PTAB

IPR2025-01485

TikTok Inc v. Shopsee Inc

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Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Interactive Video Layers
  • Brief Description: The ’316 patent describes methods and systems for processing video media to generate two primary interactive layers. A "first interactive video layer" identifies objects within a video, associates them with product information, and displays selectable visual indicators for e-commerce. A "second interactive video layer" provides a social media portion for viewers to engage in conversations while watching the video.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Ohliger - Claims 1-19 are obvious over Ohliger.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ohliger (Patent 11,432,046).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued Ohliger, by itself, discloses all limitations of the challenged claims. Ohliger teaches a system that identifies visual objects in a video, tracks them across frames, and makes them interactive. It generates a "first interactive video layer" by creating selectable overlays (e.g., outlines, halos) on objects that, when selected, display product and purchasing information. Ohliger also discloses a "second interactive video layer" with a social media portion, allowing viewers to post comments related to the video or specific objects, view past comments from a plurality of users, and interact with a community. Petitioner asserted that Ohliger's system provides this content to multiple viewers on their respective playback devices (e.g., mobile phones), satisfying the user/guest limitations.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): This ground is based on a single reference. Petitioner asserted the challenge under 35 U.S.C. §103 to preempt any narrow claim interpretations by the Patent Owner, arguing that any potential differences between Ohliger's disclosure and the claims would represent obvious design choices or modifications to a POSITA.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would have an expectation of success in implementing any minor modifications to Ohliger's system, such as reordering processing steps, as Ohliger itself suggests its process steps are not rigidly ordered.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Ohliger and Kaiserlian - Claims 1, 16-19 are obvious over Ohliger in view of Kaiserlian.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ohliger (Patent 11,432,046) and Kaiserlian (Patent 8,332,477).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon Ohliger's disclosure for the base system. Petitioner argued that Kaiserlian was directed to improving user experience in digital communications by presenting conversations in collapsible, threaded views with varying indent levels. Ohliger discloses separate comment sections for different video objects but presents them as simple chronological lists, which can become unwieldy on small screens. Kaiserlian's teachings of hiding and expanding reply threads directly addresses the limitation of "maintaining and toggling between a plurality of different conversations."
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would combine Kaiserlian’s comment threading with Ohliger’s social overlay to improve the viewer experience. Given that Ohliger's system is designed for mobile devices with limited screen space, a POSITA would have been motivated to implement Kaiserlian's known method for organizing extensive comment threads to make them more navigable and prevent screen clutter, thereby enhancing user engagement.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would have a high expectation of success, as this combination involved applying a known UI solution (collapsible threads from Kaiserlian) to a known UI problem (unwieldy comment lists in Ohliger) within the same technical field of digital user interfaces.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Ohliger and Tapissier - Claims 1, 2, 16-19 are obvious over Ohliger in view of Tapissier.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Ohliger (Patent 11,432,046) and Tapissier (E.P. 1,425,918).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground used Ohliger for the base interactive e-commerce layer. Tapissier was introduced for its disclosure of a method for broadcasting a full-featured chat room as an overlay in an interactive television environment. Tapissier explicitly taught toggling between different chat rooms (e.g., via a "change room" button) and providing both public and private conversations.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): A POSITA would combine Tapissier's chat room functionality with Ohliger's system to improve the social experience and create commercial benefits. Ohliger's goal of community engagement would be enhanced by incorporating Tapissier's more robust, real-time chat features. This increased interactivity would lead to longer viewer session times, providing more opportunities for e-commerce and generating valuable user data for targeted advertising, consistent with Ohliger's commercial objectives.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): Success would be expected because both references concern overlaying interactive elements on video content. Integrating Tapissier's chat overlay into Ohliger's system represented a predictable combination of complementary, known technologies.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted an additional obviousness challenge based on Ohliger and Sakhartov (Patent 8,166,500). Sakhartov was cited for its teaching of merging interactive elements with video data into a single final video file to circumvent ad-blocking software, addressing the "generating a video data" limitation.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • Petitioner contended that no express constructions were required to find the claims invalid. However, in the context of parallel district court litigation, Petitioner identified several terms it believed were indefinite, while also arguing that the claims are obvious even under the Patent Owner's proposed "plain and ordinary meaning" constructions.
  • "a plurality of ... audio objects in one or more frames" (claim 1): Petitioner argued this term is nonsensical and indefinite because audio objects are temporal and cannot exist "in" spatial video frames. Petitioner proceeded with its analysis by focusing on the "visual objects" alternative of the claim language, which it argued is disclosed by the prior art.
  • "software module" terms (claim 18): Petitioner argued these are means-plus-function terms indefinite for lack of corresponding structure in the specification. In the alternative, Petitioner adopted the Patent Owner's position that the preamble provides the structure, and argued that this structure is rendered obvious by the prior art.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests the institution of an inter partes review and the cancellation of claims 1-19 of the ’316 patent as unpatentable.