US 6266774

I'll run targeted searches for this exact patent number and any current litigation involving it.

Let me check for any PTAB, reexamination, or court proceedings involving this patent.

US Patent 6,266,774 B1 — Analyst Summary

Important scope note: I found no evidence of any 2026 CAFC docket, PTAB proceeding, IPR, or reexamination naming 6,266,774. The searches I ran (including a targeted "6266774 + CAFC 2026 docket" query) returned only the patent's own public records, the 2001-era "bad patent" press cycle, and unrelated litigation hits where the number appeared incidentally in search-corpus noise. Treat the litigation section below as a negative finding, not as verified absence.

1. Bibliographic data (from the authoritative patent text)

Two things worth flagging for accuracy:

• Ownership encumbrances: JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley Senior Funding recorded security interests in 2018-01-12; both were released by corrective filings in 2020-10-22 through 2022-03-02. The current register therefore shows McAfee LLC, unencumbered, though I did not independently pull the USPTO PatentCenter record — this is from the Google Patents assignment log.
• Family: A continuation-in-part, US 09/248,115 (filed 1999-02-11), issued as US 6,499,109 ("Method and apparatus for securing software distributed over a network"). Numerous later continuations claim the same 1998-12-08 priority, including US 6,701,441, US 6,671,812, US 6,988,209, US 6,895,513, US 7,480,941, US 7,472,419, US 8,706,576, US 10,182,061 and US 10,021,112. (Some of those were permitted to run as late-expiring continuations — a notable prosecution history point, but I have not verified their claim scope here.)

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A system, method, and computer program product for delivery and automatic execution of security, management, or optimization software over an Internet connection to a user computer responsive to a user request entered via a web browser on the user computer. In a preferred embodiment, the user directs the Internet browser to a Internet clinical services provider web site computer and logs in to the site using an identifier and a secure password and optionally makes a selection of the type of servicing desired, wherein an automatically-executing software package encapsulated within a markup language communication unit deliverable across the Internet is delivered, to the user computer, the automatically-executing software package being adapted to perform security, management, or optimization functions on the user computer. User identifiers and passwords enabling the downloads may be provided on a per-download basis or on a subscription basis."

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Method (the core claim). Three steps for servicing a remote computer from a server over a network:

1. The user points the Internet browser on the remote computer at the server to establish a logical connection;
2. The server delivers a software package across that connection, where the package is encapsulated inside a markup-language communication unit (i.e., an HTML/ActiveX-bearing page) and contains scripts for the maintenance tasks;
3. The scripts execute automatically on the remote computer.

The inventive thrust is the combination of browser-mediated delivery plus markup-language encapsulation plus non-interactive execution at the far end — the user only opens the page; everything after that is automatic.

Claim 12 — Computer program product on the server. Server-side code that (a) receives a user request entered through the remote user's web browser, (b) instantiates the download of a maintenance software package into storage on the user's computer via the browser, and (c) causes that software to execute automatically after download. The closing "whereby" clause states the result: advanced maintenance runs responsive only to the browser-entered request, with no local maintenance commands from the user. This is essentially the same concept recast as a Beauregard-style product claim.

Claim 14 — Computer-readable medium (means-plus-function format). Media carrying: means for directing the server to encapsulate a self-executing software maintenance program into a markup language communication unit deliverable across the Internet; means for directing the server to receive a user command over the Internet via a web browser on a remote user computer; and means for transmitting the encapsulated program to the remote computer responsive to that command, the program executing only in response to browser-entered commands. Note the claim-14 limitation is narrower on its face than claim 1 in that it expressly recites the Internet as the network.

Dependent claims worth noting (they define the commercial embodiment): claim 2 adds registration via web-page identifier + secure password as a precondition to delivery; claims 3–5 add transaction logging, periodic activity reports, and push e-mail notification of new products; claim 6 requires the connection be secure; claim 7 specifies the package include a computer virus detector; claims 8–10 add prepaid/subscription account verification, payment information sent by e-mail, and electronic receipts; claim 11 enumerates alternative maintenance tasks (compression, upgrade search, obsolete-software search/deletion, archival, hardware and software diagnostics).

4. Litigation / challenge status

• No CAFC 2026 docket or PTAB proceeding naming 6,266,774 surfaced in my searches. The patent's legal status is "Expired – Lifetime" as of 2018-12-08, which is consistent with there being no live merits appeal today; an expired patent can still support back-damages claims within the §286 limitations window, but I found no such case.
• The historical heat around this patent was public/policy, not judicial. It was widely criticized in 2001 as an overbroad business-method-style patent: Linux.com/LWN's "Infected by bad patents," Heise's report that McAfee obtained a patent on Internet software distribution, and — most substantively — the DotGNU Project's claim-by-claim obviousness analysis arguing each claim reads on routine web/IT practice (e.g., criticizing claim 9 for reciting payment by e-mail rather than via the web page).
  • https://www.linux.com/news/infected-bad-patents/
  • https://www.gnu.org/software/dotgnu/dgtemplate/patent-analysis.html
  • https://www.heise.de/news/McAfee-erhaelt-Patent-auf-Software-Vertrieb-per-Internet-44880.html
• Adjacent but NOT this patent: The Fed. Cir.'s 2026 Hafeman v. Google LLC, 177 F.4th 1191 (Fed. Cir. 2026) decision discusses "McAfee's remotely updated anti-virus software" as a comparison point in the Hafeman specification. That is a reference to McAfee's product/marketing, not to 6,266,774, and Hafeman's patents are unrelated. Do not conflate them.

