Homework 10: Patent Liability Analysis

Team Code Name: R3 Mars Rover Group No. 4

Team Member Completing This Homework: Greg Wegman

E-mail Address of Team Member: gwegman @ purdue.edu

Evaluation:

SCORE

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DESCRIPTION

10 /

Excellent – among the best papers submitted for this assignment. Very few corrections needed for version submitted in Final Report.

9 /

Very good – all requirements aptly met. Minor additions/corrections needed for version submitted in Final Report.

8 /

Good – all requirements considered and addressed. Several noteworthy additions/corrections needed for version submitted in Final Report.

7 /

Average – all requirements basically met, but some revisions in content should be made for the version submitted in the Final Report.

6 /

Marginal – all requirements met at a nominal level. Significant revisions in content should be made for the version submitted in the Final Report.

* /

Below the passing threshold – major revisions required to meet report requirements at a nominal level. Revise and resubmit.

* Resubmissions are due within one week of the date of return, and will be awarded a score of “6” provided all report requirements have been met at a nominal level.

Comments:

ECE 477Digital Systems Senior Design ProjectRev 8/09

1.0Introduction

The purpose of the Rover project is to design a mobile robot capable of both autonomous and manual control. The Rover chassis contains six wheels, four of which are driven by motors controlled via H-Bridges along with servos for steering compromising the movement system. The Rover’s sensory system consists of four ultrasonic sensors, an accelerometer, and a compass which are polled to determine obstacle proximity, distance and location. The Rover’s power is managed and determined by the Rover’s fuel gauge, the Rover then autonomously controls its movement as it returns to the dock station to recharge. Additionally the Rover contains an IP camera transmitting a video feed to a website which is then captured by the base station’s GUI. Finally the Rover contains a communication system transmitting data from the rover to the base station and commands from the base station to the Rover. Since mobile robots are not something new, many patents exist for their design and attention must be paid in order to avoid potential infringements.Potential areas for infringement are with our system’s battery level management, the process for docking/recharging, network communication, environment synchronizing, the Rover’s video feed and the GUI controlling our base station.

2.0Results of Patent and Product Search

After searching the Internet, several products and patents were discovered which would require consideration in order to avoid possible infringements.

Two commercial products to mention which perform similar overall operation as the Rover are the Wowwee Rovio as well as the Coroware Corobot. Similar to the Rover, the Rovio is remotely controlled through a wireless connection, transmitting a video fee, as well as containing a docking station for recharging, However the Rovio design contains three wheels instead of six as well as using RF signals from the charging dock to locate itself instead of being able to determine position based off of signals from on-board sensors. The Corobot is a much bulkier robot but also performs similarly in that it also is a mobile robot capable of transmitting video feed through wireless connection; however its sensor input comes from laser as well as a bumper sensor. Currently Coroware does not have any patents for its product. Wowwee on the other hand did not reply, meanwhile searches for the Rovio in the patent database also turned up empty. Despite being unsure about Wowwee’s claim to any patents,the mechanisms which theRovio uses to navigate and move are different enough to not be of much concern.

Since the commercial products perform their similar functions in substantially different ways, the search moved onto individual patents for systems which contained functions similar to our processes.

The first patent to be discussed is titled an Autonomous machine for docking with a docking station and method for docking US Patent 7133746 filed on July 11, 2003. To summarize the patent is for an autonomous robot configured to locate and dock into its charging station before the battery is exhausted. A key claim which proposes some potential for infringement is claim 23 which declares it as an autonomous robot with a movement system for navigating over surfaces, along with systems for detecting docking station, power system for providing power to the robot, and a control system able to monitor the power level and initiate the docking routine.[3]

The second patent to discuss is Patent 7218994 simply titled Robot filed on March 21, 2005 for a design created by Fujitsu.The abstract for the patent can be summarized as a freely moving robot which is able to transmit images taken by a camera to a base station which controls the robot’s movement sending it to target positions. Key claims which are relevant to the Rover project are claims three and five. Claim three has to do with the motion control systems reaction to decrease advancing speeds when distance sensors sense objects in proximity. Claim five is for a freely moving robot comprising of a camera able to move to target positions based off of movement commands received from base station and then transmitting images once the position is reached to a base station via wireless communication.[4]

The final patent to be discussed is for a Robot systemUS Patent 20070250212 filed on December 4, 2006. In short the patent is for a power-saving mobile robot system including at least one peripheral device having active and hibernation modes which can be activated by wireless communication through a network data bridge including a broadband network interface, a wireless command interface and a data bridge component extracting serial commands communications received via the wireless interface. Key claims for which potential infringement exists are claims 13, 14, 16 and 22. Claims 13, 14 and 16 concern the robot systems components operation, points of focus are where the wireless components communicate commands interpretable by the peripheral device to initiate a function, listening for occasional robot pings while in hibernation mode, as well as having a base station as the peripheral device. Claim 22 describes the network data bridge which consists of a wireless command interface through a wireless command protocol network and extractingserialcommands received and sending them to control the robots movements.[5]

3.0Analysis of Patent Liability

Since other commercial products did not pose any real threat of infringement under the doctrine of equivalents, the patents were analyzed to determine if the Rover was performing substantially the same function in substantially similar ways.

