Shapes and Shading of Graphical User Interface Not Enough to Uphold Validity

In a nonprecedential decision, the Federal Circuit found all challenged claims directed to a graphical user interface of a U.S. Patent obvious over a combination of prior art.  Valmont Industries, Inc. appealed from the final decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board in an inter partes review, finding claims 1–10, 12–15, 17, and 18 of U.S. Patent No. 7,003,357 unpatentable as obvious.  Lindsay Corp. also cross-appealed the Board's determination that claim 11 was not obvious.  Reviewing all prior art, the Federal Circuit found that all of these claims were, in fact, obvious.

The '357 patent is directed to remotely monitoring and controlling irrigation equipment using handheld devices.  A remote user interface displays icons, referred to in this patent as graphical user interfaces ("GUIs"), which show the status of irrigation equipment and allow its control.  Prior art systems monitored and controlled irrigation equipment through personal computers.  Because personal computers are typically located at a base station, these systems required users to return to the base station to control the irrigation equipment.  The '357 patent is directed to the use of handheld devices to allow a user to view the status of and control irrigation equipment from any location using wireless telemetry technology, as shown below in Figure 1 of the patent.

Claim 1 is illustrative and reads as follows:

1.  A remote user interface for reading the status of and controlling irrigation equipment, comprising:
    a hand-held display;
    a processor;
    wireless telemetry means for transmitting signals and data between the remote user interface and the irrigation equipment; and
    software operable on said processor for:

(a) displaying data received from the irrigation equipment as a plurality of GUIs that are configured to present said data as status information on said display;
(b) receiving a user's commands to control the irrigation equipment, through said user's manipulation of said GUIs; and
(c) transmitting signals to the irrigation equipment to control the irrigation equipment in accordance with said user's commands.

Dependent claim 6 requires GUIs shaped to identify particular types of irrigation equipment, and dependent claim 10 requires GUIs shaped to identify operating irrigation patterns for specific irrigation equipment.  Claim 11, which depends from claims 1, 6, and 10, further requires:

11.  The remote user interface of claim 10 wherein said software is further operative on said processor to change the shape of said plurality of GUIs change [sic] in response to a change in the status of the irrigation equipment.

The Board found that all of the challenged claims, except claim 11, would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, but that claim 11 would not have been obvious.

In particular, the Board found that claims 1–3, 6–10, 12–14, 17, and 18 would have been obvious in view of two prior art references including a primary reference that described remotely monitoring and controlling an irrigation system using a computer to display GUIs, and a secondary reference brought in for describing remotely monitoring and controlling various types of field devices for industrial processes using a handheld device displaying GUIs.

On appeal, Valmont argued that there was insufficient evidence of a motivation to combine the references because the handheld devices in the secondary reference lacked sufficient display capabilities and computing capacity to operate the system described in the primary reference.  The '357 patent has a 2001 priority date, and expert testimony was provided to demonstrate that at the time of the invention, a person of ordinary skill would be able to employ the system of the primary reference on a mobile device disclosed in the secondary reference.  In particular, mobile phones at the time, could display GUIs and receive user commands through manipulation of GUIs.

The Federal Circuit agreed and found that substantial evidence supported the Board's determination that a person of ordinary skill would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining the references and would have been motivated to make the combination.

Addressing dependent claim 11, which requires that the software be operative "to change the shape of said plurality of GUIs change [sic] in response to a change in the status of the irrigation equipment," a third reference was cited for teaching a display of circle-shaped or square-shaped GUIs in which status information as to irrigation patterns is indicated in various ways, including by shading.

The question to consider was whether a change in shading constituted a change in "shape."  Applying the broadest reasonable construction, the Board concluded that "shading within the original GUI does not change the shape of the GUI."  But the Federal Circuit disagreed and found that a change in shape occurs when there is a change in pattern, such as through shading.

The Federal Circuit first turned to a dictionary definition of "shape" as "the visible makeup characteristic of a particular item or kind of item," and found that a change in shading falls within this definition as it is a change in the visible makeup characteristics of the circle.

Most importantly, however, the specification discusses shading and discloses that shading constitutes a change in shape as well.  For example, the specification describes a GUI to represent a pivot irrigation system that could be partitioned into wedges to depict different settings along the pivot path.  It then states, "[d]ifferent colors or patterns can be used to shade each wedge to depict the particular spray pattern chosen for each wedge," and further describes how "cross-hatching" may represent one setting and a "speckled pattern" may represent another.  Thus, changes in shading of the GUI reflect a change in status of irrigation patterns.  The Federal Circuit thus found that this suggests that a change in shading is a change in shape within the scope of claim 11.

Additionally, during oral argument before the Board, Valmont conceded that shape includes the color within a GUI, by responding that:

One thing to keep in mind is that when it says the shape or the status information in the GUI, shape doesn't necessarily have to be just that it's a circle or just that it's a triangle.  It could potentially be that it's a circle that's got lines through it or a triangle that has a checkerboard pattern across it.  So there's different kinds of shapes that it could be that would allow it to show all of these different products.

Thus, under Valmont's own definition or under the broadest reasonable construction standard, a change in shading would constitute a change in shape of the GUI.  As a result, since the third reference describes a change in shading to reflect a change in irrigation pattern, the resulting combination of references encompassed the limitations of claim 11.  Thus, the Federal Circuit also found claim 11 obvious as well.

Valmont Industries, Inc. v. Lindsay Corp. (Fed. Cir. 2018)
Nonprecedential disposition
Panel: Circuit Judges Lourie, Dyk, and Hughes
Opinion by Circuit Judge Dyk