US 6418146

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any CAFC/2026 litigation activity.

Let me check specifically for any litigation or PTAB/CAFC activity involving this patent.

US Patent 6,418,146 — Analyst Summary

Search result on 2026 CAFC activity

I searched for Federal Circuit/PTAB activity in 2026 involving this specific patent. No CAFC 2026 docket, appeal, or IPR naming U.S. Patent 6,418,146 was found. I cannot confirm from the sources retrieved that this patent has ever been subject to an IPR or a CAFC appeal, and I have no authoritative information on any district-court litigation involving it. I am flagging this as an absence of evidence, not affirmative proof that no such proceeding exists. Also note the patent expired 2020‑04‑14 (anticipated expiration), which significantly reduces the likelihood of new 2026 appellate activity.

Bibliographic data

Discrepancy flagged: the Unified Patents portal lists the priority date as 1999‑12‑09 and application date as 2000‑04‑13, while Google Patents (the authoritative text supplied) lists 1999‑12‑10 and 2000‑04‑14. This is likely a timezone/parsing artifact; I take the Google Patents dates as controlling.

Abstract

"A wireless access protocol service provider (WAP-SP), providing access to Internet data for WAP-enabled appliances is enhanced with software for facilitating telephony calls, enabling, for example, connection of a user of the WAP-enabled appliance, communicating with a Web site through the WAP-SP, to an agent of an enterprise that hosts the Web site."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the WAP-SP apparatus. A WAP service provider (an enhanced proxy server sitting in the Internet) has four components: (a) a wireless interface for talking to a WAP appliance; (b) a telephony interface; (c) a data repository holding user data; and (d) a software suite. The characterizing part: the software gives the WAP user an interface to initiate a live voice call, routes that call per pre‑programmed rules to a selected destination, and retrieves the stored data about that user and sends it along with the call. The "live voice call" and the "data sent with the call" are the two limitations that distinguish this from a plain WAP browsing proxy.

Claim 4 — the system. Three network entities plus a private link: (i) a software-enhanced WAP-SP connected to the Internet, connected by WAP protocol to the WAP device, and connected to a telephony network; (ii) an enterprise-hosted Internet server; (iii) an enterprise-hosted call center on the telephony network; and (iv) a dedicated data link, separate from the telephony network connection, joining the WAP-SP and the call center. The user requests a telephony connection to the call center; the WAP-SP routes the call over the telephony network and sends user-associated data over the dedicated link in parallel with the live voice call (i.e., a screen-pop / data-along-with-voice architecture).

Claim 7 — the method. (a) The WAP appliance connects to the enterprise's hosted Web service through the WAP-SP; (b) the user initiates a live voice call via an interface provided by the WAP-SP; (c) the call is placed to the call center hosted by the Web-service host over a telephony network connected to the WAP-SP; and (d) user-associated data is retrieved from a data store accessible to the WAP-SP and forwarded with the call.

Dependent claims (brief)

• 2 / 5 / 8: the telephony network is the Internet and the calls are IPNT (Internet Protocol Network Telephony) calls (claim 5 adds that the call center can handle IPNT).
• 3 / 6 / 9: COST/PSTN variant — a COST trunk into the PSTN, with the call center handling PSTN calls.
• 10: telephony functions are provided by software running on a CTI processor linked to the WAP-SP by a CTI link.
• 11: the CTI processor has a separate data-network link (other than the telephony network) to a CTI processor at the call center, and the user data is forwarded over that separate link.

Analytical notes

• Granted claim scope vs. the as-filed summary. The specification's "Summary of the Invention" describes claim 1 as merely enabling a user to "initiate a call." The granted independent claims 1, 4, and 7 recite a "live voice call." So the issued claims are narrower than the summary language; the live-voice-call recitation was evidently important to allowance.
• Closest prior art cited on the face. US 5,841,854 (Priority Call Management — wireless telephone integration for call centers), US 5,920,621 (MCI), US 5,751,706 (Cignal Global), US 6,094,479 (Ericsson — CTI gateway), and US 5,880,432 (NBTel — coordinating communications across contact channels via a call center) all appear in the reference list and are consistent with the claim's CTI/parallel-data-routing theme.
• Uncertainty disclosure: I have no authoritative evidence of litigation, IPR, or CAFC proceedings for this patent. The bibliographic details above come from the supplied Google Patents text, corroborated where noted by the Unified Patents portal and Genesys product documentation (which lists "6418146" among Genesys-covered patents).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6418146 across patent litigation databases.

Let me run more targeted searches on litigation databases for this specific patent.

Litigation Search — U.S. Patent No. 6,418,146

Bottom line

I found no litigation (district court or appellate) that asserts or otherwise involves U.S. Patent No. 6,418,146. No matching PACER docket, no PTAB proceeding, and no entry on the litigation databases I searched. Several explanatory notes and one caution follow.

What I searched and what came back

1. Unified Patents patent page (the litigation-tracker source you specified)

• URL: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6418146-B1
• The record returned contains family members (7), patent art (10), "Referenced By" (76), and "Opposition Documents," but no litigation or case-list entries. Unified's patent pages populate a litigation section when a case asserts the patent; none appeared here.
• Unified's own identifier for this record is US-6418146-B1 ("Integrated Communication Center Functionality for Wap Devices").

2. Google Patents (authoritative full text you provided)

• https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6418146](/patent/US6418146)/en
• The "Cited By (42)" / "Families Citing this family (10)" / "Citations (10)" tables are prior-art and citation tables, not litigation. Google Patents displays a dedicated "Litigation" section when a patent has been sued on; it is absent here.
• Status on the page: Expired – Lifetime, with anticipated expiration 2020-04-14 (also reflected as Expiration Date 2020-04-13 on the Unified record). A patent whose term expired in April 2020 can no longer be asserted prospectively.

3. No district-court case found

• Targeted searches on 6418146 + litigation/docket/complaint and "6,418,146" returned no complaint, docket number, or case caption asserting this patent.

4. No PTAB proceeding found

• No IPR, PGR, or reexamination petition naming U.S. 6,418,146 surfaced.

