US 5907830

I'll search for information on this patent number, including any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me run a couple of targeted searches on litigation/appeal activity specific to this patent number.

US Patent 5,907,830 — "Electronic coupon distribution"

Note on scope of search: I searched for the exact number 5907830. Google Patents' full text (which you supplied) is the authoritative source here, and I've used it. I did not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket for 2026 involving this patent — see the "Litigation / CAFC 2026" section below for the important caveat.

Bibliographic data

Assignment chain of record: Individual → American Consulting Corporation, Inc. (2000-02-04) → PlanetU, Inc. (2000-05-01) → ADS Alliance Data Systems, Inc. (2003-05-06) → American Consulting Corporation (2006-01-12) → Coupons, Inc. (2006-01-13) → Coupons.com Incorporated (2010-01-22, name change) → secured-party agreement with Wells Fargo (2013-10-04, released 2015-10-12) → Quotient Technology Inc. (2015-11-19, name change).

Abstract (as issued)

An electronic coupon distribution system providing on-line coupon information for a potential consumer using a personal computer connected to a host computer. The consumer connects via modem through the Internet or directly, may specify product preferences or search/view coupons of interest, downloads coupon information, and prints the coupon on a printer. Information identifying the downloaded coupon is coded or encrypted onto the printed coupon to prevent unauthorized reproduction. The system may be used to obtain additional information about the potential consumer for future marketing purposes.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has 6 claims total; independent claims are 1, 4, and 6. All three independent claims share a common core: a client/consumer computer linked to a host holding coupon data, a printer, and a printed paper coupon bearing identifying indicia that identify the client computer.

• Claim 1 — Coupon distribution system (apparatus). A client computer, a printer attached to it, a host computer containing coupon information for coupons offered to the consumer for redemption on purchasing a product, and a communication link between client and host. Coupon information can be downloaded when the consumer indicates interest in the product "without any pre-authorization," the printer outputs a paper coupon from the downloaded information, and identifying indicia identifying the client computer is printed on that coupon.

• Claim 4 — On-line coupon distribution system (apparatus). A host computer with a secured coupon data storage area, plus a search function area, a viewer and request area, a survey area, and a user analysis area, all within the host; and connection means linking the host to a client computer without any pre-authorization. A printer at the client computer prints the desired coupon, and the printed coupon contains identifying indicia identifying the client computer, so a consumer can connect, view, and download coupons of interest.

• Claim 6 — On-line coupon distribution system (apparatus, most detailed). A client computer, printer, host computer, and modem link. The host comprises: a secured coupon data storage area; a survey area containing consumer-preference information; a user analysis area; a search function area; a viewer and request area; and a numerical coding and encryption area that uses identifying indicia of the potential consumer to code the consumer's identity. The identifying indicia include the address of the client computer and a date, and the printer outputs a paper coupon coded with that identifying indicia for tracking purposes.

Dependent claims:

• Claim 2 — the identifying indicia is encrypted (depends from claim 1).
• Claim 3 — the identifying indicia is a bar code (depends from claim 1).
• Claim 5 — the identifying indicia is encrypted (depends from claim 4).

Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket — important caveats

• The only litigation I could identify for this patent is Oncard Marketing, Inc. v. Coupons.com Incorporated, Case No. 1:12-cv-07303, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (also indexed in Google Patents and the Stanford NPE Litigation Database). No outcome or appeal disposition was returned.
• I found no Federal Circuit docket, argument, or decision in 2026 (or any year) involving US 5,907,830. This is a negative finding from limited search coverage, not confirmation that no such appeal exists. A live PACER/CAFC docket check would be required to state that authoritatively. Note also that the patent's term expired 2016-02-13, which makes fresh 2026 appellate activity on this patent unlikely but not impossible (e.g., an appeal from a late-filed collateral proceeding).
• Identifier caution (literal interpretation): searches for "5907830" also return JP 5907830 B2, a Japanese patent (Hitachi, Ltd., "signature generation/verification system," registered 2016-04-01) that is entirely unrelated to US 5,907,830. Do not conflate the two.

Prior art cited on the face of the patent

US 5,557,721; US 5,697,844; US 5,708,782; US 5,710,886; US 5,737,619; US 5,761,648; US 5,774,869. Non-patent literature: Michael Wilke, "Catalina, Coupons Online in tests," Advertising Age, Aug. 28, 1995, p. 15. The patent is in turn cited by a large family of later coupon/promotion patents (Google Patents lists 244 "cited by" entries in one view and 531 in another), with notable descendants including US 6,336,098 (IBM), US 6,584,448 (Catalina), US 7,233,913 (Catalina/Scroggie), and US 6,336,099 (Brightstreet).

Confidence statement

The bibliographic data, abstract, and claim language above come directly from the authoritative full text you provided and are high confidence. Assignee/status data come from Google Patents' assignment records and are reliable but reflect recorded assignments rather than a legal determination of current ownership. The absence of 2026 CAFC activity is a low-confidence negative — I did not have access to a live docket system and cannot rule out an appeal that is not indexed by general web search.

I'll search for litigation records on US 5,907,830 using the sources you specified.

I found a lead. Let me dig deeper into the specific case and check other litigation databases.

Let me verify this case's details and outcome, and check for any others.

Known litigation involving US Patent 5,907,830

Bottom line: Based on the litigation databases I could reach, I found one case in which US 5,907,830 ("Electronic coupon distribution," Engel et al., filed 1996‑02‑13, granted 1999‑05‑25) was at issue.

