Rockstar Consortium US LP et al v. Google Inc

Filing 142

SUR-REPLY to Reply to Response to Motion re 117 MOTION to Strike Defendant Google Inc.'s Deficient Obviousness Disclosure Under Patent Rule 3-3(B) filed by Google Inc. (Attachments: # 1 Declaration of Lance Yang, # 2 Exhibit A, # 3 Exhibit B, # 4 Exhibit C)(Perlson, David)

EXHIBIT B

Table B1: Search References
To the extent the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 does not disclose the
limitations identified in each chart citing Table B1, one of ordinary skill in the art would be
motivated to combine the references addressed in claim charts A-1 to A-39 with any one or more
of the Table B1 references listed below because: it would have yielded predictable results; using
the techniques of the Table B1 references would have improved the primary or obviousness
references in the same way; and applying the techniques of the Table B1 references to improve
primary or obviousness references would have yielded predictable results.
Reference
U.S. Patent No.
6,119,101
(“PECKOVER”)

Disclosure
See, e.g., PECKOVER, 11:20-26:
Consumers can launch ongoing searches for products, and the
searches can continue even when the consumer is not online.
Consumers use search engines that have data that is more upto-date.
Consumers access search engines that are easier to use,
especially for non-technical users.
PECKOVER, 12:7-8:
The system provides results faster than mobile or wandering
agents.
PECKOVER, 12:13-21:
Referring to the fundamental problems of the flow of market
information in electronic commerce, the fundamental objects
of the system for consumers are:
to assist consumers in gathering market information quickly
and easily;
to protect consumer identity and private information while
gathering market information; and to assist consumers in
performing ongoing searches.
PECKOVER, 14:45-49:
Consumers use Decision Agents to gather the information that
helps consumers make purchasing and usage decisions.
Decision Agents can search for ads meeting various criteria,
and order the matching ads according to the consumer’s fs.
PECKOVER, 15:22-36:
Referring to the left side of the figure, actions of Consumer 20
generate market data. Consumer 20 controls a Consumer
Personal Agent 12 that represents the Consumer to the system.
The Consumer Personal Agent is capable of creating a
2

Reference

Disclosure
Decision Agent 14 to carry out a search, within a Market 18,
for products that satisfy certain constraints and preferences.
For example, a Consumer might query for the local retailers
that carry a certain brand of sports shoes. Decision Agent 14
gathers data without knowing, and therefore without revealing,
the identity of the Consumer 20. Both Decision Agent 14 and
Market 18 store data about the search. Decision Agent 14
returns a set of product recommendations, which Consumer
Personal Agent 12 further filters and orders according to
Consumer preferences before presenting to Consumer 20.
PECKOVER, 19:65-20:5:
Continuing to refer to FIG. 4B, a Decision Composer 74 assists
the user in composing queries to be executed by Decision
Agents. Decision Composer 74 retrieves a Product Template
174 (described later in conjunction with FIG. 9B) for a
particular product from a Market 18 in which the user wishes
to search, present instructions to the user for completing
Product Template 174 to describe the object of the search, and
produces the appropriate query.
PECKOVER, 21:15-24
Referring to FIG. 6, a Decision Agent 14 comprises the
functional components of:
a Unique ID 98,
a Personal Agent Reference 100,
a Market Reference 102,
an Expiry function 104,
a Query 106,
a Response Manager 108,
and a Log function 110.
PECKOVER, 21:57-61:
A Query 106 describes the product or product category for
which to search. Query 106 includes data from Product
Template 174 completed by the consumer and relevant data
from the consumer’s preferences, as assembled by Decision
Agent Factory 76 of the consumer’s Personal Agent 12.
PECKOVER, 21:63-64:
A Response Manager 108 receives search results and returns
them to the consumer’s Personal Agent 12.
PECKOVER, 24:3-6:
An Immediate Agents function 156 keeps track of Decision
Agents 14 that are performing an immediate search. An
immediate search is a search that is to be performed and results
returned as soon as practical.
PECKOVER, 24:23-24:
Results from an extended search may be returned periodically
3

Reference

Disclosure
during the time that the search remains active.
PECKOVER, Fig. 1:

PECKOVER, Fig. 8C:

PECKOVER, Fig. 11:

4

Reference

Disclosure

PECKOVER, Fig. 40:

5

Reference

Disclosure
PECKOVER, Fig. 41:

Dow Jones Services
References

See, e.g. Dow Jones unveils new, unique knowledge indexing system
(April 17, 1997) (“Dow Jones Interactive Publishing today announced
it has developed and implemented a sophisticated automated
knowledge indexing system that will allow Dow Jones
News/Retrieval(R) subscribers to get highly targeted results from one
search in the services Publications Library, a compilation of more than
3,600 authoritative business sources.”); Personal Library Software
Announces Release Of Dow Jones News/Retrieval Text Library (June
12, 1995) (“Personal Library Software today announced that Dow
Jones News/Retrieval(R) is the latest major online publisher to release
a new service using the PLS search engine.”)
DEDRICK PATENT, 11:22-34:
In one embodiment, the software tools also provide an
interactivity builder to allow the end user to interact with the
electronic information. For example, the electronic information
may be a content database that is analogous to the “yellow
pages” of a phone book. The yellow page content database
may contain a plurality of advertisements that can be viewed
by the end user. The software tools may allow the publisher to
build an object that allows the end user to search the contents
of the content database. The software tools may also allow the
publisher/advertiser to combine different types of information.
For example, the publisher can combine video, audio, graphics,
animation and text all within the same unit of electronic
information provided to the end user.
REESE, 1:22-30:
Search engine servers have been developed to allow a user to
transmit a request from a client to retrieve data. Search engines

