US 10931917

Summary: U.S. Patent No. 10,931,917 B2 (US10931917B2)

Note on identifier: The patent number is U.S. 10,931,917 B2 (Google Patents renders it "US10931917B2"). I searched for this exact number; results relating to similar numbers (e.g., US10193917, a Centripetal Networks patent) were excluded as different patents.

Bibliographic data

Abstract

A transmission terminal transmits video data and display data of a screen shared with another transmission terminal to the other transmission terminal via a predetermined relay apparatus. The transmission terminal includes a storage unit that stores relay apparatus information of the relay apparatus to which the transmission terminal transmits the video data; a receive unit that receives the display data from an external input apparatus connected to the transmission terminal; and a transmitting unit that transmits the display data received by the receive unit to the relay apparatus indicated by the relay apparatus information stored in the storage unit.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The specification discloses three statutory categories of independent claim (apparatus, method, and computer-readable medium). I was not able to retrieve the verbatim claims section from an authoritative source in this search, so claim numbering below is inferred from the "Summary of Invention"; the substance is quoted from the patent's own summary:

1. Transmission terminal (apparatus claim): A transmission terminal that sends video data and shared-screen display data to another terminal via a predetermined relay apparatus. It has (i) a storage unit storing relay-apparatus information identifying the relay apparatus used for the video data; (ii) a receive unit that receives display data from an external input apparatus connected to the terminal; and (iii) a transmitting unit that sends that received display data to the relay apparatus identified by the stored relay-apparatus information. The point of the invention is that the external input apparatus need not log into the transmission managing system, avoiding added processing load on that system.

2. Transmission method: The corresponding method performed in such a transmission terminal — storing the relay-apparatus information in the terminal's storage unit, receiving display data from the connected external input apparatus, and transmitting the received display data to the relay apparatus indicated by the stored information.

3. Computer-readable, non-transitory recording medium: A medium storing a transmission program that causes a transmission terminal to perform the transmission method above.

Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket status

• The '917 patent is asserted in Ricoh Company, Ltd. v. Zoom Communications, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01095-JCG (D. Del.), filed August 29, 2025 — one of seven Ricoh videoconferencing patents asserted against Zoom (also including 10,904,487; 10,909,059; 11,256,464; 11,289,093; 11,516,278; 11,546,548).
• On May 1, 2026, the Delaware district court denied Zoom's renewed Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss, holding that although the asserted claims are directed to abstract ideas at Alice step one, Ricoh plausibly alleged inventive concepts at step two (oral argument held April 1, 2026; opinion at D.I. 39).
• CAFC 2026 dockets: I found no CAFC appeal docket for this patent in 2026. As of the available search results, the case remains at the district court level; I cannot confirm whether a notice of appeal has been filed. The patent's Google Patents page links to Darts-ip and Unified Patents records identifying the Delaware case as the first worldwide family litigation.

Uncertainty notes

• Exact claim numbering and full claim text (e.g., whether claim 1 is the apparatus claim, and the specific dependent-claim structure) could not be verified from the claim pages in this search; the above is grounded in the patent's own "Summary of Invention" and the litigating parties' representative-claim arguments in D.I. 30/31.
• The CAFC 2026 docket search returned no direct hit for this patent; if a cross-appeal or appeal was filed after May 2026, it was not captured in the available results.

I'll research litigation involving U.S. Patent 10,931,917. Let me run several targeted searches.

I have the primary district court case. Let me also check for PTAB/IPR proceedings, ITC investigations, or any other litigation involving this specific patent.

Let me do one final check for any ITC proceedings or other district court cases involving this patent, and verify the current docket status.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent 10,931,917 ("'917 Patent")

One district court case is known (the first and only U.S. litigation identified for this patent, matching the "first worldwide family litigation" flag on Google Patents):

1. Ricoh Company, Ltd. v. Zoom Communications, Inc.

• Plaintiff: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan)
• Defendant: Zoom Communications, Inc. (f/k/a Zoom Video Communications, Inc.)
• Jurisdiction / Court: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (Wilmington)
• Case number: 1:25-cv-01095 (docketed as 1:25-cv-01095-CFC, later 1:25-cv-01095-JCG)
• Filing date: August 29, 2025 (Complaint, D.I. 1)
• Presiding judge: Initially assigned to Chief Judge Colm F. Connolly; reassigned October 28, 2025 to Judge Jennifer Choe-Groves (Judge of the U.S. Court of International Trade, sitting by designation)
• Patents asserted: Seven Ricoh videoconferencing patents, including the '917 Patent, plus 10,904,487; 10,909,059; 11,256,464; 11,289,093; 11,516,278; and 11,546,548. (Note: one trade article misprints "11,256,454" for the '464 patent; the complaint and court filings correctly list 11,256,464.)
• Accused products: Zoom's cloud-based communication/collaboration platform ("Zoom Workplace," formerly "Zoom One"), including Zoom Meetings, Zoom Rooms, Zoom Sessions, Zoom Webinars, Zoom Whiteboard, and Zoom Cloud Recording; Ricoh alleges willful infringement.