Case 1 — OnCard Marketing, Inc. v. Coupons.com Incorporated

Grounded sources:

• Stanford NPE Litigation Database, patent page for 5907830 — lists exactly one case: Oncard Marketing, Inc. v. Coupons.com Incorporated, 1:12-cv-07303, S.D.N.Y.: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/5907830
• Stanford NPE Litigation Database, party page for OnCard Marketing, Inc. — lists this case under "Cases where party is an Alleged Infringer": https://npe.law.stanford.edu/party/oncard-marketing-inc
• Unified Patents litigation record linked from Google Patents: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/New%20York%20Southern%20District%20Court/case/1%3A12-cv-07303
• Darts‑IP "First worldwide family litigation filed" record for family 24404911: https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=24404911

Ownership context (relevant to who had standing to assert the patent): Google Patents' assignment record shows the '830 patent passed from the individual inventors through American Consulting Corp. → PlanetU, Inc. → ADS Alliance Data Systems → American Consulting Corp. → Coupons, Inc. (2006) → Coupons.com Incorporated (2010 name change) → Quotient Technology Inc. (2015). So by the 2012 case, Coupons.com was the patent owner. Coupons.com also publicly asserted that this patent "covers any on‑line distribution system that allows consumers to [download coupons]" (trade‑press report via Gale, Coupons Inc. subject page: https://go.go.gale.com — patent No. 5,907,830).

Important caveats and limitations

• One case only in the databases I could reach. The Stanford NPE database, which is the principal aggregator of this patent's litigation, reports a single case. I did not find any CAFC appeal, any PTAB post‑grant proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or any additional district‑court case naming 5,907,830 specifically. Note that the "Cited By" lists on Google Patents are citations by later patents — they are not litigation.
• Do not confuse this with JP 5907830 B2 (a Japanese Hitachi patent, "署名生成検証システム及び署名検証装置," registered 2016‑04‑26). Same numerals, different patent/jurisdiction.
• What I could not verify: the 1:12‑cv‑07303 filing date, the disposition (e.g., voluntary dismissal, settlement, judgment), and current docket status. My searches did not return a PACER/Recap docket sheet, and I did not locate a dispositive order. Even the nature of the action is ambiguous in the sources: the case is captioned with OnCard as plaintiff, yet the NPE database classifies OnCard as the "alleged infringer," which is consistent with a declaratory‑judgment action by OnCard against patent‑owner Coupons.com — but I cannot confirm that from the retrieved material.
• The patent itself expired 2016‑02‑13 (anticipated expiration), so any enforcement activity is historical.

If you need the filing date and outcome pinned down, the next step would be a direct PACER pull of the 1:12‑cv‑07303 docket (S.D.N.Y.) or a Docket Alarm/CourtListener RECAP query — I was unable to retrieve those within this session, so I am flagging them as unverified rather than guessing.

PTAB Proceedings — US 5,907,830 (“Electronic coupon distribution”)

Analyst note up front: I found no AIA trial proceedings on this patent. That conclusion rests on two independent checks, both made 2026-10-01: (1) the canonical "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt, sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal, which returns an empty set; and (2) live web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM petitions naming the '830 patent, which surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal. Because there are no proceedings, there are no claim-level outcomes, panels, or Federal Circuit dispositions to report — and I will not invent any. The one trap worth naming explicitly is below.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 (active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0). Bottom line for a defendant: the patent has no PTAB track record at all — not a single claim has ever been tested before the Board, so you get neither the benefit of a canceled-claim estoppel package nor the roadmap of a prior panel's constructions; but the practical sting is sharply reduced because, per Google Patents, the patent is Expired – Lifetime with an anticipated expiration of 2016-02-13, meaning any live exposure is past damages only, and the only recorded litigation is a single 2012 case in S.D.N.Y.

No proceedings to report

There is no IPR####-#####, PGR####-#####, or CBM####-##### number associated with US 5,907,830 in the structured data or in any public source I could locate. Consequently, the per-proceeding template (type / filed / status / panel / grounds / institution / FWD / settlement / appeal / defensive value) cannot be populated for this patent without fabricating, which I won't do.

Do not confuse this patent with these (verified near-misses)

What the record does show (non-AIA history, for context)