A near-miss you should NOT conflate with this patent

• Katz Technology Licensing LP v. Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. — E.D. Tex. (Texarkana Division), complaint dated January 29, 2007. Genesys is a defendant, but the asserted patents are the '773, '590, '933, '197, '688 and '711 patents (automated multi-party telephone conferencing). U.S. 6,418,146 is not among them. This is a Genesys-as-defendant case, not a case involving the '146 patent.
• Separately, references to "the '641 patent" in Wirtgen America v. Caterpillar (D. Del. 1:17-cv-00770-JDW) concern road-construction patents and are a different patent number — do not auto-map those to 6,418,146.

Owner / chain of title relevant to any future assertion

From the patent record (interpreted literally, without correction):

• Original assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. (assignment recorded 2000-06-12; inventor Miloslavsky, Alec).
• Later reassignments: to Alcatel Lucent (2011-09-12), back to Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. (2012-02-10), with various security interests (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America).
• Current assignee listed: Genesys Cloud Services Inc (parent per Unified: "Genesys Cloud Services Inc").
• Family members include US20020054579A1 (continuation, abandoned) and US10/074,886 → US6718366B2; foreign counterparts AU1077301A, JP3820151B2, EP1107555A3, WO2001043410A1.

Caveats (stated explicitly)

• I did not have direct, live PACER or CourtListener docket access in these searches; my conclusions rest on the patent-litigation databases and web results returned. Absence of a record is not proof of absence of litigation.
• Because the patent expired (anticipated 2020-04-14), it is unlikely to be the subject of recent enforcement, but it could theoretically appear in older, less-indexed cases or in counterclaims/defenses not surfaced by these searches.
• Any prior-art/U.S. citation numbering in the tables above (e.g., "US 6418146 B1 09/07/2002") is reproduced as found and not normalized.

Recommendation: to reach a definitive answer, confirm via PACER Case Locator (party search for Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories / Genesys Cloud Services) and Docket Alarm/RPX Insight case lists for the '146 patent; if those return nothing, treat the patent as never litigated to the best of available records.

I'll verify the ODP result against live sources before writing anything up.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to be certain before I commit to "no activity."

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,418,146: zero. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block reports no AIA trial proceedings as of the most recent ingest, and my independent web checks surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition naming this patent either — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied, and the defensive posture this gives a defendant is not "the patent is hardened" but rather something stronger and simpler: there is no PTAB track record to litigate around, because no one has ever petitioned — and none of claims 1–11 has ever been tested at the Board.

No proceedings identified

I looked in three places and found nothing:

1. USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block (canonical, per the task instructions) — returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 6,418,146.
2. Web search for 6418146 + IPR / PTAB — all hits are false positives on unrelated patents (e.g., IPR2021-00562 concerns U.S. 10,257,814; the Red Hat petition concerns U.S. 11,418,641) or unrelated uses of the number string (an AXOR shower part number, a SMARTY trademark registration number, a PubMed ID).
3. Unified Patents patent portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[6418146](/patent/6418146)-B1 lists the patent (grant 2002-07-08; assignee Genesys Cloud Services Inc; original assignee Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories Inc) but shows no IPR/PGR/CBM challenges and no litigation entries.

I am flagging this positively rather than negatively: this is not a case where I found a proceeding and could not describe it. I found no proceeding at all. I cannot rule out a sealed settlement before institution or a petition filed in the last few weeks that has not propagated to public sources, but nothing in the record suggests either.

Why the null result is structurally credible (not just an indexing gap)

Three features of this patent make an empty PTAB docket the expected outcome, not a surprising one:

• The patent expired. Google Patents records the legal status as Expired – Lifetime, with an anticipated expiration of 2020-04-14 (20 years from the 2000-04-14 filing; priority date 1999-12-10). By 2026-09-27 the term is more than six years dead. Petitioners almost never fund an IPR against an expired patent — there is no live exclusionary right to knock down, and the § 286 six-year damages lookback from any complaint filed today would reach back only to roughly 2020-09-27, after expiration. The patent is essentially judgment-proof from the enforcement side, which removes the economic motive to petition.
• PGR was never available. Post-Grant Review applies only to patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. With a 1999 priority date, PGR is categorically unavailable — so a zero PGR count is a legal certainty, not a data gap.
• CBM was never a fit. The transitional Covered Business Method program (2012–2020) reached only patents claiming a financial product or service. This patent claims a WAP proxy server that bridges wireless browsing sessions to call-center routing and CTI functions — a telecommunications architecture, not a financial method. No CBM petition would have had a credible § 18(d)(1) footing.
• This is a defensive portfolio patent, not a troll assertion vehicle. US 6,418,146 appears in Genesys's own product documentation patent notices (e.g., the Genesys eServices / Web Collaboration 8.0 "Patents" list at docs.genesys.com). It was Genesys's own product-covering IP, and the assignment chain (Genesys → Alcatel Lucent 2011 → back to Genesys 2012 → Genesys Cloud Services Inc today) is corporate housekeeping, not monetization. Patents like this typically attract IPRs only when the owner sues; here the owner appears never to have asserted it, and it expired without controversy. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, AST) appears in the chain — there was nothing for them to attack.

Existing Genesys-adjacent litigation I encountered does not involve this patent: Pragmatus Telecom LLC v. Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., No. 1:14-cv-00026 (D. Del., filed 2014-01-13) and Tekvoke LLC v. Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., No. 5:20-cv-07645 (N.D. Cal., filed 2020-10-30) concern other patents entirely, and the Pragmatus opinion's § 101 analysis (114 F. Supp. 3d 192 (D. Del. 2015)) addresses a different Genesys call-center patent. I mention them only to rule them out as hidden challenges to the '146 patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 6,418,146: claims 1–11 are all UNTESTED at the PTAB. Nothing is canceled, nothing is sustained. The patent issued with 11 claims — claim 1 (the WAP-SP apparatus with data repository and live-voice-call routing), claim 4 (the system with the dedicated data link parallel to the live voice call), and claim 7 (the method with user-data forwarding) are the independents; claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, and 11 are dependents. No Final Written Decision exists for this patent, so there is no claim-level disposition to report and no FWD to link. If someone represents to you that claims of the '146 patent have been invalidated, that representation is wrong — no AIA trial ever reached an FWD here.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a blank slate. Because no petitioner has ever been through an institution decision, there are no petitioners or privies barred from raising anything. Every prior-art ground remains available to a defendant today — including grounds that were before the examiner during prosecution (the 10 cited references, among them US 5,751,706, US 5,841,854, US 6,094,479, and US 6,275,693) and any art that was not. Practically, however, estoppel is the least of the relevant doctrines. The real bars are § 286 (six-year damages lookback) and the simple fact that the patent expired on 2020-04-14. On the date of this analysis, an ordinary damages window predicated on a complaint filed today would extend back only to 2026-09-27 minus six years = 2020-09-27, which is after the expiration date. If that arithmetic holds for the accused conduct at issue, there is no compensable infringement period at all, and no injunction is available against an expired patent. That may well be why no IPR was ever filed.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed even one IPR against this patent, let alone multiple. The patent owner (Genesys Cloud Services Inc, née Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories) never had an FWD to appeal, so there is no Federal Circuit docket to report — I found no CAFC appeal touching this patent. No defensive aggregator is in the chain. The pattern here is a large contact-center vendor sitting on an expired portfolio patent covering its own early-2000s WAP integration work, and a patent that quietly lapsed into the public domain without ever being challenged or asserted in a way that generated an AIA proceeding.

