Obviousness

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103

To assess obviousness, we need to consider whether the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) before the effective filing date of the claimed invention (April 24, 2013, based on the priority date). This involves determining the scope and content of the prior art, ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claimed invention, and evaluating any motivation a POSITA would have had to combine references to arrive at the claimed invention.

The patent abstract and description indicate the invention is generally directed to "methods and apparatus to correlate census measurement data with panel data" by including device location information in beacons sent from client devices accessing tagged media and comparing that location information to known panelist locations.

The provided patent text explicitly identifies one prior art reference in the description:

• Blumenau, U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,637, entitled "Content Display Monitor": This patent is cited as disclosing "Methods, apparatus and systems for tagging media in the manner described above" (i.e., inserting or embedding a tag within the source code of media, causing a browser to send a beacon to an audience measurement entity when the media is rendered).

Without the full text of the claims of US12063402, a definitive obviousness analysis against specific claim language is not possible. However, based on the abstract and detailed description, we can identify potential areas of obviousness when considering a POSITA in the field of audience measurement around the priority date.

The Level of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA): A POSITA in this field would likely have a bachelor's degree in computer science, electrical engineering, or a related field, and several years of experience in developing or maintaining systems for media consumption tracking, web analytics, or audience measurement. They would be familiar with web technologies (HTML, JavaScript, HTTP protocols), database management, and basic geospatial data processing.

Potential Combination: Blumenau (U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,637) in view of common general knowledge and technological advancements in location-aware devices.

Motivation to Combine:
A POSITA in the audience measurement field, aware of the teachings of Blumenau and the growing prevalence of mobile devices with location capabilities (such as GPS), would have been motivated to enhance the accuracy and utility of census data by incorporating location information.

• Problem to be solved: The patent explicitly states the problem that traditional server-level impression data "does not enable distinguishing media impressions from panelists and non-panelists or exposure to cached media" and that IP addresses are unreliable for unique device/user identification. There is a desire to "link demographics and/or other user information to the census data" to understand media reach and effectiveness.
• Blumenau's contribution: Blumenau teaches the fundamental concept of tagging media with executable instructions (like JavaScript) that, when executed by a browser, cause a "beacon" to be sent to an audience measurement entity, thereby collecting "census like data" from "panelists and non-panelists alike." This established the mechanism for collecting broad impression data.
• Common general knowledge and technological advancements: By the priority date of April 24, 2013, mobile devices (smartphones, tablets) equipped with GPS and other location-determining technologies (e.g., cellular tower triangulation, Wi-Fi positioning) were widespread. Many applications and web browsers on these devices had the capability to access and transmit location data, often with user permission (e.g., via a "location application programming interface (API)"). It was well-known in the industry that location data could provide valuable context to user activity.
• Motivation to integrate location data into beacons: A POSITA would readily understand that including precise device location information in the beacons transmitted as per Blumenau's teachings would directly address the identified problem of linking census data to demographic information, especially for panelists. If the location of a device sending a beacon could be correlated with a known "reference location" of a registered panelist (e.g., their home), then that impression could be definitively attributed to the panelist and their associated demographic data. This would provide richer insights into media consumption that "server logs do not typically uniquely identify the requesting device and/or the user making the request."
• Predictable results: Integrating readily available location data from a client device into an existing beacon mechanism (as taught by Blumenau) would have been a predictable step to improve the granularity and associability of audience measurement data. The result, associating impressions with panelists based on geographic proximity, is a logical extension of existing audience measurement goals.
• Simple implementation: The patent describes the location identifier being included in the beacon (e.g., as an HTTP GET or POST message). The pseudo-code in FIG. 10 shows retrieving location information via a "location application programming interface (API)" if available, and then defining the beacon to include this information. This approach would have been considered a straightforward application of existing technologies by a POSITA.

Therefore, a combination of Blumenau (U.S. Pat. No. 6,108,637) with the common general knowledge and readily available mobile device location technologies would likely render the core concept of correlating census data with panel data based on device location obvious to a POSITA. The motivation would be to enhance the value and precision of audience measurement data by overcoming limitations of existing census and panel-based systems.