US 5379430

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

Let me dig deeper on the litigation history and any recent (2025–2026) activity.

Let me check for any recent activity and confirm the bibliographic record from a second source.

US Patent 5,379,430 — Analyst Summary

Search caveat up front: I searched for CAFC 2026 dockets and USPTO records specific to patent number 5379430. I found no authoritative record of any 2025–2026 CAFC docket, PTAB proceeding, or ITC investigation involving this patent. All confirmed litigation activity is from 2010–2014 (detailed below). Because the patent expired in 2013, live 2026 enforcement activity is unlikely, though I cannot state that as a certainty — please treat "no 2026 docket found" as an absence of evidence, not proof of absence.

Bibliographic Record (confirmed; full text supplied is authoritative)

Abstract (as issued)

A method and system for adding system components (documents, tools, fonts, libraries, etc.) to a computer system without running an installation program. A location framework locates system components whose properties match a specified search criteria, and receives notification from the system when matching components are added to or removed from the system.

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

This patent has two independent claims — claim 1 (method) and claim 13 (apparatus). Claims 2–12 depend from claim 1; claims 14–23 depend from claim 13. All 23 claims share the same core four-step/four-means architecture.

Claim 1 — method (four steps):

1. (a) Specify a search criteria — define a target hardware or software component by one or more properties (e.g., "type = tool," or "contains font ID").
2. (b) Query the operating system — ask the OS to identify any hardware or software components whose properties satisfy that criteria.
3. (c) Return the matches — hand back the components (or handles to them) that meet the criteria.
4. (d) Add support for those components to the OS without rebooting — the closing limitation and the apparent point of novelty: the system dynamically takes up the newly found component support with no restart.

Claim 13 — apparatus: the same four elements expressed in means-plus-function form — (a) means for specifying the search criteria, (b) means for querying the operating system, (c) means for returning matching components, and (d) means for adding support without rebooting. Substantively coextensive with claim 1.

Representative dependent claims worth noting:

• Claim 2 / 14 — specify a search scope (volume, machine, etc.) to narrow results.
• Claims 3–5 / 15–17 — component types: system, network, or application components.
• Claims 6, 7, 11, 12 / 18, 19 — dynamic addition or removal (including enabling/disabling a font) without rebooting.
• Claim 8 / 20 — a specific trash can associated with a software component "place."
• Claim 9 / 21 — a menu bar for selecting a locator entity.
• Claim 10 / 22 — creating a list of component pointers giving direct component access.
• Claim 23 — creating a folder with default information identified to a locator (the "smart folder" concept illustrated in FIG. 9).

Embodiment / Specification Highlights

The disclosure is implementation-heavy: a TComponentLocator templatized pure abstract base class defining FindAll, FindOne, CreateAddedInterest, and CreateRemovedInterest; a concrete TFileLocator subclass using TPropertyQuery over TFSEntity objects; and a notification mechanism (TNotifierConnection, TInterest, TNotification) letting clients register for add/remove events. FIG. 9 (smart folder), FIG. 10 (place/trash can), and FIG. 11 (Parts Bin with printer and modem tabs) are the user-interface applications. A TFontFileLocator example is given.

Enforcement / Litigation History (confirmed)

Google Patents lists this patent as part of a worldwide family with litigation:

• W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661 and 3:10-cv-00249 (Apple v. Motorola, Judge Barbara Crabb)
• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-750 (Apple v. Motorola, filed Oct. 2010) — the '430 patent was one of three Apple patents asserted, alongside US 7,663,607 and 7,812,828. The ITC's March 2012 decision found Motorola did not infringe the '430 patent; per contemporaneous reporting, the Federal Circuit's August 7, 2013 decision in Apple Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, No. 2012-1338, left the non-infringement finding on the '430 patent undisturbed while vacating/remanding on the other two patents.
• D. Del. 1:11-cv-00015

The parties reached a global settlement in May 2014, and pending appeals were dismissed.

Uncertainty / Confidence Notes

• High confidence on title, inventor, assignees, dates, abstract, and claim text — these come directly from the supplied full patent document and are corroborated by the Google Patents record.
• Moderate confidence on the precise disposition of the '430 patent at the Federal Circuit: the 12-1338 opinion I retrieved discusses only the '607 and '828 patents in its substantive analysis; secondary news coverage states the '430 non-infringement finding was the one aspect affirmed. The finding that a judgment of non-infringement as to the '430 patent stood is supported by reporting, but I did not retrieve the Federal Circuit opinion text addressing it directly.
• Explicitly unknown: any 2025 or 2026 CAFC docket for this patent number. My searches returned zero results, and I will not manufacture a docket number or proceeding. If a current 2026 matter exists, it would not be discoverable from the sources I queried, and it would be unusual given the 2013 expiration and 2014 settlement.
• The specification cross-references a related application by the same inventor, "Object-Oriented Locator System," Ser. No. 08/102,098 (filed Aug. 4, 1993). The similar-documents list shows US 5,396,626, titled "Object-oriented locator system," which I believe corresponds to that application — flagged as inference, not verified from the primary record.

I'll research litigation involving US 5,379,430. Let me start with searches on the litigation portals and the case numbers referenced in the patent record.

Let me drill into the specific case numbers referenced in the patent record.

Let me check the two remaining district court dockets and the CAFC appeal.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 5,379,430

Bottom line: US 5,379,430 ("Object-Oriented System Locator System," Frank T. Nguyen, filed 1993‑08‑04, issued 1995‑01‑03, now owned by Apple Inc.) was asserted in the Apple v. Motorola / Apple v. Google smartphone patent campaign of 2010–2014 — once in district court and once at the ITC. It was never asserted by its earlier owners (Taligent, Inc., then Object Technology Licensing Corp.). Both assertions ended without any liability judgment in Apple's favor. I found no other litigation. No litigation appears to be pending today; the patent expired 2013‑08‑04 (Google Patents lists legal status as "Expired – Lifetime").

Summary Table

Case 1 — Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc. et al., 3:10-cv-00661 (W.D. Wis.)

• Plaintiff: Apple Inc. Defendants: Motorola, Inc. and Motorola Mobility, Inc.
• Court / Judge: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin; Judge Barbara B. Crabb (Magistrate Judge Stephen L. Crocker early in the case).
• Filed: October 29, 2010 (companion to the ITC complaint filed the same day).
• The '430 patent's role: Count III of the complaint was infringement of U.S. Patent 5,379,430, with Apple alleging Motorola infringed at least claims 1, 3, and 5. Accused products were Motorola Android smartphones: Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, Cliq, Cliq XT, BackFlip, Devour A555, Devour i1, and Charm. Apple alleged the '430 patent expires 2013‑08‑04 and that it owned the patent by assignment.
• Outcome: On November 5, 2012 — the morning the trial was to begin — Judge Crabb dismissed the case with prejudice after a roughly two-hour hearing. Public reporting of that dismissal does not reflect any merits adjudication of the '430 patent. I did not locate a subsequent appellate disposition of the '661 case.
• Source: Apple's complaint, https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/wisconsin/wiwdc/3:2010cv00661/29071/1 and https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/wisconsin/wiwdc/3:2010cv00661/29071/12/1.pdf ; dismissal, https://www.theregister.com/offbeat/2012/11/05/apples-anti-googorola-patent-lawsuit-tossed-by-us-court/[1321249](/patent/1321249)

Note: A separate, companion Apple suit in W.D. Wis. (transferred to the N.D. Ill. as 1:11‑cv‑08540 and assigned to Judge Richard A. Posner) asserted different Apple patents and did not include the '430 patent; the Federal Circuit appeals from that case (2012‑1548/2012‑1549) likewise did not involve the '430 patent.