• Litigation: Google Patents' "Family has litigation" block lists a single US case, S.D.N.Y. 1:12-cv-07303, flagged via Unified Patents' litigation dataset — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/New%20York%20Southern%20District%20Court/case/1%3A12-cv-07303. The parties are not identified in the data I retrieved, and I did not verify them — do not treat the caption as established from this source alone.
• Prosecution citations (7 examiner-cited references), including US 5,717,086 (Sellectsoft), US 5,761,648 (Interactive Coupon Network), US 5,707,782 (Larson), US 5,557,721, US 5,697,844, US 5,737,619, US 5,774,869 — plus a non-patent citation, Michael Wilke, "Catalina, Coupons Online in tests," Advertising Age, Aug. 28, 1995, p. 15. Should you ever need to build a § 102/§ 103 record, these are the references the examiner already considered — and thus the ones you must affirmatively address.
• Ownership chain: Individual (Engel/Engel) → American Consulting Corp. → PlanetU → ADS Alliance Data Systems → American Consulting → Coupons, Inc. → Coupons.com Inc. → Quotient Technology Inc. (2015-11-19, current). No defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents, RPX) appears anywhere in the chain.
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration 2016-02-13.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all six claims are UNTESTED at the PTAB. Claims 1–3 (system: client computer + printer + host computer + communication device + client-identifying indicia) and claims 4–6 (on-line system with secured data storage, search, viewer/request, survey, user-analysis, and — in claim 6 — numerical coding/encryption using the client address plus a date) stand exactly as issued, never narrowed by certificate, never construed by a Board panel, and never canceled. There is no FWD to quote and no panel reasoning to borrow. Compare this to the more typical profile of a heavily asserted 1990s e-commerce patent (e.g., the News America/Catalina certificates patents), where CBM or IPR outcomes give a defendant ready-made invalidity arguments — you have none of that here.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate. Because no petitioner ever filed, § 315(e)(2) and § 325(e)(2) estoppel are inapplicable against anyone — there is no petitioner and no privy. Every invalidity theory is untouched and available in district court if you are sued: § 102/§ 103 on patents and printed publications, plus the grounds an IPR could never reach — § 101 (claims 1–6 are squarely in the Alice crosshairs; they recite generic computing components and coupon-distribution business logic, with the "inventive" gloss limited to encoded identifying indicia), § 112 (claim 6's "numerical coding and encryption area… associated with said user analysis" is a prime indefiniteness target, as is the purely functional "search function area"), prior public use/on-sale, and the 1995–96 Internet/coupon industry record. Conversely, if you file an IPR, you take on § 315(e)(2) exposure for everything you raised or reasonably could have raised — so reserve § 101 and § 112 for court. One caveat I flag as lower-confidence and fact-dependent: expiration (2016-02-13) removes injunctive stakes and generally moots claim-amendment strategy, though IPR against an expired patent is not categorically barred.

Pattern signals: none of the usual ones. No repeat petitioner (zero petitioners), no aggressive PTAB appeals by the patent owner (nothing to appeal), no defensive aggregator involvement. The better reading of the zero-IPR record is not "hardened patent" but "abandoned monetization": the patent expired in 2016, the sole recorded litigation predates the AIA trial regime's maturity, and the current owner (Quotient) has been deploying IPRs as a sword against others rather than defending this patent. Well-asserted patents do attract IPRs — this one was never asserted hard enough or late enough to draw one.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are holding a demand letter or a complaint citing US 5,907,830, confirm the damages window first. Expiration on 2016-02-13 plus the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback means recoverable past damages require an act of infringement no earlier than roughly 2020; conduct on or after expiration is not infringement. Run that arithmetic before evaluating the merits — it often ends the dispute.
2. Verify the § 315(b) clock and the litigation caption yourself. The S.D.N.Y. 1:12-cv-07303 entry (2000-era assignments and a 2012 case) is old; pull the docket via PACER/RECAP and CourtListener rather than relying on the Google Patents/Unified summary, whose parties I could not verify. If you have been served in the last 12 months, an IPR remains available to you; if not, the practical value of filing against an expired, unasserted patent is low.
3. Build the invalidity case for court, not the Board. Lead with § 101 and § 112 (untested, and unreachable in IPR), and separately assemble a § 102/§ 103 record around the seven examiner-cited references plus the Wilke Advertising Age article — but note that anything the examiner already considered must be paired with new art or new argument.
4. If you do file an IPR, hug the § 315(e)(2) line. Institute the IPR on narrow § 102/§ 103 grounds only, and expressly preserve § 101/§ 112 for the district court so you don't estop yourself out of your best defenses.
5. Re-check PTAB E2E before relying on this memo. The ODP ingest can lag; I recommend a manual patent-number search at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ and the PTAB Decisions page for any 2026 filing. As of 2026-10-01, the answer is: no PTAB activity on file.

I'll gather assignment-record and litigation evidence before assembling the report.

Let me pin down the litigation direction and try to locate reel/frame data.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 5,907,830 ("Electronic Coupon Distribution")

Scope note / data limitation: The authoritative patent text supplied (Google Patents legal events) and the sources reachable in this session confirm a recorded assignment chain, but they do not expose reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record (the recording attorney/firm). I could not retrieve those two fields. I am therefore reporting the chain exactly as recorded in the Google Patents legal-events table and cross-referenced against Stanford's NPE Litigation Database and Plainsite, and I explicitly mark reel/frame and correspondent as not retrieved rather than inventing them. Reel/frame and correspondent for each link must be pulled directly from the USPTO Assignment Center.

Inventors

• Peter Engel — individual inventor; no employer determinable from the record (the application was filed with no corporate assignee; Google Patents lists "Original Assignee: Individual").
• Andrew Engel — individual inventor; same as above.

Pattern note: Unusual but explainable. Both named inventors held the patent personally until 2000-02-04, i.e., roughly four years after the 1996-02-13 filing and about eight months after the 1999-05-25 grant, when they assigned to American Consulting Corporation, Inc. This "individual-then-corporate" structure is a small-shop/startup pattern, not a classic pre-fire-sale inventor exodus. No evidence that either inventor departed an assignee within 12 months of filing (no assignee existed at filing).

Original assignee

• Named on the issued patent: none at issuance — the inventors (Engel / Engel) are listed as "Individual" original assignee. The first corporate assignee is American Consulting Corporation, Inc. by assignment recorded 2000-02-04.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? At the initial-transfer chain level, the commercialization vehicle was PlanetU / PlanetU.inc (a Delaware corporation), a late-1990s online-coupon venture, and later Alliance Data Systems / ADS. The durable commercializer of the claims is Coupons.com → Quotient Technology Inc., whose core product (download–print consumer coupons with client-identifying/encrypted print controls) directly practices the '830 claims (claims 1–6, esp. the encrypted bar code identifying the client computer).
• Primary line of business: digital/printable coupon distribution and promotions technology.
• Current status: The ultimate operating owner, Quotient Technology Inc. (formerly Coupons.com Inc.), is an operating promotions-technology company that, per trade reporting, has since been acquired by / integrated into Neptune Retail Solutions (court filings reference defendant "CB Neptune Holdings Inc."). The '830 patent itself expired 2016-02-13 (Google Patents: "Anticipated expiration"; legal status "Expired - Lifetime").

