US 5859414

I'll search for the patent and any related litigation/docket information.

Let me check for any CAFC 2026 docket activity and litigation involving this patent.

Let me do a couple more targeted searches to confirm the litigation/docket picture.

US Patent 5,859,414 — Summary

Caveat on sources: The patent bibliographic and text data below come from the authoritative full text you supplied (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5859414](/patent/US5859414)/en) plus the USPTO/Google PDF (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/51/12/de/e73a53f5b3bd82/US5859414.pdf) and uspto.report (https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5859414). I did not find any CAFC 2026 docket activity naming this patent. Multiple searches for "5859414"/"5,859,414" against Federal Circuit 2026 materials returned unrelated 2026 appeals (e.g., Consumeron v. Maplebear, No. 24-1703, Jan. 12, 2026; mCom IP v. City National, No. 24-2089, May 15, 2026; Wildseed Mobile v. Google, No. 24-1846, Apr. 30, 2026) — none involving this patent. Treat the docket question as no evidence found, not as a confirmed absence.

Bibliographic data

Two bibliographic details worth flagging:

• The patent carries a [ * ] notice that it issued on a continued prosecution application filed under 37 CFR 1.53(d), and is subject to the 20‑year term provisions of 35 U.S.C. 154(a)(2) — consistent with the 2015 expiration.
• The assignment chain recorded on the face of the record runs Aironet → Telxon Corporation (1998) → Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2002), with several security-interest/release entries by The Bank of New York, Foothill Capital, and JPMorgan Chase.

Abstract

A customer information terminal for a retail grocery store: a housing with an interior region; electronic circuitry including a microprocessor; a display screen; a dataform reader module for reading a dataform encoding data relating to one of (a) an item offered for sale, (b) a coupon, (c) a customer identification number, or (d) a recipe using one or more store items. A radio module (transmitter + receiver) transmits at least a portion of decoded data to a remote device and receives back "additional data" related to the decoded data, at least part of which is displayed. A user interface module allows a command that uses the radio to obtain "supplemental data" relating to the decoded data and/or the additional data, again displayed at least in part. A method of use is also disclosed.

Independent claims — plain language

Claim 1 (product/SKU-oriented terminal)
A customer terminal in a store with: (a) a housing; (b) a microprocessor inside it; (c) a display; (d) a dataform reader that reads a dataform relating to the product, passed through the reader's reading zone; (e) decoding circuitry that turns the read dataform into decoded data; (f) a radio module (transmit + receive) that performs a first wireless communication with a remote device — sending at least part of the decoded data and receiving back "additional data" related to it, with at least some displayed; and (g) a user interface letting a customer enter a command that triggers a second, subsequent wireless communication to obtain "supplemental data" related to the decoded data and/or the additional data, with at least some displayed.
In short: scan a product barcode → wirelessly fetch product info → let the shopper press a key to wirelessly fetch a further, related layer of information.

Claim 6 (coupon-oriented terminal)
Same architecture, but the dataform are read is a coupon for a product; the "additional data" relates to the coupon; and the displayed material includes both additional data and part of the decoded data. The user command triggers a second communication to obtain supplemental data relating to the product.

Claim 11 (customer-ID-oriented terminal)
Same architecture, but the dataform is on a customer identification card. The radio receives "additional data related to the customer and purchases of the customer at the retail grocery store," and the user command triggers a second communication to obtain supplemental data relating to the customer.

Dependent claims (as provided): claims 2/7/12 specify the data categories — product name, price, nutritional information, ingredients, aisle/shelf location (claim 2); coupon item name, pre-/post-discount price, ingredients, location (claim 7); items purchased over a period, price, location, and purchase date (claim 12). Claims 3/8/13 recite a plurality of user interface keys; 4/9/14 recite a two-dimensional photosensor array; 5/10/15 recite a printer module.

Uncertainty / flags

• Claims 16–22 are not reproduced in the fetched text (the header says 22 claims but the displayed claim text stops at claim 15). The abstract's "method for using the CI terminal" language implies at least one independent method claim among those, but I have no authoritative text for claims 16–22 and will not paraphrase them.
• Number collision warning (do not auto-correct or conflate): Search results surfaced an unrelated Japanese Patent No. 5859414, a Horiba turbidity/colorimeter sensor patent cited in product brochures (https://static.horiba.com/fileadmin/Horiba/Products/Water/Download/noindex/HAJ-T0259C.pdf). That is a different patent, different jurisdiction, and different subject matter from US 5,859,414.
• The patent has been cited as prior art in later proceedings (e.g., a PCT search report listing "US 5 859 414 A (SHAH MAINESH P ET AL) 12 January 1999"), which is consistent with but does not establish litigation activity.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 5859414 using the sources you specified.

Let me search more specifically for litigation involving this patent number.

Let me search additional litigation databases and NPE-related sources.

Summary of Findings — U.S. Patent No. 5,859,414

Bottom line: I found no litigation asserting U.S. Patent 5,859,414. My searches of litigation-focused sources did not surface a single case in which the '414 patent ("Interactive customer information terminal") was pleaded, asserted, or counterclaimed upon. I want to be explicit that this is a negative finding subject to the caveats below, not a certification that no case exists.

What the searches did and did not show

I searched for the exact identifiers ("5859414" and "5,859,414") together with litigation terms (defendant, case number, complaint, docket, infringement, CAFC, Unified Patents caselist, PACER). Results fell into two buckets:

1. Direct hits on the patent — the only substantive result was the Google Patents page for US5859414A itself. That page's bibliographic/legal-events data (assignment history, expiration) contains no litigation field or "Litigation" entry, which is consistent with a patent that was never enforced in district court.

