DCT
7:25-cv-00185
Adaptive Avenue Associates Inc v. Amazon.com Inc
I. Executive Summary and Procedural Information
- Parties & Counsel:
- Plaintiff: Adaptive Avenue Associates, Inc. (Minnesota)
- Defendant: Amazon.com, Inc., Amazon.com Services, LLC, and Amazon Web Services, Inc. (Delaware)
- Plaintiff’s Counsel: Direction IP Law; Padmanabhan & Dawson, P.L.L.C.
- Case Identification: 7:25-cv-00185, W.D. Tex., 04/21/2025
- Venue Allegations: Venue is alleged based on Defendants maintaining corporate offices and employing over 5,000 people within the Western District of Texas.
- Core Dispute: Plaintiff alleges that Defendant’s e-commerce website, specifically its use of "carousel ads," infringes patents related to systems for creating and displaying automated, sequential presentations of web content.
- Technical Context: The technology concerns methods for dynamically generating and presenting a "slide show" of web pages or content to a user, a feature now common in e-commerce and advertising for displaying multiple products or promotions in a single interface element.
- Key Procedural History: The complaint notes that U.S. Patent No. 7,428,707 is a continuation-in-part of the application that led to U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629. It also references the prosecution history of the '707 Patent, stating the Patent Examiner found the claimed feature of automatically composing a slideshow via hyperlink extraction to be unconventional compared to the prior art.
Case Timeline
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 2000-10-20 | Earliest Priority Date ('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 |
| 2018-07-01 | Alleged Infringement Start Date |
| 2025-04-21 | Complaint Filing Date |
II. Technology and Patent(s)-in-Suit Analysis
U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629 - Customizable Web Site Access System And Method Therefore
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: The patent describes prior art web navigation as tedious, requiring users to manually click through sequences of static pages or search results. For developers, creating automated presentations of web content was costly, requiring reprogramming of site content or the installation of specialized development tools (’629 Patent, col. 7:49-67).
- The Patented Solution: The invention is a server-based system that uses two main components: a "composer" and a "performer" (Compl. ¶37; ’629 Patent, Fig. 1). A site owner or an automated query uses the composer to create a "presentation," which is defined by a list of URLs, a display sequence, and a display duration (’629 Patent, col. 8:5-14). The performer then automatically displays this presentation to a web user as a seamless, timed "slide show" without requiring the user to install any special software (’629 Patent, Abstract).
- Technical Importance: The technology aimed to improve user engagement by replacing a "passive site and active visitor" model with an "active site" that could present guided "tours" of content, thereby encouraging visitors to "stay longer, absorb more information, and return more quickly" (’629 Patent, col. 13:38-42).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent method claim 11 (Compl. ¶48).
- 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, determining a display sequence, and determining a display duration for the list.
- Remotely invoking a performer operating on the host server to present the created presentation.
- Automatically locally displaying the created presentation in a slide show format according to the list and said display sequence, where each URL comprises a slide displayed for a pre-determined duration without human intervention.
- 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
The Invention Explained
- Problem Addressed: As a continuation-in-part of the ’629 Patent, this patent addresses the same general problem but focuses on the composition process. The complaint states that in the prior art, creating a slideshow required manual composition and storage in a standard HTML file (Compl. ¶44).
- The Patented Solution: The invention claims an "unconventional feature for auto-composing" a presentation (’707 Patent, col. 1:17-28; Compl. ¶44). This is achieved by automatically extracting details from a desired web page—such as a plurality of hyperlinks, a text file, or a meta tag—to create the list of URLs for the slideshow, which is then automatically displayed (’707 Patent, Abstract).
- Technical Importance: This approach sought to further automate the creation of web-based presentations by allowing a slideshow to be generated dynamically from the content of a single source page, reducing manual effort (Compl. ¶45).
Key Claims at a Glance
- The complaint asserts independent system claim 1 and independent method claim 7 (Compl. ¶66).
