Google LLC v. IPA Technologies Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wi-LAN Technologies Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wi-LAN Inc., which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Quarterhill Inc.

1. Case Identification

• Patent #: 6,742,021
• Filed: January 12, 2018
• Petitioner(s): Google LLC
• Patent Owner(s): IPA Technologies Inc.
• Challenged Claims: 3-4, 6, 9, 14, 21, 74-75, 77, and 80

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Speech-Based Navigation of Remote Electronic Data
• Brief Description: The ’021 patent relates to systems and methods for navigating electronic data using spoken natural language requests. The technology focuses on feedback mechanisms for resolving errors and ambiguities that may arise from such requests, employing an Open Agent Architecture (OAA) where a central "facilitator" agent coordinates multiple specialized, autonomous software agents to process user input and retrieve data.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness of Core Method over Cheyer and Shwartz - Claims 1, 8, 72, and 79 are obvious over Cheyer in view of Shwartz.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Cheyer (a 1995 conference paper on multimodal agent-based maps) and Shwartz (Patent 5,197,005).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Cheyer, which was co-authored by two inventors of the ’021 patent, disclosed the fundamental method of speech-based navigation. Cheyer’s system used the same OAA to receive a spoken request (e.g., "How far is the restaurant from this hotel?"), interpret it using speech recognition and natural language agents, and generate database requests to access remote data. Petitioner asserted that while Cheyer taught the overall framework, it did not specify how to construct the database query from the interpreted language. Shwartz allegedly supplied this missing detail by teaching a database retrieval system that explicitly generates a formal database query (e.g., SQL) from a user's natural language request to retrieve information.
  • Motivation to Combine: A person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine the references to implement Cheyer’s high-level system using the conventional techniques taught by Shwartz. Petitioner contended that using Shwartz’s method for query generation was a natural and predictable solution to fulfill Cheyer’s goal of accessing remote databases via natural language.
  • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying a known query generation technique (Shwartz) to a known agent-based architecture (Cheyer). Petitioner argued this was a straightforward integration of known elements that would predictably result in a functional speech-based data retrieval system.

Ground 2: Adding Ambiguity Resolution with Johnson - Claims 1, 8, 72, and 79 are obvious over Cheyer and Shwartz in view of Johnson.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Cheyer (a 1995 conference paper), Shwartz (Patent 5,197,005), and Johnson (Patent 5,748,974).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground augmented the Cheyer/Shwartz combination with teachings from Johnson to address the claim limitation of "soliciting additional input from the user, including user interaction in a non-spoken modality." Petitioner argued that while Cheyer disclosed resolving ambiguity, Johnson taught a specific, user-friendly method for doing so: presenting a pop-up window with multiple choices when an ambiguity is detected (e.g., "two Joe Smiths in the database") and prompting the user to select one. This non-verbal selection was alleged to be the claimed "non-spoken modality."
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA seeking to improve the ambiguity resolution in the Cheyer/Shwartz system would have been motivated to incorporate Johnson's well-understood graphical user interface technique. Presenting a list of choices for selection was a simple and effective design choice to enhance user experience when a query is ambiguous.
  • Expectation of Success: Integrating a pop-up selection mechanism (Johnson) into a natural language system (Cheyer/Shwartz) was a known and predictable interface design strategy that would have successfully resulted in a more robust system.

Ground 3: Adding Web Scraping with Kistler - Claims 3, 4, 74, and 75 are obvious over Cheyer and Shwartz in view of Kistler.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Cheyer (a 1995 conference paper), Shwartz (Patent 5,197,005), and Kistler (a 1998 article on the WebL programming language).

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground targeted dependent claims requiring "extracting an input template for an online scripted interface" and "dynamically scraping" that interface. Petitioner argued that Kistler rendered these features obvious when added to the Cheyer/Shwartz base. Kistler disclosed WebL, a scripting language specifically created to automate interactions with the World Wide Web, including extracting data from HTML pages and automatically filling out web forms. This, Petitioner argued, taught the claimed steps of extracting a template and scraping.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA implementing the Cheyer/Shwartz system to retrieve data from the web would frequently encounter online forms (e.g., CGI scripts). Petitioner asserted it would have been obvious to use a known tool like Kistler's WebL to automate interaction with these forms, a known solution to a known problem.
  • Expectation of Success: Using a web-scripting language (Kistler) to enable a natural language system (Cheyer/Shwartz) to access form-based web data was a straightforward combination of known technologies. It would predictably allow the system to interface with a wider range of data sources on the internet.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges based on combinations including Thrift (Patent 6,188,985) to teach performing processing locally on a user device; Wyard (a 1996 journal article) to teach handling unresolved words from speech recognition; and Burns (Patent 5,454,106) to teach repeating clarification steps in a loop until a query is deemed adequate.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• Petitioner’s arguments relied on the construction of the term "navigation query." For the purposes of the petition, it adopted the Patent Owner's proposed construction from related district court litigation: "an electronic query, form, series of menu selections, or the like; being structured appropriately so as to navigate a particular data source of interest in search of desired information." Petitioner argued this construction was supported by the patent’s specification and used it to demonstrate how database requests and generated SQL code in the prior art met this key claim limitation.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requested the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 3-4, 6, 9, 14, 21, 74-75, 77, and 80 of Patent 6,742,021 as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §103.