US 11308260

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including its claims and any 2026 Federal Circuit activity.

The search results did not surface the claim text itself or any 2026 Federal Circuit docket for this patent. Let me dig further.

US 11,308,260 — Summary (with grounding and uncertainty flags)

Note on method: I cannot query the USPTO Patent Public Search, PACER, or the CAFC docket system directly. What follows is drawn from the authoritative full text you supplied plus public sources (Google Patents, Justia, Unified Patents, court records) retrieved today. I searched specifically for "11308260"/"US11308260B2" and did not auto-expand to similarly numbered patents.

Bibliographic data (per Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US11308260/en)

Abstract (verbatim)

"A system, method, and computer program product are provided for causing display of a first set of representations of a first set of hyperlinks. In operation, a first input from a user is received indicating a selection of one of the first set of hyperlink representations and causes, in response to receiving the first input, display of a second set of representations of a second set of hyperlinks. Further, a second input from the user is received indicating a selection of one of the second set of hyperlink representations, and causes, in response to receiving the second input, navigation to a destination specified by the selected one of the second set of hyperlink representations."

Independent claim — plain language

Important caveat: the authoritative full text you provided does not include a claims section, and my searches did not return an official USPTO claim set for the issued patent. The claim text below is from the corresponding pre-grant publication US 2020/0218852 A1 (Justia, https://patents.justia.com/patent/20200218852), which is the publication of this application. Issued claims are usually the same but can differ; treat this as very likely, not verified for the granted patent. The abstract's phrase "system, method, and computer program product" also hints there may be additional independent claims (e.g., a method claim and/or a system claim) whose text I could not retrieve.

Claim 1 (computer program product on a non-transitory computer-readable medium): Computer code that:

1. causes display of a first set of representations (e.g., text links) of a first set of hyperlinks in connection with a web page that already includes a second set of representations of a second set of hyperlinks that are pre-downloaded with the web page, displayed immediately below the corresponding first-set representation in a menu format, with the second set of hyperlinks preloaded and initially hidden;
2. allows receipt of a first user input selecting one of the first-set representations;
3. causes, in response to that input, substantially immediate display of the second set of representations (the pre-downloaded ones), in the same window as at least one of the first-set hyperlinks;
4. visually emphasizes a hyperlink of the second set in response to a second user input, with the visual emphasis updated as that input is updated (e.g., moving a cursor);
5. allows receipt of a third user input selecting one of the second-set representations; and
6. causes navigation to the destination specified by the selected second-set representation;

• wherein both the first-set and second-set displays occur without requiring an additional access to a server (i.e., client-side/AJAX-style preloading).

In plain terms: a two-tier menu of links in which hovering/clicking a text link instantly reveals a hidden, pre-loaded row of graphical links (e.g., company logos) directly beneath it in the same window, from which the user navigates — with no server round-trip needed to reveal them.

Dependent claims 2–15 (as published) add: textual first-set representations (2); mouse-click selection (3); mouse-hover selection (4); graphical second-set representations (5); mouse-click on second-set links (6); AJAX implementation (7); "instantaneous" display (8); display enabling link scanning before navigation (9); logos (10); first set sorted into categories (11); second set sorted into sub-categories (12); sub-category list presentation (13); first set in one portion of the page and linked content in another portion (14); and a text-field type-ahead search matching user characters against n-tuples of n>1 text strings (15) — the "symbol lookup" feature described at length in the specification.

Litigation / docket status — including the CAFC 2026 request

• USPTO: No post-grant proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) for US 11,308,260 surfaced in my searches. I found no PTAB record for this patent. Absence of a hit is not proof of absence.
• District court: Google Patents flags N.C. Western District Court, case 3:22-cv-00513. Public records indicate that docket is Schaefer Systems International, Inc. v. Aloft Media, LLC (W.D.N.C.) — an action under North Carolina's Abusive Patent Assertions Act challenging Aloft Media's infringement assertions (see Justia, https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/north-carolina/ncwdce/3:2022cv00513/[109822](/patent/109822)/79/). Note this is a W.D.N.C. case, whereas the Google Patents litigation ribbon labels it "North Carolina Western District Court"; the case concerns patent-assertion conduct rather than a validity bench trial on this patent's claims.
• Inequitable-conduct allegation: A 2025 complaint references the Aloft Media/Stragent/Boadin chain ('957 → '068 → '002 → '487 → '044 → "Asserted Patent") and alleges failure to disclose prior art to the USPTO (https://www.iniplaw.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/366/2025/06/Complaint-2.pdf). I could not confirm from the excerpts that the "Asserted Patent" is identically US 11,308,260, so treat this as related-but-unconfirmed.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: I found nothing. My searches returned no Federal Circuit appeal, oral argument, or 2026 docket entry involving US 11,308,260, Aloft Media, or "Hyperlink with graphical cue." I cannot rule out a sealed or very recent docket that has not propagated to public aggregators; if you need certainty, this requires a direct PACER/CAFC docket query, which I could not perform.

Uncertainty summary

1. Claims: the issued-patent claim set is unverified; the claim text above is from the pre-grant publication.
2. Independent-claim count: the abstract's "system, method, and computer program product" phrasing suggests the possibility of more than one independent claim; unverified.
3. CAFC 2026: no evidence found; a negative search result, not a definitive negative.
4. Expiration: the patent is listed as expired (anticipated 2026-03-20) based on the 2006 priority date and maintenance/term assumptions — status is Google's automated assumption, not a legal conclusion.
5. Assignee name: Google Patents lists "Alof Media LLC" in one place and "Aloft Media LLC" elsewhere; the recorded assignee is Aloft Media LLC. (Per operating rules I have not silently corrected the "Alof" rendering, but flag the discrepancy.)

I'll research litigation involving US patent 11308260. Let me run several searches.

Let me search more specifically for the litigation identified on the patent page and related cases.

I found key leads. Let me dig deeper into the specific case and other possible suits.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 11,308,260

Bottom line: I found one federal case in which U.S. Patent No. 11,308,260 ("Hyperlink with graphical cue") is identified as a patent-at-issue. That is the case the Google Patents record itself flags as the patent family's litigation. I found no other litigation that specifically asserts or challenges the '260 patent.

Case identified

Key sources:

• Google Patents record for US 11,308,260 (lists the family litigation and links the W.D.N.C. case): https://patents.google.com/patent/US11308260/en
• Docket listing: https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-schaefer-systems-international-inc-v-aloft-media-llc-[1303276](/patent/1303276)
• June 16, 2023 opinion: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/north-carolina/ncwdce/3:2022cv00513/[109822](/patent/109822)/79/
• Summary/analysis: https://www.studicata.com/summaries/united-states-district-court-western-district-of-north-carolina/schaefer-sys-international-v-aloft-media-llc-2023-asvvu5/
• Practitioner commentary: https://kmd.law/navigating-patent-predicaments/

Related litigation that does NOT involve the '260 patent (flagged to avoid confusion)

These Aloft Media enforcement matters are frequently discussed alongside the '260 patent but are asserted on different patents (principally U.S. Pat. No. 10,372,793, a sibling in the same family). They should not be counted as '260 litigation:

• Nouryon USA LLC v. Aloft Media, LLC et al., No. 1:26‑cv‑00193 (D. Del.), filed Feb. 23, 2026 — declaratory judgment on U.S. Pat. No. 10,372,793; motion to dismiss filed May 4, 2026. (https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/63270570/)
• Brotherhood Mutual Insurance Co. v. Aloft Media, LLC et al., No. 1:25‑cv‑00273 (N.D. Ind.), assigned to Judge Holly A. Brady — declaratory judgment on U.S. Pat. No. 10,372,793. (https://www.iniplaw.org/drop-down-drag-out-fight-brotherhood-mutual-vs-aloft-media-et-al/)
• A Krueger International declaratory-judgment action against Aloft Media is referenced in third‑party commentary, but the patents there are not identified as the '260 patent.

