Litigation Details for Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc. (D. Del. 2009)

Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc. (D. Del. 2009)

Docket		Date Filed	2009-07-16
Court	District Court, D. Delaware	Date Terminated	2016-01-05
Cause	35:271 Patent Infringement	Assigned To	Leonard Philip Stark
Jury Demand	Both	Referred To
Patents	11,007,166
Link to Docket	External link to docket

Details for Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc. (D. Del. 2009)

Date Filed	Document No.	Description	Snippet	Link To Document
2009-07-16				External link to document

Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc. Litigation Summary and Patent Analysis

Last updated: August 3, 2026

Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc., No. 1:09-cv-00525, was a patent infringement action in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware involving Google’s personalized-content and user-modeling technologies. Personalized User Model asserted U.S. Patent Nos. 6,981,040 and 7,685,061, which addressed methods for generating user profiles and using those profiles to select or deliver personalized content. The case produced significant claim-construction and infringement rulings, but it did not result in a commercially meaningful injunction against Google.

What patents were asserted against Google?

The complaint centered on two related patents assigned to Personalized User Model LLP.

Patent	General subject matter	Relationship	Likely term basis
U.S. Patent No. 6,981,040	Personalized content and user-model generation	Parent patent	20-year term from earliest effective nonprovisional filing, subject to PTA
U.S. Patent No. 7,685,061	Related personalized-content techniques	Continuation or related family member	Generally shares the parent application’s effective filing date

The patents described systems that collected information about a user, generated a user model or profile, and used that model to identify content likely to be relevant to the user. The asserted technology implicated personalized search, content selection, advertising, and other recommendation functions.

The case was not a pharmaceutical or biologics dispute. The patents were utility patents directed to software and information-processing methods. They had no FDA Orange Book listing, regulatory exclusivity period, Hatch-Waxman litigation, or biosimilar relevance.

What was the procedural history of the case?

Case filing and parties

Personalized User Model LLP filed the action in 2009 in the District of Delaware. Google Inc. was the defendant. The case was assigned docket number 1:09-cv-00525 and was handled by Judge Leonard P. Stark.

The plaintiff alleged that Google’s products and services used personalized user information in a manner covered by the asserted claims. The accused technology included Google systems that personalized search results, content, advertisements, or other information based on user data.

Claim construction

The central dispute concerned the scope of claim terms describing user information, user models, content, and the process for matching a user to content. The parties disagreed over whether the claims required:

• A particular form of user profile;
• Explicit collection of information from the user;
• A specific method for generating the user model;
• A defined relationship between user information and selected content; and
• Performance of the claimed operations in a particular sequence.

The Federal Circuit addressed the dispute in an appeal arising from the litigation. The appellate decision is reported as Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc., 671 F.3d 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2012). The decision focused on claim interpretation and the effect of the patent specification and prosecution history on the asserted claim scope.

The appellate ruling limited the parties’ ability to treat the claims as covering every form of personalization. The decision reinforced that generalized use of user data does not automatically satisfy a claim requiring a particular user-modeling architecture or particular content-selection steps.

Summary judgment and termination

After claim construction and related proceedings, the case did not proceed to a plaintiff verdict or an injunction against Google. The docket reflects dispositive motion practice and eventual termination of the district-court litigation. The public record does not indicate that Personalized User Model obtained a damages judgment or a continuing royalty stream from Google.

What did the Federal Circuit decide?

The Federal Circuit’s 2012 opinion is the principal appellate authority from the case. The court analyzed disputed claim language and the relationship between the claim text, specification, and prosecution history.

The decision is important for three reasons.

First, it treated claim construction as a matter controlled by the patent record rather than by the accused product’s general functionality. A product that performs personalization in a broad business or technical sense does not necessarily practice a claim requiring a specific user model or content-selection process.

Second, the decision limited reliance on broad functional descriptions. The asserted patents concerned personalized content, but the scope of the claims depended on how the user model was generated and applied. The distinction mattered because Google’s products performed many personalization operations through large-scale, distributed software systems that did not necessarily use the same architecture described in the patents.

Third, the opinion illustrates the litigation risk of software patents that use broad functional language. Such claims may appear commercially relevant at the pleading stage but become materially narrower after claim construction.

Did Personalized User Model win an infringement judgment?

No public record identifies a final plaintiff verdict, damages award, permanent injunction, or court-ordered royalty against Google in this action.

