US 5490060

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number, including litigation checks.

Let me pull the actual claim text and check for any litigation involving this assignee/patent.

Let me pull the claim language directly and do a final litigation/docket check.

Search scope and confidence

I searched for the literal string 5490060 / 5,490,060 together with litigation terms (CAFC, docket, infringement, complaint) and pulled the Google Patents, Justia, uspto.report, and EPO family records. Findings below are grounded in those sources. Where I could not retrieve authoritative text, I say so rather than paraphrasing from memory.

Important caveat up front: I could not retrieve the verbatim text of the independent claims of US 5,490,060 from the sources returned in this session. The claim overview below is therefore a characterization, and I flag explicitly which parts are uncertain.

Bibliographic data (US 5,490,060)

Note on the filing/priority relationship: application 07/616,816 was filed 1990-11-13 but claims a 1988-02-29 priority date, consistent with a continuation of an earlier 1988 application. The EPO family record for EP 0 331 442 A3 (same title, same inventors, priority dated 1988-02-29) lists a US national application dated 1988-02-29, which is consistent with that continuation relationship. I state this as an inference from the family data, not as a verified continuity chain.

Abstract

The Google Patents page as fetched did not display an abstract field, but the EPO family record and Justia carry the following abstract (quoted, EPO version):

"A passive data monitor and collection apparatus, and associated method, for obtaining market research data from an automated checkout system of a retail establishment. The apparatus positively monitors all the communications on a communications network between a plurality of point-of-sale terminals in a store and the store controller controlling the terminals. The store communications are converted from a phase encoded protocol into a standard RS 232 protocol which is then assembled into SDLC frames by a processor. The SDLC frames are separated on the basis of a control field format before being parsed by terminal addresses to form separate transactions on a list. The transaction list is produced by a real time monitor routine which builds the list from the asynchronous frame received from each of the store loops. The transactions on the list are handled in the background of the processing by a parsing routine which assembles the transactions into data files relating to the purchases by panelists and data files relating to the purchases by all customers. In a preferred embodiment, a host processor polls monitoring apparatus at a multiplicity of stores and has transferred to it the market research data files stored for the retail respective establishments."

Source: http://data.epo.org/pise-server/rest/collections/lgpi/EP0331442A3.pdf and https://patents.justia.com/patent/5490060

Plain-language overview of the disclosure (as claimed structure)

The patent is in the retail point-of-sale (POS) market-research lineage: a passive tap on a store's POS loop network, protocol conversion (phase-encoded loop data → RS 232), SDLC frame assembly, filtering to information frames, sorting by terminal address into per-terminal transaction blocks, assembly into a transaction list, and then background parsing into (a) panelist files tied to identified shoppers and (b) item-movement files for all shoppers, with periodic upload to a host.

Two framings of the claims appear in the record I retrieved:

1. A data-collection/data-monitor claim family — EPO's listing summarizes this as: "Claims 1–11, 13–33: Data collection for market research with passively monitoring of data transactions on network."
2. A programmed-apparatus claim — EPO's listing summarizes claim 12 as: "Data monitor with programmed means for executing a communications program, a data storage program and a real time monitor program."

In plain terms, using the specification's own vocabulary:

• The apparatus/system claim (claim 1, likely) would read on: a data monitor passively coupled to the store's POS communications network (high-impedance parallel tap at the loop receive port); means for converting the loop's phase-encoded signaling to a standard digital protocol (RS 232); means for assembling received characters into frames; means for selecting only information-bearing frames based on the frame control field; means for sorting those frames by terminal address into per-terminal transaction blocks; and means for appending completed transactions to a transaction list for market-research parsing. This mirrors the specification's stated chain: "assembling the transaction data into frames, information frames, transaction blocks, and a transaction list," performed in real time by an interrupt-driven, memory-resident monitor routine, with a background logging/formatting routine reading the list.

• The programmed-apparatus claim (claim 12) would read on the same monitor implemented as a processor with programmed means for (i) a communications program, (ii) a data storage program, and (iii) a real time monitor program — i.e., the monitor routine that is memory-resident and interrupt-driven and builds the transaction list, distinct from the background data-logging and host-communications programs (called by an executive routine on a periodic/default schedule).

Uncertainty flag: I was not able to confirm (a) the total claim count in the US patent, (b) which claims are independent, or (c) the exact wording of any independent claim. The 1–33 numbering above comes from the EPO counterpart record (EP 0 331 442 A3), and it is a characterization of that family record, not a verified reading of the US claim set. Anyone needing the operative claim language (e.g., for a validity or infringement analysis) should pull the granted US claim text directly from USPTO PatentCenter or the Google Patents claims section.

Litigation / CAFC docket findings

No litigation or CAFC appeal involving US 5,490,060 surfaced in my searches. Specifically:

• Searches combining "5,490,060" with CAFC, docket, and infringement terms returned no case, complaint, IPR/PGR, or appeal identifying this patent number as an asserted patent.
• The patent's own record shows expiration on 2013-02-06 and status "Expired – Fee Related," which is consistent with, though not proof of, the absence of later enforcement activity.

One look-alike to avoid: Information Resources, Inc. v. The Test Marketing Group, Inc., 22 F.3d 1102 (Fed. Cir. 1993) — this is an IRI appeal, but it concerns U.S. Patent No. 3,639,686, which is not this patent. I flag it only because a number-based search pulls it up as an IRI/CAFC result. Do not conflate the two.

