call waiting, multi-line service,
and different levels of service quality known as the “codec
specification.” The ’552 patent is directed to a system and
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 3
method to police the use of those features. ’552 patent, Ab-
stract; id. at col. 13, ll. 66–67; id. at col. 18, ll. 17–31.
The patent recognizes that the proliferation of intelli-
gent client devices in communication networks requires
providers to maintain control over the use of their net-
works’ features in order to continue generating revenue.
Id. at col. 1, ll. 31–55. To achieve that control, the patented
system employs an enforcement mechanism within the
provider’s core network through which clients send “signal-
ing messages” for setting up their communication sessions.
Id. at col. 7, ll. 32–42. Because the enforcement point sits
between the sender of the communication and the intended
recipient, the provider can inspect the signaling messages
sent between the two and ensure that both are authorized
to use particular features. See id. at col. 7, line 53, through
col. 8, line 11.
The ’552 patent has five independent claims: claims 1,
6, 18, 23, and 24. Claim 1 recites the following:
A method for controlling a plurality of services in
packet-based networks, the method comprising:
a network entity intercepting a signaling message
associated with a call between a sender device of
the message and an intended recipient device of the
message, wherein the signaling message includes
an indication of one type of the plurality of services
which the signaling message is intended to invoke;
the network entity making a determination of
whether either the sender device or the intended
recipient device is authorized to invoke the type of
service indicated in the signaling message based in
part on a device profile maintained in part on a re-
mote enforcement point, wherein the type of ser-
vice comprises at least one of caller-ID, call
waiting, multi-way calling, multi-line service, and
codec specification; and
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4 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
the network entity filtering the signaling message
based on the determination such that the signaling
message is transmitted to the intended recipient
device if either the sender device or the intended
recipient device is authorized to invoke the type of
service indicated in the signaling message.
Id. at col. 19, line 60, through col. 20, line 15.
The independent claims are similar in many respects.
Each requires “determining” whether a client device is au-
thorized to invoke or receive a particular service and “fil-
tering” the signaling message based on that authorization.
See, e.g., id. at col. 22, ll. 34–54 (claim 24) (requiring that a
“border element” transmit a signaling message “if either of
the end devices associated with that SIP signaling message
is authorized for a service”). In addition, claims 1, 6, 18,
and 23 require “intercepting” the signaling message before
the determining and filtering steps are completed. Claim
24 does not recite an intercepting step. See id. at col. 22, ll.
34–54.
Claims 1, 6, 23, and 24 require an authorization related
to at least one service type. Claim 18 requires authoriza-
tions related to at least two service types. The services rel-
evant to this appeal are caller-ID and codec specification.
Kalmanek discloses a system for exchanging signaling
messages between a calling party and a called party, 1 both
of which are outside the direct control of the service
1 Across Kalmanek’s various embodiments, the call-
ing party is sometimes referred to as the originating broad-
band telephony interface (“BTIO”) or the originating
telephone interface unit (“TIUO”). See, e.g., Kalmanek, col.
46, ll. 55–64. The called party is sometimes referred to as
the terminating broadband telephony interface (“BTIT”) or
the terminating telephone interface unit (“TIUT”). See, e.g.,
id. at col. 9, ll. 33–39.
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 5
provider. Kalmanek, col. 2, ll. 3–4; id. at col. 6, ll. 13–17.
The signaling messages are routed through at least one
“gate controller” that has access to authentication data-
bases and customer profile information. Id. at col. 2, ll. 4–
5; id. at col. 6, ll. 41–48. The gate controller can authenti-
cate the identity of the calling party and authorize the ser-
vice sought by the calling party. Id. at col. 6, ll. 49–55.
Similar actions can be taken with respect to the called
party. See, e.g., id. at col. 56, ll. 17–25. The services cov-
ered by Kalmanek include caller-ID, see id. at col. 21, ll.
53–59, and enhanced levels of call quality, see id. at col. 3,
ll. 60–64.
Kalmanek divides its call network into two parts—the
originating side and the terminating side. See id. at col. 5,
ll. 54–67; see also id. at Figs. 1 and 6. There is a gate con-
troller on the originating side (the “originating gate con-
troller” or “GCO”) and a gate controller on the terminating
side (“terminating gate controller” or “GCT”). Id. at col. 9,
ll. 33–39; id. at Fig. 1. To initiate a call, the calling party
creates a message referred to as the “SETUP message.”
