Convergent Assets LLC v. Walmart Inc

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Convergent Assets LLC (Delaware)
  • Defendant: Walmart Inc. (Delaware)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Direction IP Law
• Case Identification: 4:24-cv-00740, E.D. Tex., 12/30/2024
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant maintains a regular and established place of business within the Eastern District of Texas and has allegedly committed acts of infringement in the district.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s website and mobile applications infringe a patent related to methods for targeted advertising that combine user browsing information with data derived from social networking activity.
• Technical Context: The technology at issue resides in the field of programmatic advertising, a core component of modern e-commerce that uses data analysis to deliver personalized content and recommendations to users.
• Key Procedural History: The asserted patent claims priority through a chain of continuation applications dating back to 2008, originating from provisional applications filed in 2007. The complaint incorporates by reference an expert declaration from Dr. Iman Sadeghi to support its technical and infringement allegations.

Case Timeline

II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis

U.S. Patent No. 11,049,138 - "Systems and Methods for Targeted Advertising"

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent describes prior art advertising systems as being flawed because they relied on simplistic methods, such as matching keywords on a currently viewed webpage or using a user's limited local browsing history (Compl. ¶12; ’138 Patent, col. 3:20-46). These methods often failed to capture a user's dynamic or true current interests, leading to suboptimal and irrelevant advertisements (Compl. ¶14; ’138 Patent, col. 3:27-33).
• The Patented Solution: The invention discloses a method to generate more relevant recommendations by mining "social-network data" from remote sources like blogs and social networking sites and combining it with a target user's browsing information (Compl. ¶15; ’138 Patent, Abstract). The system creates "relationship data" between words and concepts and, critically, ranks these relationships based on factors including recency, which allows the system to recognize "social momentum" and provide recommendations that are timely and contextually aware, even if the user's local browsing activity is static (Compl. ¶¶ 19, 21; ’138 Patent, col. 8:46-52, col. 9:1-10).
• Technical Importance: The described solution represents a move from static, keyword-based advertising toward a dynamic system capable of inferring user intent from real-time social trends, which the complaint alleges was a substantial improvement over conventional methods at the time of invention (Compl. ¶19).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts infringement of independent method claim 28 ('138 Patent, col. 24:17-38; Compl. ¶32).
• The essential elements of independent claim 28 include:
  • Obtaining first data indicating words from social networking activity, including a user post.
  • Generating second data indicating an association between words, where the degree of association is ranked based on the recency of the content, with more recent content relationships receiving a higher ranking.
  • Identifying a word from a target user's browse information, a second word related to the first via the second data, and a content item corresponding to that second word.
  • Providing a portion of the content item to the target user's device.
• The complaint does not assert any dependent claims.

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The complaint identifies the accused instrumentality as Defendant's website (https://www.walmart.com/), its associated mobile applications, and the underlying systems that power their functionality (Compl. ¶32).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint alleges that the Accused Instrumentality collects extensive user data, including "social media information" and "Internet and Other Network Activity Information," such as browsing and search history (Compl. ¶32). A screenshot from Walmart's privacy policy is provided to support this allegation, stating that the company collects "social media information" as well as "browsing or search activity" (Compl. p. 16). The complaint further alleges this data is used to analyze social trends and personalize the user experience, citing public-facing articles about Walmart's "Social Genome" project, which reportedly analyzes "Facebook messages, tweets, YouTube videos, blog postings and more" to personalize product offerings (Compl. ¶33, p. 18). The system allegedly identifies trending products and uses a "social-inspired scroll" feature, which is presented as evidence of the integration of social data with the e-commerce platform (Compl. ¶33, p. 21).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

U.S. Patent No. 11,049,138 Infringement Allegations

• Identified Points of Contention:
  • Scope Questions: The infringement analysis may focus on the specific ranking mechanism required by the claim. Claim 28 recites a comparative ranking where a "first ranking... is greater than a second ranking" based on one content relationship being "more recent" than another. The case may raise the question of whether Walmart's alleged use of "scoring algorithms" and analysis of "current trends" meets this specific structural requirement, or if it constitutes a technically distinct method of weighting information that falls outside the claim's scope.
  • Technical Questions: The claim outlines a multi-step method: (1) obtain social data, (2) generate separate relationship data based on recency, (3) use that data to connect a user's browse information to a content item. A key technical question is whether Walmart's system actually performs these discrete steps in sequence. The complaint alleges it does, but evidence may suggest a more integrated system (e.g., a unified machine learning model) that does not map cleanly onto each distinct limitation of the claim.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• The Term: "a ranking based on a recency of the content"

• Context and Importance: This term is central to the patent's alleged technological improvement over the prior art. The outcome of the dispute may depend heavily on whether the functionality of the Accused Instrumentality is found to fall within the construed scope of this term. Practitioners may focus on this term because it appears to be the primary basis for the patent's novelty argument.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification states that "more recent relationships may be given greater weight than older relationships" ('138 Patent, col. 8:50-52). This language could support a construction that covers any general algorithm where recency is a positive weighting factor.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The claim language itself recites a specific comparison: "wherein a first ranking of a first degree of association is greater than a second ranking of a second degree of association based on the multiple words related to the first degree of association having a more recent content relationship" ('138 Patent, col. 24:25-30). This suggests a specific, comparative ranking process rather than a general weighting scheme. The specification's discussion of capturing "social momentum" could also be used to argue for a more dynamic, trend-focused construction ('138 Patent, col. 9:1-10).

• The Term: "social networking activity that includes a user post on a social networking site"

• Context and Importance: This term defines the primary data source for the claimed method. Its construction will determine what types of social data are covered by the claim.

• Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:

  • Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification provides a broad definition of "social-network data," which "may include data generated on social sites such as social networking sites, blogs, declared interest sites... news and other current event sites" ('138 Patent, col. 5:6-10). This could support a broad reading covering many types of public online content.
  • Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The claim requires that the activity "includes a user post." A party could argue that this limitation requires the system to process the content of specific, individual posts, as opposed to merely analyzing aggregated, anonymized data about general trends on a social media platform.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges induced infringement, stating that Defendant encourages its customers to use the Accused Instrumentality in an infringing manner (Compl. ¶36). The alleged inducement is based on Defendant operating the platform, making it available to customers, and conditioning its personalized features on the collection and use of the user's browsing and social media data (Compl. ¶¶ 37-38).
• Willful Infringement: The complaint pleads willfulness based on Defendant's alleged knowledge of the '138 Patent "at least as of the filing of this lawsuit and service of the Complaint" (Compl. ¶36). No allegations of pre-suit knowledge are made.

VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case

The resolution of this case may depend on the court's determination of the following key questions:

• A core issue will be one of claim scope and technical equivalence: Does Walmart's use of "scoring algorithms" and analysis of "current trends" perform the specific, comparative ranking based on "recency of the content" that is recited in Claim 28? Or does the Accused Instrumentality employ a different methodology that falls outside the patent's claims?
• A key evidentiary question will be one of operational fidelity: Will the evidence show that Walmart's system operates according to the discrete, sequential process outlined in the method claim (i.e., generating separate "relationship data" and then using it to link browsing data to content)? Or does it use a more holistic, integrated data model that fails to satisfy each distinct limitation of the claim?