Important caveats

1. Identifiers taken literally. The patent's Google Patents record lists the current/original assignee as "Alof Media LLC." The litigation defendant is spelled "Aloft Media, LLC." I have not auto‑corrected either; the differing spellings may reflect a record discrepancy or related entities. The '260 patent's listed inventor is Gal Arav, priority date 2006‑03‑20, granted 2022‑04‑19.
2. Scope of the '260 patent's involvement in Schaefer. The '260 patent appears in the complaint/amended complaint exhibits and claim charts; I could not confirm that it was separately pleaded and litigated to judgment on its own, as opposed to being part of the asserted portfolio.
3. I found no IPR/PGR, ITC Section 337 investigation, or Federal Circuit appeal specifically involving U.S. Pat. No. 11,308,260. (The Unified Patents validity challenge I encountered is directed at U.S. Pat. No. 10,372,793, not the '260 patent.)
4. Docket data for the W.D.N.C. case beyond the June 2023 order was not fully retrievable; for a definitive status/termination entry, the PACER docket for 3:22‑cv‑00513 should be checked directly.

I'll verify the structured block against live sources before finalizing.

Let me dig further into PTAB activity and the litigation posture.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings on file. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured block reports no IPR, PGR, or CBM for US 11,308,260 — 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials — and my independent web checks surfaced no petition naming this patent. That gives a defendant no IPR estoppel to leverage and no canceled claims to stand on: the patent is untested at the Board, and every claim of the '260 is presently in force-by-default — but it also expired on 2026-03-20, so the practical posture is "the patent is at the end of its life and nobody bothered (or had time) to invalidate it at the PTAB." The real attack on this family is happening in district court declaratory-judgment actions and a Unified Patents PATROLL campaign aimed at a sibling patent, not at the Board.

No proceeding to report — per-proceeding template not applicable

I am not going to populate the requested ### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} blocks, because doing so would require inventing proceeding numbers, panels, and dispositions. Constraint honored: no fabricated IPR/PGR/CBM numbers appear in this report.

What I can state with confidence about why the Board is empty for this patent:

• PGR is legally unavailable. The '260 claims priority to 2006-03-20 and its specification traces to the 2006 provisional applications (60/784,140, 60/784,141). Post-grant review under 35 U.S.C. § 321 applies only to patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. The '260's own face (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US11308260/en) shows the pre-AIA chain: 11/384,957 → 12/334,068 → 14/224,002 → 16/056,487 → 16/826,158. That chain also means the AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) prior-art regime does not apply.
• CBM is practically unavailable. The CBM transitional program sunset for new petitions on 2020-09-16, and the '260 did not issue until 2022-04-19. Even though a message-board-aggregation / financial-portal patent would have been a plausible CBM candidate on subject matter grounds, no window existed after issuance.
• IPR was the only live AIA vehicle — and no one filed. IPR under § 311 has no effective-filing-date limitation and is available even for expired patents, so the '260 remained IPR-eligible through and after expiry. It simply was not petitioned.

(Note on the "expired" status): Google Patents lists "Anticipated expiration 2026-03-20" and legal status "Expired - Lifetime." That date is derived from the 2006-03-20 priority date plus 20 years. Treat that as indicative, not as a substitute for a term/docket review — it is an assumption flagged as such by the source, not an ODP adjudication.

Adjacent non-AIA activity (flagging, so nothing is mistaken for a PTAB record)

These are not AIA trial proceedings and must not be cited as such, but they are the reason a defendant should still care about this family:

1. Declaratory-judgment litigation against the sibling patent — the live fight.

• Nouryon USA LLC v. Aloft Media, LLC, George Street Partners, Todd Schmidt, George Andrew Gordon, D. Del. No. 1:26-cv-00193, filed 2026-02-23. Docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2026cv00193/92092
• This action targets US 10,372,793 ("Hyperlink with Graphical Cue") — a sibling of the '260 from the same 11/384,957 chain (16/243,044 → '793). The complaint pleads (i) non-infringement of claim 23, (ii) invalidity under §§ 101/102/103/112/132, including an on-sale/public-use theory built on the Instantbull website (allegedly live from 2006-07-22) and a new-matter/priority attack on the 12/334,068 filing (2008-12-12), and (iii) unenforceability for inequitable conduct, alleging eight references known to the applicants and examiner-cited in the co-pending 12/334,093 application were never disclosed in the 12/334,068 prosecution.
• A parallel DJ action by Krueger International is referenced in Unified Patents' write-up (below).
• The patent's own Google Patents page flags the first worldwide family litigation: W.D.N.C. case 3:22-cv-00513 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/North%20Carolina%20Western%20District%20Court/case/3%3A22-cv-00513).

2. Unified Patents PATROLL prior-art contest (not an AIA trial).

• Unified ran a $2,000 PATROLL crowdsourcing contest seeking prior art on at least claim 23 of US 10,372,793, owned by Aloft Media, LLC (described as an NPE and Oso IP, LLC entity). Contest expired 2026-05-02; a winner (Umesh Kumar) was announced 2026-05-12. Source: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2026/5/12/2000-awarded-for-oso-ip-entity-aloft-media-hyperlink-patent-prior-art
• This is a pre-petition signal, not a proceeding. No IPR by Unified against the '260 (or, on the record I could find, the '793) has been filed.

3. Assignment/ownership churn (context for estoppel and RPI analysis).
Per the Nouryon complaint's assignment table, the family moved Stragent Technologies → Stragent → Aloft Media → Boadin Technology → Stragent/Jenam Tech → Aloft Media. Andrew Gordon (managing member of Aloft Media, per the complaint) and attorney Patrick E. Caldwell appear throughout. Two registered practitioners, Caldwell (Reg. No. 44,580) and Gordon (Reg. No. 64,517), are named in the inequitable-conduct count. If you are evaluating a privies / § 315(e) question, this ownership web matters.

Strategic summary

Claim-status picture. Because there is no FWD, I cannot and will not state that any claim of US 11,308,260 is "canceled" — no AIA tribunal has ever ruled on it. Operationally: all claims of the '260 are UNTESTED at the Board, and the patent has expired (anticipated 2026-03-20). Contrast that with the sibling '793, where the attacks are real but non-PTAB — a DJ invalidity/unenforceability case, and a crowdsourced prior-art hunt on claim 23. If a demand letter cites the '260, your best rebuttals are (a) expiration — there is no prospective injunctive exposure and damages are confined to the pre-expiry period, subject to the six-year § 286 look-back; and (b) the priority/new-matter attack that Nouryon is already running against the same specification lineage, which, if it succeeds against the '068-based family, pushes the effective date to 2008-12-12 and exposes the claims to a materially richer prior-art field (including the 2006-07-22 Instantbull public use).

Estoppel landscape. This is the rare case where estoppel is a non-issue in your favor: with no instituted IPR, § 315(e)(2) estoppel has never attached to any petitioner or privy, and there is no IPR record that a plaintiff can use to argue you "reasonably could have raised" a ground. You retain the full § 282 invalidity menu: §§ 101, 102 (pre-AIA § 102(b) public-use/on-sale on Instantbull), 103, 112 (written description / indefiniteness), and § 132 new-matter, plus inequitable conduct. The flip side: you also have no IPR-based stay lever and no PTAB invalidity finding to borrow.

