US 5272324

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any recent litigation activity.

US 5,272,324 — Verified Data Summary

Sources consulted: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5272324A/en), Unified Patents portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-5272324-A), USPTO.report (https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5272324).

1. Biblographic Data

Note on record inconsistency: the reassignment line lists the current assignee as "THOMAS GROUP Inc," while Unified Patents' aggregated assignee data surfaces unrelated later purchasers of the surrounding portfolio (Symbol Technologies LLC, Intermec IP Corp., Metrologic Instruments Inc.) as top-level assignees for other members of the citation cluster. I did not find an assignment of US 5,272,324 itself to those entities, so I would not state that Symbol, Intermec, or Metrologic owns this patent.

2. Abstract (as issued)

A hands free radio frequency terminal is worn on the body of the user. Components comprised of bar code scanner, key pads for communicating with a computer and LCD/LED display are attached to a sleeve device detachably worn on the forearm, and includes a switch for operating the scanner that is worn across the palm of the hand on a stirrup device. A power pack and radio frequency transceiver is worn on the torso of the user and is interconnected by conductors to the components. The RF transceiver has communication with a host computer.

3. Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

The patent has 17 claims total; claims 1, 16, and 17 are independent. All three cover essentially the same system architecture at different levels of specificity.

Claim 1 — Broadest system claim (forearm-worn RF terminal).
A portable scanner system made of seven cooperating parts: (a) a scanner that reads coded information and produces scanner data signals; (b) a portable keyboard producing keyboard data signals; (c) a portable display wired to both the scanner and keyboard so it can show their data; (d) an elongate mounting sleeve inserted on the operator's forearm, with means for securing the scanner, keyboard, and display to its outer surface; (e) a portable radio transceiver wired to the scanner, keyboard, and display so it can transmit the scanner and keyboard data; (f) a second radio transceiver in two-way radio communication with the portable one; and (g) a computer system connected to the second transceiver. The two transceivers thus carry computer data down to the display and scanner/keyboard data up to the computer. The core inventive concept is the aggregation: body-worn scanner + keyboard + display + bidirectional RF link + host computer, freeing the operator's hands.

Claim 16 — Narrower, more hardware-specific system claim.
Same architecture as claim 1, but with concrete substitutions and additions: a bar code scanner (instead of generic "scanner means"), a keyboard, and a display terminal; a sleeve with means for detachably securing all three components; an express portable power source connected to scanner, display, keyboard, and transceiver; a second transceiver; and a computer interface interposed between the second transceiver and the computer system. (The claim text prints "communicate computer data signals form said computer system" — a typographical error in the issued patent that does not change meaning.)

Claim 17 — Claimed from the host-computer side; drops the "forearm" limitation.
A portable scanner system for two-way communication with a host computer (which itself is connected to a base station transceiver): (a) scanner means; (b) keyboard means; (c) display means connected to both; (d) an elongate mounting sleeve with means for securing scanner, keyboard, and display to its outer surface; and (e) a portable radio transceiver wired to all three and in two-way RF communication with the base station transceiver. Notably, claim 17 does not recite "for insertion on a forearm of an operator" — the sleeve is claimed only as "elongate" — so claim 17 is broader than claims 1 and 16 on the body-mounting point (but narrower in that it affirmatively recites the host computer / base-station context rather than a generic "computer system").

Representative dependent claims. Claim 2 (pliable sleeve material); claim 3 (thumb aperture + scanner switch at one end); claims 4, 6, 9 (detachable securing of display, keyboard, scanner respectively); claim 5 (display terminal showing computer, scanner, and keyboard data); claim 7 (alphanumeric keyboard); claim 8 (separate alphabetical and numeric keyboards); claim 10 (bar code scanner); claim 11 (bar code scanner sighted longitudinally along the sleeve toward the thumb aperture); claim 12 (portable power source); claims 13–14 (power source and transceiver positioned on the operator away from the scanning area, including a belt securing the transceiver to the operator's back); claim 15 (computer system receiving scanner data and transmitting computer data back to the display via both transceivers).

4. Specification Highlights (useful for claim construction)

• Three disclosed embodiments: (i) FIGS. 1–3, a hollow pliable sleeve (naugahyde, leather, fiberglass-impregnated fabric, canvas) with a thumb opening, a holder bracket/frame Velcro-attached to the sleeve carrying keypads 36/37, an LCD/LED 23, and a wand scanner 26 held by a hook-and-loop strap 27 (Symbol Technologies VLD or IR series named as examples); (ii) FIGS. 4–6, a more compact frame with sloped rear face and keypads side-by-side; (iii) FIG. 7, a partial upper support element held by three straps with scanner, compound two-tier hinged keypad, and larger display all Velcro-mounted.
• Switch placement: in the first embodiment the scanner-actuation switch 47 sits at the sleeve end; in the third embodiment it is relocated to a band/palm strap 70 (the "stirrup") operated by thumb or finger.
• Body-distributed electronics: battery pack + RF transceiver 40 are worn on the torso/belt and connected by cable 41, expressly to give the operator complete mobility.
• Prior art cited (12 references, cited by examiner):** US 3,876,863 (Boone); US 3,978,318 (Data General); US 4,593,186 (Symbol Technologies); US 4,628,193 (Blum); US 4,766,299 (Spectra-Physics, "Hand-mounted bar code reader"); US 4,916,441 (Clinicom); US 4,935,610 (NCR); US 4,939,514 (Seiko Instruments); US 4,970,379 (Norand); US 5,023,438 and US 5,065,003 (both Nitto Kohki); US 5,157,687 (Symbol Technologies, "Packet data communication network"). Notably, US 4,766,299 and the two Nitto Kohki references are the closest art on body/arm-mounted data terminals, which explains why the claims emphasize the combination with an RF transceiver and host computer rather than the arm-mount alone.
• Forward citation significance: the patent sits in the ancestry of much wearable-scanner art — e.g., US 5,416,310 (Symbol, scanner incorporated into a garment), US 5,491,651 and US 5,550,490 (Key Idea Development, flexible wearable computer), US 5,617,201 (arm mounting assembly), US 5,808,289 (Telxon, arm-mounted data collection with rotatable detachable reader module), US 6,853,293 (Symbol, wearable communication system), and US 2005/0127185 / US 6,595,420 (Metrologic, body-wearable automatically-activated laser scanner).

5. Litigation / Post-Grant Activity Search — Result and Uncertainty

Finding: no CAFC 2026 docket activity involving US 5,272,324 was found, and I found no evidence of any litigation, PTAB proceeding, or reexamination involving this patent.

Caveats I want to be explicit about:

• I conducted web searches, not a direct query of the CAFC's CM/ECF or the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board docket systems. My searches returned no Federal Circuit appeal, IPR, PGR, or CBM bearing this number.
• This is consistent with the record: the patent lapsed in December 1997 for failure to pay maintenance fees, was formally recorded as lapsed in March 1998, and reached its anticipated expiration 2010-12-21. An expired-and-lapsed patent from 1993 is an implausible candidate for 2026 appellate activity, and the absence of hits is expected rather than surprising.
• Any 2026 CAFC mention of the number would most likely be citation of US 5,272,324 as prior art in someone else's appeal (e.g., an IPR in which it is cited), not a dispute over this patent itself. My searches surfaced no such citation either.
• The Unified Patents portal data did show this patent clustered with later Symbol/Intermec/Metrologic assets, but that reflects citation-graph proximity, not ownership or litigation of US 5,272,324.

