US 11257115

Here is a concise summary of US patent 11257115:

• Title: Providing additional digital content or advertising based on analysis of specific interest in the digital content being viewed
• Assignee: Stratacor LLC
• Inventor: Gil Emanuel Fuchs
• Filing Date: September 2, 2015
• Issue Date: February 22, 2022
• Abstract: Systems and methods for providing additional relevant content to a viewer of digital media, such as a webpage, are described. The viewed webpage is divided into regions, and statistics on pertinent words and phrases are compiled for each region. These statistically significant words and phrases are then semantically compared with similar words and phrases in available additional content. If there's a significant match between the viewed content and the additional content, the relevant additional content is then provided to the user.

Legal Status and Litigation:
The patent is currently Active and is set to expire on October 31, 2037. The patent family has litigation, specifically a US case filed in the Texas Eastern District Court, case number 2:26-cv-00013. This was the first worldwide family litigation filed.

Plain-Language Overview of Independent Claims:

• Claim 1 (Method Claim): This claim describes a method to deliver relevant internet content to a user. It involves:

  1. Dividing pages: A processing unit divides the internet pages being viewed into distinct areas (regions) based on the type of content they hold (e.g., header, body).
  2. Monitoring viewing: Input devices (like a mouse) track how often and for how long the user views each region. Periods where the pointing device is idle for too long are ignored.
  3. Compiling text: The processing unit gathers all textual information within each region.
  4. Filtering and listing words: For each region, unimportant words/phrases are removed, and a list of the most frequently used words and phrases is created.
  5. Semantic comparison: If a user views a region frequently and for a sufficient duration, the frequently used words/phrases from that region are semantically compared with words/phrases from potential additional internet content.
  6. Providing content: If there's a strong semantic similarity (above a certain threshold), the relevant additional content or a link to it is displayed to the user. This can appear in a specific or less-used part of the current page, on a new page, or as a pop-up.

• Claim 13 (System Claim): This claim outlines a computer-based system designed to provide relevant internet content. It includes:

  1. Memory/Storage: A component to store internet content, semantic relationships between words/phrases, and counts of semantically related word groups within each page.
  2. Display Device: A screen to show internet content.
  3. Input Device: A tool (like a pointing device) to track which region of the displayed content a user is looking at and for how long. It specifically ignores periods when the pointing device is motionless beyond a set time.
  4. Processing Unit: Connected to the memory/storage, input, and display, this unit is configured to:
     • Divide displayed internet pages into regions based on content form.
     • Count words and phrases in each semantic group within each region, matching them to stored semantic groups.
     • For regions viewed above a certain frequency and duration, compare the most viewed semantic groups with the highest count semantic groups in the stored content.
     • Select and provide relevant internet content (or a link to it) on the display screen in a specified, less-used, new page, or pop-up area if semantic similarity is found.

• Claim 16 (Method Claim): This claim is a more specific method building upon Claim 1, with additional details:

  1. Dividing pages: Same as Claim 1, but explicitly states regions are defined based on HTML tags and elements.
  2. Monitoring viewing: Same as Claim 1, tracking pointing device location and duration, but does not explicitly exclude intervals where the pointing device does not move.
  3. Compiling text: Same as Claim 1.
  4. Filtering and listing words: Same as Claim 1.
  5. Semantic comparison: For regions viewed above a specified threshold, this step involves:
     • Statistically tokenizing and parsing the frequently used words and phrases.
     • Storing these tokenized and parsed words/phrases in an associative database using conceptual graph formalism.
     • Comparing these words in the associative database to tokenized and parsed words from additional content using a transformational algebra-based semantic rule-set.
  6. Providing content: Same as Claim 1, selecting and providing relevant internet-based content with semantic similarity above a pre-specified threshold.

As of April 26, 2026, there is known litigation involving US patent 11257115.

Case Details:

• Jurisdiction: Texas Eastern District Court
• Case Number: 2:26-cv-00013
• Plaintiff(s): Stratacor LLC (assignee of US11257115B2)
• Defendant(s): Not specified in the provided information.
• Filing Date: Not specified in the provided information.
• Outcome or Current Status: The patent family has litigation, with a US case filed in the Texas Eastern District Court. This was the first worldwide family litigation filed. The current status or outcome of this specific case (2:26-cv-00013) is not detailed in the provided information.

Proceedings overview

There is no PTAB activity on file for US patent 11257115.