Pattern signals. (i) No serial petitioner exists — nobody has filed even one petition against the '260. (ii) The patent owner is not a PTAB appellant on this patent; the PTAB appeal posture is simply absent. (iii) A defensive aggregator is circling but has not fired: Unified Patents is on the family, but through PATROLL crowdsourcing, not an IPR — its output is invalidity claim charts on the '793's claim 23, which is exactly the raw material a future IPR would need. (iv) Defendants in this family overwhelmingly choose district-court DJ + inequitable conduct over PTAB, a strategy consistent with patents whose expiry makes PTAB less attractive and whose prosecution history (undisclosed references, alleged new matter) makes inequitable conduct unusually well pleaded.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant being asserted on the '260: there is no FWD to link to — the honest answer is that no PTAB decision exists. Do not represent otherwise in a motion or to a court; a fabricated or misattributed PTAB record is sanction-bait. Instead, anchor your invalidity work on the Nouryon complaint's priority/new-matter theory (the 12/334,068 filing of 2008-12-12 and the Instantbull 2006-07-22 public use) and on the inequitable-conduct record it lays out. The D. Del. docket is the reference document: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/delaware/dedce/1:2026cv00193/92092
• If you want to file an IPR anyway: note two gating facts. First, § 315(b)'s one-year clock runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement of the '260 — check the service date on any W.D.N.C. 3:22-cv-00513 or later complaint, because that date, not the patent's age, controls your window. Second, the patent's expiry does not bar IPR (the Board has repeatedly held AIA review reaches expired patents), but the practical value is limited to collateral/declaratory uses.
• If no proceeding is pending against you but you received a notice letter: the absence of PTAB activity here is not a sign of a hardened patent. It is a sign of a late-life patent. Under the Director's current discretionary-denial posture (NHK-Fintiv restored in 2025, with heightened scrutiny of petitions against long-issued patents and "vested expectations"), a petition against a 2022-issued, 2006-priority, now-expired patent faces a difficult § 314(a) reception — so weight the DJ/invalidity route more heavily than an IPR route.
• Verification before you rely on any of this: pull the patent's full PTAB record directly from PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions (https://ptab.uspto.gov) and the CAFC docket/CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com) for any appeal. ODP ingest can lag; if you find a proceeding I did not, treat it as authoritative and override this report.

Confidence and limitations. High confidence that no AIA trial proceeding on US 11,308,260 exists on the ODP record or in searchable public sources as of 2026-09-27. I could not verify the '260's issued claim count or claim-by-claim scope, so I make no claim-level assertions about it. I did not locate any FWD, institution decision, settlement, or Federal Circuit appeal for this patent — because, on the evidence, none exists. All dates are YYYY-MM-DD.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation history for this patent.

Excellent — rich results. Let me dig deeper into the assignment chain, the correspondent attorneys, and the litigation.

Let me try to pin down the specific reel/frame assignment records and the correspondent of record.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 11,308,260 (US11308260B2)

Sourcing note / limitation. I was unable to query assignmentcenter.uspto.gov directly in this session, and no reel/frame numbers were returned by any reachable source. The assignment-chain dates below are taken from assignment-history tables reproduced verbatim in federal court pleadings (the Schaefer, Brotherhood Mutual, and AF Holdco declaratory-judgment complaints) and from Google Patents / Unified Patents legal-event data. I have not fabricated reel/frame numbers; where a field was not retrievable I say so. Treat every reel/frame field below as unverified — needs a direct Assignment Center pull.

Inventors

Gal Arav — sole named inventor. (Note the litigation record also spells the family's provider as "Robert Poltkin/Plotkin" as the filer of the original 11/384,957 application for Instantbull, LLC — that is an attorney/physical-filer field, not an inventor field, and the spelling is unverified.)

• Employer / origin at filing: the invention traces to Instantbull, LLC, Arav's own startup (the "Instantbull Website," described in pleadings as active July 2006). U.S. Provisional 60/784,140 was filed by Instantbull, LLC and — per the pleadings — was never assigned out of Instantbull. This is a critical defect: the applicant of record for every subsequent continuation did not own the provisional from which the asserted subject matter allegedly derives.
• Residence drift: by the Oct. 11, 2011 substitute specification, Arav's residence of record had moved to HaMachtarot Street 6A, #4, Raanana, Israel 43550.

Unusual pattern (present, and notable). The inventor was effectively written out of his own family. On Nov. 13, 2017, Aloft Media filed a Substitute Statement in Lieu of an Oath or Declaration in the '002 application, signed by George Andrew Gordon as Aloft's "Manager," stating the inventor "cannot be found or reached after diligent effort." The pleadings note the file wrapper contains no evidence of what steps were taken to locate him. This—combined with Aloft's website advertising "Gal Arav's patents" as a licensable portfolio—is a textbook NPE fingerprint (inventor severed, assignee monetizes).

Original assignee

Aloft Media, LLC — rendered on Google Patents as "Alof Media LLC" under both "Original Assignee" and "Current Assignee."

⚠️ Data-integrity flag (do not silently normalize): Google Patents and USPTO PatentsView–derived trackers (PlainPatent: "Alof Media, Llc," 6 grants) consistently render the name "Alof Media," while every court filing and the Unified Patents docket render it "Aloft Media, LLC." The most likely explanation is a misspelling carried through the original USPTO assignment record — but that is an inference, not a verified fact. Both strings should be run in the Assignment Center name search.

• Entity form: Texas limited liability company; principal place of business in Texas; managing member and registered agent George Andrew Gordon, USPTO-registered attorney, address Frisco, Texas (per Schaefer Systems Int'l v. Aloft Media, 3:22-cv-00513, W.D.N.C.).
• Product? No. The Brotherhood Mutual DJ complaint (¶37) alleges Aloft "does not practice the Asserted Patent" and that "Aloft Media's business is predominantly directed to monetizing its patents … via licensing." Aloft's own site (aloft-media.com) lists the portfolio for licensing.
• Primary line of business: patent monetization. Per pleadings, Aloft "exclusively utilizes George Street Partners … to manage its patent licensing activities," and GSP "operates as Aloft Media's de facto licensing department" (Nouryon DJ complaint ¶19). GSP is an Illinois corp. (principal place of business Carmel, Indiana); Todd Schmidt is its President.
• Current status: operating as an active licensing/assertion vehicle — not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. It was still sending signed (by Gordon) claim-chart demand letters in 2025 and 2026.

For completeness: the upstream originator, Instantbull, LLC, was a small single-inventor internet startup, not an operating manufacturer of any scale.

Assignment timeline

For US 11,308,260 itself (app. 16/826,158, filed 2020-03-20): no post-issuance assignment is recorded in the sources I could reach. Google Patents' legal-events ledger for this patent shows only filing (2020-03-20) → publication (2020-07-09) → grant (2022-04-19) → anticipated expiration (2026-03-20), with no assignment entries. This is consistent with the continuation having been filed by Aloft Media, LLC as applicant, so no separate assignment instrument was needed to vest title. Aloft Media, LLC is the owner of record on the face of the patent, and I found no instrument moving it downstream.

The relevant chain-of-title therefore runs through the parent applications, as documented in the pleadings:

• 2006-03-20 (filed) — Reel unverified

  • Conveyance: Original filing (no assignment yet)
  • Assignor: n/a — applicant Instantbull, LLC
  • Assignee: Instantbull, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: original filing by inventor's own startup.

• 2008-11-11 / recorded — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Instantbull, LLC
  • Assignee: Stragent Technologies, LLC
  • Correspondent: Kevin J. Zilka, who was simultaneously attorney for and President of Stragent Technologies, LLC (per Schaefer/Brotherhood pleadings). ⚠️ Recurring across chain.
  • Context: first hop out of the operating startup into a licensing vehicle.

• 2008-12-31 / recorded — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Stragent Technologies, LLC
  • Assignee: Stragent, LLC
  • Correspondent: Kevin J. Zilka (President of Stragent, LLC). ⚠️ Same player.
  • Context: internal two-tier reorg (Tech LLC → operating LLC) — 50 days after the prior hop.

• 2009-04-21 (and 2009-08-21 on the '957 line) / recorded — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Stragent, LLC
  • Assignee: Aloft Media, LLC
  • Correspondent: Christopher M. Edgeworth, then president of Aloft Media, LLC (held and later transferred power of attorney, Jan. 29, 2010). ⚠️ Recurring.
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter.

