Obviousness

As of April 26, 2026, this analysis evaluates the obviousness of US patent US5905865 under 35 U.S.C. § 103, based on the prior art references cited during its examination. An invention is considered obvious if the differences between the invention and the prior art are such that the invention as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA).

For the purposes of this analysis, a PHOSITA in late 1995 would likely have a degree in computer science or electrical engineering, with several years of experience in network communications, data broadcasting, and emerging internet technologies like the World Wide Web.

The core concept of US5905865 is the real-time, synchronized "push" of an actionable on-line address (e.g., a URL) to a computer, which corresponds to a simultaneous audio/video broadcast and causes the computer to automatically access that remote on-line service without user intervention.

Based on the cited prior art, compelling arguments for obviousness can be constructed by combining existing technologies that a PHOSITA would have been motivated to integrate.

Obviousness Argument 1: Combination of US 5,581,693 and US 5,594,936

A primary argument for obviousness can be made by combining the teachings of the '693 patent (embedding program-related data in a TV signal) with the '936 patent (using a paging system for targeted data broadcast).

• What the Prior Art Teaches:

  • The '693 patent explicitly teaches a system for sending data to a computer that is directly related to the television program being broadcast. It accomplishes this by embedding the data in the vertical blanking interval (VBI) of the broadcast signal itself. This establishes the fundamental concept of synchronizing a data stream to a computer with a corresponding video broadcast.
  • The '936 patent teaches a robust and widely deployed method for wirelessly broadcasting data to targeted receivers using a paging network. It introduces the idea of pushing information to a device rather than having the device pull it from a source.

• Motivation to Combine: A PHOSITA would have recognized a significant limitation in the '693 patent's approach: it required a specialized TV tuner card in the computer to extract data from the VBI. This was not standard equipment for most computer users in 1995. A PHOSITA would be motivated to find a more accessible and universal method to transmit this program-related data to the computer. The paging system described in the '936 patent presented an obvious and commercially viable alternative. Paging networks were ubiquitous and designed for pushing small packets of alphanumeric data—a perfect fit for the type of data (like an address) envisioned. The motivation would be to replace the specialized, hardware-dependent VBI data-extraction method of '693 with the more flexible and widespread wireless broadcast method of '936.

• How the Combination Renders the Claims Obvious:

  • This combination directly teaches the core elements of Claim 34 and Claim 35. The combination describes a system (Claim 35) with a broadcaster (TV station), an address transmitter (the paging system from '936), and a receiver connected to a computer, where addresses corresponding to the TV program are transmitted. It specifically anticipates the method of using a paging system to transmit an address related to TV programming (Claim 34).
  • With the rise of the World Wide Web in the 1995-1996 timeframe, a PHOSITA would have found it obvious that the most useful and logical "data" to send in this context would be a Uniform Resource Locator (URL). At the time, URLs were becoming the standard way to reference content on the internet. Therefore, replacing the generic "data" of '693 with a URL would be a simple and obvious design choice.
  • The final step—automatically accessing the on-line service—would be an obvious implementation to a software developer of the era. Once a computer receives a text string identified as a URL, the most logical action is to pass it to the default web browser to open. This would be a trivial programming step, making the "automatic" nature of the access an obvious consequence of the motivation to create a seamless user experience.

Obviousness Argument 2: Combination of US 5,504,518 and US 5,594,936

An alternative argument for obviousness can be made by starting with the interactive television concept in the '518 patent and making it automatic using the "push" technology taught by the '936 patent.

• What the Prior Art Teaches:

  • The '518 patent establishes the idea of a system that provides supplemental information from a database related to a specific television program. It creates the link between a broadcast and a remote data source. However, it functions primarily as a "pull" system, requiring a user to request the information.
  • The '936 patent, as before, teaches the use of a paging system to "push" data to users.

• Motivation to Combine: A PHOSITA looking to improve the user experience of the '518 system would be motivated to remove the friction of requiring a user to actively request information. The goal of broadcast enhancements is often to create a more immersive and effortless "lean-back" experience. The "push" methodology of the '936 paging system provides an obvious solution to transform the '518 system from an interactive, "pull" model to a passive, "push" model. The motivation would be to automatically deliver the supplemental information to the user in sync with the broadcast, eliminating the need for manual requests and creating a more powerful, directed experience.

• How the Combination Renders the Claims Obvious:

  • This combination teaches broadcasting audio/video information while simultaneously transmitting a corresponding address, as outlined in Claim 1 and Claim 17. The '518 patent provides the concept of corresponding information, and the '936 patent provides the means of simultaneous, independent transmission to one or many computers.
  • As in the first argument, substituting a URL for the generic "supplemental information" of the '518 patent would be an obvious choice for a PHOSITA in the mid-1990s, given the rapid growth of the Web.
  • The interactivity described in Claim 27 (sending response information from the computer back to the on-line service) is also foreshadowed by this combination. The '518 patent itself describes a system where users can send requests, establishing a two-way communication concept. Once the computer is automatically directed to a website via the "pushed" URL, the inherent interactivity of the website itself (filling out forms, clicking links) would fulfill the requirement of sending response information back. A PHOSITA would understand that directing a user to a website inherently enables this two-way communication.

In both combinations, the '865 patent claims what would have been a logical and obvious integration of known technologies to a PHOSITA seeking to merge the popular passive medium of television with the burgeoning interactive medium of the internet. The key inventive step claimed—the automatic access—would have been seen as the most logical and necessary software implementation to make the combined system functional and useful.