US 5821513

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Search scope and results

I ran web searches keyed to the literal string "5821513" / "5,821,513" plus litigation terms. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, no PTAB proceeding, and no district court case naming US 5,821,513. I did not have a live PACER/CAFC docket or USPTO PatentCenter API tool available, so this is a negative result from general web search only — it is not proof that no such proceeding exists. Given the patent's legal status (below), a 2026 appeal on this patent would be unusual.

One important caution on the search results themselves: several hits for the bare string "5821513" are not this patent — e.g., a patents-review.com page where "5821513" is an InventorID for an unrelated inventor (Bryan Zake, Reynoldsburg, OH), and a Justia page where "5821513" appears as a cited reference inside US 8,244,580. Those are false-key matches; I excluded them.

---

US 5,821,513 A — verified bibliographic data

Assignee nuance (do not conflate): the only true ownership transfer to a different company is Telxon → Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2002-04-08), followed by a change of name to Symbol Technologies, LLC (2015-07-08). The 1999-03-30 and 1999-04-13 entries to The Bank of New York and Bank One, NA are security interests / secured-party assignments, not ownership. Bank One's interest was released 1999-09-09. The "Bank One Corp" entry in the "current assignee" list therefore reflects a released lien, not title.

---

Abstract (as issued)

A portable data collection device (10) adapted to be mounted to a shopping cart (18) is disclosed. The device includes a housing (12) having a clamping assembly (80, 82, 84, and 86) for releasably clamping the housing to a pushing bar (16) of a shopping cart (18). The housing (12) defines an interior region supporting device electronics. The device further includes an interactive touch sensitive visual display screen (110, 112) and a retractable, tethered dataform reader (22) releasable mounted on the housing (12). When mounted on the housing (12), an imaging assembly (42) and an illumination assembly (44) of the reader (22) are continuously actuated to read a dataform presented to the reader. When removed from the housing, (12) the reader (22) is actuated by depressing a trigger (40) on the reader. The device also includes a magnetic stripe reading assembly (60), a printer (62) and communications circuitry (118) including a radio communicator module. A locator provides position information of the portable collection device (10) relative to a distribution facility via data interchange with a plurality of transceivers (166, 168). Information selectively obtained from the transceivers (166, 168) allows for selective retrieval and display of information on the visual display screen (110, 112) which is keyed to product type or location of the portable collection device (110).

---

Plain-language overview

The problem. Conventional checkout requires a clerk, a fixed or handheld scanner, floor space, and price labels on every item or shelf. A proposed alternative — hand the shopper a portable scanner at the door — burdens the shopper with a second item to carry and creates theft and storage problems.

The disclosed answer. A tablet-like terminal is clamped to the shopping cart's push handle (clamp 80 + clamping surface 82 + bolts 84/86), so the shopper doesn't carry it and it doesn't leave the store. It has a touch screen, a magnetic-stripe reader, a thermal printer, and a rechargeable lead-acid pack on the cart's bottom rack.

The signature feature — the tethered reader. The barcode/dataform reader is detachably seated in a side opening of the housing and electrically tethered by a retractable cable on a spring-biased recoil spool. This gives two modes:

• Presentation mode (reader docked): a magnet in the opening trips a magnetic switch so imaging + illumination are continuously on; the shopper brings items to the reader. No aiming, no crosshair.
• Handheld mode (reader removed): a trigger actuates imaging; uniform illumination alternates rapidly with an intense crosshair aiming pattern so the crosshair doesn't corrupt the decoded image. Used for large/clumsy items or shelf price checks.

The system layer. The terminal acts as a TCP/IP web browser speaking to a host computer over a wireless LAN (RF, e.g., Aironet components; or IEEE 802.11 spread spectrum). HTML/Java pages are served by the host; all logic lives on the server, not the terminal. A separate infrared receiver on the terminal decodes distinct signature patterns from fixed IR transmitters around the store to determine which zone the cart is in — the host then pushes location-relevant content (e.g., an advertisement tied to nearby products). Passive RF ID tags or transponders are given as alternatives for location. Functions served this way include: customer ID/PIN verification, scan confirmation pages (generic or product-specific), add/remove item from a running receipt, recipe search (by title or ingredient, printable via the onboard printer), in-store item location maps, ordering prepared items (floral, butcher, bakery, deli), and cash or credit/debit checkout including card swipe and PIN entry.

---

Independent claims — plain-language overview (with a stated limitation)

I cannot give you a fully verified claim-set breakdown. The authoritative text available to me cuts off mid-claim 1 at the phrase "…for generating response data in response to at least one of query data and position data; an". The record confirms 18 claims total but does not expose the full independent-claim set in the source I was given. Treat the following as a partial reading, not a complete claim chart, and verify against the USPTO PatentCenter / issued patent PDF before relying on it.

Independent claim 1 — "distribution facility product data information display system" (partially verified text). A system with three recited elements:

1. A base unit with base communicator means for exchanging remote data with at least one associated portable data terminal, where the remote data is "at least one of query data and product data";
2. Means for receiving position data representing the relative position of the portable terminal within the product distribution facility; and
3. Base processor means including data storage that generates response data in response to at least one of query data and position data.

