PTAB

IPR2021-01503

Code200 UAB v. Bright Data Ltd

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Content Delivery Network
  • Brief Description: The ’866 patent describes a method for fetching internet content from a server using a group of intermediary devices (proxies). The method involves partitioning the content into multiple "content slices," selecting a device from the group for each slice, requesting the slice from the selected device, and reconstructing the original content from the received slices.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

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

  • 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 an online content distribution system that meets every limitation of independent claim 15. Sharp KK teaches a client device fetching content from a server via a plurality of "relaying devices" (proxies). The content, a media file, is partitioned into "fragments" (content slices) identified by reference numerals. The client requests each fragment from a selected relaying device using the device’s identifier (domain name) and the fragment's identifier. Sharp KK further discloses that the relaying devices can also function as clients, satisfying the final limitation of claim 15. Dependent claims 16 (partitioning at the byte level), 17 (file-level partitioning), 23 (sequential partitioning), and 24 (non-sequential partitioning) were also alleged to be disclosed.
    • Key Aspects: Petitioner contended that Sharp KK’s system of using a client and multiple relaying devices to acquire fragmented media content from a server is structurally and functionally identical to the method claimed in the ’866 patent.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claims 19-20 and 27-28 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 addressed dependent claims related to content slice properties. Claim 19 requires all parts of the content to be included in the slices, and claim 20 requires all slices to have the same size. While Sharp KK teaches fragmenting content, Shribman explicitly discloses partitioning content into "equally sized pieces of data that together form the whole content of the URL." Petitioner argued it would be obvious to apply Shribman's teaching of using equally sized, comprehensive chunks to the content fragmentation method in Sharp KK.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references to achieve more even and predictable load distribution across the proxy system, a known benefit of using equally sized data chunks. Petitioner asserted this would be a trivial and predictable design choice.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying a known data partitioning strategy (equal sizing from Shribman) to a known content delivery architecture (Sharp KK), which would have resulted in the predictable outcome of improved load balancing.

Ground 3: Obviousness of Claims 15, 17, and 18 over Luotonen and RFC 2616

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Luotonen ("Web Proxy Servers," 1997 book) and RFC 2616 (Hypertext Transfer Protocol -- HTTP/1.1 standard).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the claimed method was obvious over fundamental, well-documented internet proxy technology. Luotonen discloses methods for fetching content using a pool of proxy servers. RFC 2616, the standard for HTTP which proxies must support, explicitly teaches partitioning content retrieval into "byte-range" requests. The combination of a standard proxy pool (Luotonen) with standard HTTP byte-range requests (RFC 2616) was alleged to render claim 15 obvious. Dependent claims 17 and 18, relating to partitioning at the file and webpage level, were argued to be obvious applications, as websites are commonly composed of multiple files and webpages.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to use the standard features of HTTP, such as byte-range requests described in RFC 2616, with the proxy architectures described by Luotonen. Luotonen's proxies are designed to work over HTTP, making the use of its standard features an inherent and obvious implementation detail.
    • Expectation of Success: Combining a standard protocol feature with a system designed to use that protocol would have a high and predictable expectation of success.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted obviousness of claim 18 over Sharp KK in view of MPEG DASH and dictionary references. A final ground asserted obviousness of claims 15, 17, and 18 over Luotonen, RFC 2616, and RFC 3040, relying on similar arguments that routine web browsing and caching renders the claims obvious when "partitioning" is construed broadly to include webpage-level retrieval.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

Petitioner largely relied on constructions from prior district court litigation involving the ’866 patent, arguing the Board should adopt them.

  • "content slice": Construed as "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.
  • "constructing the content": Construed as "assembling or combining content slices so as to reconstruct the original content."
  • "wherein each of the devices in the group is a client device": Petitioner adopted the court’s construction of "a device that is operating in the role of a client by requesting services... from other devices." This construction allows a device to have other roles (e.g., a proxy server) and still satisfy the limitation, which was critical for mapping prior art proxies to this claim element.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued discretionary denial would be inappropriate because the petition was filed concurrently with a motion for joinder to an already-instituted inter partes review, NetNut Ltd. v. Bright Data Ltd., IPR2021-00465. Petitioner stated that its petition was "substantially identical" to the petition in the NetNut IPR, presenting the same grounds based on the same prior art, and thus joinder would promote efficiency and avoid duplicative efforts or inconsistent results.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 15-20, 23-24, and 27-28 of Patent 9,742,866 as unpatentable.