PTAB

IPR2025-01388

Apple Inc v. GInko LLC

Log In
Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Data Sharing Method and System
  • Brief Description: The ’573 patent describes a method for data sharing between devices in a network. The system identifies a potential contact for a user, receives a request from the user to connect with the potential contact including specific permission settings, and establishes the connection upon acceptance, allowing data to be shared according to the permissions.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Robertson - Claims 10-14 are obvious over Robertson

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Robertson (Patent 8,380,796).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Robertson, a social networking system, discloses all limitations of independent claim 10. Robertson’s system allows a first user to identify potential contacts based on shared affiliations (e.g., college attendance). The system then receives a request from the first user to add a potential contact to their address book. This request includes setting specific, categorical permissions that define what subset of the first user’s data (e.g., work information, personal information) the potential contact is permitted to view. Upon acceptance by the potential contact, a two-way contact relationship is formed, making the specified subset of data viewable.
    • Prior Art Mapping (Dependent Claims): Petitioner asserted Robertson meets the limitations of dependent claims 11, 12, and 14. Robertson’s “Friends of Friends” feature identifies potential contacts by matching city locations, thereby teaching the limitations of receiving a location from a potential contact and identifying them if their location matches the user’s. Further, Robertson's database structure explicitly includes address and city tables, with the city table storing latitude and longitude data, which Petitioner argued maps to the address and proximate geolocation limitations.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Ahuja (Server-Client Embodiment) - Claims 1, 3-4, 6-12, 14-15 are obvious over Ahuja

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ahuja (Application # 2010/0280904).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping (System Claims): Petitioner argued that Ahuja’s server-client embodiment for "proximity based social marketing" renders system claims 10-12 and 14-15 obvious. Ahuja’s X-Path server identifies potential contacts for a user based on their physical proximity, determined by GPS data. A user can then send a "friend request" or "add contact" request, which is received by the system. This request inherently includes a permission setting; accepting a "friend request" grants the new contact the ability to view the user's private data fields, which are otherwise hidden. This functionality was argued to disclose the core elements of claim 10, including identifying a contact, receiving a request with a permission setting, and making a subset of user data viewable upon acceptance.
    • Prior Art Mapping (Method Claims): Petitioner contended that Ahuja also renders method claims 1 and its dependents obvious. Ahuja discloses a first permission value (e.g., for a "friend request") that allows sharing a subset of user data (private profile fields) and a second value (e.g., for an IM request to a non-friend) that is more restrictive, indicating that only chats are allowed and private data is not shared. This dual-permission structure was argued to directly map to the limitations of claim 1, which requires a permission setting being at least a "first value" (for sharing a subset of data) or a "second value" (for allowing only chats).
    • Prior Art Mapping (Dependent Claims): Petitioner asserted Ahuja’s reliance on GPS data for locating users meets the location-based limitations of claims 3-4, 6-9, 11-12, and 14-15. Ahuja’s system receives location data (a "first location") from potential contacts and identifies them based on proximity to the user's location (a "second location"), satisfying the requirements of matching locations and using geolocations.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge (Ground 3) against claims 10, 11, and 14 based on Ahuja’s peer-to-peer embodiments. This ground argued that even if the claims are interpreted to cover direct device-to-device communication without a central server, Ahuja discloses this functionality using short-range technologies like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, with the operational steps being substantially the same as in its server-client system.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1, 3-4, 6-12, and 14-15 of the ’573 patent as unpatentable.