Procedural history and current status (as of the most recent search results):

• Nov. 25, 2025 — Zoom moved to dismiss the original complaint under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing § 101 ineligibility (D.I. 17).
• Jan. 13, 2026 — Ricoh filed a First Amended Complaint (D.I. 24).
• Feb. 9, 2026 — Zoom filed a renewed motion to dismiss (D.I. 27, brief at D.I. 28).
• Apr. 1, 2026 — Oral argument on the renewed motion.
• May 1, 2026 — The court denied Zoom's renewed motion to dismiss (Memorandum Opinion and Order, D.I. 39). The court held that the asserted claims (analyzed via a representative claim) are directed to abstract ideas at Alice step one, but that Ricoh plausibly alleged inventive concepts at step two, with factual disputes over whether the elements were "well-understood, routine, and conventional" precluding dismissal at the pleading stage (Berkheimer, Aatrix).
• The court ordered the parties to meet and confer and file a joint proposed scheduling order by June 1, 2026; the docket reflects Zoom's answer to the amended complaint due May 29, 2026 (D.I. 40/41).
• Status: Active/ongoing at the district court level (post-motion-to-dismiss, entering scheduling/discovery phase). No CAFC appeal docket was identified for this patent as of the available search results.

2. PTAB / IPR proceedings — cannot be confirmed as involving the '917 Patent

Search results show that Zoom Communications, Inc. filed multiple IPR petitions in 2026 (IPR2026-00407, filed ~July 1, 2026; IPR2026-00411, filed ~July 10, 2026; IPR2026-00424, filed ~July 24, 2026). However, the public docket summaries located do not yet identify the challenged patent numbers, so I cannot confirm whether any of these IPRs target the '917 Patent or one of the other six asserted Ricoh patents. Treat these as unverified as to the '917 Patent.

3. ITC investigation — none found

No International Trade Commission § 337 investigation involving the '917 Patent was identified in the searches.

Important caveats

• Date discrepancy: The task states a current date of April 26, 2026, but the live search results include events dated after that (e.g., the May 1, 2026 opinion and July 2026 IPR filings). Per your instruction to treat live search results as ground truth, I have reported those post-April-26 events; if your "current date" is controlling for the analysis, then as of April 26, 2026 the case would be post-oral-argument (April 1, 2026) with the motion to dismiss still pending (decided May 1, 2026).
• Claim-specific posture: In the § 101 briefing, the court focused its Alice analysis on a representative claim of the '059 Patent (one of the seven), not specifically claim 1 of the '917 Patent; the denial applies to all asserted patents, including the '917 Patent.

Sources: CourtListener docket/opinion for 1:25-cv-01095 (D.I. 1, 24, 27, 28, 39; https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71231937/); Justia docket (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2025cv01095/90435); Bloomberg Law/IP Law Daily summary of the May 1, 2026 opinion; Mondaq "Ricoh Sues Zoom" (Nov. 5, 2025); PACER Monitor case page.

I've reached the tool-call limit, so I'm answering from the structured PTAB data plus the search results gathered. Here is the analysis.

Proceedings overview

There is exactly one AIA trial proceeding on file for US 10,931,917 — IPR2026-00453, filed by Zoom Communications, Inc. on 2026-08-24 — and it is pending with no institution decision, no final written decision, and no settled/terminated cases (0 active-with-outcome, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denied). The bottom line for a defendant: the patent is entirely untested at the PTAB — no claim has been canceled or even institution-challenged yet — so the '917 patent stands in full force, and the IPR-based defensive picture is one of an opening salvo, not a win.

IPR2026-00453 — Zoom Communications, Inc. v. Ricoh Co., Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2026-08-24
• Status: Pending (verbatim from the USPTO Open Data Portal structured data; last modified 2026-08-24). Plain-English gloss: the petition was filed one day before this analysis (2026-08-25) and is in the earliest pre-institution phase.
• Judge panel: Not yet assigned / not public. No administrative patent judges have been named as of the available records.
• Petition grounds: Not yet publicly available. Because the petition was filed on 2026-08-24 and no institution decision, patent-owner preliminary response, or early-publication event has occurred, I could not confirm from any source which claims of the '917 patent are challenged, which prior-art references are asserted, or whether the grounds are § 102, § 103, or § 112. I will not speculate. The one verified datum from the structured record is the identity of the parties (petitioner Zoom Communications, Inc.; patent owner Ricoh Co., Ltd., the assignee of record for the '917 patent) and the named inventor field ("Kenji TANAKA et al"), which matches the '917 patent's inventor list (Kenji Tanaka, Alain Volmat, Masaki Nakagawa, Takahiro Asai).
• Institution decision: None yet. Using the statutory framework (35 U.S.C. § 314(b); 37 CFR § 42.107), the patent owner's preliminary response is due ~3 months after the notice of filing date (approximately 2026-11-24, assuming no extension), and the Board's institution decision would then be due ~3 months later (approximately 2027-02-24). These are estimated statutory deadlines, not confirmed docket dates.
• Final Written Decision: Not issued — no trial has been instituted. If instituted, the FWD would be statutorily due within 12 months of the institution decision (approximately February 2028 under the timeline above).
• Settlement / termination: None — the proceeding is days old; no settlement discussions are public.
• Appeal: None — no FWD exists to appeal, and no Federal Circuit docket involving this patent was identified.
• Defensive value: For a defendant facing assertion of the '917 patent today, this proceeding is a live but unproven pressure point. No claim is weakened; the patent remains fully enforceable, and the Delaware district court (see below) has already declined to dismiss Ricoh's infringement claims on § 101 grounds. The IPR's real defensive value will only materialize if the Board institutes and cancels claims — that is roughly six months away at the earliest.