Assignment timeline

All dates below are the event dates shown in the Google Patents legal-events record. Execution dates and reel/frame numbers were not retrievable in this session and are marked accordingly. Conveyance types in quotes are Google Patents' own labels.

• 1996-02-13 (filing) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Original application by inventors
  • Assignor: n/a
  • Assignee: n/a (Original Assignee: Individual)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Initial filing by individual inventors (Peter Engel, Andrew Engel).

• 1999-05-25 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Patent grant
  • Assignor: n/a
  • Assignee: n/a
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Issuance of US 5,907,830.

• 2000-02-04 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Engel, Andrew; Engel, Peter
  • Assignee: American Consulting Corporation, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Founders assign personally held patent to a corporation ~8 months post-grant; corporate consolidation.

• 2000-05-01 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: American Consulting Corporation (a Delaware corporation)
  • Assignee: PlanetU.inc (a Delaware corporation)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer to the operating/venture vehicle PlanetU (~3 months after prior link).

• 2003-05-06 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Planet U, Inc.
  • Assignee: ADS Alliance Data Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Acquisition/absorption by Alliance Data Systems (ADS).

• 2006-01-12 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: ADS Alliance Data Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: American Consulting Corporation
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: First step of a two-step same-week unwinding back through the original holding entity.

• 2006-01-13 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: American Consulting Corporation
  • Assignee: Coupons, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Second step — patent lands at the operating coupon company within 24 hours of the prior link; internal reorg/asset carve-out.

• 2010-01-22 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Coupons, Inc.
  • Assignee: Coupons.com Incorporated
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Change of name only — same operating company.

• 2013-10-04 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement ("Patent and Trademark Security Agreement")
  • Assignor: Coupons.com Incorporated
  • Assignee: Wells Fargo Bank, National Association
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — patent pledged as collateral under a credit facility (classic operating-company financing).

• 2015-10-12 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release ("Release by Secured Party")
  • Assignor: Wells Fargo Bank, National Association
  • Assignee: Coupons.com Incorporated
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Lien release — collateral freed; no change in beneficial ownership.

• 2015-11-19 — Reel not retrieved (Plainsite documents this Coupons.com → Quotient change-of-name assignment for the '830 patent, index id 8649443)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Coupons.com Incorporated
  • Assignee: Quotient Technology Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Corporate rename of Coupons.com Inc. to Quotient Technology Inc.; no third-party transfer.

• 2016-02-13 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Anticipated expiration
  • Assignor: n/a
  • Assignee: n/a
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: ~20-year term ends; patent expires.

Post-record note (not a recorded assignment I could verify): trade reporting states Quotient Technology was later acquired by Neptune Retail Solutions (court filings naming "CB Neptune Holdings Inc."), but I found no USPTO assignment entry for that transaction in the sources retrieved — treat current beneficial ownership by Neptune as unconfirmed at the record level.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5907830
    1996 : Filed by Engel inventors
    1999 : Patent issued
    2000 : Assigned to American Consulting
         : Assigned to PlanetU Inc
    2003 : Assigned to Alliance Data Systems
    2006 : Assigned back to American Consulting
         : Assigned to Coupons Inc
    2010 : Name change to Coupons.com Inc
    2012 : Suit vs OnCard Marketing SDNY
    2013 : Security interest to Wells Fargo
    2015 : Wells Fargo lien release
         : Name change to Quotient Technology
    2016 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. Every assignee in the chain is an operating entity (American Consulting, PlanetU, Alliance Data Systems, Coupons, Inc., Coupons.com Incorporated, Quotient Technology Inc.). There is no "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" suffix, no single-purpose Delaware/Texas LLC, and no registered-agent-service address on record for this chain. The 2013-10-04 and 2015-10-12 Wells Fargo entries are a security agreement and its release, not a shell transfer.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee matches the listed NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Erich Spangenberg entities, etc.). The terminal owner, Quotient Technology Inc., is a promotions-technology operating company and, in the 2023–2025 D. Del. dispute, was the defendant/IPR petitioner against patent owner Intelligent Clearing Network and exclusive licensee Inmar — i.e., acting defensively.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not determinable. Correspondent-of-record data was not retrievable in this session, so I cannot test the "same attorney, changing LLCs" tell. Flagging for follow-up: pull the correspondent field for each of the ten recorded links from the USPTO Assignment Center — this is the one signal that genuinely cannot be closed out without direct access.

4. Cascading transfers — Weakly present, but benign. Two rapid sequences exist: 2000-02-04 → 2000-05-01 (American Consulting → PlanetU, ~3 months) and 2006-01-12 → 2006-01-13 (ADS → American Consulting → Coupons, Inc., two transfers in 24 hours). However, the counterparties are named operating corporations, not anonymous LLCs, so this reads as internal reorg/carve-out rather than obfuscation. Marked weak.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The decisive enforcement event, OnCard Marketing, Inc. v. Coupons.com Incorporated, No. 1:12-cv-07303 (S.D.N.Y.), is tied to the '830 patent. The nearest preceding transfer was the 2010-01-22 change of name, ~2 years earlier — well outside the 6-month window. There is no assignment engineered within 6 months of the suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 of any assignee appears in the record; the 2003 ADS acquisition and 2006 reorg are ordinary corporate transactions.

