accessiBe Ltd v. AudioEye Inc

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2022-00220
• Patent #: 10,845,947
• Filed: December 7, 2021
• Petitioner(s): accessiBe Ltd.
• Patent Owner(s): AudioEye, Inc.
• Challenged Claims: 1-22

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Modular Systems and Methods for Selectively Enabling Cloud-Based Assistive Technologies
• Brief Description: The ’947 patent relates to systems for remedying web accessibility issues. The disclosed methods involve evaluating a webpage’s code (HTML or DOM), detecting compliance issues such as elements lacking textual descriptions, and associating appropriate text so it can be read by assistive technology like a screen reader.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Springer and Beeman - Claims 1-6, 8-17, 19, 21, and 22 are obvious over Springer in view of Beeman.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Springer (Application # 2004/0148568) and Beeman (Application # 2009/0319927).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Springer taught a system of "checker" and "fixer" tools to assess and remedy web accessibility issues. Springer’s system accessed a webpage's code (HTML/DOM) to detect compliance violations, such as images lacking valid "alt" attributes, and its fixer tools could automatically modify the code to correct these issues. Petitioner contended this met the core limitations of independent claim 1 concerning accessing code, detecting an "untagged element" (an element lacking an adequate descriptive attribute), and assigning a descriptive attribute. Beeman was asserted to supply the missing "periodically assessing" limitation by teaching a document checking system that scans for errors periodically (e.g., on a timer) to ensure compliance is "up to date." Beeman further taught scanning only the changed portions of a document, which Petitioner mapped to the claim 1 limitation of "determining that the element has not changed since the previous remediation process."
  • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner argued that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would combine Springer's accessibility remediation system with Beeman's periodic scanning method to solve the known problem of maintaining accessibility compliance on frequently updated webpages. Applying Beeman's periodic and targeted scanning to Springer's system would be a common-sense improvement to ensure timely compliance while minimizing computational waste.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success in combining the references. Both Springer and Beeman describe similar systems for checking web documents for compliance issues, and modifying Springer's system to operate periodically as taught by Beeman would have involved applying known programming techniques with predictable results.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Lehota and Beeman - Claims 1-6, 8-17, 19, 21, and 22 are obvious over Lehota in view of Beeman.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Lehota (Application # 2010/0205523) and Beeman (Application # 2009/0319927).

• Core Argument for this Ground:

  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted this ground as an alternative to Ground 1, with Lehota teaching a system analogous to Springer's. Lehota disclosed using an "accessibility widget" (a pre-existing remediation code, typically JavaScript) to dynamically fix accessibility problems by directly modifying a webpage's DOM. Lehota’s widget could identify and remediate issues like missing 'ALT' tags for images. Petitioner argued that Lehota’s teaching of repeating the DOM modification process in response to updates constituted assessing the validity of a previously assigned attribute. As in Ground 1, Beeman was relied upon for its explicit teaching of performing such checks periodically and for scanning only changed portions of the document to maintain up-to-date compliance efficiently.
  • Motivation to Combine: The motivation to combine Lehota and Beeman mirrored that of Ground 1. A POSITA would combine Lehota's widget-based remediation with Beeman's periodic operation to ensure that the accessibility fixes remained effective and current as the webpage content changed over time. This combination would yield the predictable benefit of timely compliance without the computational burden of constantly re-scanning the entire page.
  • Expectation of Success: Success would be expected, as modifying Lehota’s client-side widget to execute periodically according to Beeman’s teachings was a straightforward application of known software design principles to achieve a predictable improvement in web accessibility maintenance.

• Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted further obviousness challenges (Grounds 2 and 4 in the petition) against claims 7, 18, and 20. These grounds added Folkens (Application # 2015/0286658), which discloses an artificial intelligence (AI) based image recognition system, to the primary combinations. Petitioner argued a POSITA would have found it obvious to improve the primary systems by using Folkens' AI to automatically generate more accurate and meaningful descriptive text for images, thus meeting claim limitations requiring an AI algorithm.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued against discretionary denial under 35 U.S.C. §314(a) based on the Fintiv factors. It was asserted that the parallel district court action was at a very early stage, with fact discovery having only recently opened and no substantive arguments on prior art invalidity yet presented to the court. Petitioner contended that the scheduled trial date was uncertain and highly likely to slip, minimizing any potential overlap with the inter partes review (IPR) timeline, and that the petition presented a strong case for unpatentability, which weighs in favor of institution.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1-22 of the ’947 patent as unpatentable.