US 6457025

I'll search for the specific patent number and any 2026 appellate activity.

Let me run additional targeted checks on 2026 docket/appellate activity and current ownership.

US 6,457,025 B2 — Analyst Summary

Search scope note: I ran targeted queries for the exact number "6457025" against Google Patents, Justia, the USPTO/OG mirror, and general web sources indexed for appellate/docket coverage. I found no authoritative 2026 CAFC docket activity, IPR, or appeal involving this patent. The live litigation record I can verify is from the 2003–2008 N.D. Tex. campaigns. I did not auto-correct any number; where a source's identifier conflicts, I flag it below.

Bibliographic Data

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6457025/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/6457025 ; https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/[5628977](/patent/5628977)/FID2/OG/html/1262-4/us06457025-20020924.html

Abstract (verbatim)

"A method of display as a user of the Internet uses a client machine during an Internet transaction (e.g., e-mail, file transfer, bulletin board, chat or browsing). The client machine supports a graphical user interface and mechanisms that provide such Internet services. The method locally stores information content served during idle periods when the user's connection to the network is live. During a given Internet transaction, the information content is retrieved and displayed to provide entertainment or information as the user waits for the Internet transaction to be completed."

Independent Claim Overview (plain language)

Claim 1 — Display system (apparatus). A system on a network comprising three cooperating pieces: (a) a set of web/content pages written in markup language so a client browser can receive and render them; (b) a server that hosts those pages and runs an HTTP service that serves a page in response to a browser request; and (c) one or more "information objects," at least one tied to that page, containing message, graphic, and/or animation content. The key limitation is the final clause: the information object is displayable by the browser independent of the browser's display of the page itself — i.e., the object can be shown on its own, not merely as part of the page.

Claim 10 — Method of serving a page. A method in which a first server receives a request from a user's browser and serves the page. The page contains code for generating a markup-language page whose content is displayable interstitially, independent of the page or any linked page, and — importantly — that interstitial content is served from a server distinct from the first server. This is the claim most directly capturing the "interstitial ad served by a third party" architecture.

Claim 13 — Server (apparatus). A network-connectable server comprising a set of content pages, where the page includes browser-executable code to facilitate display of advertising content independent of the page display; an HTTP service serving the page on request; and at least one information object associated with the page comprising advertising content (message/graphic/animation). Again the object must be displayable independent of the page. This claim is expressly framed around advertising rather than generic information.

Representative dependent claims:

• 2–4: object displayed upon a given browser event — specifically processing/activating a link to a second page.
• 5–7: the page contains a comment tag (with markup language elements nested therein), and the object is rendered per those elements.
• 8–9: object facilitates an online, interactive survey, including a markup-language fill-in form.
• 11–12: interstitial page displayed on a user-initiated navigation event, including launching a previously stored URL (bookmark).
• 14: executable code associated with a markup language comment tag.
• 16–17: event is processing a link to a second page; the advertising content advertises goods/services associated with that second page.
• 18: information object displayable in a popup window.

Family / Litigation Context

• The patent shares the same family (ID 27067446) and 1995‑10‑19 priority with US 5,572,643, US 5,737,619, and US 6,185,586.
• Google Patents lists N.D. Tex. cases 3:03‑cv‑02787, 3:05‑cv‑00604, 3:05‑cv‑01969, 3:05‑cv‑02532, 3:06‑cv‑01063, and 3:06‑cv‑01084 (the InternetAd/Acacia enforcement campaign).
• Acacia Research announced an InternetAd Systems LLC settlement/license with Time Warner/Turner Broadcasting (2008) covering US 5,572,643; 5,737,619; 6,185,586; and 6,457,025: http://www.acaciaresearch.com/pr/040108TimeWarner.pdf
• A district-court standing decision concerning the Judson → TechSearch → InternetAd license discusses these four patents (InternetAd v. Amadeus): https://storage.courtlistener.com/harvard_pdf/[2416384](/patent/2416384).pdf

Identifier caution (per your strict rule): that courtlistener PDF renders the asserted numbers as "5,572,648, 5,737,619, 6,185,586, and 6,456,025." The first and last differ from the authoritative numbers (5,572,643 and 6,457,025) and are almost certainly OCR/transcription artifacts, but I am reporting them literally rather than silently correcting them.

Uncertainty / Gaps

1. No 2026 CAFC activity located. I could not verify any 2026 Federal Circuit docket, appeal, or petition involving 6,457,025 specifically. Absence of search hits is not proof of absence; if a 2026 appeal exists, it would likely be captioned under a party name (e.g., an InternetAd/AOL successor) rather than the patent number, so a name-based CAFC docket search would be the reliable next step.
2. Ownership currency. The recorded chain ends at InternetAd Systems LLC (2008). I have not confirmed whether that entity (or AOL) still holds the patent in 2026, and the patent is expired, which limits current enforcement relevance.
3. Expiration. The "2015‑10‑19 adjusted expiration" reflects the terminal disclaimer tying term to the earlier family member; treat it as a listed status, not a legal conclusion.
4. Date reconciliation: my system date is 2026‑09‑29 while your prompt states 2026‑04‑26; the search results above are what was live at retrieval, and I flagged docket items only where sources were dated in 2026.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 6,457,025. Let me run several searches in parallel.

Let me dig into the specific case numbers listed and the InternetAd Systems / Judson enforcement campaign.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent 6,457,025 ("Interstitial Advertising Display System and Method")

Scope note / confidence disclosure: I was able to retrieve a substantial amount of information, but my research hit a step limit before I could independently verify every docket. Below I separate what is well-corroborated from what is only partially verified. I have not auto-corrected any patent or case numbers; where a source itself appears internally inconsistent, I flag it rather than fix it.

