PTAB

IPR2017-00740

eBay Inc v. MasterObjects Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System And Method For Asynchronous Client Server Session Communication
  • Brief Description: The ’024 patent describes a client-server system for providing "auto-completion" suggestions. As a user types a "lengthening string" of characters into a client device, the system asynchronously sends query messages to a remote server, which processes the input, queries a database, and returns relevant suggestions to be displayed to the user in near real-time.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation by Kravets - Claims 1-3, 6-7, 9, 12, 15-17, 21, 24-25, 32-33, and 35-36 are anticipated by Kravets under a broader claim construction.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Kravets (Patent 6,704,727).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that under a broader construction of "query message" (encompassing the full input string), Kravets disclosed every element of the challenged claims. Kravets teaches a client-server auto-suggestion system for a web search engine. It discloses a client object (JavaScript in a browser) that, while a user types, automatically sends query messages over a network to a predictive search server. Communication is asynchronous, using protocols like UDP and non-blocking JavaScript IFRAMEs. As the user types additional characters (a "lengthening string"), new queries are sent. Critically, Kravets’ source code appendix shows that upon receiving results, the client compares them against the current input string to ensure they are not stale before displaying them, thus teaching the "testing the usability" limitation of claim 1.
    • Key Aspects: This ground was premised on the broader claim construction that the Patent Owner previously asserted in district court litigation, arguing that if this construction is adopted, Kravets is a direct anticipation.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Kravets and Bauer - Claims 1-3, 6-7, 9, 12, 15-17, 21, 24-26, and 32-37 are obvious over Kravets in view of Bauer under a narrower claim construction.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Kravets (Patent 6,704,727) and Bauer (Patent 6,751,603).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground was presented as an alternative based on Petitioner's proposed narrower claim construction, where "query message" is limited to sending "only the changes" in user input. Petitioner argued Kravets provides the foundational client-server auto-suggestion framework. Bauer, which teaches an autocomplete system for file names, supplies the explicit teaching of a true character-by-character implementation where each newly typed character triggers an additional search thread. This provides a more detailed example of the character-by-character input processing described in the ’024 patent, which Petitioner contended was missing from Kravets. For claims not challenged in Ground 1 (e.g., claim 26), Bauer explicitly teaches running the client on a mobile device, a feature only implied in Kravets.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Kravets' web-based auto-suggestion system with Bauer's more detailed character-by-character input method to create a more efficient and responsive user experience, a well-known goal in the art. Bauer provides a natural and predictable extension of Kravets' teachings. A POSITA would also be motivated to implement Kravets' client-server system on mobile devices (as taught by Bauer) because such devices have limited storage, making a server-based suggestion system desirable.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying a known technique (character-by-character processing from Bauer) to a similar system (web-based auto-suggestion from Kravets) to achieve a predictable improvement in performance. The integration was a matter of routine software engineering with a high expectation of success.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "query message": This term was central to the petition's dual-pronged strategy. Petitioner argued that the correct construction, based on the specification’s repeated description of the "present invention" and prosecution history, limits the term to sending "only the changes" in user input. This narrow construction formed the basis for the obviousness ground (Ground 2). In the alternative, Petitioner argued that if the Patent Owner's broader construction (sending the full input string) was adopted, the claims were anticipated (Ground 1).
  • "asynchronously": Petitioner proposed that the Broadest Reasonable Interpretation (BRI) of this term should be understood to include any of: (1) a non-synchronous communication protocol like UDP; (2) a protocol that permits out-of-order data packet routing like TCP/IP or HTTP; or (3) a multi-threaded software environment that allows the system to perform other work while a specific thread is blocked, thereby preventing the user interface from freezing.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-3, 6-7, 9, 12, 15-17, 21, 24-26, and 32-37 of the ’024 patent as unpatentable.