US 11516278

Summary — U.S. Patent No. 11,516,278 B2

Bibliographic data

Abstract (verbatim)

"A transmission management system includes a destination name data managing unit which manages a plurality of destination name data items which indicate a plurality of names of a destination in communications between transmission terminals, a destination name data reading unit which reads a destination name data item from the plurality of destination name data items managed by the destination name data managing unit, and a destination name data transmitting unit which transmits the destination name data item read by the destination name data reading unit to a transmission terminal capable of communicating with the destination."

What the patent is about (plain language)

The patent addresses a videoconference/conference-management usability problem: traditional systems give each destination terminal a single fixed, generic name (e.g., "Tokyo office"), which is not always the name a user would most easily recognize in a given context (e.g., a team name inside a company vs. a company name in cross-company calls). The invention manages multiple name items for the same destination/terminal and selects/provides a contextually appropriate name — e.g., a default/first name shown in a destination list, and a user-supplied, meeting-specific second name displayed for that meeting. A user who logs in can rename a participant for a particular scheduled meeting, and the management system stores that updated name in association with the meeting information.

Independent claims (plain-language overview)

Based on the issued claim set as reflected in available records (note: the granted claims use "first name information"/"second name information" terminology rather than the "destination name data" phrasing of the abstract):

• Claim 1 (system) — A management system comprising memory storing: (i) login identification information; (ii) first name information — a name associated with that identification information; and (iii) meeting information for a scheduled meeting. Processing circuitry: (a) transmits the first name information to a transmission terminal that has logged in using the identification information; (b) receives from that terminal second name information that is different from the first name information and is updated name information of the first name information, the second name information being a name displayed in a meeting held based on the meeting information; and (c) stores the second name information in association with the meeting information. In essence: default name sent to a logged-in terminal; terminal returns a meeting-specific rename; system persists the rename tied to that meeting.

• Claim 16 (method) — The corresponding computer-implemented method: reading the first name information from memory; transmitting it to the logged-in transmission terminal; receiving the second (updated, different) name information that is displayed in the meeting held based on stored meeting information; and storing the second name information in association with the meeting information.

• Claim 17 (independent — partially verified) — The available record shows claim 17 begins a further independent claim (the search snippet truncates at that point). Based on the claim structure and dependent claims 18–21 that track method claim 16, claim 17 is very likely a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium claim embodying the method of claim 16, but I could not fully verify its exact text and flag that as uncertain.

Dependent claims of note (exemplary): reservation-request handling (claim 7); transmitting second name info for a selected meeting (claim 8); fallback to first name info when no second name info is stored for the selected meeting (claim 9); meeting info containing meeting name, start/end date-time (claim 10); first name = name in destination list, second name = meeting display name (claim 12); receipt of the second name before the scheduled meeting starts (claim 14); updated name displayed in place of the first name (claim 15).

Litigation / CAFC status

• No CAFC 2026 appeal docket was found for this specific patent number (my CAFC docket search returned no results). The patent is currently the subject of district-court litigation, not an appeal.
• Ricoh Company, Ltd. v. Zoom Communications, Inc., D. Del., No. 1:25-cv-01095 (filed Aug. 29, 2025): Ricoh asserts US 11,516,278 (the "'278 Patent," referred to as the "11,516,278") among seven videoconferencing patents against Zoom's platform. The May 1, 2026 Memorandum Opinion (D.I. 39, Judge Choe-Groves) denied Zoom's renewed motion to dismiss, including its 35 U.S.C. § 101 eligibility challenge, finding Ricoh's infringement allegations state a claim. CourtListener docket entries also reflect a case-transfer entry in June 2026; the case remains pending below, with no CAFC appeal docket yet identified.

Confidence notes

• Bibliographic data, abstract, and assignee/inventor data come directly from the Google Patents record and are high-confidence.
• The precise full text of claims 1 and 16 was verified from a Justia copy of the patent; claim 17's full text and the exact total claim count were not fully verified due to truncated search results.
• The litigation details are from CourtListener/PACER-derived records and the Justia opinion copy; per your instruction, I treat those live search results as current ground truth over any conflicting training data.

I'll search for litigation involving US Patent 11,516,278.

The main case is confirmed. Let me search for any additional proceedings (IPRs, other district cases, ITC) involving this patent to make sure the list is complete.

Let me do a couple more checks for any PTAB proceedings, ITC actions, or additional cases involving this specific patent.

Based on my searches, here is what is known about litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,516,278 (the "'278 Patent").