U.S. Patent No.
5,710,884 (“DEDRICK
PATENT”)

U.S. Patent No.
6,374,237 (“REESE”)

6

Reference

Another Search
Engine? Hotwired
Introduces Hotbot,
Powered By Inktomi,
PR Newswire, May 20,
1996 (“ANOTHER
SEARCH ENGINE”)

Disclosure
rely on a user formulated query to retrieve data. In this case, a
client transmits a request to a search engine server to search
content sites (e.g., other servers) on the Internet for
information based on user-selected “keywords.” The search
engine searches the web and retrieves data that matches the
keywords, then transmits the matching data to the client.
REESE, 7:47-52:
Next, in step 930, the matching server receives a search request
that includes a user profile from a client. In step 940, the
matching server compares the data in the aggregate database to
the user profile supplied by the client. The matching server
then delivers the matching data to the client in step 950.
See, e.g., ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotWired Ventures, a
premier Internet media company, today introduced HotBot
(www.hotbot.com), a unique search engine that indexes and searches
every word on the World Wide Web. Powered by Inktomi's advanced
parallel-processing engine, HotBot will change the way people search
for and retrieve information on the Internet.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “’The rules of the search engine game
have changed. Internet users thought they’d get what they needed from
traditional search engines, but they found the result to be thin on
content, rigid in context, and often totally irrelevant,’ said Andrew
Anker, president and CEO of HotWired Ventures. ‘Our quest to find a
better search engine led us to Inktomi. By combining the best
technology, the most relevant searches, and an innovative interface,
we created HotBot -- a bigger, better, smarter way to search the
Web.’”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “Most search engines aren’t keeping
up with the tremendous growth of the Web. HotBot’s underlying
Inktomi engine indexes more than 50 million full-text Web documents
plus Usenet and mailing-list archives, and its scalable architecture can
match the growth of the Web.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot includes a number of unique
features. Users can get the most current information quickly,
efficiently view and use that information, and interact with the search
engine in a personal manner. Daily Updates: The HotBot spider crawls
the Web every day, offering users the most current information.
Reliable and Fast: HotBot's fault-tolerant engine reliably delivers
query results in seconds, without frequent downtime. Convenient
Previews: HotBot allows users to preview documents without leaving
the search page, reducing search time. Personal Searching: The
HotBot interface allows users to personalize their search engine to fit
their own surfing style.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “HotBot identifies, customizes, and
ranks millions of Web documents using an algorithm developed by a
7

Reference

The ‘Hottest’ Search
Engine,” Business
Communications Co.,
Vol. 3, No. 3, June
1996

U.S. Patent No.
7,072,849 (“FILEPP”)

Disclosure
team of the world's leading experts in information retrieval. HotBot
recognizes that users desire varying levels of information detail, so it
allows users to control the amount and type of information searched.
The computing power available to HotBot enables the user to define a
search query using a wide range of criteria in a way that is not possible
with more traditional search engines.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: Users can perform advanced queries
within an interface that closely mirrors the progressive look and feel of
HotWired’s site, recognized worldwide as one of the most engaging,
innovative sites on the Web.
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “Reliable and Fast: HotBot’s faulttolerant engine reliably delivers query results in seconds, without
frequent downtime.”
ANOTHER SEARCH ENGINE, p. 2: “ The computing power available to
HotBot enables the user to define a search query using a wide range of
criteria in a way that is not possible with more traditional search
engines.”
See, e.g., THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotWired Ventures
(520 3rd St., San Francisco, CA 94107) has introduced HotBot
(http://www.hotbot.com), a new search engine that indexes and
searches every word on the World Wide Web, powered by Inktomi's
advanced parallel-processing engine.”
THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “HotBot is touted as ‘a bigger,
better, smarter way to search the Web.’ It allows users to attain
extremely fast, high quality search results without the need to learn
complex query languages. HotBot's underlying Inktomi engine
indexes more than 50 million full-text Web documents plus Usenet
and mailing-list archives, and its scalable architecture can match the
growth of the Web. The closest competitor, Alta Vista, currently
indexes approximately 30 million Web pages and its traditional, single
machine architecture is limiting their ability to grow.”
THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “The computing power
available to HotBot enables the user to define a search query using a
wide range of criteria in a way that is not possible with more
traditional search engines. HotBot can also be reached by clicking on
the HotBot icon on HotWired (http://www.hotwired.com).”
THE ‘HOTTEST’ SEARCH ENGINE, p. 1: “It allows users to attain
extremely fast, high quality search results without the need to learn
complex query languages.”
See, e.g., FILEPP, 8:21-24:
Messages are information provided by the user or the network
and are used in fields defined within the constructs of an
object, and are seen on the user’s RS monitor 412, or are used
for data processing at RS 400.
FILEPP, 15:52-57:
8