5. Uncertainty and confidence levels

• High confidence (from the authoritative full text): title, application/filing/priority/issue dates, all five inventors, the 14 claims, the independent-claim interpretations above, and the abstract.
• Medium confidence: The original assignee designation. The patent text itself does not name an assignee on its face, and the record shows an unusual chain (Network Associates → McAfee.com → Network Associates Technology → McAfee, Inc. → McAfee LLC). Google Patents lists "McAfee com Corp" as original assignee; treat this as register-derived, not face-of-patent.
• Explicitly unknown / unverified: (i) whether any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal touches this patent — my search budget was exhausted before I could query the CAFC docket system directly; (ii) whether any ex parte reexamination certificate issued for 6,266,774 — I found none, but I could not complete that search; (iii) the exact enforced claim scope actually asserted against any party, since I found no complaint citing the '774 patent.

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6266774/en · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6266774-B1 · http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat6266774.html

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6266774 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Let me search additional litigation-specific databases.

Bottom line

I could not verify any patent infringement litigation — filed, pending, or concluded — asserting U.S. Patent No. 6,266,774 ("Method and system for securing, managing or optimizing a personal computer," Sampath et al., issued July 24, 2001, expired December 8, 2018). Based on the sources I could reach, the '774 patent appears to have generated substantial public controversy and licensing threats in 2001–2002, but I found no court case in which it was asserted as a patent-in-suit. I am stating that as "not found," not as proof of a negative.

What I searched (and what I did not find)

What the record does show (non-litigation)

• July/August 2001 grant and enforcement saber-rattling. ZDNet ("McAfee patents software-as-a-service"), heise online ("McAfee erhält Patent auf Software-Vertrieb per Internet"), and the San Francisco Chronicle-reported coverage all describe the July 24, 2001 issuance and CEO/co-inventor Srivats Sampath's statement that competitors could "license the technology or engineer around the patent." Commentary feared exposure for ASPs and Microsoft's .NET.
• Rhetoric was reportedly walked back. The Register (Sept. 3, 2001, "McAfee patents virus update over the Internet") states that after early bullish statements ("you either work with us or you work around this patent"), "Network Associates chief executive Srivats Sampath scaled back the firm's rhetoric on the subject" — consistent with a licensing/deterrence posture rather than filed suits. The GNU/DotGNU project published a claim-by-claim invalidity analysis of the patent, which in the 2001 era was a typical response to a threatened, not filed, assertion.
• Analyst criticism only. Linux.com's "Infected by bad patents" and the Israeli daily TheMarker (Aug. 16, 2001) treat the patent as an example of overbroad software patents. No cause of action.
• Caution — near-miss identifiers I excluded: a Chinese trademark registration no. 6266774 (FINEFLEX, Class 24) and Chinese court filings in Orange Electronics v. Autel (U.S. Pat. 8,031,064) matched the digits but are unrelated. Per your instruction, I did not treat these as hits.

Cases involving the family, but not the '774 patent

So you can tell the difference between family activity and '774 activity:

• CAP Co., Ltd. v. McAfee, Inc., No. 3:14-cv-05068-JD (N.D. Cal., filed Nov. 12, 2014). McAfee is the defendant; plaintiff asserted U.S. Patents 7,757,196 and 7,757,249 (traceable to U.S. App. 10/188,161, a Korean-priority family). The '774 patent is not a patent-in-suit.
• Gravel Rating Systems, LLC v. McAfee, LLC, No. 4:21-cv-00259-ALM (E.D. Tex., filed 2021). U.S. Pat. 7,590,636; McAfee's Rule 12(b)(6)/§ 101 motion denied. Unrelated to '774.
• Related-but-separate patents in the same McAfee "Clinic" family — the '774 continuation chain kept producing assets well after 2001: 11/316,562 → 7,480,941; 11/855,970 → 7,472,419; 12/266,413 → 8,706,576; 14/209,064 → 10,182,061 (2019); 14/583,573 → 10,021,112; 14/583,568 (abandoned). The active 2014 filings on a 1998 priority date are the profile of a portfolio being positioned for enforcement, but I found no pleading naming these either. Note also 6,496,109 (App. 09/248,115) was filed as a continuation-in-part of the '774 application — track it separately, as it has its own priority date.
• US 6,496,109 / 6,266,774-adjacent and US 6,296,456 (the antivirus-update patent covered alongside '774 in the 2001 press) are distinct patents; do not conflate them if you are running an FRAND/notice analysis.

Practical caveat and recommended verification

The patent's term ran to December 8, 2018 (Google Patents legal status: "Expired – Lifetime"; "Anticipated expiration 2018-12-08"). Any infringement action would therefore have had to be filed on or before that date, and any unexpired-tail issues now arise only in the continuation patents listed above.

I cannot rule out a docket my searches did not surface — district court complaints are not universally indexed by the free sources I could reach. To close the gap, I would check, in order:

1. Unified Patents litigation caselist — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (search the patent number; also try the family members).
2. Docket Alarm and Lex Machina / Westlaw Litigation Analytics — patent-number search "6,266,774" as patent-in-suit (not merely cited).
3. PACER / Bloomberg Law Docket Search for the McAfee entity names over time: McAfee.com Corp. → Networks Associates, Inc. → Networks Associates Technology, Inc. → Network Associates, Inc. → McAfee, Inc. → McAfee, LLC (the full assignment chain is in the Google Patents record), and cross-check predecessor McAfee Associates, Inc.
4. Google Patents → "Litigation" tab and USPTO Patent Center → "Proceedings" for any inter partes review, PGR, CBM, or ex parte reexamination of 6,266,774 (the PTACTS documents I found were IDS/office-action artifacts, not a PTAB proceeding against this patent).

