Home Depot USA Inc v. H2 Intellect LLC

1. Case Identification

• Case #: PGR2025-00047
• Patent #: 12,056,736
• Filed: May 6, 2025
• Petitioner(s): Home Depot U.S.A., Inc.
• Patent Owner(s): H2 Intellect LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1-82

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Content Delivery Based on Mobile Device Location
• Brief Description: The ’736 patent describes a content delivery system that provides content, such as advertisements, to applications on mobile devices based on the device's location. The system allows sponsors to reserve geographic areas and deliver specific content to a device when it enters a reserved area.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Patent Ineligibility under §101 - Claims 1-84 are unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. §101

• Core Argument for this Ground: Petitioner argued that all challenged claims are directed to the abstract idea of delivering targeted content based on a mobile device's geographic location, a long-standing commercial practice, without adding an inventive concept.
  • Alice Step One (Abstract Idea): Petitioner asserted that the claims, represented by claim 1, are directed to the abstract idea of targeted advertising based on location. The claims recite functional steps for sending requests, reserving a geographic area, and receiving an identifier when a device enters that area. Petitioner contended this mirrors ineligible concepts repeatedly identified by the Federal Circuit, such as tailoring website content based on a user's location or allowing a bet based on where a user is located. The claims are described as result-oriented, lacking any specific technical improvement over known geofencing techniques.
  • Alice Step Two (Inventive Concept): Petitioner argued the claims lack an inventive concept sufficient to transform the abstract idea into a patent-eligible application. The claims invoke only generic, conventional computer components (e.g., "at least one processor," "content delivery platform," "mobile device") to perform their functions. Petitioner contended that purported advantages like customizable content, avoiding "alert spam" via dwell time, and centralized management are either not recited in the claims or are themselves abstract rules that do not confer patentability. The use of a generic "identifier" was also argued to be an abstract data-management function without an inventive contribution.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Elliott and Jacob - Claims 1, 61-62, and 82 are obvious over Elliott in view of Jacob.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Elliott (Application # 2006/0149630) and Jacob (Application # 2002/0161633).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Elliott, which teaches a system for delivering advertisements to mobile devices, discloses most limitations of the challenged claims. Elliott described advertisers sending requests to an advertising intermediary (a "content delivery platform") to deliver ads to mobile subscribers. These ads contain a "response mechanism" (an "identifier") that a user can interact with via an application ("computer program") on their mobile device. Jacob was argued to supply the missing element of location-based targeting. Jacob taught an advertising system where advertisers provide geographic attributes (e.g., ZIP codes) with their ads, and the system delivers those ads to a user's mobile device when its location matches the specified geographic area.
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would combine Jacob's location-based targeting with Elliott's advertising delivery system to provide more relevant, individualized content. Elliott already taught targeting based on demographics, and adding Jacob's geographic targeting was asserted to be a simple, predictable improvement to better tailor content to a user's location and preferences.
  • Expectation of Success: The combination involved applying a known targeting technique (Jacob's geographic attributes) to a known advertising system (Elliott), which would have yielded the predictable result of location-based ad delivery with a high expectation of success.

Ground 3: Obviousness over Elliott, Jacob, and Sakamoto - Claims 1, 61-62, and 82 are obvious over Elliott and Jacob in view of Sakamoto.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Elliott (Application # 2006/0149630), Jacob (Application # 2002/0161633), and Sakamoto (Patent 6,807,427).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the Elliott and Jacob combination, adding Sakamoto to teach the limitation of delivering content only after a mobile device has remained in a geographic area for a "predetermined length of time." Sakamoto disclosed a radio communication system that pushes information (e.g., advertisements) to a terminal only when the terminal "stays in the same area for more than a prescribed period of time."
  • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would have been motivated to add Sakamoto's dwell-time feature to the Elliott/Jacob system to improve user experience. Specifically, this would "prevent the radio terminal from receiving an excessively large amount of advertising information" when a user is merely in transit through an area, thus making the ad delivery more efficient and less intrusive.
  • Expectation of Success: Adding a known timing mechanism (Sakamoto) to a location-based advertising system (Elliott/Jacob) was a predictable modification to solve a known problem (over-notification for transient users) and would have been implemented with a high expectation of success.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

• "at least one processor" (claim 1): Petitioner proposed this term requires a single processor capable of performing all associated "sending" steps. Because only a sponsor can send geographic reservation data according to the specification, Petitioner argued the claimed processor must be that of the sponsor, not the content delivery platform.
• "geometric construct" (claims 1, 61): Petitioner proposed this term means data defining a geographic location relative to a point, map location, or physical address. This construction was used to argue that a ZIP code, as taught by Jacob, meets the limitation.
• "identifier" (claims 1, 61-62, 82): Relying on prosecution history of a related patent, Petitioner proposed this term means "a string of characters used to identify an element of a computer program." This supported the argument that a URL or link in Elliott's advertisements constituted an "identifier."

5. Key Technical Contentions (Beyond Claim Construction)

• PGR Eligibility / Lack of Priority: A central contention of the petition was that the ’736 patent is eligible for Post-Grant Review (PGR) because its claims are not entitled to the pre-AIA priority date of the original 2009 application. Petitioner argued that claim limitations requiring a "registered application program" to send reservation requests were introduced in later applications (e.g., the ’285 application, filed in 2015) and lacked written description support in the original specification, which only disclosed "sponsors" making such requests. This lack of support allegedly breaks the priority chain, giving the claims an effective filing date after March 16, 2013, and making the patent subject to PGR.

6. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requested institution of Post-Grant Review and cancellation of claims 1-82 of the ’736 patent as unpatentable.