Reference

Disclosure
Further, DIA provides common data structure between
applications run at RS 400 units and applications that may be
run on external computer networks; e.g. Dow Jones Services,
accessed through gateway 210. As well, DIA provides support
for utility sessions between backbone applications run within
network 10.
FILEPP, 20:59-21:18:
The Jump command 296 as seen in FIG. 3a, can be selected, by
the user from command bar 290. When Jump command 296 is
selected, a window partition 275 is opened. In window 275, the
user is presented and may select from a variety of displayed
options that include among others, the Directory command, the
Index command, and the Guide command, which when
selected, have the effect noted above. Additionally, the user
can select a command termed Viewpath which will presents
the keywords that currently make up the list of keywords
associated with the user’s Path command, and from which list
the user can select a desired keyword. Still further, and with
reference FIG. 11, which shows the sequence where a user
offers a term to identify a subject of interest, the user may enter
a keyword at display field 270 within window partition 275 as
a “best guess” of the mnemonic character string that is
assigned to a partitioned application the user desires (e.g., the
user may input such english words as “news,” “pet food,”
“games,” etcetera). Where the user enters a character string it
is displayed in field 270, and then searched by RS 400 native
code (discussed below) against the sequence sets above noted
to identify the object-id for the appropriate table of keywords
(not shown) that RS 400 may request from host 205. While as
noted above, a table may include 10 to 20 keywords, in the
preferred embodiment, for the sake of speed and convenience,
a typical keyword table includes approximately 12 keywords.
FILEPP, 21:35-49:
If after selecting the Jump command, the user selects the Index
command, RS 400 will retrieve the keyword table residing at
RS 400, and will again build a page with initialized, cursorable
fields of keywords. The table fetched upon invoking the Index
command will be comprised of alphabetic keywords that occur
within the range of the keywords associated with the page
template object (PTO) from which the user invoked the Index
command. As discussed above, the user may select to navigate
to any of this range of PTOs by selecting the relevant keyword
from the display. Alternatively, the user can, thereafter, select
another range of alphabetical keywords by entering an
appropriate character string in a screen field provided or move
9

Reference

Disclosure
forward or backward in the collection by selecting the
corresponding option.
FILEPP, 21:50-64:
By selecting the Directory command, RS 400 can be caused to
fetch a table of keywords, grouped by categories, to which the
PTO of the current partitioned application (as specified by the
object set field 630 of the current PEO) belongs. Particularly,
by selecting the Directory command, RS 400, is causes to
displays a series of screens each of which contains
alphabetically arranged general subject categories from which
the user may select. Following selection of a category, a series
of keywords associated with the specified category are
displayed in further screens together with descriptive
statements about the application associated with the keywords.
Thereafter, the user can, in the manner previously discussed
with regard to the Index command, select from and navigate to
the PTOs of keywords which are related to the present page set
by subject.
FILEPP, 21:65-22:21:
The Guide command provides a navigation method related to a
hierarchical organization of applications provided on network
10, and are described by a series of sequentially presented
overlaying windows of a type known in the art, each of which
presents an increasing degree of detail for a particular subject
area, terminating in a final window that gives keywords
associated with the relevant applications. The Guide command
makes use of the keyword segment which describes the
location of the PTO in a hierarchy (referred to, in the preferred
embodiment, as the “BFD,” or Building-Floor-Department) as
well as an associated keyword character string. The BFD
describes the set of menus that are to be displayed on the
screen as the sequence of pop-up windows. The Guide
command may be invoked by requesting it from the Jump
window described above, or by selecting the Menu command
on Command Bar 290. As noted above, in the case of the
Guide command, the PTO and object-ids for the application
entry screen are directly associated with the graphic of the
keyword presented in the final pop-up window. This enables
direct access of the application entry screen without need to
access the sequence set and keyword table, and thus, reduces
response time by reducing the number of objects that must be
processed at RS 400.
FILEPP, Fig. 3a:

10

Reference

Disclosure

FILEPP, Fig. 3b:

Knoblock, Craig;
“Searching the World
Wide Web,” in IEEE

See e.g., KNOBLOCK, “SEARCHING THE WORLD WIDE WEB,” IEEE
EXPERT1, at 8 (“the Lycos search engine comprises the Lycos Catalog
of the Internet and the Pursuit retrieval program); id. (“In July 1994,
its developer added the Pursuit retrieval engine to allow user searching

1

References to Knoblock are to Knoblock, Craig; “Searching the World Wide Web,” in IEEE
Expert.

11

Reference
Expert. (“KNOBLOCK”)

World Wide Searching
for Dummies, by Brad
Hill, IDG Books
Worldwide, 1996.
(“DUMMIES”)

