Sungkyunkwan University Foundation for Corporate Collaboration v. Pinterest

Background

Sungkyunkwan University Foundation for Corporate Collaboration (SKKU) sued Pinterest, Inc. for patent infringement. The case concerns U.S. Patent No. 8,639,687, titled “User-customized content providing device, method and recorded medium.” SKKU is the patent’s exclusive owner. The technology concerns collecting user-preference information and using it to rank and provide content customized to a user’s interests.

The parties sought construction—the court’s determination of the legal meaning of patent claim language—for terms in claim 9. They originally disputed nine terms, but agreed during the June 17, 2020 hearing to remove one term from consideration, leaving eight disputed terms. The court applied the ordinary meaning of claim terms to a person skilled in the relevant field, giving primary weight to the patent’s claims and written description and considering the patent’s examination history and other evidence when appropriate.

Claim Constructions

Term 1: keyword detection using tag information

The court adopted SKKU’s construction. It held that the keyword-detection operation may occur either before or after the tag information is written to a storage location. The court rejected Pinterest’s proposed limitation that detection must involve reading text from an anchor tag after the user clicks it. The court explained that the patent also describes extracting keywords from stored tags.

Term 2: calculation based on keyword selections

The court adopted Pinterest’s construction. It construed the phrase to mean that the result is determined by calculating the number of times an anchor tag containing the keyword is clicked. The court declined SKKU’s proposal because the claim language refers to the number or frequency of selections, not merely whether the keyword was selected.

Term 3: content set related to a user’s search query

The court adopted SKKU’s proposed meaning of “content” but found that proposal incomplete as to the rest of the phrase. The court construed the term as an indexable and searchable data set, such as webpages, video, multimedia files, and PDF files, related to the user’s search-query word. It held that “related to the user’s search query word” needed no additional technical definition and should be understood according to its ordinary meaning.

Term 4: asking an apparatus

For “asking,” the court rejected Pinterest’s proposed limitation requiring a single query. It held that the word should retain its plain meaning: asking an apparatus to transmit user-preference information.

For “apparatus,” the court adopted SKKU’s broader construction. It construed the term to include, for example, an information-communication terminal having the same function as a network or an electronic device capable of accessing a web server through a network. The court rejected Pinterest’s proposal to limit “apparatus” to a user device, reasoning that the patent’s written description does not impose that limitation.

Term 5: information collected in the apparatus

The court held that “collected” needs no additional construction. Using its construction of “apparatus,” it construed the phrase to mean information collected in any storage medium of the apparatus, including data written in a mapping table or another storage location.

Term 6: keyword detected using tag information

The parties agreed that this term duplicated Term 1 and stipulated that it be removed from the court’s claim-construction consideration. The court therefore did not construe it separately.

Terms 7, 8, and 9: anchor tag, form tag, and web document

The court rejected both parties’ proposed constructions for these terms. It held that “an anchor tag,” “a form tag,” and “a web document outputted to the apparatus” require no further construction and should be understood according to their plain and ordinary meanings. In particular, the court declined to add an “HTML” limitation to all three terms.

Disposition

The court construed the disputed terms as stated in its order, adopted some of SKKU’s proposals, adopted Pinterest’s proposal for the keyword-selection calculation, rejected both parties’ proposals for Terms 7 through 9, and removed Term 6 from consideration. Judge Nathanael M. Cousins signed the order on June 26, 2020.