Content Square SAS v. Decibel Insight Ltd.
| Decision Date | 23 July 2021 |
| Docket Number | Civil Action No. 20-11184-FDS |
| Citation | 552 F.Supp.3d 165 |
| Parties | CONTENT SQUARE SAS and Content Square Israel Limited f/k/a Clicktale Limited, Plaintiffs, v. DECIBEL INSIGHT LIMITED and Decibel Insight, Inc., Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Massachusetts |
Goutam Patnaik, Pro Hac Vice, Desmarais LLP, New York, NY, Gwendolyn E. Tawresey, Ryan C. Deck, Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP, Boston, MA, for Plaintiffs.
Michael T. Zoppo, Pro Hac Vice, Fish & Richardson P.C., New York, NY, Adam J. Kessel, Fish & Richardson, P.C., Boston, MA, for Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER ON DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO DISMISS
This is an action for patent infringement. Plaintiffs Content Square SAS and Content Square Israel Limited f/k/a Clicktale Limited ("Clicktale") have sued defendants Decibel Insight Limited and Decibel Insight, Inc. (collectively, "Decibel") under 35 U.S.C. § 271 for infringement of five patents allegedly owned by Clicktale. The patents at issue concern methods and systems for web analytics.
Decibel has moved to dismiss the complaint for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. It contends that each asserted patent is directed to patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. It further contends that Content Square SAS lacks standing and thus should be dismissed from the action.
For the following reasons, that motion will be granted in part and denied in part.
The facts are stated as set forth in the complaint unless otherwise noted.
Content Square SAS is a company based in France. (Compl. ¶ 1). The complaint alleges that it is "the global leader in digital experience analytics providing its customers with granular understandings of user experience on their websites, mobile sites, and applications." (Id. ¶ 12).
Clicktale is a wholly owned subsidiary of Content Square SAS. (Id. ¶ 2). It is an "experience analytics" company based in Israel. (Id. ¶¶ 2, 13). It was acquired by Content Square SAS in July 2019, and is now known as Content Square Israel Limited. (Id. ). According to the complaint, upon acquisition, Content Square SAS "integrated Clicktale's key capabilities into its single expanded SaaS (Software as a Service) platform," which "empowers brands to create better experiences by tracking and analyzing customer behavior through billons of anonymous web, mobile and app interactions." (Id. ¶ 13).
Decibel Insight Limited is based in the United Kingdom. (Id. ¶ 3). Decibel Insight, Inc. is a Delaware corporation based in the United States. (Id. ¶ 4). The complaint alleges that Decibel's "digital experience analytics platform" infringes one or more claims of five patents owned by Clicktale. (Id. ¶¶ 5-6, 15).
The complaint asserts the following patents: U.S. Patent No. 10,079,737 ("the ’737 patent") ; U.S. Patent No. 10,063,645 ("the ’645 patent") ; U.S. Patent No. 9,792,365 ("the ’365 patent") ; U.S. Patent No. 9,508,081 ("the ’081 patent") ; and U.S. Patent No. 7,941,525 ("the ’525 patent").
The ’737 patent is titled "Method and System for Generating Comparable Visual Maps for Browsing Activity Analysis." ( ’737 patent at Title). It relates to "a method and system for generating a plurality of comparable visual maps of browsing activity of users." ). It states that "[a]lthough prior art solutions for monitoring browsing activity collect many details with regard to the activity, such solutions fail to provide an easy and intuitive mechanism for analyzing the gathered information." ). It includes exemplary screenshots of visual maps generated according to one embodiment:
(Id. at Fig. 2B). In this example, the left map shows mouse movements on a webpage during the preceding week, while the right map shows mouse clicks on the same webpage over the same time period. ). To produce such maps, a user only needs to choose "the parameter(s) ... that [he] wishes to analyze." ). He does not need "to go through the process of selecting a web page and parameters when a comparable visual map is selected, as this information is automatically populated when the user selects the compare button." ). Each map is then "proportionally resized to a page view on a client device" and "relative to the other map." ).