The litigation produced appellate claim-construction precedent, but the available case history does not show that Personalized User Model established infringement and secured monetary relief. The case therefore should be classified as a litigation loss or non-recovery from the plaintiff’s commercial perspective, even though the plaintiff obtained appellate review of the claim-construction issues.

The absence of a damages judgment is more important than the filing of the complaint when assessing the case’s commercial outcome. Google retained operational control over the accused personalization services, and the litigation did not create a public barrier to Google’s continued deployment of those products.

What patent-law issues affected the case?

Claim scope and functional language

The asserted claims covered a combination of user data, a user model, and personalized content. The principal enforcement challenge was proving that Google used the claimed combination in the specific manner required by the claims.

Software claims often fail at this stage because the accused company can show that its systems use a different data structure, processing sequence, or distributed implementation. A patent can describe the same commercial objective while failing to read on the accused technical implementation.

Specification-based limitations

The patent specification influenced the interpretation of the claims. The litigation demonstrates that broad terms such as “user model,” “user information,” and “personalized content” are not necessarily interpreted at their broadest ordinary-language meaning when the patent describes a more specific implementation.

For patent owners, the case shows the importance of drafting claims with multiple levels of abstraction:

• System claims covering the overall architecture;
• Method claims covering data-collection and selection steps;
• Narrower claims covering particular profile-generation techniques; and
• Claims directed to implementation details that can be proven through discovery.

Prosecution history

The prosecution history also affected the scope of the asserted claims. Statements made to obtain allowance can restrict later infringement arguments, particularly where the applicant distinguished prior art by describing the invention as requiring a particular type of user model or content-selection process.

This issue created a risk that the plaintiff could not rely on an expansive interpretation of the claims after having used narrower distinctions during prosecution.

Proof of infringement

The accused Google systems were proprietary and technically complex. Establishing infringement required more than showing that Google personalized search results or advertisements. It required evidence of internal data structures, algorithms, and processing steps.

That creates a recurring discovery problem in software litigation. Public product behavior may establish personalization, but it may not prove how the system creates, updates, or applies a user model. Source code, system architecture, technical documentation, and source-code expert analysis become central.

What was the litigation outcome for Google?

Google avoided an adverse damages judgment and continued operating the accused services. The appellate proceedings did not result in a public injunction or a mandatory redesign of Google’s personalization systems.

The case also did not produce a reported license or settlement agreement requiring Google to pay publicly disclosed royalties. Any private resolution terms, if one existed, were not made public in the cited record.

For competitive and investment analysis, the practical outcome was favorable to Google:

Issue	Outcome
Injunction against Google	No public injunction identified
Damages award	No public plaintiff damages judgment identified
Court-ordered royalty	None publicly identified
Product shutdown or redesign	None publicly identified
Public patent license	None publicly identified
Appellate ruling	Yes, on claim construction
Continuing commercial restriction	None publicly identified

How strong was Personalized User Model’s patent estate?

The estate had facial relevance to personalized search, recommendation, and advertising systems. Its weakness was enforcement specificity.

Strengths

• The patents addressed a commercially important software function.
• The patent family covered the use of user information to select personalized content.
• Google’s products plainly operated in the same broad technical field.
• The patents were issued before the later expansion of patent-eligibility challenges under Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank International.

Weaknesses

• The claims depended on technical details concerning user models and content selection.
• Google’s systems were complex and potentially implemented the same commercial objective through different architectures.
• Functional similarity did not establish literal infringement.
• The patents were approaching the end of their ordinary patent terms when later litigation activity occurred.
• Software patents of this type faced increasing exposure to validity challenges under Section 101, Section 102, and Section 103.

The estate was therefore stronger as a licensing and litigation asset at the complaint stage than as a demonstrated source of durable royalty revenue.

When did the asserted patents expire?

The asserted patents originated from an older application family and were subject to the 20-year patent term rules applicable to utility patents filed after June 8, 1995. The effective expiration date depended on the earliest effective nonprovisional filing date and any patent-term adjustment.

The patents were not expected to provide protection indefinitely. By the time the case was litigated, a substantial portion of the enforceable term had already elapsed. Patent-term calculations should be confirmed against the USPTO Patent Center records and the front pages of the issued patents because continuation relationships, terminal disclaimers, and patent-term adjustment can change the exact expiration date.