2. Noise (same assignee/prosecution family, wrong patents) — every other hit involved different patents, and I am not treating any of them as litigation of the '414:

   • Symbol Technologies v. Lemelson Medical, Education & Research Foundation (D. Nev., Nos. CV-S-01-701/702/703-PMP; Fed. Cir. 00-1583) — asserted Lemelson patents like 4,338,626; 4,969,038; 5,067,012; 5,119,190, etc. Not the '414.
   • Symbol Technologies v. Spectra-Physics (N.D. Cal., C-84-20051) and Symbol v. Opticon (S.D.N.Y., 86-8736) — asserted U.S. 4,387,297 and 4,593,186. Not the '414.
   • Symbol Technologies v. Janam Technologies (D. Del., 08-340) and Symbol v. Aruba Networks (D. Del., 07-519). Not the '414.
   • Certain Laser Bar Code Scanners, ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-551 — not the '414.
   • Apple/Taction haptics verdict (patents 10,659,885 and 10,820,117), and the Samsung " '414" reference — the latter is a different patent (a Samsung/Apple mobile-device patent), and this is exactly the "similar number" confusion you warned against, so I am excluding it.

So: plaintiff(s), defendant(s), jurisdiction, case number, filing date, outcome — none identified, because no litigation on this patent number was found.

Relevant, verifiable facts about the patent (per the Google Patents record)

These help explain why enforcement litigation is unlikely or, if it exists, would be limited:

• Patent: US 5,859,414 — "Interactive customer information terminal"
• Inventors: Douglas Michael Grimes; Nainesh P. Shah
• Application: US 08/580,666; filed: 1995-12-29; granted/publication: 1999-01-12
• Original assignee: Aironet Wireless Communications, Inc.
• Assignment chain: Aironet → Telxon Corporation (1998) → Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2002); security interests recorded to The Bank of New York/JPMorgan Chase.
• Current assignee of record (per page): Symbol Technologies LLC
• Legal status: "Expired – Fee Related"; anticipated expiration 2015-12-29 (20 years from the 1995 filing). The patent term lapsed roughly a decade ago, so any infringement window is closed.

Confidence and caveats (read this before relying on the negative finding)

• I could not reach the specific databases you named. My tool calls to the Unified Patents litigation caselist, PACER, and CAFC returned no usable direct query results within the search budget; the searches terminated before completing. So this "no litigation" conclusion is based on general web search, not a confirmed query of the Unified caselist or PACER docket search.
• Patent litigation is often not indexed on Google Patents or in general web search, especially older cases, small/unreported suits, and cases resolved by early dismissal or settlement. A genuine case could exist that neither source surfaced.
• Because the patent expired in 2015, any suit would necessarily predate that date, and given the assignee's expiration-driven posture, third-party (NPE) enforcement after 2015 would be impossible on term grounds.

Recommended next steps to verify definitively

1. Unified Patents litigation caselist — query by patent number: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation (search "5859414"). The caselist tool typically has a patent-number filter.
2. USPTO Patent Center / Assignment Search for application 08/580,666 and patent 5,859,414 — the "Litigation" tab (if populated) and assignment records.
3. PACER — run a "Patent" nature-of-suit search using the patent number as a full-text term across all district courts; and
4. CourtListener/RECAP and Docket Alarm — full-text search for "5,859,414" or "5859414" to catch pleadings and exhibit labels.
5. FreeLaw/LexMachina "Patent Litigation Dataset" — searchable by patent number and commonly used for exactly this question.

If you'd like, I can draft the exact query strings for the Unified caselist and PACER so you can run them directly. But as of the searches I was able to complete, no known litigation involving U.S. Patent 5,859,414 was found.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" finding against public sources before writing up.

Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 5,859,414: zero. The canonical structured block (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, no PGR, and no CBM proceeding naming this patent — so there is nothing invalidated, nothing sustained, nothing settled, and nothing instituted or denied. My independent web searches (PTAB/PATS, Board decisions, litigation databases, and generic proceeding queries) surfaced no AIA trial, and no Federal Circuit appeal of any PTAB decision on this patent.

Bottom-line defensive posture: this is not a "hardened by IPR" patent and it is not a "claims canceled by IPR" patent — it is an untested-at-the-Board patent. That absence is largely explained by timing and economics: US 5,859,414 issued 1999-01-12, reached anticipated expiration on 2015-12-29, and the AIA trial regime only opened on 2012-09-16, leaving roughly a three-year window during which the patent was both live and IPR-eligible. Nobody used it. For a defendant today, the operative facts are not about estoppel — they are about expiration and the § 286 damages lookback, which is a far stronger position than any IPR could have produced (see Strategic summary).

Proceedings (none on file)

There are no proceeding entries to itemize. Per the task's instruction to default to "no PTAB activity on file" and report the absence plainly, I am not inventing proceeding numbers, panels, institution decisions, or FWDs. Concretely:

• IPR (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319): none filed.
• PGR (35 U.S.C. §§ 321–329): not available — PGR applies only to patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. This patent's priority date is 1995-12-29.
• CBM (AIA § 18): none filed, and the program expired 2020-09-16 (https://www.hglaw.com/wp-content/themes/paperstreet/pdf/generate.php?name=rip-cbm-review&type=post). Note for completeness: even during the program's life, CBM eligibility was doubtful here — after Unwired Planet v. Google and Secure Access v. PNC Bank, a CBM patent must have at least one claim expressly reciting a financial activity element; the claims here recite a retail information terminal, not a financial product or service.
• Reexamination / reissue: no ex parte or inter partes reexamination of this patent surfaced in my searches. Flagging this as "none found," not a verified negative — pre-AIA reexaminations are poorly indexed in free sources, and I could not query a reexamination-specific registry.
• Federal Circuit: no appeal found, which follows necessarily from there being no Board decision to appeal. The prior "Patent summary" section already found no CAFC 2026 docket activity on this patent; nothing in this round changes that.

Explicit caveat (do not over-read the negative): I am reporting the ODP default plus the absence of public hits. I did not obtain a raw PTAB E2E/PATS docket print for this patent number, so treat this as "no evidence of AIA trial activity," which is a strong but not court-certified negative. If you need a certified negative for a litigation filing, pull the PTAB E2E record directly (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and the PTAB API (https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api) for application number 08/580,666.

False positives I encountered (number-string collisions — do not conflate)

These are the reason a naive search "finds" proceedings that do not exist for this patent:

One legitimate, non-PTAB hit: US 5,859,414 appears listed as prior art in a PCT search report. Being cited as prior art is not a proceeding against it.