In plain terms: a store-side server that answers a cart-mounted terminal, and whose answers depend both on what the shopper asks/the terminal scans and on where the cart physically is. The claim is drafted in means-plus-function form for the communicator and processor, which under § 112(f) ties those limitations to the corresponding structure in the specification (the RF transceiver/access points and the host processor with HTML-page/program storage).

On any further independent claims: the specification's summary states "In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for operation in accordance with the disclosed structure," which strongly suggests at least one independent method claim is present among the 18 (the document notes a "Claims (18)" set). I will not characterize that claim's scope because I do not have its text. Likewise, I cannot say how many other independent claims (if any) exist, what they are, or whether claim 1 is the sole system claim.

---

Uncertainty flags

• CAFC 2026 dockets: No CAFC 2026 appeal involving 5,821,513 was found in my searches. This is a search-limited negative, not a confirmation of absence.
• Litigation generally: I found no district court infringement action tied to 5,821,513. Given that the patent's anticipated expiration was 2016-06-26 and its status is Expired – Lifetime, the practical window for damages has long closed.
• Claim scope: Claim 1 is only partially reproduced in my source; the full 18-claim set should be pulled from the issued patent or PatentCenter.
• Assignee field: the "Bank One Corp" current-assignee entry reflects a released security interest, not ownership; Symbol Technologies LLC is the operative owner-side name.

I'll search for litigation involving US 5821513 across patent litigation databases.

Initial searches returned no litigation data. Let me query more targeted sources.

Let me try litigation-specific databases and targeted queries.

Bottom line

I could not verify any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 5,821,513. My searches returned no case records, docket entries, complaints, ITC investigations, or PTAB proceedings in which the '513 patent was asserted as a patent‑in‑suit. Under the strict "do not fabricate" rule, I will not supply a case list that I cannot ground in a verifiable source — but I also can't certify that none exists, so the practical answer is: no litigation is known/confirmed to me on the record available.

What I actually searched (and what came back)

I was not able to directly render/execute the Unified Patents litigation caselist filter (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=5821513), so my negative result reflects search-engine indexing rather than a verified query of PACER or the Unified portal database itself. That distinction matters — see the caveats below.

What the record does tell us (non-litigation context, confirmed)

• Ownership chain (relevant because a plaintiff would be the current assignee): original assignee Telxon Corp. → assigned to Symbol Technologies, Inc. (recorded 2002‑04‑08) → Symbol Technologies, LLC (change of name, 2015‑07‑08). Google Patents lists current assignees as Symbol Technologies LLC and Bank One Corp (the latter a legacy security-interest holder).
• Term: The patent expired on its anticipated expiration date of 1996‑06‑26 + 20 years → June 26, 2016 ("Expired – Lifetime"). This is the priority date (from U.S. Ser. No. 08/668,343, filed 1996‑06‑26); the '513 application itself (Ser. No. 08/744,109) was filed 1996‑11‑05 and granted 1998‑10‑13. Any infringement suit would therefore have had to be filed before mid‑2016, and damages would be bounded by that term.
• Family: It's a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 08/668,343, with siblings/continuations including US 5,821,512, US 6,119,935, US 6,314,406, and later US 6,595,417, plus foreign family members (WO 98/20440, EP 1012761, EP 1278146, EP 1282058, CA 2270958, DE 69720806, DE 69739720). The '513 document also cites co-pending U.S. Ser. No. 08/609,344 (incorporated by reference). None of these citations are litigation evidence — they are prosecution/family citations.
• The repeated Google Patents hits for "5821513" in other records were prior-art citations in later applications (e.g., WO 01/73710; WO 02/30053; EP 2 680 197), not assertions.

Honest disclosure of a low-confidence recollection

I have a vague, unverified recollection that Telxon-era data-collection/shopping-cart patents were caught up in enforcement activity around the Symbol Technologies acquisition of Telxon (2000) and in barcode/data-collection disputes involving parties such as Intermec, Metrologic, or Janam Technologies. I could not confirm by search that U.S. 5,821,513 was among the asserted patents in any such case, and I am not representing that it was. Treat this as a lead to check, not as a finding.

Recommended verification steps (since I couldn't complete them)

1. Unified Patents litigation caselist, filtered by patent: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=5821513 (also try the sibling numbers 5821512, 6119935, 6314406, 6595417).
2. Docket Alarm / PACER full-text search for "5,821,513" and "5821513" across all federal district courts, the ITC (Section 337), and the PTAB — full-text complaint search is the only reliable way to catch a patent that is pleaded without a Unified-tracked landing page.
3. CAFC docket search for the patent number in appeal briefs (a district-case loss/final judgment would often surface there).
4. USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records for any reissue, ex parte reexam, or IPR involving the '513 patent (an IPR would itself evidence parallel district litigation).

If you can give me the output of any of those direct database queries, I'll assemble the full case table (plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, status/outcome) exactly as requested. If you'd like, I can also draft the precise search strings to run in PACER's full-text docket search for that purpose.

I'll start by verifying the structured ODP result with independent searches, since the canonical list is empty.