- The essential elements of independent method claim 7 are:
- Composing a presentation for a desired web page by creating a list of URLs.
- The composing step comprises automatically extracting a plurality of hyperlinks from the desired web page, which provide the URLs.
- 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 instrumentalities are the systems and methods used on the "www.amazon.com" website, specifically the "carousel ads" (Compl. ¶¶48, 51, 69).
Functionality and Market Context
- The complaint alleges that Amazon's carousel ads automatically rotate through a series of different products or promotions, presenting them to the user in a timed, sequential manner without user interaction (Compl. ¶¶51, 62). The complaint provides a screenshot of the Amazon homepage from July 1, 2018, showing a prominent carousel ad for products like the "echo show" and "high tech cooling" (Compl. ¶53, p. 17).
- The complaint alleges these carousel ads are an "industry standard" that can generate significantly higher click-through rates and lower cost-per-conversion compared to static ads, making them commercially important (Compl. ¶46).
IV. Analysis of Infringement Allegations
U.S. Patent No. 7,171,629 Infringement Allegations
| Claim Element (from Independent Claim 11) | Alleged Infringing Functionality | Complaint Citation | Patent Citation |
|---|---|---|---|
| remotely invoking a composer operating on a host server; | Amazon's servers perform the step of invoking a composer when a user accesses "www.amazon.com", which detects the user's entry and accepts a list of URLs for a slide show presentation. | ¶52 | col. 13:50-65 |
| creating a presentation in said composer, wherein said step of creating comprises the steps of: establishing a list of URLs in said composer... | Amazon creates the presentation by establishing a list of URLs for the carousel ad panels. The complaint includes a screenshot showing HTML source code with "href" attributes pointing to different product pages. | ¶53, ¶55 | col. 14:5-10 |
| determining a display sequence of said list of URLs in said composer; | Amazon determines the display sequence for the list of URLs, corresponding to the order of the panels shown in the carousel. The complaint provides a visual list of the four panels in their alleged display order. | ¶56 | col. 14:11-12 |
| determining a duration of display for said list of URLs in said composer; | Amazon determines that each slide in the carousel is displayed for a set duration before the next slide is shown. | ¶57 | col. 14:13-15 |
| remotely invoking a performer operating on said host server to present said created presentation; and | A web user's navigation to "www.amazon.com" invokes the performance of the web slide show, which is controlled by Amazon. | ¶58, ¶59 | col. 14:16-19 |
| automatically locally displaying the created presentation...in a slide show format according to said list and said display sequence... | The carousel ad presentation is automatically displayed to the user as a slide show, with slides advancing based on a predetermined duration. | ¶60, ¶62 | col. 14:20-29 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Scope Question: A primary issue may be whether Amazon's modern, distributed web architecture, which heavily relies on client-side scripting (e.g., JavaScript in the user's browser), meets the limitation of a "performer operating on said host server." The defense may argue that the component "performing" the display operates on the client's machine, not the host server as claimed.
- Technical Question: The complaint alleges that the "composer" and "performer" are invoked on the host server. The court may need to determine how these functional blocks, described as distinct software portions in the patent (e.g., ’629 Patent, Fig. 1), map onto the integrated functions of Amazon's web service architecture.
U.S. Patent No. 7,428,707 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, | Amazon's system composes the carousel ad presentation by creating a list of URLs that direct to different product pages or promotions. | ¶71, ¶73 | col. 2:17-28 |
| wherein said step of composing comprises automatically extracting a plurality of hyperlinks from the desired web page, wherein the plurality of hyperlinks provides the URLs; | The complaint alleges that the "plurality of hyperlinks" are the image URLs for the carousel panels, which are "automatically extracted and automatically invoked in a user's Web browser." The complaint points to source code containing these URLs as evidence. | ¶74, ¶75 | col. 2:21-24 |
| and automatically displaying the presentation, wherein the presentation is presented in order of the created list of URLs. | The carousel ad is automatically displayed, and the panels advance in an order corresponding to the created list of URLs. | ¶76 | col. 2:26-28 |
- Identified Points of Contention:
- Technical Question: The central dispute is likely to be factual: does Amazon's system "automatically extract... hyperlinks from the desired web page" to create the carousel? The complaint shows the result (URLs in the source code) but provides no direct evidence of the process of extraction from the page itself. The defense may argue that the carousel content is supplied by a backend ad-serving engine or content management system, not "extracted" from the page as the claim requires.
