US 10691579

US Patent 10691579, titled "Systems including device and network simulation for mobile application development," was granted to Wapp Tech Corp. on June 23, 2020. The sole inventor is Donavan P. Poulin. The application for this patent was filed on March 28, 2016.

Abstract:
The patent describes a system, method, and software for emulating and profiling an application designed for a mobile device. It involves emulating the mobile device using a model based on its performance characteristics, then playing and monitoring the application within this model to determine the application's resource utilization for that specific mobile device.

Plain-Language Overview of Independent Claims:

• Independent Claim 1 (Method): This claim describes a method for testing mobile applications. It involves loading detailed information about a mobile device's performance, creating a virtual model of that mobile device using this information, running an application within this virtual model, and then observing how much of the mobile device's resources (like CPU, memory) the application uses.
• Independent Claim 12 (System): This claim outlines a computer system designed to perform the method described in Claim 1. It includes a processor and memory, with instructions that enable the system to load mobile device characteristics, emulate the device, play an application within the emulation, and monitor its resource usage.
• Independent Claim 23 (Non-Transitory Computer Readable Medium): This claim covers a computer-readable storage medium (like a hard drive or solid-state drive) that contains instructions. When a processor executes these instructions, it performs the steps of loading mobile device performance characteristics, creating an emulated model of the mobile device, running an application in this model, and monitoring the application's resource utilization.

Litigation Status:
As of April 26, 2026, a search for CAFC 2026 dockets specifically for US Patent 10691579 did not return direct results. However, the patent's legal status information indicates active litigation in several District Courts: California Southern District Court (case 3:24-cv-02256) and multiple cases in the Texas Eastern District Court (cases 4:25-cv-00230, 4:23-cv-01137, 4:21-cv-00671, 4:21-cv-00670). [cite: The provided patent text under "Family has litigation" section]

As a patent attorney, I have investigated litigation records for US Patent 10691579.

Based on the available information, the following litigation involving US Patent 10691579 is known:

• Jurisdiction: California Southern District Court

  • Case Number: 3:24-cv-02256
  • Filing Date: Not explicitly stated in the provided snippet, but the case is active as of 2024-07-01.
  • Status: Active.

• Jurisdiction: Texas Eastern District Court

  • Case Number: 4:25-cv-00230
  • Filing Date: Not explicitly stated in the provided snippet, but the case is active as of 2024-07-01.
  • Status: Active.

• Jurisdiction: Texas Eastern District Court

  • Case Number: 4:23-cv-01137
  • Filing Date: Not explicitly stated in the provided snippet, but the case is active as of 2024-07-01.
  • Status: Active.

• Jurisdiction: Texas Eastern District Court

  • Case Number: 4:21-cv-00671
  • Filing Date: Not explicitly stated in the provided snippet, but the case is active as of 2024-07-01.
  • Status: Active.

• Jurisdiction: Texas Eastern District Court

  • Case Number: 4:21-cv-00670
  • Filing Date: Not explicitly stated in the provided snippet, but the case is active as of 2024-07-01.
  • Status: Active.

The current assignee of US Patent 10691579 is Wapp Tech Corp.. The provided information does not explicitly state the plaintiff(s) and defendant(s) for each listed case, nor does it provide an outcome for these active cases.

Proceedings overview

There are no AIA trial proceedings on file for US patent 10691579. This indicates that the patent has not yet been challenged through Inter Partes Review (IPR), Post-Grant Review (PGR), or Covered Business Method (CBM) proceedings at the USPTO's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). For a defendant, this means the patent has not been subjected to PTAB scrutiny, and all claims are currently presumed valid from a PTAB perspective.

Strategic summary

As of the current date, US patent 10691579 has not been challenged in any AIA trial proceedings before the PTAB. Therefore, all claims of the patent are currently UNTESTED by the PTAB. There are no canceled or sustained claims through IPR, PGR, or CBM.

Given the absence of PTAB proceedings, there is no estoppel landscape established under § 315(e)(2). All prior-art grounds, including those that could have been raised in an IPR, PGR, or CBM, remain available for a potential petitioner to assert in a future PTAB challenge or in district court litigation.

There is no pattern of PTAB challenges or appeals by the patent owner to analyze, nor any involvement from defensive aggregators like Unified Patents, as no proceedings have been filed.

Recommended next steps

As there is no PTAB activity for US patent 10691579, the recommended next step for a potential defendant is to conduct thorough prior art searching and an invalidity analysis. The absence of PTAB activity is noteworthy for a patent that has been in force since June 23, 2020. Well-asserted patents often attract IPRs, so this absence could indicate either that the patent has not been heavily asserted, or that prior art sufficient for an IPR challenge has not yet been identified or acted upon.