Strategic summary

As of today's date, US patent 11257115 has no claims canceled, sustained, or otherwise impacted by AIA trial proceedings. All claims (1-16) remain untested by IPR, PGR, or CBM trials. Consequently, there is no estoppel landscape from PTAB proceedings, meaning all prior-art grounds remain available to a potential petitioner. The absence of PTAB activity could suggest various things: the patent may not have been asserted widely enough to attract challenges, or potential challengers may have found the claims robust.

Recommended next steps

There are no PTAB proceedings, active or otherwise, for US patent 11257115. If a defendant is being asserted against, all prior-art grounds remain available for a potential IPR, PGR, or CBM petition. The absence of PTAB activity for an active patent can be a signal, as well-asserted patents often become targets for IPRs.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record for US patent 11257115, starting with targeted searches on the assignment entities and the current assignee.

Excellent findings. Let me dig deeper into the assignment entities, the correspondents of record, and the "Ambient Analytics LLC" parent entity.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US Patent 11,257,115

Data-integrity note up front: The two reassignments below are corroborated from the patent's own Google Patents legal-events record (which mirrors USPTO Assignment Center), including reel/frame numbers and effective dates. However, the correspondent-of-record field (the filing attorney/agent) for each recording was not retrievable from the sources fetched for this analysis. I am flagging that gap rather than inventing a name; the litigation-counsel information that is available appears under Signal 3 below. Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "11257115").

Inventors

Unusual pattern: The definitive tell here is not inventor departure within 12 months — it is that the patent was filed as an individual, unassigned, while a sibling family member (US8,880,537) sat in a company (Vexigo). Fuchs held the '115 patent personally for ~9 years (2015→2024) and then sold a portfolio (see timeline) to an Allied Security Trust acquisition vehicle — the classic posture of a solo inventor monetizing a personal patent shelf rather than an operating company's IP department.

Original assignee

Individual — Gil Emanuel Fuchs. The '115 patent was never assigned to an operating company at issue. There is no evidence that Fuchs shipped a commercial product embodying the claims; the specification is framed as a system/method concept (region-based word counting + semantic matching for ad/content targeting), not a product description. Fuchs's status is best characterized as an active independent inventor and patent seller, not an operating company. Corporate footprint associated with his earlier work (Vexigo, Ltd.) is unrelated to ownership of this patent. His patents and applications in later years were repeatedly assigned to IP3 2024, Series 924 of Allied Security Trust I, confirming a deliberate, ongoing sell-side strategy (see below).

Assignment timeline

Pre-issuance / baseline: No assignment recorded at filing; the patent issued (2022-02-22) with original assignee "Individual." Fuchs owned it personally until 2024.

• 2024-11-12 (executed) / recorded 2024-11-22 — Reel 069373/0249

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST; ASSIGNOR: FUCHS, GIL EMANUEL")
  • Assignor: Fuchs, Gil Emanuel (individual)
  • Assignee: IP3 2024, Series 924 of Allied Security Trust I (Princeton, NJ — an Allied Security Trust "IP3" acquisition vehicle)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the records fetched for this analysis (flag).
  • Context: Portfolio sale by the inventor to AST's IP3 2024 program vehicle — evidenced by the same vehicle also appearing as assignee on Fuchs's unrelated application US2024133700A1 (multimodal vehicle routing), i.e., a multi-patent disposition, not a one-off.

• 2025-11-26 (executed) / recorded 2026-01-26 — Reel 073578/0184

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST; ASSIGNOR: ALLIED SECURITY TRUST I")
  • Assignor: Allied Security Trust I (residual/parent of the IP3 2024 Series 924 vehicle)
  • Assignee: Stratacor LLC (Houston St, Marshall, TX address of record used in litigation)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the records fetched (flag).
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter — the patent moved out of the AST family into Stratacor LLC, which began asserting it ~6 weeks later. Consistent with AST's advertised "catch-and-release" model (acquire for member defensive benefit, later release/sell).

Caveat: The continuation-application family (US17/592,634, abandoned; US18/811,102, pending) may or may not have been swept into these conveyances; the fetched records did not delineate per-application coverage.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11257115
    2014 : Filed by inventor Fuchs
    2015 : Non-provisional filed
    2022 : Patent issued to Fuchs
    2024 : Fuchs assigns to IP3 2024 vehicle
    2025 : IP3 vehicle assigns to Stratacor LLC
    2026 : Stratacor sues Alibaba
         : Unified files ex parte reexam
         : Stratacor sues LG Electronics

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Fuchs (individual inventor, no product) transferred the patent to Stratacor LLC, a Texas LLC with no products in commerce and a litigation address of record at 104 E Houston St, Marshall, TX 75670 — the Marshall, TX venue address of its plaintiff-side counsel (Rubino IP) as shown in PacerMonitor for Stratacor LLC v. LG Electronics, 2:26-cv-00571. Unified Patents independently identifies Stratacor as "an NPE and entity of Ambient Analytics LLC." Cite: Reel 073578/0184 (2025-11-26/2026-01-26).

