US 11853988

I'll verify the bibliographic record and check for any 2026 CAFC activity naming this exact number.

US Patent 11,853,988 B2 — Concise Summary

Task scope note: I searched for this exact number only. Three targeted searches were run: (1) "11,853,988" Federal Circuit appeal 2026, (2) US 11853988 ... claims Walmart Apollo, and (3) "US 11,853,988" OR "US11853988" ... "virtual terminal sales application" independent claim. I did not return results for similar numbers, and I have explicitly excluded lookalikes (see §6). No verbatim claim set was retrievable — I flag exactly what that costs the analysis in §4.

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1. Bibliographic record

Minor date discrepancies (flagged, not smoothed over)

These are all one-day offsets consistent with a timezone artifact at the aggregator, not substantive disagreements. I report both rather than pick silently.

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A method for purchasing an item using a mobile device is provided. The method includes but is not limited to inputting identification information into the mobile device which identifies the item for purchase and generating an order for the item identified by the identification information. The method also includes but is not limited to displaying on a display of the mobile device an optical machine-readable representation of the order."

Confirmed identical across Google Patents, Unified Patents, Golden wiki, and the IEEE Xplore citation record. It is also the same abstract used on sibling patents US 10,121,133 and US 10,803,435 — the family shares one specification.

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3. Continuity (why this number matters)

17/004,819 (the '988) is a continuation:

Prov. 61/392,908 (2010-10-13)
   └─ 12/947,545 (2010-11-16, filed) ──► US 10,121,133 (6 claims, issued 2018-11-06)
        └─ 15/956,400 (2018-04-18, divisional)
             └─ 16/730,567 (2019-12-30) ──► US 10,803,435 (19 claims, issued 2020-10-13)
                  └─ 17/004,819 (2020-08-27) ──► US 11,853,988 ◄── this patent
                       ├─ 18/217,945 (2023-07-03) ──► US 11,961,061 (2024-04-15)
                       └─ 18/427,556 (2024-01-30) ──► US 12,412,164 (2025-09-08)

So the '988 is a direct continuation of the application that issued as the '435 patent (16/730,567). Same specification, same five inventors, same priority chain, same assignee. Family members enumerated by Unified Patents number 30, including WO 2012/051316, GB 2497842, JP 6615972, CN 108805546, CA 2809523, and US 2024/0394682.

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4. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

⚠️ Verbatim claim text for US 11,853,988 B2 was NOT retrievable in this session. The Google Patents page supplied ended before the Claims section, and no search returned the '988's own What is claimed is block. The claim count is also unverified. Rather than fabricate claim language, I give you the four independent-claim concepts as the patent's own SUMMARY frames them ("In one aspect, …"), which is the best available proxy. Treat these as claim groups, not confirmed claim numbers.

Group A — Method of purchasing an item with a mobile device (the flagship concept; corresponds to the abstract).
A shopper enters identification information for an item into their phone (by scan or manual key-in). An order is generated for that identified item. The phone then displays an optical machine-readable representation of the order — i.e., a barcode on the phone screen — which a checkout scanner reads to pull the order up and complete the purchase. In plain terms: your phone shows a barcode that stands for your whole basket, so a cashier or self-checkout lane scans one code instead of every item.

Group B — Computer-readable medium for a phone with a digital camera (CRM/system-flavored).
Program instructions cause the phone's camera to capture an image of an identifying portion of the item, analyze it to derive identification information, generate a virtual shopping cart of item information retrieved using that identification information, and then transmit payment information from the phone to a remote server so the server accepts the order. In plain terms: camera-scans-the-item, builds a digital cart, and pays through the server — the "Scan & Go" flow.

Group C — Method with digital camera, tender, receipt.
Same capture → analyze → ID-info → virtual-cart → generate-order sequence as Group B, plus tendering payment, transmitting the payment information to the remote server for acceptance, generating a receipt reflecting that acceptance, and displaying the receipt on the phone's display. In plain terms: the same flow as B but carried all the way through to a receipt shown on the phone.

Group D — Computer-readable medium for maintaining and conducting a virtual transaction (server-side).
Program instructions that, upon receiving a point-of-sale (POS) message, access a session of a virtual terminal sales application (VTSA), load previously stored transaction state information into that session, and process it there. In plain terms: the back-office trick — a POS terminal is virtualized in software, and each shopper's basket state is swapped in and out by identifier rather than holding a session open, so a handful of software terminals can serve hundreds of shoppers.

Independent-claim identification caveat. The SUMMARY uses four "In one aspect" paragraphs, which conventionally mirror four independent claims (typically a method claim, a CRM/software claim, a second method claim, and a server-side CRM claim). This mapping is an inference, not a verification. My searches did not surface the '988's claim set, and because the '988 is a continuation of the '435's application, its claims must differ in scope from the '435's (which issued with claims 1–19: independent claims 1 and 10 on the VTSA/transaction-transfer subject matter, and independent claim 15 on "converting a mobile phone into a mobile point-of-sale device"). Which of the four groups above the '988 actually claims, and in what order, is unconfirmed.

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5. Litigation / PTAB / CAFC status — for THIS number only

• No CAFC 2026 docket names 11,853,988. My 2026-focused search returned Federal Circuit activity involving other patents (Contour IP v. GoPro, Q Technologies v. Walmart, Hafeman v. Google, FedEx v. Qualcomm, etc.) and PTAB-appeal statistics — nothing citing 11,853,988. To be explicit: I found no appellate docket, opinion, or Rule 36 judgment identifying this patent as a patent-in-suit or a challenged patent.
• No PTAB proceeding names 11,853,988 as the challenged patent. The PTAB activity in this family that my searches did surface (IPR2022-01528 and companions) is captioned against the '435 patent and quotes '435 claim text (e.g., "'435 Patent Claims 15-19 Challenged In -01528"). That is a different patent number; per the literal-interpretation rule I do not treat it as this one.
• The Google Patents record carries the family-level "Family has litigation" flag, and Justia/Unified index the '988 within the Walmart/Sam's Club v. BJ's Wholesale Club family — these are family associations, not proof the '988 itself was ever asserted. The '988 issued 2023-12-26, after the 2022-03-22 complaint, so it could not have been in the original pleadings.

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6. Lookalike numbers explicitly excluded

(This matters because your instruction was to return results for this number only. Several near-miss hits appeared in raw search output; none are this patent.)

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7. ⚠️ Contradictions between the previously generated sections (flagged as instructed)

Two of the prior sections give incompatible accounts of the '"435" outcome, and I cannot reconcile them from my searches:

• The Litigation summary and PTAB challenges sections state that the '435 was cancelled claim-for-claim ("5 instituted IPRs → 5 FWDs → the '435 patent was wiped out claim-for-claim"), with a Rule 36 affirmance by the Federal Circuit on 2026-04-13 (Nos. 2024-1952/-1953/-1954).
• The Obviousness section states the opposite: that the '435 survived the BJ's IPRs, that the Final Written Decisions issued 2024-04-10/11 upheld the claims, and that "Patexia's case summary lists no invalidated claims."

These cannot both be true. Relevant to the conflict, my searches surfaced: (a) a PTACTS document that appears to be a Patent Owner brief arguing "challenged claims 1–14 of the '435 Patent are not unpatentable" — that is a party's argument, not a Board holding, and should not be read as the outcome; and (b) a secondary report that BJ's "was unsuccessful in convincing judges … to invalidate any claims from a duo of patents associated with a self-checkout application" — which is ambiguous as to patent identity. A further prior section also cites the '435 as having been "held unpatentable in IPR (IPR2022-00233 and companions)," a different IPR number from the ones in the PTAB section.

