PTAB

IPR2025-00470

WebGroup Czech Republic As v. DISH Technologies LLC

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Petition
petition

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 content streaming over the Internet. The system encodes digital content into a plurality of streams at different bit rates, segments each stream into a group of "streamlets," and stores them for delivery from one or more servers to an end user station, which can switch between streams to adapt to network conditions.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Leaning and Leighton - Claims 1-9 and 11-25 are obvious over Leaning in view of Leighton.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Leaning (Patent 7,447,791) and Leighton (Patent 6,553,413).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Leaning teaches the core elements of the adaptive streaming system claimed in independent claims 1, 11, and 22. Leaning discloses encoding content into multiple versions at different compression rates (bit rates), partitioning the content into a sequence of "sub-files" (analogous to "streamlets"), and having a client terminal request these sub-files sequentially, with the ability to switch between different rate versions based on measured network performance. Petitioner asserted that Leighton, which teaches a network architecture of distributed servers for hosting and delivering content globally, supplies the limitation of "a plurality of servers located at different locations" recited in claim 2.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Leighton’s distributed server architecture with Leaning’s adaptive streaming system to improve performance, reliability, and geographic distribution. Storing Leaning’s sub-files on Leighton’s geographically distributed servers would reduce latency for end users and provide redundancy, which were well-known goals in content delivery.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a high expectation of success, as the combination merely involved storing Leaning's media files on the multiple, conventional web servers described by Leighton, a straightforward implementation.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Leaning, Leighton, and Reme - Claims 1-9 and 11-25 are obvious over Leaning and Leighton in view of Reme.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Leaning (Patent 7,447,791), Leighton (Patent 6,553,413), and Reme (WO 2004/030310).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground adds Reme to the combination of Leaning and Leighton to explicitly teach the limitation in claim 1[D] requiring at least one stream to be encoded at a bit rate of "no less than 600 kbps." While Petitioner argued Leaning rendered this obvious through its disclosure of video streaming using codecs known to support such rates, Reme is presented as an alternative to explicitly disclose this feature. Reme teaches a quality adaptive streaming system with pre-encoded content versions at various quality levels, including a high-quality version encoded at 5 Mbps (5,000 kbps).
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA implementing the system of Leaning and Leighton would be motivated to incorporate the higher bit rates taught by Reme to provide a better viewing experience for users with high-bandwidth connections. Offering higher-quality streams was a recognized objective in the field of video streaming.
    • Expectation of Success: Success would be expected because Leaning and Reme disclose similar client-server adaptive streaming systems. Applying the specific high bitrate values from Reme to the video streams in Leaning’s system was argued to be a simple and predictable modification.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Leaning, Leighton, and SMIL 2.0 - Claims 1-9 and 11-25 are obvious over Leaning and Leighton in view of SMIL 2.0.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Leaning (Patent 7,447,791), Leighton (Patent 6,553,413), and SMIL 2.0 (Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language 2.0).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground adds SMIL 2.0 to address the "virtual timeline" limitation of claim 8, to the extent Leaning is found not to teach it. Petitioner asserted that SMIL 2.0, a publicly available XML markup language standard for streaming multimedia, explicitly teaches creating a playlist of content files. Specifically, SMIL 2.0’s <seq> element is used to define a sequence of media elements that play one after another, which Petitioner contended is a "virtual timeline" as described in the ’798 patent.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to use SMIL 2.0’s playlist functionality to control the playback sequence of the media files streamed via the Leaning/Leighton system. This would allow for the creation of video schedules for users to view in succession, a desirable feature for improving user experience in a streaming service.
    • Expectation of Success: Integrating a SMIL 2.0 playlist to define the playback order of media files was a known technique in web-based streaming. A POSITA would have reasonably expected success in applying this standard to control the sequence of sub-file requests in Leaning's system.
  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge (Ground 4) against all claims based on Leaning, Leighton, and Dalby (Patent 6,002,440), where Dalby was cited for its teaching of using a "multi-pass encoding process" to address the limitation in claim 10.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner argued that no terms require formal construction and should be given their plain and ordinary meaning.
  • For the term "virtual timeline" (claim 8), Petitioner contended that, based on the ’798 patent’s specification, its ordinary meaning is "a playlist of entire content files," which can be configured to define a playback schedule for a user.

5. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

  • Fintiv Factors: Petitioner argued against discretionary denial under §314(a), asserting that the parallel district court litigation is in a very early stage. Key factors weighing against denial included that no trial date is scheduled, discovery has not begun, no claim construction order will issue before the institution decision, and the merits of the petition are strong.
  • Advanced Bionics Factors: Petitioner argued that denial under §325(d) is unwarranted because the prior art and arguments presented in the petition are not the same or substantially the same as what was before the examiner during prosecution. Petitioner emphasized that the primary references—Leaning, Leighton, Reme, and SMIL 2.0—were not substantively considered by the examiner.

6. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-25 of the ’798 patent as unpatentable.