PTAB Proceedings on US 5,821,513 — Analyst Report

Bottom line up front: The structured ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block returns zero AIA trial proceedings for US 5,821,513, and my independent searches surfaced no CBM, IPR, or PGR captions against this patent. There is no PTAB record to analyze — but for a defendant, the controlling fact is not the empty PTAB docket, it is that the patent is expired and the AIA-review windows that could have been used against it are all closed or moot.

---

Proceedings overview

Total proceedings on file: 0 (0 active / 0 with claims invalidated / 0 with claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 with institution denied). No IPR, PGR, or CBM review has ever been instituted against US 5,821,513, per the USPTO Open Data Portal block and consistent with my searches of PTAB materials and public dockets. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is unusual and, in context, stronger than "the patent survived IPRs and is hardened": the patent's statutory term ended on 1996-06-26 + 20 years = 2016-06-26 (Google Patents lists "2016-06-26 Anticipated expiration" and legal status "Expired - Lifetime"), so there is no live patent right to attack, no injunction available, and any damages theory is confined to the window of enforceable pre-expiration conduct. The absence of PTAB activity is not evidence of a hardened patent — it is evidence that the patent's commercially relevant life ended before the AIA trial bar became a routine defensive tool for this art.

No proceedings to enumerate

Because the structured data is the canonical list and it is empty, I am not going to manufacture a proceeding number, panel, or claim-level outcome. The correct finding is a null set. Below is what I verified and what I could not verify, stated with explicit confidence levels.

• What I verified. (a) The Google Patents family record for US 5,821,513 shows an extensive reassignment history (Telxon → Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2002-04-08) → Symbol Technologies, LLC (2015-07-08), with a Bank One / JPMorgan Chase / Morgan Stanley collateral-agent security-interest chain in between), but reassignment and security-interest filings are not PTAB proceedings. (b) The file lists continuation/priority relationships to US 5,821,512 (same priority date 1996-06-26), US 6,119,935, US 6,314,406, US 6,129,276, and US 6,595,417 — this is a large, long-lived Telxon/Symbol supermarket-scanning family. (c) No PTAB caption, no CBM number, and no Federal Circuit appeal naming the '513 patent appeared in my searches.
• What I could not verify / explicit uncertainty. I did not obtain a live hit on PTAB E2E or on a district-court docket that would let me state with certainty that the '513 patent was never asserted. My searches of general web and docket-aggregator sources returned unrelated '513/'582 matches (e.g., a shale-shaker "582 patent" in an IPR, and the unrelated Versata v. Autodata '821 patent). "No PTAB activity found" is a high-confidence statement for the review side; "never litigated" is a low-confidence statement I am not making.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 18 claims UNTESTED at the PTAB — and now largely moot in a PTAB sense. The patent carries 18 claims (the claim listing in the authoritative text reads "Claims (18)"; the fetched full text truncates after the opening of claim 1, so I will not represent what claims 2–18 specifically recite). No claim of the '513 patent is CANCELED, none is SUSTAINED through an AIA trial, and none has been construed by the Board. For a defendant today, that means: (1) there is no FWD to point to and no claim-level estoppel or cancellation to leverage; and (2) the more potent arguments are temporal — expiration on 2016-06-26 and the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year damages lookback, which bounds recoverable damages to roughly 2010-06-26 through 2016-06-26 even in the most plaintiff-friendly scenario. Practically, an assertion of the '513 patent in 2026 is a damages-tail claim, not an injunction claim.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) is a non-issue because nobody petitioned. IPR/PGR estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtained an institution decision and then lost on a ground it raised or reasonably could have raised. With zero petitions, there is no estopped petitioner and no closed-off art set. Conversely, that also means there is no helpful IPR record to import — no Board claim construction, no instituted-grounds road map, and no expert record that a defendant can borrow. If you need an invalidity position, you build it from scratch; the good news is that the patent is post-expiration, so a defendant's realistic leverage is (a) non-infringement of the pre-2016 conduct actually pleaded, (b) § 286 / laches-adjacent timing defenses, and (c) invalidity as an affirmative defense in litigation rather than as an AIA petition. Note that CBM review is foreclosed on two independent grounds: the AIA § 18 transitional program sunset for new petitions on 2020-09-16, and — even had a petition been filed in time — the '513 claims are directed to a shopping-cart scanning and product-information device/system (tethered dataform reader, imaging and illumination assemblies, RF LAN), which would have faced the "technological invention" exclusion. Ex parte reexamination remains technically available against an expired patent, but it buys a defendant little when there is no enforceable term left to shorten.

Pattern signals: none. There is no repeat petitioner, no serial-IPR pattern, and no sign of a defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain. The only institutional fingerprints on this patent are corporate: repeated Telxon → Symbol Technologies → Symbol Technologies, LLC reassignments and a bank collateral-interest trail, ending in the 2014-10-31 Morgan Stanley Senior Funding collateral-agent security agreement covering Symbol/Zebra entities and a 2015-08-17 release. There is also no evident patent-owner PTAB-appeal aggressiveness, because there is no PTAB decision to appeal.

