Comcast Cable Communications LLC v. Rovi Guides Inc

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2020-00799
• Patent #: 7,386,871
• Filed: April 22, 2020
• Petitioner(s): Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
• Patent Owner(s): Rovi Guides, Inc.
• Challenged Claims: 1-22 and 34-56

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Program Guide System With Real-Time Data Sources
• Brief Description: The ’871 patent discloses an interactive television program guide (ITPG) system that provides real-time data, such as live sports scores, to supplement traditional program listings. The purported invention involves storing this real-time data alongside the program listings data in a single database maintained by the ITPG.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground A: Anticipation of Claims 1, 3-6, 8, 11-13, and 19-20 by Stautner

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Stautner (Patent 6,172,677).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Stautner discloses every limitation of the challenged independent and dependent claims. Stautner’s “integrated content guide,” implemented on a personal computer television system, was asserted to be an ITPG that receives both program listings and “constantly updated” information like sports scores (claimed “real-time data”). Petitioner contended that Stautner teaches consolidating information from multiple sources into a single, frequently updated database on the computer system’s hard drive, thereby teaching the core limitation of storing program listings and real-time data in the same database maintained by the guide. Dependent claim features, such as displaying the data on user equipment and providing user interaction, were also allegedly disclosed in Stautner’s description of its grid guide.

Ground B: Obviousness of Claims 1, 3-6, 8, 11-13, and 19-20 over Stautner in view of Deis

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Stautner (Patent 6,172,677), Deis (Patent 6,430,548).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: As an alternative to Ground A, Petitioner argued that if Stautner were found to only provide real-time data for immediate display without storing it in the database, it would have been obvious to do so. Deis was cited for its teaching of an “optimized database management system” that consolidates data from separate sources into a single database.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Stautner's guide with Deis's database consolidation principle to achieve predictable benefits. These benefits, explicitly taught by Deis, include faster data retrieval, optimal access, and reduced processing time and memory usage in a highly integrated system. Stautner’s own goal of providing a “single coherent and informative controlling front end” would motivate a POSITA to adopt the more efficient single-database architecture taught by Deis.
  • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted a high expectation of success, as the combination involved a simple substitution of a known database management technique (consolidated storage) to improve the performance of a known system (an ITPG).

Ground C: Obviousness of Claims 2, 7, 9, 10, 34-47, and 53-54 over Stautner in view of Lawler

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Stautner (Patent 6,172,677), Lawler (Patent 5,805,763). This ground also incorporates Deis as an alternative base combination (Stautner-Deis).

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground primarily addresses claims requiring a client-server architecture (e.g., claim 2), where a portion of the ITPG is implemented on a server at a television distribution facility. Petitioner argued that while Stautner teaches a user-side ITPG, Lawler explicitly discloses a client-server program guide system where a central headend server performs functions like storing and providing program data to multiple user stations.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would modify Stautner’s system to include a headend server as taught by Lawler to efficiently process user requests and distribute responsive data to subscribers. This would be a logical way to scale Stautner’s “multiplicity of services” for a larger user base. Lawler’s teaching of a server that stores and serves program guide data provided a clear roadmap for implementing Stautner’s guide in a more robust client-server arrangement.
  • Expectation of Success: Petitioner argued success would be predictable. The modification represented the use of a known technique (client-server architecture) to improve a similar, known device (Stautner's ITPG) in the same way (storing and providing guide data from a central server), yielding the predictable result of a scalable ITPG.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted numerous other obviousness grounds. These included combinations of Stautner (or Stautner-Deis) with Knee (Patent 5,589,892) to teach distribution of real-time data via a television distribution facility and displaying scores for completed games. Further grounds combined Stautner with LaJoie (Patent 6,049,333) to teach the purging of outdated real-time data from the database.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• "real-time data": Petitioner argued this term is expressly defined in the specification as “data that is communicated essentially in real time from real-time data sources.” This construction was asserted to encompass data that is “constantly updated,” like the sports scores in Stautner, and allows for short delays between updates, rather than requiring instantaneous transmission.
• "program guide maintains a database": Petitioner proposed this means “the program guide takes steps to keep the database up to date,” including storing new data or deleting old data. This construction was central to mapping Stautner’s disclosure of a “frequently updated” database to the claim language, arguing that updating is a form of maintaining.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued against discretionary denial under 35 U.S.C. § 325(d), asserting that the primary reference, Stautner, was not substantively considered during the original prosecution or a subsequent ex parte reexamination of the ’871 patent. While cited in the reexamination request, Stautner was only proposed as a secondary reference in a limited combination that was never reached on the merits. Petitioner contended that the new grounds, which use Stautner as the primary reference, are materially different from and not cumulative of the art previously considered by the USPTO, which focused on Knee and LaJoie.

6. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-22 and 34-56 of the ’871 patent as unpatentable.