Strategic summary

Claim status: ALL CLAIMS UNTESTED at the PTAB. There is no claim-level disposition to report. Claims 1–15 (the independent claims 1, 6, 11 plus dependents) were never challenged in an AIA trial, and claims 16–22 — not reproduced in the authoritative text and absent even from my prior summary — likewise have no Board history. Neither "canceled" nor "sustained" applies to any claim. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise; a canceled-claims story would require an FWD that does not exist.

Estoppel landscape: no § 325(e)/§ 315(e) estoppel exists, because no petitioner ever triggered it. That cuts both ways. There is no estoppel against a would-be petitioner, but there is also no petitioner-side work product to free-ride on — you would be building an invalidity case from scratch. The practical point is that invalidity grounds remain entirely open (IPR-eligible §§ 102/103 art; and in district court, §§ 101/102/103/112 plus the full equitable toolbox), subject only to the general § 282 burden and whatever prosecution-history estoppel arises from the 1999 issuance.

The real story is expiration, not invalidity. The patent expired 2015-12-29. Two consequences dominate any 2026 assertion:

1. § 286 damages bar. Recovery is limited to infringement occurring within six years before the complaint is filed. A complaint filed on or after 2021-12-29 reaches back only to 2015-12-29 at the earliest — i.e., to the final day of the patent term. Any complaint today (2026-10-01) captures essentially nothing, and a complaint filed at any point that matters captures nothing at all. A suit on this patent is a damages non-starter regardless of validity.
2. No injunctive relief. There is no live patent to enjoin; infringement can only be past-tense, which moots eBay-type discussions and largely moots the IPR calculus that usually drives defendants to the Board.

Pattern signals: none to report. No repeat petitioner, no serial challenger (no Unified Patents or RPX involvement found), no patent-owner appellate aggression. The assignment chain (Aironet → Telxon → Symbol Technologies) and the 1998–2002 inter-company license/R&D web reflected in Aironet's SEC filings (http://pdf.secdatabase.com/1611/0000950152-99-007500.pdf) suggest the patent's history was one of corporate portfolio transfer rather than assertion. Telxon's and Symbol's enforcement activity in this era — e.g., Symbol v. Proxim on the Tymes WLAN patents (http://www.gtwassociates.com/answers/SymbolvProxim.pdf) and the Symbol/Cognex v. Lemelson declaratory-judgment war (https://people.csail.mit.edu/bkph/other/Lemelson_Decision.pdf) — involved different patents; I found no case in which 5,859,414 was the patent-in-suit.

Recommended next steps

1. If you received a demand letter citing US 5,859,414: the strongest response is not an IPR — it is § 286 plus expiration. Confirm the letter's theory dates and note that the six-year lookback from any 2026 filing date cannot reach the 2015-12-29 expiry. An IPR petition on an expired patent is possible (the Board will institute on expired patents) but is generally an expensive way to prove a point you can prove with a calendar.
2. If a live case nevertheless exists, verify the operative record before relying on this memo: pull (a) the PTAB E2E/PATS record for application 08/580,666, (b) USPTO assignment/maintenance-fee records to confirm the 2015 lapse, and (c) the district-court docket for the actual asserted claims. Because claims 16–22 are not in the authoritative text I was given, get the issued patent's claim set from the USPTO before charting anything — a method claim among 16–22 could look different, though it does not change the expiration math.
3. Do not cite this as an "IPR-cleared" patent. The correct citation is: no AIA trial proceedings on file; patent expired 2015-12-29; all claims untested at the Board.
4. If you need to close the loop on the negative, re-run the ODP/PTAB API query and archive the result; absent a certified record, phrase any filing as "no AIA trial proceeding involving the '414 patent is reflected in PTAB records."

I'll research the assignment record for this patent, focusing on reel/frame data and correspondents of record.

Assignment Record Analysis — US 5,859,414

Source note / limitation (read first): The events below come from the Google Patents legal‑events feed for https://patents.google.com/patent/US5859414/en, which mirrors the USPTO assignment record. I was unable to retrieve reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record fields in this session — the Assignment Center and assignment.uspto.gov interfaces did not return indexed content to my searches, and I will not invent reel/frame identifiers or attorney names. Every reel/frame placeholder below is explicitly marked [not retrieved], and the correspondent field is marked [not retrieved]. Treat the reel/frame and correspondent analysis as incomplete, not as "none recorded." Verification link: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#!/searchResults?q=[5859414](/patent/5859414)

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• Both inventors are named on the original inventor→assignee assignment recorded 1996‑04‑05 (assignors "GRIMES, DOUGALS MICHAEL" and "SHAH, NAINESH P."). Do not auto-correct the recorded misspelling "DOUGALS" in the assignment record — it appears as recorded and is a useful matching token if you search the reel.
• No evidence of inventors departing within 12 months of the 1995‑12‑29 filing. This is a funded-corporate-development profile, not an abandoned-inventor fire-sale profile: rights were papered to the company within ~3 months of filing.
• Mild flag only: Grimes's recorded residence (Massachusetts) is far from the assignee's Ohio HQ. That is common for remote engineering staff and is not by itself a transfer or NPE indicator; noting it because the task asks for location anomalies.

Original assignee

Aironet Wireless Communications, Inc. — named as assignee on the issued patent and as original assignee in the Google Patents record.

• Primary line of business: 2.4 GHz wireless LAN radio hardware. The patent itself names Aironet's own parts as the commercial embodiment of the radio module ("Model Nos. 095 or the 025 produced by Aironet Wireless Communications, Inc. of Akron, Ohio"). Corporate lineage per public sources: founded as Telesystems SLW (Canada, 1986), acquired by Telxon in 1992, spun off as Aironet Wireless Communications in 1994, then acquired by Cisco Systems in 1999 (now Cisco's Aironet wireless division — https://treasures.scss.tcd.ie/hardware/TCD-SCSS-T.20181005.002/TCD-SCSS-T.20181005.002.pdf).
• Product embodying the claims: the radio module clearly shipped as a commercial product. Whether Aironet ever commercialized the full "interactive customer information terminal" (the kiosk of FIGS. 1/2) is unclear — Aironet's business was radios, not retail kiosks. This matters: the patent's retail-terminal subject matter is a better fit for Telxon's line of business, which is consistent with the 1998 Aironet→Telxon transfer (below).
• Current status: Aironet no longer exists as an independent entity — acquired by Cisco in 1999. The patent, however, was moved out of Aironet before the Cisco acquisition (see 1998‑09‑25 below), so the Cisco/Aironet successor is not in the title chain.

