The parties and the patent

The proceeding is Sonova USA Inc. v. Starkey Laboratories, Inc., PGR2026-00079. Sonova USA Inc. is the petitioner. The petition names Starkey Laboratories, Inc. as the patent owner, and the face of the patent names Starkey Laboratories, Inc. as applicant and assignee. U.S. Patent 12,745,031, titled System for Charging an Ear-Worn Electronic Device, issued September 22, 2026. It issued from Application 18/810,014, a continuation of Application 17/553,716 (now U.S. Patent 12,101,588), and claims priority to a July 2020 international application and to provisional applications filed July 19, 2019 and December 4, 2019.

What the claims cover

Claim 1 covers a hearing device with a housing that encloses an internal volume and extends from an internal side to an external side. The housing includes a shell arranged at the internal side for insertion in a wearer's ear canal and a faceplate arranged at the external side. An electrode arrangement disposed in an outer surface of the faceplate includes a central contact and an annular ring contact or a plurality of contacts surrounding the central contact, which form at least part of the device's exterior surface, and circuitry in the internal volume is coupled to the electrode arrangement. Independent claim 14 claims a system pairing that hearing device with a charging module whose charging interface has a central charging contact and an annular ring charging contact or a plurality of charging contacts.

The grounds

The petition asks the Board to cancel claims 1 to 21, every claim of the patent, on nine grounds. Ground 1 asserts that Chen, European Patent Application EP3240300A1, anticipates claims 1, 10 to 12, 14, and 20 to 21 under 35 U.S.C. 102. Grounds 2 to 8 assert obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103: Chen with Thiers, PCT Publication WO2017/040094A1, against claims 1 to 12 and 14 to 21; Chen with Thiers and Wagman, U.S. Patent 10,003,880, against claims 2, 3, and 15; Chen with Wagman against claims 1 to 21; Dannemann, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2009/0202093A1, with Thiers against claims 1, 4 to 12, 14, and 16 to 21; Dannemann with Thiers and Kwon, U.S. Patent 7,905,006, against claims 2, 3, and 15; Dannemann with Wagman against claims 1 to 21; and Kwon with Wagman and Thiers against claims 1 to 21. Ground 9 asserts that claims 1 to 8 and 10 to 21 lack written description under 35 U.S.C. 112(a).

The petition states that one week before filing it, Sonova filed PGR2026-00076 against U.S. Patent 12,739,553, which issued from a child application of the '031 patent, and that this petition relies on the same prior art and Section 112(a) arguments. The petition names Sonova USA Inc. and Sonova AG as the real parties in interest and states that the '031 patent has not been involved in any litigation or other inter partes or post-grant review.

A PGR petition must be filed within nine months after the patent issues, 35 U.S.C. 321(c). PGR is available only for patents subject to the AIA's first-inventor-to-file provisions, Leahy-Smith America Invents Act sec. 6(f)(2)(A), which reach any patent that contains or contained at any time a claim with an effective filing date on or after March 16, 2013, AIA sec. 3(n)(1).

What to watch next

Under 37 CFR 42.207(b), Starkey may file a preliminary response within three months of the notice according the petition a filing date. Under the USPTO's interim Director discretionary process, any discretionary denial brief from Starkey is due within two months of that notice. Watch for the notice, those filings, and the institution decision.