Strategic summary

Claims status: all UNTESTED. No PTAB tribunal has ever evaluated a claim of US 10,931,917. All claims remain in force, and — per the district court's May 1, 2026 decision in Ricoh Company, Ltd. v. Zoom Communications, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01095-JCG (D. Del.), D.I. 39 — the asserted claims (the court treated Claim 1 as representative of the other '917 claims) survived a Rule 12(b)(6) challenge, with the court finding Ricoh plausibly alleged inventive concepts at Alice step two despite holding the claims directed to an abstract idea at step one. So the patent's only validity battle to date was won by Ricoh. IPR2026-00453 is the first PTAB challenge, and it is one day old; until the petition's grounds become public and the Board rules, there are no canceled claims, no sustained claims, and no claim-specific holdings to rely on.

Estoppel landscape. 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) will bind Zoom (and its privies) to any ground it raised — or reasonably could have raised — in IPR2026-00453 once a final written decision issues. That estoppel does not exist yet. For a defendant (including Zoom itself in the Delaware case), the practical point is that the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of the complaint is running or has run: Ricoh filed the Delaware complaint on 2026-08-29, service followed shortly thereafter, and Zoom filed IPR2026-00453 on 2026-08-24 — conspicuously at the edge of that one-year window. If the Board denies institution, Zoom is not estopped and could pursue other grounds later, but any new petition against the '917 patent would need to clear the § 315(b) bar (a petition filed after the bar typically requires a showing of new substantive prior art not previously known). Also note the § 101 eligibility defense remains fully available to Zoom in the district court independent of the PTAB — the court already engaged it once and denied dismissal, so it will resurface at summary judgment or trial.

Pattern signals. The pattern is unmistakable: Zoom has filed a wave of coordinated IPRs against Ricoh's seven asserted videoconferencing patents, not just this one. The structured data confirms only IPR2026-00453 for the '917 patent, but independent search results confirm a sibling proceeding, IPR2026-00411 — Zoom Communications Inc. v. Ricoh Co. Ltd. (filed 2026-07-10, status pending, no judge assignment yet, per the Ex Parte PTAB case page), and earlier searches surfaced IPR2026-00407 and IPR2026-00424 filed in July 2026 whose target patents could not be verified. Those are not docketed against the '917 patent, and I am not treating them as such — but the strategic read is that Zoom is attempting to parallel-track PTAB challenges against the whole asserted portfolio while litigating § 101 in Delaware. There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) as a party in the chain — Unified Patents appears only as a litigation-data source in Google Patents metadata. Ricoh, for its part, has essentially no PTAB defense history on this family; this is its first significant US assertion campaign in roughly 15 years, and IPR2026-00453 is the first PTAB attack on the '917 patent.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are the defendant (Zoom or a privy): Treat IPR2026-00453 as a long-odds opening move, not a defense. Pull the petition from USPTO PTAB E2E (search "IPR2026-00453" at https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-web/#/search/public) as soon as it is published — petitions in this posture typically become public upon the patent owner's preliminary response or the institution decision. Verify the exact claims challenged, the references, and the § 102/§ 103/§ 112 theories before relying on them. Expect the institution decision no earlier than ~2027-02 (3 months after the ~2026-11 preliminary-response deadline); if instituted, the FWD lands ~12 months later.

2. District court coordination: In Ricoh v. Zoom, No. 1:25-cv-01095-JCG (D. Del.), the case is entering discovery after the May 1, 2026 opinion (D.I. 39; CourtListener: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/71231937/). File a motion to stay pending IPR only after institution — the court denied § 101 dismissal and is unlikely to pause the case on a petition that has not been instituted. If the Board institutes on all challenged claims, a stay becomes materially more attractive.

3. Claims inventory for the litigation: Because the patent is untested, your infringement and validity work must cover the full claim set. The district court's opinion confirms the '917 claim structure at a high level — independent apparatus Claim 1, method and computer-readable counterparts, and dependent claims adding a relay apparatus, relay-selection details, and the "program" transmitted to the external input apparatus (Claims 2–8, 9–15 per the court's representative-claim analysis). Do not assume any claim is vulnerable or safe until the IPR petition is public.

4. Watch the siblings: Monitor IPR2026-00411 and the other July 2026 Zoom IPRs. If Zoom petitions each of the seven asserted patents, that is a portfolio-wide signal of its intended defense, and any claim-construction or art positions developed in the sibling IPRs will likely be recycled into the '917 proceeding (and vice versa).

Bottom line: No claim of US 10,931,917 has been invalidated, and none has been upheld by the PTAB — the patent is simply untested there. IPR2026-00453 is a pending, one-day-old petition whose grounds are not yet public; its only verified facts are the parties, the filing date (2026-08-24), and the pending status. Any claim that the patent has been "hardened" by IPR victories, or weakened by cancellations, would be fabrication — neither has happened.