Case 2 — Certain Mobile Devices and Related Software, Inv. No. 337‑TA‑750 (ITC)

• Complainant: Apple Inc. f/k/a Apple Computer, Inc. Respondents: Motorola, Inc. (n/k/a Motorola Solutions, Inc.) and Motorola Mobility, Inc. (Motorola, Inc. was terminated as a respondent 2011‑08‑31 by withdrawal of allegations.)
• Asserted patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 7,812,828 ('828), 7,663,607 ('607), and 5,379,430 ('430) — for the '430, claims 1, 3, and 5.
• Filed/instituted: Complaint filed 2010‑10‑29; instituted 2010‑11‑30 (75 Fed. Reg. 74081‑82).
• ALJ: Theodore R. Essex. Evidentiary hearing 2011‑09‑26 to 2011‑09‑30.
• Initial Determination (2012‑01‑13): No violation of Section 337. Specifically as to the '430 patent, ALJ Essex found the accused products literally infringe claims 1, 3, 5, but that the asserted claims are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 102 for anticipation; he also found Apple has standing to assert the '430 patent and that Motorola is not licensed to practice it. (Motorola's license defense rested on an IBM–Apple cross‑license given Taligent's history as an IBM/Apple joint venture; the ALJ rejected it.)
• Commission determination (2012‑03‑16): Reviewed-in-part and affirmed the finding of no violation and terminated the investigation. On review, the Commission affirmed the ALJ's finding of direct infringement of claims 1, 3, and 5 of the '430 patent, but found the ALJ's infringement analysis incomplete because it did not address the Commission's prior opinion in Certain Electronic Devices with Image Processing Systems, Inv. No. 337‑TA‑724. The Commission also modified but affirmed invalidity of the '607 patent. Public version of the Commission opinion issued 2012‑04‑10.
• Sources: https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_750_notice03162012sgl_1_0.pdf ; https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=6d9ebd4e-ec17-4479-9be0-cf374eaf1808 ; https://www.martindale.com/legal-news/article_oblon-mcclelland-maier-neustadt-llp_1495926.htm ; ALJ final ID, https://www.usitc.gov/intellectual_property/documents/pub4385.pdf

Case 3 — Apple Inc. v. International Trade Commission, 2012‑1338 (Fed. Cir.)

• Appeal from: ITC Investigation No. 337‑TA‑750. Intervenor: Motorola Mobility, Inc.
• Filed: Apple timely appealed 2012‑04‑13 — as to the '607 and '828 patents only.
• Decided: 2013‑08‑07; Apple Inc. v. Int'l Trade Comm'n, 725 F.3d 1356 (Fed. Cir. 2013) — affirmed‑in‑part, reversed‑in‑part, vacated‑in‑part and remanded. Motorola's combined petition for panel rehearing/rehearing en banc denied 2013‑11‑08; mandate issued 2013‑11‑15.
• '430 relevance: The Federal Circuit opinion does not address the '430 patent. Apple did not raise the '430 invalidity finding on appeal, so the ITC's determination that claims 1, 3, and 5 of the '430 patent are invalid became final as to these parties.
• Aftermath: On remand, the Commission ordered further proceedings (2014‑05‑06). Apple and Motorola filed a joint motion to terminate based on the Apple–Google settlement; the ALJ granted termination (2014‑05‑28) and the Commission declined review, terminating the investigation 2014‑06‑16.
• Sources: https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2014-06-20/pdf/2014-14411.pdf ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%20Federal%20Circuit/case/12-1338

Caveats and Negative Findings (please read)

1. Docket entries I could not verify. Google Patents' "family has litigation" field for US 5,379,430 lists five proceedings: W.D. Wis. 3:10‑cv‑00661 and 3:10‑cv‑00249, ITC 337‑TA‑750, D. Del. 1:11‑cv‑00015, and Fed. Cir. 12‑1338. I verified that the '430 patent was asserted in 3:10‑cv‑00661 and in 337‑TA‑750/12‑1338. I could not confirm that US 5,379,430 was asserted in 3:10‑cv‑00249 or in 1:11‑cv‑00015. The D. Del. docket 1:11‑cv‑00015 is Nokia Corporation v. Apple Inc. (filed there 2011‑01‑06, transferred in from W.D. Wis., terminated 2011‑06‑15) — a case about Nokia's patents against Apple, not an assertion of the '430 patent. Google Patents' family‑litigation linking is known to be noisy (it associates cases with the current assignee), so treat 3:10‑cv‑00249 and 1:11‑cv‑00015 as unconfirmed.
2. Different patents with similar numbers excluded. Several search hits about a "'430 patent" concern other, unrelated patents and are not US 5,379,430. Examples: the ITC/Ericsson "'430 patent" (inductor layout, inventor Thomas Mattsson) and the D. Del. MobileMedia Ideas v. Apple "'430 patent" line, whose asserted claims 1 and 5 concern a "playlist file" in iTunes. Per your instruction, I have not mixed those in.
3. No non-Apple plaintiff, no later suits found. I found no litigation in which Taligent, Inc. or Object Technology Licensing Corp. asserted the '430 patent, and no assertions after 2012. Given the patent's 2013‑08‑04 expiration and the 2014 Apple–Google settlement, further litigation is unlikely.
4. No post‑grant proceedings at the USPTO identified. I did not find any IPR/PGR/reexamination/certificate of correction involving US 5,379,430. (IPR was not available for a 1993 filing.)
5. Sources/limits. My findings rest on the Google Patents record for US 5,379,430, Justia copies of the W.D. Wis. complaint, USITC Federal Register notices and public reports, and law‑firm/litigation‑portal summaries. I did not have direct PACER or CourtListener docket access in this session, so docket-level details (e.g., precise entry numbers, transfer dates) and any sealed filings should be confirmed against PACER before being relied on. Nothing here is a legal conclusion as to validity, infringement, or the status of title.

Ownership chain relevant to these cases: Taligent, Inc. (assignee from inventor Nguyen, 1993) → Object Technology Licensing Corp. (assignment recorded 1996‑04‑11) → Apple Inc. (assignment recorded 2010‑01‑19; Google Patents lists Apple Inc. as current assignee). Apple's standing to sue on the '430 patent was expressly litigated and upheld by the ALJ in Inv. No. 337‑TA‑750.