Recommended next steps

1. If you have received a demand letter or complaint citing US 6,418,146, attack the remedies case first, before the merits. Confirm the expiration date on the face of the patent and in Patent Center (20 years from 2000-04-14 → 2020-04-14), then run the § 286 arithmetic against the date the complaint was actually filed. If the six-year lookback post-dates expiration, seek early summary judgment or a motion to dismiss on the ground that no recoverable damages window exists and injunctive relief is unavailable for an expired patent. This is a cheaper and faster path than an IPR, and it is not subject to the one-year § 315(b) clock.
2. If you need an invalidity posture on the merits, prepare it as district-court invalidity, not a PTAB petition. An IPR against an expired patent is a poor investment — the Board can institute (expired patents are not categorically exempt), but you would be funding a full trial to invalidate claims that already carry no enforceable term, and claim construction would proceed under Phillips with no meaningful path to amend. Note also that § 101 is a live consideration for this subject matter in view of the Pragmatus Alice ruling against a sibling Genesys call-center patent in the same district (D. Del. 2015) — link: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[7314313](/patent/7314313)/pragmatus-telecom-llc-v-genesys-telecommunications-laboratories-inc/.
3. Do not do the diligence from a false premise. There is no PTAB activity on file for this patent — no FWD, no institution decision, no termination, no appeal. Any statement claiming a PTAB outcome for US 6,418,146 should be independently verified against PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) before you rely on it or repeat it in a filing.
4. Treat the absence of IPRs as informative, not exculpatory. A well-asserted patent of this vintage would ordinarily have attracted at least one petition. The absence here is consistent with a patent that was never commercially enforced during its life and that expired quietly — which cuts strongly in a defendant's favor on remedies, and means the invalidity workup, if you need one, is unconstrained by estoppel.

Caveats on sourcing: the proceeding count of zero is taken from the ODP structured block you supplied (canonical) and corroborated by web search and the Unified Patents portal; I found no contrary evidence in any source. I could not check PACER or sealed PTAB filings, and a very recently filed petition might not yet be publicly indexed. No judge panel, petition ground, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal is reported above because none exists to report — I have not invented proceeding numbers, panels, or dispositions to fill the template.

I'll research the assignment record and ownership history for US 6,418,146.

Let me dig for the specific assignment reel/frame records and correspondent information.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 6,418,146 B1

Methodological note / source limitation. I attempted to load the USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) and the legacy index (assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) directly, but could not retrieve the raw reel/frame abstract pages in this session. The assignment chain below is reconstructed from the Google Patents Legal Events block in the authoritative full text supplied for this patent (which mirrors the same USPTO assignment records), with reel/frame references captured where the record itself states them, and cross-checked against sibling Genesys portfolio patents. Where a reel/frame is not stated in the record, I say so — I have not invented any.

Inventors

Unusual patterns: None of the classic red flags apply. A single‑inventor corporate‑owned patent is unremarkable for a company whose CTO is the named inventor. There is no evidence of inventor departure before the assignment to GTL; indeed the assignment executed ~2 months after filing to the inventor's employer. Contrast with the "all inventors left within 12 months" fire‑sale precursor — that is not present here (only one inventor, and he assigned to his own company).

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. (GTL), Daly City, CA (per the 2001 Genesys framework documentation, "2001 Junipero Serra Blvd., Suite 700, Daly City, CA 94014").
• Primary line of business: Enterprise contact‑center / customer‑interaction (CTI routing, IVR, multichannel communications) software — an operating company, not a licensing vehicle.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — strong documentary evidence. Genesys's own product documentation lists "6418146" among the patents covering the Genesys applications (e.g., the Genesys 7 Framework SIP Read Me, the Universal Contact Server 8.0 legal notices, and Genesys 8.0 Composer Read Me). The claims (WAP‑initiated voice call routed to a call‑center agent, with user data delivered in parallel) map onto Genesys's Internet/wireless contact offerings.
• Current status: Operating. GTL was acquired by Alcatel (~2000), then divested by Alcatel‑Lucent to Permira (2012), later acquired Interactive Intelligence (2016), and today trades as Genesys Cloud Services (Google Patents lists the current assignee as Genesys Cloud Services Inc). No bankruptcy proceeding is on record. The only creditor‑related records are ordinary secured‑financing (security‑interest) filings, not Chapter 7/11 events.

Assignment timeline

All entries below are taken from the Legal Events block of the authoritative Google Patents text for US 6,418,146. That block gives event dates and parties but omits the 6‑digit reel for several links; where the reel/frame is stated in the record itself, it is quoted.

1. 2000‑06‑12 (assigned/recorded) — Reel not stated in the record

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest (AS)
   • Assignor: Alec Miloslavsky
   • Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
   • Correspondent: Not available in the retrieved data. (See Signal 3 below.)
   • Context: Founding/employment assignment of the inventor's rights to his employer — the original capture of title, ~2 months post‑filing.

2. 2011‑09‑12 (assigned/recorded) — Reel not stated on this patent's record. Sibling Genesys patents in the same portfolio-wide recording show the Genesys → Alcatel Lucent transfer at Reel 027687 / Frame 0686; treat that reel/frame as corroborated for the portfolio, not directly verified on the '146 abstract page.

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest (AS)
   • Assignor: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
   • Assignee: Alcatel Lucent
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Intra‑group corporate reorganization — formal consolidation of the GTL subsidiary's patent title into the Alcatel‑Lucent parent in the run‑up to the Genesys divestiture. (Not a third‑party sale.)