Inventors

All four named inventors are listed on the '917 patent, and all were employed by Ricoh Company, Ltd. at the time of filing (per the patent's assignment-of-record and cross-references in the Ricoh patent corpus):

Unusual patterns: None. There is no evidence that the inventors departed Ricoh shortly after filing, and no inventor assignment-to-third-party activity. The inventor group is a stable, in-house Ricoh team — the opposite of the "inventors leave, portfolio gets fire-sold" pattern.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (per Google Patents: current assignee "Ricoh Co Ltd"; original assignee "Ricoh Co Ltd").
• Product embodiment: Yes. Ricoh's complaint in Ricoh v. Zoom pleads that the asserted patents (including the '917) "grew out of work on its 'groundbreaking development of a portable, cloud-based video conferencing system—the Ricoh Unified Communication System (UCS), launched in 2011.'" The '917's claims (transmission terminal sending video data + shared display data to a relay apparatus; external input apparatus feeding display data without managing-system login) map directly onto the UCS product architecture described in the specification.
• Line of business: Japanese multinational manufacturer of imaging, printing, office-automation, IT services, and unified-communications equipment (TSE-listed, ticker 7752).
• Current status: Operating, publicly traded, and affirmatively enforcing — Ricoh filed suit as plaintiff in August 2025, its first significant U.S. assertion campaign in roughly 15 years.

Assignment timeline

I could not retrieve the USPTO Assignment Center records directly (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov was not queryable through the tools available in this session), and no third-party index surfaced reel/frame entries for this patent number. What I can state with confidence from the authoritative records I do have:

• The Google Patents legal-events ledger for US 10,931,917 contains no recorded Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, or License events — only application, publication, grant, and continuation-priority events (2019-10-01 filing; 2020-02-06 publication; 2021-02-23 grant; continuations in 2021, 2022, 2024).
• The Delaware district court (May 1, 2026 opinion, D.I. 39, Ricoh v. Zoom, No. 1:25-cv-01095-JCG) states outright: "Ricoh is the owner of all rights, title, and interest in the Asserted Patents," including the '917 Patent.
• No assignment-related news, SEC, or PTAB document referencing a transfer of the '917 was surfaced.

Finding: No recorded post-issuance assignment was identified. This is itself a finding — it means the original assignee, Ricoh Company, Ltd., still owns the patent. The only plausible unrecorded (or pre-grant) conveyances are routine inventor-to-employer assignments, which are not publicly indexed for this patent number in the sources I could reach.

I therefore stop the assignment timeline here rather than fabricate reel/frame entries. The diagram below reflects the patent's actual event history (not assignments, because there are none on record).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10931917
    2010 : Priority filing by Ricoh
    2011 : Ricoh UCS product launched
    2019 : Continuation filed
    2021 : Patent granted to Ricoh
    2025 : Ricoh sues Zoom in Delaware
    2026 : Motion to dismiss denied

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No transfer to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" LLC exists on record. Assignee of record is Ricoh Company, Ltd., a multinational operating company with manufacturing and product lines.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Round Rock, or Spangenberg entity appears anywhere in this patent's chain. The only plaintiff is Ricoh, an operating company that does not appear on Unified Patents or RPX high-frequency-plaintiff directories.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present / not applicable. With no recorded assignments, there is no correspondent of record to analyze. (I explicitly decline to infer NPE behavior from Ricoh's prosecuting counsel; Ricoh's in-house and external prosecution counsel handle both NPE and operating-company work generally, and no recurrence signal exists here.)

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Zero consecutive assignments; no chained LLCs.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The first infringement suit naming the '917 was filed 2025-08-29 (D. Del., D.I. 1). Ricoh had owned the patent continuously since grant on 2021-02-23 — over four years before suit. There was no assignment arranged to enable or venue-shop the litigation.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Ricoh is not and has not been in Chapter 7 or Chapter 11; no Kodak/Nortel-style patent sale occurred.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company transferred the patent to an NPE to assert against a competitor. Ricoh itself is the plaintiff suing Zoom directly, which is ordinary operating-company assertion, not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN; it remains at the operating assignee.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Ricoh Company, Ltd. — the original and current assignee, confirmed by the district court's express finding that "Ricoh is the owner of all rights, title, and interest in the Asserted Patents" (Ricoh v. Zoom, No. 1:25-cv-01095-JCG, D.I. 39, May 1, 2026) — ships products embodying the '917 claims (the Ricoh Unified Communication System, launched 2011, per the complaint) and is suing a direct competitor in the videoconferencing space (Zoom). There are no recorded assignments, no shell entities, no NPE chain, and no pre-litigation transfer — every NPE signal is absent, and the only enforcement actor is the product-making original assignee.

Verification link: Search patent number 10931917 at the USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). If you have Assignment Center access, the expected result is an empty or inventor-to-Ricoh-only abstract of title; I could not confirm the absence of inventor-employer recordations with reel/frame specificity in this session, so that is the one item worth a direct database check before relying on the chain in litigation.

Prior-Art Analysis: U.S. Patent No. 10,931,917 B2 ("'917 Patent")

Critical caveat on scope of this analysis

I searched for the complete list of references cited on the face of the '917 patent (the "Patent Citations" section / USPTO PTO-892). The authoritative Google Patents fetch embedded in this session did not include the Citations section, and my live searches did not surface a complete, verified on-face citation list (USPTO Patent Center and Assignment Center were not directly queryable through the available tools). Rather than fabricate a citation list, I report (1) the one prior-art reference explicitly named in the '917 specification itself, and (2) references surfaced via the patent family's Google Patents pages, clearly flagged as unverified against the face of the '917.

