PTAB

IPR2014-00314

Qualtrics LLC v. OpinionLab Inc

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Petition
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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System and Method for Measuring User Reactions Concerning One or More Particular Web Pages of a Website
  • Brief Description: The ’724 patent discloses a website response measurement tool for collecting user feedback on a page-by-page basis. The system utilizes a "first icon" displayed on a webpage to solicit a user reaction; when a user interacts with this first icon, a "second icon" containing rating scales becomes viewable, allowing the user to submit a subjective reaction about that particular webpage.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation by CustomerSat - Claims 1-2, 4-6, and 8-9 are anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102 by CustomerSat.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: CustomerSat (a publicly available website and its associated source code, as of May 26, 1998).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the CustomerSat website, a commercial provider of online survey services, disclosed every element of the challenged claims. CustomerSat offered two implementations for collecting user feedback: a persistent "Feedback" link and a "Pop!Up" survey invitation. Petitioner contended that the "Feedback" link or the pop-up invitation constituted the claimed "first icon," which was viewable on a webpage "independent of input from a user" because it loaded automatically. User interaction with this first icon (e.g., clicking the link) was the "user input" that caused a survey form, the "second icon," to become viewable. These surveys contained multi-level rating scales for website characteristics such as "overall satisfaction," "content," "design," and "usability," thereby meeting the limitations for the second icon. The underlying HTML and database software disclosed by CustomerSat were operable to receive this subjective user reaction and provide reporting to the website owner.
    • Key Aspects: Petitioner's argument relied heavily on the assertion that both the text-based link and the pop-up survey window in CustomerSat met the claim term "icon," and that the resulting general website satisfaction survey met the limitation of soliciting a reaction to a "particular web page" when initiated from that page.

Ground 2: Obviousness over CustomerSat in view of Medinets - Claims 1-2, 4-6, and 8-9 are obvious over CustomerSat in view of Medinets.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: CustomerSat (website) and Medinets (a 1996 introductory guide to the PERL programming language titled PERL 5 by Example).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that if the Board were to find that CustomerSat did not explicitly teach collecting feedback specifically tied to a "particular web page," Medinets supplied this teaching. Medinets disclosed a web page commenting system that taught placing a feedback button on "every Web page" of a site. Clicking this button would summon a feedback form that was "customized to each Web page." Medinets achieved this page-specificity by using hidden HTML form fields to automatically capture and transmit the identity of the page from which the feedback was initiated (e.g., "Home Page"). Petitioner argued that the combination of CustomerSat's advanced survey features (e.g., a plurality of multi-level rating scales for different website characteristics) with the explicit page-specific implementation taught by Medinets rendered the claims obvious.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine the references as they addressed the same problem (soliciting web page feedback) using the same fundamental technologies (HTML forms, CGI scripts, databases). CustomerSat itself recommended collecting feedback on different sections of a website, providing the motivation to seek a known implementation method. A POSITA would have naturally consulted a standard programming guide like Medinets, which taught the "de facto standard" PERL for CGI programming, to implement the page-specific functionality for a system like that in CustomerSat.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying routine and well-understood web development techniques for their intended purposes. Integrating Medinets's method for tracking page identity into CustomerSat's survey system was a straightforward task for a POSITA, leading to a high expectation of success.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "icon": Petitioner proposed the construction "graphical image(s), optionally with text." This broad construction was central to its argument that text-based hyperlinks (the "Feedback" link in CustomerSat) and graphical buttons (the "Send a comment" button in Medinets) met the limitation for the "first icon."
  • "independent of input from a user": Petitioner proposed "without requiring action by a user." This construction was argued to cover an icon that appears automatically upon a webpage loading, as taught by the prior art. Petitioner used this construction to distinguish the prior art from systems that might require a user to first right-click to reveal a feedback menu.
  • "subjective user reaction to the particular web page": Petitioner argued for a broad interpretation of this term, essentially meaning "user opinion about" a webpage, even if the survey questions referred to the website generally. This position was supported by pointing to the Patent Owner's own allegedly broad constructions in related district court litigation and was critical for mapping CustomerSat's general satisfaction surveys to the claims.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-2, 4-6, and 8-9 of 6,421,724 as unpatentable.