Oracle v. Clouding IP LLC

1. Case Identification

• Patent #: 7,065,637
• Filed: December 21, 2012
• Petitioner(s): Oracle Corporation
• Patent Owner(s): Clouding IP, LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1-4 and 6

2. Patent Overview

• Title: System for Configuration of Dynamic Computing Environments Using a Visual Interface
• Brief Description: The ’637 patent relates to a system that allows for the configuration of dynamic computing environments via a remotely accessible user interface. The invention enables a user to create a "visual construction" of a computing environment, save a specific device configuration, and subsequently instantiate a new device from that stored configuration.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-4 and 6 are anticipated under 35 U.S.C. §102(e) over Patterson.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Patterson (Patent 7,093,005).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Patterson, which was not considered during the original prosecution, discloses every limitation of the challenged claims. Patterson teaches methods to "visually create a logical description of a virtual server farm" and then "instantiate a corresponding tangible, operable computing system." This is achieved via a drag-and-drop graphical editor where users can draw server farm designs using icons for elements like firewalls and servers. Patterson further discloses saving these configurations as "server images" or "DNA," creating copies of these images, and using them as blueprints to instantiate new server farms, thereby anticipating the ’637 patent's limitations of creating a visual construction, saving a configuration, and instantiating a device from it.

Ground 2: Claims 1-4 and 6 are obvious under 35 U.S.C. §103 over Aziz in view of Verissimo.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Aziz (Patent 6,779,016) and Verissimo (Patent 5,841,654).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Aziz discloses a system for creating user-configurable Virtual Server Farms (VSFs) from a wide-scale computing grid. Aziz teaches the core backend functionality, including dynamically allocating resources like CPUs and storage based on web-form inputs from a user. However, Aziz lacks an explicit "visual construction" tool. Verissimo, which relates to configuring industrial control systems, was argued to supply this missing element. Verissimo discloses a graphical user interface where an operator can select device representations, graphically configure a network, and save the completed configuration file.
  • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine the teachings of Aziz and Verissimo to improve the usability of Aziz’s powerful VSF system. Augmenting Aziz’s web-form-based interface with Verissimo’s known graphical configuration tool would have been a natural and desirable step to streamline the user's process of designing and deploying complex server farms.
  • Expectation of Success: The combination was presented as predictable. At the time of filing, it was well-known that computer systems could be efficiently configured using graphical interfaces, and applying such a tool to Aziz’s system would have been a straightforward implementation to achieve the known benefit of improved user interaction.

Ground 3: Claims 1-4 and 6 are obvious under §103 over Aziz in view of ClusterX.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Aziz (Patent 6,779,016) and ClusterX (ClusterX 2.0 Getting Started Guide).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground presented an alternative combination for rendering the claims obvious. As in Ground 2, Aziz provided the foundational VSF system. The ClusterX guide, a publicly available document for a commercial software product, was argued to teach the claimed user interface features. ClusterX discloses a graphical user interface for managing hardware and software clusters. Crucially, its "backup and restore methodology allows for the cloning or duplication of cluster structures" onto other clusters, which directly teaches the concepts of copying a configuration and instantiating a new system from that stored copy.
  • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner contended a POSITA would be motivated to integrate the proven graphical management tools described in the ClusterX guide into Aziz's VSF framework. This combination would predictably streamline the selection and configuration of the Aziz virtual server farm, making it more efficient and user-friendly by employing an established paradigm for cluster management.
  • Expectation of Success: Success would have been expected because the combination involved applying a known graphical interface from a commercial clustering product to a similar problem domain—the configuration of server farms. This represented a predictable adaptation of existing technology to achieve a desired improvement in usability.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• "Visual Construction": Petitioner argued that under the broadest reasonable interpretation, this term should encompass both textual and graphical representations of a network. This position was based on the fact that the term is not explicitly defined in the ’637 patent, and its figures depict user interfaces containing both graphical icons and textual labels and lists.
• "Configuration": Petitioner asserted this term should be interpreted broadly to include any software or hardware-related settings. This construction was argued to be consistent with the patent’s specification, which provides examples of configuration including the number of servers, the type of operating system, specific hardware like disk arrays, and application software.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-4 and 6 of Patent 7,065,637 as unpatentable.