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Stratacor LLC does not appear on the named legacy NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, etc.), but it is surfaced by Unified Patents as a high-frequency, single-purpose NPE and an entity of Ambient Analytics LLC (Unified Patents insight, 2026-02-24, and 2026-06-09). It is actively asserting this patent against Alibaba and LG. Cite: Reel 073578/0184; E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00013 and 2:26-cv-00571.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT (litigation counsel; assignment correspondent unverified).
The same firm — Rubino IP (John Andrew Rubino; Michael Mondelli III) — is plaintiff's counsel across Stratacor's suits (Alibaba 2:26-cv-00013 and LG 2:26-cv-00571), which is a recurring-plaintiff-firm pattern. However, I could not confirm whether Rubino IP (or any single agent) also served as the assignment correspondent on Reels 069373/0249 and 073578/0184 — that field was not in the fetched data. Treat the assignment-correspondent recurrence as unverified, not as a positive finding.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (moderate).
Two consecutive assignments in ~12 months: Fuchs → AST IP3 2024 vehicle (Nov 2024), then AST vehicle → Stratacor LLC (Nov 2025), with recording lag pushing the second entry into Jan 2026. Not a long LLC daisy-chain, but a fast two-hop handoff out of an aggregator and into an asserter. Cite: Reels 069373/0249 and 073578/0184.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT.
Stratacor LLC's acquisition executed 2025-11-26; the first infringement suit (Stratacor v. Alibaba, 2:26-cv-00013) was filed 2026-01-08 — roughly 6 weeks later, and notably before the assignment was even recorded (2026-01-26). This is the signature of a chain arranged to create a clean standing/venue record for immediate assertion. Cite: Reel 073578/0184 vs. E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00013.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 or estate-sale evidence for Fuchs or any intermediary. The disposition to IP3 2024 was a voluntary market sale, not a distressed sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT / N/A.
Privateering requires an operating company transferring patents to an NPE to hit competitors. Here the original owner was a solo inventor, not an operating company, so the classic privateering fact pattern does not apply.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT (notable transit, not termination).
The chain passes through Allied Security Trust's IP3 2024 vehicle (Reel 069373/0249), which is an unusual twist — AST is a defensive aggregator — but the chain does not terminate there. It continues to Stratacor LLC, which asserts. Under AST's "catch-and-release" model the release is expected, so this is a captured-and-released asset rather than a neutralized one. The patent is not held defensively by RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN at present.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence. Multiple strong signals co-occur: a transfer from an individual inventor with no product to a no-product Texas LLC (Reel 073578/0184, executed 2025-11-26), a pre-litigation transfer effectuated ~6 weeks before suit with recording lagging the filing (Reel 073578/0184 vs. E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00013 filed 2026-01-08), and independent third-party classification of Stratacor LLC as an NPE/Ambient Analytics entity by Unified Patents. The only mitigating wrinkle — the passage through AST's IP3 2024 vehicle (Reel 069373/0249) — is fully consistent with AST's catch-and-release program and does not neutralize the patent, which is now actively asserted and is the subject of a Unified Patents ex parte reexamination filed 2026-06-05.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent number search: 11257115).

Open items I could not close: (i) correspondent-of-record on both reels; (ii) whether the family continuations (US17/592,634; US18/811,102) traveled with these conveyances; (iii) the principals behind Ambient Analytics LLC. All three require direct Assignment Center / state-entity-registry pulls that were outside the data fetched here.

The USPTO database can be searched using their Patent Public Search tool.

Here is an analysis of the prior art cited in US patent 11257115, focusing on its relevance to the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

Non-Patent Literature:

• "PRACTICAL NATURAL LANGUAGE PROCESSING QUESTION ANSWERING USING GRAPHS"
  • Full Citation: Fuchs, Gil E., "Practical Natural Language Processing Question Answering Using Graphs", PhD Dissertation, University of California Santa Cruz, December 2004.
  • Publication/Filing Date: December 2004.
  • Brief Description: This PhD dissertation by the inventor himself describes techniques for natural language processing, including the creation and comparison of conceptual graphs for semantic understanding, and the use of associative databases. The patent explicitly states that "the invention is related to" and "is incorporated herein by reference" to this dissertation.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This reference is highly relevant, particularly to aspects of claims 1, 13, and 16 that involve semantic comparison, statistical tokenizing and parsing, conceptual graph formalism, and associative databases (e.g., claim 1, step 6; claim 13, memory/storage and processing unit description; claim 16, step 5). Given it's by the same inventor and incorporated by reference, it likely provides foundational knowledge for these semantic processing elements.

