PTAB

IPR2018-00656

Riverbed Technology Inc v. Realtime Data LLC

Key Events

Petition

petition

Title: Methods for Encoding and Decoding Data
Brief Description: The ’204 patent discloses systems and methods for data compression. The methods involve recognizing a characteristic of data residing in data fields, selecting an appropriate encoder based on that characteristic, and compressing the data to achieve a specified compression ratio before transmission.

Prior Art Relied Upon: XMill (Hartmut Liefke & Dan Suciu, XMill: an Efficient Compressor for XML Data, a 2000 conference paper).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that XMill, a system for compressing XML data, discloses all limitations of independent claim 12. XMill processes data residing in fields (e.g., lines in a log file). Its "path processor" recognizes a characteristic of the data (its path or sequence of tags) and selects an associated semantic encoder. The system then compresses the data using these encoders, which utilize state machines ("deterministic automatons"). Petitioner asserted that XMill's own performance tests demonstrate achieving compression ratios well over the claimed 4:1 (e.g., 29.5:1) and show that the total time to compress and transmit the data is less than the time to transmit the same data in uncompressed form.
- Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): This ground relies on a single reference.
- Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): This ground relies on a single reference.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Ferris (WO 02/13058) and XMill.
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that XMill provides the core compression method as detailed in Ground 1. Ferris teaches a method for broadcasting compressed XML data to multiple receivers ("a multiplicity of receivers") and recognizes the need for efficient bandwidth use, which suggests high-level compression. The combination of XMill's disclosed compression techniques with Ferris's disclosed broadcasting system renders the limitations of independent claims 1 and 22 obvious. For example, claim 1 adds the limitation of "broadcasting the compressed data to a plurality of clients" to the method taught in XMill.
- Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would combine the references to gain the known benefits of efficient compression in a broadcast environment. A POSITA would have been motivated to apply XMill’s general-purpose XML compression tool to Ferris’s system for broadcasting XML data to efficiently use bandwidth, a goal explicitly stated in Ferris.
- Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): Petitioner argued that success was expected because the combination involved applying a known, general-purpose XML compressor (XMill) to a standard application involving XML data (Ferris), a predictable implementation.

Prior Art Relied Upon: The 2003 CIP (Patent 7,417,568), which is part of the ’204 patent's purported priority chain.
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: This ground is conditional on the Board accepting Petitioner’s priority date arguments. Petitioner argued that the ’204 patent is not entitled to its claimed priority date because key limitations in the independent claims (e.g., "a compression ratio of over 10:1") are unbounded ranges not enabled by the specification. If the priority chain is broken, the ’204 patent’s effective filing date becomes September 24, 2013. The 2003 CIP, which published more than a year prior, would then become anticipatory prior art under pre-AIA §102(b). Because the 2003 CIP shares the same specification as the ’204 patent, it necessarily describes all limitations of the challenged claims.
Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including that claims 14, 15, and 19 are obvious over XMill in view of RFC768 and/or RFC1180 for adding standard network protocol details, and that claims 9 and 29 are obvious over XMill and Ferris further in view of Comer for adding the use of UDP for broadcasting.

"data packet": Petitioner argued, consistent with a Board decision in a related reexamination, that "data packet" should be construed broadly as a "segregation of data that does not require a specific internal structure." This construction is critical because it allows a simple data block or file, such as the input and output files described in XMill, to meet the claim limitation, contrary to the Patent Owner's narrower proposed construction requiring control information and specific structure.
"recognizing" and "analyzing": Petitioner asserted these terms do not require a special definition and should be given their broad, ordinary meaning. This counters the Patent Owner's prior attempts to narrow the terms to mean "directly analyzing" in an effort to distinguish XMill, an argument the Board previously rejected.

Priority Date Challenge via Lack of Enablement: A central contention was that claims 1-30 are not entitled to any priority date before the patent's filing date of September 24, 2013. Petitioner argued that claim limitations reciting unbounded compression ratios (e.g., "over 10:1" and "over 4:1") are not enabled by the shared specification, which only describes specific examples and does not teach how to achieve the full scope of the claimed ranges. This alleged break in the priority chain is the foundation for the anticipation argument in Ground 3.

Petitioner argued that this inter partes review (IPR) is not redundant of the original prosecution under §325(d). Although XMill was cited in an Information Disclosure Statement, the examiner never applied it in a rejection, and the patent was allowed without any substantive examination of the art. Petitioner asserted that this IPR presents new arguments and evidence not before the examiner, including an expert declaration and the Board's final written decision from a related reexamination that found similar claims unpatentable over XMill.

Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1-30 of the ’204 patent as unpatentable.