The ’645 patent is titled "Method and System for Monitoring and Tracking Browsing Activity on Handled Devices." ( ’645 patent at Title). It discloses, among other things, "a method for monitoring and tracking browsing activity of a user on a client device." ). That method comprises "receiving ... browsing activity information" and "page information" from a client device—a "handheld device having a touch screen display"—and "generating ... an exposure map" based on that information. ). That exposure map, which is described in one embodiment and by the parties as a "heat map," indicates the "salience of each area of a page-view respective of the page displayed over the client device and visited by the user." (Id. col. 2 ll. 52-55; id. col. 3 l. 51; Def. Mem. at 11, 12; Pl. Opp. at 1).
The ’365 patent is titled "Method and System for Tracking and Gathering Multivariate Testing Data." ( ’365 patent at Title). It relates generally to "techniques for evaluating changes to a website." ). According to the patent, one way to increase webpage traffic is to use multivariate testing, where "different versions of the same webpage are delivered to different users to determine whether users prefer a certain version of that webpage." ). The prior art was limited to evaluating changes to one website because there was no tool "for analyzing multivariate tests performed across different websites" or "for gathering multivariate tests performed by different testing services." ). The ’365 patent discloses "a method for tracking and gathering data respective of multivariate testing on a plurality of webpages." ).
The ’081 patent and the ’525 patent are part of the same patent family and share largely similar specifications. They are titled "Method and System for Monitoring an Activity of a User." ( ’081 patent at Title; ’525 patent at Title). They are generally directed to tracking the web-browsing activities of users. ( ’081 patent at Abstract; ’525 patent at Abstract). They explain that prior art limited the type of data collected using client-side scripts to "per-page" data, such as URL, referrer, load time, IP, browser type, and screen resolution. ). They further explain, however, that data accessible to client-side scripts is not limited to such data; instead, it includes "per-action" data, such as mouse movement, webpage scrolling, window resizing, click events, and keyboard use. ). They state that "it would be desirable to provide a system and method for tracking and analyzing web site traffic" that, among other things, "will collect information beyond traditional ‘per-page’ data." ).
Using the tracked data, the claimed invention "generat[es] user activity information" to construct a visual replay of a user's activities on a website. .
On June 22, 2020, Content Square SAS and Clicktale filed this action against Decibel. The complaint asserts five counts of patent infringement under 35 U.S.C. § 271 : infringement of the ’525 patent (Count 1); infringement of the ’081 patent (Count 2); infringement of the ’365 patent (Count 3); infringement of the ’645 patent (Count 4); and infringement of the ’737 patent (Count 5).
Decibel has moved to dismiss the complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim upon which relief can be granted. It contends that each asserted patent is directed to patent-ineligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. § 101. It further contends that Content Square SAS lacks standing and thus should be dismissed.
To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint must state a claim that is plausible on its face. See Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly , 550 U.S. 544, 570, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). For a claim to be plausible, the "[f]actual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level ...." Id. at 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955 (internal citations omitted). "The plausibility standard is not akin to a ‘probability requirement,’ but it asks for more than a sheer possibility that a defendant has acted unlawfully." Ashcroft v. Iqbal , 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (quoting Twombly , 550 U.S. at 556, 127 S.Ct. 1955 ). When determining whether a complaint satisfies that standard, a court must assume the truth of all well-pleaded facts and give the plaintiff the benefit of all reasonable inferences. See Ruiz v. Bally Total Fitness Holding Corp. , 496 F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 2007) (citing Rogan v. Menino , 175 F.3d 75, 77 (1st Cir. 1999) ). Dismissal is appropriate if the complaint fails to set forth "factual allegations, either direct or inferential, respecting each material element necessary to sustain recovery under some actionable legal theory." Gagliardi v. Sullivan , 513 F.3d 301, 305 (1st Cir. 2008) (quoting Centro Medico del Turabo, Inc. v. Feliciano de Melecio , 406 F.3d 1, 6 (1st Cir. 2005) ).
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