3. 2012‑01‑31 (assigned/recorded) — Reel not stated on this patent's record

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement (securitization, not a title transfer)
   • Assignor: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
   • Assignee: Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC (collateral agent)
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Securitization — Genesys pled its IP as collateral for debt financing.

4. 2012‑02‑10 (assigned/recorded) — Reel not stated on this patent's record. Sibling Genesys patents show the Alcatel Lucent → Genesys reassignment at Reel 034191 / Frame 0409 (corroborated for the portfolio; not directly verified on the '146 page).

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest (AS)
   • Assignor: Alcatel Lucent
   • Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Intra‑group reorganization — title returned to the Genesys entity as Alcatel‑Lucent divested Genesys to Permira (February 2012).

5. 2013‑02‑08 (assigned/recorded) — Reel not stated

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement
   • Assignor: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
   • Assignee: Goldman Sachs Bank USA (collateral agent)
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Securitization — successive secured‑financing lien.

6. 2013‑02‑08 (assigned/recorded) — Reel not stated

   • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
   • Assignor: Goldman Sachs Lending Partners LLC
   • Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Securitization cleanup — release of the 2012 Goldman Sachs Lending Partners lien contemporaneously with the Goldman Sachs Bank USA lien (a lender‑entity rollover).

7. 2013‑11‑15 (assigned/recorded) — Reel/Frame 029778 / 0939 (identified later in the record as the "security interest originally recorded at Reel/Frame 029778/0939")

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement
   • Assignors: Angel.com Incorporated, Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc., SoundBite Communications, Inc., Utopy, Inc. (a Genesys‑affiliated group)
   • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as Collateral Agent
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Securitization — group‑wide IP collateral package securing new debt.

8. 2016‑12‑02 (assigned/recorded) — Reel 031644 / Frame 0814

   • Conveyance: Patent Release
   • Assignor: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as Collateral Agent
   • Assignees (released grantors): Utopy, Inc.; SoundBite Communications, Inc.; Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.; Angel.com Incorporated
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Securitization cleanup — JPMorgan lien released (ceded to the Bank of America facility below).

9. 2016‑12‑05 (assigned/recorded) — Reel/Frame 040815 / 0001 (identified later in the record as the successor‑agent reference)

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement
   • Assignors: Bay Bridge Decision Technologies, Inc.; Echopass Corporation; Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. (as grantor); Interactive Intelligence Group, Inc.
   • Assignee: Bank of America, N.A., as Collateral Agent
   • Correspondent: Not available.
   • Context: Securitization — replacement collateral‑agent financing package for the enlarged Genesys/Interactive Intelligence group.

10. 2017‑02‑27 (assigned/recorded) — Reel not stated (the entry corrects Reel/Frame 029778/0939)

    • Conveyance: Corrective Release for Security Interest in Patents
    • Assignors: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.; Angel.com Incorporated; Utopy, Inc.; SoundBite Communications, Inc.
    • Assignee: Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc. (as beneficiary of the correction)
    • Correspondent: Not available.
    • Context: Securitization cleanup / correction — corrective release of the JPMorgan security interest originally recorded at Reel/Frame 029778/0939.

11. 2020‑04‑14 — Reel not applicable

    • Conveyance: None (legal status change)
    • Context: Anticipated expiration of the patent (maintenance fees; no reassignment).

12. 2025‑02‑03 (assigned/recorded) — Reel/Frame 040815 / 0001 (succession referenced to the Bank of America reel/frame)

    • Conveyance: Notice of Succession of Security Interests
    • Assignor: Bank of America, N.A., as Resigning Agent
    • Assignee: Goldman Sachs Bank USA, as Successor Agent
    • Correspondent: Not available.
    • Context: Securitization housekeeping — collateral‑agent succession on an expired patent; a lien‑administration change, not a title transfer.

Important framing: Only entries 1, 2 and 4 are title assignments. Entries 3, 5–10 and 12 are security agreements / releases / corrective releases / agent successions — the patent remained owned by Genesys throughout and merely served as collateral. Entry 11 is an expiry record. Any read of the chain as "transfers" must net these out.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6418146
    2000 : Filed 2000-04-14
         : Assigned to Genesys
    2011 : Assigned to Alcatel Lucent
    2012 : Reassigned to Genesys
         : Goldman Sachs security interest
    2013 : Goldman Sachs Bank security interest
         : JP Morgan collateral agreement
    2016 : Bank of America security agreement
         : JP Morgan lien released
    2017 : Corrective release recorded
    2020 : Patent expired
    2025 : Goldman Sachs successor agent notice

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. Every title holder is an operating entity (Genesys Telecommunications Laboratories, Inc.; Alcatel Lucent) or a bank acting as collateral agent (Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Bank of America). No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" LLC appears anywhere in the chain (entries 1–12). The only non-operating names (SoundBite, Utopy, Angel.com, Echopass, Interactive Intelligence, Bay Bridge) are Genesys‑affiliated operating subsidiaries named as co‑grantors on a group security agreement, not transferees.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. None of the recorded assignees/aparties matches a public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg entities). Goldman/JPMorgan/BofA are secured lenders, not asserters.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data unavailable). The Assignment Center abstract pages, which carry the correspondent of record, could not be retrieved in this session, and Google Patents' Legal Events block does not expose the correspondent field. I therefore cannot identify the recording attorney/firm for Reel 031644/0814, Reel 029778/0939, Reel 040815/0001, or the unnumbered 2000/2011/2012 links. Because the assignee set is a single corporate family (Genesys), a recurring correspondent here would be an expected house‑counsel/outside‑counsel pattern and would not, on its own, indicate NPE activity. Recommend pulling the three known reel/frame abstract pages directly to populate this field.

4. Cascading transfers through chained LLCs in <24 months — NOT PRESENT. The only rapid‑succession events are the 2011‑09‑12 → 2012‑02‑10 Alcatel round‑trip (~5 months), which is an intra‑group reorganization inside an operating telco group, not a chain of single‑purpose LLCs. The 2013‑02‑08 pairs (Goldman Sachs Bank lien + Goldman Sachs Lending Partners release) are a lender‑entity rollover on the same date, and the 2013‑11‑15 → 2016‑12‑02 → 2016‑12‑05 lien cycle spans three years.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. Per the prior section, no infringement suit, IPR, or CAFC appeal naming US 6,418,146 was found; the patent expired 2020‑04‑14, which post‑dates the last title event (2012). There is no litigation to which any assignment could be "pre‑litigation."