If you'd like, I can re-run targeted searches against any of the four sources above — for example a Unified caselist query, or a defendant-name sweep for the 2001–2003 window — and report only literal hits on 6,266,774.

PTAB Proceedings — US 6,266,774 B1

"Method and system for securing, managing or optimizing a personal computer"
Patent Owner / Current Assignee: McAfee, LLC (original assignee McAfee.com Corp. / Network Associates)
Filing date: 1998-12-08 · Grant date: 2001-07-24 · Anticipated expiration: 2018-12-08 · Status: Expired – Lifetime
Claims: 14 (claim 1 method; claim 12 computer program product; claim 14 computer-readable medium)

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The canonical structured source for this engagement — the USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file" block — returns no AIA trial proceedings (no IPR, no PGR, no CBM) naming US 6,266,774 as the challenged patent, and independent web searches for a PTAB docket on this patent number likewise returned nothing.

Breakdown by status is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom-line defensive posture: All 14 claims stand exactly as issued in 2001 — not one claim has been canceled, narrowed, or construed by the Board. Do not expect to inherit a "claims 1–5 are already dead" argument; there is no IPR FWD, no certificate, no estoppel, and no PTAB claim construction to borrow. The patent's real defensive weakness is not PTAB at all: it expired 2018-12-08, so any assertion today is a past-damages-only case under 35 U.S.C. § 286, and the prior art is completely untested at the Board.

Proceedings

None — no AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed or instituted against US 6,266,774

• Type: n/a
• Filed: n/a
• Status: n/a (no proceeding exists in the record)
• Judge panel: none — no panel has ever been assigned
• Petition grounds: none asserted
• Institution decision: none issued
• Final Written Decision: none issued — no claim of the '774 patent has been held unpatentable, and no claim has been held patentable, by the PTAB
• Settlement / termination: n/a
• Appeal: none — no FWD exists to appeal
• Defensive value: For a defendant today, the significance is double-edged. (1) You get no free invalidity judgment — you cannot point to a canceled claim and end the case. (2) You also inherit no § 315(e)(2) estoppel — nobody has burned any ground, so the entire prior-art universe remains available to you in district court or the ITC. Combined with the 2018-12-08 expiration, that makes this a damages-only, fully contestable patent.

Closest adjacent PTAB activity — NOT this patent (do not cite as '774 precedent)

• IPR2016-00214 / IPR2016-00216, McAfee, Inc. v. CAP Co., Ltd. — these involve U.S. Reissue Patent Nos. RE44,249 and RE42,196, asserted in N.D. Cal. Case Nos. 3:14-cv-05068-JD and 3:14-cv-05071-JD. Different patents, different claims, different technology (virus-scan/firewall behavior). Filed 2015-11-19; Patent Owner response filed 2016-07-05. Useful only to show McAfee has litigated at the Board — not as authority about the '774 patent. Record: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-00216/
• Unified Patents patent portal page exists for US-6266774-B1 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6266774-B1). That is an analytics/reference page, not evidence of a Unified Patents challenge. There is no indication in it of an institution, and Unified's public write-ups do not list a '774 challenge. Treat it as a research lead, not a proceeding.

Strategic summary

Claim status across the patent (all 14 claims). Nothing is CANCELED. Claims 1–14 are all SUSTAINED in the literal sense that no tribunal has invalidated them — but the more accurate word is UNTESTED. Claim 1 (browser-directed logical connection → delivery of a software package encapsulated in a markup-language communication unit → automatic execution of maintenance scripts) has never been construed by the PTAB; claims 2–10 (registration/authentication, transaction log, periodic activity report, e-mail notification, secure connection, virus detection, subscription/fund-balance accounting, electronic payment and receipt) and claims 11–14 have never been challenged on any ground. There is consequently no surviving-claim list to cite because there is no narrowing to report. Note, however, the practical vulnerability that made this family interesting in the first place: claims 12 ("computer program product … comprising computer code") and 14 ("computer-readable medium, comprising: means for …") are the classic post-Alice § 101 targets, and claim 12/14-style software-product claiming is precisely what a district court § 101 motion or a § 112(6) indefiniteness challenge would attack. None of that has been adjudicated anywhere.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever instituted on the '774 patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel simply does not exist for this patent in either direction. No petitioner is barred; no privy of any petitioner is barred; and the patent owner has no IPR-hardened claim constructions. If you are sued today, your invalidity case is unconstrained: you may assert § 102/§ 103 on any reference, § 112 written-description/enablement/indefiniteness, and § 101, in any forum (district court, ITC, or a new IPR if you are not time-barred). The only vestiges of the 1998 priority date that matter are the on-sale/public-use and printed-publication windows and the fact that the world of pre-1998 browser/ActiveX/plug-in art (the Oil Change™, Castanet™, PointCast™ material discussed in the specification itself) has never been run through the Board.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner, because there is no petitioner. No PTAB appeal activity by McAfee on this patent. No defensive aggregator in the chain. No reexamination certificate or reissue appears in the family history for the '774 itself (the reissues in the CAP Co. litigation — RE42,196/RE44,249 — are separate McAfee patents, not reissues of the '774). The patent expired on 2018-12-08; all later members of the same 1998-12-08-priority family (including US 7,480,941, US 7,472,419, US 8,706,576, US 10,021,112, and US 10,182,061) expire on the same date by operation of the common priority claim, so there is no live continuation waiting in the wings with a later term.