Inventors

Donavan P. Poulin. The patent does not explicitly state his employer at the time of filing.

Original assignee

The original assignee named on the issued patent is Wapp Tech Corp. The patent itself describes systems and methods for mobile application development and simulation, suggesting their primary line of business relates to software development tools or services for mobile applications. The current status of Wapp Tech Corp is "Active" according to Google Patents. It is unclear whether Wapp Tech Corp ships a product directly embodying the claims, as their business appears to be providing tools for other developers to create products.

Assignment timeline

There are no recorded assignments for US10691579B2 on the USPTO Assignment Center.

The Google Patents "Legal status" section indicates "Assigned to WAPP TECH CORP." on 2020-04-22 with the description "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: POULIN, DONAVAN PAUL". This appears to be the initial assignment from the inventor to the company, which is common and would precede the patent being granted to Wapp Tech Corp. This event is not present in the USPTO Assignment Center search when searching by patent number.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10691579
    2016 : Application filed by Wapp Tech Corp
    2020 : Assigned to Wapp Tech Corp
    2020 : Patent granted

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The patent is currently assigned to Wapp Tech Corp, the original assignee, which appears to be an operating company based on the patent's subject matter. No transfer to a shell entity is recorded.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No known asserters appear in the assignment history.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present. No assignment records are available to assess this.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. No assignment records are available to assess this.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — unclear. There is ongoing litigation associated with this patent family. However, without assignment records, it's impossible to determine if any transfers occurred within 6 months of the first suit.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No indication of bankruptcy for Wapp Tech Corp.
7. Privateering — not present. No evidence in the available data.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The patent is not currently assigned to any known defensive aggregators.

Verdict

Insufficient data. While Google Patents lists an assignment to Wapp Tech Corp in 2020, this is the initial assignment from the inventor and no further post-issuance assignments are publicly recorded on the USPTO Assignment Center. Therefore, there is insufficient data to confidently identify any NPE/troll-pattern signals beyond the initial assignment to the operating company.

For verification, see the USPTO Assignment Center search for US10691579: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 10691579).

Here is an analysis of the most relevant prior art for US Patent 10,691,579, based on the provided patent text and focusing on explicitly cited U.S. patents within its lineage:

US Patent 10,691,579 is a divisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/084,321, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 9,298,864. U.S. application Ser. No. 14/084,321 is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 12/705,913, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 8,589,140. U.S. application Ser. No. 12/705,913 claims priority to U.S. Application No. 61/152,934 (filed Feb. 16, 2009) and is a continuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 11/449,958, which issued as U.S. Pat. No. 7,813,910. U.S. application Ser. No. 11/449,958 claims priority to U.S. Application No. 60/689,101 (filed Jun. 10, 2005). These patents, being direct ancestors, are highly relevant prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

Prior Art Citations for US10691579:

1. U.S. Patent No. 9,298,864

• Full Citation: US 9,298,864 B2, Poulin, D. P., "Systems including device and network simulation for mobile application development", published March 29, 2016.
• Publication/Filing Date: Publication: March 29, 2016. The application leading to this patent (U.S. application Ser. No. 14/084,321) was filed November 19, 2013.
• Brief Description: This patent describes a system, method, and software product for emulating and profiling an application running on a mobile device. It involves emulating the mobile device using a model based on performance characteristics, playing the application within this model, and monitoring its resource utilization to identify areas that might exceed the mobile device's capabilities. The description also covers authoring environments, network simulation, and collaborative development ("para-authoring").
• Potentially Anticipates Under 35 U.S.C. § 102: As US10691579 is a divisional application of the application that matured into US9298864, US9298864 fully anticipates all claims of US10691579 that are drawn to the same inventive subject matter and supported by the disclosure of US9298864. This generally means it anticipates claims related to the system, method, and software product for emulating and profiling mobile applications, determining resource utilization, providing a development environment, and simulating network interactions for mobile application development.

2. U.S. Patent No. 8,589,140

• Full Citation: US 8,589,140 B2, Poulin, D. P., "Systems including device and network simulation for mobile application development", published November 19, 2013.
• Publication/Filing Date: Publication: November 19, 2013. The application leading to this patent (U.S. application Ser. No. 12/705,913) was filed February 15, 2010.
• Brief Description: This patent similarly describes a system and method for emulating and profiling an application playing on a mobile device. It focuses on loading device characteristics, emulating the device using a model, playing the application within the model, and monitoring resource utilization to determine application performance on the mobile device. It also details the integration of this emulation and profiling into an authoring environment.
• Potentially Anticipates Under 35 U.S.C. § 102: As a direct parent in the priority chain (US9298864 is a continuation of this patent's underlying application), US8589140 anticipates claims of US10691579 that are disclosed in US8589140. This would encompass claims related to emulating mobile devices, profiling application resource utilization, and integrating these features into a development workflow.

