PTAB

IPR2022-01109

Code200 UAB v. Bright Data Ltd

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Methods for Network Communication
  • Brief Description: The ’319 patent relates to methods for improving data communication speed and efficiency on the Internet. The disclosed system uses an "acceleration server" to direct content requests from a client to an intermediary "agent" (a proxy), which in turn retrieves the content from a web server.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Anticipation of Claims 1, 12-14, and 21-27 under 35 U.S.C. §102 by Plamondon

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Plamondon (Application # 2008/0228938).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Plamondon discloses every element of the challenged claims by teaching the same fundamental proxy server architecture that the Patent Owner asserted as novel. Plamondon’s network optimization appliance 200 was mapped to the claimed "first client device," acting as a proxy. Plamondon’s server 106 was mapped to the "first server" (a web server), and its client 102 was mapped to the "second server" (the device requesting content). Petitioner asserted that Plamondon’s description of appliance 200 intercepting a request from client 102, forwarding it to server 106, receiving the content, and sending the content to client 102 directly reads on the method steps of independent claim 1. Dependent claims related to caching (claim 12), validating content (claim 14), and using TCP/IP protocols (claim 21) were also alleged to be fully disclosed in Plamondon's description of its appliance's functionality.

Ground 2: Obviousness of Claims 15-17 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: This ground builds on the anticipation argument against claim 14 (validating content), adding the limitation from claim 15 that the validity determination is based on an HTTP header according to RFC 2616. Petitioner asserted that Plamondon discloses validating cached objects using methods like a conditional GET request. RFC 2616 is the foundational Internet standard that defines this exact functionality for HTTP/1.1.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA), seeking to implement the cache validation taught in Plamondon, would have been motivated to consult the universally recognized and controlling standard, RFC 2616. Using the standard's specified methods, such as the conditional GET and "304 Not Modified" response, would be a simple application of a known technique to achieve a predictable result.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success, as combining a general teaching of cache validation (Plamondon) with the specific, standardized protocol for implementing it (RFC 2616) was a routine and intended practice in network engineering.

Ground 3: Obviousness of Claims 6-11 over Plamondon in view of Kozat

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Plamondon (Application # 2008/0228938) and Kozat (Application # 2009/0055471).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground asserted that it would have been obvious to combine Plamondon's proxy architecture with the peer-to-peer (P2P) content delivery network described in Kozat. In this combination, Plamondon's appliance 200 would function as Kozat's control server, managing content distribution among a plurality of Plamondon's clients 102 acting as peers. Claim 6 requires identifying a request for content, sending the requesting client a list of other clients (peers) that have the content based on a criterion (e.g., distance), and the requesting client then receiving the content from a selected peer. Kozat directly teaches this control server functionality.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine the references to augment Plamondon’s system with the well-known performance benefits of P2P networking, such as increased transfer speeds and reduced server load. Kozat provided an effective way to distribute content efficiently among peers, which would be a natural and logical extension to improve Plamondon’s performance-enhancing proxy.
    • Expectation of Success: Success would be expected because both references describe systems using conventional computer hardware and network protocols. Integrating Kozat's P2P management logic into Plamondon's appliance to coordinate its clients as peers was a combination of known elements to achieve a predictable improvement in network efficiency.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges based on combinations of Plamondon with other references, including: Plamondon alone for system claims (Ground 2); RFC 1122 for adding "keep-alive" messages (Ground 4); IEEE 802.11-2007 for wireless identification (Ground 5); and Price for automatic software updates (Ground 6). These grounds relied on similar theories of combining Plamondon's core system with known, conventional technologies for their intended purposes.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner adopted claim constructions from a related district court litigation. The most critical construction was for "client device," which the court construed as a "communication device that is operating in the role of a client." This construction was central to Petitioner's arguments because it rebutted the Patent Owner's attempt to limit the term to a "consumer computer" and exclude servers, a limitation Petitioner argued was not supported by the specification and would improperly distinguish the claims from prior art proxy servers like Plamondon's appliance 200.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial would be improper because the petition was filed concurrently with a motion for joinder to an already-instituted inter partes review (IPR), The Data Company Technologies Inc. v. Bright Data Ltd., IPR2022-00135. Petitioner asserted that the instant petition was substantially identical to the petition in the instituted IPR, presenting the same grounds, evidence, and arguments against the same claims.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1-29 of the '319 patent as unpatentable.