• 2011-11-12 / recorded — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Aloft Media, LLC
  • Assignee: Boadin Technology, LLC (address of record Newark, Delaware — per PatentsView sub-assignee listing)
  • Correspondent: Patrick E. Caldwell (attorney for Aloft, Stragent Technologies, and Boadin). ⚠️ Recurring — single lawyer spanning three nominal LLCs.
  • Context: shuffling among affiliated shells.

• 2014-03-24 (filed) / recorded — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Continuation filing by applicant Boadin Technology, LLC (app. 14/224,002 → US 10,042,823)
  • Correspondent: Patrick E. Caldwell. ⚠️ Recurring.
  • Context: continuation manufactured to sustain the 2006 priority date.

• 2014-11-25 / recorded — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Boadin Technology, LLC (per '957-line table)
  • Assignee: Stragent, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable. ⚠️ Note this is a return to a prior assignee.
  • Context: internal reorg / re-parking.

• 2016-12-02 / recorded — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Stragent, LLC
  • Assignee: Jenam Tech, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: transfer to a further licensing entity. Gordon became Aloft's managing member "[on] information and belief … from at least December 2, 2016." The same date is telling.

• 2017-10-01 / 2018-08-06 / 2019-01-08 (filed) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Successive continuations (15/721,939 → US 10,078,623; 16/056,487 → US 10,691,874; 16/243,044 → US 10,372,793) filed by Aloft Media, LLC as applicant
  • Correspondent: Patrick E. Caldwell. ⚠️ Recurring — and by now the only attorney on the file.
  • Context: continuation campaign; control of the family had re-consolidated into Aloft Media.

• 2020-03-20 (filed) — Reel n/a (no assignment needed)

  • Conveyance: The application that issued as US 11,308,260 (16/826,158), filed by Aloft Media, LLC, one day shy of exactly 14 years after the 2006-03-20 priority date.
  • Assignee: Aloft Media, LLC
  • Correspondent: Patrick E. Caldwell (per pleading pattern). ⚠️ Recurring.
  • Context: last continuation in the family before the 20-year priority-date term closed.

• 2022-04-19 (grant) — Reel none recorded

  • No assignment recorded. Patent issues to Aloft Media, LLC. Anticipated expiration 2026-03-20 — i.e., this patent had only ~4 years of enforceable life left the day it issued.

• 2022-03-04 / 2022-05-09, 2025-04-28, 2026-01-02 — no reel (demand letters, not assignments)

  • Aloft Media demand letters, signed by George Andrew Gordon, naming George Street Partners as "authorized licensing agent" and Todd Schmidt as the contact agent; sent to Schaefer Systems (2022), Brotherhood Mutual (2025), and Nouryon (2026) — each with a claim chart and a ready-to-sign form license agreement.
  • Context: assertion/campaign conduct, not title transfer.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11308260
    2006 : Filed by Instantbull LLC
         : Inventor Gal Arav
    2008 : Assigned to Stragent Technologies
         : Assigned to Stragent LLC
    2009 : Assigned to Aloft Media LLC
    2011 : Assigned to Boadin Technology
    2014 : Continuation filed by Boadin
         : Family reassigned to Stragent
    2016 : Family branch moved to Jenam Tech
    2017 : Continuations filed by Aloft Media
    2020 : This continuation filed by Aloft
    2022 : Issued to Aloft Media
         : Asserted against Schaefer Systems
    2026 : Anticipated expiration
         : Demand letters to Nouryon and others

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
The family moved through six different LLCs: Instantbull, LLC → Stragent Technologies, LLC (2008-11-11) → Stragent, LLC (2008-12-31) → Aloft Media, LLC (2009-04-21/08-21) → Boadin Technology, LLC (2011-11-12) → Stragent, LLC (2014-11-25) → Jenam Tech, LLC (2016-12-02). Supporting tells beyond naming: Aloft Media ships no products (multiple pleading allegations of non-practice); its licensing is exclusively outsourced to George Street Partners; Boadin Technology's address of record is Newark, Delaware (registered-agent hub); the family sat at Longview, Texas addresses; and the family was asserted against unrelated third parties rather than manufactured.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Stragent, LLC is listed in Stanford's NPE litigation database as a patent asserter and, per secondary reporting, filed ~39 suits between 2008 and 2020 (automotive-heavy), beginning with Stragent, LLC v. Nokia Inc., 2:08-cv-00293 (E.D. Tex.). Aloft Media, LLC appears in the same database (Aloft Media LLC v. Palm, Inc., 2:08-cv-00292) and, per the Brotherhood DJ complaint ¶39, "has filed at least (14) lawsuits alleging patent infringement in the Eastern District of Texas." Caveat: neither Aloft Media nor Stragent appears on the specific enumerated lists in my brief (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.) — they are surfaced instead through litigation-data aggregators (Schaefer docket, Unified Patents, Stanford NPE DB) rather than through the named-list filter. I did not find evidence tying this chain to Erich Spangenberg entities, and I will not assert it.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT (strongest signal).

• Patrick E. Caldwell appears as attorney of record for Aloft Media, LLC, Stragent Technologies, LLC, and Boadin Technology, LLC simultaneously, and filed the 2011 substitute specification, the '002 (2014), the '939 (2017), the '487 (2018), and the '044 (2019). Almost every recorded link in this chain was prosecuted by one man.
• Kevin J. Zilka acted as both attorney and President of Stragent Technologies, LLC and Stragent, LLC, and filed the '068 and '093 continuations on 2008-12-12.
• Christopher M. Edgeworth held power of attorney and became president of Aloft Media, LLC.
• George Andrew Gordon, USPTO-registered attorney, is Aloft's managing member and registered agent and personally signs the demand letters.
  ⚠️ Precision caveat: these are prosecution / power-of-attorney correspondents documented in pleadings, not the "correspondent" field of the recorded assignment instruments, which I could not retrieve. A direct Assignment Center pull should be used to confirm which of these names appears as recording correspondent and on which of the six transfers — that is the field that matters most here and it remains unverified.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Six recorded transfers; two within 50 days of each other (2008-11-11 → 2008-12-31) and two more within ~7 months (2009-04-21 → 2009-08-21). Multiple hops share the same attorney (Caldwell / Zilka) and at least one assignee (Stragent, LLC) recurs in the chain.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (for this patent).
Aloft Media was the applicant of record for this continuation (filed 2020-03-20) and its predecessors' transfers all predate the 2022–2026 assertion campaign by years. There is no assignment within 6 months before a suit naming this patent. The chain was not rearranged to fix venue or standing for this patent — Aloft simply owned it throughout.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding for Instantbull, Stragent, Aloft Media, Boadin, or Jenam Tech appears anywhere in the record.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No operating company is litigating through Aloft as its proxy. The origin is the inventor's own startup, and the chain runs entirely through licensing LLCs.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at Aloft Media, LLC (an active demand-letter sender as of Jan. 2, 2026), not at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. Note: Unified Patents maintains a patent page for the sibling US-8,683,003-B2, but that is a challenge-database entry, not an acquisition — do not read it as neutralization.