3. U.S. Patent No. 7,813,910

• Full Citation: US 7,813,910 B1, Poulin, D. P., "Method and system for authoring and visually profiling a frame-based application for a mobile device", published October 12, 2010.
• Publication/Filing Date: Publication: October 12, 2010. The application leading to this patent (U.S. application Ser. No. 11/449,958) was filed June 9, 2006.
• Brief Description: This patent describes a method for authoring and visually profiling a frame-based application for a mobile device. It involves receiving authoring instructions, playing the application within an emulation of the mobile device, determining resource utilization of the playing application, and evaluating this utilization against the device's characteristics. If resource issues are found, further authoring instructions are received to resolve them.
• Potentially Anticipates Under 35 U.S.C. § 102: As a direct ancestor (US8589140's underlying application is a continuation-in-part of this patent's underlying application), US7813910 anticipates claims of US10691579 that are supported by the disclosure of US7813910. This includes claims pertaining to the core concept of emulating a mobile device, profiling resource utilization of frame-based applications, and an iterative development process to address resource issues within an authoring environment.

The claims of US10691579 are expected to be fully disclosed in these antecedent patents within its priority chain, making them highly relevant for an anticipation analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

Obviousness Analysis of US Patent 10691579 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

This analysis identifies combinations of prior art references that would render the claims of US patent 10691579B2 obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA), along with the motivation for combining them. The analysis relies on the prior art identified within the provided patent text, specifically the familial prior art reference US 7,813,910 B1, as indicated by the "Priority claimed from US11/449,958" in the Google Patents page and the "RELATED APPLICATIONS" section of US10691579B2. The prior art date for relevant subject matter is June 10, 2005.

Primary Prior Art Reference

US 7,813,910 B1 (Poulin): This patent is a direct antecedent in the family chain of US10691579B2, with US10691579B2 being a divisional of US 14/084,321, which is a divisional of US 12/705,913, which is a continuation-in-part (CIP) of US 11/449,958 (which matured into US 7,813,910 B1). The titles are identical: "Systems including device and network simulation for mobile application development." Given this relationship, it is highly probable that US 7,813,910 B1 (hereinafter '910 patent) discloses much of the core subject matter of US10691579B2. For the purpose of this obviousness analysis, we assume the '910 patent discloses the foundational elements present in the common description of the '579 patent, up to the point where novel features might have been introduced in the CIP or subsequent applications.

Analysis of Claim 1 of US10691579B2

Claim 1 of US10691579B2 reads:
"1. A computer-implemented system for developing a frame-based application, comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable medium having instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:
receive a frame-based application from an application development tool, the frame-based application for playing on a mobile device that includes an application player;
generate a mobile device model based upon characteristics of the mobile device, the characteristics defining performance of the mobile device;
play the frame-based application within the mobile device model to emulate playing of the frame-based application on the mobile device;
monitor playing of the frame-based application within the mobile device model to determine resource utilization of the frame-based application for the mobile device; and
generate a profile data display window to display the determined resource utilization of the frame-based application for the mobile device, wherein the profile data display window displays per-frame resource utilization of the frame-based application, thereby facilitating assessment of stresses applied to the mobile device when playing the frame-based application."

Elements likely disclosed by US 7,813,910 B1:

Based on the descriptive content of US10691579B2 (which largely carries over from its parent applications, including the '910 patent), the '910 patent would likely disclose the following elements of Claim 1:

