In a final written decision of an inter partes review under the America Invents Act (AIA), the United States Patent and Trademark Office’s (USPTO) Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) held that True Position Inc.’s device locator patent \u2014 US 7,783,299 \u2014 is invalid in light of three prior art references. The patent describes a system for locating wireless devices in an emergency, covering monitoring links in a wireless network and triggering network events detected on those links. The technology has applications in anti-terrorism, law enforcement, and public safety services.<\/p>\n
The validity challenge was brought by Polaris Wireless Inc., a company founded in 1999 by engineers who invented and patented Wireless Location Signatures (Polaris WLS) technology. True Position is engaged in mobile phone tracking for public safety purposes. In May 2012, True Position had filed suit in Delaware Federal Court alleging that Polaris Wireless infringed US 7,783,299. Polaris Wireless responded by challenging the patent’s validity through inter partes review proceedings.<\/p>\n
Polaris Wireless argued that claims 111\u2013114 of US 7,783,299 were invalid as anticipated and obvious in light of three prior art references. Two of the references are US patents: US 6,088,587 (Abbadessa) and US 6,167,266 (Havinis). The third is a WIPO patent application designated as Zell. The PTAB conducted a full claim construction and prior art analysis before concluding that Polaris had demonstrated by a preponderance of evidence that the patent was anticipated by Zell. The PTAB also found the patent obvious in light of the combination of Abbadessa and Havinis.<\/p>\n
True Position’s technology is stated to be capable of accurately locating any mobile phone in any environment, including environments where alternative location technologies such as A-GPS are unavailable. True Position’s system was deployed in the search and rescue operations following the September 11, 2001 attacks at the World Trade Center.<\/p>\n
This article is for general information and does not constitute legal advice. Readers should consult a qualified attorney before acting on any matter discussed here.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The USPTO\u2019s PTAB has invalidated True Position Inc.\u2019s device locator patent 7,783,299 on grounds of anticipation and obviousness based on prior art. Polaris Wireless successfully challenged the patent\u2019s validity, highlighting the significance of robust prior art analysis in US patent law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":41,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14],"tags":[7625,12824,10155,6960,4987,119,6958,6959],"class_list":["post-17216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-intellectual-property","category-patents","tag-america-invents-act","tag-device-locator-patent-invalidation","tag-inter-partes-review","tag-polaris-wireless","tag-prior-art-references","tag-true-position-inc","tag-uspto-ptab","tag-wireless-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17216"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":149723,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17216\/revisions\/149723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bananaip.com\/intellepedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}