Known litigation

1. Ricoh Company, Ltd. v. Zoom Communications, Inc. — D. Del. No. 1:25-cv-01095 (primary case)

Key procedural history / current status (per CourtListener, Justia, and contemporaneous coverage):

• Ricoh filed its Complaint on Aug. 29, 2025, and served Zoom on Sept. 5, 2025. Ricoh alleges infringement of the '278 Patent (exemplarily, method claim 16 — the "first name information"/"second name information" rename flow) by Zoom Workplace/Zoom Meetings features that let a participant change his/her displayed name for a meeting. Ricoh alleges Zoom was on notice via a letter dated at least April 11, 2024, and pleads induced and contributory infringement plus willfulness.
• Zoom moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) / 35 U.S.C. § 101 (Alice), arguing the asserted claims are directed to abstract ideas.
• Ricoh filed a First Amended Complaint on January 13, 2026 (D.I. 24).
• Zoom filed a renewed motion to dismiss (D.I. 27); briefing ran Feb.–Mar. 2026; the court heard oral argument on April 1, 2026.
• May 1, 2026 — Memorandum Opinion and Order (D.I. 39, Judge Choe-Groves): Zoom's motion to dismiss was DENIED. The court found the asserted claims (including those of the '278 Patent, characterized as directed to the abstract idea of "updating and storing name information," akin to updating a name tag) are directed to abstract ideas at Alice step one, but held that Ricoh plausibly alleged inventive concepts at Alice step two — concluding that whether the claimed elements were "well-understood, routine, and conventional" is a factual dispute not resolvable at the pleading stage (Berkheimer/Aatrix).
• The court ordered the parties to meet and confer and file a joint proposed scheduling order by June 1, 2026.
• Current status: Pending — the case is proceeding toward claim construction/scheduling; no final judgment, settlement, or appellate docket (CAFC) was identified in my searches.

Sources: CourtListener docket for 1:25-cv-01095 (D.I. 1, 39, etc.); Justia (D.I. 39 opinion, May 1, 2026); RPX/Mondaq summary (Nov. 5, 2025); Law360 (May 4, 2026); VitalLaw/ScaleJuris summaries of the May 1, 2026 opinion.

Related proceedings I could not fully confirm against the '278 Patent specifically

• PTAB IPR filings by Zoom against Ricoh: Search results surfaced PTAB proceedings Zoom Communications, Inc. v. Ricoh Co., Ltd. — including IPR2026-00407 (filed July 1, 2026) which expressly challenges U.S. Patent 10,904,487 (not the '278), and IPR2026-00470 (status pending; filing reference dated Sept. 2, 2026). The search result for IPR2026-00470 did not identify which patent is challenged, so I could not verify whether any IPR specifically targets the '278 Patent (11,516,278). I flag this as unconfirmed rather than assert it.

Caveats / confidence notes

• Date discrepancy: Your task states the current date is April 26, 2026, but the live search results include docket entries and rulings dated through at least May 1–4, 2026 (and PTAB references into mid-2026), and the operating context lists today as Sept. 3, 2026. Per your instruction that live search results control over training data, I have reported the later-dated events as ground truth. If your "as-of" date is truly April 26, 2026, then the May 1, 2026 ruling (D.I. 39) would not yet exist — but it does appear in the docket records I retrieved, so I have included it.
• I found no other district-court cases, ITC investigations, or CAFC appeals specifically naming US 11,516,278 in my searches. The Google Patents "litigation" flags for this patent family point to the Delaware case above.
• Ricoh's asserted-patent list and the '278 Patent's inclusion as Count 6 are confirmed directly from the complaint (CourtListener D.I. 1) and the May 1, 2026 opinion (D.I. 39).

Bottom line: The only confirmed litigation involving US Patent 11,516,278 is Ricoh Company, Ltd. v. Zoom Communications, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01095 (D. Del.), filed Aug. 29, 2025, still pending, with Zoom's § 101 dismissal motion denied on May 1, 2026. Zoom has filed IPR petitions against Ricoh's asserted patents, but I could not confirm that any filed IPR challenges the '278 Patent specifically.

Proceedings overview

There is exactly one AIA trial proceeding on file for US 11,516,278 — IPR2026-00470, filed 2026-09-02 by Zoom Communications, Inc., and it is pending at the earliest possible stage (petition docketed one day before this report; no institution decision, no judge panel assigned, no Final Written Decision). Bottom line for a defendant: no claim of the '278 patent has been canceled or even substantively tested yet — the patent is fully in force, and the sole IPR against it is a newborn proceeding whose petition grounds are not yet public.

IPR2026-00470 — Zoom Communications, Inc. v. Ricoh Company, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2026-09-02
• Status: "Pending" (verbatim from the USPTO Open Data Portal block; also reflected in third-party trackers as Status: Pending, with Institution and FWD fields empty). Gloss: the petition was filed one day before this report and has not yet been through institution screening.
• Judge panel: None assigned yet — third-party tracker (ai-lab.exparte.com) lists "Pending Judge Assignment."
• Petition grounds: Not publicly available in any source I could retrieve as of 2026-09-03. The petition was filed 2026-09-02 and its public PTAB E2E/PRPTAC version had not surfaced in my searches. I will not speculate about which claims, which prior-art references, or which statutory bases (§ 102/§ 103) are asserted. (Context only, not grounds: in the parallel D. Del. case, Ricoh's Count 6 alleges the '278 Patent is infringed through the method claim 16 flow — first name information transmitted at login, second/renamed information received and stored for a scheduled meeting — so claim 16 and its dependent claims are the natural targets of an IPR, but that is inference, not verified petition content.)
• Institution decision: None yet. Statutory framework: patent owner's preliminary response is due within 3 months of the petition's filing date (≈ 2026-12-02 if no extension is sought, 37 C.F.R. § 42.107), and the Board must decide whether to institute within 3 months after the preliminary response deadline or actual filing of a response (35 U.S.C. § 314(b)) — putting a decision realistically in the December 2026 – March 2027 window.
• Final Written Decision: None — no trial has been instituted.
• Settlement / termination: None — no settlement, no termination, no request for adverse judgment. (The proceeding was filed 2026-09-02 and shows no termination activity.)
• Appeal: No FWD exists, so there is nothing to appeal to the Federal Circuit yet.
• Defensive value: Low current value — no claim has been invalidated, and the patent remains fully enforceable against Zoom and everyone else. What the filing does establish is that Zoom has committed to a PTAB attack on this patent and did so timely (2026-09-02 is within one year of service of the D. Del. complaint, satisfying 35 U.S.C. § 315(b)). If you are facing assertion of the '278 Patent, this proceeding is a live threat to validity worth tracking, but as of today it has produced zero claim-level outcomes.

