PTAB

IPR2025-00316

Sportradar AG v. SportsCastr Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Server Architecture for Providing Live Content with Separate Data Feeds
  • Brief Description: The ’687 patent describes a server architecture for providing viewers with a live audio/visual feed of an event (e.g., a sporting event) and a separate, synchronized data feed containing real-time information (e.g., scores) over distinct communication channels. The system is designed to display the data, such as a scoreboard, as an overlay on the video feed on a user's device.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Ellis and Spivey - Claims 23 and 24 are 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 disclosed the foundational system of providing a primary media content stream (video) and a separate supplemental content stream (sports data) to a user device over different communication paths. Ellis’s “Supplemental Content Source” (SCS) functions as the claimed control server, retrieving event data. To address the latency inherent in systems like Ellis, a POSITA would have incorporated Spivey’s backend architecture. Spivey’s “Message Queue Server Device” (MQSD), which uses low-latency websocket connections and organizes data into event-specific “topic queues,” disclosed the claimed socket server.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Spivey with Ellis to solve the known problem of data latency in live-event systems. Spivey provided a known, complementary solution for improving the real-time data delivery of Ellis’s system by replacing a protocol like HTTP polling with a more efficient websocket-based architecture, a predictable improvement.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was expected because the combination involved substituting known elements to achieve the predictable result of reduced latency. Spivey’s architecture was designed for real-time data delivery and was readily integrable into a system like Ellis.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Ellis, Spivey, Kellicker, and Phillips - Claim 26 is obvious over Ellis in view of Spivey, Kellicker, and Phillips.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ellis (Application # 2014/0229992), Spivey (Application # 2016/0036910), Kellicker (Application # 2017/0250882), and Phillips (Application # 2015/0127845).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds on the Ellis/Spivey combination to address the additional limitations of claim 26, which require specific media servers (RTMP, WebRTC) and a hierarchical HLS caching server Content Distribution Network (CDN). Petitioner asserted Kellicker disclosed a server architecture supporting various protocols, including RTMP and WebRTC, and its coupling to a CDN for media distribution. Phillips further taught a hierarchical parent-child CDN architecture for efficiently distributing HLS media streams, which disclosed the claimed mother-child server structure.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to integrate the teachings of Kellicker and Phillips into the base Ellis/Spivey system to support widely used streaming protocols (RTMP/WebRTC) and to improve the efficiency and scalability of content delivery using a standard, hierarchical CDN. This combination represented the use of known technologies to enhance a known system.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a high expectation of success as all references address media content delivery. The combination involved adding known server types and a standard CDN architecture to achieve the predictable benefits of broader protocol support and improved performance.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Herzog, Spivey, and Ellis - Claims 23 and 24 are obvious over Herzog in view of Spivey and Ellis.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Herzog (Application # 2015/0163379), Spivey (Application # 2016/0036910), and Ellis (Application # 2014/0229992).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner presented Herzog as an alternative primary reference that disclosed providing multiple video streams and a separate metadata stream for a single sporting event. To improve Herzog’s HTTP-based data delivery, a POSITA would have integrated Spivey’s low-latency MQSD (socket server) as Herzog's "Origin Server." Ellis was added for its teaching of separating different types of data, such as scores and commentary, into distinct real-time data feeds, a feature not explicitly detailed in Herzog’s metadata stream.
    • Motivation to Combine: The motivation to combine Herzog with Spivey was to reduce latency in metadata delivery by implementing Spivey's superior websocket-based protocol. The motivation to further add Ellis's teachings was to enhance the user experience by providing more granular and customized data feeds, a known method for improving sports-related applications.
    • Expectation of Success: Success was expected because the combination involved modifying Herzog’s system with known, alternative technologies from Spivey (for performance) and Ellis (for features) to achieve predictable improvements in a content delivery system.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge for claim 26 (Ground 4) based on the combination of Herzog, Spivey, Ellis, Kellicker, and Phillips, relying on similar motivations and mappings as presented in Grounds 2 and 3.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Petitioner argued that discretionary denial under Fintiv is inappropriate. It asserted there is no "significant relationship" between Petitioner (Sportradar) and a petitioner in a prior IPR (Genius). Furthermore, Petitioner stipulated that if the IPR is instituted, it will not pursue the same invalidity grounds, or any grounds that reasonably could have been raised in the IPR, in the co-pending district court litigation.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 23, 24, and 26 of the ’687 patent as unpatentable.