---

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant now facing a demand or suit on US 5,821,513:

1. Lead with expiration, not with the PTAB. Confirm the expiry on the face of the patent and in PAIR/PatentCenter: priority 1996-06-26, 20-year term to 2016-06-26, status "Expired - Lifetime" (Google Patents). Confirm no PTA/PTE extension was granted on the printed patent. Demand the plaintiff identify the specific pre-2016-06-26 conduct it is charging and the damages window it claims under 35 U.S.C. § 286.
2. Say plainly that there is no PTAB record. The absence is the answer here, and it is a different signal than "no IPR because the patent is strong." Give the reason: the patent's commercially relevant life largely predates the AIA trial regime's routine use, and the term has since lapsed. Do not let anyone characterize the empty docket as hardened validity.
3. Verify the null set yourself before you rely on it. Check the Board's own system at PTAB E2E / PTACTS and the PTAB decisions page, and re-query the USPTO Open Data Portal — my finding is based on the ODP block in the prompt plus searches that surfaced no caption, and ODP ingest can lag. If a recently filed proceeding is not yet indexed, it may not appear there.
4. Check the family for useful surrender. The related patents (US 5,821,512, US 6,119,935, US 6,314,406, US 6,129,276, US 6,595,417) share the supermarket-scanning disclosure. Prosecution statements, terminal disclaimers, or any sibling PTAB outcomes in that family could bear on claim construction or on a § 112/§ 101 attack on the '513 claims — worth a targeted family-level PTAB and PAIR pull, which I could not complete within this search budget.
5. Litigation-only invalidity. With § 315(e)(2) unavailable as a sword and no instituted grounds to inherit, prepare invalidity as a district-court affirmative defense (the Google Patents citation trail lists US 5,424,524 and similar mid-1990s shopping-cart scanner art among the family's cited references — a reasonable starting point for a § 102/§ 103 mapping, to be confirmed against the actual claim language of claims 1–18, which the fetched text does not reproduce in full).

Constraint note: I did not fabricate any proceeding number, judge, panel, institution date, FWD, or appeal docket, because no AIA proceeding on US 5,821,513 exists in the canonical data or in anything my searches surfaced. Where the authoritative patent text was truncated (the body of claims 2–18), I have not assumed claim content.

I'll start by cross-referencing the assignment record and litigation history for US 5821513.

Let me try to pin down reel/frame records and any litigation history.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 5,821,513

Important data-integrity note up front: Google Patents' legal-events feed (the authoritative source supplied for this patent) lists the assignor → assignee → conveyance type → event date for every recorded reassignment, but it does not expose reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record. I was unable to retrieve the Assignment Center's per-record reel/frame or correspondent fields for this patent before exhausting my search budget. Per your constraints, I am not fabricating reel/frame numbers or attorney names. Where the template asks for them, I state the gap explicitly. Everything else below is grounded in the recorded legal events.

---

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Both inventors executed an assignment of the application to Telxon Corporation coincident with filing (recorded 1996-11-05). This is a standard "hired-to-invent" employer assignment, not an inventor-retention arrangement.
• The inventor residences split between Ohio (Telxon's Akron, OH headquarters) and Texas (a Telxon engineering/development location), consistent with a company-internal team rather than a brokered invention.
• No evidence of inventor departure within 12 months of filing appears in any source I could retrieve. I could not confirm employment end-dates; do not read this as a positive finding either way.

---

Original assignee

Telxon Corporation (Akron, Ohio) — named on the face of the issued patent (grant 1998-10-13).

• Primary line of business: designer/manufacturer of portable data-collection terminals, hand-held and vehicle-mount computers, bar-code scanners, and wireless LAN infrastructure for retail/industrial mobile computing. The patent's own specification describes Telxon's shopping-cart-mounted terminal and its Aironet-derived RF LAN circuitry, i.e. Telxon shipped product lines embodying the claimed subject matter.
• Status: Acquired — dissolved as an independent entity. Symbol Technologies, Inc. completed a stock-for-stock merger of Telxon on 2000-11-30 (~$465M equity value; Telxon shareholders approved 2000-11-28). Telxon had been under an SEC accounting investigation and had restated roughly 3.5 years of earnings; this was a distressed merger, not a Chapter 7/11 liquidation. Telxon's Aironet radio division was separately sold to Cisco (announced 1999-11-09). Telxon as a going concern no longer exists.
• Successor chain: Telxon → Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2000) → Motorola, Inc. (2007, $3.9B) → Motorola Solutions → Zebra Technologies acquired Motorola Solutions' enterprise business (announced 2014-04-15, closed 2014-10-27, $3.45B). Motorola Solutions' enterprise unit was renamed/continued as Symbol Technologies, LLC (Zebra subsidiary). This last step is the "change of name" event below.

---

Assignment timeline

Chronological, from the Google Patents legal-events record. Dates shown are the USPTO reassignment processing/recording dates as exposed by that feed; execution dates are not separately exposed. Reel/frame and correspondent fields are not available from the source retrieved (see data-gap note above).

1. Recorded 1996-11-05 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Assignment of application (inventors → employer)
• Assignor: Calvin E. Lewis; Timothy P. O'Hagan
• Assignee: TELXON CORPORATION
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Initial employer assignment of the application; original prosecution-chain ownership.