Additional non-checklist signals worth recording:

• Term exhaustion / last-gasp monetization. Because this is a 2020 continuation claiming the 2006-03-20 priority date, it expires 2026-03-20 — roughly four years after issuance. Yet Aloft asserted it against Schaefer (2022), Brotherhood Mutual (2025), and Nouryon (2026-01-02), i.e., it was still demanding licenses ~10 weeks before expiration.
• Inequitable-conduct allegations. Multiple defendants (Schaefer, Brotherhood Mutual, AF Holdco) allege the family was prosecuted with a substitute specification that added "at least 70 new paragraphs of text and six new drawing figures" to the '068 application while Caldwell swore it "contains no new matter," and that ten material references cited in sibling cases were never disclosed — rendering the patents unenforceable.
• Abusive-assertion statutes invoked. Schaefer pleaded a violation of the North Carolina Abusive Patent Assertion Act; the court denied defendants' Rule 12(b)(2)/(6) motions (June 16, 2023), finding specific jurisdiction and a plausible bad-faith claim.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain of title documented in the Schaefer/Brotherhood/AF Holdco pleadings is six consecutive transfers through licensing-only LLCs (Instantbull → Stragent Technologies → Stragent → Aloft Media → Boadin Technology → Stragent → Jenam Tech), steered at nearly every one of the decisive links by a single recurring attorney (Patrick E. Caldwell) and staffed by principals who were simultaneously counsel and officers (Zilka, Edgeworth, Gordon). Both Aloft Media, LLC and Stragent, LLC are documented high-frequency patent plaintiffs (14+ E.D. Tex. suits and ~39 suits respectively, per the DJ complaint and Stanford's NPE database), the current owner ships no product, and as of 2026-01-02 it was still mailing claim-chart demand letters — on a patent that expires 2026-03-20. Signals 1, 2, 3, and 4 are all present; the only counterweight is that no pre-litigation transfer or bankruptcy appears for this specific patent, which does not change the characterization.

Verify at:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 11308260, and separately search assignee strings "Aloft Media" and "Alof Media")
• Google Patents record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11308260/en
• Unified Patents litigation entry: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/North%20Carolina%20Western%20District%20Court/case/3%3A22-cv-00513

I'll research the USPTO record and prior-art citations for US 11,308,260. Let me run several searches.

Let me pull the specific front-page references and claim set for the '260 patent.

US 11,308,260 B2 — Prior-Art Citation Analysis

Important scope note up front (read this first). You asked me to walk through each patent citation on the face of US 11,308,260. I was not able to retrieve the '260 patent's own front-page "(56) References Cited" list within this research pass — the searches I ran returned the patent's description, abstract, claims, and family data, but not its cited-references block. Rather than guess at the list, I am giving you (a) the verified bibliographic record, (b) the citation lists of the '260's own ancestors in the priority chain (which is the closest grounded proxy and is what the '260 was prosecuted against), and (c) an explicit statement of what remains unverified. I will not fabricate reference numbers or descriptions.

Also flagging a contradiction in the task inputs: the task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the operating parameters for this session state today is 2026-09-27. I've proceeded on the operating-parameter date.

1. Verified record for US 11,308,260 B2

Priority chain (from the patent's own RELATED APPLICATIONS paragraph, quoted verbatim):
16/826,158 (2020-03-20) ← continuation of 16/056,487 (2018-08-06) ← continuation of 14/224,002 (2014-03-24, now US 10,042,823) ← continuation of 12/334,068 (2008-12-12, now US 8,682,961) ← continuation of 11/384,957 (2006-03-20, now US 7,529,795); all incorporating U.S. Provisional 60/784,141 and 60/784,140 (both 2006-03-20).

Claim 1 of the '260 (architecture the prior art must meet). Per the abstract and the claims shown for this family: a computer program product on a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising (i) code to display a first set of representations of a first set of hyperlinks; (ii) code to receive a first user input selecting one of the first set; (iii) code to cause, in response, display of a second set of representations of a second set of hyperlinks; (iv) code to receive a second user input selecting one of the second set; and (v) code to cause navigation to the destination specified by the selected second representation. Dependent claims in the family add: textual representations (2), mouse click (3), hover (4), graphical representations (5), AJAX (7), instantaneous display (8), scan-before-navigation (9), logos (10), categories (11), sub-categories (12). One family member's claim 1 further recites that the second set is "pre-downloaded with the web page… preloaded and initially hidden" and displayed "without requiring an additional access to a server."

2. §102 framework — what counts as prior art here

This is the crux and it materially narrows the field:

• The '260 was filed 2020-03-20, so AIA 35 U.S.C. §102/§103 governs, but the claims are entitled to the 2006-03-20 priority date via the unbroken continuation chain (assuming written-description support in 11/384,957).
• Consequently, qualifying prior art must generally predate 2006-03-20.
• The earlier family members are not §102 art against the '260. US 7,529,795; US 8,682,961; US 10,042,823; US 10,482,164; US 10,078,623; and US 8,683,003 share the same inventor, the same 2006-03-20 priority, and are cross-incorporated; under AIA §102(b)(2)(A)–(C) the inventor's own earlier disclosures and commonly-owned documents are excepted. They are useful as claim-construction and estoppel material, not as anticipatory references. (This also means the Google Patents "family has litigation" flag and the Schaefer docket are about enforcement, not validity art — consistent with the previously generated litigation summary.)

So the operative question is: which pre-2006-03-20 references disclose a two-level "select a text link → reveal a menu of graphical/logo links → select to navigate" UI. That is precisely what the '260's cited-references block would measure against.

3. References Cited (as retrieved — family front pages)

Because I could not obtain the '260's own (56) block, the following are the cited references from the earliest and sibling grants in the same chain. These are the references the family was actually prosecuted over.

3A. U.S. Patent Documents — from the face of US 8,682,961 (a direct ancestor of the '260; 12/334,068)

* The asterisked entries carry an asterisk on the '961 face page; the meaning of that annotation is not confirmed from the retrieved text. Dates and classes are transcribed literally, including apparent OCR inconsistencies.

Reality check on this block: most of these are infrastructure/authentication/aggregation references cited in support of the message-board aggregation disclosure, not the two-level graphical hyperlink menu disclosure. They are unlikely to be the "most relevant" art for the '260's claim 1.

3B. U.S. Patent Documents — from the face of US 8,683,003 ("Hyperlink with graphical cue" — closest sibling to the '260's subject matter)

3C. Foreign Patent Documents (from US 8,683,003)

3D. Other Publications (Non-Patent Literature) — "Other Publications" block on US 8,683,003

The front page lists a long set of dated website snapshots (e.g., "2.barchart.com/lookup.asp (Mar. 15, 2010)"; "abcnews.go.com/business (Mar. 15, 2010)"). Note: those 2010 dates are evidence-collection dates, not publication dates, and the underlying sites (Yahoo Finance, bigcharts, CBS MarketWatch, etc.) long predate 2006. Several of these — particularly the financial "ticker/symbol lookup" and quote-page sites — are the factual predicate for the specification's own "symbol lookup" discussion. Their §102(c)/(a)(1) status depends on proving a pre-2006-03-20 public display of a two-level textual→logo link menu.

4. Assessment of "most relevant" prior art

Working from the retrieved (family) citation set and the '260's actual claim scope, the ranking I would assign is:

1. US 6,366,947 B1 (Kamer), 4/2002 and US 6,208,339 B1 (Alma), 3/2001 — the two cited U.S. references whose subject matter (709/203 client-server browsing; 715/750 GUI) is closest to a hover/click-revealed link-selection interface. These are the references I would examine first against '260 claim 1 and dependents 3, 4, 5, 14.
2. US 6,874,126 B1 (Lapidous), 3/2005 (715/711) — GUI navigation art; strongest cited candidate for the "first input → second display" transition of claim 1.
3. WO 02/03243 A1 (1/2002) and WO 02/061610 A1 (8/2002) — the only cited foreign references that plausibly disclose interactive web link UI before the priority date.
4. US 5,754,176 (Crawford, 5/1998) and US 5,854,630 (Nielsen, 12/1998) — classical menu/interface art; background for claims 5, 11, 14.

For the later additions I encountered in the '003 "Continued" set — US 2011/0004831 (Steinberg), 2011/0016169, 2011/0016381, 2011/0016382 (Cahill), 2011/0018342 (Park), 2011/0022657 (Zhu), 2011/0023101 & 2011/0023129 (Vernal), 2011/0044354 (Wei), 2011/0055331 (Rosenstein), 2011/0055332 (Stein), 2011/0055683 (Jiang) — these are all post-2006 publications and therefore are, at most, §102(a)(2) art (or §102(a)(1) if they published more than a year before the '260's 2020 filing, which most do). They can attack the '260 only on the theory that the claims are not entitled to the 2006-03-20 priority. That is the single most important validity theory to test, and it is exactly what a litigator would probe given the continuation chain.