Assignment timeline

Recorded events as surfaced (dates are recordation dates from the legal‑events feed; execution dates were not exposed). Reel/frame and correspondent are [not retrieved] for every entry.

• 1996‑04‑05 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment (original inventor assignment; "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Grimes, Dougals Michael; Shah, Nainesh P.
  • Assignee: Aironet Wireless Communications, Inc.
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Ordinary inventor-to-employer assignment of the 1995 application; confirms company ownership ~3 months post-filing.

• 1998‑09‑25 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Aironet Wireless Communications, Inc.
  • Assignee: Telxon Corporation
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Related-party / intra-family portfolio reallocation — Telxon was Aironet's former parent and 1994 spin-off sponsor, and retail data terminals were Telxon's core business. This carves the retail-terminal patent out of Aironet before Cisco's 1999 purchase of Aironet.
  • ⚠️ Timing flag: recorded ~3 months after Symbol Technologies launched its hostile bid for Telxon (June 1998) — consistent with Telxon/Aironet consolidating IP assets during a takeover defense. This is a target-hardening / possession transfer, not a fire-sale.

• 1999‑03‑30 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Telxon Corporation
  • Assignee: The Bank of New York
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Securitization / secured lending — blanket security interest over Telxon IP in a credit facility. A distress signal, but not a transfer of title.

• 1999‑09‑09 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Telxon Corporation
  • Assignee: Foothill Capital Corporation, as agent
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Securitization / secured lending — second IP collateral grant, six months after the Bank of New York grant. Two secured lenders over the same IP within a year is a meaningful Telxon leverage/distress marker.

• 1999‑09‑09 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
  • Assignor: Bank One, NA
  • Assignee: Telxon Corporation
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Release of a Bank One security interest.
  • ⚠️ Inconsistency flag: Bank One, NA does not otherwise appear in this chain. Its security interest (granted at some unshown date) and this release were not surfaced as a separate granting event. Do not treat the Bank One lien as "recorded on this patent" without pulling the reel — the event feed may be reflecting a portfolio-level filing.

• 1999‑09‑09 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignor: The Bank of New York, as agent
  • Assignee: Telxon Corporation
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Release of the 1999‑03‑30 Bank of New York security interest — refinancing, same day as the Bank One release.

• 2002‑04‑08 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Telxon Corporation
  • Assignee: Symbol Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Acquisition / merger integration — Symbol's acquisition of Telxon closed December 2000 (stock-for-stock, ~$400–465M, following a two-year proxy fight; https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-jul-27-fi-59989-story.html). The April 2002 recording is the post-close cleanup of the IP title. This is not a bankruptcy sale — Telxon was acquired as a going concern, not sold under Chapter 7/11.

• 2005‑01‑05 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Symbol Technologies, Inc.
  • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Securitization / secured lending — Symbol granted JPMorgan a security interest over IP as collateral under a corporate credit facility. Contextually adjacent to Symbol's 2002‑2004 accounting-fraud restatement (the company restated 1998‑2001 earnings and faced SEC/DER actions).

• 2005‑10‑05 — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Wells Fargo Foothill, Inc. (formerly Foothill Capital Corporation)
  • Assignee: Telxon Corporation
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
  • Context: Cleanup of the 1999 Foothill Capital lien by its successor-in-name. Note the release runs to Telxon Corporation, which had already been absorbed by Symbol — a common recording artifact when releases track the original lien record rather than the current title holder.

• 2015‑12‑29 — (not an assignment)

  • Anticipated expiration / Expired – Fee Related. The patent's 20-year term ran from the 1995‑12‑29 priority date (continued-prosecution application under 37 CFR 1.53(d)).

Note on what is not in the chain: there is no assignment to any LLC, IP holding company, licensing entity, or litigation vehicle in the recorded events. The record ends at Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2002) plus security interests. Google Patents separately lists the current assignee as Symbol Technologies LLC, which reflects successor-by-merger/name-change bookkeeping from the downstream corporate chain (public reporting: Nokia acquired Symbol in 2007; the enterprise mobility business passed to Motorola Solutions in 2011 and was acquired by Zebra Technologies in 2014) rather than a separately recorded NPE transfer on this patent. I could not verify the specific reel for any Symbol→Nokia→Motorola→Zebra name-change or merger entry in this session — treat the "Symbol Technologies LLC" designation as the current record owner label, not as a documented NPE transfer.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5859414
    1995 : Application filed by Aironet
    1996 : Inventors assign to Aironet
    1998 : Assigned to Telxon Corporation
         : Symbol makes hostile bid for Telxon
    1999 : Security interest to Bank of New York
         : Security interest to Foothill Capital
         : Releases of prior liens recorded
    2000 : Symbol completes Telxon acquisition
    2002 : Assigned to Symbol Technologies Inc
    2005 : Security interest to JPMorgan Chase
         : Foothill lien released
    2007 : Symbol acquired by Nokia
    2011 : Enterprise unit to Motorola Solutions
    2014 : Enterprise unit to Zebra Technologies
    2015 : Patent expires unpaid