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 is on record for Genesys; the security‑agreement and release entries (Reels 029778/0939, 031644/0814, 040815/0001) are ordinary secured financing, not liquidation sales.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. The operating company (Genesys) never transferred the patent to an NPE for assertion against competitors. The Alcatel Lucent link is a parent/subsidiary title consolidation, and the patent returned to Genesys.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Genesys (operating), with a live collateral‑agent succession recorded to Goldman Sachs Bank USA (Reel/Frame 040815/0001) in 2025.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — selected as the nearest fit, with one explicit caveat. The chain terminates at the operating contact‑center vendor Genesys (title recorded to Genesys 2012‑02‑10; the only post‑2012 records are collateral‑agent liens and releases at Reel 031644/0814, Reel 029778/0939 and Reel 040815/0001, not title transfers). There are zero NPE signals: no shell LLCs, no known asserters, no bankruptcy, no privateering, no defensive aggregator. Caveat: the taxonomy's "Operating‑company assertion" prong presupposes active assertion, and no suit is on record for this patent (it expired 2020‑04‑14); read the verdict as "operating‑company‑owned, non‑NPE," and treat the assertion prong as unmet.

Verify at: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search "6418146") and https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — request the abstract pages for Reel 031644/Frame 0814, Reel 029778/Frame 0939, and Reel 040815/Frame 0001 to capture the correspondent‑of‑record field that Signal 3 requires.

Cross-reference to prior section: consistent with the earlier finding of no 2026 CAFC/PTAB activity and expiration on 2020‑04‑14. No contradictions between the two sections; the earlier "interim 2011 assignment to Alcatel Lucent, reassigned back to Genesys in 2012" is confirmed and now labeled an intra‑group reorg rather than a sale.

I'll research this systematically. First, let me note two date items I need to reconcile: the task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the operating context states today is 2026‑09‑27. I'll flag that as an inconsistency below rather than silently pick one.

Let me pull the USPTO record and the cited references.

Let me pull the remaining cited references to describe each accurately.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 6,418,146 B1 ("Integrated communication center functionality for WAP devices")

0. Search verification and flags (read these first)

USPTO record. My retrieval tools returned the Google Patents mirror of the USPTO-issued document (the authoritative full text you supplied), plus the Unified Patents portal, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report and an EPO family table. I was not able to open a uspto.gov Patent Center / Patent Public Search page directly in this environment, so the bibliographic spine below rests on the supplied patent text (which reproduces the printed US grant), corroborated by the portals.

• Patent under analysis: US 6,418,146 B1 — application 09/549,449 — filed 2000‑04‑14 — issued 2002‑07‑09 — provisional 60/172,848 (1999‑12‑10) — expired 2020‑04‑14. (Taken literally as given.)

Four flags, per the "do not auto‑correct identifiers" rule:

1. Identifier collision (important). My searches surfaced PTAB petitions discussing a "'641 patent" whose '641 application "was filed on April 13, 2011" and which concerns "channels," WebSphere Portal, and a related U.S. 8,751,948. That is a different patent — not US 6,418,146. I did not auto‑merge them. US 6,418,146 issued from a 2000 filing; the PTAB '641 is a 2011‑era application. Any 2026 PTAB/CAFC activity tied to that other '641 does not attach to this patent.
2. Date inconsistency between instructions and context. The task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the operating context states today is 2026‑09‑27. I am flagging this rather than silently choosing one; the substantive analysis is unaffected.
3. Date discrepancies already noted in the prior section (Unified Patents: priority 1999‑12‑09 / application 2000‑04‑13 / grant 2002‑07‑08 vs. Google Patents: 1999‑12‑10 / 2000‑04‑14 / 2002‑07‑09) — not repeated here, but it bears on § 102 date math below.
4. Which "citations" count. The Google Patents page shows three distinct lists: (a) Citations (10) — references on the face of the patent; (b) Family Cites Families (3) — prior art cited in the family; (c) Cited By (42) and Families Citing this family (10) — later documents citing '146. Only (a) and (b) are § 102/§ 103 prior art against '146. The 42 "Cited By" items and the 10 "Families Citing" items post‑date '146 and must not be used as § 102 art. I therefore restrict the analysis to the 10 + 3.

Critical dates used for § 102 qualification (pre‑AIA framework, since '146 was filed 2000‑04‑14 and never entered post‑AI‑A practice):

• § 102(b): reference published/patented before 1999‑04‑14 (one year before the U.S. filing).
• § 102(a)/invention‑date art: before 1999‑12‑10 (provisional priority).
• § 102(e): U.S. patent/application filed before the invention date (≤ 1999‑12‑10), even if it issued after the filing.

1. Prior-art reference table

2. Reference-by-reference detail

1. US 5,751,706 A — "System and method for establishing a call telecommunications path"

• Assignee: Cignal Global Communications, Inc. Filed 1996‑06‑05 (CIP of Ser. No. 08/659,677); issued 1998‑05‑12.
• Description: Routes a call through an originating telecom network and a packet‑based network (frame relay/ATM/Internet) to a destination on a public telecom network, using originating and terminating call processors; a subscriber enters a predetermined code (PIN/billing ID). Confirmed by Google Patents and Justia. (Note: US 6,128,291 is a same‑family continuation, confirming the disclosure.)
• § 102 relevance: Its packet‑network↔PSTN call establishment maps onto the telephony‑interface and IPNT/COST bridging recited in claims 2/5/8 and 3/6/9. It does not disclose a WAP appliance, a WAP‑SP, or user data forwarded with the call.
• § 102 verdict: No full anticipation of any independent claim.

2. US 5,751,707 A — "AIN interaction through wireless digital video network"

• Assignee: Bell Atlantic Network Services, Inc. Filed 1995‑06‑19; issued 1998‑05‑12. § 102(b).
• Description: Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) interaction over a wireless network — network‑level routing via SCP/service logic.
• § 102 relevance: Bears on the network‑level switch + SCP routing structure underlying claims 4 and 6/9 (PSTN call center reached from a wireless user).
• § 102 verdict: No WAP‑SP, no forwarding of stored user data with the call → no full anticipation.
• Confidence note: I could not retrieve this reference's full text (tool steps exhausted); description rests on the title/assignee as listed in the patent's own reference table plus general AIN knowledge — treat as lower confidence.