5. What I could not verify (and exactly how to close the gap)

• The '260's own (56) block was not retrieved. The definitive list is on the granted patent PDF front page and in the USPTO file wrapper. Pull it from USPTO PatentCenter (application 16/826,158) → "References Cited" / "Patent Citations," or the grant PDF at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com (the '260 mirrors the '852 pre-grant publication). I recommend treating that verified list as controlling over this section.
• Reference contents/descriptions for many entries above are not confirmed from retrieved text. I transcribed citations, dates and classes literally from search-result snippets; I did not read the full specifications of Crawford, Nielsen, Inala, Alma, Straub, Burner, Kamer, Lapidous, Itoh, McBrearty, etc. To assert anticipation (as opposed to relevance), each reference must be read element-by-element against '260 claim 1.
• A PTAB lead surfaced but is unconfirmed. A search hit from ptacts.uspto.gov (petition artifact 1467954) discusses a dispute over whether a POSITA would treat "text hyperlinks" as "clickable m…" — a claim-construction dispute consistent with a PTAB petition or district-court briefing on this family. I did not confirm the proceeding number, the patent involved (could be sibling US 10,372,793), or the outcome. Flagging it as a lead, not a finding.

6. Caveats and flagged contradictions

1. Assignee spelling conflict: Google Patents prints "Alof Media LLC"; zhangqiaokeyan, FreePatentsOnline, and Unified Patents all print "Aloft Media, LLC." Per the operating rules I have not auto-corrected either; the evidence indicates "Aloft Media, LLC" is the entity name and "Alof" is a Google Patents record artifact. This is consistent with the discrepancy already flagged in the previously generated litigation summary.
2. Date conflict in task inputs (April 26, 2026 vs. September 27, 2026) — flagged in the header above.
3. No consistency conflict found between this section and the previously generated litigation summary; the family-litigation flag (Schaefer, W.D.N.C. 3:22-cv-00513) and the sibling-patent enforcement campaigns on US 10,372,793 (Nouryon, Brotherhood Mutual, Krueger International; Unified Patents PATROLL contest expiring 2026-05-02) align with what I observed.
4. Statutory-priority caveat, repeated for emphasis: the entire validity analysis for the '260 turns on whether every claim is entitled to 2006-03-20. If not, the 2008–2020 accumulation of web-menu/portal art opens up as §102(a)(1) prior art and the reference set changes radically.

Bottom line: I can ground the '260's bibliographic record, its priority chain, and its claim architecture with certainty, and I can give you the citation sets of its ancestors as the best available proxy. I cannot represent that I have the '260's own cited-references list — that must be pulled from PatentCenter/the grant PDF — and I have deliberately not invented reference numbers or descriptions to fill that gap.

I'll research the prior art cited against US 11,308,260 before building the obviousness analysis.

Let me pull the specific claim language and the cited prior-art references for the '260 patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 11,308,260 B2 ("Hyperlink with graphical cue")

0. Scope note on the "Prior Art" section (read this first)

The authoritative full text supplied for this page (source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11308260/en) does not contain a front‑page "References Cited" list, an examiner citation list, or an IDS. It contains only the specification and abstract. The only prior‑art‑relevant fields the Google Patents record exposes are:

• Prior art date: 2006‑03‑20
• Prior art keywords: representations, computer program, program product, hyperlinks, user
• Classifications: G06F40/134 (Hyperlinking), G06Q10/107, G06F3/04842

I therefore reconstructed the prior‑art universe from (a) the cited references printed on the front page of the family's earlier U.S. patents and (b) the specification's own admissions. The reconstructed list is drawn from the family front pages, in particular:

• US 8,683,003 B2 (Arav), filed 2008‑12‑12 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/18/fa/d1/dc206bac6869ac/US8683003.pdf
• US 8,682,961 B2 (Arav) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9d/87/66/bafd0118e05913/US8682961.pdf
• Justia record for the '260 and its publications — https://patents.justia.com/patent/11308260 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/20200218852 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/20220366126

Evidence limitation I must state plainly: I was able to retrieve the citation lists but not the substantive text of most individual references in this session. Where I do not have a verified disclosure, I say so and frame the ground as "this reference must supply X; if it does, the combination renders claim 1 obvious." I have not fabricated quotations from references I did not read. One exception: the patent's own specification contains express admissions, which are citable prior art/matter-of-record and are the strongest §103 footing here.

1. The claim being tested

The issued patent presents 20 claims. Reconstructed from the Google Patents "Claims (20)" rendering of the issued patent:

1. A computer program product embodied on a non‑transitory computer‑readable medium, comprising:

• [1.2] computer code for causing display of a first set of representations of a first set of hyperlinks in connection with a web page, without any images being used in the display of the set of one or more representations of the first set of hyperlinks,
• [1.3] and that includes a second set of representations of a second set of hyperlinks that are pre‑downloaded with the web page and displayed immediately below a corresponding one of the first set of representations in a menu format,
• [1.4] wherein the second set of hyperlinks are preloaded and initially hidden;
• [1.5] computer code for allowing receipt of a first input … indicating a selection of one of the first set of hyperlink representations;
• [1.6] computer code for causing, in response to receiving the first input, a substantially immediate display of the second set of representations … in a same window as at least one of the hyperlinks of the first set;
• [1.7] computer code for visually emphasizing a first hyperlink of the second set in response to a second input, wherein the visual emphasis is updated based on an update to the second input;
• [1.8] computer code for allowing receipt of a third input … indicating a selection of one of the second set of hyperlink representations; and
• [1.9] computer code for causing, in response to receiving the third input, navigation to a destination specified by the selected one of the second set.

Dependent claims of note: 2 (first set = textual), 3/4 (click / hover for the first input), 5 (second set = graphical), 6 (click for the third input), 7 (AJAX), 8 ("instantaneous"), 9 (scan before navigation), 10 (logos), 11/12/13 (categories, sub‑categories, list of sub‑categories), 14 (first portion / second portion of page), and 15 (an autocomplete-style search field matching the typed characters against n‑tuples of n > 1 text strings).

⚠️ Contradiction / discrepancy flags

1. The claim text differs across the family's publications. Published application US 2020/0218852 A1 (same application 16/826,158) renders claim 1 without the "without any images being used…" clause but with a closing clause: "wherein each of the display of the first set … and the display of the second set … are performed without requiring an additional access to a server" (https://patents.justia.com/patent/20200218852). The later continuation US 2022/0366126 A1 renders a materially different claim 1 (https://www.patents-review.com/a/20220366126-hyperlink-graphical-cue.html). The issued claim text governs validity, and I could not retrieve the full certified claim set from an authoritative source in this session. Every conclusion below is stated for the issued‑patent text as retrieved, and should be re‑verified against the USPTO PatentCenter copy of US 11,308,260 before use.
2. The issued claim 1 contains an apparent antecedent‑basis defect: "the set of one or more representations of the first set of hyperlinks" has no antecedent. That is a §112(b) issue, not a §103 issue, but it matters because it signals the claim was amended late in prosecution by importing specification language — the classic pattern of a continuation filed to outrun the art.
3. The record spells the owner "Alof Media LLC" (Google Patents) and "Aloft Media, LLC" (litigation). The family's earlier patents list "Bondin Technology, LLC" (PDF OCR) and "Boadin Technology, LLC" (freepatentsonline). I have not auto‑corrected any of these.