This contradiction does not affect the §1–§4 summary above, because none of it concerns proceedings against 11,853,988 itself. But before you rely on the "wiped out" versus "survived" characterizations in your file, the primary documents should be pulled.

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8. What I could not verify (stated rather than guessed)

1. The verbatim issued claim set and claim count of US 11,853,988 B2 — the single most important gap. The §4 overview is written from the specification's SUMMARY, not from claim text.
2. Whether the '988 was ever asserted or challenged in its own right — no assertion or challenge naming this number was found.
3. Anything in a 2026 CAFC docket for this number — nothing exists in the sources I could reach.
4. Exact reel/frame of the assignments — consistent with the earlier assignment section's noted gap; the recorded events are the 2020-10-07 Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. → Walmart Apollo, LLC transfer and the 2021-06-21 inventor-assignment recordation.

Authoritative next step: pull the '988's front-page References Cited block and full claim set from USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter for application 17/004,819 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US11853988/en is the family mirror I used). With the claim text in hand, §4 can be converted from SUMMARY-derived concepts into confirmed independent-claim numbers.

This is patent analysis, not legal advice.

Sources used: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11853988/en · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11853988-B2 · https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_11853988_Method_for_self-checkout_with_a_mobile_device-P4JM4PA · https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/[5318908](/patent/5318908)/citations · https://www.patentleaderboard.com/walmart-apollo/tim-webb/[309487](/patent/309487) · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550337](/patent/1550337)/download-documents · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550300](/patent/1550300)/download-documents

I'll research litigation involving US patent 11853988. Let me run several targeted searches.

Short answer

I found only one patent-infringement case involving US 11,853,988's patent family, and it is the Walmart/Sam's Club v. BJ's Wholesale Club action in the Middle District of Florida. Critically, however, the patents actually asserted in that case were the sibling family members (the '435, '133, '187 and '188 patents) — I could not confirm from my searches that US 11,853,988 itself was ever named as a patent-in-suit. I flag this distinction clearly below rather than assuming.

⚠️ Identifier caution: A search for this number also surfaced Xreal v. Viture (E.D. Tex.), which concerns U.S. Patent No. 11,988,839 (AR‑glasses optics). That is a different patent number, not US 11,853,988, and is not litigation against this patent.

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The known case

Key procedural markers located:

• First Amended Complaint and scheduling order (jury trial originally set for May 6, 2024) — https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63179289/sams-west-inc-v-bjs-wholesale-club-holdings-inc/
• Order granting in part the motion to stay pending IPR (Dkt. 108, Nov. 21, 2022) — https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.flmd.[399980](/patent/399980)/gov.uscourts.flmd.399980.108.0.pdf
• Order denying Plaintiffs' motion to lift the stay (Dkt. 131, July 31, 2023), reflected in the Justia litigation listing and in the IPR exhibit record.
• Press coverage of the filing — https://www.retailtouchpoints.com/news/walmart-sues-bjs-over-mobile-self-checkout-technology/[103472](/patent/103472)/

Parallel PTAB proceedings (not on the '988 patent itself)

BJ's filed a set of IPR petitions against Walmart Apollo challenging the family's earlier-issued patents: AIA Review Nos. IPR2022-01471, IPR2022-01496, IPR2022-01509, IPR2022-01528, IPR2022-01563 and IPR2022-01564 (BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. v. Walmart Apollo, LLC). These are PTAB proceedings, not district-court litigation, and the petitions I located were directed to the '435, '133, '187 and '188 patents. Because US 11,853,988 did not issue until December 26, 2023, it could not have been part of the originally filed March 2022 pleadings nor these 2022-era IPRs.

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Why the '988 patent appears in litigation-tracking records

US 11,853,988 B2 ("Method for self-checkout with a mobile device," Walmart Apollo, LLC; priority date 2010-10-13; filed Aug. 27, 2020; granted Dec. 26, 2023) is a continuation within the same family as the patents asserted against BJ's. Its Google Patents record carries the family-level flag "Family has litigation — First worldwide family litigation filed," pointing to the Darts-IP family record (family 45934919). The Justia page for the '988 patent likewise lists docket documents from the BJ's case, and the Unified Patents portal entry shows the Walmart/Sam's ownership chain:

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US11853988/en
• https://patents.justia.com/patent/11853988
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11853988-B2

These are family/related-case associations, not proof that the '988 patent was asserted in its own right.

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Bottom line and explicit uncertainties

1. Confirmed litigation naming the asserted patents from this family: Sam's West, Inc. and Walmart Apollo, LLC v. BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00587, M.D. Fla. (filed Mar. 22, 2022), currently stayed on the district-court docket after IPRs were instituted, with Plaintiffs' motion to lift the stay denied July 31, 2023.
2. Not confirmed: that US 11,853,988 itself was named in any complaint, infringement contention, or judgment. I could not find a plaintiff-vs-defendant record citing 11,853,988 by number as a patent-in-suit. Per the "interpret literally / do not auto-correct" rule, I will not treat the sibling patents ('435, '133, '187, '188) as if they were the '988 patent.
3. Also noted: a complaint excerpt in search results references a "'877 Patent"; I could not confidently map that citation to US 11,853,988, so I am not attributing it to this patent.
4. No other litigation found against US 11,853,988 in the sources I could reach (Unified Patents portal, Stanford NPE Litigation Database, CourtListener, Justia, Google Patents family record).

If you want a definitive answer on point 2, the authoritative next steps would be (a) the full docket for 6:22-cv-00587-WWB-DAB in PACER to check for any amended infringement contentions adding the '988 patent after its December 2023 issuance, and (b) a Darts-IP family-45934919 litigation report. I was unable to complete those lookups within the search budget for this task.

I'll verify the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (which reports none for this patent) against live web sources before writing.

Two important threads to chase: (1) whether any AIA trial names US 11,853,988 specifically, and (2) a possible "different '988" decoy. Searching further.

Key facts are emerging. Let me pin down the claim-level outcomes of the family IPRs and the remaining proceeding numbers.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,853,988 B2

"Method for self-checkout with a mobile device" · Walmart Apollo, LLC · App. 17/004,819 · issued 2023-12-26 · priority 2010-10-13

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 11,853,988: ZERO. The canonical structured source supplied with this task (PTAB proceedings on file, from the USPTO Open Data Portal) reports no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and my independent searches found none — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is therefore not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened," but the opposite: a greenfield, never-tested patent — no claim of the '988 has ever been construed or adjudicated at the PTAB, no § 315(e) estoppel runs against anyone on it, and a fresh petitioner is free to file the first-ever IPR against it (subject only to the § 315(b) one-year clock if a complaint asserting it has been served).

Why there is nothing on the docket — and why that is not reassuring for the patent owner. The '988 issued on 2023-12-26, roughly 15 months after the entire BJ's Wholesale Club IPR wave was filed (2022). The asserted patents in Sam's West, Inc. v. BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00587 (M.D. Fla.) were the earlier-issued siblings — U.S. 10,803,435 ('435), 10,121,133 ('133), 10,368,187 ('187) and 10,368,188 ('188). The '988 could not have been in the March 2022 complaint or the 2022 petitions because it did not yet exist. Its absence from the PTAB docket is a timing artifact, not a validity signal. The same is true of the later continuations 11,961,061 (2024-04-15) and 12,412,164 (2025-09-08).

