I/P Engine, Inc. v. AOL, Inc. et al

Filing 111

Declaration re 109 Memorandum in Opposition, by Joshua Sohn by Gannett Company, Inc., Google Inc., IAC Search & Media, Inc., Target Corporation. (Attachments: # 1 Exhibit 1, # 2 Exhibit 2, # 3 Exhibit 3, # 4 Exhibit 4, # 5 Exhibit 5, # 6 Exhibit 6, # 7 Exhibit 7, # 8 Exhibit 8, # 9 Exhibit 9, # 10 Exhibit 10, # 11 Exhibit 11, # 12 Exhibit 12, # 13 Exhibit 13, # 14 Exhibit 14, # 15 Exhibit 15)(Noona, Stephen)

EXHIBIT 6

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
EASTERN DISTRICT OF VIRGINIA
NORFOLK DIVISION

I/P ENGINE, INC.
Plaintiff,
Civil Action No. 2:11-cv-512

v.
AOL, INC., et al.,
Defendants.

PROPOSED CONSTRUCTIONS FOR CLAIM TERMS AND ELEMENTS
I.

INTRODUCTION
Defendants Google Inc., IAC Search & Media, Inc., Target Corporation, Gannett

Company, Inc., and AOL, Inc. (collectively referred to as “Defendants”) hereby provide their
Proposed Constructions for Claim Terms and Elements.
Discovery in this action is still ongoing, as is Defendants’ investigation of Plaintiff's
claims. Defendants therefore expressly reserve the right to amend or supplement their prposed
constructions, including their proposed constructions of claim elements governed by 35 U.S.C.
section 112(6) in the event they obtain or discern additional information through further
investigation, discovery, or disclosure from Plaintiff. Additionally, Plaintiff’s Infringement
Contentions do not fairly apprise Defendants of Plaintiff’s infringement theories. Defendants
therefore expressly reserve the right to amend or supplement their proposed constructions if and
when Plaintiff serves adequate supplemental Infringement Contentions.

1

II.

PROPOSED CONSTRUCTIONS
Claim language

“informons relevant to
a query”

‘420 Patent2 at 4:5-6
(“The ‘relevance’ of a
particular informon
broadly describes how
well it satisfies the
user’s information
need.”)

how well an informon
satisfies the individual
user's information need
expressed in the query

See above

“relevance to at least
one of the query and
the first user”

how well information
satisfies the information
need of at least one of
the query and the first
user

See above

“information relevant
to a query”

information that
satisfies the first user’s
information need
expressed in the query

See above

“scanning a network to
make a demand search
for informons relevant
to a query from an
individual user”

2.3

informons that satisfy
the individual user’s
information need
expressed in the query

“relevance to a query”

1.1

Proposed Construction Supporting Evidence
from Specification,
Prosecution History,
and Extrinsic Sources

Indefinite

1

“Relevance,” which Plaintiff proposed for construction, is subsumed within this term
and is addressed by Defendants’ proposed construction.
2

For ease of reference, Defendants will quote from the ‘420 specification in this
recitation of supporting evidence, with the understanding that the ‘664 specification is identical
in all material respects.
3

“Scanning a network,” which Plaintiff proposed for construction, is subsumed within
this term and is addressed by Defendants’ proposed construction.

01980.51928/4664076.1

2

“a scanning system for Indefinite
searching for
information relevant to
a query associated with
a first user in a plurality
of users”
“wherein the searching
step comprises
scanning a network in
response to a demand
search for the
information relevant to
the query associated
with the first user”
3.

Indefinite

“feedback system for
receiving collaborative
feedback data from
system users relative to
informons considered
by such users”

system using a process
of filtering informons
by determining what
informons other users
with similar interests or
needs found to be
relevant

‘420 Patent at 4:26-29
(“Collaborative
filtering, on the other
hand, is the process of
filtering informons, e.g.,
documents, by
determining what
informons other users
with similar interests or
needs found to be
relevant.”)
Id. at Abstract (“A user
feedback system
provides collaborative
feedback data for
integration with content
profile data in the
operation of the
collaborative/contentbased filter.”)
Id. at 2:20-27 (“The
present invention is
directed to an
information processing
system especially
adapted for use at
internet portal or other
web sites to make
network searches for

01980.51928/4664076.1

3

information entities
relevant to user queries,
with collaborative
feedback data and
content-based data and
adaptive filter
structuring, being used
in filtering operations to
produce significantly
improved search
results.”)
Id. at 2:30-34 (“A
search engine system
employs a contentbased filtering system
for receiving informons
from a network on a
continuing basis and for
filtering the informons
for relevancy to a wire
or demand query from
an individual user. A
feedback system
provides feedback data
from other users.”)
Id. at 16:32-43
(“Making effective use
of collaborative input
(CI) from other users U
is a difficult problem
because of the
following seven issues .
. . Third, incremental
updates of rating
predictions often are
desired, as more
feedback is reported
from users regarding an
informon.”)
Id. at 23:23-27 (“The
invention of this
continuation-in-part
application, as shown in
Figs. 8 and 9, provides a

