Maplebear Inc v. Consumeron LLC

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2022-01359
• Patent #: 9,202,191
• Filed: August 5, 2022
• Petitioner(s): Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart
• Patent Owner(s): Consumeron, LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1, 3-4, 6-15

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Remote Acquisition and Delivery of Goods
• Brief Description: The ’191 patent relates to a system and method for remotely acquiring and delivering goods ordered over the Internet. The technology aims to solve problems associated with e-commerce, such as slow delivery and inadequate product imagery, by providing a system with mobile delivery agents who can transmit real-time video and location data to the customer.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Park, Kim, and Williams - Claims 1, 3-4, 6-10, and 14-15 are obvious over Park in view of Kim and further in view of Williams.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Park (WO 01/11523), Kim (KR2003-0085802), and Williams (WO 2008/052013).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the primary reference, Park, disclosed a real-time, network-based delivery system where agents with wireless mobile computing devices provided customers a "first person" live video feed of their order's delivery progress. However, Park did not address the problem of customers receiving items that failed to meet their expectations (e.g., ripeness of fruit). Petitioner asserted that Kim remedied this deficiency by teaching a system where a delivery agent captures and sends a real-time image of the specific product to the customer for confirmation before purchase. The combination of Park and Kim thus teaches a rapid delivery system with pre-purchase visual confirmation. Williams was added to teach presenting this real-time multimedia content (video feed, map data) within a web-based widget, a known technique for embedding such functionality into a website.
  • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Park and Kim to solve the well-known problem of product-customer mismatch in online shopping, particularly for perishable goods where visual inspection is crucial. By incorporating Kim’s confirmation step, a POSITA could enhance the reliability and customer satisfaction of Park’s system. A POSITA would further incorporate Williams’s teaching of widgets as a predictable and desirable way to improve the user interface of Park's system, allowing delivery tracking to be viewed concurrently with other shopping functions on the same webpage.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a high expectation of success because the references are all within the analogous art of e-commerce and delivery. The combination required integrating known techniques using components, such as mobile devices with cameras, that were already disclosed in the primary references and would have involved no more than routine software programming.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Park, Kim, Williams, and Hileman - Claims 11-13 are obvious over Park in view of Kim, Williams, and Hileman.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Park (WO 01/11523), Kim (KR2003-0085802), Williams (WO 2008/052013), and Hileman (Application # 2003/0040944).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds upon the system established in Ground 1 (a real-time delivery system with visual confirmation and a widget-based interface) by adding the teachings of Hileman. Hileman disclosed a delivery system where a user could request and select from various transportation options, which were presented with different associated costs and delivery parameters. Petitioner argued that adding this functionality to the Park/Kim/Williams combination results in a system that not only provides real-time tracking and product confirmation but also allows the customer to select a specific delivery agent or option based on factors like price and speed.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to incorporate Hileman's teachings to add valuable flexibility to the base system. The Park/Kim/Williams combination lacked customer choice regarding delivery options. Adding Hileman's functionality would be a logical commercial improvement, allowing the service to cater to a wider range of customers with varying priorities (e.g., cost-sensitivity versus speed of delivery). This would make the platform more competitive and useful.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have expected success in this combination. The integration did not change the core function of the delivery system but rather enhanced it with additional, desirable features. The necessary components, such as network communication capabilities, were already present in Park’s system, and implementing user-selectable options would have been a straightforward software development task.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• For the purposes of the IPR proceeding, Petitioner adopted the claim constructions proposed by the Patent Owner in the parallel district court litigation. This strategic choice applied to the coined term “mobile delivery agent system” as well as several means-plus-function limitations recited in the challenged claims (e.g., “communication means,” “real-time video means”). By adopting the Patent Owner’s positions, Petitioner aimed to streamline the IPR and focus arguments on the patentability of the claims over the asserted prior art, rather than on claim construction disputes.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under Fintiv would be inappropriate. The core arguments were that the parallel district court litigation was in a very early stage, with no claim construction hearing held and fact discovery not yet closed. Furthermore, the scheduled trial date was uncertain due to the case's assignment to a vacant judgeship. Petitioner contended that investment in the parallel proceeding had been minimal and that the petition was filed promptly after infringement contentions were served.
• Petitioner also argued that the petition presented compelling evidence of unpatentability, which should weigh heavily against denial. Finally, Petitioner asserted that denial under §325(d) was not warranted because the prior art references relied upon in the petition were not considered by the examiner during the original prosecution of the ’191 patent.

6. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 3-4, and 6-15 of the ’191 patent as unpatentable.