PTAB

IPR2019-00836

Microsoft Corp v. IPA Technologies Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Highly Scalable Software-Based Architecture for Communication and Cooperation Among Distributed Electronic Agents
  • Brief Description: The ’560 patent discloses a software architecture for communication and cooperation among distributed electronic agents. The system uses a specialized inter-agent communication language (ICL) that includes distinct layers for conversational protocol and content to facilitate collective task completion.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Kiss in view of FIPA97 - Claims 1, 5-13, 22-25, and 50-55 are obvious over Kiss in view of FIPA97.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Kiss (Patent 6,484,155) and FIPA97 (FIPA 1997 v. 1.0 Specification).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Kiss discloses the foundational architecture for a multi-agent system as claimed in the ’560 patent, while FIPA97 provides the specific inter-agent communication language (ICL) features that were added to the claims during prosecution to secure allowance. Kiss taught a knowledge management system with cooperative intelligent agents, an agent registry, and a "meta-agent" that functions as the claimed facilitator to generate and manage goal satisfaction plans. However, Kiss lacked the specific ICL structure required by the claims. Petitioner asserted that FIPA97, a comprehensive public specification for agent communication, remedies this deficiency by disclosing a detailed Agent Communication Language (FIPA ACL). This FIPA ACL provides the claimed "layer of conversational protocol defined by event types and parameter lists." Specifically, FIPA97's "communicative acts" (e.g., inform, request) directly map to the claimed "event types," and its message parameters (e.g., :receiver, :protocol) map to the "parameter lists." Crucially, Petitioner argued that certain FIPA97 parameters, such as the :protocol parameter which can change a cfp (call for proposals) message from a simple offer request to a request to engage in a specific type of auction, meet the key limitation that "the parameter lists further refine the one or more events" by altering the semantic meaning of the event, a feature the patent examiner previously found distinguished the invention from other prior art.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner contended that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have been motivated to combine Kiss with FIPA97 for several reasons. A POSITA would recognize that the multi-agent system of Kiss required a robust, common communication protocol to function effectively. FIPA97 was a publicly available, well-known industry standard designed for the express purpose of ensuring interoperability among disparate agent systems. Implementing the FIPA97 standard within the Kiss framework would have been an obvious and predictable solution to improve communication and interoperability, representing a simple combination of known elements for their intended purposes.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining the references. The components were well-known, conventional technologies by 1999, and other systems had already successfully integrated FIPA97 technology with agent-based systems, demonstrating the combination's feasibility.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "layer of conversational protocol": Petitioner proposed this term be construed as "a set of rules and standards governing the semantics of messages between agents." This construction was central to the argument, as it framed the key patentable feature in a way that Petitioner argued was explicitly disclosed by the rules and message structures in the FIPA97 specification.
  • "wherein the parameter lists further refine the one or more events": Petitioner proposed this phrase be construed to mean "that a list of parameters associated with an event can refine the event by affecting the meaning of the event." This construction was critical because this limitation was added during prosecution to overcome prior art. Petitioner's case relied on showing that FIPA97's parameters (like :protocol or a multi-agent :receiver list) affect the core meaning of a communicative act, thereby meeting this allegedly distinguishing limitation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 5-13, 22-25, and 50-55 of the ’560 patent as unpatentable.