PTAB

IPR2026-00056

Disney Entertainment & Sports LLC v. Adeia Guides Inc

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1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Methods for Monitoring a User’s Viewing Progress of Media in a Series
  • Brief Description: The ’324 patent discloses methods for monitoring a user's viewing progress across multiple serial programs. The system creates a media profile to track progress, stores it, and generates user-selectable links on a display screen that allow the user to resume viewing from previously established progress points.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Tecot and Lee - Claims 1-5 are obvious over Tecot in view of Lee.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Tecot (Application # 2005/0097623) and Lee (Patent 7,127,735).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Tecot taught the core functionality of the independent claim, including a system for bookmarking multimedia content (such as serial programs like "General Hospital") at a specific point and later resuming playback from that bookmarked position. Tecot’s system displayed multiple bookmarks for different programs as selectable options in a graphical user interface (GUI). However, Tecot did not explicitly teach storing these bookmarks in a "media profile." Petitioner asserted that Lee supplied this missing element by teaching a video-on-demand method where a user's viewing interruption point is stored in a user-specific "profile," which could be saved on a local storage device like a profile card. The combination therefore disclosed creating and storing a media profile (Lee) containing viewing progress for multiple serial programs (Tecot), and presenting selectable links to resume viewing (Tecot).
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine these references because storing user-specific data like bookmarks in a user profile (as taught by Lee) was a common and well-understood method for personalizing interactive media systems. Implementing Lee's user profiles into Tecot's system would provide a more customized user experience, especially in multi-user households, and would reduce the processing load on video servers by managing interruption information at the user-terminal level.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success because both Tecot and Lee described methods for resuming media playback from an interrupted point using similar, well-understood hardware and software components. Their teachings were interrelated and amenable to predictable combination.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Logan and Poslinski - Claims 1-5 are obvious over Logan in view of Poslinski.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Logan (Patent 5,732,216) and Poslinski (Application # 2006/0048184).

  • Core Argument for this Ground:

    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner contended that Logan disclosed a system for distributing serialized audio programs where a "session usage log" was recorded to identify which segments a user played. This log, which tracked user progress and preferences, corresponded to the claimed "media profile." Logan's system presented a menu allowing a user to jump to any program segment to start or resume playback. While Logan focused on audio, Petitioner argued it would have been obvious to apply its teachings to video. Poslinski was asserted to teach the visual and multi-program aspects, specifically by disclosing a method for displaying multiple, adjacent progress bars on a screen. These bars visually indicated the viewing status (e.g., amount viewed, amount remaining) for a main program and one or more secondary programs, and a user could switch between them.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to combine Logan's user progress tracking and session logging with Poslinski's more advanced visual interface. This combination would enhance Logan's system by providing a clear, graphical way to display and manage viewing progress for multiple video programs simultaneously, offering users greater flexibility to pause and resume various programs at their leisure.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have expected success in combining the references. Both Logan and Poslinski addressed the same technical problem of enabling a user to resume content from an interrupted position using conventional hardware and software, making their integration predictable.

  • Additional Grounds: Petitioner asserted additional obviousness challenges for claim 6 based on the primary combinations of Tecot-Lee and Logan-Poslinski, each further in view of McElhatten (Application # 2003/0220100). McElhatten was cited for its teaching of displaying a list of available episodes for a selected serial program, thereby providing a "predefined viewing order" as required by claim 6.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "[First/second] progress point" (Claim 1): Petitioner proposed this term meant the "user's time position within an episode."
  • "Serial program" (Claims 1, 4-6): Petitioner proposed this term meant "related programming containing a temporal component connecting episodes."
  • "The summary region" (Claim 6): Petitioner noted this term lacked an antecedent basis and was potentially indefinite but, for the purposes of the petition, interpreted it to mean a summary region as recited in claim 5.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-6 of the ’324 patent as unpatentable.