Strategic summary

Claims CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. No claims of US 11,516,278 have been canceled — no IPR has reached institution, let alone a Final Written Decision. No claims have been "sustained" by a PTAB merits decision either (a FWD upholding claims would be the only event that would harden the patent in the PTAB sense). Every claim of the patent is therefore untested at the PTAB and remains in force. This is the critical fact: the '278 Patent enters any negotiation or litigation with a clean PTAB record — there is no FWD to cite for invalidity, and the only pending challenge is too young to have generated any estoppel or claim-narrowing.

Estoppel landscape (35 U.S.C. § 315(e)). No § 315(e) estoppel has attached from IPR2026-00470 because estoppel runs only from a Final Written Decision. Until then, Zoom — and any unrelated defendant — can raise any § 102/§ 103 ground freely in district court. If the IPR is instituted and a FWD issues, Zoom and its privies will be estopped in the D. Del. case (and in the USPTO, PTO, and ITC) from asserting any § 102/§ 103 ground on patents or printed publications that Zoom raised or reasonably could have raised in the IPR. Two carve-outs matter for a defendant: (1) § 101 eligibility and § 112 challenges are not IPR grounds and survive any FWD — and the D. Del. court's 2026-05-01 opinion already found at Alice step one that the asserted claims (including those of the '278 Patent) are directed to an abstract idea, holding Ricoh's case alive only on step-two factual disputes (Berkheimer/Aatrix); (2) a third-party defendant not in privity with Zoom is untouched by Zoom's estoppel and can run its own prior-art defenses, including art Zoom never raised.

Pattern signals. Zoom is prosecuting a coordinated, multi-front IPR campaign against Ricoh's seven asserted patents from Ricoh Co. v. Zoom Communications, No. 1:25-cv-01095 (D. Del.) — sibling petitions IPR2026-00407 (against US 10,904,487), IPR2026-00411 (against US 11,256,464), and IPR2026-00424 have been filed against other Ricoh patents in the same litigation, and IPR2026-00470 is the petition on the '278 Patent specifically. The filing date of 2026-09-02 — just days before the one-year § 315(b) bar computed from Zoom's September 2025 service — signals a deliberate, deadline-driven defense strategy rather than a settlement-minded posture. Ricoh is a large operating company (its first U.S. plaintiff suit in ~15 years, per contemporaneous coverage), not a non-practicing entity, and no defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents appears in this chain. Expect Ricoh to oppose institution vigorously and, if the petition is a late-stage filing with art that overlaps the district court's already-litigated § 101 record, to press Fintiv-style discretion arguments where available.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not rely on any claim invalidation — there is none. No FWD exists for US 11,516,278, so there is no PTAB disposition to quote to a court or to use in a negotiating posture. If you are a defendant being asserted against today, the PTAB record gives you no "dead claim" leverage.

2. Track the near-term milestones on IPR2026-00470 (all dates are statutory estimates, not confirmed docket dates):

   • Patent-owner preliminary response due ≈ 2026-12-02 (3 months from filing, 37 C.F.R. § 42.107);
   • Institution decision due ≈ within 3 months thereafter — realistically December 2026 – March 2027 (35 U.S.C. § 314(b));
   • If instituted, Final Written Decision due within 12 months of institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)), i.e., roughly late 2027 – early 2028.
   • Monitor the public docket at USPTO PTAB (ptab.uspto.gov / PRPTAC) and the third-party tracker (ai-lab.exparte.com case page for IPR2026-00470) for the petition's public version, which will reveal the challenged claims and prior-art grounds.

3. If you are Zoom (or in privity): begin mapping the estoppel consequences now. Once the petition's grounds are visible, identify which § 102/§ 103 theories are committed to the IPR and which remain available in the D. Del. case; remember § 101 and § 112 theories stay available regardless, and the May 1, 2026 district-court opinion (D.I. 39, Ricoh Co. v. Zoom Communications, No. 1:25-cv-01095 (D. Del. 2026-05-01)) already gives you a favorable step-one abstract-idea finding to build on.

4. If you are a defendant other than Zoom: you are not estopped by anything Zoom does. Treat IPR2026-00470 as useful signal (Zoom's best art is presumably in that petition) but run your own prior-art and § 101/§ 112 analysis independently, and consider the timing of any motion practice relative to the pending institution decision.

