claim chart for patent no 7,206,756

Question

In patent no. 7,206,756, I am unable to get what is the new thing in Joshua's method of commercial transaction over Internet as compared to prior arts. I need to prepare a claim chart for claim 1.

My objective

identify and list five infringement targets that map onto the subject matter disclosed in Claim 1

this is the first time I making claim chart. Can someone help?

Claim 1

A method, employing a browser in data communication over a network with a server, for determining a price of a product, said method comprising:

providing information concerning said product for display in a browser window, said information including a first offered price of said product;

receiving information from said browser indicating an agreement by a user of the browser of said first offered price for said product;

storing product related information including said first offered price, wherein said product is configured with multiple features, said stored product related information includes said features of said product and said stored product related information is associated with an identification code corresponding to said user of the browser;

receiving a purchase request associated with said identification code, wherein the purchase request indicates an agreement to purchase said product for said first offered price; prior to responding to said purchase request, determining if an event has occurred prior to receiving said purchase request to cause modification of the first offered price, wherein the event that caused modification of the first offered price is unrelated to any data received from said user subsequent to storing said product related information; and

changing said first offered price of said product to a second offered price of said product in response to said event that caused modification of the first offered price.

Answer 1

So, you've asked essentially 2 different questions, (1) what's the inventive aspect to the '756 and (2) how to create a claim chart against 5 products.

For the first question, it may be helpful to read the examiner's reason for allowance in the file history wrapper. He wrote about 8 pages on the topic on Dec 6, 2006. It's available in Public Pair.

As to the second question, google the phrase "patent claim chart generator" for online solutions. Otherwise, build a 2-column table where the first column contains the claim elements and the second column contains that element in a product. There's a real art involved here, so if it's your first stab, you may want to learn from someone who's done them before.

And you know this patent was litigated in EdTX, Right? See Versata Software, Inc. et al v. Internet Brands, Inc. f/k/a CarsDirect.com, 2:08-CV-313-TJW. Looks like this case is being appealed as well.

May be an exercise in futility. Good luck!

Answer 2

A claim chart is a table with two columns and a row for each element of the claim + one row at the top for the preamble. The preamble and claim elements go top to bottom in the boxes on the left. On the right, opposite each of those boxes, you briefly state what in the allegedly infringing system meets that particular claim element.

Answer 3

Following up on George's answer above, this is the basic cartoon idea of a Claim Chart.

Often, each element of the claim is underlined and the analogous element of the product is also underlined for emphasis. For example:

• "A f̲u̲z̲z̲y̲ ̲s̲t̲r̲u̲c̲t̲u̲r̲e̲ that fetches a ball, comprising:"

• "Shady Mills Puppy Farm operates a dog kennel website through which it sells s̲h̲a̲g̲g̲y̲ ̲d̲o̲g̲s̲ that fetch balls. The f̲u̲z̲z̲y̲ ̲s̲t̲r̲u̲c̲t̲u̲r̲e̲ depicted below is one of these Shady Mills dogs"