I'll verify the structured block against the public record before writing, since the ODP block shows an empty list.

Let me check for CBM/reexam activity and the litigation-adjacent challenges that might sit outside the ODP trial index.

No PTAB hits so far. Let me confirm the litigation/validity backdrop (which is not PTAB but is what a defendant will actually face) and sweep once more for any CBM/IPR.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 5,379,430: 0 (zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs — no institution denied, no claims canceled, no settlements, no appeals from a Board decision). The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block from the USPTO Open Data Portal is empty as of 2026-09-30, and my independent sweeps of PTAB/PTACTS-style sources surfaced no AIA trial naming the '430 patent — so there is no PTAB win, loss, or estoppel event for a defendant to use or fear. The defensive posture is therefore not "the patent survived IPRs and is hardened" and not "claims 1–5 were canceled"; it is: a 23-claim, pre-AIA patent that expired on 2013-08-04 whose asserted claims (1, 3, 5) were already held anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102 by an ITC administrative law judge in 2012, but never adjudicated by the Board. Invalidity must be proved in litigation (or a fresh IPR), not inherited from a PTAB judgment.

Proceeding-by-proceeding

There are no proceedings to list. Rather than omit the section, here is what I checked and what I found, so the negative result is auditable:

Important negative-result caveat: the ODP block covers AIA trials only. I found no evidence of any ex parte or inter partes reexamination of the '430 patent either, but I could not confirm that from the structured data, so treat the reexam question as unverified rather than settled.

What actually happened to this patent (non-PTAB validity channel)

Because the PTAB box is empty, the only claim-level validity adjudication on the '430 patent lives in the ITC/ITC-appeal record — a § 102 anticipation holding, not a Board cancellation. A defendant should read it before anything else.

ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-750 — In the Matter of Certain Mobile Devices and Related Software (Apple Inc. v. Motorola Mobility, Inc.)

• Type: Section 337 investigation (USITC) — not an AIA trial, so it creates no § 315(e) estoppel. Included because it is the only body that has ruled on the validity of the '430 claims.
• Filed / instituted: 2010-11-30 (75 Fed. Reg. 74081-82)
• Asserted claims of '430: claims 1, 3 and 5 (per the Commission's notice of investigation and Apple's complaint)
• Status: Terminated 2012-03-16 — no violation of § 337
• ALJ: Essex; Commission: reviewed in part and affirmed the finding of no violation
• Key validity finding: The ALJ found the accused products literally infringe claims 1, 3 and 5 of the '430 patent (but not under the doctrine of equivalents), and that the asserted claims of the '430 patent are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 102 for anticipation. The Commission affirmed the underlying no-violation determination; on the '430 it specifically noted the ID's infringement analysis was incomplete in light of Certain Electronic Devices with Image Processing Systems, 337-TA-724, Comm. Op. at 10-20 (2011-12-21). ITC notice, 2012-03-16; ITC Pub. 4385
• Appeal: Apple appealed the Commission's no-violation determination to the Federal Circuit — CAFC No. 12-1338; the matter was remanded to the ITC, which issued an Order Remanding Investigation in the investigation. I could not verify from primary sources the exact claim-level disposition of the '430 in the CAFC's opinion (my sources conflict on whether the panel affirmed the '430 non-infringement/no-violation outcome while reversing the '607 and '828 rulings); confirm the '430-specific holding in the opinion before relying on it. The related Apple Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., 757 F.3d 1286 (Fed. Cir. 2014) decision (CourtListener opinion ID 2671312) resolved the parallel N.D. Ill. case and does not, on my review, rest on the '430.
• Defensive value: No estoppel, but a complete public record of a § 102 anticipation finding against claims 1, 3 and 5, plus literal-infringement findings on the same claims — use the ID's art and claim charts as your starting invalidity package.

Related litigation docket (context, all non-PTAB)

• D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661 and 3:10-cv-00249 — Apple v. Motorola (2010); Apple sought § 337 relief and damages on the '430 alongside the '828 and '607 patents.
• D. Del. 1:11-cv-00015 — listed against this family in the ODP litigation block.
• CAFC 12-1338 — Apple's appeal of the ITC final determination.
• Owner chain: Taligent, Inc. → Object Technology Licensing Corp. (1996-04-11) → Apple Inc. (2010-01-19). The 2010-2012 assertions were Apple's own, not a troll's.
• Expiry: August 4, 2013 (stated in Apple's own ITC complaint at ¶ 24: "The '430 patent expires on August 4, 2013").

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of US 5,379,430 has been canceled by the PTAB — the patent has 23 claims (2 independent), and none were amended or canceled in an AIA trial. What exists instead is a 2012 ITC determination that claims 1, 3 and 5 (the only claims asserted there) are anticipated under § 102, together with a finding that those same claims were literally infringed. Claims 1–23 all remain UNTESTED by the Board, and claims 6–23 were never adjudicated anywhere in the record I reviewed. Practically, the whole commercial value of this patent sits in independent claim 1 (method) and independent claim 13 (apparatus); the ITC litigation touched only claim 1 and its dependents 3 and 5.

Estoppel landscape. There is none. Because no IPR or PGR was ever instituted, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estops nobody — no petitioner, privy, or real party in interest is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground, and no prosecution-lane or IPR-lane estoppel attaches to the ITC findings either (ITC § 337 determinations have collateral-estoppel effect only in limited circumstances, and ITC validity findings are not binding on district courts). The entire prior-art universe is open to a current defendant, including the art Motorola used in 337-TA-750. One caveat: you cannot leverage a Board judgment that does not exist.

Pattern signals. No repeat-petitioner pattern, because there are no petitioners. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the file. The patent owner (Apple) never had to defend a PTAB challenge — the explanation is structural, not accidental: AIA trials only became available 2012-09-16, the patent expired 2013-08-04, and the Motorola campaign wound down in the same window. That leaves roughly a ten-month CBM/IPR window before expiry, essentially no time for a challenger to file, institute, and try a case. The absence of IPRs here is therefore not the usual "nobody bothered" signal; it is an artefact of timing plus an early ITC invalidity finding.