5. Absence of prior PTAB activity is itself meaningful. The '278 Patent issued 2022-11-29 and stood for nearly four years — through the 2025-08-29 complaint and the 2026-05-01 § 101 ruling — before attracting its first IPR, filed 2026-09-02. That gap reflects the patent having been asserted only recently (Ricoh's first U.S. enforcement campaign in ~15 years), not prior vindication; treat the patent as strongly presumed valid and wholly untested until IPR2026-00470 or a later proceeding says otherwise.

Caveat on sources: No PTAB opinion, institution decision, or FWD exists yet for IPR2026-00470, so no USPTO decision link can be cited — that absence is verified, not an oversight. The proceeding's existence, parties, filing date, and "Pending" status come from the canonical USPTO Open Data Portal block in this prompt, corroborated by the ai-lab.exparte.com tracker. All claims of US 11,516,278 remain in force as of 2026-09-03.

I'll research the assignment record for US Patent 11,516,278 by querying the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referencing sources.

The general searches didn't surface specific assignment records. Let me try more targeted searches, including the Google Patents legal-events listing and the USPTO assignment search for the patent number.

Let me search the assignment database directly through indexed query URLs and the application number.

I've reached the search-step limit, and none of my queries surfaced the USPTO Assignment Center records directly (the live search tools returned only general guidance pages and an inventor-patent listing). I'll therefore report what is verifiable from the sources I could reach, flag explicitly what could not be verified, and avoid fabricating reel/frame entries.

Inventors

Pattern check: No unusual departure pattern is evident. Both inventors appear to be career Ricoh technologists; there is no signal that the inventors left the original assignee within 12 months of filing, which would have hinted at a portfolio fire-sale. The inventors' employer at filing is corroborated by the JP 2012-171192 priority application and Ricoh's PCT filing (Ricoh is the applicant of record throughout).

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Ricoh Co., Ltd.), Tokyo, Japan. Google Patents lists both the "Current Assignee" and "Original Assignee" as Ricoh Co., Ltd.
• Product embodiment: Yes. Ricoh is an operating company in the videoconferencing / unified-communications space. The '278 patent's subject matter (transmission management for videoconferences, scheduled-meeting participant names, destination lists) maps directly onto Ricoh's videoconference/UC products and services. Ricoh has long sold videoconference systems (e.g., Ricoh Unified Communication System and related meeting products).
• Line of business: Multinational imaging, electronics, office-equipment, and IT-services company (TSE: 7752).
• Current status: Operating and active. Critically, Ricoh itself is the plaintiff in the only infringement litigation on this patent (see below), which is powerful corroboration that the original assignee still owns the asset.

Assignment timeline

Plain statement on the record: I could not retrieve the USPTO Assignment Center's reel/frame entries for this patent with the search tools available in this session — my queries returned no Assignment Center abstract of title, and I will not invent reel/frame numbers. What the accessible public record does show is consistent: the original assignee (Ricoh Company, Ltd.) appears to remain the current owner of US 11,516,278. There is no evidence of any post-issuance assignment, security interest, or transfer away from Ricoh in any source I reached (Google Patents legal-events/assignee fields, the litigation docket, and the PTAB proceeding all name Ricoh as the owner/plaintiff/patent owner).

If Assignment Center access were available, the expected chain would be the routine corporate recordation of inventors → Ricoh Company, Ltd. on the earliest application in this family (the PCT national-phase filing US 14/417,868, ~2013–2015), which presumptively carries through the continuation chain to US 17/104,322 (granted as '278). But because I could not verify the specific reel/frame, I am not asserting that recordation as fact.

Given the task rule ("If the Assignment Center has no records for this patent, say so plainly and stop after this section"), the accurate finding is: no post-issuance assignment records were found, and no transfer of any kind away from Ricoh Company, Ltd. was found. This is itself the significant finding — it means the original assignee (an operating company) still owns the patent, and the patent was not routed through any LLC or holding entity.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "Patent Number" = 11516278). I was unable to render the live abstract of title in this session; treat the absence of reel/frame citations as a data-access limitation, not as proof that no inventor→Ricoh recordation exists.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11516278
    2012 : Priority filed in Japan by Ricoh
    2013 : PCT filed by Ricoh
    2015 : US national phase filed
    2017 : First US patent granted 9661057
    2022 : US 11516278 granted to Ricoh
    2025 : Ricoh sues Zoom in Delaware
    2026 : Zoom files IPR2026-00470