One item I could not verify and will not assert: a search result listed German document DE 4008918 A1 ("Tragbares Dateneingabe- und -Sendegerät") alongside US 5,272,324 with the same 1990-08-10 priority date. The publication number printed in that snippet is DE 4008918 A1, which on its face is a March 1990 German filing — chronologically inconsistent with citing a 1993 US grant. I cannot confirm whether this is a genuine family member, a citation, or a database indexing artifact, and I make no claim about it.

I'll search patent litigation databases for this specific patent number.

Initial results returned only the patent's own record and unrelated documents containing the number string. Let me dig into litigation-specific sources.

Let me check a few more litigation-specific sources to be thorough.

Findings: No litigation known involving U.S. Patent No. 5,272,324

I searched for litigation specifically involving U.S. Patent No. 5,272,324 ("Portable scanner system with transceiver for two-way radio frequency communication," Blevins, granted Dec. 21, 1993; application 07/959,481, filed Oct. 9, 1992, as a continuation of Ser. No. 07/565,653, filed Aug. 10, 1990). I was unable to identify any district court action, ITC investigation, CAFC appeal, PTAB proceeding, or other adjudication asserting or challenging this patent.

Requested table (as far as the record supports):

Sources checked and what they showed

1. Unified Patents patent page — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-5272324-A. The portal returns the patent's bibliographic record (priority date, assignees, prior-art citations, 184 "referenced by" documents) but no litigation field populated with any case. There is no entry on the Unified Patents litigation case list (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) tying this patent to a case.

2. General litigation/court searches (CourtListener/RECAP, RPX Insight, docket aggregators) for the number and for the parties — no case docket names this patent as a patent-in-suit.

3. False positives I explicitly excluded (they share the digit string but are different instruments):

   • JP 5272324 B2 — a Japanese patent (Sumitomo Chemical, N-tert-butoxycarbonyl-2-pyrrolidinone compounds). Not the U.S. patent.
   • U.S. Trademark Registration No. 5,272,324 — "NBC SPORTS GOLD," NBCUniversal. Not a patent.
   • Blevins, Inc. v. Landmark Technology A, LLC, No. 3:20-cv-00670 (M.D. Tenn., filed Aug. 3, 2020) — a declaratory-judgment action concerning U.S. Patents 6,289,319 and 6,517,508, unrelated to the '324 patent and to a different "Blevins."

Material context bearing on the "no litigation" conclusion

• The patent lapsed early for non-payment of maintenance fees. The Google Patents legal-events record shows a maintenance-fee reminder mailed July 29, 1997; "Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees" on Dec. 21, 1997; and "Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee" effective Dec. 24, 1997. A later entry (Jan. 26, 2018) records "PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362." Google Patents separately lists an "anticipated expiration" of Dec. 21, 2010, which reflects the statutory term had fees been paid; the operative legal event is the 1997 lapse. A patent that lapsed in 1997 (roughly four years after grant) was enforceable for only a short window, which is consistent with the absence of any assertion litigation.
• Ownership changed once. By assignment recorded Sept. 28, 1995 (effective Aug. 29, 1995), rights moved from Interlink Technologies, Inc. (original assignee) to THOMAS GROUP, INC. (Texas). Any litigation, if it existed, would most likely have been brought by one of those two entities — and neither appears as a plaintiff on this patent in the litigation databases searched.
• The patent is heavily cited as prior art in later wearable-scanner/handheld-capture patents (e.g., Metrologic, Symbol, Google/Sentient, RGIS ring scanner), but citation as prior art is not litigation.

Caveats and limits on this conclusion

Per your instruction not to fabricate, I want to be explicit about the limits of what I verified:

• I did not have direct PACER access in this session. My conclusion rests on public aggregators (Unified Patents portal/case list, CourtListener/RECAP reachable via search, RPX Insight, Google Patents legal events) rather than a first-hand PACER docket query.
• Very old or never-digitized cases could be missed. Litigation from the early-to-mid 1990s (the only realistic window, given the 1997 lapse) may exist in paper or non-indexed dockets, or in Westlaw/Lexis-only litigation history reports (a "Litigation Search Report" of the type USPTO's CRU runs) that are not surfaced by open web search. I found no such report for this patent, but absence of a search hit is not proof of absence.
• Nothing in the record suggests a license or a settlement was ever publicized in connection with this patent, but again, that is an inference from silence, not a documented finding.

Bottom line: Based on the sources searched, no litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 5,272,324. If you need a belt-and-suspenders confirmation for a freedom-to-operate or IP-diligence opinion, I'd recommend running a Westlaw KeyCite litigation history and a Lexis CourtLink docket search on the patent, plus a manual PACER name search for "Interlink Technologies" and "Thomas Group, Inc." as plaintiffs in the 1993–1998 period — those are the channels most likely to capture any pre-internet assertion that open search engines would miss.

I'll verify the ODP result against public sources before drafting.

Let me check for any litigation/assertion history and confirm there's nothing PTAB-adjacent I'm missing.

One more check for reexamination or litigation history that could bear on defensive posture.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings — the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM petitions against US 5,272,324 as of the most recent ingest (breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials), which means the bottom-line defensive posture is not "hardened patent" but "no live patent to defend against": the '324 patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees in 1997 and its 17-year term expired on 2010-12-21, so a defendant today faces a paper tiger whose entire claim set (1–17) is UNTESTED at the PTAB but simultaneously unenforceable.

No proceedings to report

There is no proceeding number, no petitioner, no panel, and no Final Written Decision to summarize. I will not invent one. The per-proceeding template above is inapplicable because the record is empty.

Screened-out lookalikes (things that look like PTAB activity but are not)

Because the absence of hits is the substantive answer here, I ran targeted searches and want to flag the false positives I ruled out, so nobody re-litigates them:

I searched Google Patents' "Cited By" and "Patent Citations" tables, the PTAB petitions/decisions surfaces, and general litigation dockets. I could not verify any ex parte reexamination request or any district court assertion of '324 either — that is a negative finding from open-web search, not a database-certified one, and a paid litigation database (Lex Machina / Docket Navigator) would be needed to close it out with certainty.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All 17 claims of US 5,272,324 are UNTESTED — none canceled, none sustained, none construed by the Board, because nothing was ever filed. The three independent claims are claim 1 (the base portable-scanner/transceiver/computer combination), claim 16 (the same system with a bar-code scanner, dedicated computer interface, and portable power source), and claim 17 (a portable scanner system claimed from the base-station side, for two-way communication with a host computer). The 14 dependent claims (2–15) add limitations you would expect for the 1990–92 filing window: pliable sleeve material (cl. 2), thumb aperture plus scanner switch at the sleeve end (cl. 3), detachable hook-and-loop mounting for display/keyboard/scanner (cl. 4, 6, 9), alphanumeric and separate alphanumeric+numeric keyboards (cl. 7, 8), body-worn battery pack and belt-mounted transceiver (cl. 12–14). There is no narrowing claim amendment, no certificate of correction, and no reexamination certificate in the record — so there is also no IPR-driven prosecution history disclaimer to exploit, which is the one silver lining for a patent owner and the one complication for a defendant (the claims have never been read against art on the record).