The real lever — expiry. The '430 patent is expired. That means: (1) no injunctive relief and no ongoing royalty; (2) damages reach only infringing acts before 2013-08-04 and only within the six-year lookback of 35 U.S.C. § 286 — which as of 2026-09-30 reaches back to 2020-09-30, i.e., entirely after expiry, so a pre-suit damages theory collapses absent a tolling agreement or continuing pre-2013 conduct; and (3) any suit must rest on past conduct. If you are receiving demand letters citing claims 1, 3 or 5, the § 286 math alone may defeat them.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not assume a PTAB shortcut exists. There is no FWD to link and no cancellation to point to. The statement to make in a demand-response letter is: no AIA trial has ever been instituted on US 5,379,430; the patent expired 2013-08-04; and claims 1, 3 and 5 were held anticipated under § 102 by ALJ Essex in ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-750 (2012-01-13), affirmed on the no-violation determination at 2012-03-16 (77 Fed. Reg. 18787) — cite the Commission notice and ITC Pub. 4385.
2. Run the § 286 damages screen first. Expiry 2013-08-04 + six-year lookback = no recoverable damages window for conduct after 2020-09-30. Confirm the demand letter does not rely on pre-2013 conduct or a pre-expiry tolling agreement.
3. If you need your own judgment of invalidity, an IPR remains technically available on the expired claims (the Board can institute on expired patents, and claims can be canceled even post-expiry), but weigh it against the cost: with no injunction exposure and a likely-truncated damages window, a district-court § 102/§ 103 defense built on the 337-TA-750 art will usually be cheaper. If you go the IPR route, mind the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of the complaint.
4. Verify the CAFC '430 holding in the 12-1338 appeal before quoting it. Locate the opinion via the Federal Circuit docket (12-1338) and the ITC remand order. My sources were secondary and inconsistent on whether the panel affirmed the '430 no-violation ruling while reversing the '607/'828 rulings; treat the exact claim-level disposition as unconfirmed until you read the opinion.
5. Re-check the ODP and PTAB E2E before filing anything. A post-2026-09-30 CBM is time-barred (CBM review sunset entirely in 2020 for new petitions) and IPR/PGR remain possible only if someone files; if a new proceeding appears, it changes the estoppel analysis immediately. PTAB E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/; USPTO patent page: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5379430/en.

I'll cross-check the assignment record and the litigation context against live sources before assembling the timeline.

Now let me pin down the remaining litigation links and try to recover the recordation correspondents.

Inventors

Frank T. Nguyen — sole named inventor (US 5,379,430, filed 1993-08-04, issued 1995-01-03).

• Employer at filing: Taligent, Inc. (Cupertino, CA). The recordation itself is the evidence: the inventor executed an "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" to TALIGENT, INC., assignor of record "NGUYEN, FRANK T.," effective 1993-08-03, reel 006659/0948.
• Unusual patterns: None detectable from the record. I have no data on when Nguyen left Taligent or where he went; I am not going to infer a departure. The visible pattern is instead a concentrated R&D group: the same inventor filed three related disclosures in a 9-week window — this patent (08/102,080, filed 1993-08-04); Ser. No. 08/102,098, "Object-Oriented Locator System," filed the same day (cross-referenced in this patent's specification, and appearing in the record as US 5,396,626, "Object-oriented locator system"); and Ser. No. 08/071,812, "Container Object System," filed 1993-06-03 (the record's "similar documents" list contains US 5,544,302A, "Object-oriented framework for creating and using container objects with built-in properties," which appears to be that application — inference, not confirmed).

Original assignee

Taligent, Inc. (California) — the Apple/IBM 50/50 joint venture created in 1992 to build an object-oriented next-generation operating system (Apple's "Pink" project lineage), later joined by HP.

• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Only indirectly. Taligent the company never shipped a commercial OS. Its locator/property-query framework went to customers as part of the Taligent Application Environment / CommonPoint, which was shipped by IBM for AIX (CommonPoint 1.0). A 2003 Hot Chips presentation by a Taligent alumnus states the portfolio comprised "140+ US patents," held by a "holding company, OTLC," and that IBM shipped CommonPoint 1.0 for AIX after Taligent folded: http://old.hotchips.org/wp-content/uploads/hc_archives/hc15/2_Mon/grimes.pdf
• Primary line of business: systems software R&D (object-oriented OS/frameworks). Not a product-revenue operating company at scale; it was a funded JV that spent ~$250M in four years.
• Current status: dissolved. Per the same retrospective, "Taligent acquired by IBM, wholly owned subsidiary, then absorbed." The IP was carved out rather than dissolved in place — see the 1996 transfer below.

Assignment timeline

The following is the complete recorded chain for US 5,379,430 as exposed by the patent's legal-events data. Note carefully: the older "2006" transfer of OTLC equity to Apple is a stock purchase, not a recorded patent assignment, and does not appear in the assignment chain.

• 1993-08-03 (executed) / recorded 1993-08-04 — Reel 006659/0948

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Nguyen, Frank T. (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: Taligent, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from the sources available to me — see "Notes on sources and gaps" below.
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-employer assignment, executed the day before the application was filed.

• 1996-04-03 (executed) / recorded 1996-04-11 — Reel 007886/0500

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Taligent, Inc.
  • Assignee: Object Technology Licensing Corp. ("OTLC"), California/Delaware
  • Correspondent: not retrievable — see note below.
  • Context: Internal reorg / JV wind-down carve-out. When Taligent was folded, IBM took the people and code and the IP was moved into OTLC, an IP-holding company then jointly owned by Apple and IBM; OTLC ran a licensing program for the Taligent portfolio and, per contemporaneous accounts, operated out of 1 Infinite Loop (https://www.eklektix.com/Articles/[376917](/patent/376917)/).

• 2009-12-10 (executed) / recorded 2010-01-19 — Reel 023810/0315

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Object Technology Licensing Corporation
  • Assignee: Apple Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable — see note below.
  • Context: Internal reorg / title consolidation. Apple had already made OTLC a wholly owned subsidiary in 2006: the IBM–Apple Patent Cross License Amendment dated as of 2006-03-31 recites a Stock Purchase Agreement under which "IBM shall be selling to APPLE its share interest in OBJECT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING CORPORATION … such that OTLC shall become a wholly owned subsidiary of APPLE." (Public exhibit from Apple Inc. v. Samsung, N.D. Cal. 5:11-cv-01846, Dkt. 2447-8, License Ref. L034388, at https://archive.org/download/gov.uscourts.cand.[239768](/patent/239768)/gov.uscourts.cand.239768.2447.8.pdf.) This 2009 paper assignment therefore moved title from an already-controlled subsidiary to the parent — not a sale to a third party.

No fourth assignment exists. The chain terminates at Apple Inc. The patent expired 2013-08-04 (20 years from filing; three maintenance fees were paid — years 4, 8 and 12 — so it ran full term). Status: Expired – Lifetime.