2. Governing law, effective date, and the POSITA

Effective filing date: 2006‑03‑20. The '260 is a continuation of 16/056,487 → 14/224,002 (US 10,042,823) → 12/334,068 (US 8,682,961) → 11/384,957 (US 7,529,795, filed 2006‑03‑20), which in turn claims benefit of provisionals 60/784,140 and 60/784,141 (both 2006‑03‑20). Assuming a valid §120 chain, pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. §§102/103 applies, and only art before 2006‑03‑20 is prior art (subject to §102(b) one‑year grace for the applicant's own disclosures before 2005‑03‑20). This is decisive:

• Not prior art: the family's own later publications (US 2009/0199135; US 2014/0298149; US 2018/0024973; US 2022/0366126) and the later Arav patents (US 10,042,823; 10,078,623; 10,372,793) — all share the 2006‑03‑20 chain. They are, however, obviousness‑type double patenting (ODP) material, because the '260's claims are not patentably distinct from the "Message Aggregator"/hyperlink claims the same applicant already obtained over the same disclosure.
• Not prior art: most of the "references" shown on the Justia record (US 7,668,123 Zuckerberg; 7,680,882 Tiu; 7,685,036 Hsu; 7,725,492 Sittig; 7,788,260 and 7,890,501 Lunt; 7,797,256 and 7,945,653 Zuckerberg; 7,912,758 and 7,835,950 Walker; 8,438,487 Lin‑Hendel; 8,539,024 Smit; 8,838,736 Swahn; 9,348,911 Egendorf; etc.) — these are "Referenced By"/citing documents, i.e., later patents. Do not treat them as §102 art against a 2006 priority date.
• Also not prior art: WO 2007/109264 A3 (published 2007), despite appearing in the family's foreign‑reference list.

POSITA definition. A person having ordinary skill as of March 2006: a web‑application developer/UI engineer with 2–4 years' experience, familiar with HTML 4.01/XHTML, CSS 1/2, JavaScript/DOM, server‑side includes, and standard client‑server HTTP behavior — specifically including (i) DHTML drop‑down/"flyout" navigation menus built with display:none/display:block or visibility toggling, (ii) image maps and graphical navigation bars, and (iii) pre‑loading page assets so that subsequent interactions require no server round trip.

3. The prior‑art universe

3.1 Patent references cited on the family front pages (all pre‑2006‑03‑20)

I flag that I could not verify the disclosures of the above (beyond their titles/classes/art units as printed). The art‑unit classes (345/715‑751 GUI, 715/711, 709/219 client‑server) are, however, consistent with the examiner having searched precisely the drop‑down‑menu / client‑server‑presentation field.

3.2 The patent's own admissions (citable, and the core of the §103 case)

The '260 specification admits several elements as known art:

1. Graphical hyperlinks were known and solve the destination‑clarity problem.

"a picture of a person on a web page may represent a hyperlink to that person's home page. Clicking on the picture will cause the web browser to navigate to the hyperlinked home page. Graphical hyperlinks have the benefit … of providing the user with a clearer indication of the hyperlink's destination."

1. The stated problem is purely a real‑estate trade‑off, not a technical impossibility.
   "graphic images must typically occupy a significant area on the web page (so‑called visual 'real estate') before they can provide enough visual information to be useful … Graphical hyperlinks, therefore, are of limited value …"
2. The "preload + hidden + instantaneous reveal with no server access" mechanism was already known and used by the applicant in the parent '795 system.

"Because the additional summary information has been preloaded by the web browser 140 in the process of downloading the message content units 132 …, the web browser 140 may generate and display the tooltip essentially instantaneously, and without again accessing the server 112."

1. The pre‑download‑the‑graphics technique was known and is expressly attributed to AJAX.
   "such a feature may be enabled using AJAX technology, through which all of the logos may be pre‑downloaded with the web page 500, and then quickly displayed to the user without requiring additional accesses to the server."
2. Category/sub‑category structure of the first set is conceded as a design choice.

"The first set of hyperlinks 504a may be sorted into categories, sub‑categories, and so on, in any manner. Alternatively, they may be unsorted."

1. The hover‑highlight concept appears in the applicant's own earlier disclosure (FIGS. 4A–4C): "the text 'AAP' may be highlighted (such as by color coding) in each of the matching text strings," displayed in a list that "may change as the user continues to type."

These admissions collapse most of the distance between the claim and the art.

3.3 Well‑known non‑patent art (general knowledge; documentary proof required in litigation)

By March 2006 the following were ubiquitous and would be known to any POSITA:

• CSS/JavaScript drop‑down ("flyout") menus. Menu markup shipped with the page, hidden via display:none or visibility:hidden, revealed on mouseover with no server request; sub‑items rendered immediately below the parent item; the currently pointed‑at row highlighted, with the highlight moving as the pointer moves. Implementations were commodity items (Dreamweaver/FrontPage menu components, Milonic DHTML Menu, HierMenus, and the 2003 "Suckerfish" pure‑CSS pattern). The specification's own AJAX sentence is a judicial admission that this category was known.
• Logo‑as‑link navigation bars and image maps — the admitted "graphical hyperlink."
• Categorized web directories (e.g., the Yahoo! Directory's category → sub‑category drill‑down), matching claims 11–13.

4. Grounds of rejection under 35 U.S.C. §103(a)

Ground 1 — Nielsen in view of Crawford (and/or the admitted graphical‑hyperlink art)

Primary reference: US 5,854,630 (Nielsen). Secondary: US 5,754,176 (Crawford).

• Nielsen supplies [1.3]/[1.4]/[1.6]/[1.8]/[1.9] — a hierarchical menu whose sub‑entries are shown relative to a parent entry and whose selection navigates.
• Crawford supplies [1.2]/[1.5] and the concept of selecting a displayed representation to act on hyperlinked content.
• Motivation (KSR / MPEP 2143(A),(C),(D)): both are in the same field (computer user interfaces for navigating linked information); both address the identical problem of selecting one of a large number of destinations with limited screen space; combining hierarchical menu disclosure with hyperlink‑selection disclosure is "the mere arrangement of old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform" (In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (CCPA 1981)) and yields the predictable result of a compact, self‑revealing menu of links. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416‑17 (2007).
• Caveat: I have not verified Nielsen's or Crawford's specific disclosures in this session; the titles/classes printed on the family front page are consistent with, but do not prove, the mapping above. Verify against full text before asserting this ground.

Ground 2 — Inala, Dow (or Kamer) in view of the admitted graphical‑hyperlink art, further in view of the applicant's own preloading admission

Primary: US 6,199,077 B1 (Inala) and/or US 6,199,157 B1 (Dow) and/or US 6,366,947 B1 (Kamer). Secondary: the patent's own Background admission that "a picture of a person … may represent a hyperlink," plus the specification's admission that content can be "preloaded … without again accessing the server."

• Inala/Dow/Kamer are directed to automatically presenting, linking, and navigating networked/related content on a client — supplying [1.2], [1.5], [1.8], [1.9].
• The admitted art supplies [1.2]'s graphical alternative and [1.3]/[1.4]/[1.6]'s preload‑and‑reveal behavior.
• Motivation: the patent's own Background states the goal ("improved techniques for providing visual representations of hyperlinks") and the constraint (visual real estate). A POSITA faced with the known real‑estate cost of graphical hyperlinks had an explicit design incentive — solve the trade‑off by hiding the graphics until the user asks for them — which is the entire invention. This is the KSR "design incentive / market pressure" rationale at its strongest, because the specification itself articulates the problem and the solution direction.
• Caveat: same verification caveat as Ground 1.

Ground 3 — The '260's own admitted prior art as the primary "reference" plus any graphical/logo‑link reference

This is the ground I regard as most robust and least dependent on the unverified patent references.

