NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.

United States Court of Appeals 

for the Federal Circuit ______________________ 

GOOGLE LLC,

Appellant

v.

AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUIDATING TRUST,

Appellee

______________________ 

2016-2727, 2016-2729

______________________ 

Appeals from the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Patent Trial and Appeal Board in Nos. 

IPR2015-00657, IPR2015-00660, IPR2015-00662, 

IPR2015-00666.

______________________ 

Decided: February 22, 2018

______________________ 

 DARYL JOSEFFER, King & Spalding LLP, Washington, 

DC, argued for appellant. Also represented by 

CHRISTOPHER ROBERT HEALY, JOSHUA NATHANIEL 

MITCHELL; MATTHIAS A. KAMBER, Keker, Van Nest & 

Peters LLP, San Francisco, CA.

 GARLAND STEPHENS, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP, 

Houston, TX, argued for appellee. Also represented by 
2 GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 

JUSTIN LILE CONSTANT, AUDREY LYNN MANESS; JARED 

BOBROW, Redwood Shores, CA.

______________________ 

Before LOURIE, WALLACH, and STOLL, Circuit Judges.

LOURIE, Circuit Judge. 

Google LLC (“Google”) appeals from two final written

decisions of the United States Patent and Trademark 

Office Patent Trial and Appeal Board (“the Board”) resulting from four inter partes review (“IPR”) proceedings 

concluding that claims 49–53, 55–59, 61–67, and 69–73 of 

U.S. Patent 6,286,045 (“’045 patent”) and claims 1–3, 5–7, 

9, 11–20, 22, 24–31, 34–39, 41–47, and 49 of U.S. Patent 

6,014,698 (“’698 patent”) are not unpatentable as obvious. 

See Google Inc. v. At Home Bondholders’ Liquidating Tr., 

Nos. IPR2015-00657, IPR2015-00660, 2016 WL 5104863, 

slip op. at 61 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 10, 2016) (“’045 Decision”); 

Google Inc. v. At Home Bondholders’ Liquidating Tr., Nos. 

IPR2015-00662, IPR2015-00666, 2016 WL 8969204, at 

*24 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 10, 2016) (“’698 Decision”). Because 

the Board did not err in its decisions, we affirm. 

BACKGROUND

At Home Bondholders’ Liquidating Trust (“At Home”) 

owns the ’045 and ’698 patents directed to a method of 

monitoring and controlling information delivered over a 

computer network. See, e.g., ’045 patent Abstract. The 

’698 patent is a continuation-in-part of the ’045 patent

and shares substantially the same specification.1 

 

1 The only substantive difference between the patent specifications are two paragraphs that were added to 

the ’698 patent. See ’698 patent col. 19 ll. 24–57. The 

added material does not implicate any issues in this 

appeal; therefore, for the purposes of this opinion, cita-
GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 3

According to the patents, rapid advancements in internet technology and “visually pleasing” graphics have 

increased the use of advertising and other promotional 

materials displayed with web pages. See ’045 patent col. 2 

ll. 38–41. Typically, when a user clicks on a Uniform 

Resource Locator (“URL”), that action triggers the user’s 

terminal to send a request over the network to retrieve

the web page associated with the URL. See id. col. 1 ll. 

61–67. The web page may include, inter alia, “a number 

of graphic images or elements, often referred to as banners.” See id. col. 2 ll. 9–12. Those “banners” are commonly used in internet advertising. See id. col. 2 l. 38–col. 

3 l. 6. The requested web page with its banners are often 

stored or “cached” on the user’s terminal, or on an intermediary server like a proxy server, for a specified period 

of time. See id. col. 6 ll. 36–39. That way, if the user 

requests the same page within that time period, the web 

page and the banners “can be loaded directly from the 

terminal’s memory.” See id. col. 6 ll. 39–49. The cache 

therefore blocks the request from passing through to the 

network. See id. col. 6 l. 36–col. 7 l. 2. 

While caching reduces the load on the network and allows for faster loading speeds, it creates problems for 

internet advertisers, who rely on maintaining an accurate 

count of the number of times their banners are requested, 

usually for calculating payments. See id. col 7 ll. 2–7; see 

also id. col. 13 ll. 2–27. While one could simply stop

caching all requests, that would eliminate the efficiencies 

of caching, making this solution “highly impractical and 

undesirable.” See id. col. 13 l. 28–col. 14 l. 10. The ’045 

and ’698 patents purport to resolve those competing 

objectives by adding a non-blockable banner request

 

tions will be to the ’045 patent. Similarly, because both of 

the Board’s decisions conduct substantially similar analyses, citations in this opinion will be to the ’045 Decision. 
4 GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 

before checking the cache for stored banners. See id. col. 

14 l. 50–col. 15 l. 3.