Recommended next steps

1. Say it plainly in any opinion letter or IPR-strategy memo: there is no PTAB activity on this patent. No FWD to link to, no disposition to quote, no estoppel to plan around. Verify the negative yourself against PTAB E2E / the USPTO PTAB API before filing (https://www.uspto.gov/ptab; https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api), since ODP ingest lags and a recently filed petition may not appear yet.
2. Litigation rather than IPR is the higher-value venue. With the patent expired as of 2018-12-08, an IPR would be a poor spend: the patent owner cannot amend claims, and a Board win yields no more invalidity leverage than a district court SJ or jury verdict — while an instituted IPR would create § 315(e)(2) estoppel against you. If you file, file only if you also expect a stay or a parallel-ITC benefit.
3. Run the damages math immediately. Expiration means no injunctive relief is available and any recovery is limited to past damages for acts within six years before the complaint plus pre-expiration infringement. Demand letters citing this patent should be evaluated against a shrinking damages window, not a going-forward royalty.
4. Pull the file history and the NPL cited on the face of the patent. The examiner cited US 5,950,008 (Oracle — resolving symbolic references to externally located program files), US 5,960,170 (event-triggered iterative virus detection) and US 5,928,323 (dynamically generating information with server-side software objects), plus ~25 items of Microsoft COM/ActiveX and mcafee.com "Clinic" documentation (dated 1993–1999). That art set is the natural starting point for a § 102/§ 103 attack on claim 1's "markup language communication unit + automatically executing scripts" limitation and on claim 11's laundry list of maintenance tasks.
5. Do not over-read the absence of PTAB activity as proof of patent strength. It is a signal about economics, not validity — an expired 1998 software patent with no pleaded suit in the record attracts nobody's IPR budget. Treat the patent as fully presumptively valid but wholly untested, and price your defense accordingly.

Confidence and limitations: I state confidently that the structured PTAB data block is empty and that my searches (patent number + IPR/CBM/PGR/PTAB/Unified Patents; patent number + litigation) surfaced no AIA trial on this patent. I did not independently verify the absence of ex parte reexamination or of a district court suit that might have been filed and settled quietly, and I found no confirmable record of any infringement action asserting the '774 patent itself. If a demand letter identifies a specific suit, pull that docket before finalizing the position.

I'll research the assignment record before writing anything.

Data limitation up front (read this first): The USPTO Assignment Center / legacy Patent Assignment Search pages are not directly retrievable in this session, and no search return I obtained exposed reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record names for this patent. Everything below on dates, conveyance types, assignors and assignees is taken from the Google Patents legal-events mirror of the USPTO assignment record (authoritative text supplied in the brief). I have not fabricated reel/frame numbers or correspondent names; where they are missing I say so explicitly rather than guess.

Inventors

Employer at filing: the application was filed 1998-12-08, i.e. before the McAfee.com spin-out (McAfee.com was spun out of Network Associates in 1999). The first recorded assignment runs from the five inventors to Network Associates, Inc., which confirms the inventors were Network Associates-side employees at filing; by the Aug-2001 grant press release, four of the five are described in McAfee.com officer/director roles.

Unusual-pattern check: no evidence of coordinated inventor departure. The 1999 → 2000 → 2002 transfers map onto NAI's corporate restructuring (spin-out, then re-absorption), not onto inventor mobility. (Public reporting has Sampath leaving McAfee.com later — he subsequently founded Mercora — but that is after the chain and does not correlate with any transfer; treat as background, not a finding.)

Original assignee

• Named on the issued patent: McAfee.com Corporation (Google Patents lists original assignee as "McAfee com Corp," later recorded as MCAFEE.COM CORPORATION). The chain shows the inventors assigned to Network Associates, Inc. (1999-02-04), which then assigned to McAfee.com Corporation (2000-06-23) before the 2001-07-24 grant.
• Primary line of business: online-delivered consumer security/maintenance software — the "McAfee.com Clinic" subscription service. This is directly corroborated inside the patent: its own cited non-patent literature comprises live www.mcafee.com Clinic pages dated Aug 9, 1999 ("Clinic-Fees for McAfee Clinic Premium Services," "Clinic-Optimize Performance," "Clinic-Clean Hard Drive," "Clinic-Software Update Finder," "Clinic-McAfee Clinic"), i.e. a shipping commercial product embodying the claims (claims 1, 11 and 12 recite the download-and-auto-execute maintenance workflow that Clinic implemented).
• Current status of the originator: absorbed — McAfee.com merged back into Network Associates, Inc. (recorded 2002-09-19 and again 2002-09-26, apparent duplicate recording); NAI renamed McAfee, Inc. (Jul 2004); acquired by Intel (2011), operated as Intel Security; TPG took majority (2016); entity converted to McAfee, LLC (recorded 2017-08-24); McAfee Corp. IPO'd 2020, enterprise business sold to STG (Trellix) in 2021, consumer business taken private in 2022. McAfee LLC remains of record as assignee. No bankruptcy at any point.
• Noted for context: at grant (Aug 2001) McAfee.com publicly signalled it intended to sell licences to the patent, and the associated AP-syndicated reporting discussed which competitors might refuse to license. That is operating-company licensing monetisation, not NPE behaviour, and no resulting suit is visible in the record.

Assignment timeline

Recorded events (dates below are recording dates as mirrored by Google Patents; execution dates and reel/frame not retrieved — see the data-limitation note above). All conveyance descriptions are quoted from the record.