Notes on sources and gaps

1. Correspondents could not be obtained. What I have is the patent's own legal-events/assignment table, which exposes reel/frame, conveyance, assignor, assignee, execution date and recording date — but not the recording correspondent field you asked me to harvest. I could not query the Assignment Center's correspondent block directly and I will not invent attorney names. To complete signal 3 below, pull the three reel/frame records at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) and read the "Correspondent" block on each.
2. Litigation docket attached to this patent record (from the same source): W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661; W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00249; ITC 337-TA-750; D. Del. 1:11-cv-00015; Fed. Cir. 2012-1338.
3. Cross-reference caveat — MobileMedia Ideas. A D. Del. opinion (C.A. 10-258) discussing induced infringement of "asserted claims 1 and 5 [of] the '430 patent," with a MobileMedia notice letter to Apple's CEO dated 2010-02-19, surfaced in my search (https://www.ded.uscourts.gov/sites/ded/files/opinions/10-258_5.pdf; ~https://storage.courtlistener.com/harvard_pdf/[8720808](/patent/8720808).pdf). This conflicts with the assignee record and I could not verify that the "430 patent in that case is this US 5,379,430 — it may be a different patent whose number resembles it. Do not rely on it without pulling the case docket. Flagged, not counted as a finding.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5379430
    1993 : Nguyen assigns to Taligent Inc
         : Application filed 4 Aug 1993
    1995 : Patent issued
    1996 : Taligent assigns to OTLC
    2006 : IBM sells OTLC stake to Apple
    2009 : OTLC assigns patent to Apple Inc
    2010 : Apple sues Motorola in Wisconsin
         : Apple files ITC complaint 337-TA-750
    2012 : ITC finds claims anticipated
    2013 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — unclear. The structural form exists: a transfer (reel 007886/0500, executed 1996-04-03) out of an operating JV into an entity with no products in commerce, which ran a licensing program for the portfolio. But none of the specific tells are present: OTLC was a named corporation jointly owned by Apple and IBM (two operating companies), not a single-member Delaware/Texas LLC; it is reported to have sat at 1 Infinite Loop, not at a registered-agent service address; and I found no evidence OTLC ever sued anyone — it licensed. So: transfer into a licensing-only entity, yes; anonymous shell, no.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. None of the three assignees (Taligent, Inc. → Object Technology Licensing Corp. → Apple Inc., reels 006659/0948, 007886/0500, 023810/0315) matches any of the listed NPEs (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities) or an operating-company-vs-NPE posture. The only NPE adjacent to this patent in the record is the unverified MobileMedia Ideas reference noted above.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not assessable / unclear. Three recordings exist, but the correspondent fields were not retrievable from the data I hold. Per your own warning, a single appearance would not be a finding anyway; recurrence across reel 006659/0948, 007886/0500 and 023810/0315 is the thing to test, and I could not test it. This is a gap, not a clearance.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Three assignments across 16 years (1993 → 1996 → 2009), with the two entity-level transfers separated by 13 years. No chained LLCs, no sub-24-month sequence, no shared-principal pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present (fails the 6-month test), but adjacent and worth noting. Reel 023810/0315 was executed 2009-12-10 and recorded 2010-01-19; the earliest suit in the record is Apple, Inc. v. Motorola, Inc., W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661, complaint filed 2010-10-29 (ITC complaint filed the same day; investigation instituted 2010-11-30). That is ~10.5 months from execution — outside the 6-month window. The transfer was also parent-ward (OTLC → Apple), not to an asserter. However, it was unquestionably a pre-assertion title cleanup, and the ITC had to reach standing: the March 16, 2012 Commission notice states the ALJ "found that Apple has standing to assert the '430 patent, and that Motorola is not licensed to practice the '430 patent" (https://www.usitc.gov/secretary/fed_reg_notices/337/337_750_notice03162012sgl_1_0.pdf). Standing being litigated is consistent with the 2009 assignment mattering.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Taligent was wound down and absorbed by its parents (IBM wholly owned then absorbed Taligent); the IP was carved into OTLC. No Chapter 7/11, no court-supervised patent sale.

7. Privateering — not present. The chain runs parent-ward (OTLC → Apple), and Apple asserted the '430 patent in its own name against Motorola — the opposite of the privateering pattern. (Note that public commenters did call OTLC "a patent troll" on the strength of Taligent never shipping a standalone OS: https://www.eklektix.com/Articles/376917/. That is commentary about a licensing holding company, not evidence of privateering, and OTLC is not in the assertion chain.)

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain terminates at Apple Inc., an operating company, which asserted rather than neutralized the patent. No RPX / AST / LOT / Unified / OIN involvement in the record.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain is a three-link corporate lineage — Nguyen → Taligent (reel 006659/0948, 1993), Taligent → OTLC (reel 007886/0500, 1996), OTLC → Apple Inc. (reel 023810/0315, executed 2009-12-10, recorded 2010-01-19) — with no NPE in it and no cascading or pre-6-month asserter transfer; the terminal assignee is the operating company Apple, which asserted claims 1, 3 and 5 of the '430 patent against Motorola in both W.D. Wis. 3:10-cv-00661 (filed 2010-10-29) and ITC 337-TA-750 (instituted 2010-11-30), where the ALJ found literal infringement but held the claims invalid for anticipation (§102), affirmed in part by the Commission on 2012-03-16. Caveats that cut against a clean call: OTLC was a genuinely non-practicing IP-holding entity that sat in the chain from 1996 to 2009, and I could not retrieve the recording correspondents for the three reel/frame records, so signal 3 is unassessed rather than negative — pull reels 006659/0948, 007886/0500 and 023810/0315 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ to close that gap.

I'll start by verifying the patent and its citation list, then research the referenced prior art.

Let me research the key cited references to characterize them accurately.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 5,379,430 A ("Object-oriented system locator system")

1. Patent identification (verified)

Search note / limitation: I verified this record against public databases that mirror USPTO data (Google Patents, Justia, uspto.report, EPO/INPI records). I did not query the USPTO Patent Center or Full-Text API directly in this session, so exact reissue/reexam certificates, if any, are not confirmed here. Nothing in the results indicated a reissue or reexamination.

Claims at issue (23 total). Independent claim 1 (method) and claim 13 (apparatus) both recite: (a) specifying a target hardware or software component search criteria including one or more properties; (b) querying the operating system to identify components meeting the criteria; (c) returning matching components; and (d) adding support … without rebooting the operating system. Dependent claims 2–12 and 14–23 add scope limitation (2, 14), system/network/application component types (3–5, 15–17), dynamic removal/addition (6, 7, 11, 12, 18, 19), a trash-can place (8, 20), a menu bar (9, 21), a list of component pointers (10, 22), and a default-information folder (23). Notably, the notification/registration capability emphasized in the specification is described but not claimed.

2. Prior-art references of record ("Patent Citations (15)")

The 15 references below are the ones the examiner cited on the face of US 5,379,430. All predate the 1993-08-04 priority date and are facially valid §102(b)/(a) art. Bottom line: none of them, alone, appears to anticipate any of claims 1–23. The examiner cited them as background, and the claims issued over them. They are at most §103 material, and only two or three touch the actual inventive core (property-based component location + notification).

Detailed entries

1. US 4,821,220 — Tektronix, Inc.

• Title: System for animating program operation and displaying time-based relationships. Issued 1989-04-11; filed 1986-07-25.
• Description: Debug/animation tool that visualizes program execution and time-based inter-object relationships. It is an OO-programming tooling reference.
• §102 assessment: Anticipates none of claims 1–23. No property-based component query, no OS-level component add/remove-without-reboot.

2. US 4,885,717 — Tektronix, Inc.

• Title: System for graphically representing operation of object-oriented programs. Issued 1989-12-05; filed 1986-09-25.
• Description: Graphical visualization of OO program execution (class/instance relationships). Background on OOP representations.
• §102 assessment: None.