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present (to the extent the record is visible). No transfer to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" LLC appears anywhere in the accessible record; the assignee of record remains Ricoh Company, Ltd., a manufacturing company. No registered-agent-service address or single-purpose LLC appears in the chain because there is no chain.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entity, or Unified/RPX-listed high-frequency plaintiff appears anywhere in the ownership or litigation record. The sole plaintiff is Ricoh Company, Ltd. itself.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / no data. I could not retrieve the recorded correspondent(s) from the Assignment Center. This signal is therefore unverifiable, but note it is also largely moot: there is no multi-link assignment chain in which a recurring correspondent could be hiding a transfer pattern.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. No chained LLC-to-LLC transfers exist in the accessible record; there is no <24-month cascade to analyze.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The first infringement suit (Ricoh Co. v. Zoom Communications, Inc., D. Del. No. 1:25-cv-01095, filed 2025-08-29) was brought by the original assignee, not by a transferee that acquired the patent shortly before suit. No assignment timed within 6 months before the complaint was found.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Ricoh is not in bankruptcy and has not sold patents in any insolvency proceeding.
7. Privateering — not present. There is no operating-company-to-NPE transfer, and no SEC or press evidence of Ricoh using an NPE surrogate. Ricoh is suing directly, and contemporaneous coverage characterized this as Ricoh's first major U.S. enforcement campaign in ~15 years — a direct assertion by the manufacturer.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN; Ricoh retains the patent and is affirmatively enforcing it.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The current and original assignee is Ricoh Company, Ltd., a multinational operating company that makes videoconferencing/unified-communication products embodying this patent's subject matter, and no assignment to any LLC, holding entity, or known NPE appears in the accessible record. Ricoh is suing Zoom — a direct competitor in the videoconferencing/meetings market — in Ricoh Company, Ltd. v. Zoom Communications, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01095 (D. Del., filed 2025-08-29), and the sole PTAB challenge (IPR2026-00470, filed 2026-09-02) names Ricoh as the patent owner, both facts corroborating that no transfer ever occurred. The one caveat is evidentiary: I could not retrieve the USPTO Assignment Center's reel/frame abstract of title in this session, so the absence of recorded transfers is based on the accessible public record (Google Patents assignee fields, the district-court docket, and the PTAB filing) rather than on a verified Assignment Center printout — verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,516,278 ("'278 Patent")

Scope and verification caveat (read first)

Before giving claim-level § 102 assessments, I have to be transparent about the evidentiary record available in this session:

• I was able to verify, from the fetched full text of the '278 Patent and live search results, two references with high confidence and one with medium confidence as standing in the '278 Patent's citation network.
• The Google Patents pages in this family (US 9,661,057 / US 10,270,837 / US 11,516,278) display a "Patent Citations (20)" header, but I could not retrieve the complete enumerated citation list for the issued '278 Patent before the search limit was reached. The authoritative list of all references cited during prosecution is found in the patent's "References Cited" section on the printed face of the patent and in the USPTO Public PAIR/Patent Center file wrapper, which I could not fully render here.
• I am therefore not inventing a complete citation list. What follows is limited to references I could verify, plus an explicit statement of what remains unverified. Per your instruction, I interpret all identifiers literally (no auto-correction of "11516278," "17/104,322," etc.).

One additional structural point: the '278 Patent is a continuation (US 17/104,322) of US 16/291,842 → US 15/290,917 (US 10,270,837) → US 14/417,868 (US 9,661,057), national phase of PCT/JP2013/070953, claiming priority to JP 2012-171192 (filed Aug. 1, 2012). Because the application chain post-dates the AIA (earliest non-provisional filed 2013-07-26), AIA § 102 governs, and the critical date for prior art is the claimed priority date of Aug. 1, 2012 (assuming valid priority to the JP application). Any reference published or "otherwise available" before Aug. 1, 2012 is § 102(a)(1) prior art; any U.S. patent/application effectively filed before that date is § 102(a)(2) prior art. The family's own earlier-granted patents (US 9,661,057; US 10,270,837) are not prior art to the '278 Patent — same disclosure, same inventive entity, later effective filing dates.

Verified / identifiable references in the citation network

R1. JP 2012-050063 A — the patent's own admitted background art

Which claims could it potentially anticipate (§ 102)?

• Low-to-moderate for the base-list limitations only. R1 squarely reads on the generic preamble concepts of claim 1 (a management system that manages names of destinations and transmits name data to a terminal capable of communicating with a destination), and on dependent-claim concepts such as claim 12's notion that the first name information is a name shown in a destination list.
• It does not appear to anticipate claim 1 or claim 16 as a whole, because the '278 Patent's entire stated problem is that the prior art (R1) uses one common/static name per destination. The crux of claims 1 and 16 — receiving second name information that is different from and an update of the first name information, and storing the second name information in association with meeting information — is the improvement the '278 Patent asserts over R1. Unless R1's full Japanese text (not retrieved here) discloses user-supplied per-meeting renaming, it fails at least that element and cannot anticipate claims 1, 16, or 17.

R2. JP 2012-134944 A — verified cited reference (high confidence)

Disclosure (per title/class/assignee and the family context): A Ricoh transmission management system managing videoconference communications between transmission terminals — consistent with the management-table architecture (terminal authentication, state/session management, relay-device management) that the '278 specification also uses (its FIGS. 7–12 tables and login/authentication flow of FIG. 13 mirror this earlier in-house architecture).

Which claims could it potentially anticipate (§ 102)?

• Low for the independent claims. As a pre-Aug. 1, 2012 published Ricoh reference, R2 is citable under AIA § 102(a)(1) against every claim. It plausibly covers the system scaffolding of claim 1 (memory holding identification information and name data; processing circuitry transmitting name information to a logged-in terminal; storage of meeting-related information) and the login/session-management environment of claims 1–10 and 16.
• It does not appear to anticipate claims 1/16/17 as a whole for the same reason as R1: no evidence in the available record that R2 discloses a second, user-updated name that differs from the first name and is stored in association with a specific scheduled meeting. If R2's full text (not retrieved) lacks that element, it fails § 102 on claims 1, 16, and 17, and would instead be most relevant as § 103 base art or against narrower dependent claims that only require generic management-system features.

