Opinion ID: 820394
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: “Publishing”

Text: Lastly, claim 1 requires “publishing the electronic advertisement to one or more of the selected internet media venues.” ’025 Patent col. 65 ll. 10-17. The district court FUNCTION MEDIA v. GOOGLE 19 construed this term to mean “placing or making available the customized electronic advertisement within the framework of and at each internet media venue so that it is accessible by the end users, consumers, viewers, or buyers.” Markman Order, slip op. at 15-16 (emphasis added). FM argues that the district court erred by including the “and at” language requested by Google, which it believes improperly removes from the scope of the claim any system (including Google’s systems here) which sends ads directly to the buyer’s computers. Without those two words, FM argues, the claim would encompass the publishing of ads directly to buyers so long as the displayed ads look like they are “within the framework” of the website. We see no error in the district court’s construction. Claim 1 requires “publishing the electronic advertisement to one or more of the selected internet media venues . . . whereby the electronic advertisement is displayed on each of the one or more of the selected internet media venues.” ’025 Patent col. 65 ll. 11-16 (emphases added). Thus, the terms of the claim require the ads to be sent to the internet media venue, not simply made to look like they are on the internet media venue on the buyer’s computer as in Google’s system. And the claim language makes it clear that internet media venues are different than the buyers’ web browsers. Claim 1 requires an interface for specifying different presentation rules for each internet media venue, not for each buyer or each web browser. Furthermore, the parties agreed that internet media venues are “internet locations where presentations are placed or made available” such that they may be “accessible by the end users, consumers, viewers, or [b]uyers.” Markman Order, slip op. at 8. The claim terms thus require ads to be published to internet media venues, where they are accessible to buyers using web browsers. Although FM identifies various portions of the specification that it claims show that the patent contemplates 20 FUNCTION MEDIA v. GOOGLE delivering ads directly to buyers, we are not persuaded. For example, FM relies on a sentence in the specification stating that the PGP “creates presentations that can be accessed by the buying public . . . through . . . the Buyers Interface.” ’025 Patent col. 52 ll. 28-35. But the fact that ads may be accessed in browsers does not remove the requirement that they must be published to internet media venues. FM also argues that figure 1b shows the option of sending the ad directly to the buyer: Figure 1b does not show ads going directly to the buyer. Instead, ads are made available through the “Independent Presentation[s], Directories and Indexes or Independent Standalone Presentations,” shown in box 3000. See ’025 Patent fig. 1b. Indeed, FM acknowledges this—as it must—in its argument. Appellant’s Br. 39 (arguing that the path “from block 1000 to block 3000 and corresponding line extending from block 5000 to block 3000” supported its theory that ads could be sent directly to the web browser). But box 3000 does not include the buyer’s web browser or computer. See id. col. 10 ll. 8-15 FUNCTION MEDIA v. GOOGLE 21 (limiting the definition of “Internet Browser” to “[c]lientside program[s] that reside[] on the [b]uyer [i]nterface 5000”). The specifications reinforce the district court’s construction, not FM’s. We affirm the district court’s construction of the “publishing” element because the addition of the word “at” to the definition correctly indicates that the ads must be sent to the internet media venues, not to buyers.