Every limitation except the "graphical cue" character of the second set is conceded in the specification:

• [1.2] first set of textual hyperlink representations in connection with a web page — the specification's own FIG. 5A subject matter and the Background's textual hyperlinks.
• [1.3]/[1.4] pre‑downloaded, menu‑format, initially hidden second set — the admitted AJAX pre‑download of "all of the logos … with the web page 500, and then quickly displayed … without requiring additional accesses to the server."
• [1.6] substantially immediate display in the same window — admitted via the "essentially instantaneously … without again accessing the server 112" tooltip passage.
• [1.5]/[1.8]/[1.9] first/third input initiating display then navigation — the admitted "clicking on the picture will cause the web browser to navigate."
• [1.7] visual emphasis updated as the second input changes — the admitted hover/tooltip behavior plus the FIGS. 4A–4C highlighting whose content "may change as the user continues to type."

All that is left is using a graphic (e.g., a logo) as the second set's representation — which the Background expressly admits was known. On that record the claim recites no more than the predictable combination of admitted prior‑art elements, and §103 requires no more: "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416.

Ground 4 — Menu/drop‑down art in view of a front‑end "dynamic display of a preloaded hidden element" reference, in view of Straub/Douvikas/Knight (GUI presentation art)

Primary: US 5,854,630 (Nielsen) or US 6,336,133 (Morris). Secondary: US 6,216,141 (Straub) and the 345/7xx GUI references (US 6,515,681 Knight; US 6,633,311 / 6,691,158 / 6,889,213 Douvikas). Tertiary: US 6,874,126 (Lapidous, 715/711).

• The GUI references supply the presentation mechanics: displaying a first group of selectable items, and, on selection/pointer change, displaying a second group with a changed visual appearance of one of the items ([1.3], [1.6], [1.7]).
• Motivation: all references are in the same art unit cluster (GUI presentation / client‑server document delivery) and address the same known deficiency (menus and link lists that either hide destinations or consume space). Under MPEP 2143(B) ("simple substitution of one known element for another") the substitution of a graphic/link representation for a text representation is the literal subject matter the patent's Background says was already used for exactly this purpose.

Ground 5 — Admitted autocomplete/match‑list art in view of menu art (directed at claims 15 and dependents)

The WO 02/03243, WO 02/061610 and WO 2004/029780 PCT references, plus the specification's own FIGS. 4A–4C narrative, supply claim 15's n‑tuple (n > 1 text strings) character matching with visual emphasis, performed without re‑querying the server. The specification itself compares this to conventional "symbol lookup" features.

5. Motivation‑to‑combine ledger (KSR / MPEP §2143)

6. Dependent claims

• 2, 5, 10 (textual first set; graphical second set; logos): squarely met by the admission that "a picture of a person … may represent a hyperlink" and that the second set "may, for example, be logos of companies."
• 3, 4, 6 (click / hover inputs): hover and click activation are the ordinary menu interaction model; the specification's own "clicking on or hovering a mouse cursor over one of the hypertext links 506a‑h."
• 7, 8 (AJAX; "instantaneous"): expressly attributed by the specification to known AJAX pre‑downloading.
• 9 (scan before navigation): inherent in a menu of pre‑loaded destinations.
• 11–13 (categories, sub‑categories, list of sub‑categories): conceded as "any manner"; directly met by directory‑style category/sub‑category hierarchies.
• 14 (first portion / second portion of page): met by the specification's own frames 502a/502b.
• 15 (n‑tuple autocomplete): the applicant's own FIGS. 4A–4C disclosure and the cited symbol‑lookup PCT/website art.

Because every dependent claim merely adds a design choice or a feature the specification itself labels known, none is reasonably expected to carry patentability independently of claim 1.

7. Anticipated patent‑owner rebuttals and responses

1. "The prior art doesn't disclose pre‑loading the second set with the page and displaying it without requiring an additional access to a server." → The specification admits exactly that in two places (the preloaded tooltip and the AJAX pre‑downloaded logos). A patentee cannot argue novelty over art its own specification acknowledges (see In re Bergman? better: the specification's admissions are binding; cf. Atofina v. Great Lakes Chem. Corp., 441 F.3d 991, 1000 (Fed. Cir. 2006) on specification framing).
2. "The claim requires no images in the first set — a specific structural limitation." → That is a negative limitation satisfied by any text menu, and it narrows, rather than expands, the space over the art; it is precisely the kind of limitation a POSITA would adopt as an obvious design choice (text labels for top‑level categories, graphics for the revealed sub‑level).
3. "Secondary considerations (commercial success, licensing)." → The Aloft/Arav family is a licensing/enforcement portfolio (see the litigation summary: Schaefer Sys. Int'l, Inc. v. Aloft Media, LLC, No. 3:22‑cv‑00513 (W.D.N.C.)). Licensing revenue alone is weak; the nexus between any commercial success and the claimed combination would need proof. In re GPAC Inc., 57 F.3d 1573, 1580 (Fed. Cir. 1995).
4. "Same‑family art cannot be prior art." → Correct as to §102, which is why Grounds 1–5 rest on third‑party references and admissions — but the same‑family patents (US 7,529,795; 8,682,961; 10,042,823; 10,078,623; 10,372,793) create a separate, independent invalidity theory: obviousness‑type double patenting over the same §112 disclosure and same 2006‑03‑20 priority. Any claim of the '260 that is not patentably distinct from the earlier claims is invalid for ODP, notwithstanding common ownership and any terminal disclaimer (a terminal disclaimer cures the time‑wise extension but does not make the claims patentably distinct). In re Hubbell, 709 F.3d 1140 (Fed. Cir. 2013); Georgia‑Pacific v. U.S. Gypsum, 195 F.3d 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1999) (two‑step ODP test).
5. §101 is an independent and serious vulnerability. Claim 1 is a "computer code for causing display …" claim over a general‑purpose computer — the classic Alice step‑2 posture (generic computer + generic code implementing the abstract idea of displaying a menu of links). This is outside the §103 ask but should be part of any validity assessment.

8. Bottom line

On the record available, claim 1 of US 11,308,260 is vulnerable to §103(a) in at least three independent combinations:

1. US 5,854,630 (Nielsen) (hierarchical menu) + US 5,754,176 (Crawford) (GUI/hyperlink selection) — with the graphical second set supplied by an admitted art or a 345/7xx GUI reference;
2. US 6,199,077 / 6,199,157 / 6,366,947 (client‑side networked content selection) + the patent's Background admission of graphical hyperlinks + the specification's admission of preloaded, server‑independent display;
3. A DHTML drop‑down menu reference (or the admitted AJAX pre‑download disclosure) + a logo‑as‑hyperlink reference, motivated expressly by the patent's own statement of the problem.

The strongest, evidence‑independent lever is the applicant's own admissions: the specification concedes graphical hyperlinks, concedes the real‑estate trade‑off, and concedes that pre‑downloading hidden content to display it "essentially instantaneously … without again accessing the server" was known. Once those are on the table, the claim adds nothing beyond the predictable combination of old elements — the KSR standard for obviousness.

Confidence:

• High — that the specification's admissions materially undercut nonobviousness; that the family's later patents are ODP rather than §102 art; that the effective date is 2006‑03‑20; that the GUI/client‑server art units cited on the family front page are the right field.
• Low/Unverified — the specific element‑by‑element mappings for US 5,854,630, 5,754,176, 6,199,077, 6,199,157, 6,366,947, 6,216,141, and the 345/7xx references, because I retrieved citation lists, not full texts. Before filing any invalidity contention, pull each reference's full text (and, for the non‑patent art, Internet Archive captures of pre‑2006 drop‑down‑menu implementations) and build element‑by‑element claim charts.
• Unresolved — the exact issued claim 1 text of the '260 (the published‑application, continuation, and issued versions differ; re‑verify against USPTO PatentCenter for application 16/826,158).

Discrepancies with the previously generated Litigation section (flagging, not correcting): (i) that section records the owner as "Aloft Media, LLC" while Google Patents renders "Alof Media LLC" — I have preserved both spellings; (ii) it states the current date as April 26, 2026, whereas the header for this task states September 27, 2026; I treated the earlier date as the operative one for the pre‑AIA analysis (which is unaffected either way, since all prior art here predates 2006‑03‑20).