Patent Citations:

• US6112240A

  • Full Citation: US6112240A, International Business Machines Corporation, "Web site client information tracker", issued August 29, 2000.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 3, 1997 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This patent describes a system for tracking client information on a website, which can be used to monitor user activity and preferences.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Could potentially anticipate aspects of monitoring and tracking user interaction with web pages, as described in claim 1 (step 2) and claim 13 (input device). The general concept of tracking web client information to infer interest might be disclosed.

• US6615208B1

  • Full Citation: US6615208B1, Telcordia Technologies, Inc., "Automatic recommendation of products using latent semantic indexing of content", issued September 2, 2003.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 1, 2000 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This patent focuses on automatically recommending products by using latent semantic indexing of content, which involves analyzing the underlying meaning of text.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Likely anticipates aspects related to semantic analysis and using content meaning to recommend further content, as seen in claim 1 (step 6) and claim 13 (processing unit for semantic comparison), especially the "semantically comparing" element.

• US20040111432A1

  • Full Citation: US20040111432A1, International Business Machines Corporation, "Apparatus and methods for semantic representation and retrieval of multimedia content", published June 10, 2004.
  • Publication/Filing Date: December 10, 2002 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication details methods and apparatus for representing and retrieving multimedia content using semantic information.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Could anticipate aspects of semantic analysis for content (including multimedia, though US11257115B2 focuses primarily on text) and retrieval of relevant information, as in claim 1 (step 6) and claim 13 (semantic relationships in memory/storage, processing unit for comparing semantic groups).

• US20050091106A1

  • Full Citation: US20050091106A1, Reller William M., "Selecting ads for a web page based on keywords located on the web page", published April 28, 2005.
  • Publication/Filing Date: October 27, 2003 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes selecting advertisements for a webpage based on keywords found within that page.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Directly relevant to the core idea of targeted advertising based on content analysis. It could anticipate the compilation of keywords/phrases (claim 1, step 5) and the subsequent selection and provision of relevant content/advertising (claim 1, step 7; claim 13, selecting and providing).

• US20050216844A1

  • Full Citation: US20050216844A1, Error Brett M., "Delayed transmission of website usage data", published September 29, 2005.
  • Publication/Filing Date: March 3, 2004 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication concerns the delayed transmission of website usage data.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Less directly relevant to semantic analysis or content provision, but could relate to the underlying data collection methods for user activity and viewing duration as broadly described in claim 1 (step 2) and claim 13 (input device).

• US7181438B1

  • Full Citation: US7181438B1, Alberti Anemometer, Llc, "Database access system", issued February 20, 2007.
  • Publication/Filing Date: July 21, 1999 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This patent describes a database access system.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This is a very general citation. Its relevance would depend on the specific features of the database system and whether it discloses mechanisms for storing and retrieving semantic information or word counts in a manner similar to the associative database described in US11257115B2 (claim 6 and claim 16, step 5).

• US20070208719A1

  • Full Citation: US20070208719A1, Bao Tran, "Systems and methods for analyzing semantic documents over a network", published September 6, 2007.
  • Publication/Filing Date: March 18, 2004 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication details systems and methods for analyzing semantic documents over a network.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Highly relevant to the semantic analysis aspects of US11257115B2, particularly claim 1 (step 6), claim 13 (semantic relationships, comparing semantic groups), and claim 16 (step 5) that involve semantic comparison and understanding of text.

• US20080027798A1

  • Full Citation: US20080027798A1, Shivkumar Ramamurthi, "Serving advertisements based on keywords related to a webpage determined using external metadata", published January 31, 2008.
  • Publication/Filing Date: July 25, 2006 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes serving advertisements based on keywords related to a webpage, where these keywords are determined using external metadata.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Similar to US20050091106A1, this directly addresses serving targeted advertisements based on webpage content, specifically keywords. It could anticipate claim 1 (steps 5 and 7) and claim 13 (processing unit selecting and providing content).