Independent claim 49 is illustrative and reads in part: 

49. A method for enabling distribution of a banner over a computer network to a device . . . connected to the computer network via an 

intermediary server, comprising:

causing a first banner request signal to be 

transmitted from the device . . . , wherein 

said first banner request signal includes 

information intended to make said first 

banner request signal not blockable by the 

device or the intermediary server as a result of a storage in the device or the intermediary server of said requested banner 

prior to the generation of said first banner 

signal by the device; [the “non-blockable 

limitation”]

sending a banner location signal . . . to the 

device . . . ; and 

determining if said requested banner is 

stored on the device and, if . . . not . . . , 

then causing a second banner request signal to be transmitted . . . . 

Id. col. 30 ll. 37–51 (emphases added). 

According to the claim, the first non-blockable banner 

request will always pass through to the network, i.e., the 

cache will not “block” the request, regardless whether the 

banner being requested has already been stored in the 

cache. See id. col. 14 l. 57–col. 15 l. 3. The patents disclose multiple ways to configure the non-blockable request 

so that it will not be blocked by the cache. See id. col. 17 l. 

22–col. 18 l. 61. One such way is to have the URL address 

include the strings “cgi-bin” and “?,” which are strings 
GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 5

“conventionally used” to generate dynamic responses, 

making it “unsuitable for caching.” See id. col. 18 ll. 48–

61. The method then proceeds as a conventional banner

request would by checking the cache for the stored banner, and, if not previously stored in the cache, sending a 

second banner request for the banner. See id. col. 15 l. 

48–col. 16 l. 22. The patents therefore achieve the goal of 

accurate counting while preserving the performance gains 

of caching. See id. col. 14 ll. 33–45.

Google petitioned for a series of IPRs arguing that

certain claims of the ’045 and ’698 patents would have 

been obvious at the time their inventions were made. The 

Board instituted review as to claims 49–53, 55–59, 61–67, 

and 69–73 of the ’045 patent and claims 1–3, 5–7, 9, 11–

20, 22, 24–31, 34–39, 41–47, and 49 of the ’698 patent

(collectively, the “instituted claims”). The independent 

instituted claims all recite a similar non-blockable limitation. Compare id. col. 30 ll. 46–51 (claim 49), with id. col. 

31 ll. 23–26 (claim 59), and id. col. 31 ll. 55–59 (claim 64), 

and id. col. 32 ll. 27–31 (claim 72), and ’698 patent col. 28 

ll. 17–23 (claim 1), and id. col. 29 ll. 15–20 (claim 17), and 

id. col. 30 ll. 6–10 (claim 30), and id. col. 30 ll. 53–57 

(claim 39), and id. col. 31 ll. 25–30 (claim 44). Because 

Google relied solely on U.S. Patent 5,933,811 (“Angles”) as 

disclosing the non-blockable limitation, the Board noted

that determining whether Angles disclosed the nonblockable limitation would be dispositive of the obviousness inquiry as to all the cited prior art combinations. See

’045 Decision, slip op. at 18. 

Angles describes “a system and method for delivering 

customized electronic advertisements,” Angles Abstract,

and discloses an advertisement request that “references”

a Common Gateway Interface (“CGI”) script used to 

generate dynamic responses, see id. col. 12 l. 67–col. 13 l. 

19. In its Patent Owner Response, At Home argued that 

the mere mention of requesting CGI scripts was insufficient for disclosure of a non-blockable request, because 
6 GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 

not all requests that reference a CGI script are nonblockable. Google replied that because requests for CGI 

scripts are non-blockable by default due to its dynamic 

nature, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that disclosing a request to execute a CGI script

would also disclose a non-blockable request.

The Board determined that Angles did not teach the 

non-blockable limitation. See ’045 Decision, slip op. at 27. 

It found that the “essential problem with Angles is its

lack of disclosure.” Id. at 25. While Angles discloses an 

advertisement request for a CGI script, Angles is silent on 

any details regarding whether this request is nonblockable. See id. at 21–23. And “[w]hether such a request is non-blockable depends on the particular syntax 

used for the request,” such as the strings “cgi-bin” and “?,” 

which Angles also does not disclose. Id. at 21–22. 

The Board also reviewed a 1996 textbook on CGI programming (“1996 textbook”), see J.A. 1521–30, and a 1995 

World Wide Web Consortium (“W3C”) publication, see J.A. 

1566–70, which disclosed requests for CGI scripts that 

were blockable by cache. See ’045 Decision, slip op. at 23–

25. Dr. Kevin C. Almeroth, At Home’s expert, testified 

that those documents represent how a person of ordinary 

skill would understand CGI requests, and support the 

position that a person of ordinary skill in the art “would 

not have assumed automatically that Angles’s advertisement request is non-blockable.” See id. The Board credited Dr. Almeroth’s testimony, and, as a result, found that 

Angles was “inconclusive” about whether its advertisement request was a non-blockable request. See id. The 

Board therefore found that a person of ordinary skill in 

the art would not have understood Angles to disclose the 

non-blockable limitation. See id. at 29–30. 

The Board next considered At Home’s evidence of secondary considerations of nonobviousness: long felt but 

unsolved need, industry praise, and widespread adoption
GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 7

by the industry. See id. at 44–59. The Board found that 

evidence of secondary considerations was weak, but found

that At Home showed “persuasive” evidence of nonobviousness. See id. at 59–60.

