PTAB

IPR2021-00465

NetNut Ltd v. Bright Data Ltd

Log In
Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Content Fetching Method
  • Brief Description: The ’866 patent describes a method for retrieving internet content from a server using a group of intermediary "tunnel devices" (proxies). The method involves partitioning the content into multiple "slices," selecting devices from the group to fetch individual slices, and reconstructing the original content from the received slices.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation - Claims 15-17 and 23-24 are anticipated by Sharp KK under 35 U.S.C. §102.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Sharp KK (European Patent Publication EP 2 597 869 A1).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Sharp KK discloses every limitation of independent claim 15. Sharp KK teaches a system where a client device fetches content (a media file) from a server via a group of "relaying devices" (proxies). The content is partitioned into "fragments" (content slices), each identified by a consecutive reference numeral (content slice identifier). The client selects a proxy from a list, sends a request for a specific fragment that includes the fragment and server identifiers, receives the fragment, and plays (constructs) the content. Petitioner contended that Sharp KK also meets the limitation that each device in the group is a "client device," as it explicitly discloses that its relaying devices can also function as clients. Dependent claims 16, 17, 23, and 24 were alleged to be anticipated by Sharp KK's disclosure of partitioning at the byte level, combining fragments into a file, and using both sequential and non-sequential fragments.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Proxy and HTTP Standards - Claims 15, 17, and 18 are obvious over Luotonen in view of RFC 2616.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Luotonen ("Web Proxy Servers," 1997) and RFC 2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1, June 1999).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Luotonen describes the fundamental architecture of the challenged claims, including methods for fetching content from an origin server via a pool of proxy servers. The key step of "partitioning the content into a plurality of content slices" was argued to be a standard, well-known feature of the HTTP protocol, which Luotonen's proxies necessarily use. RFC 2616 explicitly teaches partitioning content via "byte-range" requests, where the request header contains a "content slice identifier" (the byte range) and a "Host" header (the server identifier). Luotonen's proxies, acting as both servers and clients, would inherently handle these standard requests.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine the standard byte-range fetching capability of RFC 2616 with the proxy server architecture of Luotonen because it was a routine and expected function. A standards-compliant proxy as described in Luotonen would be required to support HTTP byte-range requests, making the combination not just motivated but necessary for proper function.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was expected to succeed because it involved applying a standard protocol feature (byte-range requests) to a standard network component (a proxy server) designed to handle that protocol.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Sharp KK and Shribman - Claims 19-20 and 27-28 are obvious over Sharp KK in view of Shribman.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Sharp KK (EP 2 597 869 A1) and Shribman (Application # 2011/0087733).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds on the anticipation argument using Sharp KK for the base invention of claim 15. It addresses dependent claims 19 (slices cover the entire content) and 20 (slices have the same size). While Sharp KK suggests fragments can have the same length, Shribman was cited for its explicit disclosure that content "chunks... are defined as equally sized pieces of data that together form the whole content of the URL."
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Shribman's teaching of using equally sized chunks with Sharp KK's distributed fetching system for the predictable benefit of ensuring a more even distribution of processing load across the proxy devices. This was argued to be a simple and trivial design choice to optimize the known system of Sharp KK.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was expected because modifying the partitioning algorithm in Sharp KK to create equal-sized fragments as taught by Shribman was a simple variation that would predictably result in better load balancing without altering the underlying function of the system.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge against claim 18 over Sharp KK in view of MPEG DASH and dictionary references. Petitioner also presented a ground against claims 15, 17, and 18 over Luotonen, RFC 2616, and RFC 3040, which was substantially similar to Ground 2 summarized above.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "content slice": Petitioner argued for the District Court's construction: 'some or all of the content, created by partitioning the content and useable with other content slices to reconstruct the content.' This construction is broad enough to cover an entire webpage as a single "slice" when the "content" is a multi-page website, a key point for Petitioner's arguments against claim 18.
  • "wherein each of the devices in the group is a client device": Petitioner adopted the District Court's construction: 'a device that is operating in the role of a client by requesting services, functionalities, or resources from other devices.' This interpretation was crucial because it allows devices that also act as proxies or servers to satisfy the claim limitation, as long as they also perform client functions, which is common in peer-to-peer and proxy architectures disclosed in the prior art.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial would be inappropriate. While the petition raised substantially the same grounds as a prior, terminated inter partes review (IPR), Petitioner asserted that the General Plastic factors concerning serial petitions do not apply. Petitioner argued it is a different party from the petitioner in the terminated IPR and has no relationship of privity.
  • The petition contended this situation resulted from the Patent Owner's "serial lawsuits" against multiple competitors, not from Petitioner's filing of a serial petition. Regarding Fintiv factors, Petitioner argued there was no risk of conflicting decisions or wasted resources, as the ’866 patent was not asserted against Petitioner in any co-pending litigation, and the only related litigation was subject to deactivated appeals.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 15-20, 23-24, and 27-28 of the ’866 patent as unpatentable.