2. Recorded 1999-03-30 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Security Interest
• Assignor: TELXON CORPORATION
• Assignee: THE BANK OF NEW YORK (as agent)
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Securitization — collateral grant under a secured credit facility, recorded against the Telxon patent estate.

3. Recorded 1999-04-13 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (collateral/security)
• Assignor: TELXON CORPORATION (a Delaware corporation)
• Assignee: BANK ONE, NA
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Securitization — second lienholder/agent recording on the same estate.

4. Recorded 1999-09-09 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: THE BANK OF NEW YORK, as agent
• Assignee: TELXON CORPORATION
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Release — Bank of New York lien reconveyed/terminated.

5. Recorded 1999-09-09 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Security Interest
• Assignor: TELXON CORPORATION
• Assignee: FOOTHILL CAPITAL CORPORATION, as agent
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Securitization — replacement working-capital lender takes a security interest in the estate.

6. Recorded 1999-09-09 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
• Assignor: BANK ONE, NA
• Assignee: TELXON CORPORATION
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Release — Bank One lien discharged in the same refinancing cluster.

7. Recorded 2002-04-08 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
• Assignor: TELXON CORPORATION
• Assignee: SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Acquisition — recording of the Telxon→Symbol merger (effective 2000-11-30) against the patent file. This is the pivotal transfer; a ~16-month gap between deal close and recordation is the type of delayed perfection typical of a post-merger IP clean-up, not a monetization event.

8. Recorded 2005-01-05 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Security Interest
• Assignor: SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
• Assignee: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A.
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Securitization — operating company grants a security interest under its bank credit facility.

9. Recorded 2005-10-05 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Release of Security Agreement
• Assignor: WELLS FARGO FOOTHILL, INC. (formerly Foothill Capital Corporation)
• Assignee: TELXON CORPORATION
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Release — the 1999 Foothill/Telxon lien is formally discharged five-plus years later.

10. Recorded 2010-12-03 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A.
• Assignee: SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Release — JPMorgan lien discharged (consistent with Symbol's post-fraud-restatement refinancing).

11. Recorded 2014-10-31 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Security Agreement
• Assignor: LASER BAND, LLC; SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.; ZEBRA ENTERPRISE SOLUTIONS CORP.; ZIH CORP.
• Assignee: MORGAN STANLEY SENIOR FUNDING, INC., as Collateral Agent
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Securitization — four days after Zebra Technologies closed its purchase of Motorola Solutions' enterprise business (2014-10-27). Cross-assignor, cross-entity lien recorded to secure the acquisition financing; this is the financing language applied to the whole acquired IP estate, including this patent.

12. Recorded 2015-07-08 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
• Assignee: SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Change of name only — corporate conversion by the same owner; no change in beneficial ownership. No consideration paid, no third-party buyer.

13. Recorded 2015-08-17 — Reel/frame: not available (data gap)

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: MORGAN STANLEY SENIOR FUNDING, INC.
• Assignee: SYMBOL TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
• Correspondent: not available from retrieved source
• Context: Release — the 2014 acquisition-financing lien is discharged.

14. Recorded 2016-06-26 — Anticipated expiration (legal status: Expired – Lifetime)

• Not an assignment; the 20-year term from the 1996-06-26 priority date ran out. The patent is expired and cannot be asserted by anyone.

---

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5821513
    1996 : Filed by Telxon Corp
         : Inventors assign to Telxon
    1998 : Patent issued
    1999 : Bank of New York security interest
         : Bank One security interest
         : Lien releases recorded
         : Foothill security interest
    2000 : Symbol Technologies buys Telxon
    2002 : Merger assignment recorded to Symbol
    2005 : JPMorgan Chase security interest
         : Foothill lien released
    2010 : JPMorgan lien released
    2014 : Morgan Stanley lien after Zebra deal
    2015 : Symbol Inc becomes Symbol LLC
         : Morgan Stanley lien released
    2016 : Patent expires

---

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Threshold caveat: I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record for any link in this chain, so signals that depend on correspondent recurrence (signal 3) or on reel-level detail are marked unclear, not "not present." All other calls are made on the recorded assignee identities, conveyance types, and dates.

Aggregate: zero NPE signals present; two signals unmeasurable (correspondent recurrence; pre-litigation timing, for lack of any suit); the entire ownership history is a 20-year operating-company corporate succession (Telxon → Symbol → Motorola → Zebra) punctuated by routine secured-financing recordings and their releases.

---

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with an explicit qualification.

The ownership limb is squarely met and fully evidenced: every one of the 14 recorded events runs between operating entities of the Telxon→Symbol→Motorola→Zebra succession and their banks — inventors→Telxon (Rec. 1996-11-05), Telxon→Symbol (Rec. 2002-04-08), and the purely nominal Symbol Technologies, Inc.→Symbol Technologies, LLC change of name (Rec. 2015-07-08) — and the current assignee, Symbol Technologies, LLC, is a Zebra Technologies subsidiary that ships bar-code and mobile-computing hardware in the field of this patent. The "assertion" limb is not evidenced: I found no infringement action naming US 5,821,513, and the patent expired 2016-06-26, so it is unenforceable by anyone today. No shell entity, no known asserter, no fire-sale, and no privateering appear at any point.

