PTAB

IPR2018-01721

Facebook Inc v. Hypermedia Navigation LLC

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System and Method for Creating and Navigating a Linear Hypermedia Resource Program
  • Brief Description: The ’323 patent describes a system for presenting web content to users as a "guided tour" through a series of linearly linked websites or media elements. The system aims to simplify web navigation by providing a user interface with a viewing area for current content and a "map area" showing the sequence of items in the tour.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 10 and 11 are obvious over Greer, Gundavaram, PC Magazine, Quercia, and Steele.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Greer (Patent 6,009,429), Gundavaram (a 1996 book on CGI programming), PC Magazine (a Dec. 1997 article), Quercia (a 1997 book), and Steele (Patent 5,884,056).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Greer, titled "HTML Guided Web Tour," discloses the core elements of the challenged claims. Greer teaches a method for presenting a sequence of web pages in a guided tour format using a browser interface with distinct frames. This interface includes a main viewing area ("urlFrame") and a control/navigation frame ("taskFrame") that functions as the claimed "map area," displaying a list of tour stops. Petitioner contended that while Greer describes a tour of web pages, it expressly suggests adapting the system for "movies" (video media elements). Gundavaram was cited to supply well-known, foundational knowledge about client-server communication (CGI) for processing user requests, which Greer assumed but did not detail. To meet the "icons" limitation, Petitioner asserted Steele teaches using selectable thumbnail images as hyperlinks to video content. For a potentially narrow construction of "receiving a request," PC Magazine and Quercia were cited for describing the HotBot search engine, which allowed users to use a checkbox to specifically request video content.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references to improve upon Greer's guided tour system using known, conventional techniques. Combining Greer with Steele was argued to be a simple substitution of icons for text to create a more intuitive user interface for video tours, a predictable design choice. Incorporating the teachings of Gundavaram would have been a routine implementation of standard web protocols for handling search requests in Greer's system. Finally, adding the video-specific search taught by PC Magazine and Quercia would be a logical way to enhance search functionality, allowing users to more easily find the desired video content.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted success was expected because the combination involved applying conventional web technologies (icons, CGI, search filters) to a known system (a guided web tour) to achieve predictable improvements in usability and functionality.

Ground 2: Claims 10 and 11 are obvious over Greer, Gundavaram, PC Magazine, Quercia, Steele, and Richardson.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Greer (Patent 6,009,429), Gundavaram (a 1996 book), PC Magazine (a Dec. 1997 article), Quercia (a 1997 book), Steele (Patent 5,884,056), and Richardson (Patent 5,809,247).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground incorporated all arguments from Ground 1 but added Richardson specifically to address a disputed claim construction of "linear path." The Patent Owner in co-pending litigation proposed that a "linear path" requires "no more than one exclusive forward link and one exclusive backward link." While Petitioner argued Greer taught the forward link (via a "NEXT" button and an incrementing array index), it added Richardson to explicitly teach the backward link. Richardson discloses a guided web tour system with both "Next >>" and "<< Prev" buttons, which allow a user to move forward and backward one step at a time through the tour.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Richardson's backward navigation with Greer's system for the simple and well-known benefit of providing users with enhanced control. Petitioner argued that adding a "previous" or "back" function to any sequential presentation of content was an elementary and obvious improvement to enhance user experience. Both Greer and Richardson aimed to solve the same problem of guiding users through web content, making Richardson a natural source for a POSITA to consult to improve Greer's system.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was highly likely, as implementing backward navigation by decrementing an array index (the inverse of Greer's forward navigation method) was a fundamental and routine programming task.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "map area": The parties in related litigation had reportedly agreed to construe this term as "a user interface or a part thereof displaying at least a portion of a linear path." Petitioner adopted this construction for the IPR.
  • "linear path": This term, incorporated into the construction of "map area," was a central point of dispute.
    • Petitioner's proposed construction: "a path of serially linked websites."
    • Patent Owner's proposed construction: "a path having no more than one exclusive forward link and one exclusive backward link."
  • Petitioner argued that while its own construction was correct, the prior art rendered the claims obvious even under the Patent Owner's narrower construction, which prompted the inclusion of Richardson in Ground 2.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued against discretionary denial under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d), asserting that the petition did not present the "same or substantially the same prior art or arguments" previously presented to the USPTO. Petitioner stated that none of the references in Ground 1 or Ground 2 were cited during the original prosecution of the ’323 patent. While acknowledging that Richardson was listed on an Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) during the prosecution of related patents, Petitioner contended it was never substantively discussed or relied upon by the Examiner to reject any claims, and therefore its application in this IPR was new.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 10 and 11 of Patent 7,383,323 as unpatentable.