⚠️ A decoy you must not fall for. Searching the literal string "'988 patent" surfaces Nichia Corp. v. BX LED LLC, IPR2024-00542, which repeatedly calls its subject "the '988 patent." That proceeding is about U.S. Patent No. 8,567,988 ("efficient LED array" / LED lighting, BX LED LLC, litigated against Walmart in W.D. Tex. 6:22-cv-00445). It has nothing to do with US 11,853,988. Per the "interpret literally, do not auto-correct" rule: 8,567,988 ≠ 11,853,988. Details below in the adjacent-proceedings section.

Also unavailable on the '988 by statute, for completeness:

• PGR — the nine-month § 321(c) window closed on/around 2024-09-26 (nine months from 2023-12-26). No PGR is now possible.
• CBM — unavailable; CBM review sunset for petitions filed after 2020-09-16.
• IPR — available indefinitely, and it is the only AIA vehicle left.

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For each proceeding on US 11,853,988

There are none. Plainly: no petition has ever been filed against this patent number. I am not going to manufacture a proceeding number to fill the template.

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Adjacent proceedings — NOT on US 11,853,988 (numbers read literally)

These are the family proceedings that create the '988's practical IPR landscape, plus the LED decoy. Each is expressly labeled with the patent it actually attacks. None of these is a proceeding on US 11,853,988, and none of their outcomes binds or estops anyone as to the '988.

IPR2022-01528 — BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. v. Walmart Apollo, LLC — U.S. Patent No. 10,803,435 (sibling)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022 (concurrently with -01561/-01563/-01564; exact filing date not confirmed in this session)
• Status: Final Written Decision issued — "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)" (i.e., claims canceled). Federal Circuit affirmed 2026-04-13.
• Judge panel: "Before PATRICK R. SCANLON, NEIL T. POWELL, and MITCHELL G. [name truncated in the text I retrieved]" — the -01564 institution decision names the same core panel as Scanlon, joined by Powell and Weatherly. I flag the third name as probable-but-not-verbatim-confirmed for -01528.
• Petition grounds: challenged claims 15-19 of the '435. (Grounds as stated in the appeal notice involve Fletchall (US 8,751,316) as a § 102 anticipation of claim 15, Fletchall + Lin (US 2010/0082444) as § 103, Fletchall + Lin + Yong (KR 10-2007-087811) as § 103 for claim 16, Fletchall + Lin + Cason (US 2009/0192892) as § 103 for claim 17, Yong as § 102 anticipation of claim 15, and Yong + Xavier (US 2009/0094100) as § 103 for claims 15, 16, 18 and 19.)
• Institution decision: instituted — "we instituted an inter partes review of claims 15-19 of the '435 patent on all presented challenges."
• Final Written Decision: all challenged claims 15-19 unpatentable. A consolidated oral hearing for IPR2022-01528, IPR2022-01563 and IPR2022-01564 was held 2024-01-11.
• Settlement / termination: none — decided on the merits.
• Appeal: Walmart (Patent Owner) filed a Notice of Appeal dated 2024-06-12, Federal Circuit Nos. 2024-1952, 2024-1953 and 2024-1954 (appeals from PTAB Nos. IPR2022-01528, -01563, -01564). Rule 36 Judgment, AFFIRMED, entered 2026-04-13: "PER CURIAM (MOORE, Chief Judge, MAYER and LOURIE, Circuit Judges). AFFIRMED. See Fed. Cir. R. 36." Nonprecedential — no written opinion, hence no legal holding. https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1952.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.4-13-2026_2674995.pdf
• Defensive value: claims 15-19 of the sibling '435 are dead and finally so. If a demand letter on the '988 tracks the '435 claim 15-19 architecture (mobile phone converted to a POS, item information determined by the phone, virtual cart on the phone, machine-readable element rendered on the phone display, optical scanning machine in communication with the server to confirm payment), that FWD is a ready-made invalidity roadmap. It says nothing about the '988 itself.

IPR2022-01563 and IPR2022-01564 — BJ's v. Walmart Apollo — U.S. Patent No. 10,803,435 (sibling)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022. -01564 institution decision: Paper 9, 2023-04-11 (Scanlon, joined by Powell and Weatherly).
• Status: both went to FWD; both appealed by Walmart (Nos. 2024-1953 and 2024-1954); both affirmed by the same 2026-04-13 Rule 36 judgment.
• Petition grounds (-01564, verified): Ground 1 — claims 1-14 anticipated under § 102(a)(1) (post-AIA) by Keith; Ground 2 — claims 1-14 obvious under § 103 by Hanson in view of Keith. Both BJ's references post-date the 2010 provisional, so the priority/§ 112 dispute was live and is why the Board instituted on multiple petitions — "granting institution on multiple petitions challenging the same patent, because a dispute about priority dates of the challenged claims requires arguments under multiple prior art references" (Banner Witcoff, PTAB Highlights, 2023-05-15).
• Institution decision (-01564): instituted — 2023-04-11.
• Final Written Decision: per the parties' Joint Status Report filed 2026-06-22 (Dkt. 168, Sam's West, Inc. v. BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., 6:22-cv-00587-AGM-RMN): "On April 13, 2026, the Federal Circuit issued an order affirming the PTAB's Final Written Decisions in all three IPR proceedings regarding the '435 Patent. Plaintiffs have not sought further review… Plaintiffs confirmed that they will amend the complaint to withdraw the counts asserting the '435 Patent in view of the Federal Circuit's order."
• Defensive value: the entire '435 branch is abandoned. This is the single most useful precedent-document set for the '988 — but only if the '988's claims read on the same limitations.

IPR2022-01471 — BJ's v. Walmart Apollo — U.S. Patent No. 10,121,133 (sibling; the '988's direct ancestor)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-08-29 (confirmed in the '435 petition's related-matters section: "One Petition for Inter Partes Review, IPR2022-01471, was filed August 29, 2022 against the related patent U.S. Pat. No. 10,121,133").
• Status / outcome: not confirmed in this session. I did not retrieve an FWD or institution decision for -01471. Note that U.S. 10,121,133 is the parent (12/947,545) from which the whole 16/730,567 → 17/004,819 chain descends.
• Defensive value: unknown on this record — flag as a gap.

IPR2022-01496, IPR2022-01509, IPR2022-01561 — BJ's v. Walmart Apollo — target patents unverified

• These numbers appear in earlier sections of this analysis as part of the BJ's set (allegedly against the '187 and '188 patents for -01496/-01509, and a fourth '435 petition for -01561). I could not verify any of them in this session. The one thing I can confirm is that -01561 is one of the four '435 petitions (per the -01563 petition's own list: -01528, -01561, -01563, -01564 against the '435) yet it is not among the three appealed proceedings (-01528, -01563, -01564) — its disposition is therefore unconfirmed. Do not rely on these numbers without a PTAB E2E lookup.

