United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ______________________

VOICE TECH CORP., Appellant

v.

UNIFIED PATENTS, LLC, Appellee ______________________

2022-2163 ______________________

Appeal from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in No. IPR2020- 01018. ______________________

Decided: August 1, 2024 ______________________

ERIC MICHAEL ADAMS, Tumey LLP, Houston, TX, ar- gued for appellant.

ADAM LLOYD ERICKSON, Haynes and Boone, LLP, Washington, DC, argued for appellee. Also represented by ANGELA M. OLIVER; DEBRA JANECE MCCOMAS, DAVID L. MCCOMBS, Dallas, TX; ROSHAN MANSINGHANI, JORDAN MICHAEL ROSSEN, Unified Patents, LLC, Chevy Chase, MD. ______________________

Before LOURIE, CHEN, and CUNNINGHAM, Circuit Judges. Case: 22-2163 Document: 44 Page: 2 Filed: 08/01/2024

2 VOICE TECH CORP. v. UNIFIED PATENTS, LLC

CHEN, Circuit Judge. Unified Patents, LLC (Unified) petitioned the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Board) for inter partes review (IPR) of claims 1–8 of U.S. Patent No. 10,491,679 (’679 pa- tent), owned by Voice Tech Corporation (Voice Tech). The Board determined all challenged claims to be unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103. Voice Tech appeals. We affirm. BACKGROUND The ’679 patent relates to the use of voice commands at a mobile device to remotely access and control a computer. ’679 patent col. 1 ll. 30–34. The patent asserts that, alt- hough such functionality was known in the art, the prior- art systems were application-specific, meaning they al- lowed a person to use a mobile device to remotely access and control only a specific application at a computer. Id. col. 1 ll. 15–21. The prior-art systems “require[d] the per- son to have multiple mobile devices and/or systems to re- motely access and control the different applications at a computer.” Id. col. 1 ll. 22–24 (emphasis added). The ’679 patent purports to improve upon the prior art by enabling a single mobile device to remotely access and control mul- tiple native applications and operating system functions at the computer. Id. col. 4 ll. 45–49. Figure 1 (reproduced below) diagrams an embodiment of the disclosed system. “Mobile device 102 is coupled to general purpose computer 104 via communications me- dium 114.” Id. col. 2 ll. 62–63. General purpose computer 104 includes mobile device interface 106 to receive voice or data information from mobile device 102, and audio com- mand interface 108 to detect audio commands in the voice or data information. Id. col. 2 ll. 40–42, col. 3 ll. 13–14, 44– 48. According to the ’679 patent, the disclosed system “al- lows mobile device 102 to switch between native applica- tions that are configured and operating system functions and native applications that are not configured for interac- tion with mobile device 102.” Id. col. 4 ll. 59–63. Case: 22-2163 Document: 44 Page: 3 Filed: 08/01/2024

VOICE TECH CORP. v. UNIFIED PATENTS, LLC 3

’679 patent FIG. 1. Claims 1–4 are method claims, and claims 5–8 are cor- responding system claims. Claims 1 and 5 are representa- tive. For ease of reference, we adopt the claim limitation labeling that the parties employ. Claim 1 recites: [1.0] A method of accessing and controlling a com- puter from a mobile device, comprising: [1.1] receiving audio data from the mobile device, at the computer, at an audio command interface; [1.2] the audio command interface decodes the au- dio data into a command; [1.3] the audio command interface selects, from at least one opera