Invalidity dossier
US 5983270
Method and apparatus for managing internetwork and intranetwork activity
Current assignee: JA MACFARLANE ENGINEERING Co Ltd
Added 9/20/2026, 5:19:59 AM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US5983270A
Title: Method and apparatus for managing internetwork and intranetwork activity
Patent number: US5983270A
Application number: US08/825,775
Inventors: Dalen M. Abraham; Todd A. Barnes; Paul F. Bouche; Thomas P. Bougetz; Tracy A. Gosselin; Mark G. Grieve; Brent A. Langdon; Robert C. Allison; Michael S. Nikkel
Original assignee: Sequel Tech Corp
Current assignee (as listed; Google notes the list may be inaccurate): JA MacFarlane Engineering Co Ltd; Imatec Ltd; Websense LLC
Priority date: 1997-03-11 (assumed)
Filing date: 1997-04-02
Publication date: 1999-11-09
Purpose and plain-language scope
According to the supplied excerpt, the invention concerns managing activity both between networks ("internetwork") and within a network ("intranetwork"). The prior-art keywords listed — user, computer, policy, internetwork, group — indicate the subject matter centers on applying policies to users, computers, or groups.
This is a high-level characterization only. The excerpt provided consists primarily of bibliographic, assignment, and legal-status data; it does not include the abstract, specification, or claims, so the precise technical scope cannot be described from the supplied text alone. No claim language is available to quote.
Related family filings (from the priority records shown):
- WO1998040987A1 (PCT/US1998/004747)
- JP2001514832A (JP53974998A)
- CN1253685A (CN98804499A)
- CA2283303A1 (CA002283303A)
- AU736382B2 (AU64577/98A)
- EP0966705A1 (EP98910302A)
- USRE40187E1 (from US10/918,833)
Legal status: Ceased; anticipated expiration recorded 2017-04-02.
What the excerpt does not establish
The excerpt does not establish the invention's specific technical operation, claim scope, or embodiments, because abstract, description, and claims are omitted. It does not establish litigation, validity, enforceability, or prior-art effect. It does not establish ownership as a legal conclusion — the source itself disclaims the assignee list's accuracy and labels the priority date and legal status as assumptions. It also does not resolve why multiple entities appear as current assignees.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5983270](/patent/US5983270)/en
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:02:47 PM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.