• exec. N/A / recorded 1999-02-04 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: Chandrasekar Balasubramaniam; Ravi Kannan; Babu Katchapalayam; Ravi Lingarkar; Srivats Sampath
  • Assignee: Network Associates, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: initial employment/ownership assignment to the parent operating company, pre-spin-out — internal reorg.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2000-06-23 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: Networks Associates, Inc. (d/b/a Network Associates, Inc.)
  • Assignee: McAfee.com Corporation
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal reorg — transfer to the newly spun-out online-services subsidiary.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2001-08-06 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: CHANGE OF ADDRESS
  • Assignor: McAfee.com Corporation
  • Assignee: McAfee.com Corporation
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: change of name/address only — no change in ownership.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2002-09-19 and again 2002-09-26 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: MERGER
  • Assignor: McAfee.com Corporation
  • Assignee: Networks Associates, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal reorg — reverse merger of the public subsidiary back into the parent. The same merger pair appears twice (09-19 and 09-26), which normally means two separate recordings/reels; reel numbers are needed to confirm.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2002-09-19 (and 2002-09-27) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST
  • Assignor: Networks Associates, Inc.
  • Assignee: Networks Associates Technology, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal reorg — holding/IP subsidiary consolidation within the same corporate group.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2007-09-13 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: MERGER
  • Assignor: Networks Associates Technology, Inc.
  • Assignee: McAfee, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal reorg — merger into the renamed parent.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2017-08-24 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: CHANGE OF NAME AND ENTITY CONVERSION
  • Assignor: McAfee, Inc.
  • Assignee: McAfee, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: change of name only — the post-TPG/Intel-Security entity conversion.

• exec. 2018-01-12 / recorded 2018-01-12 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: SECURITY INTEREST
  • Assignor: McAfee, LLC
  • Assignee: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A. (as collateral agent)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: securitization — blanket lien on the IP portfolio securing corporate debt, not a transfer of title.

• exec. 2018-01-12 / recorded 2018-01-12 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: SECURITY INTEREST
  • Assignor: McAfee, LLC
  • Assignee: MORGAN STANLEY SENIOR FUNDING, INC. (as collateral agent)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: securitization — companion first/second-lien security grant.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2020-10-22 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT
  • Assignor: McAfee, LLC
  • Assignee: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: corrective — removes patent 6,336,186 from the collateral schedule previously recorded.
  • Note: patent 6,266,774 had already reached anticipated expiration on 2018-12-08, so the 2020–2022 records are administrative cleanup of an expired asset.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2020-10-22 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: CORRECTIVE ASSIGNMENT
  • Assignor: McAfee, LLC
  • Assignee: MORGAN STANLEY SENIOR FUNDING, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: corrective — same schedule correction on the Morgan Stanley side.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2020-10-26 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: RELEASE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COLLATERAL
  • Assignor: JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, N.A., as collateral agent
  • Assignee: McAfee, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: securitization unwind (refinancing) — lien released.

• exec. N/A / recorded 2022-03-02 — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: RELEASE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY COLLATERAL
  • Assignor: Morgan Stanley Senior Funding, Inc., as collateral agent
  • Assignee: McAfee, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: securitization unwind — final lien release.

Family context (same USPTO file, not separate assignments of this patent): the record shows a continuous internal continuation practice off the 1998-12-08 priority date — US09/248,115 (CIP, filed 1999-02-11 → US 6,499,109) and successive continuations filed 2002-06-25 (US 6,701,441), 2002-10-04 (US 6,671,812), 2002-10-04 (US 6,988,209), 2003-10-01 (US 6,895,513), 2005-12-21 (US 7,480,941), 2007-09-14 (US 7,472,419), 2008-11-06 (US 8,706,576), 2014-03-13 (US 10,182,061), and 2014-12-26 (US 10,021,112 / US 2015/0156256 A1). All remain in the McAfee chain. That is a large portfolio kept alive by one operating-company family for ~20 years, not an aggregation play.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6266774
    1998 : Filed by five inventors
    1999 : Assigned to Network Associates Inc
    2000 : Assigned to McAfee.com Corporation
    2001 : Patent issued Jul 24
    2002 : Merger back into Networks Associates
         : Reassigned to Networks Associates Tech
    2007 : Merger into McAfee Inc
    2017 : Change of name to McAfee LLC
    2018 : Security interest to JPMorgan
         : Security interest to Morgan Stanley
         : Anticipated patent term expiry
    2020 : Corrective filings and lien releases
    2022 : Final lien release recorded

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. Every assignee in the chain is an operating company in the same corporate family: Network Associates, Inc. → McAfee.com Corporation → Networks Associates, Inc. → Networks Associates Technology, Inc. → McAfee, Inc. → McAfee, LLC (recorded 1999-02-04 through 2017-08-24). No entity with an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix, no registered-agent-service address, and no single-purpose LLC appears. McAfee, LLC is a product company (consumer/enterprise security under the McAfee and Trellix brands).
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No link matches the named NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). Caveat stated honestly: I did not obtain the RPX Insurance or Unified Patents asserter directories in this session; a Unified Patents patent page exists for US-6266774, but that only shows the patent is in the Unified database, not that it is asserted. Marked not present on the evidence available.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / unverifiable here. USPT

I'll search for the specific patent and its cited prior art references.

Let me pull the front-page "References Cited" list and the patent PDF.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 6,266,774 B1

Scope/limitation warning up front: I queried the USPTO-mirrored records (Google Patents, which reproduces the USPTO front page (56) references, and the Unified Patents portal, which indexes the same citation set) plus secondary aggregators. I hit my tool-call budget before I could retrieve the complete (56) "References Cited" block verbatim. Below I report only references I actually observed in returned results, I flag anything I could not confirm, and I do not reconstruct the list from memory. Treat this as a partial, source-grounded inventory, not an exhaustive one.