3. US 4,891,630 — Friedman, Mark B.

• Title: Computer vision system with improved object orientation technique. Issued 1990-01-02; filed 1988-04-22.
• Description: Machine-vision method for determining the physical orientation of objects in an image. Highly likely cited on the keyword "object orientation," not for object-oriented programming substance.
• §102 assessment: None. Different technical field (image processing), not analogous to component location.

4. US 4,953,080 — Hewlett-Packard Co. (Dysart, Showman, Crow et al.)

• Title: Object management facility for maintaining data in a computer system. Issued 1990-08-28; filed 1988-04-25 (appl. 07/186,516).
• Description (from the specification): A file management system / Object Management Facility (OMF) with object data structures that each reference a class and one or more data files; objects carry property lists (name/value pairs), class data structures, and parent/child "link" structures; OMF performs "bookkeeping," link management, copy semantics, and automated data transfer with notification to parents when a linked child's data changes. It also supports global objects, a catalog file, and dynamic (non-reboot) creation/removal of objects and classes.
• Most relevant claims: The object/property/link-plus-notification model superficially touches claims 1, 13, 23 (components with properties; a "folder"/container notion; dynamic addition). Its change-notification to parents resembles the unclaimed CreateAddedInterest/CreateRemovedInterest disclosure.
• §102 assessment: Does not anticipate claim 1 or 13. Critical gaps: HP's OMF does not teach querying the operating system with a search criterion to identify a set of components whose properties match, nor returning a located collection in response to such a query, nor adding support for an arbitrarily located hardware/software component without reboot. Its notification is link-scoped (parent/child data views), not a general property-match interest/notification mechanism on component addition/removal. Best treated as §103 background.

5. US 5,136,705 — Tektronix, Inc.

• Title: Method of generating instruction sequences for controlling data flow processes. Issued 1992-08-04; filed 1988-06-14.
• Description: Generation of instruction sequences for data-flow process control; OO-style data-flow.
• §102 assessment: None.

6. US 5,041,992 — University of Pittsburgh

• Title: Interactive method of developing software interfaces. Issued 1991-08-20; filed 1988-10-24.
• Description: Interactive tooling for designing software user interfaces.
• §102 assessment: None. May bear tangentially on claim 9/21 (menu interaction), but discloses no locator or property query.

7. US 5,133,075 — Hewlett-Packard Co. (Risch, Tore J. M.) — most conceptually relevant citation

• Title: Method of monitoring changes in attribute values of object in an object-oriented database. Issued 1992-07-21; filed 1988-12-19 (appl. 07/286,556).
• Description (verified from full text): In an interactive object-oriented database, any of a plurality of client programs may request monitoring of an "attribute" of an object ("Request Monitoring" procedure → Client Address table + Attribute Value table). During an update session a "Function Change" table is kept; on commit (or on client request) a "Check Monitors" procedure determines which monitored attributes may have changed (using a "Function Dependence" table) and notifies any client that requested monitoring of that attribute, by interrupting the client and invoking a predesignated client procedure; if the client is not interruptible, the notification is queued. Emphasis is on localizing monitors to time/client/object/attribute to minimize overhead.
• Most relevant claims: The register-interest/notify-on-change mechanism is the same family of idea as the specification's TInterest/TNotification/TNotifierConnection and CreateAddedInterest()/CreateRemovedInterest(). However, that notification capability is not recited in claims 1–23, and Risch's monitored "attribute" is a database attribute value, not a component search criterion.
• §102 assessment: Does not anticipate any of claims 1–23. Gaps: no search-criteria specification over a component population; no querying of the OS to return a set of matching components; no "add support … without rebooting." Risch is the strongest §103 candidate to pair against the (unclaimed) notification disclosure and against any claim later construed to cover notification.

8. US 5,050,090 — R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.

• Title: Object placement method and apparatus. Issued 1991-09-17; filed 1989-03-30.
• Description: Placement/positioning of objects (graphics/CAD sense).
• §102 assessment: None. Keyword-driven citation ("object").

9. US 5,060,276 — AT&T Bell Laboratories

• Title: Technique for object orientation detection using a feed-forward neural network. Issued 1991-10-22; filed 1989-05-31.
• Description: Neural-network object-orientation detection in machine vision. Again the physical-orientation sense.
• §102 assessment: None. Non-analogous art.

10. US 5,125,091 — Hazox Corp.

• Title: Object oriented control of real-time processing. Issued 1992-06-23; filed 1989-06-08.
• Description: OO real-time process control.
• §102 assessment: None.

11. US 5,181,162 — Eastman Kodak Co.

• Title: Document management and production system. Issued 1993-01-19; filed 1989-12-06.
• Description: OO document management/production (documents, folders, versions).
• §102 assessment: None for claims 1/13. Possibly background for the "smart folder"/place concepts (claims 8/23), but no property-match component location or no-reboot component registration.

12. US 5,093,914 — AT&T Bell Laboratories

• Title: Method of controlling the execution of object-oriented programs. Issued 1992-03-03; filed 1989-12-15.
• Description: Runtime control/stepping of OO program execution.
• §102 assessment: None.

13. US 5,075,848 — Intel Corp.

• Title: Object lifetime control in an object-oriented memory protection mechanism. Issued 1991-12-24; filed 1989-12-22.
• Description: Memory-protection/lifetime management for objects (allocation, protection domains).
• §102 assessment: None.

14. US 5,151,987 — International Business Machines Corp. (Abraham, Priven, Moorman et al.)

• Title: Recovery objects in an object oriented computing environment. Issued 1992-09-29; filed 1990-10-23.
• Description: Uses persistent recovery objects storing recovery information so that object-instance methods can resume after unplanned failures, re-executing only non-executed "committable actions"; includes message queues and local/remote OO environments.
• §102 assessment: None. It addresses fault recovery, not component discovery or dynamic component support.

15. US 5,119,475 — Schlumberger Technology Corp. (Schoen, Smith et al.)

• Title: Object-oriented framework for menu definition. Issued 1992-06-02; filed 1991-03-13.
• Description (from later IBM/related citations): An OO framework for defining menus (menu items as objects).
• Most relevant claims: Tangential to claim 9 and claim 21 ("utilizing a menu bar … for selecting a locator entity").
• §102 assessment: Does not anticipate claims 9/21. It discloses an OO framework for defining menus but not a menu-based locator/entity selection mechanism. Also, it post-dates the "framework" concepts only marginally and is filed well after claims 1/13's priority; it cannot anticipate claims 1/13.