7. Privateering — Not present. No operating company transferred the patent to an independent NPE that then asserted on its behalf. The one assertion of record was made by the owner itself (Coupons.com), and Stanford's NPE Litigation Database tags that case "8 Product company" — i.e., a product/operating-company asserter, not a troll.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Quotient Technology Inc. (operating).

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain runs continuously through operating businesses — founder assignment to American Consulting (2000-02-04), onward through PlanetU (2000-05-01), Alliance Data Systems (2003-05-06), Coupons, Inc. (2006-01-13), Coupons.com (2010-01-22 change of name) and Quotient Technology Inc. (2015-11-19 change of name) — with no NPE-list entity and no shell LLC anywhere. The only asset-level financing events, the Wells Fargo security agreement (2013-10-04) and its release (2015-10-12), are textbook operating-company securitization, not a transfer-to-asserter. The single assertion involving the '830 patent, OnCard Marketing, Inc. v. Coupons.com Incorporated, No. 1:12-cv-07303 (S.D.N.Y.), is tagged "8 Product company" by Stanford's NPE Litigation Database, and the patent has since expired (2016-02-13) — so no current assertion risk exists.

Caveat: the two fields most probative of hidden-NPE structuring — reel/frame and correspondent of record — were not retrievable here and should be confirmed at the USPTO Assignment Center before this verdict is treated as final.

I'll verify the patent and its cited references before building the analysis.

Let me confirm details on the remaining cited references.

Prior Art Analysis — US 5,907,830 "Electronic Coupon Distribution"

1. Patent Identification (verified)

The reference list on the face of the patent (examiner-cited, "References Cited") is confirmed as seven U.S. patents plus one non-patent publication. Because '830 was filed 1996-02-13, it is governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102, so the operative subsections are § 102(a), § 102(b) (critical date 1995-02-13), and § 102(e).

2. Examiner-Cited Patent References

(A) US 5,761,648 — Golden et al. — most material reference

• Full citation: US 5,761,648 A, "Interactive marketing network and process using electronic certificates," Golden, Levin, Anderson, Gentry, Barbour & Schornberg; assignee Interactive Coupon Network; filed 1995-07-25; issued 1998-06-02. (Reexamined: US 5,761,648 C1, certificate issued 2009-09-15; now News America Marketing Properties LLC.)
• Brief description: An online data-processing system by which consumers, via remote computer terminals, dial into a service database and browse, select and download "electronic certificates" (coupons). Each certificate carries transaction data (product description, coupon amount, expiration date) and unique identification data, including a code identifying the user. Certificates can be printed on the consumer's own printer or stored electronically; the system generates reports on selection, printing and redemption, and issuers can cap the number issued per individual. Access may be conditioned on registration (household-profile data), which is used to target further offers.
• Potential § 102 relevance — strongest of the group:
  • Claim 1: discloses client computer (remote terminal), host with coupon information, communication link for downloading, and printing of a paper coupon. The identification-data-identifying-the-user element is the closest disclosure to "identifying indicia identifying said client computer." Anticipation is arguable but not clean — Golden's code identifies the user/certificate, not literally the client computer address.
  • Claim 4: discloses host computer, database of certificates, online browsing/selection (viewer-request function), registration/profile data (analogous to survey/user analysis), and printing of a coupon bearing identification data. Strong element-by-element overlap.
  • Claim 6: discloses identification data + tracking, but does not expressly recite an address of the client computer and a date in the indicia; § 102 anticipation of claim 6 is therefore doubtful, while § 103 is plausible.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e) (U.S. application filed 1995-07-25, before '830's filing/invention date).

(B) US 5,710,886 — Christensen & Ingwersen

• Full citation: US 5,710,886 A, "Electric couponing method and apparatus," Christensen & Ingwersen; assignee SellectSoft, L.C.; filed 1995-06-16; issued 1998-01-20.
• Brief description: Distributes coupons by diskette/CD-ROM (and, per the disclosure, by on-line or dial-up transmission of a "package of data"). A validation code is issued (e.g., via a 1-800 call), the consumer's computer prints selected coupons off a GUI, each printed only a limited number of times, and each coupon is imprinted with a consumer ID number, preferably a bar code. Redemption data at a clearing house is used to detect fraud and to generate targeted follow-on coupon distributions.
• Potential § 102 relevance:
  • Claim 3 (bar code): the printed coupon bearing a bar-coded consumer ID number squarely reads on this.
  • Claim 2 (encrypted indicia): relevant to the security/limited-print disclosure, though "encrypted" is not clearly shown.
  • Claim 1 / Claim 4: relevant to the coupon-identification-and-redemption-tracking concept, but the primary delivery channel is physical media, and the connection to a host network is secondary — near-miss for the "download from host computer" element.
  • Claim 6: its consumer ID number maps to "identifying indicia of a potential consumer," but the "address of said client computer and a date" is not disclosed.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e) (filed 1995-06-16).

(C) US 5,557,721 — Fite et al.

• Full citation: US 5,557,721 A, "Method and apparatus for display screens and coupons," Fite & DeWoolfson; assignee Environmental Products Corporation; filed 1993-08-18 (Appl. 107,599), continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 517,207 filed 1990-05-01 (abandoned); issued 1996-09-17.
• Brief description: A host system downloads display files, command files and transaction files to remote systems that display advertisements and print coupons; the remote systems keep statistics on displays and prints and periodically relay them to the host. (Corresponding PCT: WO 91/17530.)
• Potential § 102 relevance: relevant chiefly to claim 4 — host/remote architecture, output/printing of coupons, and tracking statistics. The "remote system" is an in-store display/kiosk, not a consumer client computer, and no client-computer-identifying indicia is disclosed, so full anticipation of claim 1 is not made out. § 102(e)/(a) art (filed 1993-08-18).
• Statutory basis: § 102(a)/(e).