Related record worth noting (prior art context)

The EPO search report for the EP counterpart cites WO 89/07868 A1 (A.C. Nielsen Company, 1989-08-24) in the same family space, alongside Eskin et al. US 4,331,973, and non-patent literature on local-area-network statistical monitors and supermarket loop communications ("Loop communications within supermarket store systems," 1976 ICC; IBM TDB "High speed SDLC passive trace machine," Aug. 1984). If you need the strongest anticipatory/obviousness art against this family, that citation set is the place to start.

What I could not establish

1. Verbatim independent claim language — not retrieved this session.
2. Total US claim count and independent/dependent map — unverified for the US patent.
3. Any district court case, PTAB proceeding, or CAFC appeal naming 5,490,060 — none found; absence of search hits is not affirmative proof of non-existence, so a docket-level check (USPTO PatentCenter litigation tab, CourtListener/RECAP, Docket Navigator) would be needed to state this definitively.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5490060 across patent litigation sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me search additional litigation-specific sources and case databases.

Summary of Findings: Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 5,490,060

Based on the searches I was able to complete, I found no litigation specifically asserting or involving U.S. Patent No. 5,490,060.

I want to be explicit and honest about the limits of this result rather than fabricate cases.

What I searched

• General web searches for "5490060" / "5,490,060" combined with "litigation," "lawsuit," "defendant," "infringement," and "PACER."
• The patent's Google Patents page (which lists assignments but no litigation section for this patent).
• Patent-litigation aggregator content (Unified Patents portal references, Docket Alarm references, Justia).
• Patent family / citation records (which showed only the AU 613741 B family member and prior-art citations, no litigation history).

What the searches actually returned

The results contained no case in which U.S. Patent No. 5,490,060 was the patent-in-suit (or was otherwise at issue). The hits were:

• The patent's own Google Patents record (Title: "Passive data collection system for market research data"; inventors John Malec, Joseph P. Moser, Scott J. Thomas, Eleanor Ting; assignee Information Resources, Inc.; filed 1990-11-13; granted 1996-02-06; anticipated expiration 2013-02-06).
• Prior-art citations to US 5,490,060 in an unrelated European patent (EP 0 991 003 A3).
• Numerous Unified Patents and PTAB/IPR documents — none of which referenced 5,490,060.

One important near-miss to flag (do NOT confuse it)

My search surfaced Information Resources, Inc. v. The Test Marketing Group, Inc., Adtel Products, Inc. and Frank E. Lowe, 22 F.3d 1102 (Fed. Cir. 1993) (S.D. Ohio, No. C-1-84-0903; decided Dec. 21, 1992). This case involves the same corporate assignee family (Information Resources, Inc.) and the same general subject matter (market-research data-collection equipment).

However, that case concerned U.S. Patent No. 3,639,686 — not 5,490,060. Per the strict rule, I am not conflating these numbers. U.S. 3,639,686 is a different patent, issued ~1972, over two decades before the '060 patent. It is not litigation over 5,490,060.

Conclusion

• Cases where 5,490,060 is the asserted/patent-in-suit: None identified.
• PTAB/IPR/PGR proceedings on 5,490,060: None identified.
• CAFC appeals on 5,490,060: None identified.

This is consistent with the patent's profile: it issued in 1996 to a single operating company (Information Resources, Inc.) — not a patent-assertion entity — and reached its anticipated expiration on 2013-02-06, after which it could no longer be asserted. My searches did not turn up any record of it being enforced.

Recommended next steps for a definitive answer

Because my search access was limited, I cannot certify that no litigation exists. For a definitive answer, please run these directly:

1. Unified Patents Portal – Litigation caselist: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (filter/search by patent number 5490060).
2. PACER / Docket Alarm: search 5,490,060 and 5490060 across all district courts.
3. USPTO Patent Center – "Litigation" / assignment records for the '060 patent.
4. Lex Machina / Docket Navigator (if available), which index patent assertions comprehensively.

If a search of those sources returns a result that contradicts this conclusion, that result should be treated as the ground truth per your instruction, and I should be given the findings to analyze. I'd rather tell you "none found within my search limits" than invent a case.

I'll verify the structured ODP data against live sources before writing anything.

The first pass surfaced nothing on point. Let me run targeted queries against PTAB case databases and litigation dockets.

Still nothing on point. Let me check PTAB E2E-style sources, reexamination records, and any litigation trail for this patent.

Sourcing note before the analysis

Two things shaped this report and you should know them upfront:

1. The canonical list is empty. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 5,490,060 as of the most recent ingest. That block is the authoritative source per my instructions.
2. My independent web check found nothing to contradict it. I ran targeted queries against PTAB case material, CBM/ITC-style filings, and litigation dockets. Zero on-point hits. One caution: my searches kept surfacing unrelated "…060" patents — notably CBM petitions against U.S. 9,009,060 (a hospitality/point-of-sale CBM) and IPRs against U.S. 6,689,629 and 10,552,490. None of those is US 5,490,060, and I have not conflated them. If someone hands you an "IPR on the '060 patent" citation, verify the number digit-for-digit — this is exactly the kind of near-miss that gets miscited in demand letters.

I could not directly query PTAB E2E or the ODP API with the tooling available here, so my confirmation is the structured block plus negative web results. Treat that as "no PTAB activity on file," with the usual caveat that absence of evidence in a search tool is not proof of non-existence.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trials on US 5,490,060: zero. 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied — and the bottom-line defensive posture is not "the patent is hardened," it is "the patent expired on 2013-02-06 and cannot support a live infringement claim at all, so any demand letter citing it is asserting a dead patent rather than a battle-tested one."

That distinction matters. A patent with no PTAB activity is normally a yellow flag (well-asserted patents attract IPRs). Here the absence is fully explained by the patent's age and expiry, not by demonstrated strength. Do not read "no IPRs" as "survived scrutiny."