Key context

• Patent: US 6,457,025 B2, "Interstitial Advertising Display System and Method," inventor David H. Judson, granted 2002-09-24, priority 1995-10-19, expired (fee-related) as of 2015-10-19. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6457025/en
• Enforcement vehicle: InternetAd Systems, LLC, a Northbrook, IL entity formed by/affiliated with TechSearch and later a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTG). The '025 patent was asserted together with three related Judson patents: 5,572,643; 5,737,619; and 6,185,586 (all in the same family). Source: Acacia press release, https://www.acaciaresearch.com/pr/040108TimeWarner.pdf ; CNET, https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/patent-owner-stakes-claim-in-net-ad-suit/
• Ownership/standing chain (relevant to the litigation): Judson → licensed to TechSearch, L.L.C. (Sept. 9, 2003) → assigned to InternetAd Systems (Nov. 13, 2003); Judson assigned the patents to JS Technologies, L.P. (July 29, 2004); JS Technologies assigned to AOL (Nov. 4, 2005). Source: CourtListener opinion, InternetAd Systems, LLC v. Opodo Ltd., https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2416384](/patent/2416384)/internetad-systems-llc-v-opodo-ltd/

Literal-reading flag: In that CourtListener opinion, the patents are listed as "U.S. patents numbered 5,572,648, 5,737,619, 6,185,586, and 6,456,025." Taken literally these do not match the '025 family (5,572,643 and 6,457,025). I am reporting the numbers exactly as the source wrote them and will not correct them; the more reliable Google Patents and Acacia records identify the asserted patents as 5,572,643 / 5,737,619 / 6,185,586 / 6,457,025.

Known cases

The Google Patents record for US 6,457,025 lists the following U.S. district court cases (all in the Northern District of Texas), as well as a "first worldwide family litigation" entry. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6457025/en

1. InternetAd Systems LLC v. ESPN Inc. et al., No. 3:03-cv-02787

• Plaintiff: InternetAd Systems LLC
• Defendants: ESPN Inc.; Travelocity.com Inc.; The New York Times Company
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas (Dallas)
• Case No.: 3:03-cv-02787
• Filing date: November 18, 2003 (per CNET/ZDNet and Westlaw; a Westlaw item dated Dec. 30, 2003 covers the same suit)
• Relief sought: unspecified damages plus a permanent injunction; InternetAd reportedly sought royalties of ~5% of Internet ad sales for pop-up/pop-under formats.
• Outcome/status: Not verified in my research. A Westlaw report dated July 20, 2004 indicates defendants moved to bifurcate liability and damages, so the case was proceeding as of mid-2004. Final disposition not confirmed in the sources I retrieved.
• Sources: Westlaw, https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/I9de82ba153eb11dbbe1cf2d29fe2afe6/View/FullText.html ; https://content.next.westlaw.com/Document/I359ec62165b711dbbe1cf2d29fe2afe6/View/FullText.html ; CNET/ZDNet as above.

2. InternetAd Systems LLC v. Turner Broadcasting System Inc. et al., No. 3:06-cv-01063

• Plaintiff: InternetAd Systems LLC
• Defendants: Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. and five others (RPX shows 6 defendants)
• Jurisdiction: N.D. Tex.
• Case No.: 3:06-cv-01063
• Filing date: June 15, 2006
• Assigned judges: Reed C. O'Connor; previously Sidney A. Fitzwater (until 10/25/2007)
• Outcome/status: Closed 04/08/2008. On April 1, 2008, Acacia announced that InternetAd Systems had entered a settlement and patent license agreement with Time Warner Inc. (Turner Broadcasting is a Time Warner affiliate) covering the four patents 5,572,643; 5,737,619; 6,185,586; and 6,457,025 — which is consistent with (and likely the cause of) the case's closure.
• Sources: RPX Insight, https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txndce-[158099](/patent/158099)-internetad-systems-v-turner-broadcasting-system ; Acacia press release, http://www.acaciaresearch.com/pr/040108TimeWarner.pdf

3. InternetAd Systems, LLC v. Opodo Ltd. (and related defendants, incl. Amadeus NA)

• Plaintiff: InternetAd Systems, LLC
• Defendants: Opodo Ltd.; the opinion also references "Amadeus NA and the other defendants"
• Jurisdiction / Case No.: Not confirmed — I did not verify the docket number or court in the time available.
• Filing date: Not confirmed.
• Outcome/status: This litigation produced a reported decision on standing/ownership. The defendant moved to dismiss and for summary judgment, arguing InternetAd lacked standing because the patent-owner agreement did not transfer all substantial rights. The court analyzed the TechSearch–InternetAd license (right to assign, right to sue, retained rights) and found that InternetAd held all substantial rights and had standing to sue. The decision does not resolve the ultimate infringement merits.
• Sources: CourtListener, https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2416384/internetad-systems-llc-v-opodo-ltd/ ; https://storage.courtlistener.com/harvard_pdf/2416384.pdf

Cases I could NOT verify / what remains open

• Defendants and outcomes for 3:05-cv-00604, 3:05-cv-01969, 3:05-cv-02532, and 3:06-cv-01084: The case numbers appear in the Google Patents litigation list, but I could not confirm the named defendants, filing dates, or dispositions. I will not guess these.
• Any Federal Circuit (CAFC) appeals: I found no evidence of a CAFC appeal arising from these cases. I cannot affirmatively rule one out.
• The "first worldwide family litigation" entry (Darts-IP family ID 27067446) indicates parallel enforcement of the family abroad, but I could not retrieve its details. Source: https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=27067446

Bottom line

Yes — litigation involving the '025 patent is known and centered entirely on InternetAd Systems LLC's (Acacia Research) 2003–2008 enforcement campaign in the Northern District of Texas. The best-documented cases are:

1. InternetAd Systems LLC v. ESPN Inc. et al., No. 3:03-cv-02787 (N.D. Tex., filed Nov. 18, 2003) — defendants ESPN, Travelocity, N.Y. Times; outcome not verified.
2. InternetAd Systems LLC v. Turner Broadcasting System Inc. et al., No. 3:06-cv-01063 (N.D. Tex., filed June 15, 2006; closed April 8, 2008) — settled/licensed with Time Warner.
3. InternetAd Systems, LLC v. Opodo Ltd. (and related defendants) — standing upheld for InternetAd.

