PTAB

IPR2014-00092

Twitter Inc v. Evolutionary Intelligence LLC

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System and Method for Creating and Manipulating Information Containers with Dynamic Registers
  • Brief Description: The ’536 patent relates to a system for transmitting, receiving, and manipulating information on a computer network. The system utilizes "information containers" that include "dynamic registers" and "gateways" to manage and control interactions based on various parameters such as time and physical space.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-16 are anticipated by Theimer under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Theimer (Patent 5,493,692).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Theimer, which discloses a system for selectively delivering electronic messages to users based on their context (e.g., location, time, environment), teaches every limitation of the challenged claims. The petition asserted that Theimer's system of context-aware software "agents" and services that manage user and device information directly corresponds to the ’536 patent’s claimed system of "containers," "registers," and "gateways."
    • The core of the argument mapped Theimer’s components to the limitations of independent claims 1 and 2. Theimer's "UserAgents" and "DeviceAgents," described as unique software representations of physical objects that store information, were alleged to meet the "plurality of containers" limitation. The various types of information stored and managed by these agents—such as user preferences, calendar data, location information, and policy rules—were argued to constitute the claimed "plurality of registers."
    • For independent claim 1, Petitioner contended that Theimer's use of calendar and scheduling information teaches the required time-based registers. Theimer's system triggers actions based on "the time of day" and uses calendar data to control interactions, which allegedly discloses the "second register having a representation designating time." Furthermore, calendar entries like "work time" (when a user is busy) and "free time" (when a user is available) were mapped to the claimed "active time register" and "passive time register," respectively, as they govern when a container can act upon others or be acted upon.
    • For independent claim 2, which is identical to claim 1 except for substituting "space" for "time," Petitioner argued that Theimer's extensive disclosure of location-aware functionality met these limitations. Theimer's system uses location information to trigger message delivery and other actions, allegedly teaching the "second register having a representation designating space." Location-based rules, such as sending a notification when a user enters their office, were mapped to the "active space register," while rules allowing message receipt in certain locations were mapped to the "passive space register."
    • Finally, the "gateway" limitation was allegedly met by several components in Theimer. These included physical "gateway computers" connecting wireless devices to a network, the software interface of the Remote Procedure Call (RPC) protocol used for communication between agents, and the internal "inference engine" within each agent that processes policy rules to control interactions.
    • Dependent claims were also addressed. For instance, Theimer’s storage of undelivered messages for later reattempted delivery was argued to teach the "container history register" of claim 3. Theimer’s disclosure of user-configurable IF-THEN policy rules was argued to teach the "user-created register" of claim 6.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Container: Petitioner proposed construing "container" as "a logically defined data enclosure which encapsulates any element or digital segment." This broad construction was argued to be supported by the ’536 patent’s specification and the Patent Owner's own broad infringement contentions in parallel litigation, where entities such as user profiles, tweets, and business locations were identified as containers.
  • Register: Petitioner proposed construing "register" as a "value or code associated with a container." This construction was based on the specification's description of registers as interactive dynamic values that govern the interaction of a container with other system components and record historical interactions.
  • Gateway: Petitioner proposed construing "gateway" as "a hardware or software unit that facilitates the transfer of information between containers, systems, networks, and/or processes." This interpretation was derived from both the functional descriptions within the ’536 patent and common technical dictionary definitions.

5. Key Technical Contentions (Beyond Claim Construction)

  • Means-Plus-Function Claims (9-12): Petitioner contended that the ’536 patent fails to disclose any specific algorithms corresponding to the functions recited in means-plus-function limitations in claims 9-12, such as "means for acting upon another container" and "means for gathering information." The petition argued that the only structure disclosed in the specification for performing these functions is a general-purpose processor. Therefore, under the broadest reasonable interpretation standard, the corresponding structure is simply a processor, a component that Petitioner asserted is clearly disclosed in the Theimer reference.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of an inter partes review (IPR) and cancellation of claims 1-16 of Patent 7,010,536 as unpatentable.