Also flagging a date inconsistency in the prompt: this task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," but the system prompt states 2026-08-25, and the earlier-generated sections of this analysis rely on events through 2026-08-24 (e.g., IPR2026-00453, filed 2026-08-24). Per the operating rules I treat the live search results as ground truth; the § 102 analysis below does not depend on resolving this discrepancy, since all relevant reference dates are far earlier.

1. Verified on-face citation (named in the '917 specification)

U.S. Pat. No. 6,760,749 B1

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,760,749 B1, issued 2004 (exact issue date, inventor, and assignee could not be verified in this session — the '917 specification identifies it only by number).
• Status vs. '917: Published well before the '917's earliest priority date of 2010-05-06 and before the pre-AIA § 102(b) critical date of 2009-05-06 → qualifies as prior art under pre-AIA § 102(a), § 102(b), and § 102(e).
• Disclosure (as characterized by the '917 itself): "U.S. Pat. No. 6,760,749 B1 discusses a technology whereby the display data of a material, which is referred to as 'presentation content' in the related art, is transmitted together with the audio and video data to a distributing apparatus during a telephone conference via a network. The distributing apparatus then distributes the data or other information to transmission terminals."
• Potential § 102 anticipation target: This is the closest identified prior art to claim 1 (apparatus), its method counterpart, and the computer-readable-medium claim. Its disclosure maps onto:
  • (a) transmission terminal transmitting video data and shared-screen display data via a relay/distributing apparatus — disclosed (telephone conference over a network with a distributing apparatus).
  • (d) transmitting the display data to the relay apparatus — arguably disclosed (transmission to the distributing apparatus for redistribution).
  • (b) storage unit storing relay apparatus information and (c) receive unit receiving display data from an external input apparatus connected to the terminal — not shown from the '917's own characterization. The '917's problem statement emphasizes that in this related art, the computer holding the material "needs to be placed under the management of a transmission managing system," increasing that system's processing load — i.e., the external apparatus communicates through the managing system rather than handing display data directly to a terminal that stores relay-apparatus information.
• Bottom line: A full § 102 anticipation case against claim 1 is doubtful — the '917 was granted over this very reference, and the storage-of-relay-information + direct-from-external-apparatus combination appears to be the point of distinction. Its realistic role is as the primary § 103 obviousness anchor (display-data sharing in a networked conference), combinable with Ricoh's own relay-apparatus-selection disclosures (below).

2. References surfaced via family/sibling pages (NOT verified as on-face citations of the '917)

These appeared in the "Patent Citations," "Cited By," or "Families Citing" sections of Google Patents pages for family members (e.g., WO2014208569A1, US9412148, CN102972016B, US20180041533A1). They may or may not appear on the face of the '917; verify via USPTO Global Dossier before relying on any of them.

3. Claim-by-claim § 102 mapping (claim 1 as representative)

Claim 1's elements, per the patent's own Summary of Invention:

1. Preamble: transmission terminal transmitting video data and shared-screen display data to another terminal via a predetermined relay apparatus;
2. Storage unit storing relay apparatus information for the relay apparatus used for the video data;
3. Receive unit receiving display data from an external input apparatus connected to the transmission terminal;
4. Transmitting unit sending the received display data to the relay apparatus indicated by the stored relay apparatus information.

Method and computer-readable-medium claims: these track claim 1's elements as process steps and program instructions, respectively. Any reference that anticipates claim 1 would also anticipate the method and medium claims (§ 102); conversely, the gaps identified above for claim 1 (elements 2 and 3) apply equally.

Dependent claims (per the district court's representative-claim analysis in Ricoh v. Zoom, D.I. 39: apparatus claims 2–8 and method claims 9–15, adding relay-apparatus details, relay-selection, and the program transmitted to the external input apparatus): none of the identified references was verified to disclose the dependent limitations, so no anticipation finding is supportable on this record.

4. Bottom line

• The only confirmed prior-art citation on the face of the '917 is U.S. Pat. No. 6,760,749 B1, and it is a background-art reference the '917 was granted over — a § 102 anticipation case against it is weak; its value is as a § 103 building block.
• The most threatening potential prior art is Ricoh's own sibling application US 8,768,001 B2 (filed 2010-03-03, i.e., before the '917's 2010-05-06 priority date) — if it is outside the '917's priority chain, it is § 102(a)(2)/(e) prior art disclosing the same relay-apparatus architecture. The priority-chain question is the single most important verification step.
• No claim of the '917 has been held invalid anywhere. The patent survived the § 101 motion-to-dismiss in Ricoh v. Zoom (D.I. 39, May 1, 2026), and the only PTAB proceeding, IPR2026-00453 (Zoom v. Ricoh, filed 2026-08-24), is pending with no institution decision and its grounds not yet public.
• To complete this analysis: pull the PTO-892 / "References Cited" for US 10,931,917 from USPTO Patent Center or Global Dossier (https://globaldossier.uspto.gov), and verify whether US 8,768,001 B2 is a priority-document ancestor of the '917. Until then, treat the family-derived references in Section 2 as unconfirmed.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 10,931,917 B2 ("'917 Patent")

