Federal Circuit Affirms Invalidity of WAG Streaming Media Patent Claims

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit on Friday, August 7, affirmed a Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) decision invalidating certain claims of WAG Acquisition, LLC’s patent for a streaming media technology patent as anticipated. Judge Stark authored the opinion of the court.

WAG owns U.S. Patent No. 8,327,011 (the ‘011 patent), titled ‘Streaming Media Buffering System,’ which relates to technology for playing audio or video content while that content is still being downloaded from a media source, including from the internet. As the Federal Circuit explained, this type of ‘buffering’ is generally achieved by transmitting data from the media source faster than it is played to the user. In this patent dispute, Independent claim 1 and a dependent claim were at issue on appeal.

In August 2021, Friendfinder Networks Inc. and Steamray Inc. petitioned for reexamination of claims 1 and 4 in the ‘011 patent. The following year, an examiner issued final rejections of both claims, and then the PTAB affirmed the examiner’s final rejection determinations. WAG then appealed to the Federal Circuit after the Board denied WAG’s request for reconsideration in July 2024.

On appeal, WAG challenged the Board’s determination that U.S. Patent No. 6,005,600 (Hill) anticipated two limitations of independent claim 1, as well as dependent claim 4.

Federal Circuit Finds Hill Anticipated the Claims

First, the Federal Circuit addressed WAG’s challenge to the Board’s finding that Hill anticipated limitation [1.i.1] of claim 1, which requires the media player to transmit a request to the media source for one or more media data elements, “each identified by a serial number.” The Board found that Hill’s prefetch protocol satisfied the limitation because its buffer manager sends requests for new frames to a cliplist manager, and the frame request includes a “global frame number.” Additionally, the Board relied on Hill’s disclosure that a media source could be accessed through a network server or could be “a site on the Internet.”

In response, WAG argued that the Board had implicitly construed the ‘011 patent claims broadly enough to encompass transmission requests sent over non-Internet sources, when the claims actually require transmission over the Internet. The Federal Circuit declined to decide both whether the Board had implicitly construed the claim and whether that construction would be correct. Instead, according to the court, Hill disclosed the transmission limitation even under WAG’s preferred interpretation because Hill expressly discussed accessing a source through a network server or Internet site. Therefore, the court found substantial evidence supporting the Board’s finding.

The court was similarly unpersuaded by WAG’s argument that Hill’s “global frame number” did not satisfy the requirement that each requested media data element must be identified by a serial number. The panel agreed with the Board that the limitation was broad enough to encompass Hill’s cliplist manager functionality, where requests for frames include a global frame number.

Buffer Management Limitation

Next, WAG challenged the Board’s finding that Hill anticipated limitation [1.g], which requires a player buffer manager that maintains a record of the serial number of the last media data element received and stored in the buffer. WAG explained that the Board had improperly “equat[ed] the last element requested with the last element received.” Disagreeing, the Federal Circuit found substantial evidence that supported both of the Board’s independent grounds for finding the limitation disclosed by Hill.

The court explained that Hill’s buffer manager checks the global frame number of the last frame stored in the player buffer and adds one to determine the next frame that is needed in the playback sequence. Once the next frame is added into the buffer, the buffer manager stores its global frame number to use in determining which frame to request next. Additionally, the Federal Circuit found it reasonable for the Board to conclude from Hill’s specification that the system must store the global frame number of the last received frame in memory. Though WAG noted that the ‘011 patent’s system can receive media elements out of order, the court found it did not undermine the Board’s finding.

Faster-Than-Playback Requirement

Lastly, WAG challenged the Board’s finding that Hill anticipated dependent claim 4, which requires the media player to receive the predetermined number of media data elements at a faster rate than the rate of playing the elements. The Board relied on Hill’s disclosure of an embodiment where, if the playback rate is 24 frames per second, the sources could be asked to supply up to 48 frames per second. The Board held that this disclosed an aggregate rate of receiving frames that exceeded the playback speed.

WAG argued, instead, that claim 4 requires each individual frame to be provided at a rate faster than the playback speed. The court rejected WAG’s reasoning, stating that “[n]o intrinsic evidence supports WAG’s overly narrow interpretation of dependent claim 4.” The claim’s broad language, according to the Federal Circuit, does not limit the rate at which individual media data elements must be sent, so long as “the overall rate of receipt is more rapid than the playback rate. The court added that the fact WAG’s claims could be practiced in the manner WAG proposed did not mean they were limited to that.

The court found substantial evidence supporting the Board’s determination that Hill disclosed the limitation because it teaches that the buffer manager can request two frames when the buffer falls more than one frame below its requested threshold, and those frames may be supplied at a rate as high as two times the playback speed. Therefore, the Federal Circuit concluded that “WAG has demonstrated no error by the Board.”

No Improper Reliance on Related IPR

The Federal Circuit, in a footnote, also rejected WAG’s argument that the Board improperly relied on its analysis from an inter partes review (IPR) involving U.S. Patent No. 8,122,141 (the ‘141 patent), a parent of the ‘011 patent, in construing claim 4. The court said there was “no indication that the Board placed dispositive weight – or any weight at all” on the parent’s analysis, and explained that the Board referenced the ‘141 patent only while rejecting WAG’s argument that the earlier construction supported its proposed construction of claim 4.

The Federal Circuit therefore affirmed the Board’s judgment, having found WAG’s remaining arguments unpersuasive.

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Author billperry