Disclosure
of the Lycos catalog.”); id. at 10 (“the final step is to process queries
from individual users and to return lists of links to matching
documents.”)
See e.g., DUMMIES, CHAPTER 5 (describing how Yahoo!’s search
engine operates); id., p. 78 (“You can begin searching with Yahoo!
with just three simple steps: 1. Go to the main Yahoo! Web page (see
Figure 5-1) by entering this URL in your Web browser:
http://www.Yahoo.com/ . . .2. Type a keyword, or more than one, in
the Search form. 3. Click on the Search button next to the keyword
form. . . . Within a second or two, a new page (called Search Results)
appears on your screen, displaying (Surprise!) the search results. . . .
Yahoo! deluges you with only 25 results per page.”); id., p. 85 (“The
best place to begin a keyword search in Lycos is at the Lycos
directory, called a2z (see Figure 6-1). To begin using Lycos keyword
searches right away, you need to follow a few basic steps: 1. Direct
your Web browser to the a2z page by using the URL shown
previously. 2. Type a keyword, or more than one, in the Find box.
Click on the Go Get It button.”); id. (“After you click on the Go Get It
button, Lycos searches the default database—the Lycos catalog
database. In a few seconds, you see the results page, which displays
links to all the sides that match your keywords.”); id., p. 99 (“Use
more keywords. If you’re looking for sites about cars, add the names
of the actual automobile models, manufacturers, and years. Use the
match all terms (AND) Search option. Combined with more
keywords, this option narrows the results drastically.”); id., p. 101
(“Enter the Excite search engine, offering a blissful promise: Just tell
it in plain English what you want, and it will find it for you.”); id., p.
102-103 (“The Excite home page is the starting point for conceptbased Web searches. You get there by entering this URL into your
Web browser: http://www.excite.com/. . . 1. Place your cursor in the
keyword form and click once. 2. Type either a single keyword, more
than one keyword, or a simple phrase describing what you want to
find. . . 3. Click on the Search button, which is next to the keyword
form.”); id., p. 102 (“A few seconds after you click on the Search
button, you see the Query Results page, which lists your hits (see
Figure 7-2). At this point, Excite has found Web sites that match any
one (or more) of your keywords. Excite presents the sites that match
your keywords in the order that the Excite search engine determines is
most useful.” ); id., p. 104 (“You can have Excite sort the Query
Results page in two ways: Sort by confidence: This setting is the
default. Your first search will sort the results this way, with the most
confident links (presumably the most relevant and useful) at the top.
What does confidence mean, exactly? Excite has a certain amount of
confidence in the matches it gives you, based on how many of your
keywords it matches, how many times each word is matched, and
12

Reference

WO9721183to Naqvi
(“NAQVI WO”)

Disclosure
other criteria known only to Excite. . . . Sort by site: When you choose
this option, the confidence rating scheme is scrapped in favor of listing
the matched Web sites in a directory style. Individual Web page links
are grouped under the home page to which they belong (see Figure 73). In this fashion, you can see at a glance when multiple links all
belong to a single, inclusive site.”); id., p. 106 (“Even though Excite
features its ability to understand phrase concepts and search on them,
it also accepts run-of-the-mill keywords. The default setting is to
search by concept. Change this setting by clicking on the small arrow
next to the second search option, and selecting the by keyword option.
Excite will then take a more literal approach to the words you enter.”);
id., p. 155-158 (describing how WebCrawler’s search engine
operates.); id., p. 155-156: “Above the keyword search form are two
other forms that give you some choice in how the results are
presented: . . .Summaries or titles . . . Number of hits. . .”)
See, e.g., NAQVI WO2 at Abstract - “The advertisements on the server
are not tied to any particular page containing information on the
network, but rather, are retrieved in response to a query entered by the
user (17)”
NAQVI WO, p. 2 – “That is, when a user uses certain search engines
for conducting a search, the user will be shown advertisements while
doing the searching.”
NAQVI WO, p. 4 – “The present invention provides a new process and
system for online advertising. This new process will be
referred to throughout this application as query-based
advertising ("QBA"). In the QBA process, advertisements
are primarily triggered by user queries. User queries, as
15 used herein, refer to requests from an information consumer
for one or more pages of information from a computer
network. As a result of a query, a user is exposed to
advertisements with the present invention, i.e., the query
triggers advertisements.”
NAQVI WO, p. 5 - “When the user requests a certain page or a certain
topic of information, the relevant pages are retrieved from
the computer network and shown to the user. The present invention,
upon receiving the user's request, retrieves advertisements that are
related to the user's action, dynamically mixes the advertisements with
the content of the pages according to a particular layout, and displays

2

References to “NAQVI WO” are to WO9721183 to Naqvi et al. .

13

Reference

Disclosure
the pages with focused, targeted advertisements as a part of the page.
The advertisements can be made to satisfy a set of constraints
requested by the advertiser, as well as the constraints of the publisher
of the page, as further discussed below.
The advertisement triggering mechanism of the present
invention is not random or coincidental, but rather, is
prespecified in advance. This specification will be
referred to in this application as a contract. A contract
specifies the marketing rules that link advertisements with
20 specific queries. For example, a diet soft drink
advertisement may be shown when a user asks for a page
about exercising equipment. These rules are specified by
advertisers implementing the concept of "focus" or
"relevance" of advertisements and help the advertisers to
25 target a specific audience. Owners of pages specify the
focus content of their pages through special tags within a
page. These tags are not displayed to the information
consumer; the tags are used to decide what advertisement
can be shown when the page is requested by a consumer.”
NAQVI WO, p. 15-16 – “Initially, a user requests a particular piece of
information through one of the clients 17. The user's
10 request is given to the WWW Daemon 16, which passes the
information to the gate 15. The gate 15 at this point
decides what piece of information is being requested by the
user and finds other relevant pieces of information that
can be commingled with what the user has asked. The user,
15 for example, might ask the system to see certain car
dealers, to find a phone number of a car dealer, or to get
a page of a particular magazine. The gate 15 at this point gives the
request to the matching rule engine 18 ("MRE"). The purpose of the
MRE 18 20 is to look at the content of the user's query and to find a
category within its active index SIC 19 that matches the
same type. If the user has asked for car dealers, the MRE
18 invokes its rules to determine that car dealers are part
of a class of things relating to transportation. Based on
25 the classification determined by the MRE 18, the system now
knows that the user is asking about cars or about
transportation or about whatever else that the user might
be interested in. The MRE 18 at this point then returns to the gate 15
30 the category index of the user's query. If the user had
asked about cars or about family sedans or about sports
cars, at this point the MRE 18 would have figured out that
the user's interest falls into a certain category. Based
14