• US7478089B2

  • Full Citation: US7478089B2, Kontera Technologies, Inc., "System and method for real-time web page context analysis for the real-time insertion of textual markup objects and dynamic content", issued January 13, 2009.
  • Publication/Filing Date: October 29, 2003 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This patent describes real-time web page context analysis to insert textual markup objects and dynamic content.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Could anticipate aspects of analyzing content (especially in real-time) and then dynamically inserting related content, which is a core function of US11257115B2's claims 1 and 13 (selecting and providing relevant content).

• US7882115B2

  • Full Citation: US7882115B2, Scott Hirsch, "Method and apparatus for improved information representation", issued February 1, 2011.
  • Publication/Filing Date: April 27, 1999 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This patent describes methods and apparatus for improved information representation.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Another general citation. Its relevance would depend on whether its "improved information representation" touches upon semantic understanding or structured data representation in a way that anticipates the conceptual graph formalism or associative database elements of claims 6 and 16, step 5.

• US20110029511A1

  • Full Citation: US20110029511A1, Muralidharan Sampath Kodialam, "Keyword assignment to a web page", published February 3, 2011.
  • Publication/Filing Date: July 30, 2009 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes assigning keywords to a web page.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Directly relevant to the process of identifying pertinent words and phrases from web content, as described in claim 1 (steps 3-5) and claim 13 (counting words and phrases).

• US20110093479A1

  • Full Citation: US20110093479A1, Vexigo, Ltd., "System and method for use of semantic understanding in storage, searching and providing of data or other content information", published April 21, 2011.
  • Publication/Filing Date: October 19, 2009 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes a system and method for semantic understanding in storing, searching, and providing data or other content. This appears to be a direct earlier publication by the same inventor (Gil Emanuel Fuchs is an inventor on both).
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This is exceptionally relevant. Given the identical title (or very similar, "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR USE OF SEMANTIC UNDERSTANDING IN STORAGE, SEARCHING AND PROVIDING DATA OR OTHER CONTENT INFORMATION" as incorporated by reference in US11257115B2) and the same inventor, this patent (or its corresponding granted patent US8880537B2, which is explicitly incorporated by reference in US11257115B2) is a very strong candidate for anticipating many aspects of US11257115B2, particularly the semantic understanding, storage, searching, and providing content elements across claims 1, 13, and 16. It is highly likely to anticipate the semantic comparison (claim 1, step 6), associative database (claim 6, claim 16 step 5), and the overall system for providing relevant content.

• US20120066359A1

  • Full Citation: US20120066359A1, Freeman Erik S, "Method and system for evaluating link-hosting webpages", published March 15, 2012.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 9, 2010 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes a method and system for evaluating webpages that host links.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Less directly related to the semantic content analysis, but could overlap with the evaluation of links for providing additional content, as mentioned in claim 1 (step 7) and claim 13 (selecting and providing content as a link).

• US20120150784A1

  • Full Citation: US20120150784A1, Microsoft Corporation, "Immersive Planning of Events Including Vacations", published June 14, 2012.
  • Publication/Filing Date: December 11, 2010 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication relates to immersive planning of events.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This appears to be less directly relevant to the core claimed invention of US11257115B2, which is about providing content/advertising based on observed interest in currently viewed digital media, rather than planning systems.

• US20120280908A1

  • Full Citation: US20120280908A1, Rhoads Geoffrey B, "Smartphone-Based Methods and Systems", published November 8, 2012.
  • Publication/Filing Date: November 4, 2010 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes smartphone-based methods and systems, potentially including interaction tracking.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Could anticipate general methods of tracking user interaction on mobile devices, which might involve pointing device movements or other inputs relevant to claim 1 (step 2) and claim 13 (input device).

• US20130080434A1

  • Full Citation: US20130080434A1, Aol Advertising Inc., "Systems and Methods for Contextual Analysis and Segmentation Using Dynamically-Derived Topics", published March 28, 2013.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 23, 2011 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes systems and methods for contextual analysis and segmentation using dynamically-derived topics.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Very relevant to the semantic analysis and topic identification aspects of US11257115B2. It could anticipate the compilation of textural information and identification of important words/phrases (claim 1, steps 3-5) and the semantic comparison for relevant content (claim 1, step 6; claim 13, processing unit).

• US20140089097A1

  • Full Citation: US20140089097A1, Naver Business Platform Corp., "Method and system for providing advertisement based on gaze of user", published March 27, 2014.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 24, 2012 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes providing advertisements based on a user's gaze.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Directly anticipates the concept of determining user interest by observing where they are looking on a screen. While US11257115B2 mentions eye tracking as an ideal method, its claims primarily specify pointing device movement. However, the broader concept of "monitoring and tracking the frequency and duration of viewing" in claim 1 (step 2) and claim 13 (input device) could be anticipated by methods that infer interest from gaze, even if the implementation differs.