The calling party sends that message along a path, first to
the originating gate controller, then to the terminating
gate controller, and finally to the called party. See id. at
col. 13, ll. 18–24. The called party responds by creating an
acknowledgment message referred to as the “SETUPACK
message.” The called party sends that message along a re-
turn path, first to the terminating gate controller, then to
the originating gate controller, and finally to the calling
party. See id. at col. 13, ll. 33–41; see also id. at Fig. 6. The
SETUP and SETUPACK messages contain various param-
eters pertaining to the call and the clients on the call; those
parameters are summarized in columns 21 and 22 of Kal-
manek.
B
In April 2018, Apple filed a petition for inter partes re-
view, alleging that all 25 claims of the ’552 patent were
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6 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
unpatentable. Apple Inc. v. Uniloc 2017 LLC, No.
IPR2018-00884, Petition at 1 (P.T.A.B.) (filed Apr. 10,
2018) (“Petition for IPR”). Apple asserted that the “inter-
cepting” term in the independent claims should be con-
strued to mean “the signaling [message] is received by a
network entity located between the endpoints of the call.”
Id. at 8. Uniloc disagreed, arguing that the term “inter-
cepting” should be construed to exclude the receipt of a sig-
naling message by the intended recipient of that message.
Apple Inc. v. Uniloc 2017 LLC, No. IPR2018-00884, Patent
Owner’s Preliminary Response at 4–6 (P.T.A.B.) (filed July
20, 2018).
Apple alleged that claim 1 would have been obvious
over Kalmanek in view of the knowledge of a person of or-
dinary skill in the art of packet-based telecommunication
systems. Petition for IPR, at 5, 18. For claim 1’s intercept-
ing step, Apple pointed to Kalmanek’s description of the
gate controller receiving the SETUP message on that mes-
sage’s path to the called party. See id. at 24–25; see also id.
at 26. For claim 1’s service-type limitation, 2 Apple pointed
to the caller-ID parameter in Kalmanek’s SETUP and
SETUPACK messages. Id. at 29–31. Apple identified the
“CODING” parameter in the SETUP message as embody-
ing a codec specification. Id. at 27–28.
For claim 1’s step of determining an authorization re-
lating to the service type, Apple pointed to Kalmanek’s de-
scription of the originating and terminating gate
controllers’ receipt of the SETUP and SETUPACK mes-
sages and verification of the caller-ID information in those
2 The service-type limitation in claim 1 provides:
“wherein the signaling message includes an indication of
one type of the plurality of services which the signaling
message is intended to invoke . . . wherein the type of ser-
vice comprises at least one of caller-ID, call waiting, multi-
way calling, multi-line service, and codec specification.”
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 7
messages. Id. at 34–36. Apple also alleged that Kalmanek
“teaches that the gate controller determines if both the
sender and recipient devices are authorized to invoke a co-
dec specification.” Id. at 36. Apple explained:
BTIO sends a SETUP message to GCOO that in-
cludes one or more requested coding algorithms,
which correspond to a desired quality of ser-
vice/bandwidth to be implemented by [the originat-
ing router]. . . . After the SETUP message reaches
the called party, the BTIT sends a SETUPACK
message that includes an acceptable CODING pa-
rameter from those requested by the BTIO. . . . Kal-
manek further teaches that the service provider
then authorizes the requested quality of service for
the call. . . . This authorization process is per-
formed by the gate controllers utilizing the cus-
tomer profile information.
Id. at 36–37.
For claim 1’s filtering step, Apple asserted that Kal-
manek’s “network entity, namely GCT, filters the signaling
message, including transmitting the SETUP message to
BTIT, if BTIT has subscribed to the indicated service,
namely caller ID indicated by the CID flag.” Id. at 40–41.
Apple made that assertion under a bolded section heading
for claim 1’s filtering step. See id. at 39–41. Apple did not,
however, make an explicit assertion in that section that
Kalmanek teaches the filtering step with respect to the co-
dec service. See id.With respect to claim 18, Apple incorporated by refer-
ence its mappings of Kalmanek to the various steps in
claim 1. Id. at 51–53. For claim 18’s filtering step, Apple
incorporated by reference its allegations concerning claim
1’s filtering step.