Per-proceeding detail

None to report. There is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, Final Written Decision, settlement, or Federal Circuit appeal to populate for this patent. I will not invent one.

For completeness on why the AIA-trial docket is structurally empty:

• PGR unavailable: Post-Grant Review applies only to patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. US 5,490,060 claims priority to 1988-02-29 and issued 1996-02-06. It was never PGR-eligible.
• CBM window closed: Covered Business Method review sunset on 2020-09-16. Whether this patent would even have qualified is doubtful — its claims are directed to passive monitoring of point-of-sale scanner traffic on a store controller loop (SDLC frames), i.e., a technological subject matter, not the "financial product or service" CBM category. Any CBM would likely have died at the § 18(d)(1) threshold. But moot in any event.
• IPR theoretically possible, practically dead: IPR remains available in principle, but the patent is expired and its last recorded reassignment activity (2013-10-02 secured-party release) shows no assertion campaign. An expired patent cannot be enjoined and, as explained below, cannot support recoverable damages now.

Per the patent record (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US5490060/en): status "Expired – Fee Related", with an anticipated expiration of 2013-02-06 (consistent with a 17-years-from-grant pre-URAA term; granted 1996-02-06). The record does not tell me whether the patent lapsed earlier than the natural term for failure to pay maintenance fees — "Fee Related" status sometimes signals exactly that — so I won't assert an earlier lapse date I can't verify.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is expired, nothing is canceled, nothing is "survived." Because there was no IPR or CBM, no claim of US 5,490,060 has ever been adjudicated unpatentable by the PTAB, and no claim has been confirmed by the PTAB either. The claims are neither CANCELED nor SUSTAINED in the AIA-trial sense — they are simply expired and UNTESTED. That is the single most important sentence in this report. There is no FWD to quote, no claim-level holding to lean on, and no "claims 1–5 are dead" ammunition. Conversely — and this is what a defendant actually needs — there is also no live patent left to infringe. The 1988-priority, SDLC-loop passive-monitoring claims describe a technology era (IBM 3651 store controllers, 3683/3653/3663 terminals, RS-232 protocol converters, Bell 201/212 modems) that is itself a museum piece.

Estoppel landscape: no estoppel exists, but you don't need it. Because no petitioner ever filed an AIA trial, § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached to anyone. No party is barred from raising any prior-art ground, and there is no petitioner-privity chain to trace. All prior art — including the art that would have been obvious against these very claims (point-of-sale data collection, store-controller polling, passive network taps were all well-trodden by 1988) — remains available. That said, the stronger defense is statutory, not art-based: under 35 U.S.C. § 286, damages are recoverable only for infringement occurring within six years before the complaint is filed, and there can be no infringement after the patent expires. For any suit filed today (2026), the six-year lookback window opens in 2020 — entirely after the 2013 expiration — which means the recoverable damages period is empty. Add § 271(a) (no direct infringement of an expired claim) and a laches/§ 282 posture, and a well-pleaded motion to dismiss or for summary judgment should end this without ever reaching the prior art.

Pattern signals: none, and none expected. No repeat petitioner (there are no petitioners), no patent-owner appeal activity (the Federal Circuit docket shows nothing — I checked, no on-point hits), and no defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents in the chain — Unified does not typically file on patents this old and this far past expiry. The assignee history is ordinary corporate security-interest housekeeping (LaSalle Bank 2002, Bank of America 2011, release 2013 associated with the SymphonyIRI / Information Resources corporate family), not an assertion campaign. The patent's litigation history of note in this space was trade-secret and antitrust litigation involving IRI's scanner-panel business — a different cause of action entirely, and not an assertion of US 5,490,060 that I can confirm. Do not let an opposing brief import that history as "the patent has been litigated and validated."

Recommended next steps

1. An expired patent is the whole defense — lead with it. For any defendant receiving an assertion letter or complaint citing US 5,490,060, the first response is not an IPR and not prior art. It is: the patent expired 2013-02-06; no acts of infringement are possible; the § 286 six-year recovery window contains no actionable period. Pull the USPTO PatentCenter maintenance-fee payment history (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) to pin the exact lapse date — if fees lapsed before the natural 2013-02-06 term, your non-infringement date is even earlier, and you can say so with a receipt rather than an assumption.

2. Verify the patent number against the complaint, character for character. Given how easily "5,490,060" collides with "9,009,060," "6,689,629," and "10,552,490" in the literature, confirm the asserted patent is genuinely US 5,490,060 and not a typo/OCR artifact. A demand letter that misidentifies the patent is its own sanction problem.

3. If someone insists a PTAB proceeding exists, make them produce the case number. No IPR, PGR, or CBM number exists for this patent in the ODP record or in any public search I could run. You can verify independently at the PTAB E2E portal (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) and the PTAB statistics/decision pages (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab). If they cite a proceeding, check whether it is actually against 9,009,060 or a different "060."

4. Do not frame the empty IPR docket as a merits win. Internally, resist the temptation to tell a client "this patent survived the PTAB, so it's strong." It didn't survive anything; it just aged out. The correct characterization — and the one that holds up if challenged — is: no AIA trial was ever filed, and the reason is almost certainly that the patent expired in 2013 before it could be monetized.

5. If you are evaluating this patent as prior art (rather than as an assertion risk — e.g., you are defending an SDLC-loop or passive POS-tap patent issued later), its significance is the opposite. US 5,490,060 is a 1988-priority publication squarely describing passive monitoring of store-controller/point-of-sale traffic, frame filtering by function code, and transaction reassembly. It remains fully citable as § 102/§ 103 art against later patents; expiry affects enforceability, not prior-art status. Confirm its 1988-02-29 priority and its status as a published reference (its PCT/foreign counterparts, if any) before relying on it as a § 102(b) printed publication.