Reference

Disclosure
on the user's interest category, the system then retrieves
the advertisements that are relevant to that category.
Thus, the purpose of the MRE 18 is to figure out what the
5 user requested, to place the user's request in a category
of a classification system (i.e., the active index SIC 19)
and, based on that classification, to retrieve relevant
advertisements.”
NAQVI WO, p. 21-22 – “The information brokers or content providers
shown in Fig. 1 include a home page dispatcher 25, a search engine 5
INFORMIX 26, and a generic HTML 27. For purposes of the present
invention, it is assumed that there are three broad classes of publishers
that can utilize the advertising
features of the present invention. A "publisher" can
include virtually anyone that provides content to the
10 network. For example, anyone who is a home page owner is a
publisher in the category shown as Generic HTML 27. A
second kind of publisher is the search engine publisher 26,
which includes phone company yellow page providers, such as
NYNEX. And a third kind of publisher is the so-called home
15 page dispatchers, which include traditional magazines and
newspapers, such as Business Week.
…
The second kind of publisher that the present
invention is used with is the search engine publisher 26.
Currently, there are many companies on the WWW that permit
30 users to query their database and then return a set of
answers from the database to the user. For example, a
telephone company may have a site that allows a user to
obtain a set of phone numbers and business names for a
particular type of business (i.e., a yellow page
directory) .
For purposes of the present invention, the search
5 engine publisher 26 is distinguished from the home page
dispatcher 25 in the sense that the content returned by the
search engine publisher 26 does not contain any special
tags or meta comments put in by the publisher to define the
layout of the content and the ads. In this case, the
10 layout manager 10 of the present invention computes the
optimum layout based upon the rules and layout templates,
as described above. The final result, therefore, is that
output is taken from the search engine publisher 26,
15

Reference

Disclosure
adorned with certain relevant advertisements, and then
15 shown to the users.”
NAQVI WO, p. 34 – “To start (step 80), the user enters a query. For
example, the user may enter restaurants or cars as a query.
The query has a focus, as described above. The system
determines what the focus is and, as described above, the
25 system provides the user with a list of categories that
relate to the query. For example, if the user requests
restaurants, the user might be shown a list of restaurant
types, such as Chinese, American, French, Italian, and so
forth. The query entered by the user is evaluated by a
30 query form manager (step 81) to determine the focus of the
query.”
NAQVI WO at Claims 1, 2, 4
Figures 1, 2, 7, 8B, 10, 11 (and associated text)

U.S. Patent No.
5,901,287 to Bull et al.
(“BULL”)

BULL at Col. 3 - “The user is presented with a variety of search,
display and output options. The search options include: 1) Search
using keywords or combinations; 2) Use of complex software text
search agents that have been predefined by the information
aggregation and synthesization system site operators. These agents
take advantage of the expansive subject matter expertise in
understanding which search parameters will best serve the user’s
search needs; 3) Use of search patterns and agents from this user’s
previous sessions, perhaps expanded by available specials and
promotions; 4) Natural Language Query; and 5) Some combination of
1), 2), 3) and 4). During a user session or when a user completes a
session, the user’s looking activity is analyzed for patterns,
preferences and trends and the proile annotated or updated so that
when they next use the information aggregation and synthesization
system, the nominated searches will be custom
ized to their individual desires.”
BULL at Col. 6 – “A theme or definition of a class of information (e.g.,
central California travel and tourism or new automobiles) is
identified. Data sources (Local DataStores (500 . . . N) and
Network Accessible DataStores (300 . . . N)) are screened
for relevance, quality of information and appropriateness (or
may be included de facto based on their title or description).
These are indexed using a text indexing software tool 2981
and the indices stored on the system index DataStore 220.
An initial set of Preestablished Software Text Agents are
16

Reference

Disclosure
defined. These agents are words or combinations of words
that form a word based search pattern. This initial set of
agents is relevant to the searches that might be performed
against the class of information that was indexed. (i.e.,
Agents about automobiles would be developed to search a
class of indexed information about new cars). These are
stored in the Preestablished Software Text Agent DataStore
231. The System 200 uses any multipurpose computer
central processing units with the ability to handle multiple
inputs and outputs with the necessary hard disk storage and
to run World Wide Web (WWW) or other network server
software.”
BULL at Col. 7-8 – “The user is also presented with browsing options
based on: activity from a previous session in the browsing activity
datastore 240; predeveloped software text agents and personalized
software text agents (developed in the Post Session Activity) stored in
the Personal Search Text Agent
DataStore 232; or combinations of all as well as situational
opportunities developed by the user greeting subsystem 291.
The user selects the search options to be used (or simply
enters search criteria directly). This search criteria is used to
search the index datastore 220 and a list of data sources is
presented to the user for selection. The user indicates the
information to be viewed. The user will also be presented
with options to refine his search through the altering of
search agent criteria (Search Reduction System 293).”
BULL at Col. 12 – “Certain criteria will be entered which delineates a
pattern that is requested to be monitored. When this pattern is seen (or
is in close match) in the user’s WWW activity, the insertion
mechanism is activated. If a certain web page is
requested, the present invention will display a particular
advertisement. The ad will be inserted based on the content
of the existing web page being read. An analysis of the text
stream of the user’s interactive session will be performed
online. When certain text patterns are observed (or close
matches are observed), an advertisement is inserted into the
display. The advertising may be static or connected to the adver
tiser’s computer datastore which designates specific ads or
coupons based on the pattern match and other conditions
which may be required. The software agent criteria is entered by the
merchant in the agent data store 230 which delineates a pattern that
needs to be monitored.
As an example, if the user accesses web pages for
17

Reference

Disclosure
“Holiday Inns on the West Coast”, the insertion mechanism
Would be established to automatically insert ads for “Hilton
Inns on the West Coast.””
BULL at Figs. 1 - 7 (and associated text)

HealthGate

BUSINESS WIRE at 2 - “After entering a query, HealthGate's search
engine will display to users the most relevant titles of articles.”

