DCT
4:25-cv-01138
Adaptive Avenue Associates Inc v. Fabletics Inc
Key Events
Complaint
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: Adaptive Avenue Associates, Inc. (Minnesota)
- Defendant: Fabletics, Inc. (Delaware)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: Direction IP Law
- Case Identification: 4:25-cv-01138, E.D. Tex., 10/17/2025
- Venue Allegations: Venue is based on Defendant maintaining a regular and established place of business in the district, specifically in Plano, Texas.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s e-commerce website infringes two patents related to systems and methods for creating and displaying automated, sequential presentations of web content, commonly known as carousels or slide shows.
- Technical Context: The technology concerns server-side systems for assembling and presenting a sequence of web pages or content to a user automatically, aiming to improve user engagement over manual, click-by-click navigation.
- Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that U.S. Patent No. 7,428,707 is a continuation-in-part of the application that issued as U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629. It also references the prosecution history of the ’707 Patent, alleging the patent examiner determined that automatically composing a slide show via automatic extraction of web page details was unconventional compared to the prior art.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2000-10-20 | Earliest Priority Date for ’629 and ’707 Patents |
| 2007-01-30 | U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629 Issues |
| 2008-09-23 | U.S. Patent No. 7,428,707 Issues |
| 2025-10-17 | Complaint Filed |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629 - Customizable Web Site Access System And Method Therefore (Issued Jan. 30, 2007)
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The patent’s background section describes a need for a system that allows website owners to provide automated presentations of web page sequences "without the costs of reprogramming site content or installing development tools" and enables users to customize these presentations (’629 Patent, col. 7:60-67). The complaint characterizes prior art web navigation as "monolithic," "tedious and labor-intensive" (Compl. ¶17).
- The Patented Solution: The invention is a software system, preferably stored on a host server, comprising two main components: a "composer" and a "performer" (’629 Patent, col. 9:14-17; Fig. 1). The composer is invoked to create a "presentation," which includes a list of URLs, a display sequence, and a duration for each URL (’629 Patent, Abstract). The performer is then invoked to automatically load and display this presentation to a user in a "slide show" format, with a control panel allowing the user to pause or navigate the sequence (’629 Patent, col. 11:1-9).
- Technical Importance: This server-centric approach aimed to provide dynamic, tour-like experiences on the web, replacing a "passive site and active visitor" model with an "active site and active visitor" model to increase user engagement (’629 Patent, col. 13:36-40).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent method claim 11 (Compl. ¶37).
- Essential elements of claim 11 include:
- remotely invoking a composer operating on a host server;
- creating a presentation in the composer by establishing a list of URLs (via manual entry or a query-based system), determining a display sequence, and determining a display duration;
- remotely invoking a performer operating on the host server to present the created presentation; and
- automatically locally displaying the presentation in a slide show format, wherein each slide is displayed to a user absent human intervention for a pre-determined duration.
- The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims.
U.S. Patent No. 7,428,707 - Customizable Web Site Access System And Method Therefore (Issued Sep. 23, 2008)
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The ’707 Patent, a continuation-in-part of the ’629 Patent, addresses the same general problem of automating web navigation (Compl. ¶56; ’707 Patent, col. 1:22-28). It specifically focuses on the challenge of creating a presentation automatically from an existing webpage.
- The Patented Solution: The invention discloses an "auto composer" that creates a web slide show presentation through "automatic extraction of web page details from a desired web page" (’707 Patent, Abstract). This extraction can be done by finding hyperlinks within the page, locating a separate presentation/rendition text file, or reading a meta tag in the page's code that provides the list of URLs to be displayed (’707 Patent, col. 10:5-15).
- Technical Importance: The claimed improvement is the ability to "auto-compose" a presentation from a single desired webpage, which the complaint alleges was an unconventional feature compared to prior art methods that required manual composition and storage of slide shows (Compl. ¶56).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent method claim 7 (Compl. ¶58).
- Essential elements of claim 7 include:
- composing a presentation for a desired web page by creating a list of URLs;
- wherein the composing step comprises one of three alternatives: (a) automatically extracting a plurality of hyperlinks from the web page, (b) automatically extracting a presentation/rendition text file from the web page, or (c) automatically extracting a meta tag from the web page; and
- automatically displaying the presentation in the order of the created list of URLs.
- The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims.
III. The Accused Instrumentality
Product Identification
- The accused instrumentality is the website Fabletics Website, specifically its functionality for presenting an automated "web slide show" or carousel of images and content (Compl. ¶¶37, 58).
Functionality and Market Context
- The complaint alleges that the Fabletics website uses HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to create and present a slide show of images, often for promotional offerings (Compl. ¶¶39, 44). A screenshot provided as Exhibit E in the complaint shows an automated slide show in the upper portion of the website's homepage (Compl. ¶38; Ex. E). The complaint alleges that such features, referred to as "carousel ads," are an "industry standard" that can significantly increase user click-through rates and lead generation compared to static ads (Compl. ¶22).
