Invalidity dossier
US 5499298
Added 9/23/2026, 5:31:17 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US5499298A
Title: Controlled dissemination of digital information
Patent number: US5499298A. Application number: US08/210,174. Inventors: Arcot D. Narasimhalu, Weiguo Wang, Mohan S. Kankanhalli. Assignee: National University of Singapore (later assignment to Kent Ridge Digital Labs recorded 2000-02-22). Prior art date / filing date: 1994-03-17. Publication (grant) date: 1996-03-12. Legal status listed: Expired – Fee Related; anticipated expiration 2014-03-17.
Purpose: The patent addresses the difficulty of establishing evidence of illegal use of digital information, noting that prior copy-protection schemes prevent unauthorized copying but not unauthorized "uses," and require artificial software keys or special hardware that are costly and incompatible with networked use of mixed information types. The invention instead proposes controlling usage—the number and timing of accesses specified by the information provider—while also permitting transparent access to uncontrolled digital information (for example, lower-resolution previews, demonstration software, or an abstract) through the same access apparatus used for controlled information.
Plain-language scope: Digital information is logically structured to incorporate usage history and an allowable access window, then encrypted into a header portion and a body portion, forming a "Sealed Controlled Information (COIN)" according to the first embodiment. An end user accesses it with a tamper-proof controlled information access device containing a controller that decrypts the information and permits access so long as the information provider's conditions are met. A first embodiment disseminates controlled information off-line; a second embodiment does so on-line, using a Sealed COIN format and a cooperating Sealed Opener, with corresponding provider and controller flow diagrams (FIGS. 1–11B).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5499298](/patent/US5499298)/en
What the excerpt does not establish: The excerpt is explicitly partial (text omitted) and contains no claim language, so the precise scope of the allowed claims cannot be determined from it. It does not establish validity, enforceability, or the full prosecution history; classification entries and the stated "legal status" are noted only as listed. No litigation, ownership analysis, or prior-art assessment was undertaken here.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:43:32 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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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
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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.