• US20140180829A1

  • Full Citation: US20140180829A1, Dennoo Inc., "Advertising Platform", published June 26, 2014.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 9, 2011 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes an advertising platform.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): General description, but an advertising platform would inherently involve mechanisms for targeting and delivering advertisements. Its relevance depends on whether it discloses specific methods of content analysis and user interest determination that anticipate the detailed steps of US11257115B2.

• US8775975B2

  • Full Citation: US8775975B2, Buckyball Mobile, Inc., "Expectation assisted text messaging", issued July 8, 2014.
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 21, 2005 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This patent describes expectation-assisted text messaging.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This appears to be less directly relevant to providing additional content or advertising based on analysis of user interest in viewed digital media, as its focus is on text messaging assistance.

• US20140344012A1

  • Full Citation: US20140344012A1, Intel Corporation, "Interestingness scoring of areas of interest included in a display element", published November 20, 2014.
  • Publication/Filing Date: December 12, 2011 (priority date).
  • Brief Description: This publication describes scoring areas of interest within a display element.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Highly relevant to the concept of identifying portions of content that are most important to a user. This could anticipate the "dividing into regions" (claim 1, step 1; claim 13, processing unit), "monitoring and tracking the frequency and duration of viewing" (claim 1, step 2; claim 13, input device), and the general goal of determining user interest in specific areas of content.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis by verifying key reference disclosures and checking for additional art on the specific limitations (idle-interval filtering, region-based dwell tracking, semantic ad matching).

Let me verify a few remaining references and probe for art on the specific "idle-interval not recorded" limitation.

Obviousness Analysis — US 11,257,115 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on: the previously generated Patent Summary (independent claims 1, 13, 16 and dependent claims 2–12, 14–15), the Prior Art section (cited references and their disclosures), and the Assignment/Litigation sections (which establish this is an actively asserted patent — E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00013, with a Unified Patents ex parte reexam noted — so § 103 exposure is commercially live).

1. Governing standard and the critical date

Prior-art status of the cited references (all must pre-date 2014-09-02):

Note (a) — the inventor's own pre-filing publication. US20110093479A1 published 2011-04-21, more than three years before the 2014-09-02 effective filing date. Because it is a printed publication under § 102(a)(1), the § 102(b)(1)(A) grace-period exception (≤1 year) does not reach it, and § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership does not apply to 102(a)(1) art. Inventor commonality (Fuchs on both) is therefore not a shield. Likewise US8880537 (granted 2014-11-04) is usable as the publication, not the grant.

Note (b) — the Intel reference date nuance (flagged). The US publication US20140344012A1 has a publication date of 2014-11-20, i.e. after the 2014-09-02 critical date; it is therefore not 102(a)(1) art in its US-publication form. It is still available two other ways: (i) its PCT counterpart WO2013089667A1 published 2013-06-20 (102(a)(1)); and (ii) the US application was effectively filed 2011-12-12 (PCT/US2011/064439) and was published, so it qualifies under § 102(a)(2). The Prior Art section of this analysis cites the '012 publication; for a clean § 103 ground I would cite WO2013089667A1 or the '012 publication under 102(a)(2).

2. Claim-element → reference mapping (the building blocks of the combinations)

Two structural observations that help the obviousness case:

1. The specification concedes much of element (B). The '115 description itself lists, as known alternatives: "Tracking the mouse (or other pointing device) location … Tracking the relative location of scroll bars … Monitoring search words … determining the subject of the image," and states eye/head tracking devices "exist in the art." This is applicant-admitted prior art and effectively concedes that gaze, mouse, and scroll-bar position are interchangeable attention proxies — which undercuts any argument that substituting one for another is non-obvious (KSR; MPEP 2144.04).
2. The specification also expressly admits elements (C)–(E) as known: "Techniques exist in the art to allow capturing and interpreting semantics or meaning from text. In one example, a conceptual graph can be created from text being viewed. A plurality of conceptual graphs … can be compared to determine matches." Claim 6 and claim 16 step 5 recite precisely that admitted technique (SP/STS/ADB), which is disclosed verbatim in Vexigo '479/'537 and the 2004 dissertation.

3. Principal § 103 combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination 1 — Kontera '089 + WO2013089667A1 (Intel) + Vexigo '479

Renders claims 1, 2, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 16 obvious.