IPR2024-00542 — Nichia Corp. v. BX LED LLC — U.S. Patent No. 8,567,988 ⚠️ different patent

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-03-14
• Status: Terminated by settlement (not on the merits)
• Subject: "efficient LED array" — an LED/lighting patent owned by BX LED LLC, asserted in the W.D. Tex. campaign against Walmart, Home Depot, Lowe's, Wayfair and RAB. This is not the Walmart self-checkout patent and not the same number.
• Grounds (verbatim from the petition): "Petitioner requests the Board institute IPR because the challenged claims are anticipated and/or obvious under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§102 and 103": Ground 1 — Cao753 § 102, claims 1, 4-9; Ground 2 — Cao753 § 103, claims 1, 4-9; Ground 3 — Cao753 alone or in view of Cao630, § 103, claims 2-4; Ground 4 — Baek alone or in view of Cao630, § 103, claims 1-9.
• Settlement / termination: joint motion under § 317(a), Board authorized filing 2024-07-10; terminated with a license and covenant not to sue running to Petitioner, its affiliates, vendors, suppliers, manufacturers, developers, distributors, contractors, partners, hosts, customers and end-users.
• Defensive value: zero for US 11,853,988. It is included solely so nobody mistakes it for a Walmart self-checkout proceeding.

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Strategic summary

Claim status of US 11,853,988. Every claim is UNTESTED. Nothing is canceled, nothing is sustained, nothing has been construed. I could not read the issued claims in this record, so I cannot even tell you how many independent claims it has — the specification supports at least four distinct aspects (mobile-device purchasing method; camera/OCR computer-readable-medium aspect; tendering-and-receipt method; and the virtual terminal sales application / session manager / transaction-state aspect). Which of those the '988 actually claims is the single most important unknown for any defense. Do not assume the '988 tracks the '435 claim set — it is a separate continuation of application 16/730,567, which necessarily pursued different scope than the claims that issued in the '435 (and which were then canceled).

Estoppel landscape. 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel from the BJ's IPRs attaches to BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. and its privies, and it attaches only with respect to U.S. 10,803,435, -01528/-01563/-01564. It does not estop anyone from challenging US 11,853,988, because no IPR ever reached a final written decision on the '988. Practical consequences:

• A new defendant is completely unconstrained on the '988. All prior-art grounds are available.
• BJ's itself is unconstrained as to the '988 — the estoppel is patent-specific; there is no FWD "resulting in" a decision on the '988 claims.
• The BJ's petitions are nonetheless a free roadmap and a free prior-art library (Fletchall, Lin, Yong, Cason, Xavier, Keith, Hanson, AisleBuyer's Aug. 2010 self-checkout iPhone app coverage), and — critically — the -01564 petition shows the priority/§ 112 attack on the 2010 provisional was sufficiently credible to force institution. That lever is untested as to the '988's claims and remains the highest-value line.

Pattern signals. (1) Same petitioner, multiple IPRs: BJ's filed at least five petitions across the family (-01471 plus four on the '435) — a determined, well-funded, competitor-petitioner pattern. (2) Patent owner fought all the way up: Walmart appealed all three adverse '435 FWDs and lost on a Rule 36 affirmance, then agreed to withdraw the '435 counts (Dkt. 168, 2026-06-22). Walmart pursued the appeal; it did not fold. (3) No defensive aggregator: unlike the unrelated IDEAHUB v. Unified Patents appeal surfaced in my searches, Unified Patents is not in this chain — the '988's family is being litigated incumbent-vs-competitor, not NPE-vs-industry. (4) The '988 is now the cleanest remaining vehicle: with the '435 dead, expect any resumed Walmart/BJ's litigation, and any new assertion, to migrate to the unadjudicated continuations — '988, 11,961,061, 12,412,164.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing assertion of US 11,853,988:

1. Calendar § 315(b) immediately. One year from service of the first complaint alleging the '988. There is no prior IPR to join, so you cannot use the § 315(b)(1) joinder exception — you must file your own petition in time.
2. Get the claims first. Everything downstream depends on it. Pull the USPTO PatentCenter "Claims" view for application 17/004,819 (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) and the PTAB E2E record for any family proceeding (https://ptab.uspto.gov/). Do not build an element-by-element chart off the abstract.
3. Lead with priority/§ 112, not § 103. BJ's got institution on the priority dispute (-01564, Paper 9, 2023-04-11, instituting on both Keith § 102(a)(1) and Hanson+Keith § 103 because of the priority fight). If the '988 claims anything added in the 2018–2020 continuations, the effective filing date slides and the whole 2011–2019 commercial scan-and-go landscape — including the AisleBuyer Aug. 2010 coverage and Walmart's own 2016 Scan & Go launch — becomes § 102(a)(1) art.
4. Do not re-run the exact '435 combination. One contemporaneous report describes the Board rejecting a three-reference obviousness combination in this family (Mealey's, 2024-04-08, https://www.mealeys.com/mealeys/articles/[1822954](/patent/1822954)). Whatever the Board accepted against claims 15-19 of the '435, a fresh '988 petition should add the reference class the '435 petitioners apparently lacked — screen-rendered machine-readable code read by external equipment (e.g., US 7,493,284, Toshiba) and remote-server approval of the checkout (US 6,571,218, NCR) — with an explicit KSR motivation section anchored to the '988 specification's own stated cost rationale.
5. Copy the winning FWD template. Retrieve the IPR2022-01528 Final Written Decision ("Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable") from PTAB E2E as the starting claim-chart skeleton; it is the only merits adjudication of this disclosure.
6. Note the parallel-action levers. If the M.D. Fla. case is reactivated post-stay, consider a Sotera-style stipulation to neutralize § 314(a)/Fintiv discretionary denial (now governed by the 2025 interim workload-management memoranda), and monitor developments in the family as the '988 is likely to be the next assertion.

If you represent the patent owner: the '988 is your only untested, unstayed asset branch and should be treated as the priority for licensing and enforcement; but the -01564 institution decision establishes that the 2010 provisional's written-description support for the later-issued genus claims is genuinely contestable, and the Rule 36 affirmance means you have no Federal Circuit opinion to point to for the family's validity.

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Contradictions and gaps flagged (per the cross-reference rule)

1. ⚠️ Direct contradiction with the earlier "Obviousness" section of this analysis. That section states "The Final Written Decisions issued April 10–11, 2024 upheld the claims" for the '435, citing Mealey's and Patexia. The primary documents retrieved in this session contradict that: the IPR2022-01528 FWD caption reads "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable," and the parties' 2026-06-22 Joint Status Report (Dkt. 168) states the Federal Circuit "affirmed the PTAB's Final Written Decisions in all three IPR proceedings regarding the '435 Patent" and that Plaintiffs "will amend the complaint to withdraw the counts asserting the '435 Patent." The later session's primary documents control: the '435 was canceled, not upheld. The earlier section's conclusion that "the PTAB has already rejected a three-reference obviousness combination in this family" is likely traceable to the Mealey's 2024-04-08 report (which does describe a rejected three-reference combination in some family decision) but was over-read as an across-the-board validity win.
2. ⚠️ Prior-art section mis-cites the '435 IPR numbers as "IPR2022-00233 and companions." The verified '435 proceeding numbers are IPR2022-01528, -01561, -01563, -01564. IPR2022-00233 (and IPR2022-01334) concern U.S. Patent No. 8,886,954 (Proxense) — an unrelated patent. The "IPR2022-00233" reference should be disregarded.
3. Unverified proceeding numbers carried forward from earlier sections: IPR2022-01496, IPR2022-01509 (alleged targets: '187 and '188) and IPR2022-01561 (a '435 petition) — targets and dispositions not independently verified here.
4. IPR2022-01471 outcome unverified. Filed 2022-08-29 against U.S. 10,121,133; no FWD located in this session.
5. The '988 claims remain unread. I did not obtain the issued claim set. Every "sibling limitation" characterization in this analysis comes from the '435 PTAB record, not from the '988 patent.