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel requires an instituted proceeding that terminates — typically by FWD. With zero petitions, no estoppel attaches to anyone against '324. There is no § 315(b) one-year bar clock running against any defendant, no § 325(d) record to argue from, and no General Plastic / Fintiv baggage. In other words, every prior-art ground — including the twelve references cited on the face of the patent (Boone, Data General, Symbol, Blum, Spectra-Physics, Clinicom, NCR, Seiko, Norand, Nitto Kohki ×2, and Symbol's packet data network) and the 109+ third-party forward citations (Symbol's glove-mount and arm-mount families, Metrologic's body-wearable automatic scanners, Key Idea's flexible wearable computer, etc.) — remains available for a § 102/§ 103 invalidity defense or a DJ action. Practically, though, this is an academic point: see below.

What actually decides the case. The prosecution record in the structured data is dispositive of the defensive posture, and it is better news for a defendant than any IPR win:

• 1997-07-29 — maintenance-fee reminder mailed
• 1997-12-21 — lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees
• 1998-03-03 — lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee, effective 1997-12-24
• 2010-12-21 — anticipated expiration (17-year term from the 1993-12-21 grant, pre-URAA filing, so § 154(c) term extension did not apply)
• 2018-01-26 — status confirmation of expiry for nonpayment under 37 C.F.R. § 1.362

The patent was assigned from Interlink Technologies, Inc. to Thomas Group, Inc. on 1995-09-28 (executed 1995-08-29), Reel/Frame 007639/0577 — roughly two years before the fee lapse, which is the classic signature of an abandoned asset. I cannot verify from these sources the current chain of title beyond that 1995 assignment, whether Thomas Group or any successor entity still exists, or whether any terminal disclaimer or lien was recorded. A defendant receiving a demand letter citing '324 should demand the current owner's chain of title and a maintenance-fee payment history — the burden falls on the sender.

Pattern signals. There are none, and that is itself diagnostic. This patent sits in one of the most heavily IPR'd technology neighborhoods in the corpus — wrist/arm/glove-mounted scanners and body-wearable computers generated a dense 1990s patent thicket (Symbol's US 5,514,861, US 5,749,788, US 5,969,327, US 6,688,526; Metrologic's US 6,595,420, US 6,607,133, US 7,252,238; Key Idea's US 5,491,651, US 5,555,490; and later Google's entire rendered-document portfolio citing '324). Given that '324 is cited by 100+ later patents and issued before the Symbol/Metrologic arm-mount families, a validity challenge would have been a natural defensive move — yet no petitioner, no defensive aggregator, and no accused infringer ever filed. The most plausible explanation is the obvious one: the patent lapsed in 1997 and there was nothing left worth challenging after IPR became available on 2012-09-16. Note also that neither CBM nor PGR was ever a vehicle here — CBM review was limited to covered business method patents tied to financial products/services (this is warehouse-hardware art, and CBM sunset anyway), and PGR reaches only patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16, whereas '324 claims priority to 1990-08-10.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not brief an IPR. There are no claims to cancel that are not already unenforceable. Filing an IPR petition against an expired-and-lapsed patent would burn fees and could draw a discretionary denial, not a merits win. If a demand letter cites '324, the correct first response is a pre-suit Rule 11 / § 285 letter demanding that the sender identify (a) the current owner of record, (b) the maintenance-fee payment history, and (c) the specific acts of infringement occurring on or before 1997-12-24, the last date on which the patent could be in force. Infringement occurring after that date is legally impossible.
2. Treat the absence of PTAB activity as corroboration, not as a gap in your research. A 1993 patent with 109+ forward citations and a decade of available IPR practice that never attracted a single petition is a strong signal LEXIS/Docket Navigator should confirm: no monetization campaign exists. Escalate to a paid docket database to confirm zero assertions before relying on it in a fee motion.
3. If an active proceeding ever appears, the milestones to calendar are § 314(b)'s three-month institution-decision deadline from the patent owner's preliminary response (or its due date), the one-year § 316(a)(11) FWD deadline from institution (extendable up to six months for good cause), and the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of a district court complaint — but note that no § 315(b) clock can currently be running against anyone on this patent.
4. Preserve the record. Archive the Google Patents grant page (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5272324A](/patent/US5272324A)/en) and the legal-events table showing the 1997 lapse. That table is the single most useful exhibit a defendant has here; the "Expired - Fee Related / lapsed effective 1997-12-24" entry does more work than any FWD would.

Sources consulted: the authoritative patent text and legal-events table in this prompt (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US5272324A/en); the USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block; the Unified Patents prior-art page for US-5272324-A; and open-web searches for PTAB and litigation activity, which returned only the unrelated lookalikes tabulated above. No PTAB E2E filing, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit docket number exists to link to — which is the finding.

I'll research the assignment chain, the entities involved, and any NPE signals. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig into the assignment record details and the Thomas Group / Interlink relationship.

Assignment & Ownership Chain — US 5,272,324

Sources used: Google Patents legal-events record (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5272324A/en); the precedent sections of this analysis; USPTO trademark records for the INTERLINK mark (Serial 74065694, Reg. 1670522) via Furm/TESS mirrors; Thomas Group corporate press releases and news coverage (1998–2011); Interlink Technologies company literature via ParcelIndustry and thinkinterlink.com. I was not able to open a live USPTO Assignment Center session in this pass — see the explicit gap note under "Assignment timeline." Everything below that I attribute to a reel/frame comes from the Google Patents reassignment event, which mirrors the same underlying Assignment Center record.

Inventors

Pattern check: I cannot substantiate the "all inventors depart within 12 months of filing" precursor here — there is only one inventor and no publicly indexed employment record for him. I will not assert a departure. No fire-sale-precursor signal is evidenced, and the eventual transfer (1995) post-dates filing by five years and post-dates grant by 20 months, which is not the classic "inventors bail, then patent is dumped" sequence.

Original assignee

Interlink Technologies, Inc. (Maumee, Ohio; per the 1990 INTERLINK trademark record, address Maumee, OH 43537).

• Line of business: systems integrator / warehouse-management software. The INTERLINK trademark (filed 1990-06-04, Reg. 1670522, 1991-12-31) covers "installing bar code scanner systems used in distribution and warehouse industries and installing computer systems and computer software used in connection therewith." Company literature states it began offering WMS solutions in 1986 in Maumee, was a pioneer in paperless/real-time warehouse barcode systems, used the IBM platform, and launched its "DC Wizard" WMS package in 1991.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear. Interlink was an integrator/VAR of third-party barcode hardware (the specification itself names Symbol Technologies VLD and IR wand scanners as the scanner units), not a scanner manufacturer. The claimed system — sleeve-mounted scanner + keypad + display + RF transceiver — is a configuration, and Interlink was in the business of installing exactly such warehouse barcode configurations. I found no evidence of a commercially sold product bearing this patent number, but the business description is consistent with at least contemplated deployment.
• Current status: An entity trading as Interlink Technologies is still operating — relocated to Perrysburg, Ohio in 2006, selling the Warehouse-LINK® WMS. Whether the present Perrysburg business is the same legal entity as the 1990 Maumee registrant is not established by my sources (see flag below). No bankruptcy, dissolution, or Chapter 7/11 filing found for Interlink.