If your taxonomy requires a suit before using the "assertion" label, the accurate fallback for this patent is not an NPE verdict at all — it is a plain operating-company patent that reached the end of its term inside the Zebra IP estate. What is not defensible, on this record, is any NPE/troll characterization.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — search property number 5821513 (index also at assignment.uspto.gov). Pull the reel/frame and correspondent fields for the 1996-11-05, 2002-04-08 and 2015-07-08 records specifically; those are the three records that would most strengthen (or, if a repeat asserter-side filer appears, complicate) the conclusion above. Cross-check litigation via CourtListener and Unified Patents' patent lookup for US5821513.

---

Explicit gaps / do-not-rely items:

• Reel/frame numbers: not retrieved — not stated.
• Correspondent-of-record (attorney/firm) for any link: not retrieved — not stated. Signal 3 is therefore unresolved, not cleared.
• Execution dates distinct from recording dates: not retrieved.
• Litigation history for this specific patent: none found, which is not proof of none.

I'll search for the patent's citation records, focusing on the "References Cited" / prior art section.

Let me pull the patent's own citation lists rather than counterpart search reports.

Let me try to retrieve the patent's front-page "References Cited" listing directly.

Prior art analysis — US 5,821,513

Sourcing note (read this first)

I was not able to retrieve the front-page "References Cited" (Item 56) block of US 5,821,513 itself. My searches returned the patent's abstract, summary, detailed description, and the beginning of claim 1, but not the printed prior-art list. I will not reconstruct that list from memory.

What I did retrieve, and what this analysis is built on, is an equally probative substitute: the EPO search reports for the same invention family, where a professional examiner applied the art against the identical disclosure:

• EP 1 278 146 A3 (divisional of EP 1 012 761; app. 02022517.3, filed 05.11.1997, priority US 744109 = the application that issued as US 5,821,513), and
• EP 1 023 689 A4 (the companion EP case, "Shopping cart mounted portable data collection device with tethered dataform reader"), whose "Citation (search report)" block is reproduced verbatim below.

Both are X/A-category citations against the same specification, so they are the defensible proxy for "the most relevant prior art for US 5,821,513." The EP claim numbering differs from the US 18-claim set, so the claim mapping below is the weak point of this answer and is flagged accordingly.

---

Verified citation table (EPO search report, EP 1 023 689 / EP 1 278 146)

Category key (EPO): X = particularly relevant taken alone (i.e., a § 102 anticipation candidate); A = background/state of the art.

The EP 1 023 689 search report closes with "See references of WO 97/50055 A1" — i.e., the EPO folded in the earlier search on the sibling Telxon PCT filing, so the true cited-art universe is somewhat larger than the twelve items above.

Corroborating (not independently cited) references that appear in later patents citing US 5,821,513 — I list these as screening leads only, not as verified citations against US 5,821,513: US 5,287,266 (Malec — intelligent cart with position determining), US 4,973,952 (Malec — shopping cart display system), US 5,158,310 (Tannehill), US 5,301,443 (Gori), US 4,988,025 (Lipton), and the late-1990s Mercatus/cuesol-type retail systems. Treat these as unconfirmed for this patent.

---

Reference actually cited inside the US specification

The only citation I can verify from the US 5,821,513 text itself is an incorporated-by-reference patent application:

U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/609,344, filed Mar. 1, 1996, entitled "PORTABLE DATA COLLECTION DEVICE WITH LED TARGETING AND ILLUMINATION ASSEMBLY" — incorporated "in the entirety by reference" for the two-dimensional imaging assembly, the illumination/targeting LED array, and the crosshair-pattern alternation.

Filing date 1996‑03‑01 precedes the 1996‑06‑26 priority date, so it is § 102(a)-relevant, but it is the applicant's own work (a § 102(a) "by others" problem would not arise if inventorship overlaps) and it is cited as support, not as art. Do not chart it as anticipation.

---

§ 102 chart against the claims

Critical dates. US 5,821,513 is a CIP of Ser. No. 08/668,343 (filed 1996‑06‑26; app. filed 1996‑11‑05). Because this is a pre-AIA application, each claim gets its own § 102(b) critical date:

• Parent-supported claims → 1995‑06‑26
• New-matter claims → 1995‑11‑05

Claim-mapping caveat (carried forward from the prior section, and now material). I still only have claim 1 in partial text (three means-plus-function elements) and a confirmed 18-claim total. I cannot state which of claims 2–18 recite the tethered/recoil-spool reader, the two-mode (presentation vs. handheld) actuation, the magnetic switch, the magnetic-stripe reader, the printer, or the IR zone locator. The mapping below is therefore reliable only for claim 1 and for the EP claims 1–3 that the examiner actually charted.

Anticipation candidates (X-category → § 102)

Background art (A-category → § 103 fodder, not standalone anticipation)

US 4,882,724 (Vela), US 5,340,971 (Rockstein), US 5,448,046 (Swartz), US 5,493,107 (Gupta) — general retail data collection, hand-held scanning, and shopper communication systems. Each is § 102(b) or § 102(a)/(e) as dated, and together they supply the "scan an item's dataform → retrieve description/price from a remote database → display" teaching that the specification itself concedes at column 1 (the Brief Description of the Drawings / background discussion of the proposed portable-terminal alternative).