At least four additional N.D. Tex. case numbers (3:05-cv-00604, 3:05-cv-01969, 3:05-cv-02532, 3:06-cv-01084) are associated with the patent in the patent record, but I could not verify their parties or outcomes and therefore do not report them as established.

One caution: the most authoritative public dockets for these older cases would be PACER (N.D. Tex.) and the RPX Insight / Unified Patents litigation portals. My retrieval was incomplete on per-case outcomes; if you need trial-court dockets confirmed, those sources should be checked docket-by-docket.

I'll start by verifying the structured block's default against live sources, then dig for any PTAB proceedings.

Initial searches surfaced nothing on point. Let me search more specifically for this patent's family and enforcement history.

Let me check the Unified Patents portal and PTAB records directly for this patent.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,457,025: zero. The USPTO Open Data Portal (the canonical structured source supplied in this prompt) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for this patent, and my independent web searches — patent-number strings ("6457025"), patent-owner strings ("InternetAd Systems," "Judson"), and PTAB-targeted queries — surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal tied to this patent. Breakdown by status therefore reads: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. Bottom-line defensive posture: this is not a "hardened by two IPRs" patent and not a "claim 1 is dead" patent — it is an AIA-trial virgin whose entire claim set (1–18) is untested at the Board, and the real defensive story is elsewhere: the patent expired 2015-10-19 for failure to pay maintenance fees, and its enforcement history is a Chapter III standing fight, not a validity fight.

Confidence note: I am highly confident in the zero-count conclusion as to finalized proceedings and reasonably confident as to any proceeding. My search tooling hit its step limit before I could exhaustively page through PTAB E2E docket-by-docket. Treat "zero" as the well-supported default, and have local counsel run the patent number through PTAB E2E and the ODP ptab trials endpoint as a 15-minute confirmation exercise before relying on the absence in a brief.

Proceedings

None on file.

No proceeding to report — {PROCEEDING_NUMBER}

I will not manufacture a proceeding number to fill this template. To be explicit about what was checked and what was found:

• Structured ODP block: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." The block's own instruction is that the default is no PTAB activity on file.
• Web search, patent-number based: queries for "6457025" combined with "PTAB," "IPR," "CBM," and "inter partes review" returned zero hits referencing this patent as the subject patent. All PTAB-material hits were false positives on other patents (e.g., 6,415,335; Spotify's 925 patent; Intent IQ's 8595069; Function Media's 7,240,025/7,249,059).
• Web search, owner based: "InternetAd Systems" + PTAB returned only district-court and news material, no Board filings.
• Family-based: the patents in this family — US 5,572,643, US 5,737,619, US 6,185,586 (all Google-listed in the structured block) — likewise surfaced no PTAB activity.

⚠️ Trap to avoid — do not conflate. The Federal Circuit decision Function Media, L.L.C. v. Google, Inc., No. 2012-1380 (Fed. Cir. 2013-03-07), which affirmed-in-part and vacated-in-part Board decisions in inter partes reexamination on US 7,249,059 and US 7,240,025, has nothing to do with this patent. Those are Function Media's electronic-advertising patents; the "*-025" number coincidence is a common source of error. Do not cite it as an appeal arising from a 6,457,025 proceeding. Similarly, the '045/'025/'059 patents in Function Media v. Google, No. 2:07-cv-279 (E.D. Tex.), are a different family.

What does exist: the assertion and standing record (non-PTAB, but decisive for a defendant)

Strategic summary

Claim-level status. No claim of US 6,457,025 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or even construed by the PTAB. All 18 claims remain as-issued in the patent document: independent claims 1, 10, and 13, and dependents 2–9, 11–12, and 14–18. The claims are therefore UNTESTED at the Board — not CANCELED, not SUSTAINED. The only validity adjudication in the record is none; the only litigated issue the search surfaced is standing/ownership (Opodo), plus claim construction disputes in the related family. The single genuinely favorable fact for a defendant is temporal: per the structured block, the patent expired on 2015-10-19 ("Expired – Fee Related"), consistent with a 20-year term running from the 1995-10-19 priority date (Ser. No. 08/543,876). An expired patent cannot support an injunction and supports damages only for the pre-expiration window.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted and reached FWD, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel in existence against anyone. No petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is estopped from raising any ground. Practically, this means a defendant today has the entire § 102/§ 103/§ 112 palette available, subject only to §§ 102/103 prior-art rules and Alice — and, critically, no risk that a parallel IPR is running to force a stay, no estoppel asymmetry against your district-court invalidity case, and no "the Board already blessed this art" problem. There is also no § 325(d) prescription issue: no art has been presented to and considered by the Office in an AIA trial. (Note the flip side: if any prior-owner or distributor estoppel exists from the Opodo standing ruling, it is about ownership, not validity.)

Pattern signals. The assertion pattern — a licensing agent (InternetAd Systems, an Acacia Research subsidiary) rather than the inventor — with a five-percent ad-revenue royalty demand against large publishers, and the defensive response being a standing attack rather than an IPR, is the signature of the pre-AIA-trial era: the 2003–2006 suits predate the IPR regime (IPR petitions became available 2012-09-16), so accused infringers had only district-court invalidity and inter partes reexamination as weapons. That timing, plus the patent's 2015 expiry, explains the absence of PTAB activity far better than any inference that the patent is litigation-hardened. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears in the PTAB chain, though Unified Patents' portal lists the family. The patent owner's appeals history — Function Media aside — shows no aggressive PTAB/Federal Circuit campaign on this patent.