Confidence statement: High confidence that no AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed against US 5,490,060 — the ODP-sourced block says so, and every targeted search I ran (PTAB case text, CBM material, litigation dockets, reexamination) returned nothing on point. Medium confidence on the precise expiration mechanics (natural-term 2013-02-06 vs. earlier maintenance-fee lapse) — the public record shows "Expired – Fee Related" and an anticipated expiration of 2013-02-06 but does not, in what I retrieved, fix the actual lapse date. Verify that one fact against PatentCenter before relying on it in a filing.

I'll research the assignment record for US 5490060 across the specified sources.

The patent's own legal events show security interests rather than ownership transfers. Let me verify the corporate history and check for litigation/NPE signals.

I was able to reach Google Patents' legal-events record for US 5490060 (included in the authoritative patent text provided) and to verify the corporate history of the original assignee, but the Assignment Center itself and the litigation/NPE directories were not fully reachable with the tool calls available before the step limit. I flag the resulting gaps explicitly below rather than fill them.

Inventors

Pattern notes. All four are IRI personnel, and the patent sits in an IRI continuation chain — US 07/162,398 (priority 1988-02-29) → US 07/464,619 (1990-01-03) → US 07/616,816 (filed 1990-11-13, granted 1996-02-06). That is roughly an eight-year pendency, worth noting but not an ownership signal.

What I could not determine: whether any of the four inventors departed IRI within 12 months of filing. I do not have reliable employment-departure data for Malec, Moser, Thomas, or Ting for 1988–1991, and I am not going to guess. The "all inventors leave within 12 months" fire-sale precursor is therefore not assessable here.

Original assignee

Information Resources, Inc. (IRI) — Chicago, Illinois. Assignee of record on the issued patent; current assignee as listed by Google Patents.

• Primary line of business: retail scanner and market-research data — syndicated store-level item movement data (InfoScan) and household panel data (BehaviorScan), i.e. exactly the business the specification describes the invention being used in (see the specification's panelist-file and item-movement-file architecture at col. discussion of FIGS. 1 and 12).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, in service form. The patent covers a passive tap on the store controller's SDLC receive port reading POS transaction frames (FIG. 8 tap; FC 1E/1A etc. frame filters). IRI commercially operated the store-scanning data collection network this apparatus supported. These were services, not a boxed product — relevant because it means there is no retail SKU trail to point to, but the practicing entity is an operating data business.
• Current status: operating, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. IRI merged with The NPD Group in August 2022 and the combined firm rebranded as Circana on 2023-03-07. Earlier corporate history: taken private by Symphony Technology Group; rebranded SymphonyIRI Group, Inc. (the assignor name in the 2011 security agreement is "SYMPHONYIRI GROUP, INC. (F/K/A INFORMATION RESOURCES, INC.)"), then New Mountain Capital acquired it in March 2011 and it changed back to Information Resources, Inc. in April 2013.

Assignment timeline

Important sourcing caveat. The legal-events data available to me record the fact, date, conveyance type, and parties of each post-issuance recording, but do not expose the reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record. I will not invent them. Every "Reel" field below is marked [not surfaced in sources reached], and the correspondent field is marked [unavailable]. Reel/frame and correspondent must be read off the Assignment Center entry itself — search patent 5490060 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

• Executed [date not surfaced] / recorded 2002-07-15 — Reel [not surfaced]

  • Conveyance: Security Interest (patent security agreement / collateral grant)
  • Assignor: 564 Randolph Co. #2; Information Resources, Inc.; InfoScan Italy Holdings, Inc.; IRI French Holdings, Inc.; IRI Greek Holdings, Inc.; IRI Guatemala Holdings, Inc.; IRI Italy Holdings, Inc.; IRI Puerto Rico, Inc.; IRI Venezuela Holdings, Inc.; North Clinton Corporation; Shoppers Hotline, Inc. (combined grantor group)
  • Assignee: LaSalle Bank National Association (collateral agent / secured party)
  • Correspondent: [unavailable]
  • Context: securitization — a company-wide secured credit facility covering the IRI parent and its holdings subsidiaries; title did not move.

• Executed [date not surfaced] / recorded 2011-06-09 — Reel [not surfaced]

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: 564 Randolph Co. #2; Blackcomb Acquisition, Inc.; Information Resources DHC, Inc.; InfoScan Italy Holdings, Inc.; IRI French Holdings, Inc.; IRI Greek Holdings, Inc.; IRI Holdings, Inc.; IRI Italy Holdings, Inc.; SymphonyIRI Group, Inc. (f/k/a Information Resources, Inc.); SymphonyISG, Inc. (combined grantor group)
  • Assignee: Bank of America, N.A. (secured party)
  • Correspondent: [unavailable]
  • Context: securitization accompanying the change of control — the entity names (Blackcomb Acquisition, IRI Holdings, SymphonyISG) show a leveraged-holding-company structure consistent with the 2011 New Mountain Capital acquisition. This is a name change plus financing, not a transfer to an asserter.

• Executed [date not surfaced] / recorded 2013-10-02 — Reel [not surfaced]

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party (termination of the security interest)
  • Assignor: Bank of America, N.A. (releasing the group of IRI/Symphony entities)
  • Assignee: the IRI/Symphony entity group above
  • Correspondent: [unavailable]
  • Context: lien release only — extinguishment of the 2011 security interest. No change in title. Note this release was recorded after the patent's 2013-02-06 expiration, so it is housekeeping on an already-expired asset.

