Adaptive Avenue Associates Inc v. Living Spaces Furniture LLC

I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information

• Parties & Counsel:
  • Plaintiff: Adaptive Avenue Associates, Inc. (Minnesota)
  • Defendant: Living Spaces Furniture, LLC (Delaware)
  • Plaintiff’s Counsel: Direction IP Law
• Case Identification: 6:23-cv-00333, W.D. Tex., 05/08/2023
• Venue Allegations: Plaintiff alleges venue is proper because Defendant maintains regular and established places of business within the Western District of Texas.
• Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s e-commerce website infringes two patents related to systems and methods for creating and displaying automated, slideshow-style presentations of web content.
• Technical Context: The technology at issue pertains to server-side systems that generate automated sequences of web pages or images, a feature commonly used on commercial websites for marketing and promotional carousels.
• Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that the '707 Patent is a continuation-in-part of the application that matured into the '629 Patent, indicating the patents share a common specification and priority lineage. No other significant procedural events are mentioned.

Case Timeline

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

U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629 - "Customizable Web Site Access System And Method Therefore", Issued January 30, 2007

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: The patent describes the state of the art in web navigation as inefficient, requiring users to manually click through web pages or developers to invest in costly, difficult-to-update animated or streaming media presentations (’629 Patent, col. 7:38-54). The patent specifically notes a need for a system that enables the creation of "automated presentation of desired web page sequences without the costs of reprogramming site content or installing development tools" (’629 Patent, col. 7:60-64).
• The Patented Solution: The invention proposes a server-side system comprising a "composer" and a "performer" (’629 Patent, Fig. 1). A developer or user utilizes the composer to create a "presentation" by defining a list of URLs, a display sequence, and a duration for each URL (’629 Patent, col. 9:5-10). The performer then automatically displays this sequence of web pages to an end-user in a controllable slideshow format, without requiring the user to install any client-side software (’629 Patent, Abstract; col. 9:29-39).
• Technical Importance: The invention aimed to replace a "passive site and active visitor" model with an "adaptive presentation model," intended to increase visitor engagement and information absorption on websites (’629 Patent, col. 13:38-42).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts independent claim 11 (Compl. ¶26).
• The essential elements of claim 11 are:
  • remotely invoking a composer operating on a host server;
  • creating a presentation in the composer, which includes establishing a list of URLs (via manual or query-based entry), determining a display sequence, and determining a display duration;
  • remotely invoking a performer on the host server to present the created presentation; and
  • automatically locally displaying the presentation in a slide show format, where each slide is automatically displayed to a user for a pre-determined duration. (’629 Patent, col. 14:46 - col. 15:1).
• 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 September 23, 2008

The Invention Explained

• Problem Addressed: As a continuation-in-part sharing an identical specification with the '629 Patent, the '707 Patent addresses the same general problems of inefficient web navigation and costly content presentation (Compl. ¶44; ’707 Patent, col. 1:31-61).
• The Patented Solution: This patent focuses on an "auto-composing" system that automates the creation of the slideshow itself (’707 Patent, Abstract). Rather than requiring a developer to manually input a list of URLs, the system automatically composes the presentation by extracting web page details from a designated source, such as the hyperlinks within a given webpage, a separate text file containing a list of URLs, or a specific meta tag embedded in the page's code (’707 Patent, col. 2:18-29; Fig. 12).
• Technical Importance: This approach further streamlines the process by automating the list-creation step, which the parent '629 patent describes as a potentially manual process for a developer (Compl. ¶45).

Key Claims at a Glance

• The complaint asserts independent claim 7 (Compl. ¶46).
• The essential elements of claim 7 are:
  • composing a presentation for a desired web page by creating a list of URLs;
  • wherein the composing step comprises one or more of: automatically extracting hyperlinks from the web page, automatically extracting a presentation/rendition text file from the web page, or automatically extracting a meta tag from the web page; and
  • automatically displaying the presentation in the order of the created list of URLs. (’707 Patent, col. 10:28-47).
• The complaint does not explicitly reserve the right to assert dependent claims.

III. The Accused Instrumentality

Product Identification

• The website www.livingspaces.com ("Accused Instrumentality") (Compl. ¶26).

Functionality and Market Context

• The complaint alleges that the Accused Instrumentality includes an automated web slideshow on its homepage and other pages to present promotional content and product images (Compl. ¶27, 36). This feature is alleged to use HTML, JavaScript, and CSS to create and display a sequence of images, with the list of image URLs being established by server-side code (Compl. ¶10, 28-30). Exhibit E in the complaint provides a screen capture of the accused slideshow feature operating on the Defendant's homepage (Compl. ¶27). The complaint alleges this functionality is used to present "featured promotional offerings in the form of an automated web slide show presentation" (Compl. ¶34).

IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations

U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629 Infringement Allegations

Identified Points of Contention

• Scope Questions: Claim 11 recites establishing a list of URLs for a presentation. The patent's examples show navigation between different websites (e.g., "redherring.com", "cnn.com"). The complaint accuses a feature that rotates image URLs hosted on the single "livingspaces.com" domain. This raises the question of whether an internal image carousel constitutes the "customizing access to a plurality of websites" system described in the patent.
• Technical Questions: The complaint alleges that a browser "remotely invok[es] a composer" (Compl. ¶28). The defense may argue that standard server-side page generation is not the distinct, invokable "composer" component taught by the patent specification, which depicts it as a discrete module (e.g., ’629 Patent, Fig. 1). The central question is whether Defendant's general web server architecture contains the specific "composer" and "performer" structures required by the claims.

U.S. Patent No. 7,428,707 Infringement Allegations

Identified Points of Contention

• Technical Questions: The core of claim 7 is "automatically extracting" URLs from a source like hyperlinks on the page. The complaint alleges that "Dynamic server-side components...can be used to display different data" and that the "composer...automatically extracts web page details" (Compl. ¶48). These allegations are conclusory. A key factual dispute will be whether the accused system actually extracts URLs from page content, or if it uses a conventional architecture where a pre-defined list of image assets is supplied to a page template from a backend database, which may not satisfy the "extracting" limitation.

V. Key Claim Terms for Construction

• Term: "composer operating on a host server" ('629 Patent, claim 11)

  • Context and Importance: This term is fundamental to the architecture of the claimed system. The infringement case depends on whether Defendant's standard web server infrastructure can be characterized as the specific "composer" recited in the patent. Practitioners may focus on this term because its construction will determine whether conventional web development practices fall within the claim scope.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: The specification describes the system as a "software program" (’629 Patent, col. 8:6-7), which a plaintiff might argue should be read broadly to cover any server-side code that assembles a list of URLs for presentation.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The figures and detailed description depict the "composer" as a distinct, invokable module that a site owner/developer interacts with to "create a presentation" (’629 Patent, Fig. 1; col. 9:46-49). This may support a narrower construction requiring a specific software component, not just general-purpose server logic.

• Term: "automatically extracting" ('707 Patent, claim 7)

  • Context and Importance: This term defines the central allegedly novel feature of the '707 patent's asserted claim. The infringement analysis will turn on the technical meaning of "extracting." Practitioners may focus on this term because it distinguishes the invention from standard methods of populating web page templates with data from a database.
  • Intrinsic Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: A plaintiff could argue that any automated server-side process that retrieves URLs from a source (including a database record associated with a page) and uses them to build a presentation constitutes "extracting."
  • Intrinsic Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The patent describes "extracting" from specific sources present on "the desired web page," such as "hyperlinks found within the desired web page," a "text file within the desired web page," or a "meta tag within the desired web page" (’707 Patent, Abstract). This language, along with the flowchart in Figure 12, suggests a process of parsing the page or associated files, which may be narrower than simply retrieving data from a backend system.

VI. Other Allegations

• Indirect Infringement: The complaint does not include counts for indirect infringement (inducement or contributory). However, it does allege that to the extent users are involved in performing steps of the claimed methods, their performance is "attributable to Defendant" because Defendant "directs or controls performance" (Compl. ¶33, 34). This appears to be a theory of direct infringement under a divided infringement framework, rather than a separate claim for indirect infringement.
• Willful Infringement: The complaint does not contain allegations to support willful infringement, such as asserting that Defendant had pre-suit knowledge of the patents. The prayer for relief requests damages under 35 U.S.C. § 284 but does not explicitly seek enhancement.

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

• A core issue will be one of definitional scope: can the system for navigating a "plurality of websites," as described in the '629 Patent with examples of distinct domains, be construed to cover an on-site image carousel that rotates URLs from a single domain?
• A key evidentiary question will be one of technical mechanism: for the '707 Patent, does the accused website's architecture perform the specific claimed step of "automatically extracting" URLs from page content (e.g., hyperlinks, meta tags), or does it employ a conventional design where a pre-defined asset list is supplied to a template, potentially creating a functional mismatch with the claim language?
• A central architectural question will be one of component identity: for the '629 Patent, does the Defendant's standard web server and client-side scripting constitute the distinct "composer" and "performer" components described in the patent, or do the claims require a specific modular software structure that is absent from the accused system?