InfoSeek

QUINT3 at 1: Identifying InfoSeek as a search engine.
QUINT at 1: “InfoSeek Search, introduced in February 1995, offers
subscribers full-text searching of over 400,000 pages on the World
Wide Web (WWW), the last four weeks of over 10,000 Usenet
newsgroups, articles from over 100 computer publications,
and articles from the major wire services. InfoSeek also has databases
of health articles, book and movie reviews, and technical support
information.”
QUINT at 3: “Kirsch: We have several databases, one in each subject
area. We do that for reasons of usability, speed, and superior
precision/recall. Our WWW collection contains 1.5 bytes of data and
it's currently the largest collection of WWW pages on the Net. Our
Usenet collection has over 4,000,000 articles and it's also the largest
single collection of searchable information about the Internet and
computer-related topics.”
PRNEWS 4 at 1: “Major engines—including Alta Vista, Excite,
Infoseek, Lycos, Yahoo! and WebCrawler—use a dataset indexed by
the spider to provide a set of related sites.”
FROOK5 at 1: “These advertisements work by delivering a sales pitch
along with the results of a key-word search on a search engine. For
example, a user searching under the subject "cars" might receive a
Web ad for Genetal Motors Corp. or Chrysler Corp., while a search for

3

References to QUINT are to Barbara Quint, “An Internet ‘virtual library’ builder: Steve Kirsch,
president, CEO, InfoSeek Corporation,” Business & Company Resource Center (July-Aug
1995).
4

References to PRNews are to PRNews, “Make Sure Search Engines Find Your Site,” May 6,
1996.
5

References to Frook are to John Evan Frook, “Web marketing push,” Communications Week
(Oct. 9, 1995)

18

Reference

Disclosure
modems might delivervan ad for online computer superstore NECX
Direct.

Open Text Index

CNET6 - “Open Text is offering to help those publishers by allowing
them premium slots in its search engine without requiring them to buy
more expensive advertising banners. Under the company's Preferred
Listing [http://www.opentext.com/omw/preferred_c.html] service, a
merchant that sells personal computers online, for example, could
ensure that its Web site appears as the top listing in searches for the
terms PC and computer.”
FAIN7 - “Paid search reconciled this dilemma by tying
the search engine’s revenue to the act of transferring
the user to an advertiser’s site. In 1996, the search
engine Open Text briefly offered preferred listings,
in which sites would pay to be inserted into the
search result set for particular keywords.”
WWW SEARCHING FOR DUMMIES8 at 109-118 – The Open Text Web
searching site is aptly named, because it treats the entire World Wide
Web like a gigantic cauldron of words. With the Open Text tools, you
can search the Web for keywords as if it were a single immense text
file. Open Text also shows that it has some smarts: It allows you to
refine your search by narrowing it to certain portions of Web sites,
such as the summaries, titles, or URLs. That feature may seem like
Nobel-quality intelligence, but it sure comes in handy when you’re
trying to find the perfect Star Trek site (which is a big concern for
most Nobel laureates).
Power and friendliness are nicely blended in Open Text. You can use
keyword operators, but you don’t have to know much about them -the system makes it all clear with drop-down lists that are built into its
Web page. All in all, Open Text has emerged as a major searching
service. Just keep reading along to find out how to use it. . . ”

“Make Sure Search
6

PR NEWS at 1: “a Web user looking for Time Warner Inc.'s home page

CNET refers to “Engine sells results, draws fire,” CNET (June 21, 1996)

7

Fain refers to Daniel C. Fain and Jan O. Pedersen, “Sponsored Search: A Brief History,”
Bulletin of the American Society for Information Science and Technology (Dec./Jan. 2006
8

WWW Searching for Dummies shall refer to Brad Hill, “World Wide Web Searching for
Dummies,” IDG Books Worldwide, Inc. (1996)

19

Reference
Engines Find Your
Site,” PR News, May 6,
1996 (“PR NEWS”)

Disclosure
by entering the query term 'Time Warner' in a search engine may find
the right site buried beneath many other sites”
Id. at 1: “Time Warner could thus ensure that anyone who enters the
term ‘Time Warner’ will see its home page or ad at the top of the
search results.”
See also, e.g. PRNEWS (“Major engines—including Alta Vista, Excite,
Infoseek, Lycos, Yahoo! and WebCrawler—use a dataset indexed by
the spider to provide a set of related sites.”); id., (“…users must learn
more about query techniques to define a search. Alta Vista and
WebCrawler offer their users tips on searching.”); id. (“[S]earch
engines like WebCrawler and InfoSeek use ‘spiders’ or ‘robots’ to
index the Web. These programs automatically search the Web by
indexing one page and then indexing all documents that are
hyperlinked to it.”)