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. Every title-holding assignee is an operating company: Aironet Wireless Communications, Inc. (radio manufacturer), Telxon Corporation (portable data terminals, Nasdaq-listed), Symbol Technologies, Inc. (NYSE-listed scanner/RFID maker). No "IP / Holdings / Ventures / Licensing" suffix appears anywhere in the recorded chain (1996‑04‑05 through 2002‑04‑08 events). The later "Symbol Technologies LLC" label is a corporate successor designation, not a newly formed assertion vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No chain entity matches the listed NPE directories (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities). Telxon and Symbol are/were product companies.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / could not be tested. Correspondent-of-record fields were [not retrieved] for all nine events. This is the single most important gap in this analysis: a recurring recording attorney across the 1998, 1999, 2002, and 2005 events would be the cleanest way to link the Telxon/Symbol filings to a single outside IP firm. Recommend pulling reel pages 1 and 2 of the 1998‑09‑25, 2002‑04‑08, and 2005‑01‑05 records directly from the Assignment Center before drawing any conclusion here.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Transfers are spaced years apart (1996 → 1998 → 2002 → name changes), each tied to a documented corporate event (spin-off, hostile-bid defense, merger close). There is no run of consecutive LLC-to-LLC assignments inside 24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming US 5,859,414 was identified, and the patent expired 2015‑12‑29 for failure to pay maintenance fees while still held within the Symbol successor chain. A patent that goes abandoned-in-force inside an operating-company portfolio is the opposite of the arranged-assertion signature. (Consistent with the earlier section's finding of no CAFC 2026 docket activity.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present, but adjacent distress is documented. Telxon faced a federal accounting probe, a steep sales decline, and a rejected 1998 hostile bid, and it granted two IP security interests in 1999 (Bank of New York, 1999‑03‑30; Foothill Capital, 1999‑09‑09) — classic pre-acquisition leverage markers. But the exit was a stock-for-stock acquisition by Symbol completed December 2000, not a Chapter 7/11 sale, and no bankruptcy sale of this patent appears in the record.

7. Privateering — Not present. No operating company transferred this patent to an assertion vehicle to sue competitors. Title never left the Aironet→Telxon→Symbol corporate family.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates in the ordinary commercial successor chain (Symbol), with the patent simply expiring.

Verdict

Insufficient data — with the affirmative finding that no NPE signal is present on the record obtained.

Justification: the entire recorded chain consists of operating companies — inventor assignment recorded 1996‑04‑05 to Aironet; Aironet→Telxon on 1998‑09‑25; Telxon→Symbol on 2002‑04‑08 — punctuated only by secured-lending events (Bank of New York 1999‑03‑30, Foothill Capital 1999‑09‑09, JPMorgan Chase 2005‑01‑05) and their releases. There is not one licensing-entity, holding-company, or shell assignee, and no litigation was found; the patent expired unpaid on 2015‑12‑29 while still inside the Symbol succession. I therefore cannot classify this as an NPE under any category — but I also cannot give a clean "not an NPE" bill of health, because reel/frame numbers and correspondents of record were not retrievable in this session, and the correspondent-recurrence test (signal 3) is exactly the test that would confirm or rule out a hidden recording-attorney pattern. Verify and complete at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html#!/searchResults?q=5859414.

One contradiction to flag against the earlier section: the prior summary listed the assignment chain as "Aironet → Telxon (1998) → Symbol Technologies, Inc. (2002)." That is correct as to title, but it should not be read as implying Aironet was dissolved into Telxon — Aironet was separately acquired by Cisco in 1999, while this patent had already been carved out to Telxon in 1998. The patent and the company took different paths.

I'll research the prior art references cited against US 5,859,414. Let me start with targeted searches.

I found the "References Cited" list from the patent's front page. Let me now research the specific cited references to get their full citations, dates, and subject matter.

Important scope note before the analysis

Two things changed my approach here, and I want to flag them up front:

1. I was cut off mid-research. The tool channel returned "you have reached the maximum number of steps" partway through, so I was able to verify the authoritative list of references plus a few reference texts, but not every individual reference's specification. Where I state a title/description, I either verified it in a search result (and say so) or I mark it as unverified general knowledge. I will not invent titles or holdings.

2. "Patent citations for 5859414" has three possible meanings, and they are not interchangeable. I am treating the request as the "[56] References Cited" list printed on the face of US 5,859,414 — i.e., the prior art the examiner/ applicants cited against this patent. (Forward "Cited By" references, e.g. DE69010905T2 and DE69327873T2 that list US5859414, are downstream art cited in later patents, not prior art for this one, and I exclude them.)

Per the standing rule, I am interpreting the number 5859414 literally as US 5,859,414 and returning only that patent — no similar-number substitutions.

1. The verified "[56] References Cited" list

Pulled from the patent's own front page (source: the granted-PDF scan, https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/51/12/de/e73a53f5b3bd82/US5859414.pdf), reproduced verbatim as the authority for citations:

Two structural observations that matter for § 102:

• References 29–33 (issued 1996–1997) issued after the 12/29/1995 filing date. They therefore cannot be 102(a) or 102(b) art. They can only be prior art under pre-AIA 102(e) if their own U.S. filing dates predate the applicant's invention. Treating them as "anticipatory prior art" without pulling their filing dates would be an error — flagging this explicitly.
• References 1–28 predate the filing date and are the true 102(a)/102(b) candidates.

Anomaly to flag (do not auto-correct, but note): cited entry US 4,703,243 (Bado et al., 364/400). A search for "4,703,243" returned US4703243A, "Stepping motor harmonic suppression" — which is not consistent with an inventor named Bado or with class 364/400. There is a nearby number, US 4,703,423, which is a retail/advertising-media patent ("Apparatus and method for generation of brand name specific advertising media," per uspto.report). I am not correcting the patent's number; I am flagging that the number as printed may not map to the cited subject matter. Verify against the paper copy before relying on it.

2. Reference-by-reference characterization

A. References I verified from search results (highest confidence)

US 3,836,755 — Ehrat — "Self-service shop" — issued 9/1974 (235/383)
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US3836755
A self-service shop system of purchase trolleys, each with (i) a device for reading machine-readable identifying data on each article placed in/removed from the trolley container, (ii) weighing means, and (iii) per claim 10, radio transmission means coupled to the reading device and weighing means to transmit the read data. This is core early art for wirelessly reading item-identifying data at a mobile retail station.
§ 102 relevance: Anticipates only the broadest notion of "retail dataform reader + radio transmission." It does not disclose a fixed customer terminal, a display-driven first/second two-tier wireless data exchange, or user-command-triggered supplemental-data retrieval. Best cast as 102(b) background/single-element art, and as § 103 art against claim 1's radio-reader subcombination if combined with a display-terminal reference.

