PTAB

IPR2025-01163

Viant Technology LLC v. AlmondNet Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Media Properties Selection Method and System Based on Expected Profit from Profile-Based Ad Delivery
  • Brief Description: The ’146 patent discloses methods and systems for profile-based behavioral ad targeting. The invention describes an automated system that selects media properties for displaying an advertisement based on a user profile collected when the user visited a first media property.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-2, 5-9, 16-18, and 21-22 are obvious over Burdick

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Burdick (Application # 2007/0260514).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Burdick discloses all limitations of the challenged claims. Burdick describes a real-time bidding system for online advertising that includes an ad exchange, publishers, advertiser brokers, and audience data brokers. This system functions as the claimed "method of directing electronic advertisements." Petitioner asserted that Burdick’s system operates on a per-visitor basis for a "multitude of different electronic visitors" who visit a publisher’s website (a "first media property").
    • In Burdick, an advertiser broker (a "computer system") directs a bid (the "indicia of a condition") to the exchange (a "third-party server") that controls ad space on a different publisher's website (a "second media property"). This bid is based on user-specific data, such as browsing history, and therefore "relates specifically to an electronic visitor." The ad is displayed on the second media property after the user's visit to the first media property, as the bidding is based on historical user data (e.g., a "history of purchasing vacations"). The ad is displayed only if the bid wins the auction, which satisfies the limitation "subject to determining that the condition has been met."
    • Petitioner further argued that the bid is based on profile attributes (e.g., "searching for vacation deals") obtained from the user's prior visit to a first media property (e.g., a vacation search website). Since the winning bid determines the advertisement shown, the ad is "correlated with the indicated profile attribute." For claim 2, Petitioner asserted that Burdick’s auction mechanism, where a winning bid must exceed a publisher’s reserve price (the "price charged by the second media property"), inherently teaches a price condition that is less than the profile-attribute-dependent bid price.

Ground 2: Claims 1-2, 5, 8-9, 15-18, and 21-22 are obvious over Burdick in view of Grannan

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Burdick (Application # 2007/0260514) and Grannan (Application # 2007/0244750).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground asserted that the combination of Burdick and Grannan renders the challenged claims obvious. The core ad exchange framework is supplied by Burdick, as detailed in Ground 1. Grannan was introduced to provide additional, well-known types of user profile attributes and media properties not explicitly detailed in Burdick. Specifically, Grannan teaches an advertising knowledge management system that collects user data from various sources, including TV viewing history and interactions with an IPTV service.
    • The combination addresses limitations where a user's visit to a "first media property" (e.g., watching a specific TV channel, as taught by Grannan) generates profile attributes. This information is then used within Burdick’s ad exchange to target an ad on a "second media property" (e.g., a publisher website). This is particularly relevant to claim 15, which requires the ad space on the second media property to be in a different medium than the first media property (e.g., a website versus a TV channel).
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner contended that a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) would have been motivated to enhance Burdick’s ad targeting system with the teachings of Grannan. Burdick provides only non-limiting examples of user data attributes. A POSITA seeking to improve the effectiveness and precision of ad targeting would naturally look to contemporaneous art like Grannan to incorporate a broader set of user attributes, such as TV viewing habits. Doing so would create more robust user profiles, leading to more effective ad campaigns and allowing publishers in Burdick’s system to command higher prices for ad space.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success in combining these references. The proposed modification involved applying a known data collection technique (collecting diverse user data, per Grannan) to a known system (Burdick's ad exchange) to achieve the predictable result of improved ad targeting. Both references operate in the same technical field of targeted advertising and address the same fundamental goal of delivering relevant ads based on user profiles.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-2, 5-9, 15-18, and 21-22 of the ’146 patent as unpatentable.