---

Bottom line and honest uncertainty flags

1. Most relevant single reference: US 5,295,064 (Malec, 1994‑03‑15) for US claim 1, because it supplies the position-determining shopping-cart element that the EPO treated as the point of novelty. On the EP record, WO 93/04449 (Digicomp) is the examiner's strongest "taken alone" reference.
2. I could not verify the US front-page citation list. My citation set is the EPO search report on the same family, which is a proxy, not the US Item 56. Verify against the US 5,821,513 front page / PatentCenter before relying on the enumerated set. The EPO labels ("A" for Malec, etc.) are the examiner's, not the US examiner's.
3. Claim mapping is incomplete — claim 1 text is truncated at "…for generating response data in response to at least one of query data and position data; an," and I have no text for claims 2–18. I cannot tell you which references touch the tethered-reader, dual-mode, magnetic-switch, printer, or IR-locator claims. Get the issued claim set first.
4. No contradiction with the previously generated sections; this analysis is consistent with the flagged gap about claim coverage, and it reinforces that the position-data limitation is the claim-1 crux worth testing against Malec.
5. False-key warning restated: several hits for the bare string "5821513" are other people's citation lists (e.g., a reference inside US 8,244,580) or an InventorID — not the cited art of this patent. I excluded those. Likewise, reference lists appearing on pages for US 7,873,543 / US 8,155,518 / US 8,571,941 are those citing patents' lists, not US 5,821,513's.

I'll first try to retrieve the actual prior-art citation list from the Google Patents page for this patent, then build the § 103 analysis on what I can ground.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,821,513 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

0. What I treated as "the Prior Art section" — and a scope caveat

The full-text record supplied for US 5,821,513 exposes only a "Prior art keywords" field (data, product, terminal, product data, customer) and a "Prior art date" (1996‑06‑26). The fetched text does not contain Google Patents' formatted citation table ("References Cited"/"Cited By"). So I grounded this analysis on:

1. The admitted prior art in the patent's own Background (which is prior art by admission);
2. The applicant's incorporated-by-reference earlier application, U.S. Ser. No. 08/609,344;
3. Third-party prior art I could source with URLs from the record's family/citation trail and the references' own documents (Malec, Bianco, Gomersall, and the cart-display family).

If your "Prior Art section" contains a different enumerated reference list, tell me the numbers and I will re-run this chart against them. Per the strict rule, I have not corrected or paraphrased any patent number.

Governing framework. Pre‑AIA § 103. The application (Ser. No. 08/744,109) was filed 1996‑11‑05 and is a CIP of Ser. No. 08/668,343 (filed 1996‑06‑26). Subject matter carried over from the parent gets the 1996‑06‑26 date; new matter gets 1996‑11‑05. The § 102(b) one‑year bar for the parent's subject matter is therefore 1995‑06‑26. The controlling obviousness standard is Graham v. John Deere + KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (pre‑AIA KSR applies to pre‑AIA claims).

1. Person of ordinary skill (POSITA)

A POSITA as of mid‑1996 would hold a B.S. in EE/CS (or equivalent) plus ~1–3 years in retail point‑of‑sale / portable data‑collection systems, and would be familiar with (a) bar‑code/dataform scanning and decoding, (b) RF/IR wireless data links, (c) in‑store cart‑mounted display systems, (d) client‑server/networked POS databases. The '513 itself treats the wireless LAN, the Aironet RF modules, IEEE 802.11, and HTML/Java browsing as off‑the‑shelf choices — which caps the level of innovation attributable to those elements.

2. The claims — and the limit of my chart

Only claim 1 is partially reproduced in my source (it cuts off at "…generating response data in response to at least one of query data and position data; an"). The record confirms 18 claims. I therefore give a full chart for the text I have and treat the rest as inferred from the specification and the sibling US 5,821,512 / EP family (EP 1 278 146 A2 recites "display unit" and "method of consumer product data information display" claim sets). Do not rely on my mapped claim numbers; verify against the issued patent.

Claim 1 (as reproduced), element-by-element

Conclusion on claim 1: claim 1 is a broad, functional, two‑source system claim (respond to either query or position). It is vulnerable to a two‑reference § 103 combination, not even requiring the cart‑mounted tethered reader that gives the specification its name.

3. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claim 1: Malec ('952 / '266 / '064) in view of the admitted portable‑data‑terminal prior art

• Malec '952/'266/'064 supply: cart‑mounted terminal; wireless link (RF and IR embodiments); fixed transmitters that act "as signposts to inform the SCD of its location"; storage of messages/product data; and store‑side computers that receive cart position/trigger logs. ('952 explicitly recites triggering "based upon the location of said movable means within said remote retail establishment.")
• The Background's "proposed alternative system" supplies: a host database that answers a decoded product identifier with description and price — i.e., a base unit generating response data in response to query data.

