PTAB

CBM2014-00034

Rackspace Hosting Inc v. Clouding Corp

Key Events

Petition

petition

Title: Method System and Apparatus for Providing Pay-Per-Use Distributed Computing Resources
Brief Description: The ’784 patent relates to systems and methods for providing on-demand, pay-per-use distributed computing. The technology involves deploying an application across a network, monitoring or metering the computational resources utilized during the application's execution, and charging an application provider based on the amount of resources consumed.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Reed (a 1999 workshop paper titled "Xenoservers: Accountable Execution of Untrusted Programs").
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Reed disclosed every limitation of the challenged claims. Reed described a system of "Xenoservers" that could be deployed across the Internet to execute code from untrusted users (i.e., application providers) on demand. This system explicitly provided for monitoring and accounting for all resources consumed by an application (e.g., CPU cycles, disk space, network packets) and billing the user based on that consumption. Petitioner contended this directly taught the core claimed method of deploying an application, metering its resource usage, and charging based on that usage, as recited in independent claims 1, 9, and 19.
- Key Aspects: The argument centered on Reed's disclosure of a complete, functional system for accountable, pay-per-use distributed computing, including features like dynamic resource allocation and providing access statistics, which Petitioner mapped to various dependent claims.

Prior Art Relied Upon: London (a 1998 master's thesis titled "POPCORN - A Paradigm for Global-Computing").
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that London independently anticipated a subset of the challenged claims. London described the "Popcorn System," which allowed a programmer ("buyer") to send portions of an application, called "computlets," for remote execution on processors connected to the Internet ("sellers"). The system measured the resources used to execute each computlet (e.g., number of Java operations) and charged the buyer based on this measured usage, deducting payment from the buyer's account. This process, Petitioner argued, met the limitations of deploying an application, receiving a request for execution, metering resources, and charging for their use as required by claims 1, 2, and 9-12.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Reed and London.
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: As an alternative to its anticipation arguments, Petitioner contended that to the extent either Reed or London was found not to disclose every claim element, the combination of the two references rendered the claims obvious. Both references addressed the same problem of executing applications on distributed networks and charging for the resources used.
- Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine these references to achieve a predictable result. A POSITA would have been motivated to integrate London's market-based mechanism for distributing "computlets" with Reed's more detailed and robust framework for accounting for a wide variety of specific system resources.
- Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining the known concepts from Reed and London, as both operated on fundamental principles of distributed computing and resource management common at the time.
Additional Grounds: Petitioner also asserted that all claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. §101 as directed to the abstract idea of pay-per-use charging implemented on generic computers, and that claims 1-8 and 19-25 are invalid under 35 U.S.C. §112 for lacking written description support for the limitation of an "application provider" requesting execution of its own application.

"first application provider" and "application provider": Petitioner proposed these terms be construed to mean "an entity that provides a service via a computer network." This construction was argued to be consistent with the specification's examples (e.g., Charles Schwab, Walmart.com) and was critical for mapping the "users" and "buyers" described in the prior art to the claimed "application provider."
"deploy ... onto a network" and "distribute ... onto the network": Petitioner proposed these phrases be construed to mean "distributing an application to at least one compute resource, such as a server or processor, in a network." This construction was intended to encompass the methods described in the prior art, such as distributing copies of a web application (Reed) or sending "computlets" to remote processors (London), aligning them with the claim language.

Covered Business Method (CBM) Patent Status: A central contention of the petition was that the ’784 patent qualified as a CBM patent and was not a "technological invention" exempt from CBM review. Petitioner argued the patent did not solve a technical problem but instead provided a solution to a financial problem: reducing the up-front capital investment for server infrastructure. The claims were directed to the financial practice of "pay-per-use" charging and were implemented using only conventional, well-known computer and network components, which the patent itself admitted were known in the art.

Petitioner requested institution of a post-grant review and cancellation of claims 1-25 of the ’784 patent as unpatentable.