“Ubiquitous
Advertising on the
WWW: Merging
Advertisement on the
Browser,” Computer
Networks and ISDN
Systems, Vol. 28, Nos.
7-11, pp. 1493-1499
(May 1996), available
at
http://www.ra.ethz.ch/C
DStore/www5/www37
0/overview.htm
(“KOHDA ’96”)

KOHDA ’96, §1: “An advertising agent is placed between the
advertisers and the users. Advertisements fetched from advertisers'
Web servers are merged with Web pages from ordinary Web servers
by the agent, and the merged pages are displayed on the users' Web
browser. Thus, the users see advertisements on any server around on
the Internet. Moreover the agent has chances to deliver appropriate
advertisements which suit each user's taste.”
Id., §2.2: “When a user clicks an anchor on a page displayed on the
browser, the browser contacts the Web server and returns a Web page
designated by the anchor. Simultaneously, the browser contacts the
advertising agent's Web server. The agent's Web server returns a Web
page of one of its advertisements. Then the browser merges those
returned Web pages, and displays a composite page on the screen.”
Id., §3.1: “At invocation, environment information is passed to each
filter program as invocation parameters. The environment information
includes at least the identity of the user and information about the
selected anchor. The contents of a Web page designated by the anchor
are input into the pipe of filters, and the output from the pipe is
displayed on the browser's window as an HTML document.”
Id., §3.2: “The filter keeps in memory the contact path (URL) to the
agent's Web server. When it is invoked, it forwards the invocation
parameters passed from the browser to the agent's Web server, and
waits for a reply.”

20

Reference
Kohda U.S. Patent No.
7,136,853 to Kohda et
al. (“KOHDA ’853”)

Disclosure
KOHDA ’853 at 4:32-42: “The information providing method according
to the present invention is used to provide information through an
information communications network, and comprises the steps of
receiving the first information from a contract user through the
information communications network; selecting a piece of advertising
information from among plural pieces of stored advertising
information according to the first information; and transmitting the
selected advertising information to the user through the information
communications network.”
Id. at 15:30-45: “In response to the [user] request, the information
retrieving server 101, which is a WWW server, retrieves its own
information and transmits the retrieved information 106 specified by
the information retrieving apparatus 100 to the information retrieving
apparatus 100 in the format of an HTML document. ... Then, after a
request to obtain the above described retrieved information, the
advertising function 104 in the information retrieving apparatus 100
requests the information server 102 specified by the information server
specifying unit 42 to retrieve the additional information specified by
the additional information specifying unit 42.”
KOHDA ’853 at 6:37-42: “When retrieved information acquisition data
is input to an input/output unit 1 in the information retrieving
apparatus 100, the retrieved information obtaining unit 3 obtains
object retrieved information from an information retrieving server
according to corresponding retrieved information acquisition data.”
KOHDA ’853 at 6:56 to 7:3: “The user inputs data for use in obtaining
requested retrieved information (for example, articles from a
newspaper relating to a specified item) through the input/output unit 1.
Then, the information retrieving apparatus 100 obtains the retrieved
information from the information retrieving server through the
retrieved information obtaining unit 3, automatically obtains
additional information such as advertising information from the
information server through the additional information obtaining unit 4,
incorporates the obtained information into the retrieved information
obtained from the information converting unit 2, and outputs the result
on a display unit.”
Id. at 9:19-42: “The retrieval condition input unit 11 is used to input
data when the user requests to retrieve data and obtains retrieved
information. ... The retrieval conditioning input unit 11 can be a text
input devices such as a keyboard, etc. In this case, the user inputs the
data to the retrieval condition input unit 11 by directly inputting the
data using a keyboard, etc.”
21

Reference

Disclosure
Id. at 6:56 to 7:3: “The user inputs data for use in obtaining requested
retrieved information (for example, articles from a newspaper relating
to a specified item) through the input/output unit 1. Then, the
information retrieving apparatus 100 obtains the retrieved information
from the information retrieving server through the retrieved
information obtaining unit 3, automatically obtains additional
information such as advertising information from the information
server through the additional information obtaining unit 4,
incorporates the obtained information into the retrieved information
obtained from the information converting unit 2, and outputs the result
on a display unit.”
Fig. 1:

Fox, et al., “Users, User
Interfaces, and Objects:
Envision, a Digital
Library,” Journal of the
American Society for
Information Science,
44(8):480-491, 1993
(“FOX 1993”)

FOX 1993, p. 484 (“The Envision user interface will run as a client
process on a user’s desktop computer, communicating with the
Envision retrieval system via network.); id., (“Our interface
specification calls for separate windows or groups of windows for
each of the major phases or types of interaction with the Envision
system. These include: Query window (with four query fields and a
query history); Search Results Windows (Graphic View, Item
Summary, Item Preview); and Browsers.”); id., p. 484-85: “The Query
Window has two categories of use: New queries are created and
searches performed from this window.”); id., p. 485 “The Query
Window offers a user three ways to create new queries: By entering
document descriptors in four new query fields for authors, title words,
words related to content, and words found in other parts of the
document as specified by a pop-up menu labeled ‘Special Query.’ By
editing earlier queries. By combining results of previously completed
searches, using set operations.”); id., p. 485 (“When creating a new
query or editing an old one, the user may make changes in addition to
or instead of simply editing the text in the four fields. Other options
22

Reference

Fox, Chen, and France,
“Integrating Search and
Retrieval with
Hypertext”, 1991.
(“FOX 1991”)

“Short History of Early
Search Engines,”
available at
www.thehistoryofseo.c
om/TheIndustry/Short_History
_of_Early_Search_Engi
nes.aspx. (SHORT
HISTORY)
Pinkerton, “Finding
What People Want:
Experiences with the
WebCrawler”, Second
International WWW
Conference, 1994.
(PINKERTON)

“Search-Engine
Advertising; Web
Marketing Push” by
John Evan Frook in
Communications Week,
October 9, 1995.
(FROOK)
“What Hath Yahoo
Wrought,” by John W.