Flagged contradiction / unresolved ownership question. The INTERLINK trademark record shows a post-registration chain of title to THOMAS GROUP, INC. (Irving, TX) — the same entity that took the patent. That is consistent with Interlink Technologies, Inc. having sold its IP and its brand to Thomas Group in 1995. Yet a company calling itself Interlink Technologies has continued in the same product line from the same founding date in the same state. I could not reconcile these two records (possible asset sale with a later buy-back/spin-out, a concurrent entity, or an unrelated successor using the same name). I make no finding on which. This does not affect the patent chain of title, which is unambiguous.

Assignment timeline

There is one recorded post-issuance assignment in the chain. I found no security agreements, no change-of-name records, no licenses of record, and no release/correction documents.

• 1995-08-29 (executed) / recorded 1995-09-28 — Reel 007639/0577
  • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of interest; per the Google Patents legal-event entry, "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: INTERLINK TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
  • Assignee: THOMAS GROUP, INC. (Texas; principal office Irving, TX)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. The Google Patents reassignment event does not expose the correspondent field, and I did not complete a direct Assignment Center query. I will not guess at an attorney name. For a diligence record this field must be pulled from the reel 007639/0577 cover sheet itself.
  • Context: Asset/IP acquisition by a management-consulting acquirer — not an internal reorg, not a securitization, not a transfer to a licensing vehicle. Thomas Group was a publicly traded (Nasdaq: TGIS) operations-consulting firm, so this reads as a diversification/acquisition of a scanner-systems business's IP rather than an NPE roll-up.

Pre-issuance procedural events (not assignments), for completeness:

• 1990-08-10 — original application Ser. No. 07/565,653 filed (priority date); now abandoned.
• 1992-10-09 — continuation application 07/959,481 filed (the application that issued).
• 1993-12-21 — patent granted, assignee Interlink Technologies, Inc.

Post-assignment lapse events (not assignments):

• 1997-07-29 — maintenance-fee reminder mailed.
• 1997-12-21 — lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees; effective 1997-12-24.
• 1998-03-03 — recorded lapsed.
• 2018-01-26 — "PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362."

Gap note (do not treat as a null result). The Assignment Center UI is not individually indexed by search engines for this patent number, and I did not obtain a live results page. The single 007639/0577 entry is confirmed from the Google Patents legal-events table, which is populated from Assignment Center data. Two fields — correspondent and the exact conveyance wording on the recorded cover sheet — remain unverified. Run https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ with the patent number 5272324 to close them. If the live search returns additional records beyond 007639/0577, that would change the analysis materially.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5272324
    1990 : Original application filed
         : Interlink Technologies named assignee
    1992 : Continuation application filed
    1993 : Patent issued as US 5272324
    1995 : Interlink assigns to Thomas Group
         : Assignment recorded reel 007639 frame 0577
    1997 : Patent lapses for unpaid maintenance fee

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only transfer (1995-08-29 / recorded 1995-09-28, Reel 007639/0577) runs from one operating company to another operating company. Assignee "THOMAS GROUP, INC." is a publicly traded, 100+ employee management-consulting firm headquartered in Irving, Texas (Nasdaq: TGIS) — it carried on a real consulting business through at least 2011. There is no "IP / Holdings / Ventures / Licensing" suffix, no Delaware single-purpose LLC, and no registered-agent-service address. The "Group" in the name is a genuine corporate group, not a shell tell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. Neither Interlink Technologies, Inc. nor Thomas Group, Inc. appears on the NPE compilations named in the brief (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or Spangenberg entities), nor did my searches surface either name via Unified Patents or RPX as a high-frequency plaintiff. Cross-checks performed: Unified Patents portal page for this patent populates no litigation field; RPX-insight-style searches returned nothing; the prior litigation section of this analysis already established no suit naming this patent.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNVERIFIABLE / UNCLEAR. There is only one recorded link, so recurrence is definitionally impossible to establish from this chain. The correspondent field itself was not retrieved. No finding.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. One assignment in the entire ~4-year enforceable life of the patent. No chained LLCs, no cluster of transfers inside 24 months, no shared correspondent addresses.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. There never was a first infringement suit to be "preceded." The transfer occurred 1995-08-29; the patent lapsed 1997-12-21 and was never asserted.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT as to the patent. Interlink Technologies shows no Chapter 7/11 filing I could locate, and the 1995 transfer is not tied to any insolvency proceeding in the record. Note: Thomas Group itself later hit hard times — 2002 revenue fell from $68M to $30M, it laid off over half its staff (275→85), its lender Comerica cut it off, and it was temporarily delisted by Nasdaq with ~$10M of debt. But that distress is 2002, i.e. five years after this patent had already lapsed, and it produced no sale of this asset.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No operating company transferred the patent to an NPE to assert against competitors. Thomas Group is not an NPE and never asserted.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Thomas Group, Inc. — a conventional operating company.

Verdict

Insufficient data — with the affirmative finding that no NPE pattern is evidenced.

The chain consists of exactly one recorded conveyance — executed 1995-08-29, recorded 1995-09-28, Reel 007639/0577, from Interlink Technologies, Inc. to Thomas Group, Inc. — which is a transfer between two operating companies (a Maumee, Ohio barcode-systems integrator and a publicly traded Irving, Texas consulting firm), followed by the patent's early lapse for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 1997-12-24. None of the eight NPE signals is present, and the two fields that could still conceal a pattern — the recording correspondent and any additional unrecovered entries — are unverified because I did not complete a live Assignment Center query. Verify at the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/, search patent number 5272324) before relying on this for a diligence opinion; if that search returns only Reel 007639/0577, the "no NPE activity" conclusion is firm.

Recommended follow-ups to close the record:

• Pull the reel 007639/0577 cover sheet to capture the correspondent attorney/firm and the exact conveyance wording.
• Check Thomas Group's mid-1990s 10-K/8-K filings (Nasdaq: TGIS) for the Interlink acquisition — this would explain both the patent and the trademark transfer and would confirm whether Interlink's WMS business was acquired and later divested.
• Resolve whether the present Perrysburg, Ohio Interlink Technologies is the same legal entity as the 1990 Maumee registrant.

I'll search for authoritative records on US 5,272,324 and each of its cited references.

Let me gather details on the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,272,324

0. Verification of the target patent (searched literally, not auto-corrected)

I searched for the identifier 5272324 as a whole number and confirmed the match against the U.S. grant record before analyzing citations. It corresponds to:

Source of record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5272324A/en and https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5272324.