US 5,250,789 — Johnsen — "Shopping cart" — issued 10/5/1993 (235/383)
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5250789 (and FreePatentsOnline / searchlight copies)
A shopping display system: scanner + programmable display + microprocessor + wireless transmitter/receiver ("antenna 40 / receiver 42 / transmitter 48") to a store central computer; a memory/database keyed to UPC codes containing product description, aisle number and price; a merchandise-promotion table that fires a promotion/coupon in response to a scanned product code; a user-activated response (buttons/keypad) that can accept a discount offer and trigger printing/transmitting; a shopper identification card with a unique bar code used to associate the visit and purchases with the consumer; and coupon-matching. Claims 1–22 recite the list-organizing + promotion architecture.
§ 102 relevance: This is the single most structurally relevant cited reference to this patent. It touches the same problem space — scan a product/ID/coupon → display store-authored product information → user presses a control → obtain a further store-authored response — and it expressly contemplates a database with name/aisle/price and wireless receipt of revised promotions. Its weakness as anticipatory art is that the "additional data" is largely loaded locally onto the cart, and the second, user-commanded round trip to a remote host is not clearly disclosed; also the housing is a shopping cart, not a fixed interactive terminal.
§ 102 hypothesis: Potential 102(b) art against claim 2 (product name/price/location categories) and much of claim 8/9/10-type subject matter tied to scanning coupons and ID cards; strongest as § 103 art against independent claims 1/6/11 in view of a fixed kiosk reference.

B. References I can only characterize from general knowledge (flagged UNVERIFIED)

I could not retrieve the specification text for these within the search budget. The following are topic-level expectations from the numbers/classes and inventors only — treat as leads, not findings. I will not state holdings or quote claims for them.

• 4,323,773 Carpenter (4/1982) — UNVERIFIED.
• 4,345,315 Cadotte et al. (8/1982) — UNVERIFIED.
• 4,415,065 Sandstedt (11/1983) — UNVERIFIED.
• 4,703,243 Bado et al. (10/1987, 364/400) — UNVERIFIED (see number-collision anomaly above).
• 4,727,245 Dobbins et al. (2/1988) — UNVERIFIED.
• 4,750,151 Baus (6/1988, 340/825.35) — class 340/825.35 is a selective/address communication class; also cited in Johnsen. UNVERIFIED.
• 4,766,295 Davis et al. (8/1988) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,012,349 de Fay (4/1991) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,013,587 Goodwin et al. (2/1991) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,024,541 Tsukada et al. (6/1991) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,047,614 Blanco (9/1991, 235/385) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,189,291 Siemiatkowski (2/1993, 235/383) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,227,617 Christopher et al. (7/1993) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,278,996 McGahan (11/1994) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,285,383 Lindsey et al. (2/1994, 364/408) — class 364/408 is finance/business data processing. UNVERIFIED.
• 5,288,980 Patel et al. (2/1994, 235/381) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,294,782 Kumar (3/1994) and 5,386,106 Kumar (1/1995) — two Kumar references, UNVERIFIED.
• 5,295,064 Malec et al. (3/1994) — Malec is associated with in-store cart-mounted video advertising (cf. Malec US 4,973,952 referenced by Johnsen). UNVERIFIED for this number specifically.
• 5,331,580 Miller et al. (7/1994); 5,361,871 Gupta et al. (11/1994) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,406,271 Sonnendorfer et al. (4/1995) — Sonnendorfer is associated with shopping-cart-mounted systems. UNVERIFIED.
• 5,408,078 Campo et al. (4/1995); 5,414,251 Durbin (5/1995) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,448,046 Swartz (235/432) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,478,989 Shepley (235/375) — UNVERIFIED.
• 5,534,684 Danielson (7/1996, 235/462); 5,595,264 Trotta, Jr. (1/1997, 235/383) — post-filing issue; 102(e) candidates only. UNVERIFIED.
• 5,630,071 Sakai et al. (5/1997, 340/825.35) — post-filing; 102(e) only. UNVERIFIED.
• 5,655,219 Jusa et al. (8/1997) — post-filing; 102(e) only. UNVERIFIED.
• 5,668,803 Tymes et al. (9/1997) — post-filing; 102(e) only. Tymes is a well-known Symbol Technologies radio/RF-data figure, so this is plausibly RF-transceiver art, which would bear on the "radio module" element. UNVERIFIED for this number.

I want to be blunt: I cannot responsibly label any of the references in group B as "anticipating" a specific claim. Anticipation requires element-by-element identity, which requires the reference text, which I did not obtain.

3. Most relevant prior art and preliminary § 102 mapping

Ranked by likely relevance to the independent claims (1, 6, 11) as generated earlier:

The element that most protects this patent against all the face-of-patent references I could verify is the two-tier wireless architecture: claim 1(f) requires a first wireless communication (send decoded data → receive "additional data") and claim 1(g) requires a customer-commanded, subsequent second communication returning "supplemental data" related to the decoded/additional data. Johnsen's cart system pushes data down and can broadcast revised promotions, but I did not find in Johnsen a clean, user-commanded second round-trip that mirrors this two-stage claim. That is exactly where an invalidity challenge would have to find art outside this list (e.g., a kiosk/host-query reference), which is why the group-B references still need pulling.

4. Other "citations" that are prior art for this patent (incorporation by reference)

The specification expressly incorporates, as if fully set out:

• U.S. Application Ser. No. 08/544,018, filed Oct. 18, 1995, "Extended Working Range Dataform Reader Including Fuzzy Logic Control Circuitry." This is the dataform-reader-module disclosure relied on for Figs. 3/3A.
• Typo flag: the very next sentence of the specification cites the same incorporation as "Ser. No. 08/544,618." The two numbers differ (018 vs 618). Interpreting literally, the patent references two different serial numbers for one incorporation — a defect to note, not to silently fix.
• Two commercial / documentary references on the face: Aironet Wireless Communications, Inc. radio Model Nos. 095 and 025 (Akron, Ohio) for the radio module, and the Sony CCM-M25 CCD sensor array for the 2D photosensor array. These are product identifications, not prior-art patents.

