Data Co Technologies Inc v. Bright Data Ltd

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2022-00138
• Patent #: 10,484,510
• Filed: November 4, 2021
• Petitioner(s): The Data Company Technologies Inc.
• Patent Owner(s): Bright Data Ltd.
• Challenged Claims: 1-12 and 15-24

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Data Communication Method and System
• Brief Description: The ’510 patent describes methods and systems for improving data communication speed and bandwidth efficiency. The technology involves an architecture where a requesting device (termed a "second server") communicates with a web server through an intermediary proxy device (termed a "first client device") to retrieve content.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation - Claims 1, 10, 12, 15-23 are anticipated by Plamondon

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Plamondon (Application # 2008/0228938).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Plamondon discloses the exact three-device proxy architecture claimed in the ’510 patent. Petitioner mapped Plamondon’s “appliance 200” to the claimed “first client device” (the proxy), its “client 102” to the “second server” (the requesting device), and its “server 106” to the “web server.” Plamondon’s appliance 200 was described as acting as a proxy that intercepts a request for an object (e.g., a URL) from client 102, establishes a TCP connection, sends the URL to the web server 106, receives the content from the web server, and sends the content back to client 102. This sequence of operations was alleged to disclose every step of independent claim 1.
  • Key Aspects: Petitioner contended that Plamondon’s disclosure of validating cached content anticipates claim 10, and its methods for freshening expired cached objects by requesting updated content from other devices anticipates the limitations of claim 12. Other dependent claims were allegedly anticipated by Plamondon’s teachings of standard networking features like HTTP requests, caching, and TCP/IP protocols.

Ground 2: Obviousness - Claims 8 and 11 are obvious over Plamondon in view of RFC 2616

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Plamondon (Application # 2008/0228938) and RFC 2616 (a 1999 Internet standard for HTTP/1.1).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Plamondon teaches the base proxy system for accelerating network traffic. RFC 2616, the foundational standard for HTTP/1.1, taught methods for validating cached objects using conditional GET requests based on HTTP headers. Claim 11 requires such a determination based on an RFC 2616 header. Claim 8 recites "periodically communicating" over the TCP connection, which Petitioner argued is taught by RFC 2616’s disclosure of persistent HTTP connections, a default behavior that maintains the communication link.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Plamondon’s system with the well-known validation methods of RFC 2616 to achieve the recognized benefits of reducing network usage and efficiently refreshing cached content. This combination was presented as a predictable application of a known technique (RFC 2616) to a known system (Plamondon).
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success, as implementing the HTTP/1.1 standard for cache validation in a proxy server was a routine and well-understood practice.

Ground 3: Obviousness - Claims 2-5 are obvious over Plamondon in view of Price

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Plamondon (Application # 2008/0228938) and Price (Application # 2006/0026304).

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed claims related to device identification and software updates. Plamondon provided the network architecture, while Price described a system for automatically updating software versions on networked devices. Price taught a "coordinating computer" that tracks software versions on connected devices and delivers updates. Petitioner argued that combining these references would result in Plamondon’s client 102 acting as Price's coordinating computer to manage software on appliance 200. This combination allegedly taught claim 2’s limitations of identifying a device by MAC address at start-up and claims 3-5’s steps of sending version numbers and downloading/installing updates.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to incorporate Price's software versioning system into Plamondon's architecture to solve the known and critical problem of keeping software on network appliances patched and up-to-date, a fundamental practice for cybersecurity and system maintenance.
  • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying a known software management solution to a standard network architecture, yielding the predictable result of an auto-updating proxy device, and thus success would have been expected.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges, including that claim 24 (a non-transitory computer-readable medium) is obvious over Plamondon alone. Further grounds argued that other claims are obvious over Plamondon in view of RFC 1122 (for keep-alive messages), IEEE 802.11-2007 (for wireless communication standards), and Kozat (for peer-to-peer content delivery).

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• Petitioner argued for specific constructions critical to its invalidity arguments, adopting several from a related district court case.
• "client device": Petitioner adopted the court's construction of "a communication device that is operating in the role of a client," noting this construction allows a device to also act as a server. This was critical for mapping Plamondon’s multi-functional "appliance 200" to the claims.
• "establishing a TCP connection": Petitioner argued this term should be given its ordinary and customary meaning, which covers the participation of both devices in creating a TCP connection and is not limited to only the device that initiates the connection by sending the first SYN packet. This broader construction was necessary to show that Plamondon’s "appliance 200" meets this limitation even if the "client 102" initiates the connection.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under §314(a) based on Fintiv factors would be inappropriate.
• The core arguments were that Petitioner is not a defendant in the parallel district court litigation involving the ’510 patent (Fintiv Factor 5), and there is no meaningful overlap between the prior art and arguments presented in this IPR and those in the litigation (Fintiv Factor 4). Petitioner emphasized that the primary reference, Plamondon, was not relied upon by any defendant in the court proceedings. The petition’s strong merits were also cited as weighing against denial (Fintiv Factor 6).

6. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-12 and 15-24 of the ’510 patent as unpatentable.