PTAB

IPR2024-00045

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 ’554 patent discloses a system for adaptive-rate streaming of live video content over the Internet. The technology involves encoding a video into multiple streams at different bitrates (e.g., low, medium, high quality), segmenting each stream into "streamlets," and allowing a client device to request streamlets from the different quality streams based on network conditions to ensure seamless playback.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Ogdon and Allen - Claims 1-5, 7, 8, 10-14, 16-20, 22-28, and 30 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 A2).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Ogdon taught the core system for adaptive-rate streaming of a live video presentation over the Internet. Ogdon disclosed segmenting a presentation into sequential elements, creating different versions of those elements for different network conditions, and allowing a client to dynamically request appropriate versions. However, Ogdon did not explicitly disclose encoding the video into three distinct low, medium, and high quality streams. Allen allegedly supplied this missing element, as it taught that multi-bitrate streaming was well-known and explicitly described encoding video into multiple quality levels, including low, medium, and high quality streams with example bitrates, such as 600 kbps for high quality. Petitioner contended that Ogdon’s disclosure of corresponding segments having "approximately the same presentation duration" also taught or rendered obvious the limitation that streamlets have the same duration and encode the same portion of video.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Allen’s multi-bitrate encoding scheme with Ogdon’s adaptive streaming framework to enhance Ogdon's system. The combination would better achieve Ogdon’s stated goal of serving clients with varying network bandwidths by providing a wider and more defined range of quality levels. This would have been a predictable solution to a known problem.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a reasonable expectation of success because both references addressed client-server streaming systems, and implementing Allen’s well-known multi-bitrate encoding into Ogdon’s system was a straightforward and simple modification.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Ogdon, Allen, and SMIL 2.0 - Claims 1-5, 7, 8, 10-14, 16-20, 22-28, and 30 are obvious over Ogdon, Allen, and SMIL 2.0.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ogdon (Patent 6,161,137), Allen (WO 2002/075482 A2), and SMIL 2.0 (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language 2.0 standard).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground incorporated the arguments from Ground 1 and added SMIL 2.0 to address any potential deficiencies in Ogdon and Allen. Specifically, to the extent Ogdon’s "approximately the same duration" was deemed insufficient to teach the claimed "same first duration" of corresponding streamlets, Petitioner argued SMIL 2.0 explicitly taught this feature. SMIL 2.0, a public standard for multimedia presentations, used a <switch> element to define a set of alternative media elements for different quality levels and a <seq> element with a "dur" attribute to set a specific, equal playback duration (e.g., "dur=5s") for each alternative. This provided an explicit blueprint for creating corresponding segments of identical duration. Furthermore, to the extent Ogdon was found not to teach a "virtual timeline" in the form of a playlist of entire content files, SMIL 2.0 taught this using the <seq> element to create playlists of different video files.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA seeking to implement the seamless switching described in Ogdon would be motivated to use a known industry standard like SMIL 2.0. Using SMIL 2.0’s method for defining equal durations would ensure that alternative segments were perfect replacements, preventing playback interruptions and simplifying system design. Similarly, a POSITA would use SMIL 2.0’s playlist functionality to create a schedule of video presentations for users of the Ogdon system.
    • Expectation of Success: There was a high expectation of success, as combining Ogdon’s streaming architecture with the specific implementation details from a well-established standard like SMIL 2.0 would be a routine task for a POSITA.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "streamlet": Petitioner acknowledged a prior construction from an ITC Investigation as "any sized portion of the content file" and argued the claims were unpatentable even under this construction.
  • "virtual timeline": Petitioner proposed this term should be construed as "a playlist of entire content files." This construction was central to Petitioner's arguments for claims 11-14 and 23-25, distinguishing a simple sequence of segments within one video from a schedule of multiple, distinct content files.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • §314(a) (Fintiv): Petitioner argued against discretionary denial, asserting that the co-pending District Court litigation was in its earliest stages, with no trial date set, no discovery conducted, and no claim construction milestones passed. Petitioner also stipulated that it would not pursue in district court any invalidity grounds raised or that could have been reasonably raised in the inter partes review (IPR), and contended the merits of the petition were strong.
  • §325(d) (Advanced Bionics): Petitioner argued that denial under §325(d) was unwarranted because the primary prior art references—Ogdon, Allen, and SMIL 2.0—were not cited on the face of the ’554 patent and were not considered during the original prosecution. Therefore, the petition raised new arguments and art that had not been previously presented to the USPTO.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1-5, 7, 8, 10-14, 16-20, 22-28, and 30 of Patent 10,469,554 as unpatentable.