PTAB

IPR2018-01008

Shopify Inc v. DDR Holdings LLC

Key Events

Petition

petition

Title: Method and Computer System for Serving Commerce Information of an Outsource Provider in Connection with Host Web Pages Offering Commercial Opportunities
Brief Description: The ’876 patent relates to a system where an outsource e-commerce provider serves web pages to a user that maintain the visual appearance ("look and feel") of a third-party host's website. This occurs when a user clicks a link for a commercial product on the host's site, creating a seamless transition to a transaction page handled by the outsource provider.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Loshin (“Selling Online with First Virtual,” published 1996).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Loshin, which describes the "InfoHaus" e-commerce system by First Virtual, discloses every element of the challenged claims. Loshin teaches an outsource provider (First Virtual) that allows merchants to sell products from a host page without needing their own servers. When a visitor clicks a purchase link on the host page, the InfoHaus system serves a transaction page. Petitioner contended this transaction page meets the "visual correspondence" limitation because it displays the host's name (e.g., "Darren New" in Loshin's example), thereby relating the overall appearance of the new page to the source page. The argument asserted that this textual identification, along with the potential to add HTML and images as described by Loshin, satisfies the visual correspondence requirement.
- Key Aspects: This ground hinges on the interpretation that displaying the seller's name on both the source and transaction pages constitutes the claimed "visual correspondence."

Prior Art Relied Upon: Loshin and the InfoHaus Documents (including the InfoHaus Guide, HelpMeister, and Seller Program webpages, June 1997).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that the InfoHaus Documents supplement Loshin's teachings by providing explicit instructions on how merchants can customize their InfoHaus storefronts. These documents describe adding graphics, using HTML for design, and creating custom transaction forms. This additional detail was argued to make it explicitly obvious how to create a "composite web page" that visually corresponds to the source page beyond the simple textual identification disclosed in Loshin.
- Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references because they describe the same system. The InfoHaus Documents are instructional materials for the InfoHaus service described in Loshin and were presented together on the First Virtual website. The motivation was simply to understand and implement the features of a single, cohesive e-commerce platform.
- Expectation of Success: Success would have been expected because the InfoHaus Documents provided direct, practical guidance on implementing the very customization features needed to achieve the claimed visual correspondence within the Loshin system.

Prior Art Relied Upon: Loshin and Moore (Patent 6,330,575).
Core Argument for this Ground:
- Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Moore discloses a distributed e-commerce system with an outsource provider and, critically, a development tool for merchants to design their web storefronts and "buy pages." This tool explicitly allowed for configuring the appearance of the buy page—including headers, footers, logos, colors, and fonts—to match the referring merchant's site. Petitioner contended that Moore's detailed teachings on creating visual consistency provided what was implicit or less detailed in Loshin.
- Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Loshin's outsourced e-commerce framework with Moore's well-understood techniques for webpage customization. Moore's method of maintaining visual consistency was a known solution to prevent user confusion and disorientation when being redirected to a third-party site for a transaction. Applying Moore's design principles to a system like Loshin's InfoHaus was argued to be an obvious design choice to improve the user experience.
- Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success, as Moore taught the specific tools and methods (e.g., using consistent headers and footers) to achieve the desired visual correspondence between a merchant's site and an outsourced transaction page.

"merchants": Petitioner proposed construing this term according to the patent's definition as "producers, distributors, or resellers of the goods to be sold through the outsource provider," noting that the "host" can also be the "merchant."
"host": Proposed construction was "the operator of a website that engages in Internet commerce by incorporating one or more link to the e-commerce outsource provider into its web content."
"commerce object": Proposed construction was "a product, product category, catalog, or dynamic selection," consistent with the patent's definition.
"commission": Petitioner argued for a broad construction of "money earned by a host for sales of a third party merchant's products through the host's website," not limited to any specific business arrangement.

Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-5, 7-8, and 11-18 of the ’876 patent as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103.