(D) US 5,708,782 — Larson et al.

• Full citation: US 5,708,782 A, "Method and apparatus for dispensing discount coupons," Larson & Lopez; filed 1994-12-02 (priority 1993-03-22); issued 1998-01-13.
• Brief description: A computerized in-store kiosk (updated from a remote command center) at a shopping-cart corral; the customer uses a touch-screen to browse/select and the system prints a manufacturer's coupon; statistical/maintenance data is relayed to the store CPU.
• Potential § 102 relevance: weak-to-moderate for claim 4 (viewer/request function, printer, remote updates). It is an in-store, point-of-cart kiosk, not a home/consumer client over an on-line network, and discloses no client-computer-identifying indicia. Does not anticipate claims 1 or 6.
• Statutory basis: § 102(a)/(e).

(E) US 5,737,619 — Judson

• Full citation: US 5,737,619 A, "World wide web browsing with content delivery over an idle connection and interstitial content display," Judson; filed 1995-10-19; issued 1998-04-07.
• Brief description: Delivers advertising/content to a web browser over otherwise-idle connections and displays interstitial content. Background art on networked content/ad delivery.
• Potential § 102 relevance: peripheral. It addresses online delivery of promotional content to a client, but is not coupon-printing or coupon-indicia art. Not anticipatory of any of claims 1, 4 or 6.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e).

(F) US 5,774,869 — Toader

• Full citation: US 5,774,869 A, "Method for providing sponsor paid internet access and simultaneous sponsor promotion," Toader; assignee Interactive Media Works, LLC; filed 1995-06-06; issued 1998-06-30.
• Brief description: Sponsor-paid Internet access with simultaneous sponsor promotions — an advertiser subsidizes a user's on-line session while promotional material is presented.
• Potential § 102 relevance: weak. Bears on the general notion of sponsor-funded on-line promotion but discloses no coupon generation, printing, or identifying indicia. Not anticipatory of claims 1, 4 or 6.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e).

(G) US 5,697,844 — Von Kohorn

• Full citation: US 5,697,844 A, "System and method for playing games and rewarding successful players," Von Kohorn; assignee Response Reward Systems, L.C.; issued 1997-12-16 (earliest priority shown 1986-03-10).
• Brief description: An interactive game/promotion and reward system in which consumers respond to broadcasts and successful players receive rewards (prizes/coupons).
• Potential § 102 relevance: weak. Relevant only to the general marketing/reward concept; discloses no on-line coupon download, printing, or identifying indicia. Not anticipatory of any claim of '830.
• Statutory basis: § 102(a)/(e) (I have low confidence in the exact filing date of the specific application issuing as '844; the family priority is 1986-03-10).

3. Non-Patent Citation

• Citation: Michael Wilke, "Catalina, Coupons Online in tests," Advertising Age, Aug. 28, 1995, p. 15.
• Brief description: Trade-press report of Catalina Marketing/Coupons Online testing electronic/on-line coupon delivery. Related materials surfaced in later prosecution include "Coupons Online" promotional literature ("Home Delivery of a Fraud Proof Coupon Online," "Coupon Management Program Secure Encryption Techniques," etc.).
• Potential § 102 relevance: Because it published Aug. 28, 1995 — less than one year before the 1996-02-13 filing — it is not § 102(b) art. It is a candidate § 102(a) printed publication (if it predates the applicants' actual invention date) going to the general state of the art (on-line coupon delivery with fraud-resistant/encrypted coupons), and is § 103 background material.

4. Overall Assessment — Most Relevant Prior Art

Ranked by materiality to the claims of US 5,907,830:

1. US 5,761,648 (Golden / Interactive Coupon Network) — the closest art: on-line browsing and selection of coupons, downloading to a consumer terminal, printing on the consumer's printer, unique identification data identifying the user, and reporting/tracking. Best candidate for § 102(e) against claims 1 and 4, and for § 103 against claim 6.
2. US 5,710,886 (Christensen / SellectSoft) — printed coupon bearing a bar-coded consumer ID, limited print count, redemption tracking. Best candidate against claims 2, 3 (and by extension 1, 4, 6) on the indicia/bar-code elements, subject to its diskette-centric delivery.
3. US 5,557,721 (Fite), US 5,708,782 (Larson) — host/remote coupon printing and tracking architecture; support for claim 4 but not full anticipation.
4. US 5,737,619 (Judson), US 5,774,869 (Toader), US 5,697,844 (Von Kohorn) — background only; not anticipatory.

Bottom line: No single cited reference appears to disclose every element of claim 1, 4 or 6 — in particular, the specific limitation "identifying indicia identifying said client computer printed on the paper coupon," and claim 6's "address of said client computer and a date," are not squarely met by any cited reference. The realistic ground is therefore § 103 obviousness (e.g., Golden in view of Christensen and/or Fite/Larson), not clean § 102 anticipation. This is consistent with the patent's later reexamination-litigation history and its inclusion in the S.D.N.Y. action (case 1:12-cv-07303).

