Invalidity dossier
US 5424524
Personal scanner/computer for displaying shopping lists and scanning barcodes to aid shoppers
Current assignee: DCCP Inc
Added 9/23/2026, 11:49:53 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US5424524A
Title: Personal scanner/computer for displaying shopping lists and scanning barcodes to aid shoppers
Patent number: US5424524A
Application number: US08/082,257
Inventors: Jonathan P. Ruppert; Ronald C. Fish
Original assignee: SCAN-EM (assignment recorded 1993-06-24; assignors Fish, Ronald Craig and Ruppert, Jonathan Paul)
Current assignee (as listed): DCCP Inc
Priority/filing date: 1993-06-24
Publication/grant date: 1995-06-13
Legal status (as listed): Expired – Fee Related; anticipated expiration 2013-06-24
Purpose. The patent describes a personal bar code scanning device to assist shoppers: creating and storing shopping lists, scanning product bar codes, matching scanned items against a list, tracking a running total of spending, and flagging list items not yet scanned so they are not forgotten.
Plain-language scope (per the supplied excerpt). The device comprises a microprocessor and control software coupled to a bar code reader, a display, a bidirectional communication port/device, ROM or EPROM, and random access memory. Embodiments may use a touchscreen display and a modem, infrared transceiver, or infrared local-area-network interface. The reader is preferably a charge-coupled-device type with a built-in decoder converting light/dark bar-code patterns into an ASCII character string; an implementation is envisioned as a palmtop computer with keyboard, touchscreen, and internal modem or infrared LAN interface.
Described routines: displaying stored shopping lists and adding/deleting items or building custom lists; retrieving the store's current price list (by modem, physical connection via the communication port, or infrared download upon entering the store); scanning on user command; comparing the decoded ASCII string with list items, using fuzzy logic to show all possible matches when wording differs; marking scanned items, looking up price, and adding it to a displayed running total; entering a desired budget figure; and blinking or otherwise indicating unscanned list items. Stored descriptive and price information may be downloaded from the scanner to the store computer.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5424524](/patent/US5424524)/en
What the excerpt does not establish. The provided text is explicitly an excerpt with omitted content, so it does not show the claims, the full written description, drawing contents, or any prior-art references. It therefore cannot establish the scope of patentable claims, validity, or how the described features map to specific claims.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:32:16 PM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.