PTAB

IPR2015-00179

Google Inc v. SimpleAir Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System and Method for Transmission of Data
  • Brief Description: The ’279 patent relates to information services for sending push notifications to subscribers. The technology describes a system with a central broadcast server that processes data into blocks, addresses them, and transmits them to remote devices, irrespective of whether the devices are online or offline from an associated data channel.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Oberlander in view of Throckmorton - Claims 1-4, 8, 24, 27, 29, 35, 37, 38, 42, and 63 are obvious over Oberlander in view of Throckmorton.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Oberlander (Patent 5,509,000) and Throckmorton (Patent 5,818,441).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Oberlander disclosed the core architecture of the challenged claims, including a central server (server 110) that functions as a broadcast server with an information gateway (Device Mobility Manager) and a transmission gateway (Network Mobility Manager). Oberlander’s system received, parsed, and routed messages to remote devices. However, the key limitation of transmitting "whether the remote computing devices are online or offline from a data channel" was taught by Throckmorton. Throckmorton disclosed enhancing a primary data broadcast by providing a two-way communication channel (e.g., via a URL) that allows a device to connect to a secondary information source, thereby creating the claimed data channel.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Throckmorton’s teaching of a two-way data channel with Oberlander’s messaging system to improve its functionality. Adding a pointer or URL to messages in Oberlander’s system would allow users to access additional, related information, which was a known technique for improving similar information services.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying a known technique (a data channel for interactive content) to a known system (a messaging service) to achieve a predictable improvement in functionality.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Oberlander, Throckmorton, and Reilly - Claims 9, 10, 14-21, 43, 48, 49, 54, and 55 are obvious over Oberlander in view of Throckmorton and Reilly.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Oberlander (Patent 5,509,000), Throckmorton (Patent 5,818,441), and Reilly (Patent 5,740,549).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the base system disclosed by the Oberlander/Throckmorton combination. Petitioner contended that the dependent claims reciting user interface features, such as visual alerts, icons, and viewers, were not taught by the primary combination but were well-known elements disclosed in Reilly. Reilly taught a system that provided visual alerts (e.g., news "headlines") to notify a user of new information. It further disclosed that a user could click on the graphic alert to launch a viewer and display the associated data. This mapping addressed limitations related to visual and contextual graphics, user response, and launching viewers.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to add the user interface features from Reilly to the Oberlander/Throckmorton messaging system to improve usability. Providing visual notifications and an intuitive way to access content was a common and logical enhancement for any information delivery system to make it more user-friendly.
    • Expectation of Success: Integrating known user interface elements like visual alerts and interactive viewers into a messaging system was a standard design choice that would predictably result in an improved user experience.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Oberlander, Throckmorton, and Yan - Claims 6, 7, 30, 33, and 34 are obvious over Oberlander in view of Throckmorton and Yan.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Oberlander (Patent 5,509,000), Throckmorton (Patent 5,818,441), and Yan ("SIFT - A Tool for Wide-Area Information Dissemination," a 1995 USENIX paper).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed claims reciting that the central broadcast server "comprises a network of servers." While the Oberlander/Throckmorton combination disclosed the server-based messaging system, it did not explicitly describe a network of servers. Petitioner asserted that Yan disclosed this element by teaching that an information dissemination system (SIFT) could be replicated across multiple servers to handle load and improve efficiency. Yan explicitly stated it is "necessary to replicate the server," thus disclosing a network of servers for a similar technical purpose.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Yan’s teaching with the Oberlander/Throckmorton system for the predictable benefit of scalability. As a messaging system gains users, distributing the processing load across a network of servers is a fundamental and well-known engineering solution to maintain performance.
    • Expectation of Success: Applying the known technique of server replication for scalability to a messaging system was a straightforward implementation that would have yielded predictable improvements in system capacity and reliability.
  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges based on combinations including PC Magazine (for an "alert panel"), Olazabal (for an "audible alert"), and Lynch-Freshner (for viewer installation/updating), but relied on similar design modification theories.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "data channel": Petitioner argued this term should be construed broadly as "one or more communication channels or paths for accessing or viewing... information... over a communications network." Critically, Petitioner contended that this construction does not require the data channel to connect back to the same information source that sent the initial data, which was central to the argument that Throckmorton’s teaching of URLs to third-party sites met the limitation.
  • "whether said computing devices are online or offline from a data channel": Based on constructions from litigation involving a parent patent, Petitioner argued this meant "whether the remote computing devices are or are not connected via the Internet or another online service... at the time the preprocessed data is received." This construction supported the argument that the system must function regardless of the device's connectivity state for receiving secondary information.
  • "communicatively coupled": Petitioner proposed a plain language interpretation of "coupled for communication," which could include functions or processes communicating on the same server or across different servers. This construction was intended to preempt any narrow interpretation that the claimed gateways must be on separate hardware.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-21, 24, 27-35, 37, 38, 42, 43, 47-49, 54, 55, 62, and 63 of Patent 8,572,279 as unpatentable.