PTAB

IPR2018-01620

Facebook Inc v. Search Social Media Partners LLC

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Social Networking System, Method and Device
  • Brief Description: The ’828 patent relates to a computer system for facilitating electronic informational and commercial transactions and interactions. The patent describes combining aspects of various services commonly found on the Internet to create a social networking environment where users can subscribe to real-time news feeds associated with different social groups.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Bezos, Bezos 850, and Pasquali - Claims 1, 18, and 27 are obvious over Bezos in view of Bezos 850 and Pasquali.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Bezos (Patent 7,433,832), Bezos 850 (Patent 6,963,850), and Pasquali (Patent 6,272,493).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Bezos, which expressly incorporates the entirety of Bezos 850 by reference, discloses a web-based e-commerce system (Amazon.com) that constitutes a "social network environment." This system includes user accounts and "social groups" in the form of "Community Purchase Circles" or "Community Interests," where users can follow activities like purchases within specific communities (e.g., universities, clubs). However, Bezos/Bezos 850 may not explicitly teach displaying this information in a "real-time news ticker." Pasquali allegedly remedies this by teaching user interface techniques for displaying dynamically and continuously updated content (such as a news or stock ticker feed) within a "window object" on a standard web page without requiring user intervention or a full page refresh. The combination of Bezos's social group notifications with Pasquali's real-time display module allegedly renders the key limitations of the challenged claims obvious.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted that Bezos's express incorporation of Bezos 850 provides a direct motivation to combine their teachings. A person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have been motivated to combine the Bezos/Bezos 850 system with Pasquali’s display technology to solve the known problem of static web pages. Implementing Pasquali’s real-time "window object" would improve the user experience by providing current information about community purchases automatically, eliminating the need for users to constantly refresh the page and making the social information more valuable and timely.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner contended that since both the Bezos system and Pasquali's display techniques describe analogous web-based systems using conventional technologies, a POSITA would have found it straightforward to apply Pasquali’s generic, "bolt-on" display tool to the Bezos platform. This would have been a predictable implementation with a high expectation of success.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Bezos/Bezos 850/Pasquali, Shuster, and Simon - Claim 11 is obvious over Bezos in view of Bezos 850 and Pasquali, in further view of Shuster and Simon.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Bezos (Patent 7,433,832), Bezos 850 (Patent 6,963,850), Pasquali (Patent 6,272,493), Shuster (Patent 7,752,251), and Simon (Patent 7,200,599).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds upon the combination in Ground 1 to address additional limitations in claim 11, specifically a real-time news item comprising a "URL or a first link" and performing a "security comparison check" on that URL. Petitioner argued that Shuster, which describes topic-based information exchange groups called "Webrooms," explicitly teaches that user posts can include an external "link" (i.e., a URL) to a web page. To meet the security check limitation, Petitioner cited Simon, which describes techniques for addressing security problems caused by unvalidated user input. Simon specifically teaches performing a validation and filtering process on user-provided URLs to prevent malicious code execution.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would first combine Bezos/Pasquali for the reasons stated in Ground 1. A POSITA would then be motivated to incorporate Shuster's teaching to enhance the functionality of the Bezos review system by allowing users to include URLs in their product reviews. This would further the system's goal of providing useful feedback by linking to additional information. Finally, to mitigate the well-known security risks of accepting user-submitted URLs, a POSITA would have been highly motivated to implement the security validation taught by Simon to protect the system's integrity and reputation.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted that combining these elements would be predictable. Bezos, Shuster, and Simon all relate to web-based systems involving user input. Adding the capability for users to include links in comments and subsequently performing security checks on those links were common, well-understood practices in the art. Therefore, a POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of successfully integrating these features.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "Real-Time" Limitations: Petitioner dedicated significant argument to the construction of "real-time" as used in phrases like "real-time news ticker" and "real-time news items." Petitioner argued that, based on the patent's specification, the term should be construed to mean "current or up-to-date information." This construction focuses on the freshness of the information itself, not necessarily the timing or immediacy of its delivery to the user. This interpretation is critical to the invalidity arguments, as it allows prior art that provides updated information when a page is loaded (rather than through an instantaneous push) to satisfy the "real-time" limitation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review (IPR) for claims 1, 11, 18, and 27 and a final determination that these claims are unpatentable.