PTAB

IPR2014-00699

Matchcom v. Be Technology LLC

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Method for Providing Demographically-Targeted Advertising to a Computer User
  • Brief Description: The ’314 patent relates to a method for delivering targeted advertising to a computer user. The system involves providing downloadable client software that displays ads, collects user demographic and computer usage data, and periodically reports this information to a server using a unique identifier to enable targeted ad selection.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation by Logan - Claims 11-13, 18, and 20 are anticipated under 35 U.S.C. §102 by Logan.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Logan (Patent 5,721,827).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Logan, which describes an electronic system for distributing personalized programming and advertising, discloses every limitation of independent claim 11 and its asserted dependent claims. Logan's system acquires "personal information" (demographics) like age and sex during an account initialization procedure. It provides users with download access to "utility programs" (software) that, when run, display advertising, record a usage log file, and periodically request additional content from a server. Petitioner contended Logan's use of a unique "AccountNo" for each subscriber, which is included in the uploaded usage log, meets the "unique identifier" limitation. This AccountNo is used on the server to link the user's computer usage data with their stored demographic information in a relational database, thereby satisfying the limitation of associating the identifier with demographic data to select targeted advertising. Petitioner further mapped Logan's teachings to the specific limitations of dependent claims 12 (periodically selecting and transferring content), 13 (using a global computer network), 18 (usage data including resources accessed), and 20 (requesting demographic info before download).

Ground 2: Obviousness over Logan and Robinson - Claim 15 is obvious over Logan in view of Robinson.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Logan (Patent 5,721,827) and Robinson (Patent 5,918,014).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Logan teaches all elements of the base method of claim 11. Dependent claim 15 adds the specific step wherein "providing a unique identifier step further comprises storing a cookie on the computer." While Logan discloses a unique identifier ("AccountNo"), it does not explicitly disclose using a cookie. Robinson, which is directed to the same field of displaying targeted advertising, expressly teaches using a web browser's cookie mechanism to securely and uniquely identify users. Robinson describes creating a tracking cookie and storing it on the user's computer to identify the user on subsequent visits to a tracking-enabled page.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine the references because both address the problem of providing targeted advertising on the internet. Since Robinson teaches the security and privacy advantages of using a cookie to uniquely identify a user, a POSITA would have found it obvious to modify Logan’s system to use the well-known and secure cookie mechanism taught by Robinson to implement Logan’s unique identifier ("AccountNo"). This would have been a simple substitution of one known user identification method for another to achieve a more secure and robust system.
    • Expectation of Success: The use of cookies for user identification was a conventional and predictable technique in 1998. Therefore, a POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in integrating Robinson's cookie-based identifier into Logan's targeted advertising framework.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

Petitioner argued for constructions of several key terms, asserting they should be given their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification.

  • "Unique Identifier" (Claims 11, 15): Proposed as "information that uniquely identifies a user." Petitioner argued this construction is supported by the specification's description of a "unique ID" assigned to a user and is broad enough to encompass Logan's "AccountNo," which is central to the anticipation argument.
  • "Demographic Information" (Claims 11, 20): Proposed as "collected characteristic information about a user that does not identify the user." This construction aligns with the specification's examples (e.g., age, gender, city) and supports mapping to Logan's collection of similar "personal information."
  • "Periodically" (Claims 11, 12): Proposed as "at regular or irregular time intervals." This interpretation was argued to be consistent with the plain meaning of the term and necessary to show that Logan's system, which uploads usage logs and requests new content at set times or before new downloads, meets the limitation.
  • "Software" (Claims 11, 20): Proposed as "one or more computer programs and associated libraries and other files." This construction is broader than a single "software application" and was used to argue that Logan's downloadable "utility programs" satisfy the software limitation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 11-13, 15, 18, and 20 of Patent 6,628,314 as unpatentable.