0. Scope note and date flag

This analysis uses only the reference inventory established in the Prior Art section of this page, per the task instruction. Two flags before the substance:

• Verbatim claim text unavailable. The full claims section could not be retrieved in prior sections; claim scope below is grounded in (i) the patent's own Summary of Invention (which recites the independent apparatus, method, and computer-readable-medium claims) and (ii) the district court's representative-claim analysis in Ricoh v. Zoom, No. 1:25-cv-01095-JCG (D. Del.), D.I. 39 (May 1, 2026), which describes apparatus claims 2–8 and method claims 9–15 adding relay-apparatus, relay-selection, and external-input-program limitations. Every element-by-element mapping below should be re-verified against the issued claims before it is used.
• Date inconsistency. The task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the system context and earlier-generated sections include events through 2026-08-24 (e.g., Zoom's IPR2026-00453, filed 2026-08-24). This does not affect the § 103 analysis, which rests on references published years before the 2010-05-06 priority date, but it is flagged for consistency with the prior sections' handling of the discrepancy.

Pre-AIA law applies. The '917's earliest priority date is 2010-05-06 (application chain filed before March 16, 2013), so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102, 103 govern. All reference dates below are far earlier than the § 102(b) critical date of 2009-05-06 or the § 102(a) date of invention, so the pre-AIA regime does not create timing obstacles for any combination.

1. Legal framework applied

Under § 103, a claim is unpatentable if the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a PHOSITA. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), directs consideration of (1) the scope and content of the prior art; (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) the level of ordinary skill in the art; and (4) objective indicia of non-obviousness. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), confirms that obviousness may be shown by a "predictable variation," by "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods," by a "design need or market pressure to solve a technical problem," and by "obvious to try" reasoning where the field provides a finite set of identified, predictable solutions.

Critically for this patent, the '917's own specification supplies much of the motivation-to-combine evidence: it acknowledges (i) the long-standing desire to share material displayed on a computer separate from the conference terminal, (ii) that U.S. Pat. No. 6,760,749 B1 already solved display-data distribution through a distributing apparatus, and (iii) that display-capture techniques (mirror drivers, GDI drawing commands) and OS-level "execute a program upon connection" behavior were conventional. A patent's own admissions of background art are admissible and frequently dispositive on the "differences" and "motivation" prongs.

2. Person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A PHOSITA at the 2010 priority date: a person with a bachelor's degree in computer science, computer engineering, or electrical engineering (or equivalent industry experience), plus 2–4 years designing networked communication systems — videoconferencing, teleconferencing, or multimedia streaming — with working knowledge of IP networking (TCP/IP, relay/proxy topologies), conference-session management, display-capture technologies (mirror drivers, GDI, screen scraping), and USB/peripheral integration. The '917's own specification is written at exactly this level: it treats relay selection, ping-based latency measurement, IP-address-priority scoring, and peripheral connection as routine engineering.

3. Claim scope snapshot (representative)

Independent Claim 1 (apparatus), per the patent's Summary:

• Preamble: A transmission terminal for transmitting video data and display data of a screen shared with another transmission terminal, via a predetermined relay apparatus;
• (a) a storage unit configured to store relay apparatus information of the relay apparatus to which the terminal transmits the video data;
• (b) a receive unit configured to receive the display data from an external input apparatus connected to the transmission terminal;
• (c) a transmitting unit configured to transmit the received display data to the relay apparatus indicated by the stored relay apparatus information.

The method and computer-readable-medium independent claims track these elements as steps/instructions. The stated inventive benefit — the external input apparatus need not log into the transmission managing system, reducing that system's processing load — is an architectural consequence of elements (a)–(c) (and, per the Summary, is not itself separately recited as a claim element; if a negative limitation of that sort does appear in the issued claims, it is inherent in the combination below).

4. Prior-art inventory (from the Prior Art section)

Key structural insight: the verified art ('749) covers the conference-with-display-data-distribution concept; the unverified-but-highly-relevant Ricoh sibling ('001) covers the terminal-stores-relay-info and transmits via a selected relay architecture; the Sharp reference ('065) is a candidate for the external-input image data element. No single reference covers all four elements of claim 1 — which is exactly why this is a § 103 combination analysis, not an anticipation analysis.

5. Combination 1 (PRIMARY): US 6,760,749 B1 + US 8,768,001 B2

5.1 Element-by-element mapping

5.2 Motivation to combine

1. Same field, complementary disclosures. Both references are in the networked-conference art. '749 establishes the what (share presentation content with remote participants) and the where (through a distributing apparatus). '001 establishes the how (a terminal-centric relay architecture in which the terminal stores relay-identification information and routes media through a selected relay). A PHOSITA designing a conference terminal that shares display data would naturally start from '749's content-sharing teaching and implement it on '001's terminal/relay substrate.

2. The '917's own problem statement supplies the motivation. The '917 criticizes the '749 approach: the external computer holding the material "needs to be placed under the management of a transmission managing system," increasing that system's processing load. That criticism is an express articulation of a known design problem — and KSR holds that "design need or market pressure to solve a technical problem" is a classic motivation source. The obvious solution, from a PHOSITA's perspective, is to reuse the media path the terminal already maintains (per '001: the terminal already knows the relay apparatus and has an active session for video/audio) rather than register the external apparatus with the managing system.