Primary sources:

• USPTO PTAB E2E (case lookup): https://ptab.uspto.gov/ · PTAB decisions: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions
• IPR2022-01528 FWD caption / Walmart Notice of Appeal (2024-06-12): https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550300](/patent/1550300)/download-documents
• Federal Circuit Rule 36 Judgment, Nos. 2024-1952/-1953/-1954, 2026-04-13: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1952.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.4-13-2026_2674995.pdf
• Joint Status Report, Dkt. 168, 6:22-cv-00587 (M.D. Fla. 2026-06-22): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63179289/168/sams-west-inc-v-bjs-wholesale-club-holdings-inc/
• BJ's IPR2022-01563 petition (U.S. 10,803,435; identifies the -01471 and -01528/-01561/-01563/-01564 set): https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550337](/patent/1550337)/download-documents
• PTAB Highlights, IPR2022-01564 Paper 9 (2023-04-11), Scanlon/Powell/Weatherly: http://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/ptab-highlights-patel-zhang.pdf
• Mealey's, "Walmart Beats Patent Challenge By BJ's In Inter Partes Review" (2024-04-08): https://www.mealeys.com/mealeys/articles/1822954
• Nichia v. BX LED, IPR2024-00542 (U.S. 8,567,988), joint motion to terminate: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555308](/patent/1555308)/download-documents
• Google Patents family/litigation flag for the '988: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11853988/en

I'll research the assignment record and ownership chain for US 11,853,988. Let me start with the authoritative sources.

Let me verify the assignment record specifics and the active litigation.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 11,853,988 B2

Patent: US 11,853,988 B2 — "Method for self-checkout with a mobile device"
Application: 17/004,819, filed 2020-08-27 · Issued: 2023-12-26 · Priority: 2010-10-13 (Prov. 61/392,908)
Continuity: 17/004,819 → cont. of 16/730,567 (2019-12-30) → cont. of 15/956,400 (2018-04-18) → div. of 12/947,545 (2010-11-16, now US 10,121,133)

Data-integrity note up front. The substance below is drawn from the patent text itself plus Google Patents legal events and public litigation records. In this session I was unable to retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record fields from the live USPTO Assignment Center (the name/patent lookups returned only general documentation, not the record image for this patent). I have therefore not fabricated reel/frame identifiers. Every entry below is labeled with its source. Where a section requires a reel/frame that I could not verify, I say so rather than guess.

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Inventors

Employer determination. All five inventors are listed at Northwest-Arkansas addresses (Rogers, Lowell, Bentonville, Cave Springs/Centerton) — the Walmart/Sam's Club headquarters corridor. The plaintiff's complaint in Sam's West, Inc. v. BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc. (M.D. Fla. 6:22-cv-00587) expressly identifies "the inventive work" as Walmart's. Marbut is identified in that 2022 complaint as deceased.

Unusual-pattern check: Not present. None of the inventors departed the assignee within 12 months of filing — the contrary is true. This is a 13-year-continuous Walmart prosecution (2010 → 2026), with the same core inventorship persisting across the entire continuation chain, and the company still asserting the family in 2022–2026. There is no inventor-exodus signal here.

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Original assignee

Walmart Apollo, LLC (Bentonville, AR) — the entity named on the issued patent (front page "Applicant/Assignee"). Parent company: Walmart Inc. (formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.).

• Line of business: Retail / mass-merchandise and warehouse-club operations. Walmart Apollo, LLC is a Walmart IP-holding subsidiary that takes assignments of the operating company's patents.
• Product embodying the claims: Yes, documented. Sam's Club rolled out Scan & Go in 2016 — a mobile self-checkout feature in the Sam's Club app that converts a phone into a point-of-sale device, which is the commercial embodiment of this family. Sam's Club is pled as exclusive licensee in the related litigation.
• Current status: Operating. Walmart Inc. is a NYSE-listed, ongoing concern; no bankruptcy, no dissolution, no fire-sale. No assignment of this patent has ever left the Walmart corporate family.

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Assignment timeline

Only two assignment-related events touching this family appear in the Google Patents legal-events record for US 11,853,988. Both are intra-Walmart housekeeping, and no post-issuance assignment exists for this patent — which is itself the finding: the original assignee still owns it.

• 2010-10-13 (execution, est.) / recorded dates not exposed for original filing — Reel/Frame: not retrievable in this session

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventor → employer)
  • Assignor: Nelms, Todd, Webb, Marbut, Ryner (individually)
  • Assignee: Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session — unverified
  • Context: Standard employment/invention-rights assignment. (This execution date is inferred from the priority date and the recording event below; the recorded execution date was not exposed by the sources available to me.)

• 2019-12-30 / 2020-08-27 — continuation application filing (not an assignment, listed for chain continuity) — no reel/frame

  • Context: Internal continuation prosecution; 16/730,567 and then 17/004,819 filed to keep the family alive.

• 2020-10-07 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not retrievable in this session

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (per Google Patents legal events caption)
  • Assignor: WAL-MART STORES, INC.
  • Assignee: WALMART APOLLO, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session — unverified
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization / transfer to the IP-holding subsidiary. The application had been filed 2020-08-27 in the name of Walmart Apollo, LLC; this recording documents the move of rights from the legacy operating entity (Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) to Walmart Apollo, LLC. No third party involved.

• 2021-06-21 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not retrievable in this session

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: TODD, JASON RICHARD; WEBB, TIMOTHY WAYNE; MARBUT, PHILIP WAYNE; NELMS, DAVID MARTIN; RYNER, DOUGLAS JAHE
  • Assignee: WAL-MART STORES, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable in this session — unverified
  • Context: Recordation of the underlying inventor employment assignments for the family, recorded ~11 years after the 2010 priority filing. Clean-up filing to perfect the chain; no economic change of ownership.

• Post-issuance (2023-12-26 onward): no assignments recorded. The patent remains with Walmart Apollo, LLC.

If your diligence requires the reel/frame and correspondent strings, they are the two fields I could not verify: query the Assignment Center by patent number 11853988 and by application 17004819 — both the 2020-10-07 and 2021-06-21 records should be returned with correspondent data. I flag them as unverified rather than reconstruct them.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11853988
    2010 : Priority filing Oct 13
         : Inventors assign rights to Wal-Mart Stores
    2019 : Continuation 16/730,567 filed Dec 30
    2020 : Application 17/004,819 filed Aug 27
         : Recorded transfer to Walmart Apollo LLC
    2021 : Inventor assignments recorded Jun 21
    2022 : Walmart sues BJ's over family patents
    2023 : Patent US 11853988 issues Dec 26
    2026 : Federal Circuit affirms '435 IPR losses

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present.
No transfer to any licensing-only or single-purpose LLC. The only assignee transition is Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. → Walmart Apollo, LLC, which is Walmart Inc.'s own wholly owned IP-holding subsidiary, not a third-party shell. The assignee address is Walmart's Bentonville, AR headquarters — not a registered-agent service address. No "IP/Ventures/Licensing" naming pattern appears in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present.
NEITHER the original NOR the current assignee matches any public NPE list. Walmart Apollo, LLC is not on the Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or Erich Spangenberg entity lists. Affirmatively checked against the primary NPE directories: the Stanford NPE Litigation Database classifies the plaintiff in 6:22-cv-00587 as a "Practicing Entity" / "8 Product company" (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[256420](/patent/256420) and https://npe.law.stanford.edu/party/walmart-apollo-llc). Unified Patents lists the current assignee/parent as Walmart Inc., not an NPE (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11853988-B2). The patent is a target of an IPR petitioner (BJ's), not an asserter's weapon.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not verifiable.
I could not retrieve the correspondent-of-record strings for either recorded assignment, so I cannot confirm or deny recurrence. Given the chain is a single operating company's internal housekeeping, a single recurring in-house or outside prosecution firm would be entirely normal here and would not be an NPE tell. This signal is unanswered by the data, not negative — flag as a gap.

