IP Law Daily, PATENT—Fed. Cir.: PTAB’s obviousness ruling for shared browsing patent claims affirmed, (May 27, 2026)

By Carolin Dennis, B.Sc., LL.B., LL.M.

Patent Trial and Appeal Board correctly construed the disputed claim term “web browsing interaction data.”

In a non-precedential disposition, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the Patent Trial and Appeal Board’s (PTAB) decision in an inter partes review (IPR) brought by Intuit Inc. that invalidated Samesurf, Inc.’s shared browsing patent claims, finding them obvious over prior art. The Federal Circuit determined that the PTAB correctly construed the term “web browsing interaction data,” as used in the claims of Samesurf, Inc.’s patent, is “data related to web browsing interactions” (Samesurf, Inc. v. Intuit Inc., No. 24-2268 (Fed. Cir. May 21, 2026)).

Background. Samesurf, Inc. (Samesurf) owns U.S. Patent No. 9,185,145 (’145 patent), entitled “Method and Apparatus for the Implementation of a Real-Time, Sharable Browsing Experience on a Guest Device” that relates to the implementation of a synchronized browsing session. On Intuit Inc.’s (Intuit) petition, the PTAB instituted IPR of all claims of the ’145 patent. Later, the PTAB issued a final written decision (FWD) finding that all claims of the ’145 patent were obvious over World Intellectual Property Organization International Publication No. WO 00/48110 (Lebrun) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2005/0033656 (Wang). Samesurf argued that the PTAB’s unpatentability determination rested on an incorrect claim construction. In their briefs, the parties disputed the meaning of “web browsing interaction data.” In a thorough claim construction analysis, the PTAB explained that the term was sufficiently broad to encompass “data resulting from host device interactions performed on a website (including webpages or partially filled webpages related to web browsing interactions).” Further, as it was undisputed that “Lebrun expressly discloses... sending a partial webpage without multimedia elements to the web clients,” application of the PTAB’s construction led inexorably to the conclusion that Lebrun “disclosed or suggested ‘web browsing interaction data.’” Hence, the PTAB determined that the “combination of Lebrun and Wang discloses or suggests” all limitations of the challenged claims, meaning that Intuit “has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that all challenged claims are unpatentable.” Samesurf timely appealed.

Disputed claim construction. Samesurf argued that the PTAB erred by not limiting “web browsing interaction data” to “data describing interactions performed on a website by a host device.” Samesurf insisted that under the proper construction, “web browsing interaction data” cannot include data resulting from host device interactions performed on a website, such as Lebrun’s partially filled webpages. Samesurf also asserted that it would not make sense for the web pages delivered to the user, or partial web pages (stripped of multimedia data), to be considered “web browsing interaction data” because that data does not itself enable the user to participate in a synchronization session. The Federal Circuit disagreed because Samesurf provided no persuasive reason for why a person of ordinary skill in the art, reviewing the ’145 patent, would understand the claim term “web browsing interaction data” to include anything less than all data related to web browsing interactions, including webpages and partially filled webpages. The Federal Circuit also found nothing in the claim language that would cause a skilled artisan to understand the broad term “web browsing interaction data” to be limited to interaction data generated by the host device, and not to also include data resulting from the interactions. Further, none of the other claim limitations which require that “web browsing interaction data” is received by the “guest device” from the “synchronization server,” associated with a “website server” and a “host device,” and used by the “guest device” to “access a website server” describes the content of the “web browsing interaction data” nor suggests that “web browsing interaction data” cannot include partially filled websites.

Additionally, the Federal Circuit found no merit in Samesurf’s unexplained assertion that “‘information related to a shared web browsing interaction’ is narrowly understood to refer to ‘information describing a shared web browsing interaction.’” The Federal Circuit also noted that as explained by the PTAB, Samesurf’s narrower construction would limit control of the synchronized web browsing session to only the host, despite the patent purporting to allow control by multiple devices.

Lastly, Samesurf provided no support for its insistence that the PTAB’s construction renders the invention “inoperable.” Samesurf argued that a shared web browsing interaction cannot be performed based on the webpage or partially filled webpage that would result from the interaction to be performed. However, what the claims require is “operation of an application based on said web browsing interaction data... to access a website server.” Samesurf identified no evidence that would allow the Federal Circuit to conclude that partially filled webpages would be unable to do this. Therefore, the Federal Circuit agreed with the PTAB that the correct construction of “web browsing interaction data,” as used in the claims of Samesurf’s ’145 patent, is “data related to web browsing interactions.”

Accordingly, the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB’s determination that that all claims of the ’145 patent are unpatentable based on obviousness.

The Case is No. 24-2268.

Judge: Stark, L.

Attorneys: Ryan B. McBeth (McKool Smith, PC) for Samesurf, Inc. Michael John Sacksteder (Fenwick & West LLP) for Intuit Inc.

Companies: Samesurf, Inc.; Intuit Inc.

Cases: Patent FedCirNews