Also note the file-history flag carried over from earlier sections: the patent bears the continued-prosecution-application (37 CFR 1.53(d)) asterisk, which is why its claims were shaped as they are and why later-issued patents (group B) appear in [56].

5. Honest limitations

• Live-status caveat: the authoritative text I was given (Google Patents, retrieved 2026-09-24) is the control. Nothing in my searches showed this patent reexamined, which matters because a reexamination would have produced a fresh prior-art citation set distinct from the printed [56] list — I found no such record.
• What I did not do: I did not obtain the specifications of references 2–33, so I have not performed true element-by-element anticipation analysis for them. Any table entry above that says "UNVERIFIED" means exactly that.
• Reachable next step if you want a defensible § 102 opinion: pull the full text of the top candidates (Johnsen '789; Ehrat '755; the two Kumar patents; Malec '064; Tymes '803 with its filing date for 102(e)) and run a claim-chart against independent claims 1, 6, 11 — and note that claims 16–22 (the likely method claims) were never reproduced in the materials I was given, so no anticipation analysis can be offered for them.

If you want, I can produce the exact claim-chart template (claim 1 element-by-element, with a column per reference) so you can drop in the verified reference text once retrieved.

I'll ground this §103 analysis in the patent's actual cited prior art. Let me pull the citation records.

I have the front-page "References Cited" list. Let me verify what the key cited references actually teach, since I need to avoid mischaracterizing them.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,859,414 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on task framing: This analysis is built on the prior-art record appearing on the face of the patent itself — the [56] References Cited list, the "Prior art keywords," and the "Prior art date 1995‑12‑29" metadata retrievable from the patent's own PDF (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/51/12/de/e73a53f5b3bd82/[US5859414](/patent/US5859414).pdf) and the Google Patents page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5859414/en). I have flagged every place where I could not verify a reference's content rather than characterizing it. I have not repeated the claim/summary material already generated.

1. Legal framework and the level of ordinary skill

• Governing law: The application was filed 1995‑12‑29. Pre‑AIA § 103(a) applies; the test is whether "the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art." Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966); KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).
• PHOSITA (proposed): A person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer science and 2–3 years of experience designing retail POS / dataform-reader systems; alternatively, a retail-systems engineer with equivalent practical experience. The invention is an integration invention — the record shows every hardware element was a commercially available catalogue part (Sony CCM‑M25 CCD array; MarkTech MTSM735K‑UR LEDs; Aironet "Model Nos. 095 or the 025" radios — '414, col. description).
• Rationales available (MPEP § 2144.04; KSR; In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977 (Fed. Cir. 2006)): (A) combining known elements for predictable results; (B) substitution of one known element for another; (C) using a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (D) applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; (E) design incentives/market forces.

2. The prior art actually of record on this patent

The [56] list (all pre‑date the 1995‑12‑29 filing unless noted) includes these load-bearing references:

Uncertainty flag: the same front-page results also surfaced rows for 5,534,684 (Danielson, 7/1996), 5,595,264 (Trotta, Jr., 1/1997), 5,630,071 (Sakai et al., 5/1997) and 5,655,219 (Jusa et al., 8/1997). Those post-date the 1995 filing and cannot be § 102(a)/(b) art; if they genuinely appear in the [56] list they could only be § 102(e) art. I could not determine from the fetched text whether they belong to this patent's list or to an adjacent document, and I do not rely on them.

3. Claim 1: what is actually left over the art

Pivotal gap a challenger must close: none of the references I verified shows, in a single customer-operated, stationary terminal, an RF per-scan round trip followed by a second, user-initiated RF round trip returning a further data layer. That is a fact question, not a legal one — and it is closable through combination, as set out below.

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claim 1: Applicant's own admission + Bianco + Johnsen

Mapping. Bianco supplies (a)–(e), the display of host-retrieved product data, the customer-facing keyboard, and the interaction layer (host-generated "helpful hints" beyond raw price — i.e., the "additional data" of claim 1). The '414's Background supplies the admitted two-way host round trip for a scanned SKU, in a stationary in-store customer terminal — just wired. Johnsen supplies the substitution element: a wireless customer-operated terminal with scanner, display, keypad, printer, and (claims 13/18) wireless communication with the store's data.

Motivation to combine (explicit, record-based). The '414's own Background states the problem: "installing a number of pricing terminal[s] in a large retail store requires significant effort and cost in order to physically connect the pricing terminals to the network," and moving a terminal "would incur significant costs and expenses," while "the information available from these terminals are generally limited to pricing information and do not allow the a customer to interact with the pricing terminal to receive additional information." A design incentive stated in the specification itself is a textbook KSR motivation. Substituting an off-the-shelf RF module (the '414 names Aironet models 095 and 025 as suitable — i.e., a catalogue part) for the network wire is rationale (B): substitution of one known element for another to obtain its known advantage (no cable runs; easy relocation), with a predictable result. Johnsen proves the substitution was already made in the same field.

Second-communication is met by Bianco's/Baus's user-triggered further retrieval and by Johnsen's "user activated means for inputting a response" with a follow-on action. Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, claim 1 does not require the second communication to reach a different device, return a different category of data, or be separated in time beyond ordinary request/response ordering — so any RF "more info / show recipe / print" round trip reads on it.

Ground 2 — Claim 1 (alternative): Baus + Bianco + Johnsen

Baus teaches the architecture (central computer + storage + output units; touch-driven, repeat-on-demand retrieval of product/location information; direct user dialogue) and, through its background, a hand-held wireless terminal displaying product type and price. Baus expressly identifies the deficiency that motivates the '414: such a terminal "is intended for use only by the staff of a department store," and "[a] stranger, for example a customer in a department store, would not be able to use it." Bianco supplies the customer-facing kiosk packaging and the host-generated supplemental content. Johnsen supplies RF and the customer-operated form factor. KSR rationale (C): using a known technique (RF in-store product lookup) to improve a similar device (a customer information kiosk) in the same way.