1. Confirmation of the patent identity

The query returned the correct record and no confusable neighbors (e.g., I saw the adjacent-serial index page for 6266734–6266987 but did not pull it in as a result):

• US 6,266,774 B1, Method and system for securing, managing or optimizing a personal computer, Appl. No. 09/208,735, filed/priority 1998-12-08, granted 2001-07-24, 14 claims, McAfee lineage. Confirmed at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6266774/en and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[6266774](/patent/6266774)-B1.

Because the application was filed 1998-12-08, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §102 governs. That matters: §102(e) (US patent granted on an application filed before the applicant's date) is available even for references that issued after 1998-12-08.

2. Patent references verified as cited on the '774 face

Three US patent references were positively observed in the citation index for US-6266774-B1:

Net §102 finding: On the three verified patent references, I find no single-reference anticipation of independent claim 1, 12, or 14. Each lacks at least the "markup-language-encapsulated, automatically-executing maintenance package" element. The realistic attack on validity is §103 (combining a server-side dynamic-content reference with a virus-detection reference and the COM/ActiveX enablement art below), which matches the historical criticism of the patent.

3. Non-patent literature cited (25 items, as observed)

The citation set is dominated by Microsoft MSDN COM/OLE/ActiveX documentation plus eight McAfee.com "Clinic" web pages:

• McAfee.com "Clinic" pages — "Fees for McAfee Clinic Premium Services," "Home—The Place for Your PC," "Clean Hard Drive," "Optimize Performance," "McAfee Clinic," "Coming Soon," "Software Update Finder" (each dated Aug. 9, 1999).
• MSDN/microsoft.com — "OLE Integration Technologies: A Technical Overview" (10/94); "The Component Object Model: A Technical Overview" (10/94); "OLE for Idiots: A/B/C/D…" (Jun.–Sep. 1993); "COM Techniques by Panther Software, Introduction" (Oct. 7, 1998); "Notes on Implementing an OLE Control Container" (Sep. 21, 1994); "Developing Applications with OLE 2.0" (Sep. 13, 1994); "The COM Programmer's Cookbook" (Sep. 13, 1995); "Signed and Marking ActiveX Controls" (Oct. 15, 1996); "What OLE is Really About" (7/96); "Events vs. Callbacks" (4/97); "The ABCs of MFC ActiveX Controls" (Oct. 22, 1996); "OLE Property Sets Exposed" (Oct. 6, 1995); "ActiveX Controls Overview" (Oct. 23, 1998); "About Microsoft COM" (Feb. 25, 1999); "Component Object Model (COM)" (Mar. 30, 1999).

§102 effect of the NPL:

• Pre-filing items (1993–Oct. 1998) — including the "A/B/C/D is for …" OLE series, the two 10/94 overviews, the COM Cookbook, and the Oct. 7, 1998 "COM Techniques by Panther Software" piece — are §102(a)/(b) printed publications in principle, but they are enablement/background art for COM and ActiveX, not disclosures of the claimed method. They support §103 (establishing that the encapsulation vehicle was known) rather than anticipation.
• Post-filing items (Feb. 25, 1999; Mar. 30, 1999; Aug. 9, 1999) — these postdate the 1998-12-08 filing and cannot be §102 art against the '774 claims at all.

4. Contradictions and flags (per my instructions to flag these)

1. Anachronistic citation dates. Eight cited McAfee.com "Clinic" pages are dated Aug. 9, 1999, and two Microsoft pages are dated Feb./Mar. 1999 — all after the '774 filing date of 1998-12-08. A reference list containing post-filing items strongly suggests the front-page citation block Google/Unified surfaces is conflated with (or inherited from) the continuation-in-part US 09/248,115 (filed 1999-02-11, issued as US 6,499,109) or a later family member, not the original '774 prosecution. I did not verify which application each item was cited in. Recommendation: pull the actual US 09/208,735 Image File Wrapper / PTO-1449 from PatentCenter to confirm which references the examiner actually applied to these 14 claims.
2. Forward-citation count discrepancy. Google Patents renders "Cited By (160)"; the Unified Patents portal renders "Referenced By (322)." These are forward citations (later patents citing '774) and are not prior art; I list the mismatch only so no downstream reader mistakes either figure for prior art.
3. Same-family reference — not prior art. US 6,499,109 (CIP, 1999-02-11) and the later continuations (US 6,701,441; 6,895,513; 6,671,812; 6,988,209; 7,480,941; 7,472,419; 8,706,576; 10,182,061; 10,021,112) claim the same 1998-12-08 priority. They are §102-ineligible as to '774 (same inventive entity / common ownership), so they must not be counted as prior art even though they cite '774.
4. The 2001 "bad patent" campaign is not prior art. The DotGNU claim-by-claim obviousness critique (https://www.gnu.org/software/dotgnu/dgtemplate/patent-analysis.html) and contemporaneous press (Linux.com "Infected by bad patents"; Heise) are invalidity arguments built on general knowledge, not citations in the (56) block. They are useful for a §103 roadmap but are not themselves references.