Recommended next steps

1. If you hold a demand letter citing US 6,457,025: the highest-value first response is not an IPR petition — it is (a) expiry and (b) damages-window math. The patent expired 2015-10-19. Ask the sender to identify (i) the accused acts and (ii) the date range, and note that any act on or after 2015-10-20 is outside the statutory term. If the demand cites live product/feature use today, the demand is facially deficient.
2. Re-run the PTAB check yourself, because absence is a signal only if you confirm the search method. Query the patent number in PTAB E2E and the USPTO ODP ptab trials endpoint, filtering on application/patent number 6457025 and 6457025.B2 and checking both "IPR" and "CBM" trial types. My searches found nothing; you should not stake a brief on my tooling hitting its step limit. Absence of PTAB activity here is explained by (i) the 2003–2006 suits predating IPRs and (ii) 2015 expiry — it is not evidence that the claims are strong.
3. If a case is genuinely pending on pre-2015-10-19 conduct and validity matters: you have the full art set. Because the Board has never seen this patent, there is no § 325(d) or § 315(e) obstacle, and no FWD to quote. Build invalidity from scratch — no reliance on any prior "PTAB outcome" is possible or needed.
4. Check § 315(b) and § 325(c) anyway if you are contemplating an IPR. The absence of past PTAB activity does not exempt you from the one-year bar from service of a complaint alleging infringement (35 U.S.C. § 315(b)), and IPRs on expired patents are permissible but strategically odd — with the term lapsed, the usual reason to petition (staying a live case) usually disappears.
5. Preserve the Opodo standing ruling for use if ownership is in play. If the current plaintiff is not the record assignee or is a licensee, the Opodo analysis (exclusive licensee with all substantial rights can sue alone; otherwise co-plaintiff joinder with the patent owner is required) is directly on point and is the one adjudicated issue this patent has actually generated. CourtListener link: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2416384](/patent/2416384)/internetad-systems-llc-v-opodo-ltd/
6. Do not cite a Final Written Decision or appeal for this patent in any filing. There isn't one. Any statement to the contrary — including any confusion with Function Media — is sanction exposure under Rule 11 / § 285.

Sources consulted

• Canonical structured block "PTAB proceedings on file" (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest): no AIA trials.
• Structured patent record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6457025/en (claims 1–18; expiry 2015-10-19; assignment chain; litigation entries)
• Unified Patents litigation portal entries for N.D. Tex. cases 3:03-cv-02787, 3:05-cv-00604, 3:05-cv-01969, 3:05-cv-02532, 3:06-cv-01063, 3:06-cv-01084
• InternetAd Systems, LLC v. Opodo Ltd., N.D. Ill. (standing/exclusive-license holding): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/2416384/internetad-systems-llc-v-opodo-ltd/
• ZDNet / CNET, "Patent owner stakes claim in Net ad suit" (2003 assertion against ESPN, NYT, Travelocity; ~5% royalty demand)
• Function Media, L.L.C. v. Google, Inc., No. 2012-1380 (Fed. Cir. 2013-03-07) — cited only to distinguish; not this patent

Citation gaps I am flagging honestly: I could not retrieve an authoritative PTAB E2E docket listing or an ODP ptab API response page for 6,457,025 within this session, and no Final Written Decision, institution decision, or CAFC opinion on this patent appears to exist. Where the record is silent, I have said so rather than filling the template.

I'll research the assignment record, litigation history, and the entities in this chain before building the report.

Good — the litigation record gives me the executed dates. Now let me pin down reel/frame numbers, the Acacia/TechSearch relationship, and Judson's background.

⚠️ Source-availability note (read first)

I could not machine-interrogate USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) or the legacy Patent Assignment Search (https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) with the tools available — both are JavaScript applications whose underlying query endpoints were not reachable. Consequently I have not filled in reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record for any entry below. I am not guessing those fields. What I can reconstruct with high confidence is the substantive chain, from (a) the Google Patents legal-events table for US 6,457,025 (recording dates, conveyances, assignor/assignee) and (b) the executed dates recited in the N.D. Tex. standing opinion in InternetAd Systems, LLC v. Opodo Ltd., No. 3:06-cv-01084 (Solis, J.), which quotes each assignment instrument as an exhibit. The executed dates and the USPTO recording dates differ, which is itself a finding — see the timeline. Anyone needing reel/frame and correspondent must run the search directly at the Assignment Center link at the bottom.

Inventors

David H. Judson — sole named inventor on US 6,457,025 and on all three parents in the family.

There are no co-inventors, no corporate inventor, and no recorded inventor-to-employer assignment. This is a classic lone-inventor-originated portfolio — the raw material for later NPE acquisition.

Family members all share the 1995-10-19 priority date: 5,572,643 (08/543,876) → 5,737,619 (08/708,795, CIP) → 6,185,586 (09/055,726, continuation) → 6,457,025 (09/777,918, continuation, filed 2001-02-05, issued 2002-09-24).

Original assignee

Entity named on the issued patent: none — the patent issued to David H. Judson as an individual.

• Line of business: Judson was an independent inventor. There is no evidence in the record of a Judson operating company that manufactured a product embodying the claims. The patented subject matter — masking an "information object" inside an HTML comment tag and displaying it as a "mini" web page during link latency — was never commercialized by the inventor as a product as far as the record shows.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence located. Every subsequent monetization instrument is a license or assignment, not a product line. Acacia's own description of the asset is purely a licensing portfolio: "a portfolio of patents that apply to Interstitial and Pop-Up Advertising" (Acacia press release, 2007-05-22, re Move Inc./Homestore).
• Current status: Judson is not the owner. Title has been out of his hands since 2004-07-29. The patent's last recorded owner of record is InternetAd Systems LLC (a wholly owned Acacia Research Corporation subsidiary), per the Google Patents reassignment table. The patent itself is expired as of 2015-10-19 (Google Patents: "Adjusted expiration 2015-10-19"; status "Expired – Fee Related"). The family is in the public domain.

Assignment timeline

Reminder: reel/frame and correspondent are blank below because I could not retrieve them. Dates marked (exec.) are the executed instrument dates recited in the Opodo opinion; dates marked (rec.) are USPTO recording dates from Google Patents legal events.

1. 2003-09-09 (exec.) / recorded 2004-03-02 (rec.) — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

• Conveyance: Exclusive License (Google Patents styles it "EXCLUSIVE LICENSE")
• Assignor: David H. Judson
• Assignee: TechSearch, L.L.C. (Northbrook, Ill.)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter. Judson grants TechSearch the worldwide right to license and enforce, expressly including the right to sue and the right to sublicense to "targets of TS's licensing program and Patent enforcement" (Agreement §2.1, quoted in InternetAd v. Opodo). This is the moment the portfolio is converted from an inventor's asset into an assertion program.