3. US 5,841,854 A — "Wireless telephone integration system and method for call centers and workgroups"

• Assignee: Priority Call Management, Inc. (later assigned to uReach). Filed 1994‑02‑16 (Ser. No. 08/198,032), continuation 1995‑06‑07, issuing case Ser. No. 08/905,589 (1997‑08‑04); issued 1998‑11‑24. § 102(b).
• Description (verified): ACD targeting users in workgroups who use wired or wireless tools; users chosen by a rule‑based selection process with access to a database of user and caller‑screened information; compatible with SS7/AIN, CTI, direct cellular network connections, PBX/centrex.
• § 102 relevance — this is the single closest face‑of‑patent reference for the apparatus claim's substance. It discloses: wireless user endpoint, a user database, and rule‑based routing to an agent — i.e., elements (b), (d) and the "routes according to pre‑programmed rules" portion of claim 1, and much of claim 4's call‑center architecture.
• § 102 verdict: Closest to claim 1, but it lacks the Internet‑connected WAP service provider (a WAP proxy) and lacks retrieving stored user data and sending it along with the call. It is properly a § 103 reference (e.g., combined with ref. 9), not a clean § 102 anticipation.

4. US 5,920,621 A — "System and method for distributing calls to customer service operators based on automatic determination of operator availability"

• Assignee: MCI Communications Corp. Filed 1996‑04‑15; issued 1999‑07‑06. § 102(b).
• Description: Automatic call distribution to customer‑service operators keyed to operator availability.
• § 102 relevance: The "routes the call according to pre‑programmed rules" and agent‑selection concepts in claim 1 and the call‑center routing of claim 4.
• § 102 verdict: No WAP element, no alongside‑the‑call data forwarding → no independent‑claim anticipation.
• Confidence note: full text not retrieved (tool limit); description from title/assignee — lower confidence.

5. US 6,055,307 A — "System and method for selecting agent destinations and monitoring calls made to network customers"

• Assignee: AT&T Corp. Filed 1996‑06‑28; issued 2000‑04‑25 (after the critical date → qualifies only as § 102(e) art because filed before the invention date).
• Description: Selecting agent destinations and monitoring calls made to network customers.
• § 102 relevance: Agent‑destination selection / routing (claims 1, 4).
• § 102 verdict: No full anticipation. Confidence note: full text not retrieved — lower confidence.

6. US 6,088,340 A — "Method and apparatus in a wireless communication system for controlling a display of template data by a portable subscriber unit"

• Assignee: Motorola, Inc. Filed 1998‑06‑23; issued 2000‑07‑11. § 102(e) only.
• Description: Controlling display of template data on a portable wireless subscriber unit — i.e., adapting/formatting data for a wireless device's display.
• § 102 relevance: The "presents an interface to a user at the WAP‑enabled appliance" and the data‑structuring step (means 92, WAP processing) of claim 1 / claim 7(b).
• § 102 verdict: Device‑side display formatting only; no telephony call placement, no user‑data‑with‑call. No full anticipation.

7. US 6,094,479 A — "Computer telephony integration gateway" ★ strongest for claims 10–11

• Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson. Filed 1997‑05‑06; issued 2000‑07‑25. § 102(e) only.
• Description (verified): CTI gateway integrating PBX‑based CTI servers with Intelligent Network (IN) services; discusses CTI protocols (CSTA), a common CTI channel between computer system and PBX, and application servers controlling call/service handling.
• § 102 relevance: Directly maps to claim 10 ("telephony functions… provided by software executing on a CTI processor connected by a CTI link to the WAP‑SP") and to the separate data‑network link between CTI processors architecture of claim 11.
• § 102 verdict: Anticipates the CTI‑gateway sub‑features of claims 10–11, but not any claim as a whole, and not the WAP‑SP. Excellent § 103 reference.

8. US 6,185,535 B1 — "Voice control of a user interface to service applications"

• Assignee: Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson (Publ). Filed 1998‑10‑16; issued 2001‑02‑06. § 102(e) only.
• Description: Spoken/voice interaction with a service application user interface.
• § 102 relevance: The initiation of a live voice interaction through an interface — touches claim 7(b) ("initiating a live voice call… through an interface").
• § 102 verdict: No call routing to a call center, no WAP‑SP, no data‑with‑call. No anticipation.

9. US 6,275,693 B1 — "Method and apparatus for performing bearer independent wireless application service provisioning" ★ most WAP‑relevant

• Assignee: Motorola, Inc. Filed 1999‑11‑22; issued 2001‑08‑14. § 102(e) only (filed before the 1999‑12‑10 priority).
• Description: Bearer‑independent wireless application service provisioning — i.e., provisioning application services to wireless devices independent of the bearer.
• § 102 relevance — this is the only face‑of‑patent reference squarely in the WAP/wireless‑application space. It is the best candidate to supply the "software‑enhanced WAP service provider" / wireless‑application‑service element common to claims 1, 4 and 7.
• § 102 verdict: Supplies the wireless‑application provisioning element only. It does not disclose placing a live voice call to a call center with retrieved user data forwarded along with (or parallel to) the call → no full anticipation; a § 103 linchpin when combined with ref. 3 or ref. 7.

10. US 6,304,898 B1 — "Method and system for creating and sending graphical email"

• Assignee: Datahouse, Inc. Filed 1999‑10‑13; issued 2001‑10‑16. § 102(e) only.
• Description: Creating/sending graphical email (device‑appropriate rendering of message content).
• § 102 relevance: The device‑specific rendering/"WAP processing" step (means 92; claim 7 data handling).
• § 102 verdict: Peripheral; no telephony or call‑routing elements. No anticipation.

Family‑cited references (3)

F1. US 5,546,452 A — "Communications system using a central controller to control at least one network and agent system"

• Assignee: Geotel Communications Corp. Filed 1995‑03‑02; issued 1996‑08‑13. § 102(b).
• Relevance: The call center with a central controller + agent system structure of claim 4 (and the routing logic behind claim 1). This is a foundational "central controller over network + agents" reference.
• Verdict: No WAP‑SP, no user‑data‑parallel‑to‑call → § 103 material, not § 102 anticipation.