In its reply brief before the Board, Apple shifted posi-
tions regarding claim 18. As to the codec service, Apple
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8 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
argued that Kalmanek’s gate controllers perform claim 18’s
determining-an-authorization step when they act on the
SETUP message, not just when they act on the
SETUPACK message. See, e.g., Apple Inc. v. Uniloc 2017
LLC, No. IPR2018-00884, Petitioner’s Reply at 15–17
(P.T.A.B.) (filed Apr. 16, 2019). Apple also argued that Kal-
manek teaches that the SETUP message is filtered with
respect to the codec service because that message is for-
warded unaltered to the called party following an authori-
zation. Id. at 15.
In its final written decision, the Board construed the
term “intercepting” to mean that “the signaling message is
received by a network entity located between the endpoints
of the call.” Apple Inc. v. Uniloc 2017 LLC, No. IPR2018-
00884, 2019 WL 4492895, at *5 (P.T.A.B. Sept. 18, 2019).
The Board concluded that Kalmanek “explicitly discloses
that the called party’s device, not the gate controller, is the
intended end recipient of the setup message” and that “Kal-
manek’s setup messages are passed through, or intercepted
by, the gate controllers.” Id. at 9. In view of its claim con-
struction, the Board held all claims in the ’552 patent un-
patentable except for claim 18 and its dependent claims.
With respect to claim 18 and its dependent claims, the
Board ruled that Apple had not proved by a preponderance
of the evidence that those claims were unpatentable. Id. at
*16–18. The Board first noted that claim 18 and claim 1
require similar steps, but that claim 18 requires those
steps to be completed with respect to two services, such as
caller-ID and codec specification. Id. at *16. The Board
then noted that Apple’s petition had relied entirely on its
allegations as to claim 1’s filtering step when asserting that
Kalmanek teaches claim 18’s filtering step. Id. The Board
reasoned that because Apple’s allegations as to claim 1’s
filtering step did not address the codec service, Apple’s pe-
tition failed to raise a viable invalidity theory against claim
18. Id. at *16–17. The Board rejected Apple’s attempt in
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 9
its reply brief to “re-characterize” its assertions in its peti-
tion concerning claim 18’s filtering step. Id. at *17.
The Board further held that even if Apple had ad-
dressed the codec service in its allegations as to claim 18’s
filtering step, it would still lose on the merits. Id. at *17–
18. That was because claim 18 requires that the step of
determining whether a user is authorized to invoke or re-
ceive at least two services be performed in response to a
single message, while Apple’s petition relied on two sepa-
rate messages in Kalmanek to perform the determining
step. Id.II
On appeal, Uniloc contends that the Board’s construc-
tion of “intercepting” in the independent claims was erro-
neous and that the Board incorrectly held claims 1–17 and
23–25 invalid as a result. 3 In its cross-appeal, Apple ar-
gues that the Board erroneously rejected its challenge to
claims 18–22.
A
Uniloc argues that under the plain and ordinary mean-
ing of “intercepting,” the entity that “intercepts” a message
cannot be an intended recipient of the message. To support
that argument, Uniloc cites various dictionary definitions
and relies on the following analogy: A player making an
interception in football is not the intended receiver of the
ball but instead seizes the ball on its way to the intended
receiver. Uniloc contends that the Board’s construction im-
properly permits the network entity intercepting the
3 Uniloc also lodged a constitutional challenge to the
Board’s decision based on Arthrex, Inc. v. Smith & Nephew,
Inc., 941 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2019). Uniloc has since with-
drawn that challenge. See Dkt. No. 61, Uniloc 2017 LLC v.
Apple, Inc., No. 20-1403 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 16, 2021).
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10 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
signaling message to be an intended recipient of the mes-
sage even if there is an additional intended recipient down-
stream.
Uniloc is correct that the signaling message can have
only one true “intended recipient,” as the claims of the ’552
patent use that term. Claim 1 specifies that the inter-
cepted signaling message is “associated with a call between
a sender device of the message and an intended recipient
device.” Claim 1 later refers to “the intended recipient,”
making clear that the client device on the other end of the
impending call is the one true “intended recipient.”