• Kontera supplies (A) content-form region analysis (frames, HTML parse), (D) keyword extraction/filtering, (E) partial semantic grouping (concepts extractor, topic finder, aliases finder, taxonomy DB), (F) selection by relevancy score with thresholding, and every one of the claim-1 placement modes ("in-text links … placing relevant … material next to the web page content … on top or under the current page"), plus a documented Dynamic Feedback Procedure (Kontera FIG. 9) that maps directly onto claim 11 and claim 10's pre-stored page-analysis cache.
• Intel '667 supplies (B): region/area-of-interest viewing duration and frequency, with weighting of separate metrics and an update/profile loop — i.e., the "viewed above a specified threshold viewing frequency and duration" qualifier of claim 1.
• Vexigo '479 supplies (E) in the exact claimed form (statistical tokenizer → conceptual-graph ADB → transformational-algebra rule-set), and expressly states the ADB exists so that "the semantic approach can be used … to improve the ability to serve ads based on the meaning of a website's page content."

Motivation: Intel states its purpose, in terms: "Advertisers may also wish to place display elements before targeted consumers … Measuring an observer's interest in particular areas of a display element … may provide advertisers with valuable marketing information" and that combining scores across viewers yields "a more detailed characterization of the observer's interests." Kontera's own background laments that prior ad techniques "typically rely upon non-real-time analysis" and lack contextual relevance. One of ordinary skill in 2014, facing the acknowledged problem of which part of a page a viewer actually cares about, would predictably (i) take Kontera's already-existing region-level page/ad pipeline and (ii) gate or weight it using Intel's already-existing region-level attention scores — the two references address the same field (contextual ad targeting) and the same unit of analysis (page regions/display areas).

Combination 2 — Intel '667 + Reller '106 + Telcordia '208 (LSI)

Renders claims 1, 3, 5, 8, 13, 14 obvious. Reller discloses "Selecting ads for a web page based on keywords located on the web page" (elements C–D, F). Telcordia discloses applying a latent semantic algorithm to establish conceptual similarity and outputting the "nearest items" — i.e., a similarity-threshold ranking (element E, claim-1's "pre-specified threshold value"). Intel supplies (B). Substituting LSI for Reller's literal keyword match is the paradigm KSR "obvious to try" / known-technique substitution: LSI was developed precisely to mitigate the synonymy/polysemy failure of keyword matching (see Telcordia's own text contrasting "semantic structure analysis" with "conventional keyword matching"). Predictable result: better-matched ads.

Combination 3 — Kontera '089 + AOL '252 + Naver '097

Renders claims 1, 10, 13, 16 obvious; supports claim 9/15 (aggregate viewers). AOL '252/'434 gives key-term extraction, contextual-representation comparison, contextual segments, and thresholding so "only the most relevant information objects … are assigned to the segment" (mapping claim 1's threshold and claim 9's multi-viewer aggregation via user-profile objects). Naver '097 gives gaze-based ad delivery (mapping the "monitor what region the viewer is looking at" language of claim 13 and the "frequency and duration of viewing" of claim 1). Kontera supplies the insertion/feedback mechanics.

Combination 4 — Vexigo '479/'537 + 2004 Fuchs dissertation (+ Kontera '089)

Renders claims 6 and 16 obvious. The dissertation (Dec. 2004, cited by the examiner) and Vexigo '479 disclose conceptual graphs, link grammars, and associative databases; Vexigo additionally discloses the three-part SP + STS + ADB architecture that claim 6 and claim 16 step 5 recite almost word-for-word. Since the '115 specification incorporates both by reference and states they are "related," the claim-16 pipeline is admitted prior art.

KSR factors common to all four combinations: (1) known problem / market pressure — improving ad relevance in real-time; (2) predictable combination of known elements, each operating in its known way; (3) no teaching away — nothing in any reference disparages region-level attention weighting or semantic matching; (4) reasonable expectation of success, since all references sit in the same art (web-content analysis and targeted advertising), and (5) the same result the applicant achieves by "simply" combining them.

4. Claim-by-claim disposition

5. Weak points — where the cited art does not reach

Be candid about these; they are the defendant's work items.