R3. JP 2008-227577 A — appears in the family's citation network (medium confidence of direct citation)

Disclosure (per title and available metadata): A video conference system, presumably addressing management/establishment of videoconference sessions.

Which claims could it potentially anticipate (§ 102)?

• Low. If R3 is on the face of the '278, it is § 102(a)(1) art against all claims (published 2008). On available metadata alone, it cannot be shown to disclose the multi-name / rename-and-associate-with-meeting limitation central to claims 1, 16, and 17, so a § 102 anticipation case against the independent claims would not be supported by the record I have. At most it is background art for generic videoconference-session management reflected in dependent claims.

Claim-level § 102 assessment summary

For orientation, the dispositive limitations of the independent claims (as previously verified from Justia: claims 1 and 16) are:

1. memory storing login-identification information, first name information (a name associated with the identification information), and meeting information for a scheduled meeting; and
2. processing circuitry that (a) transmits the first name information to a terminal that logged in using the identification information; (b) receives second name information that is different from the first name information and is updated name information of the first name information, the second name information being a name displayed in a meeting held based on the meeting information; and (c) stores the second name information in association with the meeting information.

Bottom line on anticipation: On the record verifiable in this session, no single reference can be affirmatively identified as anticipating claims 1, 16, or 17 of the '278 Patent under § 102. The reason is consistent across R1–R3: none of the available disclosures shows the combination that defines the invention — a terminal logging in, receiving a first/name-information item, returning a different, updated name to be displayed at a scheduled meeting, and the system persisting that second name in association with the meeting information. R1 (the patent's own admitted closest art) is the strongest § 103 starting point, not a § 102 anticipatory reference. The most likely anticipation pressure on this patent, if any, would come from references not retrievable in this session — including the balance of the ~20 patent citations shown on the family's Google Patents pages and any non-patent literature in the file wrapper.

Confidence notes and recommended verification steps

• High confidence: R2 (JP 2012-134944 A) is cited by the '278 Patent; its priority (2010-11-30) and publication (2012-07-12) dates; R1 is the art named in the '278's Background section; the AIA § 102 framework applies.
• Unverified: the complete on-face "References Cited" list of the issued '278 Patent (the "(20)" patent citations), the exact publication date of R1, and whether R3 is on the face of the '278 versus merely in the family network. I have deliberately not guessed at the remaining ~17 references.
• To complete this analysis, pull the printed "References Cited" section from the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper for application 17/104,322 (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov) or the front page of the issued patent, and obtain full-text English translations of R1 and R2 from the JPO/J-PlatPat to confirm whether either discloses the per-meeting rename-and-store element — which is the only element that would change the § 102 conclusions above.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 11,516,278

0. Scope note, date-consistency flag, and evidentiary caveat

Before the analysis, three housekeeping items:

1. Date conflict. This task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," but the previously generated sections of this file are dated 2026-09-03 and treat events after April 26, 2026 as ground truth (e.g., the D. Del. § 101 ruling of 2026-05-01, and IPR2026-00470 filed 2026-09-02). I flag this explicitly per my instructions. The § 103 analysis below does not depend on the resolution of that conflict, except that I do not rely on IPR2026-00470 (filed after the operative date here) as evidence of anything other than future tracking.
2. Reference set. The governing Prior Art section of this file verified three references (R1, R2, R3) and was explicit that the complete on-face "References Cited" list of US 11516278 (≈20 patent citations) was not retrievable. I build the combination analysis on R1–R3 as instructed, and — separately and transparently flagged — incorporate two supplemental pre-2012-08-01 publications that surfaced in follow-up live searches, because they are the type of art a complete § 103 case would require.
3. No fabrication. Where a combination depends on disclosure that is not in the verified record, I say so rather than assert it. All reference identifiers are interpreted literally.

1. Legal framework and the person of ordinary skill

1.1 Legal standard

Obviousness under 35 U.S.C. § 103 is governed by Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) (scope/content of prior art, differences, level of ordinary skill, secondary considerations) as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Under KSR, the relevant inquiry is whether the claimed improvement is the product of "ordinary innovation" rather than "uncommon genius": a combination of known elements is obvious when a PHOSITA would have had reason to combine them with a reasonable expectation of success, including where the combination merely yields predictable results, applies a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way, or is driven by a known design need or market pressure. Formal teaching-suggestion-motivation (TSM) is not required, but the combination must not be assembled with the patent's own disclosure as a hindsight roadmap.

1.2 Critical date and § 102(a) applicability

The '278 family claims priority to JP 2012-171192 (2012-08-01). The application chain is post-AIA, so a reference is § 103 prior art if it is § 102(a)(1) art (published/otherwise available before 2012-08-01) or § 102(a)(2) art. All references discussed below are publications predating 2012-08-01 (R1, R2, R3 and the two supplemental references), so they qualify under § 102(a)(1) — with R1's exact publication day unverified (see Prior Art section), which matters only at the margins.

1.3 Person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A designer of networked videoconference/transmission-management systems: a B.S. (or equivalent) in computer science/engineering, ~2–4 years' experience building conference-session management servers, terminal authentication/login flows, and reservation/scheduling subsystems for real-time communications, familiar with the Ricoh/Polycom/AT&T-style conferencing management literature, database-backed terminal/destination tables, and the ordinary practice of letting end users edit display names and profile fields. This is consistent with the '278 specification's own architecture (FIGS. 6–12: authentication, session, destination-list, reservation, and terminal tables).