F2. CA 2,173,304 C — "Method and system for establishing voice communications using a computer network" (Anthony J. Dezonno)

• Priority 1995‑04‑21; granted 2003‑04‑29 (Canadian laid‑open/publication date materially earlier, but I could not pin it precisely in this environment).
• Relevance: Establishing voice communications using a computer network → claims 2/5/8 (IPNT‑type voice) and 7 (voice call via network).
• Verdict: § 102/§ 103 material for the IPNT/voice‑over‑network sub‑feature; the publication‑date uncertainty should be resolved before relying on it as § 102(b) art.

F3. US 5,884,032 A — "System for coordinating communications via customer contact channel changing system using call centre for setting up the call between customer and an available help agent" ★ closest overall to the inventive concept

• Assignee: The New Brunswick Telephone Company, Limited (NBTel). Filed 1995‑09‑25; issued 1999‑03‑16. § 102(b) (pre‑1999‑04‑14).
• Description: A customer contact channel‑changing system — a customer interacting over one channel (e.g., a web/computer session) is handed off so a call center sets up a voice call between the customer and an available help agent.
• § 102 relevance: This is the closest art to the core scenario of claim 4 and claim 7 — a user engaged with an enterprise's hosted server who is assisted by a live voice call to an agent of the enterprise's call center.
• § 102 verdict: Discloses the channel‑change + call‑center‑sets‑up‑voice‑call concept, but not the WAP‑enabled appliance, the WAP‑SP proxy, or the dedicated data link carrying user data in parallel with the call. Strongest § 103 reference; not a full § 102 anticipation of claims 4/7.

(Note: the earlier analysis identified this same NBTel reference among the "closest prior art" — consistent with my finding; no contradiction.)

3. Honest § 102 conclusion

No cited reference anticipates any of independent claims 1, 4 or 7 in full under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Under § 102 as it applied to a 2000‑filed application, a single reference must disclose every limitation, including (for these claims) the combination of: an Internet‑connected WAP service provider with a wireless interface to a WAP appliance, a telephony interface, a user‑data repository, a live voice call initiated through the WAP‑SP's interface, rule‑based routing to a call center, and user data forwarded with or parallel to the call. No single listed reference contains all of these — principally because WAP itself post‑dates most of the references (1995–1997), and the two WAP‑adjacent references (US 6,275,693; US 6,088,340) lack the telephony/call‑center‑with‑data features.

The realistic reading of the face‑of‑patent art is therefore § 103, not § 102:

Evidence-quality caveats I want on the record:

• Descriptions for US 5,751,707, US 5,920,621 and US 6,055,307 could not be verified against full text within this session's tool budget; treat those three as lower confidence (title/assignee‑based).
• CA 2,173,304 C's actual public‑disclosure date is unresolved here, which affects whether it is § 102(b) or only § 103 material.
• I found no litigation, IPR, or CAFC record naming US 6,418,146; and I explicitly decoupled the PTAB "'641" petitions (2011‑era, channel/WebSphere Portal patent) from this 2002 grant. Absence of evidence is not proof of absence.

I'll ground the prior-art mapping by pulling the key references' disclosures before writing the analysis.

Obviousness Analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 — US 6,418,146 B1

Scope note / evidence base. This analysis builds on the previously generated summary (bibliographic data, claim charts, and the "live voice call" narrowing observation) and is not repeated here. All prior-art mapping below is drawn from (a) the reference list on the patent's own face as supplied, and (b) full-text/abstract retrievals of those references I performed for this task. I did not retrieve the prosecution history (office actions, applicant remarks, or the examiner's stated § 103 grounds), so I cannot say which combinations were actually argued and overcome. Where a reference's § 102 qualification depends on a US filing date I could not verify from the page, I flag it.

Governing law. The application was filed 2000‑04‑14 with a 1999‑12‑10 provisional priority (60/172,848), so pre‑AIA § 103(a) governs and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) supplies the controlling obviousness framework (expansive, flexible motivation; predictable combination of known elements; "obvious to try" where the solution space is small and the lead is clear). Prior-art status is evaluated under pre‑AIA §§ 102(a)/(b)/(e).

1. § 102 gatekeeping — which citations can actually be used

Two cautions. (i) The six post‑1999‑12‑10 issuances are usable only as § 102(e) art, i.e., as of their US filing dates, and the dates shown on the patent page for the Ericsson/AT&T/Motorola references are the earliest claimed ("priority") dates, which for foreign‑origin filings are not the § 102(e) date. Each must be verified against its actual US filing date before being relied on. (ii) US 6,275,693 was filed 1999‑11‑22, only eighteen days before the 1999‑12‑10 priority date — powerful art if the applicant cannot antedate it, weak if it can. It should be corroborated with a § 102(b) reference wherever possible.

Applicant‑admitted prior art (AAPA). Independently of the reference list, the specification itself concedes the WAP framework: WAP is "a joint development of a consortium of companies"; it operates through proxies; WML and micro‑browsers are known; WAP‑SP "is an enhanced proxy server that … functions as an Interface to users accessing the Internet through WAP‑enabled wireless communication devices." That concession is available in the § 103 analysis and removes the entire "WAP gateway for wireless browsing" layer from the field of novelty.

2. Element mapping

Claim 1 / claim 7 (WAP‑SP apparatus and method):

Claim 4 (system) — additional limitations:

3. Proposed § 103 grounds

Ground 1 — Claims 1, 3, 7, 9 (and 2/8 as secondary)

US 5,841,854 in view of US 6,275,693.

US 5,841,854 discloses the core commercial capability: routing wireless users into a call‑center/workgroup environment through "SS7/AIN, computer telephony interfaces, direct cellular network connections, PBX and centrex‑based systems," selecting a user "via a rule‑based selection process including access to a database of user and caller‑screened information." It therefore teaches every element of claim 1 except that the wireless device is a WAP‑browsing appliance and the intermediary is an Internet‑hosted proxy. US 6,275,693 supplies precisely that missing element: a proxy server sitting between a wireless bearer network and the public Internet that provisions wireless application services, holds subscriber records, and assigns a "WAP service ID."

Motivation: both references address the same problem — giving mobile subscribers access to network‑hosted services — and US 6,275,693 expressly frames the proxy as "a gateway between the wireless network and a public network," the identical architectural slot occupied by the WAP‑SP. Substituting a bearer‑independent WAP proxy for the direct cellular interface of US 5,841,854 is the kind of predictable substitution KSR holds obvious, particularly where the patent itself concedes the WAP proxy is conventional.

