PTAB

IPR2025-00313

Sportradar AG v. SportsCastr Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: System for Real-Time Streaming with Separate Data Feeds
  • Brief Description: The ’697 patent describes a server architecture for delivering a live audio/visual stream of an event, such as a sports game, and a separate, synchronized data feed, such as scores, to viewer client devices. The system aims to reduce latency by using distinct communication channels for the video and data components.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Ellis and Spivey - Claim 1 is obvious over Ellis in view of Spivey.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ellis (Application # 2014/0229992) and Spivey (Application # 2016/0036910).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Ellis taught the foundational system claimed in the ’697 patent: providing a primary video stream and separate supplemental data (like sports scores) to user devices over distinct communication paths. Spivey was presented as teaching a specific backend architecture for low-latency, real-time data delivery using a Live Data Server Device (LDSD) coupled with a Message Queue Server Device (MQSD) that employs websocket connections instead of standard HTTP to reduce delays.
    • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSA) would combine Spivey's low-latency data delivery system with Ellis's general content delivery framework. The motivation was to solve the known and explicit problem of latency in live-event data systems, a problem Spivey was designed to address.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner contended that Spivey provided a detailed and complementary technical solution for the backend data architecture. Therefore, a POSA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in replacing Ellis’s generalized data delivery mechanism with Spivey’s more specific and efficient websocket-based system to predictably reduce latency.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Ellis, Spivey, Kellicker, and Phillips - Claims 11, 15-16 are obvious over Ellis in view of Spivey, Kellicker, and Phillips.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ellis (’992 application), Spivey (’910 application), Kellicker (Application # 2017/0250882), and Phillips (Application # 2015/0127845).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the Ellis/Spivey combination by adding teachings for modern streaming protocols to address dependent claims. Petitioner argued Kellicker taught media servers capable of handling various protocols like RTMP (Real-Time Messaging Protocol) and WebRTC, as well as an HLS (HTTP Live Streaming) caching server architecture that utilizes a content distribution network (CDN). Phillips was argued to provide a detailed, conventional hierarchical architecture (parent/child nodes) for implementing the CDN functionally described in Kellicker, which is necessary to manage HLS file suites efficiently for large-scale distribution.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSA would implement the specific, widely-used streaming protocols from Kellicker and the efficient CDN architecture from Phillips into the base Ellis/Spivey system. The motivation was to improve flexibility, performance, and scalability by using well-known, standardized solutions for video and data delivery.
    • Expectation of Success: Combining these known, standardized protocols and architectures was presented as a matter of applying well-understood engineering solutions to achieve the predictable result of a more robust and efficient streaming system, not an inventive step.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Ellis, Spivey, Kellicker, Phillips, and Pantos - Claims 17-18 are obvious over Ellis in view of Spivey, Kellicker, Phillips, and Pantos.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ellis (’992 application), Spivey (’910 application), Kellicker (’882 application), Phillips (’845 application), and Pantos (a 2016 HLS streaming protocol specification).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addressed specific limitations in dependent claims 17 and 18 related to the structure of HLS file suites. Petitioner asserted that Pantos, as the official HLS protocol specification, explicitly detailed the required format for HLS playlists. This included the use of master playlists with different resolution versions, chunklist pointers to respective chunklists, and file segment pointers within those chunklists. Petitioner argued these details were conventional and necessary elements for any system properly implementing the HLS protocol.
    • Motivation to Combine: When implementing the HLS-based system taught by the combination of Kellicker and Phillips, a POSA would have been necessarily motivated to consult and adhere to the HLS protocol as defined in Pantos to ensure operability and compatibility.
    • Expectation of Success: Following the Pantos specification was not a matter of inventive choice but a requirement for a functional HLS system. Therefore, a POSA would have had a 100% expectation of success in creating a working HLS delivery system by implementing its standard-defined components.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges for claims 10 and 12-14 based on combinations including Kellicker and Stoica (Patent 9,246,965) but relied on similar design modification theories to incorporate known streaming protocols and webserver architectures.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under the Fintiv factors would be inappropriate. It stipulated that if this IPR is instituted, it will not pursue in the parallel district court litigation the same invalidity grounds raised here or any other grounds that reasonably could have been raised in this IPR petition.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1 and 10-18 of Patent 10,425,697 as unpatentable.