Disclosure
include changing the matching types (explained further below) used
for each field, changing the relationship among fields, and changing
filters that restrict search results.”); id., p. 487 (“Central to the search
results display design is the concept of viewing each document (item)
as a node within the Envision database graph and representing the
document graphically as an icon. Results of a search are presented in
a Graphic View Window as a scatterplot of icons.”)
See e.g., FOX 1991, p. 333 (“In the area of library information
retrieval, the Z39.50 standard has been developed so that a user of one
library system can cause that system to have a query processed on
another system, and then indirectly receive the search results.”); id., p.
339 (“Many people are familiar with keyword-based search
approaches . . . , in which the reader searches for a particular string of
characters in a database or uses entries from a controlled vocabulary
for searching.”)
See e.g., SHORT HISTORY (identifying search engines)

PINKERTON, ABSTRACT (“The WebCrawler indexes both document
titles and document content using a vector space model. Users can
issue queries directly to the pre-computed index or to a search
program that explores new documents in real time. The database the
WebCrawler builds is available through a search page on the Web.”);
id., p. 2 (“Users . . . can run the WebCrawler client itself,
automatically searching the Web on their own”); id., p. 4 (“To find an
initial list of similar documents, the WebCrawler runs the user’s query
against its index.”); id., p. 5 (“Users enter keywords as their query, and
the titles and URLs of documents containing some or all of those
words are retrieved from the index and presented to the user as an
ordered list sorted by relevance.”)
See e.g., FROOK, p. IA11 (describing Yahoo! as a search engine.); id.
(“Yahoo Corp. unveiled an alliance with Open Text Corp. to add
search functions to its Internet directory.”)

See e.g., VERITY (identifying search engines)

23

Reference
Disclosure
Verity, Bloomberg
Businessweek, February
11, 1996 (VERITY)
Sullivan, “Where Are
They Now? Search
Engines We’ve Known
and Loved,” available
at
http://searchenginewatc
h.com/article/2064954/
Where-Are-They-NowSearch_Engines-Wev..
(SULLIVAN)

See e.g., SULLIVAN (identifying search engines)

The Internet
Advertising Report,
Mary Meeker, Morgan
Stanley, December
1996 (“MEEKER”)

MEEKER at 6-6: “Search engines, by definition, use text input by users
to conduct searches of relevant content on the Web. Since
advertisements are displayed along with the search results, these
companies allow advertisers to buy “key words,” which display the
advertiser’s banner when a user searches for the word purchased. It
follows that the word or words purchased are generally related in some
way to the advertiser’s products or services. Infoseek and Yahoo!
charge $1,000 per month per keyword, and based on a target of 20,000
impressions, this would yield a CPM of $50. For example, Figure 6-3
shows how the results of a search for the word “router” yielded a
typical list of sites but also netted an advertisement for Cabletron
Systems (a maker of switches, considered an alternative to routers). In
fact, any time this word was searched for, the same ad came up. A
search for “hub” consistently resulted in a different ad for the same
company. (Yes, we searched for “beer,” and each time we got a Miller
Genuine Draft ad).”
See e.g., DEDRICK 1994, p. 59 (“All consumers having access to the
local electronic yellow pages can search these yellow pages . . .”); id.,
p. 60: “Other included data may include key words and other variables
used by consumption agents to go out on the network and find both
electronic content and electronic advertisements that have a certain
“hit-rate” when matched against a consumer’s profile.”); id. (“Acting
upon the consumer’s personal profile data, an agent might send out
queries to electronic yellow pages service providers, either locally or
with a wider scope of interest.”)
See e.g., DEDRICK 1995, p. 44 (“All consumers having access to the
local electronic yellow pages can search these yellow pages . . .”); id.,
p. 46 (“Acting upon the consumer’s personal profile data, an agent
might send out queries to electronic yellow pages service providers,
either locally or with a wider scope of interest.”)
See e.g., GALLAGHER, p. 2 (“In this paper, we restrict our discussion to
banner advertising that appears in the course of users’ browsing and

Rick Dedrick,
Interactive Electronic
Advertising, IEEE 1994
(“DEDRICK 1994”)

Rick Dedrick, A
Consumption Model for
Targeted Electronic
Advertising, IEEE 1995
(“DEDRICK 1995”)
Katherine Gallagher
and Jeffrey Parsons, A

24

Reference
Framework for
Targeting Banner
Advertising on the
Internet, Proceedings of
the Thirtieth Annual
Hawwaii International
Conference on System
Sciences, 1997 IEEE
(“GALLAGHER”)

Disclosure
searching activities on information services, such as Yahoo!
(http://www.yahoo.com) and Excite (http://www.yahoo.com), that
provide an entry point to Internet resources.”)

25