Opinion ID: 4099051
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Obviousness of Claims 20–22 in View of RFC 1635

Text: Obviousness requires assessing (1) the “level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art,” (2) the “scope and content of the prior art,” (3) the “differences between the prior art and the claims at issue,” and (4) “secondary considerations” of non-obviousness such as “commercial success, long felt but unsolved needs, failure of others, etc.” KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 406 (2007). B.E. TECHNOLOGY, L.L.C. v. GOOGLE, INC. 15 Claim 20 depends on claim 11 and recites requesting and receiving demographic information in response to a user request to download software, prior to providing the user with download access. ’314 patent col. 24, ll. 9–14. Claims 21–22 recite examining demographic information for required information before providing a user with download access, or providing anonymous download access in exchange for demographically-relatable computer usage information. ’314 patent col. 24, ll. 15–27. B.E. assigns error to the Board for failing to establish a motivation to combine Guyot and RFC 1635, arguing that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not have considered an FTP protocol in seeking a solution to obtaining answers to a user questionnaire. 5 Microsoft responds that RFC 1635 is analogous art because it was “reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor is involved.” K-TEC, Inc. v. Vita-Mix Corp., 696 F.3d 1364, 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2012). Microsoft explains that B.E. misstates the ’314 patent’s field of invention as “collect[ing] information using a questionnaire” because RFC 1635 is actually from the same field, i.e., “provid[ing] a user . . . with access to information resources via the Internet.” Appellee Br. at 65. We agree with Microsoft. The ’314 patent is not di- rected to a questionnaire, but to a “Computer Interface Method and Apparatus with Targeted Advertising.” ’314 patent Title. It provides a “method and apparatus for providing an automatically upgradeable software applica- 5 We affirm the Board’s finding that claim 15 would have been obvious based on Guyot and Robinson, which B.E. does not challenge. Claim 15 depends on claim 11 and recites the use of a cookie to identify a user. We agree that a person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Guyot and Robinson to arrive at claim 15. 16 B.E. TECHNOLOGY, L.L.C. v. GOOGLE, INC. tion that includes targeted advertising based upon demographics and user interaction with the computer.” ’314 patent Abstract. Claim 20 recites not only requesting and receiving demographic information, but also accessing and downloading software. Claim 22 recites anonymous download access. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have considered FTP protocols, including RFC 1635, in creating or improving upon a system to access and download software. B.E. concedes that the FTP protocol “was designed to make it easy to download software and files without having to answer questions.” Reply. Br. at 22. The Board properly found that a person of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Guyot with RFC 1635 because he or she would not have been looking at “questionnaires,” but at methods of input and output in GUI systems that allow for the access and download of software between a client computer and a server. The FTP protocol fits squarely within this field. Appellee Br. at 65. B.E. makes no separate arguments for claims 21–22. Therefore, we affirm the Board’s finding that claims 20–22 would have been obvious in view of Guyot and RFC 1635.