PTAB

CBM2014-00181

Salesforcecom Inc v. VirtualAGILity Inc

Key Events

Petition

petition

Title: Processing Management Information
Brief Description: The ’413 patent discloses a system for organizing and exchanging information for collaborative activities, such as business projects. The core technology involves creating a computer database model of the activity, where "model entities" are organized into multiple hierarchies of different types, allowing a given entity to belong to more than one hierarchy simultaneously.

Prior Art Relied Upon: MS98 (User's Guide for Microsoft Project 98, 1997).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that MS98, a user manual for a widely-used project management software, taught every element of the challenged claims. It described a system for managing collaborative projects with a model comprising entities (tasks, resources) organized into hierarchies. MS98 allegedly disclosed multiple hierarchy types, including a task hierarchy (tasks and subtasks) and a resource hierarchy (resources organized by department or skill). Petitioner contended that when a resource is assigned to a task in MS98, that resource entity simultaneously belongs to both the resource hierarchy and the task hierarchy. Furthermore, MS98’s "consolidated projects" feature, which allows linking separate project files, was presented as teaching another type of hierarchy.
- Key Aspects: This ground asserted that a single, commercially available software product from 1997 contained all the allegedly novel features of the ’413 patent.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Lowery (Managing Projects with Microsoft Project 4.0, 1994) and Wood (Patent 5,381,332).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Lowery, which described an earlier version of Microsoft Project, disclosed the foundational system of a collaborative project management tool with multiple hierarchies (e.g., task hierarchies and resource hierarchies). Wood was argued to teach a system for coupling data between two separate hierarchical tools: a network scheduling tool (NST) and a performance measurement tool (PMT). The combination, therefore, taught a system where model entities could belong to multiple, independent hierarchical structures simultaneously, addressing the key limitation of the independent claims.
- Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references because Wood expressly taught that its system could be adapted for use with various commercial scheduling tools, specifically identifying Microsoft Project. Likewise, Lowery taught interoperability with external software. The combination was thus presented as using known tools for their intended and explicitly stated purposes.
- Expectation of Success: Success would have been expected because the combination involved integrating known software systems in a predictable manner according to their express teachings.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Lowery (Managing Projects with Microsoft Project 4.0, 1994) and Knudson (Patent 5,765,140).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: As in the previous ground, Lowery provided the base project management system. Knudson was introduced to teach an enterprise software system that integrates a project management tool with other functionalities like time entry and administrator controls. Critically, Knudson disclosed a hierarchical system of user roles and security permissions, where access to operations and information was limited based on a user's role (e.g., project manager, department manager). Petitioner argued this directly taught the claim limitations related to a processor "controlling access to the model entity" based on a person's "type of access."
- Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references because Knudson explicitly disclosed using a commercial project management tool as a component of its enterprise system, and specifically named Microsoft Project as an example. The motivation was to enhance a standard project management tool with the enterprise-level access control and integration features taught by Knudson.
- Key Aspects: This ground was framed to directly counter arguments made by the Patent Owner in a prior CBM proceeding (CBM2013-00024) by using Knudson to explicitly teach role-based access controls.

"Hierarchy": Petitioner proposed that under the broadest reasonable construction, a hierarchy simply includes at least two levels with a subordinate relationship between them, consistent with its usage in the specification.
"Capable of Simultaneously Belonging to": Petitioner asserted that this limitation is met by a prior art reference where a model entity actually belongs to multiple hierarchies. The argument was that if an entity does belong to multiple hierarchies, it is inherently "capable of" doing so. This construction was central to mapping the prior art, where, for example, a resource assigned to a task was argued to belong to both a resource hierarchy and a task hierarchy.

Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under §325(d) would be inappropriate. The grounds presented were asserted to be substantially different from those in a prior proceeding (CBM2013-00024) because they relied on three new prior art references (MS98, Wood, and Knudson). Petitioner stated these references were obtained through discovery in parallel litigation only after the first petition had been filed and were highly relevant to arguments the Patent Owner had advanced in the earlier case.

Petitioner requests institution of a Covered Business Method Patent Review and cancellation of claims 1-21 of the ’413 patent as unpatentable.