The first patent mentioned was the autonomous machine for dockingwith a docking station and method for docking. The Rover potential liability lies with its functions of monitoring battery voltage and the process of docking which is initiated when low battery level has been detected. Though these two functions are both autonomous, the method in which they are accomplished is essentially different. The patent design requires that the docking station has an IR sensor for the Rover to detect as it returns to dock; the Rover does not utilize a docking station sensor to return and dock. The algorithm described in the patent which is used to navigate the robot to the docking station is also different than the Rover as it relies on obstacle avoidance, the docking station IR sensor, and performing wiggle movements towards the docking station. The patent does not explicitly state how it is monitoring the battery level so it’s hard to determine if it is performed in a similar way to the Rover, however the patent includes a second voltage level to stop the robots movements. [3]

The second patent mentioned was the robot designed by Fujitsu. The patent describes an autonomous robot able to move in its environment around obstacles while transmitting images taken by a camera to a base station and receiving movement targets from the base. Potential for infringement exists with the distance sensor and wireless base station claims of the patent. The distance sensor measures a distance up to a measuring point that is forward and decreases the robots speed when it reaches a predetermined distance. The Rover features similar distance detection however rather than decreasing the advancing speed, the Rover does not permit movement within predetermined proximities. The base station to which the robot described in the patent transmits images and receives command has a similar purpose to the Rover’s base station. They are however substantially different in that the robot only transmits single images to the website rather than streaming video feed. Also the movement commands sent to target positions for Fujitsu’s robot merely provides coordinates to their robot from which it must navigate itself to the location, the Rover’s base station similarly transmits movement commands however they are in the form of directional movement instead of coordinates. [4]

The third patent discussed was the power-saving robot controlled through a network bridge. The functions which this patent describes that the Rover potentially infringes on are the network data bridge, the way in which it is able to control the robot. Similar to the Rover the patent describes a robot with active modes and hibernation mode which must be activated through a peripheral device via wireless communication. The Rover is different however in that it doesn’t possess a true hibernation mode, but rather an idle mode while it waits for commands. This is different because the base station maintains its network connection with the Rover by periodically polling the network connection while in idle. The network data bridge described is very similar to the one with which we will be using to control the Rover. The network data bridge includes a broadband network interface, a wireless command interface and a data bridge component extracting serial commands received from an internet protocol. The Rover uses a Linksys router, the WiFly GSX chip which sends serial commands to the micro, and telnet which will be the protocol used to send base station commands to the Rover. [5]

4.0Action Recommended

Having demonstrated possible infringements, they must now be analyzed to determine what must be done so that Rover does not infringe on other patents.

The first patent describes an autonomous robot having similar processes to the Rover for maintaining power level as well as docking. Based on the doctrine of equivalents the mechanisms for which the Rover performs its functions do not infringe upon this patent. At an abstract level the second patent for Fujitsu’s robot seems to describe a mobile robot just like the Rover. However when closely examined it is clear that the two designs are pretty drastically different with regards to navigation as well as transmissions with their base stations.The third patent however gives the most cause for worry in the Rover’s patent liability analysis. The network data bridge which they describe could essentially be re-used to describe the Rover’s wireless communication protocol. The difficulty lies in that the description they include is pretty much standard to how a wireless protocol would be designed for a mobile robot. This creates a problem in the effort to avoid infringement since there are few alternatives ways to implementing wireless communication. In order to avoid infringement the patent would need to be acquired or some sort of licensing since it could be claimed that the Rover infringes upon this patent.

5.0Summary

Several examples of commercial products and patents were presented of designs similar to the Rover. These examples were then discussed and analyzed demonstrating their similarities with the Rover. The similar functions were then further analyzed and compared with the Rover according to the doctrine of equivalents to determine liability of infringement. Finally the actions required to remedy these infringements were explained to avoid the possible violations of intellectual property.

List of References

[1]WowWee, Rovio. Rovio

[2]Coroware, Corobot. Corobot

[3]Shai, Alon. US Patent 7133746. “Autonomous machine for docking with a docking station and method for docking” US Patent 7133746

[4] Shinji,Yuichi,Sumihisa,Katsutoshi,Naoyuki,Keiju.US Patent 7218894 “Robot” US Patent 7218894

[5] Halloran, Mammen, Campbel, Walker, Sandin, Billington, Ozick. US Patent 20070250212. “Robot system”. US Patent 20070250212

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