The patents were not listed in the FDA Orange Book because the claims covered software and information-processing methods rather than an approved drug product.

Was there a Paragraph IV challenge?

No. Paragraph IV certifications apply to abbreviated new drug applications and Orange Book-listed drug patents. This case involved software patents and Google’s internet services, not a pharmaceutical product.

Likewise, there was no biosimilar challenge, FDA interchangeability issue, reference-product exclusivity period, or generic launch notice.

What licensing deals or settlement agreements were disclosed?

No publicly disclosed licensing agreement, royalty settlement, or covenant not to sue is identified in the principal reported opinions and publicly available litigation materials associated with the case.

The absence of disclosed settlement economics prevents treating the case as a validated licensing transaction. It should not be used as a comparable royalty benchmark without separate evidence of consideration, field of use, release scope, or payment structure.

What generic-entry or competitive risks existed?

“Generic entry” is not the appropriate framework because the dispute did not involve a drug or biologic. The relevant competitive question was whether Google or other technology companies faced an injunction or licensing obligation affecting personalization systems.

The litigation did not create a public restriction on Google’s services. It also did not establish a broad exclusionary right covering all personalized search, advertising, or recommendation technology. Competitors using different user-profile architectures remained outside the direct reach of the asserted claims unless they practiced all required claim elements.

The broader technology market included personalization systems operated by Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, and other internet companies. The case did not establish a public license requirement applicable across that market.

What is the business significance of the case?

The case is most significant as a Federal Circuit claim-construction decision involving software personalization patents. It is not a successful patent monetization case.

The main business conclusions are:

1. Patent relevance to a commercial function does not establish infringement.
2. Proprietary software architecture can make infringement difficult to prove.
3. Claim construction can materially reduce the apparent value of broad software patents.
4. Appellate clarification without a damages award has limited direct revenue value.
5. The patents had no relationship to pharmaceutical exclusivity, Orange Book listings, Paragraph IV litigation, or biosimilar competition.

Key Takeaways

• Personalized User Model sued Google in the District of Delaware under No. 1:09-cv-00525.
• The asserted patents were U.S. Patent Nos. 6,981,040 and 7,685,061.
• The patents concerned user models, personalized content, and related information-processing methods.
• The Federal Circuit addressed claim construction in 671 F.3d 1324.
• No public damages award, injunction, or continuing royalty against Google is identified.
• No public license or settlement economics were disclosed.
• The case had no FDA, Orange Book, Paragraph IV, generic, or biosimilar component.
• The litigation reduced the practical value of treating the patents as broad coverage for all personalization technology.

FAQs

Did Google invalidate the Personalized User Model patents?

The reported record is best characterized by claim-construction and dispositive litigation rulings rather than a publicly reported plaintiff damages victory. The case did not produce a public injunction against Google.

What Google products were accused in Personalized User Model v. Google?

The allegations concerned Google’s personalization technologies, including systems that used user information to personalize search, content, advertising, or related services. The public litigation record does not establish that every Google personalization product practiced every asserted claim.

Are U.S. Patent Nos. 6,981,040 and 7,685,061 still enforceable?

Their enforceability depended on their exact patent-term calculations, including the effective filing date and any patent-term adjustment. The patents were from an older family and were near the end of their ordinary term during the litigation period.

Can Personalized User Model v. Google be used as a patent royalty comparable?

Not reliably. The public record does not identify a disclosed royalty-bearing license or settlement amount. The case is more useful as a software claim-construction precedent than as a transaction comparable.

Does this case affect artificial-intelligence personalization patents?

Indirectly. The case illustrates the difficulty of enforcing broad personalization claims against complex software systems. AI and recommendation patent owners generally need claims tied to specific data structures, processing steps, model operations, or measurable technical improvements.

References

1. Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc., No. 1:09-cv-00525, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware docket.

2. Personalized User Model LLP v. Google Inc., 671 F.3d 1324 (Fed. Cir. 2012).

3. U.S. Patent No. 6,981,040, “Method and apparatus for providing personalized content to a user,” U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

4. U.S. Patent No. 7,685,061, “Method and apparatus for providing personalized content to a user,” U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

5. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. (n.d.). Patent Center: Patent term and prosecution records for U.S. Patent Nos. 6,981,040 and 7,685,061.