Finding on title. Across the entire post-issuance record there is no assignment of title. Every recording is a security interest or its release. Legal title to US 5490060 appears to have remained with the IRI corporate family (today Circana) continuously from issuance through expiration — subject to the caveat that if the Assignment Center shows further entries I could not reach, this conclusion could change.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5490060
    1988 : Priority application filed
    1990 : Continuation application filed
    1996 : Patent issued to Information Resources
    2002 : LaSalle Bank records security interest
    2011 : Bank of America security agreement
    2013 : Patent expires
         : Security interest released
    2022 : IRI merges with NPD Group
    2023 : Combined firm rebrands as Circana

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No operating-company → licensing-LLC transfer exists in the record. The only non-operating names are secured lenders (LaSalle Bank 2002-07-15; Bank of America 2011-06-09), which take liens, not title. The "Holdings / Acquisition / ISG" entities in the 2011 security agreement (Blackcomb Acquisition, IRI Holdings, SymphonyISG) are financing-structure vehicles of IRI itself, appearing as grantors on a lien — they are not assignees of the patent.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee or secured party matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Round Rock, etc. The named entities are IRI/Symphony affiliates and two national banks.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not determinable. The correspondent of record is not exposed in the sources I could reach. There are only three recordings and two of them are lender-side collateral filings, so even a single recurring correspondent would be a weak signal here. I cannot rule it in or out.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Three recordings span 11 years (2002, 2011, 2013), all financing-related. No chained LLC transfers, no sub-24-month clustering of title changes.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present / not applicable. I found no infringement suit naming this patent in the searches completed, and the patent expired 2013-02-06. Caveat: my litigation search was cut short by the tool step limit, so this is a negative result on incomplete searching, not a certified "never sued."

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding by IRI appears in the sources reached; IRI's transitions were private-equity acquisitions (Symphony Technology Group, then New Mountain Capital, then the 2022 NPD merger under Hellman & Friedman), not liquidation sales. The 2002 LaSalle filing is a credit facility, not a DIP or §363 sale.

7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer to an NPE asserting on IRI's behalf. No SEC-disclosed patent-sale arrangement appears.

8. Defensive aggregator — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

On the "signal": there is essentially no chain to analyze. The absence of NPE signals here is structural — the patent was never assigned away, so there is no shell-entity trail, no repeat NPE correspondent, and no pre-suit transfer to examine. That is a genuinely different finding from "we looked and the signals were absent in a chain that exists."

Verdict

Insufficient data — (in the sense the rubric defines it: only the original assignment, no post-issuance title transfer).

Justification. The complete post-issuance record recoverable for US 5490060 consists of three recordings — a security interest to LaSalle Bank National Association recorded 2002-07-15, a security agreement to Bank of America, N.A. recorded 2011-06-09, and a release by secured party recorded 2013-10-02 — none of which conveys title. Because no assignment of title appears, the original operating assignee (Information Resources, Inc., now Circana following the August 2022 IRI/NPD merger) retained ownership throughout, and there is no shell-entity transfer, known asserter, cascading LLC chain, or pre-litigation transfer to score. The patent is expired (2013-02-06), so it is inert regardless. This verdict rests on the Google Patents legal-events record embedded in the patent text; I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondents of record, so a reviewer with Assignment Center access should confirm no additional title-transfer entries exist before treating this as final.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search patent number 5490060 (mirror listing: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

I'll research the prior art cited on the face of US Patent No. 5,490,060 and related references.

Let me get the specific "References Cited" data from the patent's front page and citation records.

Let me retrieve the front-page citation list for the '060 patent from patent databases.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,490,060

Important scope note (read first)

The authoritative full text you provided for US 5,490,060 contains the specification, abstract, classifications and assignment history — but the front‑page "(56) References Cited" block was not included in the fetched material. I therefore could not literally read the U.S. examiner's citation list off the face of the patent.

Rather than fabricate that list, I reconstructed the prior‑art picture from the most reliable available sources and I am flagging exactly which is which:

1. The EPO search report for the counterpart family member EP 0 331 442 A3 ("Passive data collection system for market research data") — the European regional‑phase twin of the same disclosure (shared priority US 07/162,398, filed 1988‑02‑29). EPO examiners categorised eight documents as relevant, with a claim‑by‑claim mapping. This is the closest available proxy for the U.S. "References Cited" list.
2. The background section of WO 89/07868 (A.C. Nielsen), which itself lists a large body of POS/market‑research prior art.
3. Citing‑reference records (e.g., EP 0 991 003 A3, which cites US 5,490,060 itself as an "A" reference).

Caveat / potential contradiction to surface: the two sources I found disagree on the inventor name recorded for US 4,166,290 — the EP search report renders it "FURTMAN et al." while the EPO PISE record renders it "ASHRY RICHARD D." Per your strict rule I have not auto‑corrected either; both are reported below as found.

Also, to confirm: this is the same patent number as the litigation section — 5,490,060, Malec et al., Information Resources, Inc. Priority 1988‑02‑29; filed 1990‑11‑13 (US 07/616,816); granted 1996‑02‑06; anticipated expiration 2013‑02‑06.

Legal framework applied

Because the application was filed 13 Nov 1990 with priority back to 29 Feb 1988 (pre‑AIA law governs):

• § 102(b): a printed publication or U.S. patent dated more than one year before the U.S. filing/priority date — i.e., before roughly 29 Feb 1987 (if priority is perfected) — is a statutory bar.
• § 102(a): art published or patented before the applicant's invention date.
• § 102(e): subject matter disclosed in a U.S. patent application filed before the applicant's invention date (relevant to the earlier‑filed Nielsen case below).
• EPO "E" category ≈ potential conflict under Art. 54(3) EPC (earlier‑filed, later‑published); "Y" = combined‑with‑other‑art obviousness; "A" = background/general state of the art.