4. Cascading transfers — not present.
Two assignments over ~13 years, both intra-corporate, both to the same corporate family. No chained LLCs, no <24-month cascade, no shared registered-agent addresses.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present.
No assignment precedes the 2022-03-22 suit. The last recorded assignment is 2021-06-21, ~9 months prior, but it is an inventor-perfection filing to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., not a transfer to an asserting vehicle. The plaintiff filed as the long-standing owner.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present.
Walmart Inc. has never filed Chapter 7/11. No proceeding, no sale of the family. (Note the opposite economic direction: Walmart has spent 13+ years and multiple continuation filings defending and expanding this family.)

7. Privateering — not present.
The patent was never transferred to a third-party NPE to assert on Walmart's behalf. Walmart asserts in its own name and through its own subsidiary, alongside its affiliate Sam's West, Inc., which pleads exclusive licensee status. That is first-party enforcement, not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present.
The chain terminates at Walmart Apollo, LLC (an operating company's IP subsidiary), not at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. The patent has not been neutralized by aggregation.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain never leaves the Walmart corporate family. The only two recorded conveyances are (i) a 2020-10-07 intra-corporate transfer from Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. to the IP-holding subsidiary Walmart Apollo, LLC, and (ii) a 2021-06-21 recordation of the inventors' employment assignments (Todd, Webb, Marbut, Nelms, Ryner) to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. — with no post-issuance assignment on the patent. The current owner is Walmart Apollo, LLC, which ships the claims as Sam's Club Scan & Go and asserted the related family patents ('435, '133, '187, '188) against competitor BJ's Wholesale Club in Sam's West, Inc. v. BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., 6:22-cv-00587 (M.D. Fla., filed 2022-03-22) — a textbook incumbent-vs-competitor suit, independently confirmed as a "Practicing Entity" by the Stanford NPE database.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 11853988): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO legacy assignment index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11853988/en
• Stanford NPE database (party): https://npe.law.stanford.edu/party/walmart-apollo-llc
• Unified Patents portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11853988-B2

One caveat for your file: the reel/frame numbers and correspondent-of-record for the 2020-10-07 and 2021-06-21 assignments are unverified in this analysis. Those are precisely the fields your playbook treats as the most probative tell, so I am flagging them as a gap rather than presenting inferred values. Pulling the two record images from the Assignment Center would close it — but given both assignees are the same corporate family and the Stanford/Unified classifications already place the patent with an operating company, that pull is confirmatory, not outcome-changing.

Note on family-wide status: the sibling patent US 10,803,435 (the '435 patent, which shares this specification) was held unpatentable in IPR (IPR2022-00233 and companions), and the Federal Circuit affirmed those Final Written Decisions on 2026-04-13; per the parties' 2026-06-22 joint status report, Plaintiffs will amend the complaint to withdraw the '435 counts. US 11,853,988 was not itself among the asserted patents — it issued 2023-12-26, after the 2022 complaint — but it is a continuation of the same 16/730,567 line, so its claims inherit the '435 family's validity exposure and should be treated as similarly at risk. Later continuations 11,961,061 (2024-04-15) and 12,412,164 (2025-09-08) extend the chain further.

I'll research US patent 11853988 and its cited prior art references.

Let me retrieve the specific citation list for US11853988.

Summary of what I could and could not verify

I was able to confirm the patent's bibliographic record and retrieve two sets of prior-art references cited against it. However, I could not retrieve the verbatim "References Cited" (front-page) table for US 11,853,988 B2 itself, nor the verbatim claim set, because the Google Patents page you supplied was truncated before the Claims and Citations sections. The citation data below comes from (a) the shared specification's citation table shown on the same-family Google Patents page (Patent Citations (111)), and (b) Unified Patents' Portal "Patent Art (152)" list for US-11853988-B2. I flag every place where the mapping to this patent number is inferred rather than directly read. I have not auto-corrected any identifier.

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1. The patent (as-identified, literal)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11853988/en (as fetched 2026-09-17), and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11853988-B2

Important caveat on the critical date. The claims are supported by a 2010-10-13 priority document, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 presumptively governs. That means:

• § 102(b) statutory bars require a reference published/patented more than one year before the effective filing date (i.e., on or before roughly 2009-10-13).
• References dated 2010 or later (e.g., the Qthru and Intuit items below) can only be § 102(a)/§ 102(e) art, not § 102(b) art.

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2. Caveat on the claim mapping

The claim text of US 11,853,988 B2 was not present in the material available to me. The SUMMARY section faithfully reproduces the four independent aspects, which correspond to the claimed subject matter:

1. Claim 1 concept — a method for purchasing an item with a mobile device: inputting identification information into the mobile device → generating an order for the item → displaying on a display of the mobile device an optical machine-readable representation of the order.
2. CRM aspect — program instructions for a mobile device with a digital camera: capture image of identifying portion → analyze → generate ID info → generate virtual shopping cart → transmit payment information to a remote server.
3. Method aspect (camera) — capture/analyze → virtual cart → order → tender payment → transmit payment info → generate receipt → display receipt.
4. Virtual-transaction aspect — virtual terminal sales application (VTSA), session manager, load/process transaction state information on receipt of a POS message.

Below I attribute anticipation to the claim concept rather than a specific claim number, because I cannot verify individual claim numbers. Treat "Claim 1 concept," etc., as the target, not as a confirmed claim number.

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3. Most relevant prior art

A. References directed at the "self-scan, then present a code/record at checkout" concept (Claim 1 concept / camera-method concept)

B. References directed at "display an optical/machine-readable code on a portable device for scanning at POS" (the distinguishing element of Claim 1 concept)

C. References directed at remote/networked approval and "unique identifier → retrieve order" (Claim 1 concept's encoded identifier + the VTSA concept)

D. Post-2009 references (only § 102(a)/(e) candidates, NOT § 102(b))

E. Additional § 102(b)-era references (pre-2009-10-13) appearing in the 111-reference citation table

These are all Symbol Technologies / early self-checkout and consumer-interactive-shopping references that collectively map to the "portable terminal → item info → checkout" concept:

• US 6,131,814 A and US 5,736,721 A — Arrangement for and method of expediting commercial product transactions at a point-of-sale site — Symbol Technologies (priority 1987-12-28).
• US 5,055,660 A — Portable transaction monitoring unit… — Avicom International (1988-06-16).
• US 6,837,436 B2, US 5,979,753 A, US 5,979,757 A, US 5,825,002 A, US 6,367,694 B1, US 7,725,326 B1, US 2003/0132298 A1 (Swartz) — Consumer interactive shopping system / secure data updates in a self-checkout system / presenting item information using a portable data terminal — Symbol Technologies (priority 1996-09-05). These are the strongest group for the Claim 1 concept because they combine a portable self-checkout terminal, item information retrieval, and a self-checkout system architecture.
• US 5,918,211 A — Method and apparatus for promoting products and influencing consumer purchasing decisions at the point-of-purchase — Retail Multimedia Corp. (1996-05-30).
• US 6,551,672 B1 — (Symbol Technologies, priority 1996) — cited in the same table.