2. Claim elements to be reached

The dispositive independent limitations (claim 1, system; claim 16, method; claim 17, medium — same flow) are:

E5–E6 are the heart of the invention — the per-meeting rename-and-persist flow. E1–E4 are the generic Ricoh transmission-management scaffolding that the patent's own BACKGROUND ART concedes existed.

3. The available references (verbatim-identified)

S1 and S2 are not on the verified face of US 11516278 and are offered solely as the kind of art that a complete § 103 ground would need; their disclosures are summarized from the search results and are not fully verified against full English texts.

4. Combination analyses

4.1 Combination 1 — R1 + R2 (the "Ricoh base-system" combination)

Proposed ground: Claims 1, 16, 17 (and dependents 2–6, 10, 13) over R1 in view of R2.

What it covers:

Motivation analysis. R1 and R2 are Ricoh's own, same-field, same-assignee references published months apart. A PHOSITA designing a production videoconference management system would naturally implement R1's destination-list feature (the newer publication) on top of R2's proven authentication/session architecture (the older, foundational one); both concern "transmission management system, transmission system, program" art and share terminology (terminals, relay devices, management system, authentication tables). Combining them yields predictable results — a working login-then-destination-list system. There is a genuine, non-hindsight motivation: the '278 specification itself describes R1's approach as the state of the art, and a designer seeking to build a system that shows a destination list after login would have every reason to start from R1 + R2.

Why it fails as a complete ground. R1 + R2 leaves E3, E5, and E6 entirely unaddressed. The entire point of the claimed invention, as the patent's Problems-to-be-Solved section concedes, is that prior art like R1 used "common names ... provided for users" and could not use context-specific names — i.e., R1 points away from the multi-name/rename solution. No element of R1 or R2 supplies a per-meeting second name, and the combination would require importing the central inventive concept from the patent's own disclosure. Under KSR, a combination that merely reproduces the base system and then borrows the claimed improvement from the patentee's specification is impermissible hindsight. Confidence: high that R1 + R2 alone does not render claims 1/16/17 obvious.

4.2 Combination 2 — R1 + R2 + R3

R3 (JP 2008-227577 A, Konica Minolta) adds only generic videoconference-session background. It is combinable with R1/R2 because it is in the same field (videoconference systems) and predates both, and a PHOSITA would treat it as ordinary background. But the verified metadata discloses nothing about per-meeting renaming, reservation-associated name storage, or updated display names. R3 therefore does nothing to fill E3/E5/E6. Confidence: high that adding R3 changes nothing material.

4.3 Combination 3 — R1 + R2 + S1 (adding reservation/scheduling art)

Proposed ground: A fuller ground for E3 (and the reservation-oriented dependent claims 7–10, 14): R1 (destination names/list) in view of R2 (management architecture) and S1 (JP 5530757 B2 / JP 2011-160393 A, remote-conference reservation system storing multi-field reservation records and answering terminal queries with extracted reservation items).

What it adds. S1 verifiably (per the J-GLOBAL claim excerpt) discloses the concept the '278 specification implements in its reservation management tables (FIGS. 11A/11B): when a reservation of remote conferences among communication terminals is input, reservation information comprising multiple item types is stored in association with each reserved conference; and in response to reservation-specifying information from a terminal, the system identifies the reserved conference's record and transmits extracted items to that terminal. This is strong art for E3 (meeting information for a scheduled meeting) and for the dependent-claim limitation that meeting info includes meeting name and start/end date-time (claim 10).

Motivation. S1 is a Japanese remote-conference reservation system — same field, same problem space (letting terminals retrieve their scheduled conferences), published 2011-08-18, nearly a year before the critical date. A PHOSITA who wanted R1/R2's destination-list videoconference manager to also support reserved meetings (as R2's session management already contemplates sessions tied to reservations) would look directly at S1-style reservation records. The combination of a management system (R1/R2) with a reservation subsystem (S1) is a textbook "combine known prior-art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results" case (KSR).

Why it still fails. Even R1 + R2 + S1 does not reach E5 or E6. S1 stores reservation records and extracts/sends existing items; nothing in the verified S1 excerpt teaches a terminal transmitting back a new, different name that replaces/updates a destination's default name, nor storing that updated name in the reservation record itself for later display at the meeting. E5's "second name information ... different from the first name information and ... updated name information of the first name information" remains absent. Confidence: medium-high that R1+R2+S1 fails on claims 1/16/17 (it is a much stronger ground against dependent claims that only require reservation handling — claims 7–10 — assuming those depend from an otherwise-covered base).

4.4 Combination 4 — R1 + R2 + S1 + S2 (the strongest available construction)

Proposed ground: R1 (destination names transmitted at login) as primary; R2 (authentication/management architecture); S1 (reservation records per scheduled meeting); and S2 (US 2011/0271209 A1 — participant-supplied and participant-editable name/profile displayed to other participants, linked to a participant identifier, stored, and re-displayed) for the update-and-display feature.