Method / limitation to disclose up front: I do not have direct API access to the USPTO full-text or PatentCenter databases in this session. I queried publicly available mirrors of the USPTO grant record (Google Patents, which ingests USPTO/EPO data; uspto.report; FreePatentsOnline; the Unified Patents portal). I identified 12 examiner-cited ("cited by examiner") prior-art references — the same 12 listed in the authoritative patent text. I did not retrieve the underlying file wrapper / examiner's reasons-for-allowance, so I cannot state on the record which statutory rejection the examiner actually made against each reference. The § 102 assessments below are my own element-by-element analysis, clearly labeled as such.

Applicable law and date framing: The application was filed 1990/1992 and granted 1993, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. The critical date for § 102(a)/(b) is the 1990-08-10 priority date (with the one-year grace period running to 1989-08-10 for printed publications/patents). For § 102(e), a U.S. patent is effective as prior art as of its filing date if filed before the applicant's invention. All 12 cited references have effective dates before 1990-08-10 and therefore qualify. Note that three of them (US 5,023,438, US 5,065,003, US 5,157,687) issued after the priority date and so are prior art only under § 102(e), by virtue of their earlier filing dates.

1. The 12 examiner-cited references — full table

Sources: patent text citation lists at https://patents.google.com/patent/US5272324A/en; reference details at https://patents.google.com/patent/US4766299, https://patents.google.com/patent/US3978318, https://patents.google.com/patent/US5065003, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/4916441.html.

2. Reference-by-reference § 102 analysis

Framing note on the § 102 question. To anticipate a claim under § 102, a single reference must disclose every limitation of that claim, arranged as claimed. Claims 1, 16, and 17 each require, in combination: (i) a scanner, (ii) a keyboard, (iii) a display connected to both, (iv) an elongate mounting sleeve securing those components to its outer surface (in claims 1 and 16, expressly "for insertion on a forearm of an operator"), (v) a portable radio transceiver wired to all three, (vi) a second radio transceiver in two-way radio communication, and (vii) a computer system. No single reference below discloses all of (i)–(vii). Accordingly, none of the 12 references appears to be a clean § 102 anticipation of independent claim 1, 16, or 17. The references are properly characterized as element-level art supporting § 103 obviousness of the combination, and several are directly relevant to specific dependent claims. My per-reference assessment follows.

1. US 3,876,863 (Boone) — 1973-02-12 / 1975-04-08.
Teaches inventory taking using tone generation. Discloses a data-capture/inventory context but no scanner + keyboard + display + RF combination. § 102 relevance: background only. No claim of the '324 patent is anticipated. (Low confidence in scope detail — I did not retrieve the full text.)

2. US 3,978,318 (Data General) — 1974-03-18 / 1976-08-31.
Discloses a hand-operated scanner with an extension held between two adjacent fingers so the operator's fingers remain free for merchandise handling and keyboard entry — the same "free the hands" objective recited in the '324 background. § 102 relevance: potentially anticipates the concept underlying the hand-freeing purpose, but it expressly requires manual grasping ("without the use of attachments") and discloses no sleeve, no display, and no radio transceiver. It does not anticipate any claim of the '324 patent. It is, however, a strong § 103 reference on the "fingers free for other operations" motivation.

3. US 4,593,186 (Symbol Technologies) — 1980-02-29 / 1986-06-03.
Portable laser scanning system/scanner head. Relevant to the scanning element (claim 1(a), claim 10 "bar code scanner"). No keyboard/display/RF/host combination disclosed → no § 102 anticipation. (Scope detail not independently retrieved.)

4. US 4,628,193 (Blum) — 1980-01-30 / 1986-12-09.
Code-reading operations supervisor. Relates to managing/ supervising code reads, not to the wearable-terminal architecture. No § 102 anticipation of any claim.

5. US 4,766,299 (Spectra-Physics) — 1986-03-28 / 1988-08-23.
Highly relevant to the body-mounted scanner + actuation-switch sub-features. Claims 1–3 recite: a compact laser scanner worn on the back of the hand by a strap that projects a beam "forward generally in the direction of the natural pointing of the hand and arm," and a switch in/associated with the strap that energizes the laser upon deliberate hand flexure (clenched fist). This maps closely onto the '324 patent's palm/thumb-operated scanner switch (element 47; claim 3 "scanner switch … selectively operating said scanner," and claim 11's "sighted longitudinally … toward the thumb aperture"). § 102 relevance: it is the single best piece of art on the "wear it and activate it by hand/finger motion while pointing the arm" idea. It does not anticipate claim 1/16/17 (no keyboard, display, sleeve, RF link, or host computer) and it mounts on the hand, not a forearm sleeve — so no dependent claim is fully anticipated either, since each depends from a base claim requiring the sleeve. It is a core § 103 reference.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4766299, https://uspto.report/patent/grant/4766299.

6. US 4,916,441 (CliniCom) — 1988-09-19 / 1990-04-10.
A portable handheld terminal integrating a display screen and a bar-code reader, with keyboard input, in one hand-held unit, communicating with a care-data base. Relevant to claims 1(b)/(c), 5 (display terminal showing received data), and 7 (alphanumeric keyboard) for the co-location of scanner + keyboard + display. § 102 relevance: discloses the scanner/keyboard/display aggregation but not the forearm sleeve, nor the two-way RF transceiver + host-computer architecture. No independent claim anticipated; meaningful § 103 art.
Source: https://SumoBrain.com/patents/us/Portable-handheld-terminal/4916441.html.

7. US 4,935,610 (NCR) — 1988-12-15 / 1990-06-19.
Hand-held bar-code reader. Relevant to the scanner element / claim 10. No § 102 anticipation of the claimed combination. (Scope detail not independently retrieved.)

8. US 4,939,514 (Seiko Instruments) — 1987-12-22 / 1990-07-03.
Foldable data-collecting and processing device. Relevant to portable data-collection devices generally. No § 102 anticipation. (Scope detail not independently retrieved.)

9. US 4,970,379 (Norand) — 1987-04-30 / 1990-11-13.
Bar-code scanner system and scanner circuitry. Relevant to the scanner/circuitry element. No § 102 anticipation of the wearable-terminal claims. (Scope detail not independently retrieved.)

10. US 5,023,438 (Nitto Kohki) — 1988-11-26 / 1991-06-11. [§ 102(e) art]
Portable data-input apparatus with different display modes. Relevant to the portable-input + display aspect (claims 1(b)/(c), 5, 7). No § 102 anticipation of the sleeve + two-way-RF + host combination. (Scope detail not independently retrieved.)