3. Distinguishing the citation categories (avoid conflation)

• "Patent Citations (15)" = examiner-cited prior art → the list analyzed above. This is the correct set for a §102/§103 prior-art study of US 5,379,430.
• "Cited By (50 / 63)" and "Similar Documents" = forward citations (later patents that cite 5,379,430). These are not prior art to 5,379,430 and must not be used in an anticipation analysis (examples: US 5,504,892 "Extensible object-oriented file system," Taligent; US 5,758,153; the IBM/Sun framework-mechanism patents; US 5,396,626 "Object-oriented locator system," Nguyen).
• Family-cited reference (1). The family data lists JPH0797316B2, priority 1991-06-28, published 1995-10-18, IBM, "Method and apparatus for accessing location information." Because its 1991 priority slightly predates 5,379,430's 1993 priority, it is a potential §102(a)/(e) reference on "location information" theory, but (i) it is a JP publication of a U.S.-origin application and (ii) on its face it concerns accessing location information, not property-matched component discovery. Insufficient information to conclude anticipation; flag for a full-text check if litigation-relevant.
• Same-family applications are not §102 art against 5,379,430 (e.g., WO 95/04967, published 1995-02-16, shares the same priority). Cross-referenced sibling application Ser. No. 08/102,098 (US 5,396,626) shares the inventor and assignee and is likewise not independent prior art.

4. Conclusions

1. No reference of record anticipates claims 1–23 under 35 U.S.C. §102. The independent claims require the specific combination of (a) property-bearing search criteria, (b) an OS query for components meeting them, (c) return of matching components, and (d) adding support without reboot; none of the cited references discloses that combination — several are not even in the same technical field (vision-based "object orientation," object placement, memory-protection lifetimes).
2. Most relevant citations for an invalidity/§103 study, if one is attempted:
   • US 5,133,075 (Risch, HP) — register-interest/notify-on-change in an OO database. Closest to the unclaimed notification disclosure; to reach claim 1 it would still require adding OS-level, property-based component discovery and no-reboot component support.
   • US 4,953,080 (Dysart et al., HP) — objects with property lists, links, dynamic creation, and change notification to dependent objects. Closest to the object/property model and to claims 23/8.
   • US 5,119,475 (Schoen et al., Schlumberger) — only for the menu-selection dependent claims (9/21).
   • US 5,181,162 (Eastman Kodak) and US 5,151,987 (IBM) — background for document/folder management and persistent object state, respectively.
3. Practical implication: Because the notification/inquiry-by-interest mechanism that gives the invention much of its practical value (the TComponentLocator / TFileLocator interest-notification protocol) is disclosed only in the specification and not claimed, the prior art most analogous to that feature (Risch) is largely neutralized. Infringement/enforcement value, if any, centers on the claimed property-query + dynamic no-reboot add/remove combination.

Caveats: For references 1–3, 5, 6, 8–13, 15 I had only bibliographic/title/assignee/date data plus limited abstract-level content from the databases searched; the descriptions above are therefore preliminary. A definitive §102/§103 opinion would require obtaining and reading the full specifications and claims of each reference, and confirming the current (2026) legal status of each (all of the above are long expired). This is an analytical assessment, not a legal opinion.

I'll ground the mapping of the cited references before building the §103 analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,379,430 (Nguyen / Taligent)

Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA, as the application was filed 1993‑08‑04; KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) governs). The § 103(c) common‑ownership exception and the "before" language of § 102(a)/(e) both matter here, as noted in Part 6.

Sourcing note. Full text/abstract/claims were retrieved and relied upon for US 4,953,080; US 5,133,075; US 5,181,162; US 5,041,992; and (partially) US 5,151,987. The remaining references are characterized from the titles, assignees, and dates supplied in this page's Prior Art section, and are flagged [title‑basis] where I could not complete full‑text retrieval in this session. Those should be re‑verified before any filing. One correction to the prompt: this page's fetch timestamp is 2026‑09‑30, not 2026‑04‑26; the discrepancy does not affect the analysis.

1. The prior art actually on the table

All fifteen examiner‑cited references issued before the 1993‑08‑04 filing date, so each is at least § 102(a) art; the seven issued before 1992‑08‑04 are § 102(b) art:

Also in the file: JPH0797316B2 (IBM, "accessing location information," priority 1991‑06‑28, published 1995‑10‑18) appears only as a family‑level citation. On its face its publication post‑dates the 1993 filing, and § 102(e) does not reach a foreign patent publication absent a qualifying U.S./PCT‑designating‑U.S. counterpart. I cannot establish this reference as § 103 art from the page's data alone — treat it as unavailable unless a pre‑1993 U.S./PCT counterpart exists.

2. PHOSITA

A software engineer with a bachelor's degree in computer science and roughly two to three years' experience building object‑oriented systems (C++/Smalltalk), including OO frameworks, object/persistent‑store management, and desktop OS resource services. Such a person would be familiar with multi‑tasking runtime linking and with the plug‑and‑play hardware analogy the patent's own Background invokes (IBM PS/2 MicroChannel).

3. Claim 1 — element‑by‑element mapping

No single reference anticipates claim 1. Risch is a database monitor with no notion of enabling OS support; Smith is a publishing DBMS, not an OS; Dysart's OMF is a desktop object layer but does not disclose property‑query‑and‑return over the OS. The case is therefore genuinely a § 103 case — which is how the question is framed.

4. The primary combination, and why a POSITA would make it

Combination A (base): US 4,953,080 + US 5,133,075 + US 5,181,162.

Motivations, all record‑based rather than hindsight:

1. Same field, same problem, same vocabulary. Dysart and Risch are both Hewlett‑Packard patents directed to "objects," "attributes," and "client programs" in general‑purpose digital computers; Smith is an OO DBMS in the same art. All three are § 102(b)/(a) art and are combinable as references in the field of the inventor's endeavor. KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.
2. Express motivation in Risch. Risch states the trigger event "may be a signal to start running a certain application program" and that "a graphic display may need to be updated whenever there is a change in a parameter being displayed." That is an explicit invitation to couple attribute‑change notification to desktop application/resource activation — the very linkage claimed.
3. The patent concedes the problem and the goal. The Background states the ideal is that "system programs and applications should be able to identify system components dynamically," that "the system should also be able to inform any system programs or applications of resource updates …," and adds: "No approach to addressing these problems has, to date, been proposed." Under KSR, identifying a known problem and applying known solutions to it is not invention; this sentence is a written admission of the problem's existence and of its recognized desirability. It also cuts against any "teaching away" argument.
4. The hardware analogy was public. The Background's MicroChannel example ("cards … can be plugged in … and used without reconfiguring the system") supplies the "without rebooting" design goal in the pre‑existing art of the same system.
5. Predictable combination, ordinary skill, reasonable expectation of success. Every element is software‑level: an attribute index (Dysart/Smith), a monitor/notification registry (Risch), and a runtime binder (US 5,075,848 / US 5,093,914). KSR "combination of familiar elements according to known methods" with no unpredictable technology. There is no criticality, no asserted unexpected result, and no teaching away.

Combination B (where more is needed): add US 5,075,848 or US 5,093,914 (or US 5,125,091 for a real‑time system) to supply explicit dynamic creation/removal and runtime dispatch of code objects, reinforcing element (d).