Ranked prior art

1. WO 89/07868 — A.C. Nielsen Company (the closest reference; EPO category "E")

• Citation: WO 89/07868 A1, "Marketing Research System For Obtaining Retail Data," A.C. Nielsen Co.; inventors Daniel, Busyn, Batterman.
• Dates: PCT filed 31 Jan 1989 (PCT/US89/00385); published 24 Aug 1989; priority US 155,052 filed 11 Feb 1988.
• Description: A passive/non‑invasive in‑store device that monitors the store loop of a POS/scanning checkout system, interprets and stores retail sales transaction data, and periodically transmits it to a central site. It expressly discloses a "non‑invasive store loop sensor assembly," a store‑loop communications adapter, CPU/RAM, and a modem to a central site — i.e., the same passive‑tap architecture as the '060.
• § 102 relevance: This is the single most material reference. Because its U.S. priority (11 Feb 1988) predates the '060's 29 Feb 1988 priority, it is a candidate § 102(e) reference (a U.S. application‑publication/patent effectively filed before the '060's date) and, as a printed publication (24 Aug 1989), also § 102(a) art. EPO mapped it to the '060's disclosure broadly — the searching division tied it to the independent claims and to the dependent claims directed to the passive sensor/monitoring and central‑site transfer features (EPO listed claims 1, 13, 14, 16, … 32, 33). Compare against '060 independent claim 1 (passive monitor + conversion + framing + parsing) and the claims reciting the in‑store data store and transfer to a host.

2. US 4,331,973 — Eskin et al. (EPO category "Y,D"; the "D" = cited by applicant)

• Citation: U.S. Patent 4,331,973, "Panelist Response Scanning System," Eskin et al.
• Date: granted 25 May 1982.
• Description: Market‑research retail system in which cooperating panelists present bar‑coded ID cards that POS scanners read together with product UPCs, and the retail store records the products each panelist buys for later correlation with their ad exposure.
• § 102 relevance: Well before 29 Feb 1987 → § 102(b) statutory‑bar art. EPO mapped it to the panelist‑record/purchase‑record aspects: claims 1–5 and 24–27 (EPO's numbering). It does not by itself disclose passive tapping of a store loop, so it is stronger as a § 103 combination reference against the panelist‑file claims than as a standalone § 102 anticipation.

3. IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin — D.D. Williams, "High speed SDLC passive trace machine" (EPO category "Y")

• Citation: IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 27, No. 3, Aug 1984, pp. 1659–1660.
• Description: A passive tracing/monitoring device for SDLC communication.
• § 102 relevance: Published Aug 1984, well before the Feb 1987 bar date → § 102(b) art. This is directly on point for the '060's core concept of a passive (non‑intrusive) tap that traces SDLC traffic, which is central to independent claim 1's "passively monitoring all communications on the network" and the frame‑assembly claims. Particularly material against any claim drawn to passively reading SDLC frames without disturbing the network.

4. R.O. Skatrud et al., "Loop communications within supermarket store systems" (EPO category "Y")

• Citation: 1976 International Conference on Communications, Philadelphia, 14–16 June 1976, Vol. II, pp. 30‑6 to 30‑11.
• Description: Describes the half‑duplex serial store‑loop communications used between a store controller and POS terminals in supermarkets (the exact IBM 3651/3683‑type loop topology the '060 describes in FIGS. 4–6).
• § 102 relevance: 1976 publication → § 102(b) art against the claims reciting the store‑controller/loop communications environment and the polling/turnaround/go‑ahead protocol the '060 leverages.

5. D.C. Feldmeier, "Statistical monitors for local area networks" (EPO category "Y")

• Citation: Proceedings, 11th Conference on Local Computer Networks, Minneapolis, 6–8 Oct 1986, pp. 142–246 (page range as printed in the search report), New York.
• Description: Passive/statistical monitoring of LAN traffic.
• § 102 relevance: Published Oct 1986 → before the ~28 Feb 1987 bar date → § 102(b) art. Relevant to the claims directed to passively reading and filtering network traffic (the "monitor routine" that sifts overhead from information frames).

6. US 4,166,290 — Furtman et al. / (also recorded as) Ashry (EPO category "A")

• Citation: U.S. Patent 4,166,290; inventor naming is inconsistent between sources as noted above ("FURTMAN et al." per the EPO search report; "ASHRY RICHARD D" per the EPO PISE record) — reported literally, not corrected.
• Date: granted 1979 (EPO record shows a 1979 date).
• Description: Data‑collection/terminal‑interface subject matter cited as general background.
• § 102 relevance: Pre‑1987 → technically a § 102(b) reference, but EPO classed it only as "A" background art. Weak for anticipation; potentially usable in a § 103 combination against data‑collection/host‑transfer claims.

7. R.T. Jones, "A multi‑tasking laboratory data acquisition system under TSX‑plus" (EPO category "A")

• Citation: IEEE Transactions on Nuclear Science, Vol. NS‑34, No. 4, Aug 1987, pp. 917–920.
• Description: Multi‑tasking (foreground/background) data‑acquisition architecture.
• § 102 relevance: Published Aug 1987 — after the ~28 Feb 1987 § 102(b) bar date, so not a § 102(b) reference. It could only matter under § 102(a)/§ 103 if the invention date is later than Aug 1987. Relevant (weakly) to the '060's executive/foreground‑monitor + background‑logging architecture claim language.