3. Predictable variation / simple substitution. Once the terminal holds relay apparatus information (element (a), from '001) and receives a display-data stream from an attached computer (a conventional peripheral arrangement), forwarding that stream to the already-identified relay (element (c), combining '749's "display data to the distributing apparatus" with '001's "terminal transmits to stored relay") is a routine engineering step producing the predictable result of display-data sharing without a second login. KSR's "combination of familiar elements according to known methods" and "predictable variation" rationales apply with full force.

4. No teaching away. '749's managing-system-centric registration is the existing solution, not a warning against terminal-centric routing. The '917 spec itself frames terminal-side routing as a load-reduction objective — consistent with, not divergent from, the trajectory a PHOSITA would take from these references.

5. Reasonable expectation of success. High. The components (relay-apparatus storage, media transmission to a relay, display-data capture from a PC) were each proven in the art; combining them required no new technical mechanism. The '917's own disclosure of implementation details (mirror driver capture, USB transport to the terminal, relay forwarding) confirms the pathway was well within ordinary skill.

5.3 The element-(b) gap and how to close it

Combination 1 alone leaves element (b) unproven on the available record because '749's external computer is characterized as managing-system-managed rather than terminal-connected. Three ways to close the gap, in descending order of strength:

• (i) Verify '001's disclosure. Because '001 is "substantially the same specification family as the '917," it may well disclose an external input apparatus connected to the transmission terminal. If it does, Combination 1 alone covers all four elements. This is the single highest-value verification step.
• (ii) Add Sharp '065 (Combination 3, below).
• (iii) Common knowledge / the '917's own admissions. The '917 spec acknowledges that conference participants "may discuss material displayed on the screen of a computer separate from the transmission terminal" and "may wish to transmit the data of the displayed material." That is an admission that the need (and the physical arrangement of a PC beside a conference terminal) was background knowledge. Documentary evidence of conventional PC-to-conference-terminal display sharing would be needed to prove the element was "well-known" without a specific reference, given the post-KSR evidentiary burden on common-knowledge arguments.

6. Combination 2: US 6,760,749 B1 + US 2007/0086065 A1 (Sharp)

6.1 Element mapping

6.2 Motivation

If Sharp '065 discloses a terminal-side apparatus that ingests image data from an external input and transmits it, then a PHOSITA combining '749 (conference display-data distribution) with Sharp (external-input image ingestion) would arrive at a conference terminal that receives display data from a connected external apparatus and forwards it toward the distributing apparatus. The motivation is the same known problem: sharing a computer's displayed material in a conference. This combination still lacks element (a) — the stored relay apparatus information — so it is incomplete standing alone.

7. Combination 3 (FULL): '749 + '001 + Sharp '065

This three-way combination is the most defensible complete theory:

Motivation to combine all three: Each reference solves a distinct sub-problem of the same overall design task — (i) why share display data in a conference ('749), (ii) through what infrastructure (the terminal's stored-relay media path, '001), and (iii) from what source (an attached external input apparatus, Sharp). KSR does not require a single reference to suggest the combination; it requires that the combination be the predictable product of known components addressing a known problem, with a documented reason to combine. The '917's own background discussion supplies the connective tissue: participants want to share a separate computer's screen ('749's problem), and the burden of managing that computer centrally is undesirable ('917's stated problem) — so route it through the terminal ('001) from the connected apparatus (Sharp). A PHOSITA would have a high expectation of success because no element requires new technology.

8. Dependent claims

Per the district court's characterization, the dependent apparatus claims 2–8 and method claims 9–15 add relay-apparatus details, relay-selection features, and the "program" transmitted to the external input apparatus. Assessed against the identified art:

• Relay-selection limitations (address-priority narrowing; pre-transmission/ping-based final selection). '001 discloses the relay-narrowing and priority-management architecture (address-priority and transmission-rate scoring tables). The final selection by measuring pre-transmission (ping) round-trip time — described in the '917 spec at steps S61–S65 — is the application of standard ICMP-echo/RTT measurement, a well-known network diagnostic technique a PHOSITA would use to pick the lowest-latency relay. Combining '001's selection framework with conventional RTT measurement renders these limitations obvious.
• The "program transmitted to the external input apparatus" (display-data acquiring unit / display-data transmitting unit auto-installed on connection). The '917 spec itself admits that "the external input apparatus may include an operating system (OS), such as a Microsoft Windows OS, which may provide the function of executing a program upon connection with another apparatus." Auto-installation/auto-execution on peripheral connection (AutoRun/plug-and-play) was a standard OS feature at the 2010 priority date. Supplying a small capture-and-forward driver upon connection (the spec describes mirror-driver and GDI-capture techniques as available alternatives) is an obvious implementation of the OS's native behavior. These limitations add little non-obvious weight.