2. 2003-11-13 (exec.) / recording status unconfirmed — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

• Conveyance: Assignment (of TechSearch's rights under the Agreement, i.e., of the license/enforcement rights, not of legal title to the patents)
• Assignor: TechSearch, L.L.C.
• Assignee: InternetAd Systems, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter / pre-litigation standing arrangement. InternetAd is created as the enforcement vehicle and takes over the TechSearch program. Per InternetAd v. Opodo, "On November 13, 2003, TS assigned and conveyed all of its rights and interest in the Agreement to InternetAd."

3. 2004-07-29 (exec.) / recorded 2004-12-15 (rec.) — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

• Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" per Google Patents)
• Assignor: David H. Judson
• Assignee: JS Technologies, L.P.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Fire-sale / clean-up of legal title. Judson finally parts with the patents themselves — 10 months after the first InternetAd enforcement campaign began. Note that Judson initially kept bare title while TechSearch ran enforcement; this assignment begins the process of consolidating title away from the inventor. Recording lag of ~4.5 months.

4. 2005-11-04 (exec.) / recorded 2006-01-03 (rec.) — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

• Conveyance: Assignment ("entire right, title, and interest")
• Assignor: JS Technologies, L.P.
• Assignee: America Online, Inc. (later AOL LLC)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Conduit transfer. Title passes to an operating company (AOL/Time Warner) that was not the party enforcing the patents — InternetAd continued to litigate throughout. AOL's role is that of a holding conduit; the 15-month gap from the prior link is short for a bona fide strategic purchase of a 1995 web-browser patent by a portal. Recording lag of ~2 months.

5. Recorded 2008-05-06 (rec.); execution date not stated in the sources I reached — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: AOL LLC
• Assignee: InternetAd Systems, LLC (Acacia Research Corporation subsidiary)
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter / standing cure. Full legal title and the enforcement license finally converge in the same Acacia entity, ~7 weeks after Acacia announced the Time Warner settlement (2008-04-01) covering "United States Patent Nos. 5,572,643; 5,737,619; 6,185,586; and 6,457,025." This matters because the defendants in InternetAd v. Opodo had moved to dismiss for lack of standing, arguing InternetAd held only a license and not "all substantial rights." Acquiring bare title removed the standing defect.

Chain note on TechSearch → Acacia: By 2005-08-19, Acacia Research Corporation was publicly describing "InternetAd Systems, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary that is part of the Acacia Technologies Group." Acacia separately acquired TechSearch, LLC through its purchase of the assets of Global Patent Holdings, LLC ("11 patent licensing companies including TechSearch, LLC"). So by 2008 the licensee, the licensor's enforcement vehicle, and the title holder were all inside one corporate family.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6457025
    1995 : Judson files priority application
    1996 : Parent patent US 5572643 issues
    2001 : Continuation filed as 09 777 918
    2002 : US 6457025 issues to Judson
    2003 : Judson licenses TechSearch
         : TechSearch assigns to InternetAd
         : First N D Texas suits filed
    2004 : Exclusive license recorded at USPTO
         : Judson assigns to JS Technologies
    2005 : JS Technologies assigns to AOL
         : Acacia calls InternetAd its subsidiary
    2006 : AOL assignment recorded at USPTO
    2008 : AOL assigns to InternetAd Systems
         : Time Warner settles litigation
    2015 : Patent expires end of term

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
The patent moves from an operating company (America Online, Inc./AOL LLC, America's largest dial-up ISP) to InternetAd Systems, LLC, a licensing-only LLC that Acacia itself describes in SEC-sourced press materials as existing to "develop, acquire, and license patented technologies." InternetAd advertises no product; its stated function in litigation was "formed to assist patent owners who lack the time, resources, or knowledge to license and enforce their patents" (InternetAd v. Opodo, Pl.'s Resp. at 2). The "IP/Holdings/Licensing" naming pattern is also present earlier via "JS Technologies, L.P." — but note the control evidence for that entity is thin, so the primary support for this signal is AOL → InternetAd (recorded 2008-05-06), not the naming.
Caveat that keeps this honest: an "LLC with no products" is only a finding because Acacia's own corporate filings and its 91-portfolio licensing program establish the no-manufacturing fact — not merely because "LLC" appears in the name.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (strongest signal).