Ground 2 — Claims 1, 4, 7, 10, 11

US 5,841,854 + US 6,275,693 + US 6,094,479 (and optionally US 5,546,452).

US 6,094,479 teaches the CTI gateway that "allows currently available CTI servers designed to work with PBXs to communicate instead with the intelligent network," and describes CTI as "the functional merging of telephony and data processing services," a LAN server that "is responsible for routing calls," and a separate CTI channel between the computer system and the PBX. This supplies claim 10's CTI‑link/CTI‑processor structure and claim 11's separate data‑network link between the originator‑side and destination‑side CTI processors. US 5,546,452 supplies the network‑level central controller routing on "status messages … requested service data … and optimization parameters," with agent workstations "networked to a caller information database" — i.e., the pre‑programmed‑rules routing and the parallel data path of claims 1 and 4.

Motivation: the three references are complementary layers of a single, well‑understood architecture (wireless access + proxy + CTI data path), and US 6,094,479 explicitly identifies the benefit of integrating CTI servers with public‑network IN services — the same benefit the patent asserts. KSR: a combination of known elements, each performing its known function, yielding no more than predictable results.

Ground 3 — Claims 4, 7, 11 (web‑session‑initiated voice call)

CA 2173304 + US 6,275,693 + US 5,546,452.

CA 2173304 is the closest art to the functional core of the invention: an operator browsing a business's home page activates a "call me" button; the request is "packetized in a call request … transmitted over the Internet to a telephone switching system associated with the business"; the system dials the user and "connects the operator with the agent"; and the retrieved page number "is used … to route the call to an agent having the appropriate knowledge," with the agent simultaneously shown information and connected to the user. Substituting a WAP device + WAP proxy (US 6,275,693) for the PC + web server, and adding the enterprise call center/data store (US 5,546,452), yields claim 4 and claim 7 without departure from the references' stated purposes.

Note on Dezonno's art status: this same Dezonno family was treated as qualifying § 102(e) prior art and used as the basis for an instituted § 103 ground in an IPR against a different click‑to‑call patent (see the Board decision reproduced in the Dex Media cert. petition appendix, https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/18-916/80221/20190111121331953_Dex%20Medix%20Inc.%20Petition.pdf). That is not binding here, but it confirms Dezonno is treated as enabling, § 103‑grade art in this exact technology space.

Ground 4 — Alternative primary reference

US 5,751,706 (establishing a call telecommunications path) + US 6,275,693 + US 5,884,032, as a substitute for Grounds 1–3 where the examiner prefers a call‑setup‑centric primary. US 5,751,707 (AIN interaction through a wireless digital video network) and US 5,920,621 (operator‑availability routing) are useful as secondary corroboration for the wireless‑network‑to‑agent routing and rule‑based selection limitations.

4. Motivation to combine (KSR rationales)

1. Common problem, common field. Every reference is in wireless access, CTI, or web‑initiated customer contact. US 5,841,854 and US 6,275,693 both concern cellular subscribers reaching network services; CA 2173304 and US 5,546,452 both concern routing an Internet‑sourced session to the right agent with data.
2. Known benefit, predictable result. Parallel voice/data delivery to an agent desktop (screen‑pop) is described in US 5,546,452 and US 6,094,479 as an express advantage; extending it to WAP users is application of a known technique to a new but analogous access technology.
3. Business demand. The patent itself identifies the driver — WAP users wanting "the same enhancement in call routing and quality of service that standard COST or … Internet‑based callers enjoy." That is an articulated market pressure, a recognized KSR rationale.
4. Design incentive / obvious‑to‑try. The universe of options was small (place the call from the device, from the proxy, or via a bridge), and the references collectively teach all three.

5. Dependent claims

• Claims 2, 5, 8 (IPNT/Internet transport): obvious over any of the above; IP telephony gateways were routine by 1999, and US 5,546,452 already describes control of both a telephone network and "an Internet network … Internet call … Internet service."
• Claims 3, 6, 9 (COST/PSTN): met directly by US 5,841,854's cellular/PBX/centrex integration and CA 2173304's PSTN dial‑out; adding a COST trunk to the proxy is a design choice. (Note: claim 9 contains the literal typo "herein," interpreted as "wherein.")
• Claim 10 (CTI‑linked processor): US 6,094,479 and US 5,546,452.
• Claim 11 (separate data‑network link between CTI processors): US 5,546,452 (separate control/gateway paths) and US 6,094,479. This is also the patent's own self‑described improvement over Geotel/Genesys‑style CTI ("By adding a separate data network (39) to connect CTI processors, information about a caller may be passed to agents ahead of the actual COST call").

6. Likely rebuttals and residual uncertainty

• "WAP proxy as call originator" argument. The patentee may argue no reference teaches a proxy—rather than the endpoint device—originating the voice call. CA 2173304 and US 5,751,706 blunt this: both place the dialing intelligence in network equipment (the "telephone switching system"/telephone computer), not the user's terminal.
• § 102(e) exposure. Grounds resting on US 6,055,307, 6,088,340, 6,094,479, 6,185,535, 6,275,693, or 6,304,898 can be neutralized by a Rule 131/§ 1.131 antedating showing, particularly for US 6,275,693 given its 1999‑11‑22 filing. The strongest, cleanest grounds are therefore the § 102(b) references: US 5,546,452, CA 2173304, US 5,751,706, and US 5,841,854.
• Secondary considerations. None are documented in the materials provided. Patent term expired 2020‑04‑14 (anticipated), so no commercial‑success nexus is likely to be litigated now.
• Confidence. I have not read the full specifications of US 5,920,621, US 6,055,307, US 6,088,340, US 6,185,535, or US 6,304,898; my characterizations of those rest on title, assignee, and date only and should be verified before being asserted. The mappings for US 5,841,854, US 6,275,693, US 6,094,479, CA 2173304, US 5,546,452, and US 5,884,032 are grounded in the retrieved text cited above.

Bottom line: under KSR, independent claims 1, 4, and 7 — and all dependents — are vulnerable to § 103 challenge via the combinations above, with the § 102(b) quartet (US 5,546,452, CA 2173304, US 5,751,706, US 5,841,854) plus US 6,275,693 (subject to § 102(e) verification) forming the most defensible attack. The "live voice call" wording that distinguishes the granted claims from the specification's summary is met by US 5,841,854 and CA 2173304, so that narrowing amendment does not appear to restore patentability.