Based on those findings, the Board concluded that 

Google had not met its burden to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the instituted claims are unpatentable as obvious. Id. at 61. Google timely appealed

to this court. We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. 

§ 1295(a)(4)(A).

DISCUSSION

We review the Board’s legal determinations de novo, 

and the Board’s factual findings underlying those determinations for substantial evidence. Belden Inc. v. BerkTek LLC, 805 F.3d 1064, 1073 (Fed. Cir. 2015). A finding 

is supported by substantial evidence if a reasonable mind 

might accept the evidence to support the finding. Consol. 

Edison Co. v. NLRB, 305 U.S. 197, 229 (1938). Obviousness is a question of law based on underlying factual 

findings, including “the scope and content of the prior art, 

differences between the prior art and the claims at issue, 

the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art, and any 

objective indicia of non-obviousness.” Randall Mfg. v. 

Rea, 733 F.3d 1355, 1362 (Fed. Cir. 2013) (citing KSR Int’l 

Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406 (2007)).

We first address the disclosure of Angles, which is key

to this appeal. Google argues that the Board erred in 

determining that Angles did not disclose a non-blockable 

request by failing to assess it from the perspective of a 

person of ordinary skill in the art. As support for its 

position, Google contends that requests for CGI scripts 

are non-blockable by default. And because Angles uses a 

standard web server, a person of ordinary skill in the art 

would have had no reason to consider that Angles referred

to anything other than standard CGI requests, which are 

“typically” non-blockable. Appellant’s Br. 31.
8 GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 

At Home responds that substantial evidence supports 

the Board’s finding that Angles does not disclose a nonblockable request. Specifically, At Home argues that the 

Board found persuasive the 1996 textbook, the 1995 W3C 

publication, and Dr. Almeroth’s testimony, all of which 

confirm that requests to CGI scripts can be blockable, and 

are therefore not necessarily non-blockable. Based on this 

evidence, At Home contends that the Board correctly 

determined that Angles was at best inconclusive, and a 

person of ordinary skill in the art would not have automatically assumed that the mere mention of a CGI request would also be a disclosure of a non-blockable 

request. 

We agree with At Home that the Board’s determination that a person of ordinary skill would not have understood Angles to disclose a non-blockable request was

supported by substantial evidence. The Board found 

persuasive the 1996 textbook and 1995 W3C publication, 

which disclosed CGI requests that were blockable. See

’045 Decision, slip op. at 23–25. The Board also credited 

Dr. Almeroth’s testimony, which stated that the 1996 

textbook and 1995 W3C publication represent how a 

person of ordinary skill would have understood CGI 

requests. See id. Based on that evidence, the Board 

found that a person of ordinary skill would not assume 

that Angles disclosed a non-blockable request. See id. 

Without more, such as specifics regarding the advertisement request’s functionality or syntax, the Board found 

Angles “inconclusive.” Id. at 21–23.

We see no error in the Board’s analysis of the cited 

references or its decision to credit Dr. Almeroth’s testimony. We therefore conclude that the Board’s finding that 

Angles does not disclose the non-blockable limitation was

supported by substantial evidence. Because all the independent instituted claims recite a non-blockable limitation and were argued together, see id. at 30, the Board did 

not err in concluding that none of the instituted claims 
GOOGLE LLC v. AT HOME BONDHOLDERS' LIQUID. 9

would have been obvious over the cited prior art combinations. 

At oral argument, Google characterized a “request” as 

a genus consisting of two species: blockable requests and 

non-blockable requests. See Oral Argument at 3:31–4:17, 

Google LLC v. At Home Bondholders’ Liquidating Tr., 

Nos. 16-2727, 16-2729 (Fed. Cir. Jan. 8, 2018), 

http://oralarguments.cafc.uscourts.gov/default.aspx?fl=20

16-2727.mp3. According to Google, because Angles discloses a CGI request, which can only be blockable or nonblockable, Angles must disclose a non-blockable request 

by virtue of disclosing a generic CGI request. See id. 

That argument, while a good try, ultimately misses the 

mark. The genus-species analysis is not applicable here. 

Silence is not a genus. The issue here is whether there is 

any disclosure of a non-blockable request at all. As discussed above, the Board properly determined that there 

was not. See ’045 Decision, slip op. at 20–30. 

At Home also argues that secondary considerations

support the Board’s conclusion of nonobviousness. Google 

argues that the Board found “nearly every piece of evidence . . . was of limited or no value,” Appellant’s Br. 38, 

and thus there could not have been substantial evidence 

to support the Board’s nonobviousness decision. Because 

we have agreed with the Board that the principal reference itself does not lead to a conclusion of obviousness, we 

need not evaluate those arguments relating to secondary 

considerations. 

We have considered the remaining arguments, but 

find them unpersuasive.

CONCLUSION

For the foregoing reasons, we affirm the decisions of 

the Board. 

AFFIRMED