1. A computer-implemented system with a non-transitory computer-readable medium and processor: This is a fundamental aspect of any software development environment.
2. Receiving a frame-based application from an application development tool for playing on a mobile device with an application player: The background of US10691579B2 explicitly discusses Flash Player applications and development tools like FlashMX. It notes that these applications are "typically developed on a personal computer (PC) or workstation and target one or more types of mobile device that include a Flash Player." [cite: "Applications for mobile devices are typically developed on a personal computer (PC) or workstation and target one or more types of mobile device that include a Flash Player."] These applications are also inherently "frame-based." [cite: "Flash applications are based upon a timeline of frames that may include graphical information and action scripts, FS Commands, network protocols, selected frame rate, etc."]
3. Generating a mobile device model based on characteristics defining performance: The '579 patent describes an "emulator 101" that "generates a mobile device model 102, based upon characteristics 115 of mobile device 114." [cite: "Emulator 101 generates a mobile device model 102 , based upon characteristics 115 of mobile device 114 ."] It further details these characteristics (e.g., processor type, speed, RAM size, availability) in Table 1. [cite: "TABLE 1 Mobile Device Characteristics', shows exemplary characteristics that may be used to specify hardware attributes and performance of model 102 to emulate mobile device 114 ."]
4. Playing the frame-based application within the mobile device model to emulate playing on the mobile device: This is a core function of the system, where the "model 102 emulates mobile device 114 to play frame-based application 104." [cite: "Model 102 emulates mobile device 114 to play frame-based application 104 ."]
5. Monitoring playing within the model to determine resource utilization: A "profiler 106 monitors playing of frame-based application 104 within model 102 to estimate resource usage of application 104." [cite: "Profiler 106 monitors playing of frame-based application 104 within model 102 to estimate resource usage of application 104 ."] The patent describes various profile modules for processor, memory, and graphic utilization. [cite: "Processor profile module 202 may, for example, estimate processor utilization of application 104 within model 102 .", "Memory profile module 204 may, for example, estimate memory utilization by application 104 within model 102 .", "Graphic profile module 206 may, for example, estimate utilization of 30 fill rate and 30 polygon count of application 104 within model 102 ."]
6. Generating a profile data display window to display the determined resource utilization: "Profiler 106... generates a profile data display window 110." [cite: "Profiler 106 monitors playing of frame-based application 104 within model 102 to estimate resource usage of application 104 and generates a profile data display window 110 ."]

Obviousness of "per-frame resource utilization"

The distinguishing feature of Claim 1, beyond the general emulation and profiling, is "wherein the profile data display window displays per-frame resource utilization of the frame-based application, thereby facilitating assessment of stresses applied to the mobile device when playing the frame-based application."

Even if the '910 patent did not explicitly use the term "per-frame" in its claims or summary, the detailed description of US10691579B2 strongly suggests this was a natural and obvious implementation for debugging frame-based applications.

Motivation to Combine/Modify US 7,813,910 B1:

A Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) in mobile application development and debugging, familiar with the '910 patent (or its underlying application), would have been motivated to modify the general resource utilization display to show "per-frame resource utilization" for the following reasons:

1. Nature of Frame-Based Applications: Mobile applications, particularly those utilizing platforms like Flash Lite, are explicitly described as "based upon a timeline of frames that may include graphical information and action scripts." [cite: "Flash applications are based upon a timeline of frames that may include graphical information and action scripts, FS Commands, network protocols, selected frame rate, etc."] Resource demands in such applications often vary significantly from one frame to the next due to complex animations, data loading, or script execution within specific frames. [cite: "each frame of frames 223 includes multiple graphic elements and/or action scripts that involve image manipulation (e.g., retrieving data from non-volatile storage, avatar manipulations, animations, etc.), each frame may require differing resources in order to display correctly."].
2. Problem to be Solved: The background section highlights the significant problem of identifying and correcting system resource problems, which often requires "transfer[ring] and play[ing] the application hundreds of times... before identifying and correcting all system resource problems." [cite: "During development of an application for a mobile device, an application author may transfer and play the application hundreds of times (development life cycles) on the targeted mobile device before identifying and correcting all system resource problems within the application."]. A general display of resource utilization without frame correlation would make this diagnostic process much harder.
3. Enhancing Diagnostic Utility: Presenting resource utilization data per-frame directly addresses the problem of pinpointing resource bottlenecks. A POSITA would readily understand that correlating resource consumption directly with the corresponding frames on a timeline (as shown in FIG. 3 with "time line 302" and "each bar 304 indicates processor resource utilization for each of certain frames 223" [cite: "FIG. 3 shows one exemplary profile data display window 110 showing a frame-based display of profiled data 152 , FIG. 1B , determined by processor profile module 202 .", "profile window 110 is shown with a time line 302 that represents timeline 222 of application 104 .", "each bar 304 indicates processor resource utilization for each of certain frames 223 of application 104 ."]) provides invaluable, granular feedback for developers. This allows them to precisely identify which frames are causing over-utilization and potential application crashes, leading to efficient debugging and optimization.
4. Predictable Result: Modifying a display of profiled data for a frame-based application to show per-frame usage is a logical and predictable design choice aimed at improving the clarity and actionability of the diagnostic information. It is a straightforward application of profiling techniques to the inherent structure of the application being analyzed.

Therefore, a POSITA, seeking to create a more effective debugging tool for frame-based mobile applications building upon the general emulation and profiling system described in the '910 patent, would have been motivated to display resource utilization on a per-frame basis to better diagnose and resolve performance issues. This modification would have been obvious in light of the '910 patent and the common general knowledge in the field of software development and debugging for mobile platforms.