8. JP‑A‑58 184 679 — Mitsubishi Denki K.K. (EPO category "A")

• Citation: JP‑A‑58 184 679 (Mitsubishi Denki K.K.), published 28 Oct 1983; abstracted in Patent Abstracts of Japan, Vol. 8, No. 31 (P‑253)(1468), 9 Feb 1984.
• Description: Cited by the EPO as relevant to the whole abstract, mapped specifically to claim 12.
• § 102 relevance: 1983 publication → § 102(b) art, but again "A"‑rated and narrow. EPO's mapping to claim 12 (a single dependent claim) suggests only limited pertinence to one specific feature.

Which claim(s) are implicated — summary

Claim numbers above are as mapped by the EPO for the counterpart EP 0 331 442; the U.S. claim set of the '060 may differ in numbering, so treat the mapping as indicative.

Honest limitations

• I could not retrieve the literal "(56) References Cited" list printed on US 5,490,060. If you need that list verbatim, pull it from USPTO Patent Center / PatFT (patft.uspto.gov/.../PN/5490060) or the patent PDF's front page — I was blocked from those pages by the search interface.
• The EPO search report is for the counterpart application; U.S. examiners frequently cite different/additional U.S. patents, so the U.S. list is likely a superset or variant of the EPO list.
• Claim‑number mappings and § 102 characterisations are analytical inferences, not legal conclusions.
• On the direction question: references citing the '060 (e.g., US 9,251,265; US 7,666,820; US 10,224,981; EP 0 991 003 A3) post‑date it and are not prior art against it — EP 0 991 003 A3 cites US 5,490,060 as an "A" reference against its own claims.

If you can supply the front‑page PDF or the USPTO citation list for 5,490,060, I will reconcile it against this reconstruction and flag any additions.

I'll research the prior art references cited against US 5,490,060 to build the obviousness analysis.

Let me retrieve the specific prior-art citations listed on the patent record.

This is very useful — I found the EPO search report for the sibling application. Let me get the US-specific cited references list and details on the key references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,490,060 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Important framing note before I begin

The patent text supplied for this task contains the full specification of US 5,490,060 but not the "References Cited" (56) section, and not the verbatim claim set (the record shows the claims are numbered 1–20). The Google Patents page for the '060 patent does show a "Patent Citations (24)" block, but I was unable to retrieve that 24-item list within my search limits, and I will not fabricate it.

What I did retrieve is the EPO search report for the sibling application in the same family — EP 0 331 442 A3 (filing EP 89301998, priority US 162,398 of 1988-02-29) — which lists the prior art the EPO examiner considered relevant to the same disclosure. That is the best-grounded "Prior Art section" available to me, and I use it as the anchor:

Source: http://data.epo.org/pise-server/rest/collections/lgpi/EP0331442A3.pdf and https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5490060A](/patent/US5490060A)/en

Interpretation of the EPO categories (EPC/ PCT): "Y" = particularly relevant if combined with one or more other documents of the same category (i.e., a combination teaching); "A" = background art not bearing on inventive step. The fact that the EPO examiner tagged three references [Y] for the same disclosure is itself strong, citable evidence that the claimed subject matter was regarded as an obvious combination, not a patentable invention over that art.

⚠️ Caveat: the OCR of the EP report garbles some tokens ("19709823" for the Ashry date; "YOI" before Eskin). I flag these rather than silently correct them, per the strict rule.

I. Governing standard

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a claim is obvious if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art (POSA) at the time of the invention. A combination of references is obvious where (a) each element is found in the prior art, (b) a POSA had an articulable reason to combine them, and (c) the combination yields no unexpected result. KSR instructs that where an element is known and the combination is "the product of ... ordinary creativity," and where a technique "has been used to improve one device," a POSA "would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way."

POSA here: an engineer/technician with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer science and 2–4 years of experience with retail point-of-sale (POS) data communications, SDLC/loop networks, and data-acquisition systems.

II. The claimed subject matter (as disclosed, for US 5490060)

Based on the specification, the independent claims are directed to a passive data monitor and collection system for an automated checkout system, comprising in substance:

1. (E1) A passive, non-intrusive tap on the store communications network (high-impedance parallel connection at the receive port of the SDLC store loop).
2. (E2) A protocol converter that converts the store loop's phase-encoded signal into a standard digital protocol (RS-232).
3. (E3) Means for assembling characters into SDLC frames.
4. (E4) Sorting means that examines the control field and retains only Information (I) frames, discarding non-information frames.
5. (E5) Parsing the I-frames by address field into per-terminal transaction blocks, and appending completed transactions to a transaction list.
6. (E6) A real-time, interrupt-driven, memory-resident monitor routine that builds the transaction list.
7. (E7) A background logging-and-formatting routine that parses transactions into panelist files and item-movement files.
8. (E8) Nonvolatile storage (hard disk; floppy fallback).
9. (E9) Periodic transfer to a remote host processor over a telecommunications link (panelist files daily; item-movement data weekly).
10. (E10) Panelist identification captured via a scanned UPC-coded ID card at the POS terminal.

III. Element-by-element mapping

Limitation: I do not have the full text of Eskin '973 or Nielsen WO 8907868 in front of me, so the E7/E9/E10 mappings are asserted at the level of their known subject matter (remote data-gathering/audience-measurement systems forwarding identified-panel data to a central processor). I am not certifying specific sentences or figures from those documents; that would require retrieving their full texts.

IV. Proposed § 103 grounds

Ground 1 (primary): Skatrud + Williams + Feldmeier

Renders claims covering E1–E7 obvious.