1. Idle-interval exclusion (claim 1 step 2; claim 13 input device). No reference in the cited set expressly discloses "intervals where the pointing device does not move for periods longer than a pre-defined threshold time period are not recorded." The closest are Error '844 (delayed transmission of usage data) and the general, notorious convention of browser/analytics session timeouts (the 30-minute session-timeout standard) and screensaver/presence-detection logic. Framed as a routine data-hygiene optimization applied to a known dwell-time measurement, it is likely obvious — but I could not verify a specific reference in the cited set that discloses it, and additional art should be located (e.g., kiosk/IM-idle/presence-detection patents, or ad-verification/impression-validation patents that discount "non-viewed" dwell).
2. "Little used region" placement of the selected content (claims 1, 13, 16). Kontera discloses placement "next to," "on top or under," and via in-text links and context pop-ups; "little used region" is arguably an optimization/design choice, but the mapping is not literal.
3. Claim 12 (facial expressions via a display-facing camera). Intel '667 discloses a camera(s) 145 and gaze/fixation tracking, but gaze ≠ facial expression. The '115 specification itself concedes "There exists in the art methods of monitoring individual characteristics and reactions" and that "facial expressions can express joy, frustration, anger, concentration." A standalone § 103 challenge to claim 12 requires art not present in the cited set (facial-expression/emotion-detection ad-targeting work). Flagging honestly: on the cited record alone, claim 12 is the least vulnerable claim. If the goal is to knock out all 16 claims, supplemental art is needed for claim 12; if the goal is to invalidate the asserted independent claims, claim 12 is not a gating limitation.
4. Note on the inventor's own art. Using Vexigo '479/'537 and the dissertation against the same inventor is legally available (see Note (a)) but carries a narrative risk before a jury; the safer framing is to deploy them as (i) § 102(a)(1) printed publications, and (ii) evidence of the knowledge of a PHOSITA at the critical date.

6. Cross-reference flags and contradictions

Per the instruction to flag contradictions explicitly, I note the following against the previously generated sections:

• Date inconsistency. The Prior Art/Litigation/Assignment sections reference events dated 2026-01-08 (Stratacor v. Alibaba), 2026-05-19, 2026-06-05 (Unified Patents ex parte reexam), and 2026-06-09, yet the Litigation summary is captioned "As of April 26, 2026." Those events post-date that stated date. I have treated the later dates as authoritative for the disposition of the patent (consistent with the Assignment-section timeline diagram, which shows "Stratacor sues Alibaba," "Unified files ex parte reexam," and "Stratacor sues LG Electronics"), and I flag the "April 26, 2026" caption as internally inconsistent with them.
• No conflict between the PTAB section (no AIA trial proceedings) and the Assignment section (a Unified Patents ex parte reexamination): an ex parte reexam is a USPTO central-reissue proceeding, not a PTAB AIA trial, so there is genuinely no PTAB estoppel — but the assignment section's reexam reference means the patent is under a pending validity attack at the Office, which materially raises the value of the § 103 grounds above (they can be recycled in the reexam and in any IPR).
• Reference-form correction to the Prior Art section's characterization. The Prior Art section treats US20140344012A1 as § 102 art without noting its 2014-11-20 publication date post-dates the 2014-09-02 critical date. As set out in Note (b), it is only § 102 art via WO2013089667A1 (2013-06-20) or via § 102(a)(2) (effectively filed 2011-12-12). Any invalidity contention should cite the WO publication.

7. Bottom line

• Claims 1–11 and 13–16 are, on the cited record, reasonably likely to be held obvious under § 103, most cleanly via Kontera US7478089 + Intel WO2013089667A1 + Vexigo US20110093479A1, with Telcordia US6615208 or AOL US8793252 as substitutes for the semantic-comparison/thresholding element and Reller US20050091106A1 or Ramamurthi US20080027798A1 as substitutes for the ad-selection element.
• The strongest single vulnerability is the Vexigo '479/'537 + 2004-dissertation pair, which recites the claim-6 / claim-16 semantic pipeline (Syntactic Parser + Syntax-To-Semantics transformational algebra + Associative Database of conceptual graphs) almost verbatim — compounded by the specification's express incorporation of both, which functions as an admission.
• The strongest validity defense for the patentee is to retreat to the idle-interval-exclusion limitation of claims 1/13 (and the "little used region" placement) and to claim 12's facial-expression feature, for which the cited art is insufficient. All other limitations are strongly anticipated-in-spirit by the combination.
• Because the patent has no PTAB estoppel and is under an ex parte reexam, these § 103 grounds remain fully available in an IPR/PGR petition and can be coordinated with the pending Office proceeding.

Caveat on confidence: the mappings above are grounded in the claims as printed and in the reference disclosures retrieved for this analysis; I have not performed a live claim-construction review of prosecution-history remarks, which could narrow "regions defined by a form of the content" or "semantic similarity above a pre-specified threshold value" and thereby change the analysis.