• Acacia Research Corp. — named explicitly on your list — is the ultimate parent. InternetAd v. Opodo: "InternetAd is a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation." Confirmed independently by Acacia press releases (2005-08-19 Priceline; 2006-11-27 Best Western; 2007-05-22 Move; 2008-04-01 Time Warner).
• TechSearch, LLC appears at 2003-09-09 / recorded 2004-03-02. TechSearch is itself a serial enforcer — Intel's counsel called it a "patent troll" in the 1998 Intel litigation, and it was named as a co-defendant in Cognex Corp. v. VCode Holdings, Inc., D. Minn. No. 0:06-cv-01040 (Acacia 10-Q, 2006).
• InternetAd Systems LLC appears as plaintiff in at least six N.D. Tex. suits: 3:03-cv-02787, 3:05-cv-00604, 3:05-cv-01969, 3:05-cv-02532, 3:06-cv-01063, 3:06-cv-01084. A royalty demand of 5% of Internet ad sales on pop-up/pop-under ads was reported by a site operator to CNET.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT VERIFIABLE.
This is precisely the field that requires the Assignment Center's correspondent-of-record data, which I could not retrieve. I have no attorney or recording-firm name for any of the five entries. I will not supply a name. Action item: this is the highest-value open field — if one attorney recorded both the 2004-12-15 Judson→JS Technologies assignment and the 2008-05-06 AOL→InternetAd assignment, that would be a discrete corroborating finding.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (moderate).
Four recorded USPTO events over ~4 years (2004-03-02, 2004-12-15, 2006-01-03, 2008-05-06) plus the unrecorded 2003-11-13 TechSearch→InternetAd instrument. The chain threads five distinct entities — Judson → TechSearch → JS Technologies → AOL → InternetAd — none of which are the original inventor at the end. The tightest link is JS Technologies → AOL at 15 months, inside the 24-month cascade window. The 2008 AOL→InternetAd link is outside the window, so I score this moderate rather than strong. No evidence surfaced that any of these assignees share a correspondent address or common principals, and I did not verify that JS Technologies and Judson share control.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (strong).
The TechSearch → InternetAd assignment of rights was executed 2003-11-13; InternetAd's first infringement complaints against ESPN, The New York Times Co. and Travelocity.com were filed in N.D. Tex. on 2003-11-18 — five days later. That is about as tight a pre-suit transfer as the record produces. A second instance: the 2008 AOL → InternetAd title transfer (recorded 2008-05-06) follows the standing challenge in the Opodo case (defendant's motion filed 2006-08-10; motion for summary judgment filed 2006-10-04) — i.e., the chain was re-arranged to give the plaintiff an unassailable title record.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 proceeding is implicated. Neither JS Technologies, L.P., America Online, Inc./AOL LLC (which was sold by Time Warner to Verizon in 2015, not dissolved in bankruptcy), nor Acacia Research Corporation was in bankruptcy at any relevant date. The 2004-07-29 and 2005-11-04 transfers were private transactions.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The structural prerequisites are arguably present: an operating company (AOL, part of Time Warner) held bare title 2005-11-04 to 2008-05-06 while an Acacia subsidiary sued Time Warner's own Turner Broadcasting System (N.D. Tex. 3:06-cv-01063, filed 2006-06-15) and then settled with Time Warner on 2008-04-01 — with the AOL→InternetAd assignment recorded five weeks later. That sequencing is suggestive. But suggestive is not a finding: I found no SEC 8-K/10-K disclosure in which AOL states an intent to fund or coordinate InternetAd's assertion campaign, and no Patent Progress/EFF coverage characterizing it as privateering. I therefore mark this unclear and flag the April–May 2008 coincidence as the item to investigate, not as evidence.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at InternetAd Systems, LLC (Acacia Technologies) — an assertive licensing entity — not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. There is no neutralizing transfer. (Unified Patents' portal does carry a page for family member US 5,737,619, but that is monitoring coverage, not an ownership transfer.)

Verdict

NPE — high confidence

**Supporting record: ** (i) the patent's title chain terminates at InternetAd Systems, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation — an entity named on the public NPE list — as established by InternetAd v. Opodo ("InternetAd is a subsidiary of Acacia Research Corporation") and by Acacia's own press releases dated 2005-08-19, 2006-11-27, 2007-05-22 and 2008-04-01; (ii) AOL LLC assigned the patents to InternetAd Systems LLC on an instrument recorded 2008-05-06, i.e., an operating company handed title to a licensing-only assertion vehicle; and (iii) the TechSearch → InternetAd rights assignment executed 2003-11-13 preceded InternetAd's first infringement complaints by five days (filed 2003-11-18), the textbook pre-litigation transfer that arranges standing for assertion. That is two strong signals plus a third (cascading transfers through five entities) — well past the threshold.

Two caveats I will not paper over. First, every reel/frame and every correspondent-of-record is missing from this report because I could not reach the Assignment Center; the signal #3 analysis (repeat recording attorney) is therefore genuinely unresolved, not "negative." Second, this is now academic for current infringement purposes: US 6,457,025 expired 2015-10-19 and the last recorded assignee (InternetAd/Acacia) has no live claim under it. The significance of this chain today is historical and defensive-only — it is the seminal interstitial-advertising prior art that later NPEs had to design around, and the family's 1995 priority date is why subsequent pop-up/interstitial assertions (e.g., Unicast's WO1999060504) sat downstream of it.

Verify reel/frame and correspondent here:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Patent Assignment Search (search by patent number "6457025") — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events (the source of the recording dates above) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US6457025/en
• InternetAd Systems, LLC v. Opodo Ltd., No. 3:06-cv-01084 (N.D. Tex.) memorandum opinion (source of all executed dates) — https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2416384](/patent/2416384)/internetad-systems-llc-v-opodo-ltd/

I'll research US Patent 6457025 and its prior art citations. Let me start with searches.

Let me get the specific citation list for US6457025 from the USPTO/Google Patents records.

Let me try to access the citation list directly from patent databases.

Important preliminary caveat (please read first)

I must be precise about what "citations for 6457025" actually are, because the available authoritative record only gives me one direction of citation data.

The Google Patents record for US 6,457,025 B2 that was supplied (and that I re-checked) contains:

• "Cited By (55)" — patents that cite US 6,457,025. These are forward citations.
• "Families Citing this family (442)" — a larger set of families that cite this patent family. Also forward citations.
• "Applications Claiming Priority / Related Parent Applications" — the same-inventor family.

It does not contain a front‑page "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" (backward/examiner-cited prior art) section. In my searches I did not retrieve the examiner's cited prior-art list for US 6,457,025 either; every "Patent Citations" list I hit belonged to other patents that cite the '025 (e.g., US 7,653,737's "Patent Citations (16)"; a citation table on the US 6,636,247 page). I will not fabricate the examiner's cited references. Below I give (a) the verified patent data, (b) the family/priority documents, (c) what the record's forward citations actually are, and (d) the prior art the patent itself admits — with a §102 analysis for each, stating plainly where anticipation cannot apply.

1. Verified identity of the patent (literal identifiers)

Chain of priority (from the patent's own text):

• US 09/777,918 (the '025) is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/055,726 (filed 1998-04-06), now US 6,185,586;
• which is a continuation of Ser. No. 08/708,795 (filed 1996-09-09), now US 5,737,619;
• which is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 08/543,876 (filed 1995-10-19), now US 5,572,643.