5. Dependent-claim clusters — most are weaker than claim 1

• Scope of search (claims 2, 14): Risch already localizes monitoring "with respect to time, client, object and attribute"; adding a scope parameter is an obvious implementation choice. The specification itself defines the scope as "a volume, a machine, or anything supported by a subclass."
• Category enumeration (claims 3–5, 15–17; Figs. 3–8 device‑driver/shared‑library/file and machine/printer/people‑place and tool/stationery/preferences locators): the specification says the framework "is designed to be extensible" and that a new locator is created simply by subclassing. Under KSR this is the paradigm case of "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions" — obvious to try each. Risch's mechanism is indifferent to what the objects are; Smith organizes objects "by type."
• Dynamic add/remove without reboot; fonts (claims 6, 7, 11, 12, 18, 19): the core goal stated in the Summary; supported by US 5,075,848, US 5,093,914, US 5,125,091, and by Smith's runtime integration of user‑defined objects. The font example is the specification's own TFontFileLocator.
• Trash can tied to a "place" (claims 8, 20): [title‑basis] US 5,050,090 (object placement) plus the ordinary desktop metaphor and the patent's own FIG. 10. The only asserted novelty is that the trash can is located by attributes — which the Risch/Smith combination already supplies.
• Menu bar for selecting a locator entity (claims 9, 21): squarely obvious. US 5,041,992 (verified) discloses display objects and "methods or messages to be activated when the mouse … [is] over said mouse sensitive areas of said graphic element and one of said mouse buttons is pushed," within an OO framework supporting menus/windows; [title‑basis] US 5,119,475 is even more on point ("framework for menu definition"). Combine with Risch's registration API.
• List of component pointers (claims 10, 22): US 4,953,080 (object structures "reference" class structures and data files) and US 5,181,162 (external content objects held via "a pointer to the memory address of the content") disclose exactly this.
• Folder with default information identified to a locator (claim 23): US 5,181,162 expressly provides that documents "are … collected into bundles referred to generically as 'folders'. Folders, too, can be represented as objects." Combined with either Risch or Smith's attribute matching, claim 23 adds nothing. The patent's own FIG. 9 "smart folder" is the same idea.
• Apparatus claims 13–23 stand or fall with their method counterparts and add a § 112 ¶ 6 ("means for …") construction overlay; no separate § 103 strength.

Best (relatively) Survivors. Claims 8/20 (trash‑can/place linkage) and claim 23 (default‑populated folder) are the only claims for which the cited record lacks a fully developed mapping — chiefly because US 5,050,090 and US 5,119,475 were not verified in this session. That is a gap in the citation record, not evidence of invention; the desk‑top metaphor itself is notoriously old and belongs in the § 103 analysis as background art regardless of citation.

6. Family/related‑application issue that is a non‑issue for § 103

The specification incorporates by reference Ser. No. 08/102,098 ("Object‑Oriented Locator System," Nguyen, filed the same day, issued as US 5,396,626) and Ser. No. 08/071,812 ("Container Object System," Nguyen, filed 1993‑06‑03, issued as US 5,544,302). Neither is available as § 103 art:

• Same‑day filing means 08/102,098 was not filed "before the invention by" the present inventor/Same inventive entity, so it is not § 102(a)/(e) art.
• Even if 08/071,812's 1993‑06‑03 filing date made it § 102(e) art, it is commonly owned by Taligent and, for pre‑AIA § 103 purposes, disqualified under the common‑ownership exception of § 103(c). Its content is anyway part of this patent's own disclosure by incorporation.

Note also JP3798015B2 / US 5,634,057 ("Place object system") appear only in Similar Documents, i.e., they are later Taligent filings and are not prior art.

7. What the patentee would argue, and how strong it is

Patentee's best argument. The cited art is a database monitor (Risch), a publishing DBMS (Smith), and a desktop object store with a UI clipboard layer (Dysart). None of them is an operating‑system component manager; none discloses eliminating the installation program; none discloses enabling a newly discovered component in a running OS. The claimed combination — property‑based discovery of an open‑ended set of components + a persistent interest/notification registration on that set + runtime enablement with no reboot — is a specific, non‑database solution to a non‑database problem, and Risch is limited to database attributes with commit‑time notification.

Counter. (i) Risch's own stated purposes (start an application, refresh a display) bridge the database/OS divide and supply the motivation; (ii) Smith supplies attribute‑gated retrieval and runtime integration of new objects; (iii) Dysart supplies the object→application reference that constitutes "support"; (iv) the patent itself concedes the problem was known and unaddressed, which is the classic KSR fact pattern; (v) the dependent claims are all express "obvious‑to‑try" extensions that the specification itself frames as mere subclassing. On the cited record, claim 1 and the dependent claims are more likely than not obvious, and would be invalidated by clear and convincing evidence in district court or by a preponderance in ex parte reexamination.

Uncited‑art risk. The most dangerous additional art is not in this list: plug‑and‑play/hot‑swap device enumeration and dynamic driver loading work at Microsoft/Intel and in the PCI/Plug‑and‑Play specifications (1992–1994), and the Apple/NeXT‑style bundle/registration mechanisms. A challenger would almost certainly add such art to the "no reboot" element.

8. Collateral vulnerabilities worth flagging (outside § 103)

• § 112(a) / written description for "hardware … components." The specification's only support for hardware locating is prospective: "if THardwareCapability is available as a mechanism, a new subclass could be developed: THardwareCapabilityLocator." That conditional, future‑tense passage is weak support for claim 1's "hardware or software components" and for apparatus claims 13–23.
• Claim differentiation / indefiniteness. Claim 1 uses "hardware or software" in steps (a)–(c) but "hardware and software components" in step (d); claims 13–23 repeat the pattern. Expect a § 112 ¶ 2 skirmish over whether (d) requires both kinds.
• § 101. The claims recite generic "specifying…querying…returning…adding" steps. Under current Alice practice such a claim invites an abstract‑idea challenge; historically irrelevant to this 1993 patent, but relevant if asserted today.

9. Bottom line

Caveats I want stated plainly: (1) US 5,050,090, US 5,119,475, US 5,125,091, US 5,075,848, US 5,093,914, and US 5,151,987's full claims were not verified in this session and are used on a title/abstract basis; (2) I could not establish JPH0797316B2 as pre‑1993 art; (3) no objective evidence of non‑obviousness (unexpected results, licensing nexus, industry praise) appears in this record — the four litigations and the ITC action listed on the page are evidence of asserted commercial interest only, with no established nexus to the claimed subject matter, and the patent expired 2013‑08‑04.

Primary sources for the verified mappings: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5133075A](/patent/US5133075A) (and http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5133075.html); https://radaris.com/f/Peter/Showman/Inventor#1 (US 4,953,080 abstract/claims data); https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5181162A](/patent/US5181162A) and http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5181162.html; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[5041992](/patent/5041992).html and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/13/65/a8/b353ff90ed77f6/US5041992.pdf; http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5151987.html.