PTAB

IPR2016-00934

Bungie Inc v. Acceleration Bay LLC

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Computer Network for Game Environments
  • Brief Description: The ’344 patent is directed to a computer network for providing a game environment where information is broadcast from one participant to all others. The claims require using a "flooding" broadcast technique in a network configured with a specific topology: a non-complete, m-regular graph.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-11 and 16-19 are obvious over Shoubridge and the knowledge of a POSITA.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shoubridge (Peter J. Shoubridge & Arek Dadej, “Hybrid Routing in Dynamic Networks,” a 1997 IEEE paper).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Shoubridge, while not focused on gaming, disclosed all key elements of the claimed network. Shoubridge taught a communication network using a "flooding" protocol, which Petitioner mapped to the claimed data broadcasting method. The reference specifically analyzed a 64-node network arranged as a "torus" where each node has a "connectivity of degree 4." Petitioner contended this model inherently discloses the limitations of independent claim 1:
      • It is m-regular because each node connects to exactly four other nodes (m=4).
      • It is a non-complete graph because the number of participants (64) is at least two greater than m (4), meaning not all nodes are connected to each other.
      • It uses flooding where an originating node sends data to its neighbors, which in turn forward it, matching the claimed broadcast process.
    • Petitioner further argued that the network disclosed in Shoubridge was m-connected (specifically, 4-connected), satisfying the limitation in claims 4 and 5. For other dependent claims, Petitioner asserted that the required features were either directly disclosed or would have been obvious implementation choices for a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA). For example, the 4-regular network met the claim 3 limitation of an even number of connections. Features like peer-to-peer connections (claims 6-7) and the use of the TCP/IP protocol (claim 8) were presented as well-known, conventional options for implementing the generic network described in Shoubridge.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner did not combine two distinct prior art documents. Instead, the motivation centered on applying the general-purpose, robust networking solutions from Shoubridge to the specific technical field of online gaming. Petitioner argued a POSITA would have been motivated to do so to achieve predictable benefits, such as improved reliability and preventing game sessions from crashing due to the failure of a single participant or link.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner contended a POSITA would have had a high expectation of success. Applying Shoubridge's well-understood networking protocols and topologies to a gaming application was argued to be a straightforward implementation that would produce the expected and predictable result of a stable and reliable network.

Ground 2: Claim 12 is obvious over Shoubridge and the knowledge of a POSITA.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shoubridge (a 1997 IEEE paper).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground specifically addressed dependent claim 12, which adds the limitation that "the interconnections of participants form a broadcast channel for a game of interest." Building on the arguments from Ground 1, Petitioner asserted this limitation was inherently disclosed or rendered obvious. Petitioner argued that when applying Shoubridge's network architecture and flooding protocol to a game, the resulting network—with its interconnected participants sharing game data—would be understood by a POSITA to constitute a "broadcast channel." The "game of interest" was argued to be an obvious topic for such a channel.
    • Motivation to Combine: The motivation was identical to that in Ground 1: applying a known, reliable network broadcasting method to the specific context of an online game. Petitioner argued that creating a broadcast channel for game information is the direct and intended result of this application.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have reasonably expected that implementing Shoubridge's flooding protocol for a multi-participant game would successfully and effectively create a channel for broadcasting game information among all participants.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner proposed constructions for several key terms central to its obviousness arguments, asserting they were consistent with their plain and ordinary meaning in light of the patent's specification:
    • “m-regular”: “each node is connected to exactly m other nodes.”
    • “non-complete graph”: “graph in which at least two nodes are not connected to each other.”
    • “m-connected”: “dividing the network into two or more separate parts would require the removal of at least m nodes.”

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-12 and 16-19 of the ’344 patent as unpatentable.