Source for table: Patent Citations (111) reproduced on the family's Google Patents pages (e.g., https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10121133B2](/patent/US10121133B2)#13); source for the broader "Patent Art (152)" enumeration: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11853988-B2

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4. What is not prior art (important)

These appear in proximity in the citation neighborhood but must be excluded from any § 102 analysis:

• US 2012/0095853 A1, US 2021/0081914 A1, US 2024/0394682 A1 — applicant's own publications of the same disclosure.
• US 10,121,133 B2, US 10,803,435 B2, US 11,961,061 B2, US 12,412,164 B2, US 2025/0390856 A1 — same family / same 2010-10-13 priority chain, not prior art.
• WO 2012/051316 A2/A3/A8, CA 2809523 A1/C, GB 2497842 A, GB 2558104 A, CN 103262108 A, JP 2013-541107 A, JP 2016-219034 A, JP 6242444 B2, JP 2018-055700 A, JP 6419926 B2, JP 2019-032874 A, MX 2012/014544 A, BR 112013008325 A2 — foreign counterparts of the same family. (These are the "Also Published As" entries, not citations.)
• US 2020/0134588 A1 — the published continuation (18/217,945 branch) of the same family.

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5. Honest statement of limitations

• I did not directly read the front-page "References Cited" list printed on the US 11,853,988 B2 grant; the page I was given truncated before that section. The lists above are the family's and Unified Patents' art lists, and a given item may or may not appear on the 11,853,988 front page itself.
• I did not read the issued claims. The "claim concept" attributions in column 4 are derived from the SUMMARY/abstract paragraphs of the same specification, not from verified claim language. Do not treat those as literal claim numbers.
• Anticipation (§ 102) requires every element of a claim, arranged as in the claim, in a single reference. Several items above (notably US 6,854,651 B2 for the on-screen barcode and US 5,923,735 A / the Symbol family for the portable self-checkout flow) are individually strong on different elements; a definitive anticipation call would require pairing the actual claim chart against the actual claim text, which I could not obtain.
• Given the 2010-10-13 priority, the § 102(b) cutoff is on or about 2009-10-13; items 15–19 (2010 and later) cannot be § 102(b) art and should be analyzed under § 102(a)/(e) only.
• One search step returned a step-limit notice before I could pull the full 152-item Unified Patents list or the verbatim grant-page citation table; the enumeration above is therefore partial (items 1–19 plus the § 102(b)-era Symbol/early-SCO group).

If you can supply the verbatim claim set and the front-page "References Cited" table for US 11,853,988 B2, I can convert the above into a full element-by-element anticipation chart with confirmed claim numbers.

I'll ground this analysis by pulling the prior-art citations and any post-grant challenges tied to this patent family.

The PTACTS hit is significant — it references a "’435 Patent" in this family and post-grant proceedings. Let me pull the claims and the challenge record.

Now I need the actual claims of the '988 patent and the specific grounds that BJ's asserted. Let me pull both.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,853,988 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Bottom line first: The '988 patent's core flow — scan item with a phone, build an order/virtual cart on a server, then display a machine-readable code of the order on the phone screen and have it scanned at a POS/self-checkout lane — sits squarely on top of a dense pre-2010 art stack (Symbol's scan-ahead, Fujitsu's self-scanning terminal, "Scan and Pay," NCR remote approval, Intuit's customer-controlled mobile POS) plus contemporaneous 2D-barcode-on-a-phone-display payment art. A strong prima facie §103 case exists. However, an identical family sibling (U.S. 10,803,435) already survived a four-petition IPR attack by BJ's Wholesale Club with a Final Written Decision in April 2024, which is significant objective evidence cutting the other way. The viable path to obviousness for '988 depends almost entirely on whether its claims are narrower (e.g., the VTSA/session-manager/transaction-transfer server architecture) or broader than the '435 claims.

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1. What I could and could not verify (read this first)

Analytical consequence: I analyze the '988 claims using (a) the abstract/summary language — "inputting identification information into the mobile device which identifies the item for purchase… generating an order for the item identified by the identification information… displaying on a display of the mobile device an optical machine-readable representation of the order" — and (b) the verbatim sibling limitations from the '435 record, expressly flagged where used. Any party relying on this must re-run the mapping against the actual '988 claims.

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2. Family relationship and why the '435 record governs the analysis

Per the '988 front page and the PTAB record:

• '988 (App. 17/004,819, filed 2020-08-27) is a continuation of App. 16/730,567 (filed 2019-12-30).
• U.S. 10,803,435 (the "'435 patent") issued 2020-10-13 from App. 16/730,567 — i.e., the '435 and '988 are siblings off the same application, sharing the identical specification and priority chain: 16/730,567 ← 15/956,400 (2018-04-18) ← 12/947,545 (2010-11-16) ← Provisional 61/392,908 (2010-10-13).
• Later children: 11,961,061 (App. 18/217,945, filed 2023-07-03) and 12,412,164 (App. 18/427,556, filed 2024-01-30).

Because the specifications are identical, the prior-art mapping that BJ's built against the '435 claims transfers almost one-for-one to the '988 claims, while the priority/§112 attack transfers equally well (same disclosure).

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3. Threshold issue: effective filing date and the prior-art window

Google Patents lists the '988 priority date as 2010-10-13; Unified Patents lists 2010-10-12. Either way, the nominal critical date is October 2010.

Two things make this the single most important §103 battleground:

1. The 2010 priority is contested for later-added subject matter. Walmart's own Preliminary Response in IPR2022-01564 argued that "Keith is not prior art" because "the claims of the '435 patent are clearly supported by priority documents that pre-date Keith." That is a Dynamic Drinkware-style priority fight. If any '988 claim (or a claim narrowed/added in the 2018–2020 continuations) lacks §112 support in the 2010 provisional, its effective filing date slides to 2018/2019/2020 and:
   • the AisleBuyer "Self-Checkout iPhone Application" press coverage (Ex. 1015, Aug. 17, 2010) and the Keith reference (Ex. 1016) become squarely available art;
   • every commercial mobile scan-and-go deployment from 2011–2019 (and Walmart's own Scan & Go, which per CNBC "debuted in 2016") becomes prior art under AIA §102(a)(1);
   • Walmart's own pre-2019 commercialization loses any grace-period shelter.
2. AIA vs. pre-AIA. The '988 was filed after March 16, 2013 (2020-08-27), so the AIA §102/§103 framework presumptively governs, with the effective filing date set by whatever priority the claim actually earns. This matters because AisleBuyer (Aug. 2010) is prior art under AIA §102(a)(1) regardless of the inventor's invention date — the applicant's only escape would be the §102(b)(1) grace period, which does not apply to third-party disclosures.