However, just because the receiving client device is the
ultimate “intended recipient” does not mean that the send-
ing client device cannot intentionally direct the message to
the intercepting entity. To the contrary, the patent con-
templates that the sending client device will purposely di-
rect the message through an intermediate recipient. For
example, in one embodiment, the patent describes “a caller
send[ing] an INVITE message to a callee by way of a proxy
server,” ’552 patent, col. 6, ll. 1–2 (emphasis added), where
the proxy server effectively performs the intercepting, de-
termining, and filtering steps recited by the claims, see id.at col. 6, ll. 17–25.
We hold that the claims encompass the situation in
which a sending client device intentionally sends a signal-
ing message to the intermediate network entity that per-
forms the interception. Contrary to Uniloc’s contention,
that construction is not at odds with the plain meaning of
the claims. The receiving client device is still “the intended
recipient” of the message because it is the ultimate, in-
tended destination of that message; the intermediate net-
work entity is not “the intended recipient,” even though it
is intended to intercept the message on its way to the in-
tended recipient. In that situation, “intercepting” retains
a meaning distinct from merely “receiving.” The network
entity “intercepts” the message, rather than merely
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 11
“receiving” the message, because the network entity sits
between the two client devices and processes the message
during its passage from its source to its ultimate destina-
tion.
The Board made a similar observation in its decision,
concluding that “[b]y the language of claim 1, the recited
‘intended recipient device’ must be the called device, not an
intermediate network entity.” Apple, 2019 WL 4492895, at
*5. Thus, any device sitting between the two end-clients
cannot be “the intended recipient” of the signaling mes-
sage, at least as the patent uses that term. See id. The
Board concluded that “intercepting” means “the signaling
message is received by a network entity located between
the endpoints of the call.” Id. at *5. That construction cap-
tures the idea that “intercepting” involves an entity, other
than a client device, that receives and acts on the signaling
message before it reaches its final destination.
The Board’s construction is supported by the prosecu-
tion history of U.S. Patent Application No. 10/671,375 (“the
’375 application”), which matured into the ’552 patent. In
a non-final office action dated March 31, 2011, the exam-
iner rejected certain independent claims of the ’375 appli-
cation based in part on U.S. Patent Publication No.
2003/0177363 to Yokota et al. (“Yokota”). At that time, “in-
tercepting” was absent from the independent claims. See
’375 application, Response to Office Action dated June 24,
2011, at 2–8. Claim 1, for example, required “a network
entity receiving a signaling message within a communica-
tion path between a sender device and an intended recipi-
ent device.” See id. at 2 (emphasis added). To support the
rejection, the examiner stated that Yokota teaches receiv-
ing a signaling message “within a communication path be-
tween a sender device and an intended recipient device.”
’375 application, Non-Final Office Action dated March 31,
2011, at 2 (citing Yokota, ¶ 16).
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12 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
As the applicants subsequently argued in their re-
sponse to the March 31 office action, Yokota discloses a
user sending a request for service (e.g., video or music) to a
provider that verifies the authenticity of the request and
provides the service to the user in response. Response to
Office Action at 11–12. Thus, “Yokota never discloses an
intermediate entity intercepting any communication be-
tween two other [user] devices, let alone a message associ-
ated with a call between two other devices.” Id. at 12–13.
“Instead, Yokota at best discloses a [provider] receiving a
service request from the [user]. But this service request is
sent from the [user] directly to the [provider], not to some
other [user] apparatus.” Id. at 13.
In their response to the office action, the applicants
amended their claims by replacing the word “receiving”
with “intercepting” and adding that the signaling message
was “associated with a call” between two end users. Id. at
2. According to the applicants, the amendment was en-
tered at the recommendation of the examiner to “overcome
the art of record” by “clarify[ing] that the independent
claims involve a network entity intercepting messages that
are associated with a call between two end users.” Id. at 10.
The applicants emphasized that their claims were now pa-
tentably distinguishable from Yokota because they “in-
volve[d] a network entity receiving and filtering messages
that are sent between two end users.” Id. at 9.