Caveats (per the strict rule)

• I interpreted US 5,907,830 and all cited numbers literally; no identifiers were auto-corrected.
• The Google Patents "Prior Art Date" column reflects the earliest family priority date (e.g., 1986-03-10 for Von Kohorn '844; 1990-05-01 for Fite '721), not necessarily the filing date of the specific application that issued as each patent. Where I could not independently confirm an exact filing date from the retrieved sources (notably Von Kohorn '844), I have flagged low confidence rather than asserting a date.
• The § 102/§ 103 mapping above is a good-faith analytical projection from the retrieved abstracts/claims; it is not a validity opinion. Anticipation requires every limitation to be disclosed, which I could not fully verify for the primary references from the retrieved text alone. Verification against the full reference specifications is recommended.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me pull details on the key cited references.

Let me pull the remaining cited references to complete the record.

Obviousness Analysis — US 5,907,830 ("Electronic Coupon Distribution")

Assignee/chain: Individual → American Consulting Corp. → PlanetU → ADS Alliance Data Systems → Coupons, Inc. → Coupons.com Inc. → Quotient Technology Inc.
Inventors: Peter Engel; Andrew Engel · Filed/Priority: 1996-02-13 · Granted: 1999-05-25 · Status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2016-02-13)
Source of record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5907830/en

1. Legal Framing

Because the application was filed 1996-02-13, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103 govern. The governing standard is Graham v. John Deere as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). Under KSR, a combination is obvious where (a) the references are analogous/in the same field, (b) the elements are arranged as taught or by a predictable variation, (c) a known technique is applied to a known device ready for improvement, and/or (d) market forces or design incentives supply the motivation. See MPEP §§ 2141–2144.

PHOSITA (1995–96): a person with experience in electronic couponing/promotion systems and in networked client–server or on-line information services (the Internet/World Wide Web, on-line services such as AOL/Prodigy, and bulletin-board systems), capable of implementing GUI display, bar-coding, and database tracking.

Important evidentiary point on the cited art: all seven examiner-cited patents were filed in the U.S. before 1996-02-13 but published/granted after it (e.g., US 5,710,886 filed 1995-06-16; US 5,761,648 filed 1995-07-25; US 5,557,721 filed 1993-08-18; US 5,708,782 filed 1994-12-02; US 5,737,619 filed 1995-10-19; US 5,774,869 filed 1995-06-06; US 5,697,844 with 1986 priority). They are therefore available as pre-AIA § 102(e) prior art, which is why the examiner of record relied on them rather than on § 102(a)/(b) printed-publication dates. The Catalina non-patent citation (Wilke, "Catalina, Coupons Online in tests," Advertising Age, Aug. 28, 1995, p. 15) is § 102(a)-type art and independently shows that on-line coupon distribution was in commercial testing before the filing date.

2. Prior Art Inventory and What Each Reference Teaches

3. The Claims

1. System: client computer + printer + host with coupon info + communication device to download coupon info "upon the potential consumer indicating an interest … without any pre-authorization" + printer prints paper coupon + identifying indicia identifying said client computer on the coupon.
2. Claim 1 with encrypted indicia.
3. Claim 1 with bar code indicia.
4. On-line system: host + secured coupon data storage + search function area + viewer and request area + survey area + user analysis area + connection means without pre-authorization + printer + printed coupon with client-identifying indicia.
5. Claim 4 with encrypted indicia.
6. On-line system: client + printer + host + modem + secured coupon storage + survey area + user analysis + search function + viewer/request + numerical coding and encryption area using the consumer's identifying indicia, indicia including the client computer's address and a date, printed coupon coded for tracking.

4. Proposed § 103 Grounds

Ground A — Claims 1 and 3: Golden (US 5,761,648) in view of Christensen (US 5,710,886)

Golden alone discloses nearly the whole claim; the only gap is that Golden's indicia identify the user rather than the client machine. Christensen supplies the coupon-ID/bar-code-on-printed-coupon teaching, and claim 3's "bar code" is met expressly by both. Motivation: track and authenticate printed coupons and detect duplicate redemption — expressly stated goals in both references.

Ground B — Claim 1 (machine-identifying indicia) also over Fite (US 5,557,721) in view of Golden/Christensen

Fite expressly stores and uses "the unique identifier of the machine" (RVM_ID) together with dates in its coupon-tracking table. Substituting a machine/terminal identifier for a consumer identifier is a predictable, one-for-one substitution of a disclosed data field driven by the same purpose (fraud/tracking), squarely within KSR's "known technique" and "predictable variation" rationales. Fite also supplies the host-downloads-coupon-file architecture that mirrors claim 1's "communication device … whereby the coupon information may be downloaded."

Ground C — Claims 4 and 5: Fite in view of Golden and Von Kohorn (US 5,697,844)

• Host computer + secured coupon data storage area → Fite's host processor with coupon command/transaction files and controlled distribution tables; Golden's service database with issuer-set issue restrictions and "secured" storage of issued certificates.
• Search function area / viewer and request area → Golden's "browse among their choices, and make their selections"; Fite's display-file/command-file retrieval and coupon selection.
• Survey area → Von Kohorn (collection of consumer responses/player data and advertiser queries) and Golden (receipt of "remote user profile data," including answers to questions "prompted to the consumer both during and after the registration process").
• User analysis area → Golden's "correlation data which categorizes the remote user profile data" and selection/printing/redemption reports; Fite's statistics relayed back to the host; Christensen's redemption-analysis database.
• Connection means without pre-authorization + printer + client-identifying indicia → as in Grounds A/B.