5. Bottom line

• Verified patent citations: US 5,950,008; US 5,960,170; US 5,928,323 — all pre-'774-filing and thus §102(e)-eligible, but none anticipates any of claims 1, 12, or 14 read as a whole; each is §103 combination material.
• Verified NPL: 25 items, predominantly Microsoft COM/ActiveX documentation (substantively §103 enablement art) and post-filing McAfee.com pages (not §102 art at all).
• No anticipation identified from any citation I verified.
• Explicitly unverified / incomplete: the complete (56) References Cited list (my retrieval of the front page was interrupted); the issue dates and assignee of US 5,928,323; and which application (09/208,735 vs. the 1999 CIP) the 1999-dated references were cited in.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6266774/en · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6266774-B1 · https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/[5628977](/patent/5628977)/FID3294/OG/html/1280-1/us06701441-20040302.html (family/continuity).

Caveat: I was cut off by a tool-step limit mid-investigation, so this is a partial finding. The authoritative next step is a USPTO PatentCenter pull of the '774 application's front page and PTO-1449 to lock down the definitive cited-reference set.

I'll research the prior-art references relevant to this patent before building the §103 analysis.

Let me gather more specific pre-1998 reference art on remote/browser-delivered software installation and maintenance.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 6,266,774 B1

*Builds on the prior sections' claim chart and bibliographic work; does not repeat them. Where a date or reference attribute was not confirmed by the searches run for this task, it is marked [unverified].*

A. Analytical frame (and one date note)

Note: the task header states the current date as April 26, 2026, while my operating context is 2026-10-01. Immaterial to the §103 analysis, but flagged per the standing rule.

Governing law. The application was filed 1998-12-08 with no earlier provisional claimed, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103 control. The relevant critical dates are:

• § 102(b) statutory bar / printed-publication date: 1997-12-08
• § 102(a) "patented or described in a printed publication … before the invention" / 1998-12-08 filing
• § 102(e): a U.S. patent granted on or after the '774 filing date is still prior art if its U.S. filing (or properly supported § 120 parent) predates 1998-12-08.

How I used the "Prior Art" section of this page — an important literal-reading point. The page's two large tables (Cited By (160) and Families Citing this family (167)) are forward citations. Read literally, they are overwhelmingly later documents and therefore not prior art to a 1998-12-08 filing. Two consequences:

1. The great majority of the numbers in those tables (e.g., US 6,491,909, US 6,988,209, US 7,472,419, US 10,182,061, US 10,021,112 — all '774 continuations; US 10,361,802 (1999-02-01); US 7,934,254 (1998-12-09); US 8,407,683's siblings) must not be treated as §103 art.
2. The usable prior art on this page reduces to (i) the two entries in "Families Citing" with pre-1998-12-08 priority dates, and (ii) the background art admitted in the '774 specification itself — which under § 103 is fully available (an applicant's own admission of what was known is prior art against it; In re Nomiya, 509 F.2d 566 (CCPA 1975)). I supplement with the references those documents cite, recovered in the searches below.

Two near-misses I want to kill up front (this matters for candor):

Even though its redated art is unusable, the Lum/Network Ice disclosure is useful only as evidence of the ordinary skill level (remote push-install of drivers + security code, no reboot) — not as § 102/§ 103 art.

Person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA). A bachelor's degree in CS or EE (or equivalent) with roughly 2 years' experience building networked client–server or Internet software, or a master's with less; conversant with HTTP/HTML, browser extension models (Java applets, Netscape plug-ins, Microsoft ActiveX/COM), SSL, and existing remote software-distribution practice. Daiichi Sankyo v. Apotex, 501 F.3d 1254 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (skill level defines the art). This is a low skill level for a 1998 network-software artisan; that cuts against patentability.

B. Reference inventory (candidate § 103 art)

B.1 Admitted prior art inside the '774 specification (bulletproof as art)

The specification itself is the densest source of § 103 art here:

The ActiveX admission is fatal to the novelty of the encapsulation element on its own; the Java/applet admission and the Castanet admission together supply delivery-plus-execution; Oil Change supplies the automatic maintenance character. The only genuine question is whether the specific combination yields something nonobvious, and § 103 ≠ § 102.

B.2 External references (recovered in this task's searches)

C. Claim 1 — element chart

Claim 1 (independent, method) breaks into four limitations:

Combination 1 (primary): Pedrizetti '708 + Doyle '906 + Fawcett '077

The rejection writes itself:

• Pedrizetti supplies a browser-contacted server that causes the client to "Load OCX" — an ActiveX control fetched and instantiated at the client as a consequence of the page — then auto-senses the machine, enumerates registered and non-registered applications, checks for updates, and downloads-and-executes a DLL. Pedrizetti therefore discloses 1a, most of 1c, and 1d.
• Doyle '906 supplies precisely the missing vehicle: an executable external application embedded in a hypermedia document and automatically invoked by the browser when the document is rendered. That is limitation 1b, reduced to practice four years before the '774 filing.
• Fawcett '077 supplies the maintenance character and the motivation: it identifies the very problem the '774 recites (download sites "require a degree of user sophistication"; no "simple, automatic way of learning of or obtaining upgrades"), and solves it by having the server automatically inventory the client and push the appropriate upgrade or fix.

Combination 2 (backup): Doyle '906 + Fawcett '077 + admitted Oil Change/ActiveX art

If Pedrizetti's "OCX" were characterized as merely a scanner rather than a maintenance payload, the rejection can rest on Doyle (HTML-embedded auto-executing object) + Fawcett (server-side update inventory and push) + the '774's own admissions that (i) ActiveX controls are "embedded in a HTML page" and (ii) Oil Change already performed "automatic updating of computer programs via the Internet." The only delta left is Castanet's admitted defect — manual execution — and removing a manual step in favor of automation disclosed by Doyle is the paradigm of a § 103 improvement.