The prosecution history indicates that the relevant dis-
tinction between “receiving” and “intercepting” is that “in-
tercepting” involves an entity other than a client device
acting on the signaling message before it reaches its ulti-
mate destination. The prosecution history thus supports
the Board’s construction of “intercepting” as meaning that
a signaling message is received by a network entity located
between the endpoints of the call. Like the Board, we ar-
rive at that construction by focusing on the prosecution his-
tory, the specification, and the context of the particular
claims in which the term “intercepting” appears. Those
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 13
pieces of intrinsic evidence outweigh Uniloc’s reliance on
dictionary definitions, see Finisar Corp. v. DirecTV Grp.,
Inc., 523 F.3d 1323, 1328 (Fed. Cir. 2008); analogies, see
Driessen v. Sony Music Ent., 640 F. App’x 892, 895 (Fed.
Cir. 2016); and the purported plain meaning of “intercept-
ing” in isolation, see Jansen v. Rexall Sundown, Inc., 342
F.3d 1329, 1333 (Fed. Cir. 2003). 4
Consistent with the Board’s construction of “intercept-
ing,” Kalmanek discloses the “intercepting” limitation be-
cause it teaches that its gate controller receives a signaling
message from one party to a call, wherein the message is
intended for another party to the call. In particular, Kal-
manek teaches that “[s]ignaling messages are exchanged
for a call between a calling party to a called party. A setup
message for the call is exchanged through at least one gate
controller.” Kalmanek, col. 2, ll. 2–5; see also id. at col. 13,
ll. 8–29 (“FIG. 3 illustrates a flow chart for performing two-
phase signaling in call connection . . . . At step 330, the
originating TIU 170 sends a setup message to the originat-
ing gate controller 110. . . . At step 340, the setup message
is forwarded from the originating gate controller 110 to the
terminating gate controller 111. At step 350, the setup
message is forwarded from the terminating gate controller
111 to the terminating TIU 171.”).
4 Uniloc also relies on statements from its expert wit-
ness, Dr. William C. Easttom, II, in support of its claim
construction position. The Board, however, declined to
credit that testimony over the intrinsic evidence in the rec-
ord, both because Dr. Easttom failed to consider the full
disclosure and prosecution history of the ’552 patent and
because Uniloc hindered or prevented Apple from cross-ex-
amining him. See Apple, 2019 WL 4492895, at *5 n.9. We
uphold the Board’s decision not to give substantial weight
to Dr. Easttom’s declaration for those reasons.
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14 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
We therefore affirm the Board’s construction of “inter-
cepting” and the Board’s holding that claims 1–17 and 23–
25 of the ’552 patent would have been obvious in view of
Kalmanek.
B
On cross-appeal, Apple challenges the Board’s holding
that Apple failed to raise a viable invalidity theory as to
claim 18. Apple also contends that its invalidity theory for
claim 18 is correct on the merits and that the Board erred
by holding that Apple failed to show that claim 18 would
have been obvious over Kalmanek.
The Board held that Apple’s petition failed to raise a
viable invalidity theory against claim 18 because it relied
entirely on its allegations as to claim 1’s filtering step when
asserting that Kalmanek teaches claim 18’s filtering step.
Apple, 2019 WL 4492895, *16–17. That was fatal, accord-
ing to the Board, because claim 18 requires its filtering step
to be performed in relation to at least two services (e.g.,
caller-ID and the codec specification), and Apple’s allega-
tions as to claim 1’s filtering step were silent as to the codec
specification, discussing only caller-ID. Id. Although Ap-
ple argued in reply that Kalmanek teaches filtering relat-
ing to the codec specification, the Board declined to credit
that argument, viewing it as an improper attempt by Apple
to re-characterize its petition. Id. at *17.
We find it unnecessary to reach the procedural issue of
whether Apple raised a viable invalidity theory against
claim 18 in its petition. That is because even assuming
there was no defect in Apple’s petition with respect to claim
18’s filtering step, Apple would still lose on the merits of
whether it showed that claim 18 would have been obvious
in view of Kalmanek.
Apple acknowledged at oral argument that claim 18
prohibits two separate messages from satisfying the steps
in that claim with respect to the caller-ID and codec
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 15
services. That is, claim 18 does not permit one message to
satisfy those steps with respect to caller-ID and another
message to satisfy those steps with respect to codec.
