PTAB

IPR2015-00662

Google Inc v. At Home BondHOlders' Liquidating Trust

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Method of Delivery, Targeting, and Measuring Advertising Over Networks
  • Brief Description: The ’698 patent describes a method for distributing banner advertisements over a computer network. The system aims to accurately count the number of times an advertisement is displayed to a user while reducing network traffic by using a redirect mechanism and managing content caching.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Angles, Merriman, and HTTP1.0 - Claims 1-3, 5-7, 9, 11-16, and 23

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Angles (Patent 5,933,811), Merriman (Patent 5,948,061), and HTTP1.0 ("HTTP Working Group Internet Draft Hypertext Transfer Protocol – HTTP/1.0," Feb. 1996).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Angles taught a system for delivering customized ads where a user's computer, upon receiving a webpage, sends a non-cache-blockable request (e.g., a CGI script request) to an advertisement provider. The provider then sends back a command to retrieve the ad. Petitioner contended that while Angles taught retrieving the ad from local storage, Merriman taught the missing element: using an HTTP redirect message to direct the user's browser to a URL on an external server to retrieve content. Finally, HTTP1.0 was cited for its disclosure of standard caching functions, wherein a browser checks its local cache for content before sending a request over the network. The combination of these references, Petitioner asserted, disclosed all limitations of independent claim 1.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Angles and Merriman by substituting Merriman's external HTTP redirect for Angles' local retrieval command. This was argued to be a simple substitution of known elements for scalability and predictable results. A POSITA would further incorporate the standard caching functions of HTTP1.0 into this combined system to achieve the well-understood goals of reducing network bandwidth consumption and improving response times.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a high expectation of success, as the combination involved applying a standard network protocol (HTTP redirect) to an ad delivery system and implementing basic, well-known caching techniques for efficiency.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Wexler and HTTP1.0 - Claims 1, 6, 7, 9, 11-16, and 23

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wexler (Patent 5,960,409) and HTTP1.0.
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Wexler disclosed a third-party ad accounting system where a user's click on a banner sends a request to an intermediary server. This server counts the request and redirects the browser to the advertiser's website. Petitioner argued that Wexler taught the core redirect and counting method but did not explicitly make the initial request "non-cache-blockable." HTTP1.0 was argued to supply this limitation by teaching a "Pragma: no-cache" header, which forces a request to be forwarded to the origin server, preventing it from being served from an intermediary cache. This technique, known as "cache-busting," was a well-known solution for ensuring accurate hit counting.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Wexler and HTTP1.0 to solve the known problem of inaccurate ad counting caused by caching. Incorporating a standard "no-cache" directive from HTTP1.0 into Wexler's HTTP-based system was presented as an obvious way to improve the reliability of Wexler's counting mechanism. The motivation was to achieve accurate accounting, a primary goal of such systems.
    • Expectation of Success: Success would be expected because the combination merely involved implementing a standard feature of the HTTP protocol (cache-busting) within an HTTP-based system to achieve its intended and well-known purpose.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Wexler, HTTP1.0, and Meeker - Claims 2, 3, and 5

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Wexler (Patent 5,960,409), HTTP1.0, and Meeker ("The Internet Advertising Report," Jan. 1997).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the combination of Wexler and HTTP1.0 to address dependent claims requiring the "counting each time said second portion of information is displayed." Petitioner argued that the base combination of Wexler/HTTP1.0 taught counting on a per-click basis. The Meeker reference, an investment report on internet advertising, was introduced to show that counting on a per-impression (i.e., per-display) basis was not only well-known but was a standard and widely adopted industry metric at the time, often considered alongside per-click counting.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to modify the Wexler/HTTP1.0 system to count impressions (as taught by Meeker) instead of clicks. This modification was argued to be a simple design choice, substituting one well-known advertising metric for another. Meeker itself established that impression-based counting was a known and available option for tracking internet advertisements.
    • Expectation of Success: There would be a high expectation of success in making this modification, as it involved choosing between a finite number of well-known, standard options for ad performance tracking.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Content General Request Signal": Petitioner argued this term should be construed to mean "a request indicating that information is to be displayed and that the receiver can decide what information is to be displayed." This construction supports the argument that an initial ad request that does not specify a particular advertisement, leaving the selection to the server, meets the claim limitation.
  • "Content Specific Request Signal": Petitioner proposed this term be construed as "a request containing a content specific URL address with the location of the information." This construction allows subsequent signals, such as an HTTP redirect to a specific ad's URL, to be mapped to this claim element.

5. Key Technical Contentions (Beyond Claim Construction)

  • "Fundamental Principles" Were Well-Known: Petitioner's central technical argument was that the core concepts presented as inventive in the ’698 patent—accurate ad counting despite caching, minimizing network traffic, and targeting ads—were all well-known problems with well-known solutions in the art before the patent's priority date. The petition asserted that techniques like "cache-busting" using non-cacheable requests (e.g., CGI scripts or Pragma headers) and using HTTP redirects for ad serving were standard industry practices, rendering the claims an obvious combination of existing technologies.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-3, 5-7, 9, 11-16, and 23 of the ’698 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.