Combination 3 (dependent-support / broad): IBM '729 + Pedrizetti + Doyle

IBM '729 independently teaches a downloaded-over-HTTP middleware object auto-instantiated in client RAM from a service provider, gated by username/password, performing "system monitoring or system management." That last phrase is maintenance by another name, and it single-handedly bridges the claim-1/service model plus claim 2's authentication (see § F).

D. Claims 12 and 14

For claim 14, note also the drafting defect flagged in the earlier section (claim 14 recites the Internet expressly, claim 1 does not) — irrelevant to validity but relevant to any infringement mapping.

E. Dependent claims

F. Motivation-to-combine rationales (articulated, KSR-compliant)

1. Same field of endeavour, same problem, overlapping disclosures. All references are in network-based software distribution/management. KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007) ("familiar elements … according to known methods"). Unwired Planet v. Google, 841 F.3d 995, 1001–02 (Fed. Cir. 2016).
2. Explicit suggestion in the art. Pedrizetti's own flow chart recites "Load OCX" as a step in contacting the server — a self-contained teaching to deliver the client-side payload via a browser-loaded control, which is exactly the Doyle mechanism.
3. Explicit problem statement in the art. Fawcett recites that prior download channels "require a degree of user sophistication and technical expertise in the selection, downloading and installation of the new software," and the '774 claims solve that. A reference that states the problem supplies the motivation to adopt the first-known solution. In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006) (rational underpinning required — and here it is supplied by the references, not by the '774 disclosure).
4. Obvious-to-try / finite number of identified, predictable solutions. By December 1998 a POSITA had exactly three browser-delivery vehicles: Java applets (admitted deficient — no file-system/desktop access), Netscape plug-ins, and ActiveX/COM controls (admitted in the spec to be embeddable in HTML pages). The '774 picked ActiveX and said so. KSR, 550 U.S. at 421; Ball Aerosol v. Limited Brands, 555 F.3d 984, 993 (Fed. Cir. 2009).
5. Predictable results; software is not an unpredictable art. Automation of a manual step by scripting is routine and its success is reasonably expected. (This is the reasoning a PTAB panel actually used in the neighbouring record surfaced in this task's searches: "[S]oftware is not an unpredictable art, and the software would have functioned according to its programming.")
6. No criticality of the specific wrapper. Nothing in the '774 claims or spec. attributes any unexpected effect to COM/ActiveX versus Java, plug-ins, or an HTTP-fetched script — which defeats any "criticality" argument.
7. Design incentives. Delivering maintenance code through the already-installed browser avoids a separate client-agent install (the admitted defect of Oil Change and Castanet: "Once installed on the user computer…"). That is a recognised, predictable engineering trade-off. Winner Int'l Royalty v. Wang, 202 F.3d 1340 (Fed. Cir. 2000).

G. What the patent owner would argue — and how strong it is

H. Bottom line

Overall: on this record the '774 claims present a strong prima facie § 103 case, and the patent's own specification supplies much of it. The only genuinely vulnerable spot in the rejection is the motivation articulation for joining the browser-encapsulation teaching (Doyle) to the maintenance-payload teaching (Fawcett/Pedrizetti); that articulation is available and explicit (Pedrizetti's "Load OCX" step plus Fawcett's stated problem), but it must be spelled out rather than assumed — as the PTAB record surfaced in these searches warns, "rejections on obviousness grounds cannot be sustained by mere conclusory statements" (In re Kahn). The 2001-era criticism of this patent converges on the same conclusion.

I. Confidence and unverified items

High confidence: the claim-1/12/14 element breakdown; the § 103 framework and critical dates; the use of the specification's own admissions (Oil Change, Castanet, Java/applets, ActiveX-in-HTML, e-mail notification) as prior art; that the two forward-citation tables on the page are not § 103 art.

Medium confidence: US 5,845,077's and US 6,151,708's dates and teachings (verified from search text); US 6,757,729's VEM/HTTP/password content (verified); US 6,393,605's script-in-HTML disclosure (verified) but not its actual filing date.

Explicitly unverified — verify before filing any paper:

1. US 5,838,906 (Doyle) — filing/grant dates and claim language are from my prior knowledge, not from this task's searches. Its subject matter is solid; the dates must be confirmed. Likewise its later inequitable-conduct holding.
2. US 5,764,992, US 5,835,777, US 5,845,090, US 5,881,236, US 5,440,723, US 5,465,206 — dates and content from memory; I only saw several of them listed in the citation list of US 6,347,398.
3. US 8,407,683's 1996-06-07 priority support for the relied-on uninstallation disclosure, and whether its § 102(e) date properly reaches back that far.
4. GB 2 320 344 A's exact publication date (relevant only if IBM '729 is used as a § 102(a)/(b) printed publication rather than as § 102(e) art).
5. I did not verify whether any ex parte reexamination certificate or IPR ever issued against 6,266,774 (consistent with the prior section's negative finding).

Key sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6266774/en · https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6757729B1](/patent/US6757729B1) · https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6393605B1](/patent/US6393605B1)/en · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00023/…/Exhibit-1007-…-Pedrizetti_US_Patent_No_6,151,708 (US 6,151,708 full text incl. FIG. 2 flow) · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00854/…/Exhibit_1004_US_Patent_No_5,974,454.pdf · https://worldwide.espacenet.com/searchResults?query=US5845077 · https://patents.justia.com/patent/[6347398](/patent/6347398) (NPL and reference list) · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f5/d3/0d/4ad52cd3697b65/GB2320344A.pdf · https://www.gnu.org/software/dotgnu/dgtemplate/patent-analysis.html (claim-by-claim critique; commentary, not prior art)