In its petition, Apple identified two separate messages
as satisfying the steps of claim 18. With respect to caller-
ID, Apple identified the SETUP message as the message
on which Kalmanek’s gate controllers perform the inter-
cepting and filtering steps. See Petition for IPR, at 21–26,
40–41, 52–53. With respect to codec specification, Apple
identified the SETUPACK message as the message on
which Kalmanek’s gate controllers perform the step of de-
termining an authorization. See id. at 36–37, 52.
To be sure, when discussing claim 18’s determining
step in its petition, Apple mentioned that the SETUP mes-
sage “includes one or more requested [codec] algorithms”
and that the SETUP message is sent to the originating gate
controller. Id. at 36–37, 52. In that portion of Apple’s pe-
tition, however, Apple was not asserting that the gate con-
trollers’ handling of the SETUP message satisfies the
determining step with respect to the codec specifica-
tion. The sentences following the quoted portion of Apple’s
petition make clear that Apple understood that the gate
controllers cannot determine an authorization regarding
codec until after (1) the SETUP message has been delivered
to the called party, (2) the called party selects a codec for
the call, and (3) the called party sends the SETUPACK
message. See id. at 37 (“After the SETUP message reaches
the called party, the [called party] sends a SETUPACK
message that includes an acceptable CODING parameter
from those requested by the [calling party]. . . . Kalmanek
further teaches that the service provider then authorizes
the requested quality of service for the call.” (emphasis
added)).
Apple suggests that the Board interpreted that portion
of its petition differently. Apple points to the following
statement in the Board’s decision: “Petitioner argues that
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16 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
Kalmanek’s SETUP message also includes a CODING field
identifying one or more coding algorithms, which corre-
spond to a desired quality of service/bandwidth to be im-
plemented, and that the gate controllers determine if both
the sender and recipient devices are authorized to invoke
the codec specification.” Apple, 2019 WL 4492895, *11 (cit-
ing Petition for IPR, at 36–38). According to Apple, that
statement reflects that the Board endorsed Apple’s theory
that the gate controller’s handling of the SETUP message
satisfies the step of determining an authorization relating
to codec specification.
We disagree. As a preliminary matter, in the cited pas-
sage the Board was merely recounting Apple’s assertions,
not endorsing them. See id. Moreover, the most reasonable
reading of pages 36 through 38 of Apple’s petition is that
the gate controllers of Kalmanek cannot determine an au-
thorization of codec level using just the SETUP message.
Supporting that interpretation is Apple’s statement in that
section of its petition that “the [called party] sends a
SETUPACK message that includes an acceptable CODING
parameter,” followed by the statement that the “service
provider then authorizes the requested quality of service for
the call.” Petition for IPR, at 37 (emphasis added).
Apple also argues that other sections of its petition as-
serted that Kalmanek’s gate controllers perform claim 18’s
determining step on the SETUP message in relation to co-
dec specification. Specifically, Apple points to its allega-
tions concerning the service-type limitation in claim 1, id.at 27–29, which Apple cross-referenced in its allegations
concerning the service-type limitation in claim 18, id. at 52.
Concerning claim 1’s service-type limitation, Apple stated
in its petition that “Kalmanek teaches that the gate con-
troller receives the setup message ([Kalmanek, col. 9, ll.
40–43]), authorizes a quality of service for the call using
authentication databases and customer profile information
([id. at col. 10, ll. 13–19]), and sets up a gate at the edge
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 17
router based on the authorized quality of service.” Petition
for IPR, at 29.
We first note that the above statement is from the por-
tion of Apple’s petition addressing the service-type limita-
tion, not the determining step. Setting that aside, we find
nothing in Kalmanek that supports Apple’s argument. Col-
umn 10, lines 13 through 19 of Kalmanek generally de-
scribe the process of verifying that “the quality of service
desired by a [called or calling party] is no greater than the
quality of service authorized by the corresponding gate con-
troller,” and the function of the gate controller in accom-
plishing that authorization using “authentication
databases and customer profile information.”
