Comcast Cable Communications LLC v. Rovi Guides Inc

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2019-00557
• Patent #: 9,668,014
• Filed: January 10, 2019
• Petitioner(s): Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
• Patent Owner(s): Rovi Guides, Inc.
• Challenged Claims: 1-20

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Systems and Methods for Identifying and Storing a Portion of a Media Asset
• Brief Description: The ’014 patent describes systems for processing voice commands to identify and retrieve media assets. The technology focuses on instances where a user's voice command does not precisely name a media asset, requiring the system to calculate a degree of similarity between the user's input and known media asset identifiers in a database to suggest a match.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground A: Anticipation over Julia - Claims 1, 3-4, 11, and 13-14 are anticipated by Julia.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Julia (Patent 7,222,073).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Julia, a speech-activated communications system for video-on-demand, discloses every limitation of the challenged independent claims. Julia’s system receives a user's voice utterance (e.g., “America President”) which may be an incomplete or "garbled" version of a full media title. The system compares a sequence of words from the utterance against a database of candidate titles, calculates a similarity score for each, sorts the results, and presents higher-scoring titles to the user for final selection. This process directly maps to the claimed method of receiving a voice command with a media asset identifier (MAI), accessing a database, comparing the MAI to known MAIs, determining there is no complete match, calculating a degree of similarity, selecting a suggested MAI that exceeds a threshold, and providing an option for the user to confirm.

Ground B: Obviousness over Julia and Okimoto - Claims 1, 3-4, 11, and 13-14 are obvious over Julia in view of Okimoto.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Julia (Patent 7,222,073), Okimoto (Application # 2008/0167872).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground asserted that even if Julia's "final selection" feature was not considered to meet the "option to confirm" limitation of claim 1[i], the combination with Okimoto would render it obvious. Okimoto explicitly teaches a user interface that suggests a search result and provides selectable "yes" or "no" buttons for the user to confirm or reject the suggestion.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Okimoto's explicit confirmation interface with Julia’s media search system to improve its known "final selection" capability. Because Julia already contemplated that suggested results might be incorrect, implementing a well-understood "yes/no" confirmation method from Okimoto was a simple and predictable way to enhance user interaction and improve the system.
  • Expectation of Success: Success was expected because implementing Okimoto's user interface functionality would involve a straightforward software modification to Julia's existing system, as both systems are software-based.

Ground D: Obviousness over Julia, Okimoto, and Craner - Claims 7-8, 10, 17-18, and 20 are obvious over Julia in view of Okimoto and Craner.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Julia (Patent 7,222,073), Okimoto (Application # 2008/0167872), and Craner (Application # 2009/0100478).

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed claims related to storing a media asset after identification. The Julia/Okimoto combination taught identifying the asset. Craner taught a multi-user media system with DVR functionality, including recording selected programs based on schedule data from an interactive guide. Critically, Craner disclosed checking for sufficient storage space before recording and, if space is insufficient, providing the user an option to delete an existing recording to make room.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Craner’s recording and storage management capabilities with the Julia/Okimoto voice-search system. This combination would advantageously provide users with the flexibility to not only view media on-demand but also to record it for later viewing, a known method for improving user convenience. Adding storage management was a necessary and logical component of any recording feature to handle the predictable problem of limited storage space.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have expected success in adding Craner's features, as it would require adding storage hardware and modifying the PC software in the Julia system, both of which were well within the skill of an ordinary artisan.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including combining Julia/Okimoto with: Hoffert for including media previews in the confirmation prompt; Yates for using a stored user profile to personalize search results; Wang for the basic programming practice of initializing variables to a default value; and Taranenko for calculating similarity based on a character-by-character comparison rather than by word matching.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• Means-Plus-Function Terms: Petitioner argued that two key claim terms should be construed as means-plus-function limitations under 35 U.S.C. §112(f).
  • "Communications circuitry" (claim 11): Petitioner argued this term performs the function of "receiv[ing] ... a voice command from a user." The corresponding structure disclosed in the ’014 patent was identified as a microphone, user input interface, modem, or similar circuitry.
  • "Control circuitry configured to:" (claim 11): Petitioner argued this term performs the series of functions recited in the subsequent claim elements (accessing, comparing, determining, etc.). The corresponding structure was identified as the "control circuitry 304" from the specification, which comprises processing circuitry and memory executing software.
• Alternative Construction: Petitioner argued that if the Board did not adopt these means-plus-function constructions, the terms should be given their plain and ordinary meaning, which the prior art still disclosed.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-20 of Patent 9,668,014 as unpatentable.