PTAB

IPR2024-00043

Aylo Freesites Ltd v. DISH Technologies LLC

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Apparatus, System, and Method for Multi-Bitrate Content Streaming
  • Brief Description: The ’798 patent discloses a system for adaptive-rate streaming of digital content. The system encodes content into multiple streams at different bitrates, segments these streams into "streamlets," and allows an end-user station to request and switch between streamlets from different bitrate streams based on network conditions to ensure smooth playback.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-9, 11-19, and 21-24 are obvious over Ogdon in view of Allen.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ogdon (Patent 6,161,137) and Allen (International Publication No. WO 2002/075482).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Ogdon taught a client-server system for adaptive-rate streaming of a presentation over the Internet. Ogdon disclosed encoding a presentation into different versions (quality levels), dividing them into sequential segments, and allowing a client to request segments from different versions based on network performance. Petitioner asserted that to the extent Ogdon did not explicitly teach encoding into at least three distinct bitrate streams (a limitation of independent claims 1, 11, and 22), Allen supplied this teaching. Allen described multi-bitrate streaming as well-known and explicitly disclosed encoding video into at least three quality levels: low (56 kbps), medium (300 kbps), and high (600 kbps). The combination therefore rendered obvious the claimed system of providing at least three bitrate streams, with at least one at 600 kbps or higher.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Allen’s teaching of three bitrate streams with Ogdon’s adaptive streaming system to better achieve Ogdon’s stated goal of serving client nodes with varying network bandwidths. Using three distinct quality levels would allow the system to more effectively accommodate a wider range of network conditions, from poor to excellent.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a reasonable expectation of success because both references addressed client-server streaming, and encoding content at an additional quality level was a simple, known technique to improve streaming performance.

Ground 2: Claims 1-9, 11-19, and 21-24 are obvious over Ogdon, Allen, and SMIL 2.0.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ogdon (Patent 6,161,137), Allen (WO 2002/075482), and SMIL 2.0 (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language 2.0, a W3C standard publicly available Nov. 9, 2001).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground was presented as an alternative, arguing that if the Ogdon and Allen combination was found deficient, SMIL 2.0 supplied the missing elements. Specifically, for the limitation that corresponding streamlets across different bitrate streams have the same duration (e.g., claim 1[E]), Petitioner argued SMIL 2.0 explicitly taught this concept. SMIL 2.0 used a <switch> element for alternative content and a dur="5s" attribute to define an equal playback duration for each alternative media element, ensuring a seamless replacement. Additionally, for the "virtual timeline" of claim 8, SMIL 2.0’s <seq> element taught creating a playlist of entire content files to be played in sequence.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would incorporate the equal-duration teaching from SMIL 2.0 into the Ogdon/Allen system to ensure that when a client switched between quality levels, the alternative segment would be a perfect, seamless replacement for the preferred one. This would prevent undesirable viewing experiences like jumps or pauses. The motivation to add a playlist feature was to provide a scheduled sequence of content for users, a common goal in media delivery.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was expected to succeed because SMIL 2.0 was a standard designed for client-server multimedia presentations, making its features for controlling timing and sequencing directly applicable and straightforward to implement in a system like Ogdon's.

Ground 3: Claim 16 is obvious over Ogdon, Allen, and Shteyn.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ogdon (Patent 6,161,137), Allen (WO 2002/075482), and Shteyn (Patent 7,529,806).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground specifically addressed claim 16, which required that "a plurality of streamlets are separate files stored by the at least one server." Petitioner argued that if Ogdon was deemed not to teach this limitation, Shteyn explicitly did. Shteyn disclosed partitioning a content file "into a sequence of segments at the server side" where each segment (or file) was stored on the server.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would modify Ogdon's system to store segments as separate files as taught by Shteyn to simplify the streaming protocol. Requesting individual, successive files is simpler and more robust than requiring requests to specify byte ranges of a single large video file.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was reasonably expected because both Ogdon and Shteyn related to client-server streaming systems that partitioned content. Modifying the data storage format from byte ranges to separate files was a straightforward and well-understood design choice in the art.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "virtual timeline" (claim 8): Petitioner proposed this term should be construed as "a playlist of entire content files." This construction was based on the ’798 patent’s description of a file defining a playlist for a user to view shows in a sequence, similar to a broadcast schedule. Petitioner argued this construction was met by Ogdon's "scripts" and explicitly taught by SMIL 2.0's sequential playlist functionality.

6. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued against discretionary denial under 35 U.S.C. §314(a) based on Fintiv factors, asserting that the parallel district court litigations were in very early stages with no trial date set, and a Final Written Decision (FWD) from the IPR would likely issue before trial. Petitioner also stipulated that, if instituted, it would not pursue the same invalidity grounds in the district court.
  • Petitioner further argued against denial under 35 U.S.C. §325(d), asserting that the primary prior art references (Ogdon, Allen, SMIL 2.0, and Shteyn) were not cited on the face of the ’798 patent and were not considered during its prosecution. Therefore, the petition raised new arguments not previously before the Patent Office.

7. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-9, 11-19, and 21-24 of the ’798 patent as unpatentable.