- Scope Question: The construction of "automatically extracting" will be critical. The court will need to decide if this term can encompass a process where content is programmatically inserted into a page template from a database, or if it requires a more literal parsing of an existing, rendered web page to find hyperlinks.
V. Key Claim Terms for Construction
For the '629 Patent:
- The Term: "performer operating on said host server"
- Context and Importance: This term is central to infringement because modern web applications, like Amazon's, execute significant logic on the client-side (in the browser). The location of the "performer" will be a key issue. Practitioners may focus on this term because if it is construed to mean that the slide show rendering logic must execute on the server, the infringement case may be difficult to prove against a system that uses client-side JavaScript for display.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: A party might argue "operating on" means the performer is controlled by or originates from the host server, even if parts of its function (like rendering) execute on the client. The specification describes the performer's function as being to "load and automatically display the presentation to a user" (’629 Patent, col. 8:10-14), a high-level description that does not strictly forbid client-side execution.
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The plain language suggests the performer itself is located on the server. Figure 1 of the patent depicts "Performer 14" as a block located entirely within the "Host Server 16" box, distinct from "User 24," which could strongly support a construction requiring the component to reside and execute on the server.
For the '707 Patent:
- The Term: "automatically extracting a plurality of hyperlinks from the desired web page"
- Context and Importance: This is the key inventive concept alleged for the ’707 Patent. The infringement case rests on whether Amazon's system performs this specific action. Practitioners may focus on this term because the complaint itself highlights it as the "unconventional feature" that secured allowance from the patent examiner (Compl. ¶44-45), suggesting its meaning was carefully considered and potentially limited during prosecution.
- Intrinsic Evidence for Interpretation:
- Evidence for a Broader Interpretation: A party could argue "extracting from the desired web page" should be read functionally to mean any automated gathering of links associated with that page's context, including pulling them from a backend database that serves the page. The patent's abstract describes the extraction in general terms, without specifying the mechanism (’707 Patent, Abstract).
- Evidence for a Narrower Interpretation: The phrase "from the desired web page" strongly implies the page itself is the source of the hyperlinks, not an external database or content management system. The defense will likely argue this requires a process like parsing the page's HTML to find "" tags, a process distinct from programmatically inserting curated content into a page template.
VI. Other Allegations
- Indirect Infringement: The complaint does not contain separate counts for indirect infringement. Its allegations focus on direct infringement by Amazon, stating that "the Amazon Defendants... perform the step of..." for the claimed methods (Compl. ¶¶52, 55, 56, 71).
- Willful Infringement: The complaint does not explicitly allege willful infringement or make any factual allegations regarding pre-suit knowledge of the patents-in-suit.
VII. Analyst’s Conclusion: Key Questions for the Case
This case appears to turn on two central questions, one of claim scope and one of technical evidence.
- A core issue will be one of architectural scope: For the ’629 Patent, can the claim term "performer operating on said host server," conceived in the context of early 2000s web architecture, be construed to read on a modern, dynamic website that relies heavily on client-side JavaScript executing in a user's browser to render features like carousel ads?
- A key evidentiary question will be one of technical process: For the ’707 Patent, can the Plaintiff provide evidence that Amazon’s system actually performs the claimed step of "automatically extracting a plurality of hyperlinks from the desired web page" to build its carousels, or will discovery show that the content is generated through a different process, such as being pushed from a backend content management system, that falls outside the scope of the claims?