Motivation (KSR‑grounded):

• Same field, same problem (assist the shopper and reduce checkout burden). KSR allows combination of references addressing the same need.
• Market force, expressly documented by the patent itself: long checkout lines, floor space, labor cost, and the need to label every shelf/item. See '513 Background ("A number of problems are associated with such a cash register/data terminal system…").
• Predictable result: adding two‑way product‑query capability to Malec's already‑two‑way (trigger receiver + response transmitter) cart terminal is the combination of known elements with known functions.
• Design incentive to centralize: the '513 lists as an advantage "ease in data upgrades and maintenance by storing most relevant data at a single, centrally‑disposed database" — which is precisely Malec's ISC architecture plus a server‑side query engine.

Ground 2 — Claim 1 (alternative): Malec '952 in view of Bianco, US 5,047,614

Bianco (Method and apparatus for computer‑aided shopping, 1991) discloses a hand‑held bar‑code reader, docking in a kiosk, which produces a printed shopping list with directions from data downloaded to a host. Combined with Malec's cart‑docked display + location transmitters, this supplies a hand‑held reader docked to a base, a host database answering scans, and output keyed to store geography. Motivation: Bianco's printed "directions" and Malec's location triggers both serve shopper navigation; combining them on the cart (with the cart's known power supply and its reviewable display) is a predictable improvement.

Ground 3 — Device/structural claims (inferred dependent claims, and the sibling '512 claim set)

The distinguishing features visible in the specification are: (i) clamp 80/82/84/86 to the cart handle; (ii) tethered, retractable reader on a spring‑biased recoil spool; (iii) two‑mode operation (continuously actuated when docked via magnet 158/magnet 160; trigger‑actuated when removed); (iv) touch screen; (v) magstripe reader; (vi) thermal printer; (vii) battery on the cart's bottom rack; (viii) HTML/TCP‑IP browser.

Motivation for tethering specifically: the '513's own Background identifies the admitted prior art's defects — the shopper "must carry" the device, it can be "damaged through mishandling or dropping," and it "is susceptible to being stolen or inadvertently removed from the premises." Tethering a hand‑held reader to the cart via a retractable cord is the known technique (cord reels at checkout lanes) applied to a known device to cure both the drop and theft problems — a textbook KSR "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way."

4. Where a validity defense may still have room

I want to be candid about the weaknesses in the grounds above:

1. Dock‑actuated auto‑actuation (magnet 158/"158/160 switch") — I have no verified reference teaching a reed/magnetic switch that turns the imager on when the reader is seated in its cradle. This is the kind of narrow structural limitation that could survive if claimed (though it is also a routine "detect a specified condition and enable" design choice under KSR).
2. Alternation of uniform illumination with an intense crosshair pattern to avoid corrupting the decode — this is a technical insight, but it appears to be the applicant's own earlier work (Ser. No. 08/609,344), so it likely cannot serve as a distinguishing feature within this family.
3. Claim 1's base‑side, real‑time, position‑responsive processing. Malec's store computer only learns cart positions at checkout polling (log upload); in Malec the location decision is made cart‑side. A petitioner must bridge this real‑time/base‑side gap. That gap is small (the cart terminal already has a two‑way transceiver) but it is a gap, and claim 1's "means for receiving position data" would be construed under § 112(f) to the disclosed IR‑receiver/access‑point structure.
4. Secondary considerations. The patent's Background documents a long‑felt need (lines, floor space, labor, labeling), which cuts for patentability — although the same passage supplies the KSR market‑force motivation. I found no grounded evidence of commercial success, industry praise, licensing, copying, or nexus; I do not supply any.

5. Bottom line

• Claim 1 as reproduced is, in my view, likely obvious over Malec US 4,973,952 / US 5,287,266 / US 5,295,064 in view of the admitted hand‑held portable data‑terminal system, with Bianco US 5,047,614 as a reinforcing secondary reference. The claim's "and/or" drafting means the prior art need only answer query or position, and Malec already supplies a cart‑mounted terminal, a wireless link, position determination, and a store‑side database.
• The tethered/two‑mode reader claims are also strongly prima‑facie obvious on Malec + Bianco + conventional reel‑cord/switch design, but the specific dock‑detection mechanism is the one limitation for which I lack a verified reference — that is where a real § 103 contest would be fought.
• I cannot certify a full 18‑claim chart. The claim text I have is truncated; obtain the issued patent's full claim set (or the WO 98/20440 / EP 1 278 146 A2 counterpart claims, which recite the "display unit" and "method" variants) before relying on any per‑claim conclusion.

6. Verification steps I could not complete

1. Pull the complete 18‑claim text from USPTO PatentCenter or the patentimages PDF for US 5,821,513.
2. Confirm the filing/priority date of US 6,032,127 ("Intelligent shopping cart…") — its description ("communication links between a store computer and the cart can be used to communicate (object locations, store maps, objects on sale, etc.)") would, if it predates the critical date, directly supply a base‑side, position‑responsive teaching and close the gap in Ground 1. I did not verify its date, so I have not relied on it.
3. Verify whether U.S. Ser. No. 08/609,344 matured into a patent, and its inventorship/ownership relative to '513 (relevant to § 102(e)/§ 103 treatment of commonly‑owned work).
4. Check the WO 98/20440 / EP 1 027 689 / EP 1 278 146 A2 proceedings for the examiner's own cited art — the European search reports on this family often identify cart‑scanning art (e.g., Bianco, Malec) that would strengthen or weaken these grounds.