Representative claims (for the §102 mapping):

• Claim 1 – system: content pages in markup language + server with HTTP service serving a requested page + a set of information objects (message/graphic/animation content), where a given info object associated with the page is displayable by the browser independent of the display of the page.
• Claims 2–4 – display triggered by a browser event / link processing; link activated from the page.
• Claims 5–7 – page includes a comment tag (optionally containing markup elements); object displayed per those elements.
• Claims 8–9 – object facilitates an online interactive survey / fill-in form.
• Claim 10 – method: serve a page including code for generating a markup-language page with content displayable interstitially, content served from a server distinct from the page server.
• Claims 11–12 – triggered by a user navigation event; launch of a previously-stored URL.
• Claims 13–18 – server-side analog with advertising content, comment tag association, event/link trigger, ad relates to the linked page, popup window.

2. Family documents — closest to the patent, but they are not §102 prior art

Note: The '025 was filed in the pre-AIA regime; because it is a true continuation chain, its effective filing date is 1995-10-19, so the §102 window is art before that date (subject to pre-AIA §102(a)/(b)/(e) rules).

3. What the record's "citations" actually are — forward citations (NOT prior art)

The 55 "Cited By" entries cite the '025, so by definition they post-date it and cannot anticipate or render obvious US 6,457,025 under §102 or §103. Representative examples from the record (with the record's own dates/assignees):

• US 6,636,247 B1 (IBM), priority 2000-01-31 — "Modality advertisement viewing system and method" — cites the '025.
• US 6,606,652 B1 (WebTV Networks), priority 1998-06-30 — "System for targeting information to specific users…"
• US 7,007,237 B1 (Microsoft), priority 2000-05-03 — "Method and system for accessing web pages in the background."
• US 7,962,604 B1 (AOL), priority 2000-10-17 — "Displaying advertisements in a computer network environment."
• US 5,946,064 A / US 5,745,787-style monitoring art: US 7,386,473 B2 (Nielsen), 1996-09-03; US 7,406,516 B2 (NetRatings), 1997-03-21 — content/usage monitoring.
• US 7,225,142 B1 (AT&T), priority 1996-08-01 — "Interactive multimedia advertising and electronic commerce on a hypertext network."
• US 7,496,943 B1 / US RE44,323 E1 / US 9,530,150 B2 (Beneficial Innovations / Adcension), priority 1996-01-19 — "Network system for presenting advertising."

These are prior-art searches' opposite direction — valuable for showing the '025 is a seminal interstitial-advertising reference, but they are not art capable of anticipating the '025. Also note US 6,636,247's citation list (which I saw in search results) belongs to that patent, not to the '025 — I flag this so it is not mis-attributed.

4. Prior art the patent itself admits (the only §102-capable statements I can ground)

The specification expressly treats the following as known/background. These are the references most relevant to the '025's claims, and they are the only ones I can tie to specific claims with confidence:

§102 assessment: None of these admitted items, taken alone, discloses the combination that distinguishes the '025 — namely, an information object associated with a displayed page (optionally masked in a comment tag) and rendered by the browser independently of / interstitially to the page (claims 1, 10, 13), nor the specific triggers (link activation, stored-URL launch, popup window) of claims 2–4, 11–12, 15–18. They are background art that the claims are drafted to sit on top of, not anticipatory references. I would characterize them as support for §103 obviousness arguments at most, not §102 anticipation.

5. Direct answers to your questions

• "Most relevant prior art for US 6,457,025": On the record available to me, the closest documents are the same-inventor priority family (US 5,572,643 → US 5,737,619 → US 6,185,586), which disclose the same interstitial/idle-time display concepts but are legally incapable of anticipating the '025 (same inventor, same 1995-10-19 effective date). The only other §102-capable material is the admitted background art in the specification (HTML/HTTP/browsers/comment tags/fill-in forms/applets and the two incorporated HTML references).
• "Which claim(s) it potentially anticipates under §102": For the family references — none (improper prior art). For the admitted background art — none anticipates a full claim; each maps only onto individual limitations (e.g., comment tag → claims 5/6/7/14; fill-in form → claims 8/9; browser/HTTP/markup → claims 1/10/13). The forward "Cited By" references likewise cannot anticipate because they post-date the '025.

6. Limitations / honesty statement

1. I could not retrieve US 6,457,025's own front-page "References Cited" (examiner/applicant cited prior art). The authoritative fetched record and my searches surfaced only forward citation data. If you need the true examiner citations, they are on the USPTO PatentCenter "References Cited" tab and the patent's face, which I was unable to load within my search budget.
2. I therefore did not fabricate any examiner-cited reference numbers.
3. Given the litigation history (multiple N.D. Texas cases, e.g., https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Northern%20District%20Court/case/3%3A03-cv-02787), invalidity prior art for this family was developed in litigation; that art (e.g., interstitials by "Unicast," "DoubleClick US 5,948,061," and idle-time-download art) is the practical prior-art landscape, but I cannot ground a claim-by-claim §102 mapping for it from the sources retrieved, so I am flagging it rather than asserting it.

If you can supply the patent's front-page "References Cited" list (or grant access to the PatentCenter document), I will produce the requested per-reference citation, date, description, and exact claim-by-claim §102 mapping.

I'll start by verifying the prior-art references available on this page and gathering grounding details on the key ones.

I found the patent's actual "Referenced Cited" list on Justia. Let me retrieve the full prior-art citation list and a few key reference details.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 6,457,025 (Judson, "Interstitial advertising display system and method")

1. What the page actually provides as "prior art" — and caveats

Before the analysis, one important disclosure about the source material, because it affects everything below:

• The Google Patents page supplies prior-art metadata (prior-art date 1995-10-19; prior-art keywords information, page, browser, content, server), and two large forward-citation lists ("Cited By (55)" and "Families Citing this family (442)").
• The backward-citation block ("References Cited" / Patent Citations) was truncated in the fetched text — the fetch stops mid-way through "Families Citing this family" (at "JP2000242392A … 1999-02-"). I therefore retrieved the face-of-the-patent citations from Justia: https://patents.justia.com/patent/6457025 ("Referenced Cited").
• Strictly, "Cited By" and "Families Citing this family" are not prior art — they are later documents citing this family. A few of them do have pre-1995 priority dates, but their availability as art turns on §102(e) effective-date analysis (see §6). I flag every instance where I rely on such a document.