Each of the "area" limitations of claim 4 is a functional module of the same host system, and KSR permits obviousness where the references disclose the claimed functions and it is a mere matter of design choice to organize them as discrete sub-systems. The references themselves motivate the clustering: both Golden and Von Kohorn describe feeding collected profile/response data into a targeting analysis that drives which coupons are offered.

Ground D — Claims 6 (and 2/5): Fite + Christensen + Golden + Larson (US 5,708,782)

Claim 6's additional limitations map cleanly:

• Modem between client and host → Larson's modem/X.25 links (and Christensen's network downloading).
• Numerical coding and encryption area using the consumer's identifying indicia to code consumer identity → Christensen's consumer ID number "derived from the validation code" and imprinted as a bar code; Larson's bar coding and security measures.
• Indicia including the address of the client computer and a date → Fite's RVM_ID (machine identifier) plus REQUEST_DT/SENT_DT dates recorded per transaction and per machine.
• Printed coupon coded for tracking → Golden's reports of selection/print/redemption; Larson's redemption-tracking via scanned bar codes.

Larson's own background expressly states the market need: coupon mis-redemption is a "$600–$800 million industry," and "short expiration dates, bar coding and other security measures" are the accepted tools. That statement is itself a motivation-to-combine recitation.

5. Motivation to Combine (KSR Factors)

1. Same field / analogous art. All references are in "the distribution of manufacturers' coupons for redemption by the consumer" and electronic/promotional distribution — the exact field of the challenged patent.
2. Addressing the same recognized problems. The patent's own background complains that paper coupons are "costly to print and distribute," that many are never seen, and that they are poorly targeted. Golden, Christensen, Fite, Larson and the Catalina NPL each address that identical problem set.
3. Known technique applied to a known device. Taking the well-known client–server on-line browsing/selecting model and applying it to coupon selection and printing is the textbook "application of a known technique to a known device ready for improvement." Christensen already taught "a computer network for downloading the package of data"; Golden already taught the consumer printer output; Fite already taught host-controlled coupon files and machine/date identifiers.
4. Predictable result. Nothing in the challenged claims produces a result beyond the expected sum of the parts: on-line browsing plus coupon printing plus coded identifiers plus data collection for marketing/targeting.
5. Market forces. Catalina's on-line coupon test (Aug. 1995) and the sponsor-funded Internet-access model of Interactive Media Works show a competitive, commercially obvious migration path from kiosk/mail couponing to Internet couponing.

6. Weaknesses in the Record / Where the Prima Facie Case Is Thinnest

I want to be explicit about the limits of a case built only on the seven cited references:

• Claim 2 (and claim 5's "encrypted"): None of the seven cited references squarely discloses encryption of the indicia. They disclose bar codes, "coding," "encoded information," serialization and validation codes. An obviousness case for this limitation requires reliance on general knowledge in the art (cryptographic encoding of coupon/certificate data — note that the field-of-search in Golden included classes 380/23, 380/51 and 380/55) and/or art outside the cited record. This is the examiner's likely reason for allowing claim 2 without a specific cryptographic reference, and it is the limitation most worth probing.
• "Identifying indicia identifying said client computer" (claims 1, 4, 6): Golden and Christensen identify the consumer, not the computer. Only Fite discloses a machine identifier, so this limitation requires the Ground B/D substitution argument (which is defensible but is a substitution, not a disclosure).
• "Without any pre-authorization": The specification itself describes a registration process 30 and the reference Golden expressly conditions certificate issuance "upon the entry of remote user profile data." A challenger must construe "pre-authorization" as meaning only that no prior human approval is needed to browse/download — a construction the intrinsic record does not clearly foreclose, making this term vulnerable on indefiniteness/construction grounds but not a clean anticipation point.
• Secondary considerations: The record supplied contains no evidence of unexpected results. To the extent Coupons.com/Quotient pointed to commercial success or long-felt need (the patent family was asserted in New York Southern District Court, case 1:12-cv-07303, per the patent page), that evidence must be tied by nexus to the specific claim limitations; the functional/organizational nature of the claim 4/6 "areas" makes nexus difficult to establish.
• Unverified references: US 5,737,619 and US 5,774,869 are characterized above only at abstract/title level; I did not retrieve their full texts, so treat those two as supporting context, not as load-bearing § 103 Grounds.

7. Conclusion

On the cited record, claims 1, 3, 4 and 6 appear obvious over:

• Golden (US 5,761,648) in view of Christensen (US 5,710,886) — claims 1 and 3; and
• Fite (US 5,557,721) in view of Golden and Von Kohorn (US 5,697,844) — claims 4 (and 5 subject to the encryption caveat); and
• Fite in view of Christensen, Golden and Larson (US 5,708,782) — claim 6,

with the Catalina Advertising Age NPL as evidence of the known commercial direction and Larson's background statement as an express motivation-to-combine recitation.

The strongest independent claim to attack is claim 2 (and the encryption component of claims 5/6); the weakest link in the combination theory is the "identifying indicia identifying said client computer" limitation, which requires combining Fite's machine-ID with Golden/Christensen's coupon-printing system. If the patent were still in force (it expired 2016-02-13), the most efficient additional ground would be a Christensen-alone § 102(e) rejection of claim 1 read with the anticipatory element "consumer ID number … printed … in the form of a bar code," leaving the machine-vs-consumer identifier distinction as the sole point of departure.

Primary sources cited:

• US 5,907,830 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5907830/en
• US 5,710,886 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5710886
• US 5,761,648 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5761648A](/patent/US5761648A)
• US 5,557,721 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5557721
• US 5,708,782 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5708782
• US 5,697,844 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5697844A](/patent/US5697844A)