PTAB

IPR2025-01406

Google LLC v. Art Research Technology LLC

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Method and apparatus for generating and annotating virtual clips associated with a playable media file.
  • Brief Description: The ’442 patent discloses a system allowing social network members to generate and annotate "virtual clips" from a playable media file. The system features a graphical user interface (GUI) with an interactive timeline for user input and supports associating virtual clips with taxonomy tags to create searchable content.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Junee, De Jong, and Houh - Claims 1 and 7

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Junee (Patent 8,826,117), De Jong (Application # 2018/0190323), and Houh (Patent 9,697,230).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Junee, which teaches web-based video editing and annotation, discloses most limitations of claim 1. De Jong was argued to supply the remaining limitations related to the GUI, teaching an interactable timeline and the display of multiple "highlight clips" (virtual clips) corresponding to selected times. De Jong and Houh were asserted to teach overlaying semi-transparent, interactable graphical objects (e.g., playback controls, icons) onto a video display window. For claim 7, De Jong was argued to teach capturing live content and creating clips from it based on user inputs.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references to improve the user interface of a system like Junee's. Overlaying controls as taught by De Jong and Houh would allow for a larger video playback area without sacrificing functionality. Incorporating De Jong's highlight clip and timeline features would provide users with a more intuitive way to navigate and create video compilations.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted success was expected because the combination involved applying well-known GUI design principles and predictable video editing features to improve an existing system.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Junee, De Jong, Houh, and Lee - Claims 5 and 6

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Junee (Patent 8,826,117), De Jong (Application # 2018/0190323), Houh (Patent 9,697,230), and Lee (Application # 2015/0180820).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground builds on Ground 1, adding Lee to render the "discussion thread" limitations of claims 5 and 6 obvious. Petitioner argued that Lee explicitly teaches a system where social network members can share real-time comments associated with specific time points in multimedia content, which are collected into a "discussion thread." This thread, comprising comments and bookmarks, is taught to be displayable to other users.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to add Lee's discussion thread functionality to the system of Junee (as modified by De Jong and Houh) to enhance its social and interactive features. Implementing the discussion thread as another interactable menu would be a straightforward extension of Junee's existing annotation interface, allowing users to view and assess community engagement with the video content.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner contended that success was expected because implementing comment threads associated with media content was a common and predictable feature in the art at the time.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Syed, Giunio-Zorkin, and Kwon - Claims 10 and 11

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Syed (Application # 2015/0139610), Giunio-Zorkin (Patent 10,031,949), and Kwon (Application # 2016/0350430).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground addresses independent claim 10, which recites a method for annotating media with taxonomy tags. Petitioner argued Syed teaches the core concepts of receiving user input to associate tags (e.g., hashtags) with video clips to make them searchable. To meet the "taxonomy tags" limitation, Petitioner asserted Giunio-Zorkin teaches a "taxonomy of tags" organized into hierarchical keyword sets with delimiters (e.g., "Drinks; Alcohol; Wine"). To meet the limitation of identifying multiple tags from user input, Kwon was argued to teach receiving a single input string with multiple tags (e.g., "#Maltese #Dog") and identifying each tag.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references to create a more robust and efficient video tagging and discovery system. A POSITA would modify Syed's system to use Giunio-Zorkin's structured taxonomies to improve the relevance of search results by adding semantic context. Incorporating Kwon’s method for parsing multiple tags from a single input would expedite the tagging process for users, improving usability.
    • Expectation of Success: Petitioner asserted success was expected, as the combination involves integrating known methods for tagging, hierarchical data organization, and input parsing to enhance a content discovery system, all of which were predictable technologies.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges based on combinations including Dayan (Patent 10,180,989) for claim 9’s “directed relationship” limitation but relied on similar design modification and feature integration theories.

4. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an IPR and cancellation of claims 1 and 5-11 of the ’442 patent as unpatentable.