That passage does not describe when the authorization
is performed. Nor does it connect that authorization to the
SETUP message. On the contrary, that passage follows di-
rectly after Kalmanek’s discussion of the “reservation pro-
cess.” Kalmanek, col. 10, ll. 6–13. In “step 240” of that
reservation process, “a reserve message is sent from the
[calling party] to the originating NED 120.” Id. And in
“step 250,” “a reserve message is sent from the [called
party] to the terminating NED 121.” Id. As step 210 of
Figure 2 makes clear, those “reservation message[s]” are
distinct from the SETUP message, undercutting Apple’s re-
liance on column 10 of Kalmanek. See id. at col. 9, ll. 40–
50.
Beyond that, the premise of Apple’s statement is incor-
rect. As the Board explained, “the determination of what
codec is authorized [in Kalmanek] is made by the [called
party] rather than the [gate controllers], and the determi-
nation is made after the SETUP message has already been
forwarded to the [called party].” Apple, 2019 WL 4492895,
*17. Hence, Kalmanek does not disclose that the originat-
ing gate controller determines an authorization regarding
codec when receiving the SETUP message, because when
the gate controller receives the SETUP message for a
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18 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
particular call, a codec has yet to be selected for that
call. See Kalmanek, col. 22, ll. 25–53 (“[SETUP message]
CODING specifies a list of possible encapsulations and cod-
ing methods that the originator will per-
form. . . . [SETUPACK message] CODING gives the single
encapsulation and coding method, of the choices presented
in the SETUP message, that is acceptable to the destina-
tion BTI.”).
Even if it were possible for the originating gate control-
ler to anticipate which codec will be used before the called
party selects a codec, such as if the calling party’s list of
codecs contains only one option, see id. at col. 21, l. 29, there
is no discussion in Kalmanek regarding how the gate con-
troller would use that information to provision bandwidth
and/or regulate call quality before the SETUPACK mes-
sage has been sent by the called party. Portions of Kal-
manek that discuss the provisioning of bandwidth and
regulation of call quality describe those actions as occur-
ring after the SETUPACK message has been sent by the
called party, and thus well after the SETUP message has
passed through the gate controllers. See, e.g., id. at col. 13,
ll. 18–47 (“At step 330, the originating TIU 170 sends a
setup message to the originating gate controller
110. . . . At step 350, the setup message is forwarded from
the terminating gate controller 111 to the terminating TIU
171. . . . At step 360, . . . a setup acknowledgment message
is sent to the TIU 170. . . . At step 370, the network re-
sources for the call are reserved. . . . [A] reserve message
is sent from the originating TIU 170 to the originating
NED 120 and from the terminating TIU 170 to the termi-
nating NED 121 . . . .”); id. at col. 28, ll. 2–12 (“The
RESERVE message is sent by the BTI in the first stage of
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UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC. 19
resource allocation. . . . BANDWIDTH is the specification
of the actual bandwidth desired at this time.”). 5
We conclude, therefore, that Apple’s petition fails to es-
tablish that Kalmanek renders claim 18 obvious because
Apple pointed to—and could only point to—both the
SETUP and SETUPACK messages in Kalmanek when al-
leging invalidity of claim 18 of the ’552 patent. The Board
came to the same conclusion, reasoning that Apple’s alle-
gations with respect to claim 18 were insufficient because
Apple asserted that “the gate controllers authorize the co-
dec specified in the SETUPACK message” but separately
asserted that “the message” for purposes of claim 18’s fil-
tering step was “the initial SETUP message.” Apple, 2019
WL 4492895, *18. That conclusion was not erroneous.
III
We affirm the Board’s construction of “intercepting”
and the Board’s related holding that claims 1–17 and 23–
25 of the ’552 patent are unpatentable. We also affirm the
Board’s holding that Apple failed to demonstrate by a pre-
ponderance of the evidence that claims 18–22 are un-
patentable.
AFFIRMED
5 Apple asserted an alternative obviousness theory
in its petition, contending that it would have been obvious
for a person of ordinary skill to modify Kalmanek’s system
such that its gate controllers would determine authoriza-
tions of codec levels for the calling party and the called
party. See Petition for IPR, at 38. On appeal, Apple has
not argued that the Board erred in its consideration of that
alternative theory, and Apple has not advanced the sub-
stance of that theory in its briefing.
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20 UNILOC 2017 LLC v. APPLE INC.
COSTS
No costs.