11. US 5,065,003 (Nitto Kohki) — 1989-03-20 / 1991-11-12. [§ 102(e) art]
This is, in my view, the closest prior art of the twelve. It discloses a portable data input/transmission apparatus comprising: a casing holdable in one hand; a pen-scanner type bar code reader generating code data; a keyboard for at least numeric data; a display for showing key-input data; a transmitter/receiver within the casing that wirelessly outputs the scanner and keyboard data to an external data-processing apparatus (host computer) and, if necessary, receives a response signal back; and an antenna. On the record, this teaches the scanner + keyboard + display + portable RF transceiver + two-way communication with a host — i.e., substantially all of the electronic architecture of claims 1(a)–(c), (e)–(g) and 16's components. What it does not disclose is the structure that the '324 claims require for patentability over this class of art: the elongate mounting sleeve securing the components to its outer surface (claim 1(d), 16(d), 17(d)), the forearm-insertion limitation (claims 1 and 16), the detachable-securing feature (claims 4, 6, 9, 16), and the thumb switch (claims 3, 11). It is a handheld casing, not a body-worn sleeve. § 102 conclusion: it is not a clean anticipation of claims 1, 16, or 17 (the sleeve limitation is missing), but it is the most damaging § 103 reference, and it comes close to anticipating the electronic sub-combination recited across claims 1(a)-(c),(e)-(g). This is exactly the kind of reference that explains why the '324 applicants' claims emphasize the forearm-worn sleeve as the point of novelty.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5065003, https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5065003.

12. US 5,157,687 (Symbol Technologies) — 1989-06-29 / 1992-10-20. [§ 102(e) art]
Packet data communication network for portable data terminals with two-way radio communication. Relevant to the "second radio transceiver in two-way radio communication" and host-communication limitations of claims 1(f)/(g), 15, 16(f)/(g)/(h), and 17(e). § 102 relevance: does not disclose the wearable sleeve/keyboard/display combination, so no § 102 anticipation; it is the principal § 103 reference for the bidirectional RF network element. (Scope detail not independently retrieved.)

3. Bottom line — ranked relevance and the § 102 answer

Answer to "which claim(s) does it potentially anticipate under § 102": Based on my element-by-element comparison, no single one of the 12 examiner-cited references anticipates any of the 17 claims, including independents 1, 16, and 17. Each reference is missing at least the forearm/elongate mounting-sleeve limitation (and usually more), which is the structural core of every independent claim as issued. The citations are best explained as § 103 obviousness art used by the examiner to show the individual elements were known, leaving the body/forearm-worn sleeve as the aggregating mount as the allowable distinction. (I could not confirm the examiner's actual rejection rationale, as the file wrapper was not retrievable in this session.)

Ranked by relevance to the '324 claims:

1. US 5,065,003 (Nitto Kohki, § 102(e)) — closest overall; teaches scanner + keyboard + display + RF transceiver + two-way host communication. Missing: forearm sleeve and detachable mount. Relevant to claims 1, 16, 17 (electronic elements) and dependent claims 5, 7, 12, 15.
2. US 4,766,299 (Spectra-Physics) — closest on the body-worn scanner + hand-actuated switch concept. Relevant to claims 3, 10, 11 (scanner, scanner switch, arm-pointing sighting).
3. US 4,916,441 (CliniCom) — scanner + keyboard + display co-located in a portable terminal. Relevant to claims 1(b)/(c), 5, 7.
4. US 5,157,687 (Symbol, § 102(e)) — two-way RF packet network with host. Relevant to claims 1(f)/(g), 15, 16(f)-(h), 17(e).
5. US 5,023,438 (Nitto Kohki, § 102(e)) — portable input + display modes. Relevant to claims 1(b)/(c), 5.
6. US 3,978,318 (Data General) — hand-held scanner leaving fingers free for keyboard entry (motivation art for the "hands-free" objective).
   7–12. US 4,593,186; US 4,970,379; US 4,935,610; US 4,939,514; US 4,628,193; US 3,876,863 — general scanner/portable-terminal background; each supports § 103 on isolated elements (scanning, housing, data collection, code-read supervision) but none approaches the claimed combination.

4. Caveats (stated explicitly, per instruction)

• I did not retrieve the examiner's file wrapper / reasons for allowance. Whether the examiner used any of these as a § 103 combination versus mere background "cited by examiner" art is something I am not asserting; the "cited by examiner" label in the patent record does not itself establish a substantive rejection.
• Scope descriptions for references 1, 3, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12 are drawn from their titles and the citation record, not from full-text review — my search budget was exhausted before I could read those specifications in detail. Treat those scope statements as lower-confidence. In contrast, references 2, 5, 6, and 11 were reviewed against their abstracts/claims/description.
• Date conflict flagged: for US 3,978,318 the record shows a filing/priority of 1974-03-18 with issuance 1976-08-31, but some aggregators (Unified Patents) list an application date of 1975-11-25 (possibly a continuation). I report both rather than auto-correcting.
• Foreign-document oddity (carried over from the earlier section): the search surfaced German document DE 4008918 A1 ("Tragbares Dateneingabe- und -Sendegerät"), whose Google Patents page lists US 5,272,324 A among its citations with the shared 1990-08-10 date. Because DE 4008918 A1 has a March-1990 number/filing that cannot chronologically cite a 1993 U.S. grant, I treat this as a family/indexing artifact and make no claim that it is prior art to, or a family member of, US 5,272,324. I did not verify it further.
• Similar-number false positives were excluded (e.g., JP 5272324 B2, a Sumitomo Chemical compound patent; U.S. Trademark Reg. No. 5,272,324 "NBC SPORTS GOLD") — these share the digit string but are unrelated and were not treated as the target patent.

I'll analysis the prior art record for US 5,272,324. Let me verify the contents of the key cited references first.

Let me verify the remaining keyboard/display/terminal references cited by the examiner.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,272,324 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the verified bibliographic, claim, and prior-art data in the two prior sections. This section does not repeat that data; it applies it. All reference dates below are taken from the Google Patents record at https://patents.google.com/patent/US5272324A/en.

I. Governing legal framework and the critical date

Statute. The application that issued as US 5,272,324 was filed 1992-10-09 as a continuation of Ser. No. 07/565,653, filed 1990-08-10. Because the application has an effective filing date before 2013-03-16, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs. The Supreme Court's KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), instruction applies to pre-AIA cases and is the operative standard here — importantly, KSR post-dates the December 1993 grant, so the allowance of this patent does not itself evidence non-obviousness. The examiner's allowance was made under the stricter, pre-KSR "teaching, suggestion, or motivation" (TSM) regime; a § 103 challenge today is measured against KSR's more flexible standard.

Graham factors. Obviousness turns on (1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims, (3) the level of ordinary skill, and (4) objective evidence of non-obviousness.

Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA). As of August 1990, a person of ordinary skill in this art would have had a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer science, or equivalent, plus roughly two to four years of experience designing or integrating portable data-collection terminals, bar-code scanners, and low-power RF data links for inventory/warehouse applications. This is a systems-integration art, not a deep-technology art — which materially lowers the non-obviousness bar for a combination of off-the-shelf components.

Critical date and § 102(e) exposure — the one date issue to flag. For pre-AIA § 103, the prior art must qualify under § 102. Ten of the twelve examiner-cited references are plainly § 102(b) art (printed/patented more than one year before 1990-08-10) or § 102(e) art (U.S. filing dates well before that date). Two require a flag:

The '687's own filing date (1990-12-19) is after the 1990-08-10 priority date, so the '687 is prior art only if it is accorded the 6/29/1989 benefit of its parent under § 120 for the material relied upon. Under pre-AIA practice that is normally the case for a true division. Prudent fallback: rely on US 5,029,183 (Tymes, filed 1989-06-29) — the '687's parent, whose disclosure the '687 reproduces — which has a clean, unarguable § 102(e) date. I use the '687 below but note that every citation to it can be replaced by the '183 without changing the analysis. (Note: the '183 is not in the examiner's 12-reference citation list; it is in the same family as a cited reference.)

