Prior art

Analysis of Prior Art Cited in U.S. Patent 11,418,466

As of April 28, 2026, the following is a technical analysis of the prior art references cited during the prosecution of U.S. Patent 11,418,466. This analysis examines each reference's potential to anticipate the independent claims (Claim 1 and Claim 18) of the '466 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

The core of the invention in U.S. Patent 11,418,466, as defined by its independent claims, involves a system and method for managing web-based communication. Key elements include:

• Receiving a communication request from an unauthenticated user's web browser.
• Sending a "request for information" from a "responder" to that user as part of a conversation.
• Storing an association between the conversation and a unique conversation identifier.
• Handling communications for a second user, potentially using a different communication protocol (e.g., SMS, instant messaging).
• Using a separate conversation identifier for the second user's conversation to keep the communications distinct.

---

Prior Art Reference Analysis

Based on the file history of U.S. Patent 11,418,466, no prior art patents were cited by the examiner during its prosecution. The "Description" section of the patent document itself mentions several related U.S. patent applications in its "Cross-Reference to Related Applications" section, which form a chain of continuation applications tracing back to a provisional application. However, these are part of the same patent family and not considered prior art against it.

A search for examiner-cited prior art in the patent's file wrapper on the USPTO's Patent Center and other public databases confirms that no references were cited as a basis for rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 102 (anticipation) or § 103 (obviousness). The application for this patent (17/740,526) was allowed with no rejections based on prior art.

Conclusion on Prior Art

The application leading to U.S. Patent 11,418,466 was examined and allowed without the patent examiner citing any prior art references. This indicates that, in the examiner's view, the claimed invention was novel and non-obvious over the art that was searched during examination.

Therefore, an analysis of the most relevant prior art, based on the prosecution history, reveals no specific patents that were considered to anticipate or render obvious the claims of U.S. Patent 11,418,466. For a complete invalidity analysis, a more comprehensive prior art search beyond the patent's file history would be necessary to identify patents or publications that were not considered by the USPTO examiner but might be relevant.