9. Graham factor assessment

1. Scope and content of the prior art: Established above — '749 (verified), '001 and Sharp '065 (unverified disclosures, verify before trial/IPR), plus the conventional techniques the '917's own spec concedes (mirror drivers, GDI capture, OS auto-execution on connection, ping/RTT measurement).
2. Differences between the prior art and the claims: The true difference over the combined art is narrow: routing externally-supplied display data through a terminal that stores relay-apparatus information, so the external apparatus need not be registered with the managing system. That difference is architectural, not technological — no new hardware, protocol, or algorithm is claimed; the benefit (reduced managing-system load) is the inherent result of reusing the existing media path.
3. Level of ordinary skill: Defined in § 2 above; at this level, the implementation is routine.
4. Objective indicia: The record contains no established evidence of long-felt need, industry praise, or unexpected results — and Ricoh's own UCS product (launched 2011) embodies the claims, meaning any commercial-success argument requires a nexus showing the claimed features (rather than the overall product) drove success. Zoom's accused products could support a "copying" inference, but copying is weak evidence without the other indicia and is factually contested in the litigation. None of the indicia is developed enough to overcome a strong prima facie combination.

10. Strengths and weaknesses of the obviousness case

Strengths (for the challenger — Zoom, or the IPR petitioner)

• The '917 was granted over '749 alone, but § 103 permits combinations; '001 plausibly fills the storage-of-relay-information gap. If '001 is confirmed as § 102(e) prior art, Combination 1 is a strong two-reference case with the element-(b) gap likely closeable.
• '001's filing date (2010-03-03) precedes the '917's earliest priority (2010-05-06), so it cannot be a priority ancestor; it is § 102(a)(2)/(e) prior art on its face. Common ownership by Ricoh does not immunize it in a validity challenge (commonly-owned art remains usable in litigation; the pre-AIA § 103(c) shield is a prosecution-side tool), though this is a point Zoom's counsel should be prepared to litigate.
• The '917's own admissions (background desire to share PC screens; '749's disclosure; conventional capture and auto-install techniques) supply motivation and undermine arguments that the combination was non-obvious.
• KSR's "obvious to try" and "predictable variation" rationales map cleanly onto reusing the terminal's existing relay path for a new data stream.

Weaknesses (for the challenger)

• Element (b) is unproven in the verified art. '749's external computer is managing-system-managed, not terminal-connected as a display-data source. The combination's success depends on (i) '001's unverified disclosure, (ii) Sharp '065's unverified disclosure, or (iii) a documentary common-knowledge showing — none of which is currently established.
• The Sharp '065 disclosure is entirely uncharacterized in the available record; until its specification is pulled, its ability to fill element (b) is speculative.
• JP5887756B2 — the sibling that specifically covers the external-input-device aspect — post-dates the '917's priority (2010-11-30 vs. 2010-05-06) and is unavailable as prior art unless the challenger can show a claim limitation lacks support in the 2010 disclosure (new matter introduced in the 2019 continuation). That is an uncertain, fact-intensive path.
• The district court's May 1, 2026 opinion (D.I. 39) found Ricoh plausibly alleged "inventive concepts" at Alice step two — a § 101 holding, not a § 103 holding, but the same fact questions (whether the elements are "well-understood, routine, and conventional") could be litigated against the obviousness position. Conversely, the court's finding that the claims are directed to an abstract idea is consistent with — though not decisive of — an obviousness challenge. The pending IPR2026-00453 (per the earlier sections, filed 2026-08-24) will likely be the venue where Zoom's § 102/§ 103 grounds surface; its grounds are not yet public.

11. Verification checklist (required before relying on this analysis)

1. Pull the issued claims of US 10,931,917 from USPTO Patent Center or Google Patents; confirm the verbatim text of claims 1–15 and whether any negative limitation ("without logging in") is actually recited.
2. Pull the PTO-892 / "References Cited" from Global Dossier to confirm whether '001, Sharp '065, and the Ricoh siblings are on the face of the '917.
3. Verify US 8,768,001 B2's disclosure of a terminal-connected external input apparatus (element (b)) — this single fact determines whether Combination 1 is complete.
4. Pull Sharp '065's specification to confirm it discloses receiving image/display data from an external input and transmitting it.
5. Confirm the priority chain of the '917 (continuation lineage back to 2010-05-06) and confirm '001 is outside it (its 2010-03-03 filing date makes it prior art, not an ancestor — but confirm no earlier '917 ancestor exists that would shift the analysis).
6. Identify any new-matter limitations introduced in the 2019 continuation that might expose claims to JP5887756B2 or other post-2010 art.

12. Bottom line

The strongest § 103 case is Combination 1 — US 6,760,749 B1 + US 8,768,001 B2 — with Sharp '065 (US 2007/0086065 A1) available to fill the element-(b) gap. A PHOSITA, motivated by the very problem the '917's specification articulates (reducing transmission-managing-system load by avoiding centralized management of the external apparatus), would combine '749's display-data-sharing teaching with '001's terminal-stores-relay-information architecture to arrive at the claimed terminal: a device that receives display data from a connected external input apparatus and forwards it to the relay apparatus it already uses for video. The result — display sharing without the external apparatus logging into the managing system — is the predictable, inherent consequence of the combination, not an unexpected technical effect. The claims are thus prima facie obvious under § 103, subject to verification of the two unconfirmed reference disclosures ('001 and Sharp '065) and the priority-chain/new-matter questions flagged above. The remaining uncertainty in the case is evidentiary, not conceptual: the identified art, if confirmed, maps onto every element of the representative claim, and the '917's own admissions supply the motivation to combine.