Applicant's own admissions. The '324 Background expressly admits that "portable terminals are mobile types that are either mounted on a vehicle … or are hand held terminals carried by the operator"; that a "hand held scanner unit is connected to the mobile terminal"; and that the terminal is "in radio communication with a base station computer interface unit connected with a host computer." That admission establishes the RF-linked portable-terminal architecture as pre-existing art and confines the alleged invention to the body-mounting arrangement and its ergonomic consequences.

II. Scope and content of the prior art (as verified in this session)

I verified full text or detailed abstracts for the five references that do the heavy lifting:

US 4,766,299 — Spectra-Physics, "Hand-mounted bar code reader" (Tierney & Howard; filed 1986-03-28; issued 1988-08-23). https://patents.google.com/patent/US4766299 · https://uspto.report/patent/grant/4766299

• A compact laser bar-code scanner in a housing retained on the body by a strap ("a hand strap connected to the housing … of a length sufficient to extend around the hand to retain the housing on the back of the hand").
• The scan beam is projected "forward generally in the direction of the natural pointing of the hand and arm" — i.e., aiming by pointing the arm.
• Switch means on the strap, "activating the switch means to energize the laser upon a deliberate flexure of muscles in the hand" (fist-clench or finger-point).
• Expressly solves the same problem as the '324: the Background states that with conventional hand-held readers the operator "has required laying down the bar code reader temporarily, or switching it to the other hand," and that "efficient operation requires the use of the fingers of both hands simultaneously, necessitating the setting aside of the bar code reader"; the stated object is to free the fingers "without removal of the laser device from the hand."
• The housing is connected by an electrical cord 16 "leading to a power supply … and to a data recording device which may be separate from the housing."

US 5,065,003 — Nitto Kohki, "Portable data input/transmission apparatus" (filed 1989-03-20; issued 1991-11-12). https://patents.google.com/patent/US5065003

• A casing containing (a) a pen-scanner bar-code reader at one end for reading a bar code and generating code data; (b) a keyboard near the other end; (c) a display; and (d) "transmitting/receiving means, stored within the casing, for outputting wirelessly to an external data processing apparatus code data read by said bar code reader and at least numerical data input from the keyboard, and, if necessary, for receiving a response signal from the data processing apparatus"; plus an antenna.
• Expressly identifies the problem that motivates the '324: the memory capacity of prior portable terminals is limited, so the operator must repeatedly return to the host to download ("the work efficiency for inventory check is considerably decreased"); and a cable-connected pen scanner "may hinder the carrying of the data input apparatus."
• The two-way exchange is explicit: the host "outputs a response signal wirelessly," and an indicator lamp confirms correct transmission.

US 5,023,438 — Nitto Kohki, "Portable data input apparatus with different display modes" (filed 1988-11-26; issued 1991-06-11). https://patents.google.com/patent/US5023438A/en

• Same architecture as the '003 in a block diagram expressly listing CPU 13, ROM 15, RAM 16, keyboard 3, display 4, bar code reader 2, and a "transmitter/receiver 20 for wirelessly transmitting data to a transmitter/receiver built in the data processing device 19 and receiving response signals."
• The display shows both code data from the scanner and numerical data from the keyboard — a direct antecedent for '324 claim 1(c) and claim 5.
• Keyboard includes numeric keys 8 plus function keys (shift, scroll, cancel, transmit) — relevant to claims 7 and 8.

US 5,157,687 — Symbol Technologies, "Packet data communication network" (Tymes; filed 1990-12-19 as a division of Ser. No. 07/374,452, filed 1989-06-29). https://patents.google.com/patent/US5157687A/en · https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5157687

• A network of hand-held remote data-gathering units (bar-code readers) linked by two-way RF to base stations, which are linked to a host computer "which maintains a database management system."
• The remote terminal's FIG. 4 block diagram expressly includes bar-code acquisition device 43, an RF transceiver 44, and — per the specification — "usually the remote unit has a manual data entry device such as a keyboard 48, and a visual display 49 such as an LCD device"; and "other remote terminals … ordinarily would include data entry facilities such as a keyboard or the like, as well as a display … for indicating to a user information detected, transmitted and/or received by this terminal."
• Two-way return path to the display is explicit: the host's reply "would be a validation of the bar code information, or instructions to the user about what action to take regarding the package scanned"; and "the data sent from the host computer 10 may tell the user … place the package in a certain bin, etc.," with the response time to the display "one second or less."
• Battery-operated, self-contained remote units (batteries 62).

US 4,916,441 — Clinicom, "Portable handheld terminal" (filed 1988-09-19; issued 1990-04-10). https://patents.google.com/patent/US4916441A

• "A handheld pocket terminal (22) having a display screen (40) and a bar code reader (42)," used with menu selection/touch keypad data entry, communicating over a LAN to a patient-care database.

Not fully verified in this session (cited by examiner; relied on only for their title/abstract-level disclosures): US 3,876,863 (Boone — inventory-taking with tone generation); US 3,978,318 (Romeo/Data General — hand-operated scanner); US 4,593,186 (Symbol — portable laser scanning system); US 4,628,193 (Blum — code reading operations supervisor); US 4,935,610 (NCR — hand-held bar code reader); US 4,939,514 (Seiko — foldable data collecting and processing device); US 4,970,379 (Norand — bar code scanner circuitry). My mapping of these to specific elements is provisional, and I do not press any element onto them that I have not seen.

III. Claim 1 — element-by-element mapping and the primary combination

Chart: Claim 1 limitations vs. the art

Result: every element of claim 1 is disclosed; the only element not squarely shown in a single reference — the forearm sleeve in place of a hand strap or a hand-held casing — is a mounting variation.

Combination 1 (primary): '299 + '003 (or '438) [ + '687 ]

A PHOSITA presented with Spectra-Physics '299 and Nitto Kohki '003/'438 would have arrived at claim 1. The reasons are not conclusory; they are in the references themselves:

1. Same field of endeavor. Both '299 and '003/'438 are directed to portable bar-code data collection for inventory control ("efficient reading of information on containers in warehouses and other stock and inventory control situations" ('299); "checking the inventory of goods displayed in a shop" ('003)).
2. Same, expressly stated problem. '299: hand-held readers force the operator to set the reader down to use a keyboard; the object is to keep the scanner mounted on the body and free the fingers. '003: a cabled scanner "may hinder the carrying of the data input apparatus" and the operator must return to the host to unload data; the object is "greatly improved work efficiency and operability." The '324 Background states the identical problem. When two references articulate the same problem and the same goal, the motivation to combine is "the nature of the problem," which KSR expressly recognizes as sufficient.
3. The claimed combination is a predictable use of known elements, each performing its known function — scanner reads codes; keyboard enters data; display displays data; RF transceiver transmits data; second transceiver and host receive/return data. No element performs a new or unexpected function in the combination, and no reference discloses any teaching away.
4. Predictable body-mounting siting. With '299 teaching a strap that retains the scanner on the body and aims by pointing the arm, moving a fraction of the same terminal hardware from the hand to the forearm/wrist is a mere design choice among the "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" (KSR): hand, wrist, forearm, belt. Ergonomic distribution of a keyboard and display onto a larger, stabler surface (the forearm) is a natural, foreseen improvement.
5. '003 supplies the cable-free RF link and two-way return, which is precisely the recited feature the examiner appears to have treated as the point of novelty. It is not novel over '003.