Conclusion: The strongest §103 posture for the '988 is to attack priority first (same specification as '435, same exposure), then map the intervening and pre-2010 art.

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4. The prior art of record

From the IPR2022-01528 exhibit list, the IPR2022-01564 institution decision, and Unified Patents' "Patent Art" listing for the '988:

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5. Proposed §103 grounds

Ground A — The core "code of the order on the phone screen" claim

Combination: Murrah (US 5,804,807) + Fletchall (US 8,751,316) + Gao (2009 2D barcode mobile payment).

• Murrah supplies the fundamental self-checkout architecture the '988 specification itself frames as the problem to solve: a shopper scans items during the shopping trip with a portable terminal, the accumulated order is stored, and a register later retrieves and completes it — eliminating re-scanning at the lane.
• Fletchall supplies the substitution of the customer's own mobile device for the retailer's dedicated portable terminal, with the mobile device acting as the customer-controlled point of sale and the remote server accepting the transaction.
• Gao supplies displaying a 2D barcode on the phone's display that an optical scanner reads to complete payment — i.e., the "optical machine-readable representation of the order" limitation.

Motivation to combine (KSR): (i) same field of endeavor — retail checkout; (ii) substitution of one known element for another (customer phone for retailer handheld) with predictable results; (iii) market forces expressly acknowledged in the '988 specification itself ("substantial cost and money may be saved by not having to purchase multiple dedicated hardware devices" — the same rationale the POPR repeats: "These advantages come without the need for expensive hardware investment by retailers because customers are using their own mobile devices"); (iv) known technique of representing a transaction as a screen-displayed code (Gao; '284 Toshiba; '651 Varia).

Ground B — "Generate an order… transmit payment information to a remote server"

Combination: US 7,194,430 ("Scan and Pay") + US 6,571,218 (NCR) + Gao.

'430 supplies scan-to-server-to-payment; '218 supplies remote-server approval/authorization of checkout transactions across a network of terminals; Gao supplies the display-code handshake at the lane. Motivation: routine combination of a data-capture front end with a network authorization back end — exactly the "arrange old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform" rationale of KSR.

Ground C — Dependent-claim elements: item information retrieval, virtual cart, quantity, removal

Combination: Matsumori (6,179,206) or KR Yong (Ex. 1009/1010) + Fletchall + Murrah. Matsumori/Yong supply server-side item lookup and cart management from a scanned identifier; Fletchall supplies the mobile-device context. Motivation: a server-side price/description lookup for a scanned UPC was a decades-old, routine POS function; moving it to a network server is predictable automation.

Ground D — If the '988 claims carry the sibling's server-side limitations

The PTAB record quotes the '435 claim terms verbatim: Limitation M — "rendering, by the mobile phone on the display, the receipt information in a machine-readable element"; Limitation N — "optically scanning the machine-readable element rendered on the display of the mobile phone, by an optical scanning machine in communication with the server, to confirm completion of payment for the order."

• US 7,493,284 (Toshiba) is the closest art on M: transmitting and reading a visual image rendered on a wireless device's display screen by external equipment.
• Gao again covers screen-rendered code → payment execution.
• US 6,571,218 (NCR) covers the remote confirmation/approval (element N's "to confirm completion of payment").
• Motivation: using the phone screen as a display medium for a confirmatory token is the same known technique as M, applied for the predictable purpose of completing/confirming a transaction.

Ground E — If VTSA / session-manager / transaction-transfer subject matter is claimed

Combination: KR 10-2007-0087811 (Yong) + US 6,571,218 (NCR) + a POS terminal-virtualization / suspend-retrieve art reference. The '988 specification frames its own server architecture problem explicitly — "If… ten sessions were running on the remote server 240, then remote server 240 would only be able to handle the virtual transactions of only ten mobile users 610 at one time" — and characterizes the solution as transaction transfer, i.e., importing/exporting transaction state by unique identifier. Terminal suspend/retrieve and transaction-state journaling at POS lanes (an IBM/NCR point-of-sale staple) is the analogous known technique; virtualizing POS terminal instances to reduce hardware cost is the stated design incentive (KSR, design incentives / market forces). This ground is contingent on whether the '988 claims actually recite the VTSA/session-manager architecture — I could not confirm that from the available text.

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6. Counterweights — why this is not a clean invalidity case

1. The PTAB has already rejected a three-reference obviousness combination in this family. In IPR2022-01528 (instituted 2023-04-12) and IPR2022-01564 (instituted 2023-04-11, claims 1–14), BJ's challenged the '435 patent across four petitions (IPR2022-01528, -01561, -01563, -01564). The Final Written Decisions issued April 10–11, 2024 upheld the claims; Mealey's reported that the Board "rejected allegations… that a Walmart Apollo LLC patent is taught by the combined teachings of three prior art references." Patexia's case summary lists no invalidated claims. This is a real, adjudicated non-obviousness signal that a '988 petition must overcome.
2. The priority fight is two-sided. Walmart has already litigated and (at the POPR stage) won the argument that the 2010 documents support these claims. A petitioner must actually win the §112/priority issue before the intervening art unlocks.
3. Objective indicia. Walmart's complaint in Sam's West, Inc. v. BJ's Wholesale Club Holdings, Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00587 (M.D. Fla.) alleges BJ's "Express Pay is an apparent copy of Sam's Club's Scan & Go," which is a copying argument (a WBIP-recognized nexus-cutting issue, though it cuts in Walmart's favor if nexus is shown). CNBC's reporting that Scan & Go "debuted in 2016" and "starred in a Super Bowl ad" and became a "key perk" for Walmart+ supports a commercial-success narrative.
4. Appeal pending. Appeal No. 2024-1954 was taken from the PTAB decision; the CAFC's treatment of the priority and motivation questions could materially shift the landscape. I do not know the outcome.

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7. Assessment

Recommendation: A petition against the '988 should (1) lead with priority/§112 to move the effective filing date to 2018–2020, which unlocks AisleBuyer, "Keith," Yon and the whole 2011–2019 commercial-art landscape under AIA §102(a)(1); (2) run Grounds A–D as the primary §103 theory with an explicit KSR motivation section anchored to the '988 specification's own stated cost/labor rationales; and (3) avoid re-running the exact three-reference combination the Board already rejected — add the fourth reference (screen-rendered-code and remote-approval art) that the '435 petitioners apparently lacked.

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Primary sources cited:

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US11853988/en
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-11853988-B2
• https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-01528
• https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550339](/patent/1550339)/download-documents
• https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550337](/patent/1550337)/download-documents
• http://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/IPR2022-01564.pdf
• https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/BJ%27s-Wholesale-Club-Holdings-Inc-v-Walmart-Apollo-LLC-id-[181377](/patent/181377)
• https://www.mealeys.com/mealeys/articles/[1822954](/patent/1822954)
• https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/29/bjs-wholesale-says-judge-should-toss-walmart-lawsuit-over-self-checkout-app-.html
• https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/63179289/1/sams-west-inc-v-bjs-wholesale-club-holdings-inc/
• https://patents.justia.com/patent/11853988

A note on the instruction to use "the Prior Art section of this page": the page text supplied to me did not contain a dedicated Prior Art/citation listing, so I substituted the verified prior-art-of-record lists from the family's PTAB proceedings and the Unified Patents art listing. If you can supply the actual "Patent History / References Cited" block for the '988, plus its claim set, I can convert this into a limitation-by-limitation chart.