NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

 

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

INTEL CORPORATION,

Appellant

v.

KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V.,

Appellee

______________________ 

2022-2034, 2022-2035

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in Nos. IPR2021-

00327, IPR2021-00370.

______________________ 

Decided: February 22, 2024

______________________ 

CHRISTINA JORDAN MCCULLOUGH, Perkins Coie LLP, 

Seattle, WA, argued for appellant. Also represented by 

LORI ANN GORDON, NATHAN K. KELLEY, Washington, DC; 

TARA LAUREN KURTIS, Chicago, IL. 

 PETER F. SNELL, Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky 

and Popeo, PC, New York, NY, argued for appellee. Also 

represented by WILLIAM MEUNIER, MICHAEL RENAUD, Boston, MA. 

 ______________________ 

Case: 22-2034 Document: 41 Page: 1 Filed: 02/22/2024
2 INTEL CORPORATION v. KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V. 

Before PROST, TARANTO, and CHEN, Circuit Judges.

CHEN, Circuit Judge. 

Intel Corporation (Intel) filed two petitions for inter 

partes review of several claims of U.S. Patent No. 9,436,809

(’809 patent). These petitions challenged the claims for being unpatentable as obvious over two distinct combinations 

of references: (1) Menezes1 in view of Brands-Chaum,2 and 

(2) OCPS3 in view of Brands-Chaum. The Board’s final 

written decisions found that Intel had failed to show by a 

preponderance of the evidence that the challenged claims 

were unpatentable. Intel appeals these decisions, and we 

have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1295(a)(4)(A). We affirm. 

First, we reject Intel’s argument that the Board failed 

to address the unpatentability grounds as articulated in 

the petitions. According to Intel, rather than considering 

whether it would have been obvious to incorporate the

broad distance-measurement concept allegedly taught in 

Brands-Chaum into Menezes’s or OCPS’s authentication 

protocol, the Board’s final written decisions reversed the 

references—evaluating whether it would have been

1 ALFRED J. MENEZES ET AL., HANDBOOK OF APPLIED 

CRYPTOGRAPHY (1997). 2 Stefan Brands & David Chaum, Distance-Bounding Protocols, EUROCRYPT ’93, 344–59 (1994). 3 Open Copy Protection System, Philips Research 

Proposal to Broadcast Protection Discussion Group, Version 1.4 (May 7, 2002); OCPS Compliance and Robustness 

Rules (May 7, 2002). In this opinion, “OCPS” refers to two 

separate documents describing the Open Copy Protection 

System protocol. The parties do not dispute that OCPS can 

be treated as a single publication, i.e., as a single primary 

reference. 

Case: 22-2034 Document: 41 Page: 2 Filed: 02/22/2024
INTEL CORPORATION v. KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V. 3

obvious to modify Brands-Chaum’s specific example of a 

distance-bounding protocol to use Menezes’s or OCPS’s 

multi-bit message. We disagree. The Board expressly 

acknowledged that Intel’s proposed combinations involved 

timing Menezes’s and OCPS’s multi-bit challenge-response

exchanges to calculate a distance between devices or enforce a distance limit. J.A. 17–18, 29; J.A. 47. The Board 

then found that transmitting multiple bits, instead of a single bit, would have resulted in an inaccurate distance 

measurement and would have impaired security. J.A. 21, 

31; J.A. 57. In other words, the Board correctly understood 

the proposed combinations and identified deficiencies associated with these combinations. The Board’s final written 

decisions thus squarely addressed the obviousness theories

advanced in the petitions. 

Second, substantial evidence supports the Board’s determination that Brands-Chaum’s teachings are incompatible with Menezes’s and OCPS’s multi-bit exchanges. The 

Board emphasized that Intel did not reconcile the conflict 

between Menezes’s and OCPS’s disclosures directed to 

multi-bit exchanges and Brands-Chaum’s disclosure that 

an “essential element” of its distance-bounding protocol 

“consists of a single-bit challenge and rapid single-bit response.” J.A. 3212 (emphases added); see J.A. 23, 31–32; 

J.A. 59. The Board further found that timing a multi-bit 

message would result in unwanted delays and that such 

delays would impair security, crediting Intel’s expert testimony explaining that (1) Brands-Chaum’s prover device 

immediately responds to a challenge so that propagation 

delay dominates the time being timed by a verifier device, 

(2) propagation delay has an “iron-clad relationship between distance and time,” (3) sending a multi-bit message 

takes longer than sending a single-bit message, and (4) an 

unwanted delay of just nanoseconds could cause a message 

to travel meters. J.A. 21–22, 31–32, 32 n.19; J.A. 57–59, 59 

n.13. This amounts to substantial evidence for the Board’s 

determination that transmitting a multi-bit message 

Case: 22-2034 Document: 41 Page: 3 Filed: 02/22/2024
4 INTEL CORPORATION v. KONINKLIJKE PHILIPS N.V. 

would create unwanted delays, which in turn would render

the distance measurement inaccurate and impair security. 

We see no reason on this record to disturb the Board’s findings that Brands-Chaum’s teachings are incompatible with 

Menezes’s and OCPS’s multi-bit authentication protocols.

We have considered Intel’s remaining arguments—including Intel’s contention that the Board should have found 

a motivation to combine notwithstanding the delay and security issues associated with timing a multi-bit message—

and find them unpersuasive. For the foregoing reasons, we 

affirm.

AFFIRMED

Case: 22-2034 Document: 41 Page: 4 Filed: 02/22/2024