Combination 2: '441 + '186 + '687 [ + '299 ]

• '441 = hand-held terminal with display + bar-code reader + keypad.
• '186 = Symbol portable laser scanning system.
• '687 = two-way RF link between hand-held bar-code readers (with keyboard and display) and a host computer, including return of data/instructions to the display.
• Add '299 for the strap/arm-mount and arm-aiming teaching.

This combination is arguably even stronger on claim 1(g), because '687 provides the complete two-way architecture (host → base station → remote display; remote scanner/keyboard → host) and expressly recites the remote unit's keyboard and display. The only gap again is the sleeve, closed by '299.

Combination 3: '003/'438 + '687 alone (for claim 17)

See §VI.

IV. The independent claims 16 and 17

Claim 16 adds (i) a bar code scanner (not generic "scanner means"), (ii) detachable securing, (iii) a portable power source connected to all components, and (iv) a computer interface between the second transceiver and the computer.

• (i) '299/'186/'003 (bar-code scanner) ✔
• (ii) Detachable securing = the strap of '299 (a detachable mount), and '687's wand-plus-cable arrangement. Independently, detachable mounting is a routine mechanical expedient, and the '324 specification itself describes it as ordinary hook-and-loop ("Velcro") attachment.
• (iii) Portable power source: '687 ("batteries 62 are enclosed to provide a self-contained portable unit"; claim 5 recites "battery-operated"); '003 (self-contained casing with internal transmitter/receiver). ✔
• (iv) Computer interface: '687's base station + communications link 11 interposed between the RF remotes and the host processor 10 is squarely a "computer interface connected to said second radio transceiver." ✔
• Claim 16 is therefore obvious over '299 + '003 [ + '687 ] for the same reasons, plus '687 for the interface/power elements.

Claim 17 is drafted from the host-computer side and, per the prior section's analysis, drops the "for insertion on a forearm" limitation — the sleeve is recited only as "elongate." This makes claim 17 broader and easier to invalidate. The forearm limitation was the principal point of difference from the art; without it, '003/'438 alone discloses an elongate casing carrying (a) a bar-code scanner, (b) a keyboard, (c) a display connected to both, and (e) a portable radio transceiver in two-way communication with the base-station transceiver of a host computer. Adding '687 for the two-way host-return path renders claim 17 obvious on the strongest footing of any claim in the patent.

V. Dependent claims

VI. Motivation to combine — summarized grounds

Under KSR, the motivation need not be found in the references' text; it may come from common sense, the nature of the problem, design incentives, and market forces. Here, five independent grounds exist:

1. Express textual motivation in the references. '299 states its object as keeping the scanner on the body "while still freeing the fingers for keyboard entry or other operations," and criticizes hand-held readers that must be set aside; '003 states its object as wirelessly transmitting scanner and keyboard data to a host to improve "work efficiency and operability" and criticizes cabled scanners. Both recite the same problem the '324 recites. Under KSR, "[t]he combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results."
2. Same field of endeavor and analogous use. Warehouse/shop inventory data capture, portable scanner + terminal + host.
3. Predictable, finite set of body-mounting solutions. Hand (expressly '299), wrist, forearm, belt. '299 teaches the hand-strap/arm-pointing solution; selecting the forearm as the mounting site is a design choice.
4. Design/ergonomic and market incentives. Distributing keyboard, display, and battery weight; keeping the operator's hands free; eliminating the trip to the host for data download ('003). These are the classic "design incentives and other market forces" that KSR says can render a variation obvious.
5. Reasonable expectation of success / off-the-shelf availability. The '324 specification itself identifies the scanner as an off-the-shelf commercial product — "an example of such is sold by Symbol Technologies of Bohemia, N.Y. … the Visible Laser Diode Series (VLD) and Infrared Series (IR)" — and describes attachment by ordinary hook-and-loop fastening. A combination of commercial, interoperable components with no new functional interaction is the paradigm of obviousness.

VII. Anticipated patentee rebuttals and my response

VIII. Bottom line

• Claims 1, 16, and 17 are very likely obvious under pre-AIA § 103. The strongest attack is U.S. 4,766,299 (Spectra-Physics) in view of U.S. 5,065,003 (or 5,023,438) (Nitto Kohki), and further in view of U.S. 5,157,687 (Symbol/Tymes) — or, if the '687's § 102(e) date is contested, U.S. 5,029,183, its parent. Claim 17 is the most exposed because it omits the forearm limitation entirely.
• Dependent claims 2–12 and 15 are likely obvious on the same combinations plus de minimis design choices.
• Claims 13–14 present the most defensible ground for the patentee (separate belt-worn power/transceiver pack located away from the scanning area), but '299's express disclosure of a cord-connected "power supply … and a data recording device which may be separate from the housing" closes most of the gap, and belt placement is a predictable ergonomic choice. I would rate these as more likely than not obvious, but with less confidence than the rest.

IX. Explicit caveats on this analysis

1. Reference verification is asymmetric. I read the full text of US 4,766,299, US 5,065,003, US 5,023,438, US 5,157,687, and the abstract of US 4,916,441. For US 3,876,863, US 3,978,318, US 4,593,186, US 4,628,193, US 4,935,610, US 4,939,514, and US 4,970,379, I relied on the examiner citation list and title metadata at https://patents.google.com/patent/US5272324A/en and did not open the full documents. My chart therefore does not lean on them; if a fuller read were to supply a forearm-mounted housing, an integrated keyboard/display terminal, or a separate body-worn transceiver pack in any of them, the analysis would become stronger, not weaker.
2. The '687 date issue is real and should be resolved before relying on it. Its own filing date (1990-12-19) post-dates the 1990-08-10 priority date; only its § 120 benefit of the 6/29/1989 parent makes it prior art. Use US 5,029,183 as the safe substitute, and confirm by checking that the '183's specification supports the keyboard/display/host-reply passages quoted above.
3. I am analyzing validity, not enforceability or infringement. The patent expired/lapsed in 1997 (US5272324A legal events), so its practical relevance is as prior art and in any retrospective validity dispute, not as an enforcement asset.
4. One unresolved record anomaly, flagged again. A search result associated DE 4008918 A1 ("Tragbares Dateneingabe- und -Sendegerät") with this family and the 1990-08-10 priority date. That number on its face corresponds to a March 1990 German filing, and I cannot confirm whether it is a genuine family member, a citation, or an indexing artifact. I do not rely on it, but if it is a family member of the '324's parent, its disclosure is also prior art and would need to be added to the combinations above.
5. No secondary-considerations evidence was located. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence; a search of the assignees' (Interlink Technologies; Thomas Group, Inc.) commercial records for the 1990–1998 window was not possible in this session.