• Skatrud supplies the environment and the loop protocol: an automated checkout system in which a store controller and multiple addressed POS terminals exchange SDLC frames on a loop, with all terminal traffic arriving at the controller's receive port. This is precisely the network the '060 patent taps (the specification itself names the IBM 3651 controller / 3683, 3653, 3663 terminals).
• Williams supplies the claimed improvement: a passive SDLC trace machine — a device whose entire purpose is to observe an SDLC link without disturbing it. This supplies E1 (passive tap), E2 (line-signal capture/conversion), and E3 (frame assembly).
• Feldmeier supplies the data-reduction intelligence: LAN monitors that passively capture traffic, discard protocol overhead, retain only meaningful frames, and assemble statistics/records in the background — supplying E4, and contributing to E6/E7.
• Motivation: The '060 patent's own "Background" states the problem verbatim — the researcher "may not have access to the store controller," and integrating collection software "is very difficult ... without disturbing the main purpose of the store controller." A POSA confronting exactly that problem is pointed directly to the passive-tap art (Williams) and to the loop environment (Skatrud), and to the monitor/statistics art (Feldmeier) as a way to avoid burdening the controller. The combination is a predictable, one-way improvement — no new result, no unexpected benefit.

Ground 2: Ground 1 + Eskin + WO 8907868 (Nielsen)

Renders claims covering E7, E9, E10 obvious.

• Eskin and Nielsen WO 8907868 are market-research/audience-measurement systems in which identified panel members generate data that is periodically forwarded to a central processor for analysis. They supply E9 (host transfer) and E10 (identified panelist concept), and reinforce E7 (panelist-oriented files).
• Motivation: Combining a passive retail-transaction monitor with the well-known panel-data-forwarding architecture is the natural application of a known technique to a known environment: the market researcher already had panelist panels and central evaluation; the only gap was capturing retail purchase data unobtrusively, which Ground 1 closes. KSR squarely covers "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way." The panelist-file / item-movement-file split is a routine data-organization choice driven by two already-known market-research data needs (identified-panel purchases vs. all-customer item movement).

Ground 3: Eskin + Skatrud + Williams + Feldmeier + Jones [A]

Alternative primary ground for the real-time/interrupt-driven aspect (E6): Jones, a multi-tasking real-time data-acquisition system, shows that interrupt-driven foreground capture with background processing was standard practice in data acquisition. Combining it with Ground 1 further supports that dividing "real-time frame capture" (foreground) from "file building/transfer" (background) was an obvious architectural choice.

V. Why a POSA would have been motivated to combine (articulated)

1. Same field, same problem. All primary references address SDLC/loop data communications monitoring. Williams exists specifically to trace SDLC without interference; the '060 states non-interference as its raison d'être.
2. Reasonable expectation of success. Skatrud establishes that all loop traffic appears at the controller's receive port — so a POSA would expect a tap there to see everything needed. Williams and Feldmeier confirm that passive capture + selective filtering is workable.
3. Known data-reduction need. Retail loops carry heavy control overhead (the patent admits "Much of the data traffic ... is overhead and control protocol"). Feldmeier's teaching of filtering overhead and recording only meaningful traffic maps one-to-one onto the claimed "sorting means."
4. Known architecture for the downstream pipeline. Eskin/Nielsen make "gather at remote site → forward to central processor → analyze panel behavior" a matter of market-research common sense, not invention.
5. No unexpected result / mere design choices. Nonvolatile storage, the daily/weekly transfer cadence, the hard-disk-with-floppy-fallback, and the panelist-vs-item file split are routine engineering/administrative selections with no asserted unexpected benefit.

VI. Potential counterarguments and how they fare

• "Teaching away / bodily incorporation." Not available: the references are combinable by application of one to another; none disparages the others.
• "Non-obviousness of the specific three-level phase encoding." This is likely a claim-limiting detail (specific to the IBM 3651 loop). If a claim recites the particular phase-encoding decode, the § 103 case weakens for that claim and the argument shifts to whether the decode is routine signal-processing. I do not have claim text to resolve this — flagged.
• Priority-date attack. Claims may enjoy the 1988-02-29 priority chain (US 162,398 → US 464,619 (1990-01-03) → US 616,816 (1990-11-13)). Skatrud (1976), Williams (1984), Feldmeier (1986), Eskin (1982), Ashry (1979) and JP-58 184 679 (1983) all predate even the earliest date — so they are prior art regardless. WO 8907868 (published 1989-08-24) postdates 1988-02-29 and its status depends on its own filing date and on which claims' effective date applies; I flag this rather than assume.

VII. Bottom line

The best-grounded prior art (the EPO-cited Skatrud / Williams / Feldmeier trio, each tagged [Y] for combination) maps onto elements E1–E7, and the market-research references (Eskin, WO 8907868 (Nielsen)) map onto E9–E10. The strongest § 103 position is:

Skatrud + Williams + Feldmeier, optionally in further view of Eskin and WO 8907868 (Nielsen) (and Jones for the real-time/multitasking aspect), render the subject matter of US 5,490,060 obvious, because each element was known, the references address the same non-intrusive store-loop monitoring problem, and the combination produces only the predictable aggregate of their known functions.

Explicit limitations of this analysis: (1) I could not retrieve the U.S.-specific "References Cited" list (24 patent citations) on the Google Patents page — treat the EPO list as the anchor, not as the complete U.S. record; (2) I do not have the verbatim claim language, so element mapping is based on the disclosed and paraphrased claimed subject matter; (3) specific passages of Eskin '973 and Nielsen WO 8907868 were not in front of me. If the actual U.S. citation list or claim text contradicts any mapping above, those would govern, and I should be given them to refine the analysis.