Element coverage becomes:

Motivation (the best case a challenger can make). The '278 patent's own problem statement identifies a real, pre-existing design need: "the easy-to-specify names of the destinations may vary depending on the communications" — team names inside an organization, company names across organizations. A PHOSITA in 2012 building R1-style destination lists knew this limitation. Two bodies of knowledge pointed at the fix: (i) reservation/scheduling systems (S1) that already stored per-meeting participant records, and (ii) conferencing/collaboration UIs (S2) that already let users edit the name others see and persisted that edit to a participant profile. Applying the known "let the user supply the display name" technique of S2 to the per-reservation participant records of S1 in the R1/R2 management system would, a challenger argues, be an "obvious to try" modification with a finite set of expected options — exactly the kind of "ordinary innovation" KSR says is patent-ineligible. The user-side motivation is strong and documented: meeting conveners commonly want participants listed in a meeting roster by role, company, or team rather than by the terminal's registered name.

Why even this strongest construction is vulnerable to a validity defense. Three gaps remain, and they are the real fight:

1. No reference teaches the specific direction and trigger of E5/E6. The claimed flow is: default (first) name is sent to the terminal first; the terminal returns a different name; the system stores it keyed to the meeting. S2 teaches name entry/editing at the client and storage at the server, but not a server-initiated "here is your default name; send back your meeting-specific replacement" handshake tied to a particular scheduled meeting. S1 teaches reservation records but not user-updated name fields within them. Assembling E5/E6 requires selecting S2's customization concept and S1's reservation data structure and re-architecting the message flow — with no reference providing the blueprint for that specific interaction. Under KSR's anti-hindsight discipline, a challenger must show a reason to combine, and a reasonable expectation that the particular two-way rename-and-store flow would work; that showing is weak on this record.
2. The "different from / updated name of the first name information" element is structural, not just a UI preference. The claims require the system to maintain both a first (default) name and a second (meeting) name and to fall back to the first when no second exists (claim 9) — a dual-name data model with defined precedence. Nothing in R1–R3, S1, or S2 discloses a data model where a default destination name and an override name coexist per meeting with fallback behavior.
3. Secondary considerations could cut for the patentee if developed (e.g., long-felt need for context-specific destination naming, industry adoption of the rename-per-meeting model), though no evidence is in this record either way.

Confidence: medium-low that even R1+R2+S1+S2 renders claims 1/16/17 obvious as a matter of law on this record. It is, however, the combination a real challenger (e.g., in the pending D. Del. litigation or a future IPR) would most plausibly pursue, and its success would hinge on full-text disclosures of S1/S2 that are not verified here.

5. Dependent claims

• Claims 7–10 (reservation request handling; transmitting second name for a selected meeting; fallback to first name; meeting name/start/end in meeting info): The strongest dependent-claim targets. S1 + R1/R2 plausibly covers reservation storage and retrieval (claims 7, 10); the fallback of claim 9 and the per-meeting second-name transmission of claim 8 again depend on the E5/E6 flow and are no easier than claim 1.
• Claims 12, 14, 15 (first name = destination-list name, second = meeting display name; receipt before meeting start; updated name displayed in place of first name): These are definitional refinements of the same rename flow. Claim 15's "displayed in place of the first name" reads directly onto S2's re-display-after-edit concept if S2 is in the combination, making claim 15 the most exposed dependent claim once S2 is introduced.
• No dependent claim rescues the base system combination: every dependent claim ultimately incorporates E5/E6.

6. Bottom line

• On the verified record (R1–R3): No combination of the verified references renders claims 1, 16, or 17 obvious under § 103 with a reasonable expectation of success. R1 + R2 (the strongest base-system combination) covers only the login/destination-list scaffolding (E1, E2, E4); E3 (scheduled-meeting info), E5 (receiving a different, updated second name for display at the meeting), and E6 (storing the second name with the meeting info) are absent from all three verified references, and R1 is, if anything, teaching away from multi-name management because it is the single-static-name system the patent identifies as the problem.
• On an expanded record (adding S1 and S2): A challenger can assemble a colorable § 103 story — R1/R2 for the management base, S1 for per-reservation records (E3), S2 for user-supplied/edited display names (E5 in part) — motivated by the known, pre-existing need for context-specific names (a need the patent itself documents as background, not invention). But the specific server-driven rename handshake keyed to a scheduled meeting, the dual first/second name data model with fallback (claim 9), and the store-in-association-with-meeting-information structure are not shown in any single reference and are not obviously the predictable sum of the parts. A rigorous § 103 challenge to the independent claims is more likely to fail than succeed on this record; the dependent claims are incrementally more exposed only if S1/S2 full texts confirm the disclosures summarized here.
• Verification steps that would change this assessment: (1) full English texts of R1 (JP 2012-050063 A) and R2 (JP 2012-134944 A) — R1 in particular, to confirm whether its destination-name handling includes any user-update or per-communication naming feature that the '278 BACKGROUND understates; (2) full text of S1 (JP 5530757 B2) to check whether its reservation records include editable participant-name fields; (3) full text of S2 (US 2011/0271209 A1) to confirm whether profile edits are ever persisted per-conference rather than per-user; and (4) the complete on-face References Cited list of US 11516278 (USPTO Patent Center, application 17/104,322), which likely contains additional Japanese Ricoh family members — e.g., the JP siblings of the '278 family itself — that could supply the missing E5/E6 teaching far more directly than anything identified here.