PTAB

IPR2016-00220

McAfee Inc v. Cap Co Ltd

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System and method for blocking harmful information online, and computer readable medium therefor
  • Brief Description: The ’196 patent discloses a system for automatically downloading, installing, and executing an antivirus module on a client computer. This module is intended to block harmful information, such as computer viruses, in real-time by inspecting network packets and file input/output (I/O) without requiring manual user intervention.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 16-19 and 23-24 are obvious over Ji in view of Freund.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ji (Patent 6,728,886) and Freund (Patent 5,987,611).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the combination of Ji and Freund taught all limitations of these claims. Ji disclosed a method for automatically downloading and updating a local antivirus scan engine on a client computer upon browser start-up. This downloaded engine would then scan all future HTTP requests and data transfers in real-time, teaching the automatic delivery and network packet inspection elements. Freund disclosed a client-side filter application that provided more robust real-time protection by "hooking" into the operating system's communication drivers (e.g., Winsock) and file subsystem. This allowed Freund’s monitor module to intercept and inspect all TCP/IP communications and file I/O on a per-process basis, determine if the activity was harmful according to predefined rules, and block harmful activity by terminating the associated process or communication.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have been motivated to combine the references because they were complementary technologies in the same field of computer security. A POSITA would combine Ji’s efficient method for automatically delivering an up-to-date antivirus engine with Freund’s more comprehensive, OS-level method for real-time inspection and blocking. This combination would create a superior security product that was both current and highly effective, addressing the shared goal of preemptively blocking harmful information before it could damage a client computer.
    • Expectation of Success: The petition argued that combining an automatic software delivery mechanism with a known real-time scanning technique was a predictable implementation path for antivirus developers at the time. Both technologies were well-understood, and their integration would have yielded the expected result of an enhanced, automated security system.

Ground 2: Claims 25-28 are obvious over Ji and Freund in view of Levergood.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ji (Patent 6,728,886), Freund (Patent 5,987,611), and Levergood (Patent 5,708,780).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground incorporated the teachings of Ji and Freund from Ground 1 and added Levergood to address limitations in claims 25-28, particularly those concerning a client receiving a request from a web server. Petitioner argued that Levergood disclosed a standard client-server architecture for an online service, which included an authentication server and a content server. In Levergood’s system, the authentication server sends requests to the client’s browser to manage access to controlled content, such as a "credential query" for a username/password or a "REDIRECT" request to forward the user to a different page. This teaching directly met the claim limitation of a client system receiving a request from a server.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner contended that a POSITA seeking to implement the antivirus system of Ji and Freund as a commercial online service would naturally look to prior art like Levergood for standard web service infrastructure. Implementing user authentication and session management is a fundamental requirement for most online services. Levergood provided a known, sensible architecture for this purpose. Therefore, a POSITA would have been motivated to integrate the authentication and server architecture of Levergood with the AV delivery and scanning technology of Ji and Freund to create a complete, commercially viable product.
    • Expectation of Success: Integrating a standard user authentication system with an online software delivery service involved combining well-known components for their intended purposes. A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in creating the claimed system, as it represented a predictable combination of existing technologies.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "harmful information blocking code module": Petitioner proposed this term be construed as "an executable program that blocks harmful information." This construction was based on the patent's repeated description of the invention as a "program" in the Summary of the Invention and the functional requirement that the module must be capable of "running" on a client system, a function limited to executable programs, not all forms of digital information.
  • "automatically runs": Petitioner proposed this term means "runs without user installation, start-up, or other involvement." This construction was argued to be consistent with the patent's primary stated objective of overcoming the "labor-intensive" need for users to manually install, configure, and execute antivirus software.
  • "internal process": Petitioner argued this term means "instance of a program that is being executed by a client computer." This relied on the well-understood meaning of "process" in computer science and was supported by the patent's specification, which described inspecting "processes currently running on the client."

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 16-19 and 23-28 of Patent RE42,196 as unpatentable.