01980.51928/4664076.1

4

collaborative and
preferably adaptive
search engine system in
which elements of the
structure and principles
of operation of the
apparatus of Figs. 1-7
are applied.”)
Id. at 23:39-42 (“The
present invention
combines collaborative
filtering with contentbased filtering in
measuring informons
for relevance, and
further preferably
applies adaptive
updating of the contentbased filtering
operation.”)
Id. at 25:57-61 (“The
informon rating system
combines content-based
filtering data with
collaborative feedback
rating data, from users
through a feedback
processor 50C at least
in the wire search mode
and, if desired, in the
demand search mode.”)
Id. at 26:24-31 (“A
feedback processor 74C
is structured like the
mindpool system of Fig.
7 to provide
collaborative feedback
data for integration with
the content-based data
in the measurement of
informon relevancy by
the filter 66C . . .
Adaptive feedback data
is applied from the

01980.51928/4664076.1

5

users to the filter 66C . .
.”)
U.S. Patent No.
5,867,799 at 2:67-3:7
(“Yet another approach
employs collaborative
filters to help users
make choices based on
the opinions of other
users. The method
employs rating servers
to gather and
disseminate ratings. A
rating server predicts a
score, or rating, based
on the heuristic that
people who agreed in
the past will probably
agree again. This
system is typically
limited to the
homogenous stream of
text-based news articles,
does little contentfiltering, and cannot
accommodate
heterogeneous
information.”)
Balabanovic et al.,
“Fab: Content-Based,
Collaborative
Recommendation,”
Comm’ns of the ACM
(March 1997) at 66 (“In
content-based
recommendation one
tries to recommend
items similar to those a
given user has liked in
the past, whereas in
collaborative
recommendation one
identifies users whose
tastes are similar to
those of the given user

01980.51928/4664076.1

6

and recommends items
they have liked.”)
Lashkari, “Feature
Guided Automated
Collaborative
Filtering,” MIT
Master’s Thesis (Sept.
1995) at 24
(“Automated
Collaborative Filtering
algorithms exploit the
similarities between the
subjective tastes of
different users in a
particular domain to
filter items is a
personalized fashion for
each user. They rely on
the observation that if
two people A and B
share similar opinions
about a number of items
in a particular domain,
and A likes a particular
item that B hasn't rated,
then B is probably
likely to enjoy it too,
and vice versa.”)
“feedback system for
receiving information
found to be relevant to
the query by other
users”

See above

“receiving information
found to be relevant to
the query by other
users”

determining what
information other users
with similar interests or
needs found to be
relevant

See above

“collaborative feedback
data”

01980.51928/4664076.1

system using a process
of filtering information
by determining what
information other users
with similar interests or
needs found to be
relevant

Data from users with
similar interests or
needs regarding what

See above

7

informons such users
found to be relevant
4.

“user”

an individual in
communication with the
network

5.

“individual user” /

‘420 Patent at 3:49-50
(“Also as used herein,
the term ‘user’ is an
individual in
communication with the
network”)

a particular user

“first user”
6.4

“combining the
information from the
feedback system with
the information from
the scanning system”

Indefinite

“combining the
information found to be
relevant to the query by
other users with the
searched information”

Indefinite

“filtering the combined Indefinite
information for
relevance to at least one
of the query and the
first user”
“informons” / “the
informons”

“informons” and “the
informons” are the same
informons

“users” / “such users”

“users” and “such
users” are the same
users

“a query” / “the query”

7.

“a query” and “the
query” are the same

4

“Combining,” which Plaintiff proposed for construction, is subsumed within this term
and is addressed by Defendants’ proposed construction.

01980.51928/4664076.1

8

query
“a feedback system” /
“the feedback system”

“a scanning system” /
“the scanning system”

“a scanning system” and
“the scanning system”
are the same scanning
system

“a first user” / “the first
user”

“a first user” and “the
first user” are the same
first user

“a content-based filter
system” / “the contentbased filter system”

8.

“a feedback system”
and “the feedback
system” are the same
feedback system

“a content-based filter
system” and “the
content-based filter
system” are the same
content-based filter
system

The separateness (or
lack thereof) of the
claimed systems

The claimed system for
scanning, content-based
filter system, and
feedback system must
all be different systems
The claimed scanning
system, feedback
system, and contentbased filter system must
all be different systems

01980.51928/4664076.1

9

‘420 Patent at 2:30-41
(“A search engine
system employs a
content-based filtering
system for receiving
informons from a
network on a continuing
basis and for filtering
the informons for
relevancy to a wire or
demand query from an
individual user. A
feedback system
provides feedback data
from other users.
Another system controls
the operation of the
filtering system to filter
for one of a wire
response and a demand
response and to return
the one response to the
user. The filtering
system combines

pertaining feedback data
from the feedback
system with content
profile data in
determining the
relevancy of the
informons for inclusion
in at least a wire
response to the query.”)
Id. at 4:30-33 (“The
system apparatus
includes a filter
structure having
adaptive content based
filters and adaptive
collaborative filters,
which respectively
include, and respond to,
an adaptive content
profile and an adaptive
collaborative profile.”)

