PTAB

IPR2017-01455

Comcast Cable Communications LLC v. OpenTV Inc

Log In
Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Using the Electronic Program Guide to Synchronize Interactivity with Broadcast Programs
  • Brief Description: The ’327 patent discloses methods for controlling an interactive application associated with a broadcast program. The system uses an Electronic Program Guide (EPG) to identify a program and retrieve associated "timing offsets," which are then used to maintain synchrony between the interactive application and the program, such as by suspending the application during commercial breaks.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Shoff - Claims 13-36 are obvious over Shoff.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shoff (Patent 6,240,555).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Shoff, by itself, teaches every element of the challenged claims. Shoff describes an interactive television system that uses an EPG to identify and retrieve "supplemental interactive content" for a broadcast program. It further discloses using "timing information" to synchronize this content with the program. Petitioner contended that Shoff’s "timing information" is the same as the ’327 patent's "timing offsets." For the limitation of suspending and resuming the application during a break (recited in independent claims 13 and 35), Petitioner asserted that this functionality was inherent or at least obvious from Shoff’s disclosure of synchronizing content with "traditional broadcast TV shows," which a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have known included commercial breaks.
    • Motivation to Combine: Not applicable (single reference ground).
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner argued a POSITA would have understood that properly synchronizing an interactive application with a television show inherently requires managing the application during predictable interruptions like commercial breaks.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Shoff in view of Delpuch - Claims 13-36 are obvious over Shoff in view of Delpuch.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shoff (Patent 6,240,555) and Delpuch (Patent 5,448,568).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground used Shoff as the primary reference for its EPG-based system for synchronizing interactive content with a broadcast program. To the extent Shoff was deemed not to explicitly teach suspending and resuming an application for commercial breaks, Petitioner argued Delpuch supplied this missing element. Delpuch expressly teaches the desirability of suspending interactive programs during "non-interactive commercial[s]" and discloses using "signal modules" containing commands for the suspension and resumption of applications to maintain synchronization.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted a POSITA would combine Delpuch's explicit solution for handling commercial breaks with Shoff's EPG-based interactive system. Both references address the same problem of synchronizing interactive content with video programming. The motivation would be to improve the user experience in Shoff’s system by preventing interactive content from playing over commercials, a well-known objective in the art.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was presented as a predictable integration of known techniques within the same field, with a high expectation of success.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Shoff and Wiltshire - Claims 27, 29, and 31 are obvious over Shoff, with or without Delpuch or Menand, and further in view of Wiltshire.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Shoff (Patent 6,240,555), Delpuch (Patent 5,448,568), Menand (Patent 5,563,648), and Wiltshire (Patent 6,409,602).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground targeted claims reciting the specific location where an interactive application is executed. Petitioner argued that while Shoff provides the base system, Wiltshire explicitly teaches running interactive applications (specifically, games) on a remote server/host computer, with only the user interface rendered on the local client device. This directly addresses limitations in claims like claim 31, which requires the interactive application to be run "primarily on a server remote from a viewer's own consumer premise equipment."
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to implement the interactive applications of Shoff using the remote-server architecture of Wiltshire. Petitioner argued this was a well-known design choice to achieve benefits explicitly taught by Wiltshire, such as reduced client device cost, centralized application maintenance, and lower bandwidth requirements. Since Shoff’s interactive content includes computer games, applying Wiltshire's teachings for remote game execution would have been a logical and obvious step.
    • Expectation of Success: Combining a content delivery system (Shoff) with a known client-server execution model (Wiltshire) was portrayed as a routine implementation choice for a POSITA, yielding predictable results.
  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge (Ground 3) based on Shoff in view of Menand (Patent 5,563,648). Similar to Delpuch, Menand was cited for its explicit teaching of suspending and resuming an interactive application during commercial breaks using "SUSPEND" and "CONTINUE" messages.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "timing offsets": Petitioner proposed the construction "timing information that can be used to synchronize an interactive application with a broadcast television program." This broad construction was argued to be supported by the specification and prosecution history, and was critical for mapping Shoff’s disclosure of "timing information" onto the claim language.
  • "program identifier": Petitioner proposed the construction "information that identifies a particular broadcast television program." This construction allowed Petitioner to argue that various data fields in Shoff's EPG, such as program title or time slot, met this limitation.
  • "identifier of the interactive application": Petitioner proposed the construction "information that identifies a particular interactive application." This broad construction supported the argument that a URL in Shoff's EPG data structure, which points to the interactive content, met this limitation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 13-36 of the ’327 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.