Rocket Media LLC v. Fullthrottle Technologies LLC

1. Case Identification

• Case #: IPR2025-00149
• Patent #: 11,823,219
• Filed: November 12, 2024
• Petitioner(s): Rocket Media, LLC d/b/a Launch Labs
• Patent Owner(s): Fullthrottle Technologies, LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1-36

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Method for Determining Targeted Ad Effectiveness
• Brief Description: The ’219 patent discloses a method for determining the effectiveness of targeted online advertisements by tracking user browser session data, including location. The method involves assigning unique identifiers to users, determining location based on opt-in/opt-out status, and calculating a probability that a browser session was initiated in response to an advertising campaign.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-36 are obvious over Doughty, Van Boucq, and Smith.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Doughty (Patent 8,898,074), Van Boucq (European Patent Pub. No. 2,938,045), and Smith (Patent 8,682,714).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that the primary references collectively disclose all limitations of the challenged claims. Doughty taught creating a "universal profile" for a user, tracking their browsing activity (URLs visited), assigning a unique identifier, and using location data like ZIP codes for ad targeting. To supplement Doughty’s general disclosure of location tracking, Van Boucq was cited for its specific teaching of determining a user's location differently based on whether the user opted-in (using a geolocation service or cookie) or opted-out (using the user’s IP address). Smith was introduced to teach the final step of determining ad effectiveness. Smith disclosed assessing an ad campaign's success by correlating a user's proximity to a physical advertisement (like a billboard) with their initiation of a website visit, thereby calculating an "effectiveness index."
  • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Doughty's user profiling system with Van Boucq's specific opt-in/opt-out location determination methods to improve the functionality and accommodate user privacy preferences, a known issue at the time. A POSITA would further integrate Smith's effectiveness-measurement techniques because determining the return on investment of an ad campaign is a natural and logical extension of a system designed to serve targeted ads.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining these references, as they all operate in the predictable field of online advertising and employ well-understood technologies like user profiling, IP-based geolocation, and location-based analytics.

Ground 2: Claims 1-36 are obvious over Doughty, Van Boucq, and Smith in view of Maginnis.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Doughty (Patent 8,898,074), Van Boucq (European Patent Pub. No. 2,938,045), Smith (Patent 8,682,714), and Maginnis (Patent 10,311,465).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground was presented as an alternative to Ground 1, primarily to strengthen the argument for claim limitation 1[e], which requires "identifying a physical address... using a map application programming interface (API)." While the primary combination in Ground 1 allegedly rendered this limitation obvious, Maginnis provided an explicit disclosure. Maginnis taught a "location module" that converts raw location data (latitude and longitude) into a physical address by using "reverse geocoding," a process Petitioner asserted would be understood by a POSITA to involve an API call to a known mapping service.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA seeking to implement the physical address identification contemplated by Doughty would have been motivated to look to references like Maginnis, which explicitly taught a well-known and commercially common method (API-based reverse geocoding) for achieving this exact function. This would have been a straightforward application of a known technique to improve the existing system.
  • Expectation of Success: Success would have been expected because reverse geocoding APIs from services like Google and Apple were ubiquitous, well-documented, and known to be effective for converting geographic coordinates into physical addresses.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• Petitioner did not propose any constructions but noted its agreement with constructions proposed by the Patent Owner in parallel district court litigation for the purpose of the IPR. Key agreed-upon terms included:
  • "location tracker": Construed as "the third-party tracking cookie described in the patent specification." Petitioner agreed this was at least an example of the term.
  • "unique identifier": Construed as "unique to the user and whose correlation to the user is known by the assignor." Petitioner agreed this was consistent with a POSITA's understanding.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued that the Board should not exercise discretionary denial under Fintiv based on a parallel district court proceeding for several reasons:
  • The district court case was in a nascent stage, with no trial date set and no discovery conducted. The projected trial date was approximately six months after the statutory deadline for a Final Written Decision (FWD) in the IPR.
  • Petitioner stipulated that if the IPR is instituted, it will not pursue the same grounds of invalidity in the parallel proceeding.
  • Petitioner contended that the petition presented a compelling, meritorious challenge to the patent's validity, which weighs heavily against discretionary denial.
  • Petitioner also argued against denial under §325(d), noting that none of the cited prior art references were before the examiner during prosecution.

6. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-36 of Patent 11,823,219 as unpatentable.