10.

Order of steps for ‘420
Claim 25

The steps of Claim 25
must be performed in
the recited order

Order of steps for ‘664
Claim 26

9.

The steps of Claim 26
must be performed in
the recited order

“demand search”

search engine query

‘420 at Abstract: “The
search engine system
employs a regular
search engine to make
one-shot or demand
searches for information
entities which provide
at least threshold
matches to user
queries.”
Id. at 23:44-58: “In the
presently preferred
basic structure, an
integrated
collaborative/content-

01980.51928/4664076.1

10

based filter (FIGS. 1-7)
is operated to provide
ongoing or continuous
searching for selected
user queries, with a
"wire" being established
for each query. On the
other hand, a regular
search engine is
operated to make
immediate or short-term
‘demand’ searches for
other user queries on
the basis of contentbased filtering. This
basic structure of the
invention is especially
beneficial for use in
applying the invention
to existing search
engine structure.
Demand search results
can be returned if no
wire exists for an input
query. Otherwise, wire
search results are
returned if a wire does
exist, or collaborative
ranking data can be
applied from the wire
filter structure to
improve the results of
the demand search from
the regular search
engine.”
Id. at 24: 3-8: “The
query is applied to a
Lookup Table, as
indicated by block 22C,
block 24C applies a test
to determine from the
table whether a wire
already exists for the
new query. If so, block
26C returns results from
the existing wire.
01980.51928/4664076.1

11

Otherwise, block 28C
commands a demand
search by a regular
query engine.”
Id. at 25:13-18: “In the
preferred application of
the invention, the wire
mode is selected only if
a wire already exists,
and wires exist only for
those queries found to
be commonly entered as
previously described. In
the demand search
mode, the filter
structure 40C can
function similarly to a
normal search engine.”
Id. at 25:35-38:
“Demand profiles 42C2
are used by the filter
structure 40C in
demand searches in the
demand mode.
Collaborative profile
data can be integrated
with the wire profiles
through agent mind
melding 43C as
previously explained.”
File History for U.S.
Patent No. 5,867,799
(“‘799 File History”),
March 23, 1998
Amendment, p. 47: “In
view of the prior art as a
whole, known
information processing
systems lack filter
structure capable of
effectively and
efficiently, finding
information which
meets individual user

01980.51928/4664076.1

12

needs, especially in
large-scale information
systems, like the
internet, and especially
where an extremely
large number of users
may need to be
serviced, as in the
internet. The invention
represents a basic
advance over the prior
art, that is the invention
is configured in method
and apparatus with
adaptive content-based
and collaborative
filtering integrated to
have the capacity to
filter massive amounts
of information to meet
dynamic information
needs of individual
users in a user base as
large as that of the
internet. As a result of
its adaptive filter
technology, the
invention far surpasses
conventional static filter
technologies by
operating to learn what
a user wants and
selecting and supplying
new personalized
information content
from network sources
though a process which
simulates human
judgment. Further, the
invention employs a
multilevel filter
structure which
facilitates system
scalability for
expanding user loading,
i.e., usage across large

01980.51928/4664076.1

13

numbers of users,
topics, documents, and
sources.”
‘799 File History,
March 23, 1998
Amendment, p. 50:
“The preferred
multilevel architecture
for the information filter
of the invention is
conceptually organized
on the basis of
individual users and
classification of such
users into user
communities, i.e.
groups of users having
common interests or
meeting other common
criteria.”
“searching [for
information relevant to
a query associated with
a first user]”
11.

issuing a search engine
query

See above

“informon”

information entity of
potential or actual
interest to a particular
user

‘420 Patent at 3:31-33
(“As used herein, the
term ‘informon’
comprehends an
information entity of
potential or actual
interest to a particular
user.”)

Dated: March 21, 2012

01980.51928/4664076.1

By: /s/ David A. Perlson
David A. Perlson
QUINN EMANUEL URQUHART &
SULLIVAN LLP
50 California Street, 22nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94111

14

Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]

By: /s/ Stephen E. Noona
Stephen E. Noona (Virginia Bar No. 25367)
KAUFMAN & CANOLES, P.C.
150 West Main Street
Post Office Box 3037
Norfolk, VA 23514
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
Counsel for Defendants Google Inc., IAC Search &
Media, Inc., Gannett Company, Inc. and Target
Corporation
By: /s/ Robert L. Burns____________
Robert L. Burns
FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW,
GARRETT & DUNNER, LLP
Two Freedom Square
11955 Freedom Drive
Reston, VA 20190
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
By: /s/ Cortney S. Alexander_________
Cortney S. Alexander
FINNEGAN, HENDERSON, FARABOW,
GARRETT & DUNNER, LLP
3500 SunTrust Plaza
303 Peachtree Street, NE
Atlanta, GA 94111
Telephone: [phone]
Facsimile: [phone]
Counsel for Defendant AOL, Inc.

01980.51928/4664076.1

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