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
’629 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 11) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| remotely invoking a composer operating on a host server; | A web browser and its associated code are allegedly used to remotely invoke a composer, which operates on the web server or network of servers hosting the Fabletics website (Compl. ¶39). | ¶39 | col. 9:14-24 |
| creating a presentation in said composer, wherein said step of creating comprises... establishing a list of URLs... determining a display sequence... determining a duration of display... | The composer allegedly establishes a list of URLs for the slide show images, determines their sequence, and accepts a pre-set display duration for each slide (Compl. ¶¶41-43). The resulting sequence is depicted in Exhibit C (Compl. ¶42). | ¶41, ¶42, ¶43 | col. 10:5-11 |
| remotely invoking a performer operating on said host server to present said created presentation; | A user navigating to the Fabletics homepage allegedly invokes the performer, which includes the code and resources on the host server that provide for the automated web slide show (Compl. ¶¶44, 45). | ¶44, ¶45 | col. 9:30-34 |
| and automatically locally displaying the created presentation... in a slide show format... wherein each slide is automatically displayed to a user, absent human intervention, for the pre-determined display duration... | The performer allegedly displays the automated web slide show on the Fabletics homepage, with slides advancing based on a pre-set duration without user intervention (Compl. ¶¶45, 47). Exhibit A shows HTML code allegedly used to achieve this (Compl. ¶45). | ¶45, ¶47 | col. 13:58-67 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Scope Questions: A central question may be whether the accused system, which allegedly uses client-side JavaScript (Compl. ¶39), meets the claim limitation of a "composer" and "performer" each "operating on a host server." The analysis will likely focus on whether these claimed components must be exclusively server-side processes or if their functions can be performed by client-side code that communicates with a server.
- Technical Questions: What evidence does the complaint provide that the accused system performs distinct steps of "invoking a composer" and then "invoking a performer"? The defense may argue that the accused slide show is a single, integrated client-side script that retrieves data, which may not map neatly onto the claimed two-part, server-based invocation process.
’707 Patent Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 7) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| composing a presentation for a desired web page by creating a list of URLs, wherein said step of composing comprises (a) automatically extracting a plurality of hyperlinks from the desired web page... | The complaint alleges that the composer of the Accused Instrumentality "automatically extracted web page details in order to display the slide show images," including "hyperlinks and corresponding web pages that got automatically extracted" (Compl. ¶¶60, 61). | ¶60, ¶61 | col. 8:20-24 |
| and automatically displaying said presentation, wherein said presentation is presented in order of the created list of URLs. | The software components of the Accused Instrumentality allegedly loaded and advanced the URLs to present the web slide show to the user in order (Compl. ¶62). An example of the slide show in operation on the homepage is provided in complaint Exhibit E (Compl. ¶59). | ¶62 | col. 8:31-35 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Scope Questions: The dispute may turn on the meaning of "automatically extracting... hyperlinks from the desired web page." A key question will be whether this requires parsing the rendered HTML of a page to find content links, or if it can be read more broadly to cover a server-side script that assembles a list of image URLs from a database before sending them to the client for display.
- Technical Questions: What evidence supports the allegation that the Fabletics website "extracts" URLs to build its carousel? The complaint asserts this occurred (Compl. ¶60), but an alternative and common implementation is for a server to send a pre-defined list of image assets directly to a client-side script, which may not constitute "extracting" from a "desired web page" as required by the claim.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
For the ’629 Patent:
- The Term: "composer operating on a host server"
- Context and Importance: This term is central to the claimed architecture. Its construction will determine whether the patent's scope is limited to systems where the logic for creating the presentation resides and executes on the server, or if it can also cover modern web architectures where client-side JavaScript performs significant logic after receiving data from a server.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The claims use general terms like "remotely invoking," which may support an interpretation that covers any client-server interaction that causes a presentation to be created, regardless of where the primary logic executes.
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent's Figure 1 explicitly depicts "Composer 12" as a distinct block residing within "Host Server 16," separate from the "User 24" (client) (’629 Patent, Fig. 1). This figure may support an argument that the composer is a discrete server-side entity.
For the ’707 Patent:
- The Term: "automatically extracting a plurality of hyperlinks from the desired web page"
- Context and Importance: This is the core of the allegedly novel "auto-composing" feature of the ’707 Patent. The case may hinge on whether the accused system's method of gathering URLs for its carousel qualifies as "extracting from the desired web page."
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The patent describes this as one of several methods for "auto compose," suggesting a flexible approach to automatically gathering the necessary URLs without manual intervention (’707 Patent, col. 7:5-10).
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The specification contrasts this automatic extraction with manual composition (’707 Patent, col. 1:49-54). Practitioners may focus on whether "extracting from the... web page" requires an act of parsing an existing, content-rich document, as opposed to generating a list of URLs from a database or configuration file specifically for the purpose of the slide show.
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint alleges that to the extent users perform steps of the claimed methods, their performance is "attributable to Defendant, because... Defendant directed or controlled performance" (Compl. ¶¶44, 45). This language suggests a potential theory of induced infringement, based on Defendant providing the website and conditioning user benefits on the performance of the patented steps.
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
- A core issue will be one of architectural mapping: does the accused Fabletics website, which allegedly relies on client-side technologies like JavaScript, embody the server-centric architecture of the ’629 Patent, specifically its requirement for a "composer operating on a host server"?
- A key evidentiary and definitional question will be one of technical mechanism: does the accused system "automatically extract... hyperlinks from the desired web page" to build its slide show as required by the ’707 Patent, or does it receive a pre-compiled list of image assets, and does the latter fall outside the claim's scope?
- A final question will be one of scope in context: how will the claims, which the complaint positions as an improvement over early web technologies like Flash, be construed in light of the specific client-server and scripting techniques used in modern e-commerce websites?