Ground 3 — Claim 6 (coupon terminal)

Bianco scans coupons ("coupon 32 having a bar code 34") and flags which list items have coupons. Johnsen claims 3, 5, 10 and 21 concern coupons (promotions/coupons in response to a scanned code; indicating items with corresponding coupons; scanning coupon bar codes), and claim 15 prints a coupon. Johnsen's background additionally describes Mindrum et al. U.S. 4,723,212 and Off et al. U.S. 4,910,672, including "instant paperless discount rather than printing a paper coupon" and "negative" coupons — which is the regular price vs. discounted price pair recited in claim 7. Product name, ingredients and aisle/shelf location are the same generic grocery-database fields as claim 2's. Claim 6's extra limitation (display includes both additional data and a portion of the decoded data) is trivial: Bianco displays the decoded item alongside host data.

Ground 4 — Claim 11 (customer ID card terminal)

This ground is the strongest. Johnsen alone discloses the core: "[T]he scanner 22 may be used at the beginning of a shopping visit, first of all, to scan an identification card 52 provided to each shopper… provided with a bar code symbol 54 which is unique to any particular shopper," and "[t]he identification number can be stored so that the record of the shopping visit and products selected for purchase can be recorded in conjunction with the particular consumer involved." That is claim 11(d)–(f) almost verbatim: a dataform on a customer identification card, decoded, transmitted, with "additional data related to the customer and purchases of the customer." Bianco supplies the customer-operated in-store terminal with display + keyboard + host-retrieved personalized content (it even describes customer profiles and preference-driven recommendations). Bado adds targeted, customer-specific promotion generation. Combine: KSR rationale (A) + (C), plus the design incentive stated in the '414 Background.

Dependent claims 2–5, 7–10, 12–15

• Claim 2 / 7 / 12 (data categories): Bianco supplies name/price/location/"helpful hints"; Johnsen supplies name, price and purchase record per consumer; Mindrum/Off (via Johnsen's background) supply pre-/post-discount pricing; nutritional information and ingredients are ordinary fields in a grocery host database. Selecting which fields to display is a routine design choice with predictable results (KSR).
• Claims 3 / 8 / 13 (plurality of keys): Bianco keyboard 64; Baus touch panel; Johnsen keypad. Anticipated/obvious.
• Claims 5 / 10 / 15 (printer): Bianco prints shopping list 60; Johnsen claim 7 (printer responsive to user-activated means) and claim 15 (print a coupon). Obvious.
• Claims 4 / 9 / 14 (two-dimensional photosensor array): This is the weakest link for a challenger using only the [56] list. I could not verify that any cited reference discloses a 2D photosensor array for dataform imaging. The '414 treats the array as an off-the-shelf Sony CCM‑M25 part and incorporates U.S. Ser. No. 08/544,018 (filed Oct. 18, 1995) by reference, which is itself before the '414's filing date. A challenger would likely need that application's family or contemporaneous 2D imager art. I cannot assert this element is met without that art.

5. What would not work / the patentee's best defenses

1. "Second communication" as a structural limitation. Patentee argues the art only shows a single query, with the second layer served from local cache (Johnsen's cart carries the store product database locally). Rebuttal: Bianco's hints and Baus's retrievals are host-generated; the '414's own Background admits host round trips; and network/bandwidth/battery conservation supplies an articulated reason to fetch layer 2 only on demand (a classic "design incentive" under KSR).
2. Locus-of-use ("customer of the retail grocery store"). Claim 11 and claim 6 recite a retail grocery store in the preamble and the user interface; claim 1 does not — the preamble is "An interactive customer information terminal comprising:" yet element (g) recites "a command by a customer of the retail grocery store," creating an antecedent-basis/indefiniteness question. That drafting inconsistency is itself worth noting: it suggests the "customer" language was bolted on, and locus-of-use recitations carry limited patentable weight.
3. Secondary considerations. I found no evidence of objective indicia in the record (no litigation was found — consistent with the prior summary — and no patentee-side evidence of nexus). Commercial success would require a nexus to the claimed two-communication architecture, not merely to Symbol/Telxon point-of-sale hardware generally. The patent issued from a CPA filed under 37 CFR 1.53(d) and I could not retrieve the file wrapper, so I cannot say which rejections were overcome or why.
4. Claims 16–22 are not reproduced in the available text. The abstract advertises "[a] method for using the CI terminal," so at least one independent method claim is likely among them. I have no authoritative text for those claims and therefore express no § 103 opinion on them. (The recipe-scaling feature — servings adjustment with proportional ingredient amounts, package-size and price recalculation — appears in the specification and is most likely claimed there; if so, that limitation is not squarely met by the verified art and would be the real battleground.)

6. Bottom line

• Claims 1, 6 and 11 are, in my assessment, vulnerable to § 103 rejection over the art cited on the patent's own face — principally Bianco 5,047,614 + Johnsen 5,250,789, optionally with Baus 4,750,151, and in every case reinforced by the admissions in the '414's own Background (hardwired self-service pricing terminals with host round trips, and the express statement that hardwiring/moving them is costly).
• The strongest single motivator is the patent's own statement of the problem the radio module solves — an applicant admission usable as prior art and as a KSR design incentive.
• No single reference that I verified anticipates claim 1; this is a combination case. Reliance on In re Keller framing (attacking references individually does not defeat a combination rejection) would be appropriate.
• Confidence: moderate-to-high on the framework and on the Bianco/Johnsen/Baus characterizations (verified from fetched primary text). Low on claims 4/9/14 (2D array) and on claims 16–22 (text unavailable).

Unverified/caveated items, restated so they are not mistaken for findings: the disclosures of Sonnendorfer '271, Ruppert '524, Bado '243, Patel '980, Kumar '782/'106, Malec '064, Swartz '046, Durbin '251, Lindsey '383, Ehrat '755 and the remaining [56] entries; the composition of the post-1995 rows (5,534,684; 5,595,264; 5,630,071; 5,655,219); and the prosecution history of the 37 CFR 1.53(d) CPA. Each should be confirmed against the USPTO file wrapper and the full reference texts before any rejection is finalized.