Unified Patents LLC v. Sisvel Societa Italiana per Lo Sviluppo Dell Elettronica Spa

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2019-00471
• Patent #: 7,734,680
• Filed: December 31, 2018
• Petitioner(s): Unified Patents Inc.
• Patent Owner(s): S.I.SV.EL. Societa Italiana Por Lo Sviluppo Dell'Elettronica S.P.A.
• Challenged Claims: 1, 4, 8, 10-13, and 16-18

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Media Browsing System and Method
• Brief Description: The ’680 patent discloses systems and methods for recommending media content from multiple sources. The system generates a user profile based on the user's activities (implicit filtering), answers to questions (explicit filtering), and similarities to other users (collaborative filtering), then presents suggested content within a "virtual unified space."

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Easty and Hendricks - Claims 1, 4, 8, 10-13, and 16-18 are obvious over Easty in view of Hendricks.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Easty (Patent 6,189,008) and Hendricks (Patent 5,798,785).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Easty taught the foundational elements of a modern recommender system, including creating user profiles based on user activities and collaborative data from similar users to recommend content from multiple media sources. However, Easty allegedly lacked a detailed user-friendly interface. Petitioner asserted that Hendricks supplied the remaining key limitations, teaching a "menu-driven access scheme" that organizes content by category (e.g., sports, news, movies), which Petitioner equated to the claimed "virtual unified space." Crucially, Petitioner argued that Hendricks taught updating a user's "personal profile" by assigning numerical "weights" to different content categories based on viewing habits. Petitioner contended that these relative weights (e.g., sports at 40, comedy at 30) inherently disclose the key claim limitation of updating a profile where the update is "reflected in a ratio."
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Hendricks' user-friendly, category-based browsing interface with Easty's backend recommender system to improve usability and create a more organized user experience. As Easty already contemplated "weighing" user preferences, a POSITA would have been motivated to implement the specific weighting scheme from Hendricks as a known and effective method for updating user profiles.
  • Expectation of Success: Petitioner argued for a high expectation of success, as both references operate in the same technical field, address the same problem of personalized content delivery, and describe systems implemented on similar hardware like set-top boxes. The combination was presented as a predictable integration of known technologies to achieve an improved, but obvious, result.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Easty, Hendricks, and Kittaka - Claims 1, 4, 8, 10-13, and 16-18 are obvious over Easty in view of Hendricks and in further view of Kittaka.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Easty (Patent 6,189,008), Hendricks (Patent 5,798,785), and Kittaka (Patent 5,999,975).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground was presented as an alternative to Ground 1, specifically targeting the "ratio" limitation. It relied on the same teachings from Easty and Hendricks for all claim elements except for the ratio. Petitioner argued that if the Board were to find that the "weights" in Hendricks do not sufficiently teach a "ratio," then Kittaka explicitly and unambiguously does. Kittaka describes a system that mathematically represents user preferences and content attributes as vectors. It expressly teaches updating the user preference vector by rotating it toward a selected content vector at a "ratio of C1:1-C1," providing a direct and mathematical disclosure of the disputed limitation.
  • Motivation to Combine: The motivation to add Kittaka to the Easty/Hendricks combination stemmed from a direct statement in Hendricks that "more sophisticated methods of weighing the importance of the data may be used." Petitioner argued this would have prompted a POSITA to seek out advanced, known techniques for profile updating, such as the vector-based ratio method taught by Kittaka. Kittaka's method, which dynamically accounts for changes in user interest over time, would have been seen as a way to improve the sophistication and reliability of the recommendations in the primary combination.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in implementing Kittaka's algorithm. The integration would involve known software modifications to the profile update computations in the Easty/Hendricks system, yielding the predictable result of a more dynamically responsive user profile.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• "implicit filtering": Petitioner proposed this term should be construed to include providing search results or recommendations based on a user profile that is updated according to the user's past interactions, such as content selections, websites visited, or viewing duration.
• "explicit filtering": Petitioner proposed this term should be construed to include providing search results or recommendations based on a user profile that is updated according to the user's direct answers to questions, such as content ratings or demographic information.

7. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 4, 8, 10-13, and 16-18 of Patent 7,734,680 as unpatentable.