PTAB

CBM2015-00040

Google Inc v. ContentGuard Holdings Inc

Key Events

Petition

petition

Title: Digital Rights Management with Meta-Rights
Brief Description: The ’280 patent relates to a digital rights management (DRM) system for controlling the distribution of digital content. The invention purports to solve prior art deficiencies in multi-tier distribution chains by using "meta-rights" (rights that permit the creation of other rights) and "state variables" to track usage, thereby allowing an original rights supplier to maintain control over content as it moves to downstream consumers.

Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued the claims are directed to the abstract idea of managing and sublicensing rights for content, a long-standing economic practice. The process of obtaining rights, determining consumer entitlement, and creating new rights mirrors fundamental business and legal concepts, such as those used in a traditional video rental store. Petitioner contended that these steps could be performed entirely by humans with pen and paper.
- Key Aspects: The claims add nothing more than generic, conventional computer components to implement the abstract idea. Petitioner asserted that limitations like "computer-implemented" and "repository" were added during prosecution simply to overcome a §101 rejection under the outdated "machine-or-transformation" test and do not provide an "inventive concept" sufficient to confer patent eligibility under the prevailing Alice/Mayo framework.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Stefik (Patent 5,634,012), referred to as the [’012](https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/CBM2015-00040/doc/1002) patent.
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued the ’012 patent discloses every element of the challenged claims. Stefik teaches a DRM system using secure "repositories" to enforce "usage rights" on digital works. The core inventive concept of the ’280 patent, the "meta-right," was allegedly disclosed in Stefik as the "Next-Set-of-Rights" grammar element. This feature allows a rights holder to define which rights a recipient repository can create and transfer to subsequent repositories, directly mapping to the function of a meta-right. Furthermore, Stefik's disclosure of state-tracking variables, such as "Copies-in-Use" and "Copy-Count," anticipates the claimed "state variable" used for determining the state of a created right.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Stefik (Patent 5,634,012) and the general knowledge of a Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: As an alternative to anticipation, Petitioner argued that even if Stefik did not explicitly disclose every limitation, any differences would have been obvious to a POSITA. The fundamental building blocks—repositories, transferable usage rights, hierarchical rights definition, and state tracking—are all present in the ’012 patent.
- Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to adapt the "Next-Set-of-Rights" concept from the ’012 patent using known programming techniques to fully realize the functionality of the claimed "meta-right." The motivation stemmed from the recognized need in the art to solve the exact problem of managing downstream rights in a distribution chain, a problem explicitly addressed by the ’012 patent.
- Expectation of Success: Given that the ’012 patent provides a comprehensive framework for DRM, a POSITA experienced in software and data transfer would have had a high expectation of success in implementing the minor modifications required to arrive at the claimed invention without undue experimentation.

meta-right: Petitioner proposed the construction "a right about a right." This broad interpretation was central to its argument that the term mapped directly onto the prior art "Next-Set-of-Rights" disclosed in the ’012 patent.
state variable: Proposed as "a variable that tracks a changing condition of a right." This construction supports mapping the term to concepts like "Copy-Count" and "Copies-in-Use" in the ’012 patent, which track the status and number of available copies of a digital work.
repository: Petitioner proposed the construction "a trusted system which maintains physical, communications and behavioral integrity, and supports usage rights," leveraging the explicit definition provided in the ’012 patent, which is incorporated by reference into the ’280 patent. This construction ties the claimed element directly to the primary prior art reference.

Lack of a Technological Invention: A central theme of the petition, particularly for establishing Covered Business Method (CBM) review eligibility, was that the ’280 patent does not represent a true technological invention. Petitioner argued that the patent addresses a business problem (loss of control in a content distribution chain) with a business-logic solution (a hierarchical rights scheme). The implementation relies on generic computer hardware and well-known software concepts like XML, which do not solve a technical problem, improve computer functionality, or represent a novel and non-obvious technological feature.

Petitioner requests institution of a Covered Business Method Patent Review and cancellation of claims 1, 5, 11, 12, and 22 of Patent 7,774,280 as unpatentable.