Face-of-the-patent references I can confirm (from Justia), all U.S. patents, with issue dates: 4,782,463 (Sanders, 1988); 4,827,508 (Shear, 1989); 4,833,308 (Humble, 1989); 4,850,007 (Marino, 1989); 4,873,662 (Sargent, 1989); 4,953,209 (Ryder, 1990); 5,204,947 (Bernstein, 1993); 5,297,249 (Bernstein, 1994); 5,305,195 (Murphy, 1994); 5,321,740 (Gregorek, 1994); 5,347,632 (Filepp, 1994); 5,355,472 (Lewis, 1994); 5,359,708 (Bloomer, 1994); 5,367,621 (Cohen, 1994); 5,367,623 (Iwai, 1994); 5,408,659 (Cavendish, 1995); 5,412,772 (Monson, 1995); 5,428,529 (Hartick, 1995); 5,428,670 (Gregorek, 1995); 5,438,508 (Wyman, 1995); 5,442,771 (Filepp, 1995); 5,461,667 (Remillard, 1995); 5,491,820 (Belove, 1996); 5,511,160 (Robson, 1996); 5,515,490 (Buchaman, 1996); 5,530,754 (Garfinkle, 1996); 5,548,746 (Egan, 1996); 5,557,658 (Gregorek, 1996); 5,706,502 (Foley, 1998); 5,740,549 (Reilly, 1998); 5,742,768 (Gennaro, 1998); 5,754,830 (Butts, 1998); 5,768,508 (Eikeland, 1998); 5,781,894 (Petrecca, 1998).

Not prior art: the family members US 5,572,643 ('643), US 5,737,619 ('619) and US 6,185,586 ('586) are the '025's own priority chain. They cannot be §102/§103 art against the '025 (same inventive entity, same disclosure), although they did generate an obviousness-type double-patenting requirement — the October 2002 Official Gazette listing states the '025 "is subject to a terminal disclaimer" (https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/[5628977](/patent/5628977)/FID2/OG/html/1262-4/us06457025-20020924.html). That is a meaningful signal (the claims were held not patentably distinct from the family's earlier patents) but it is not a §103 finding.

Legal framework applied. Graham v. John Deere factors; KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (rationales: known-elements combination; known technique applied to a ready-for-improvement known device; market/design incentive; predictable variation); motivation may come from the references, the problem to be solved, or ordinary creativity. Admitted prior art in the '025 specification is usable (§102/§103 AAPA; In re Fout). Priority date 1995-10-19 governs unless a limitation lacks §112 support in the parents (see §6).

2. Admitted prior art in the '025 specification itself (usable against every claim)

The '025 specification (identical to the '643/'619/'586 chain) expressly concedes as known:

• HTTP, HTML, links, URLs, TCP/IP requests, "web servers … HTTP 'service'/'daemon'," and browsers (Netscape, Mosaic) — see "Description of the Related Art" and the Detailed Description (patents.google.com/patent/US6457025/en).
• HTML comment tags <!--text--> and the SGML proposal under which "HTML elements within a comment" are permitted — expressly described as prior art.
• HTML fill-in form tags, Java applets, .gif images, browser caches, plug-ins, background printing, and bookmark/URL launching.

That alone establishes the apparatus backbone of claim 1 (content pages + HTTP server + browser), claim 13 (server with HTTP service), most of claim 7, and the "markup language elements" of claim 6.

3. Element-by-element mapping

Claim 1 (display system)

Likely outcome: claim 1 is the broadest, least-specific claim and would very likely be held obvious over Filepp '632 (or Murphy '195) + Reilly '549 in view of AAPA.

Claims 2–4, 15–17 (event-triggered display; link processing; ad tied to linked page)

• Event trigger: Murphy (advertising presented to the terminal user during the session), Hendricks '949 (a page/navigation event gates content — the time-based view routine "could prevent that page from being turned until a sufficient time has elapsed," ¶0248), Reilly.
• Link processing: AAPA (the '025 spec describes link activation and TCP/IP request generation as conventional).
• Ad relates to the destination: Filepp's selection of ads by user/ZIP/characteristics provides the "targeted/relevant" teaching; relevance-to-destination is an obvious refinement under KSR (motivation: relevance raises ad value). Reasonable expectation of success: high.

Claims 5, 6, 7, 14 (comment tag; elements nested; rendering per markup)

• AAPA is strong here: the spec itself teaches the comment tag, its known "ignored by the browser" semantics, and the SGML proposal permitting HTML elements inside comments. A POSITA asked to "store a masked object in the page" would use the known comment tag or a dedicated masking tag (the spec concedes both).
• This is the family's true point of novelty and the weakest point of the invalidity case — see §5, counterargument #1.

Claims 8, 9 (on-line interactive survey; markup-language fill-in form)

• AAPA: the '025 spec states "One such technique for responding to the message uses the HTML 'fill-in' form tags."
• Filepp '632 (transactional services, data entry), Reilly '549, and IPF/Perkowski (below) disclose HTML forms for gathering user input and returning it to a service provider.
• Motivation: market-research value and advertiser demand; predictable combination of a known form with a known interstitial display.

Claims 10, 11, 12 (serving method; interstitial content served from a server distinct from the first server; navigation event; stored URL)

• Perkowski/IPF, US 6,625,581 (priority 1994-04-22): HTML-encoded documents containing an embedded servlet/applet tag that, when selected, calls a different server (the IPD Server) which returns advertising/product information displayed in an independent "virtual kiosk" GUI window (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6625581B1](/patent/US6625581B1)). It also describes centralized distribution/licensing of those tags to be "widely embedded within HTML-encoded documents" — i.e., code injected into a publisher's page that fetches content from a third party.
• Reilly '549 / Murphy '195: what that third-party content is (advertising/messages).
• Wolfe, US 6,604,103 (priority 1994-09-02; original US 5,715,445 filed 1995-06-07, i.e., before 1995-10-19): preloading/prefetching content into client memory while the user views current content, and serving it immediately on request (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6604103) — teaches the client-side caching/quick-retrieval idea and the "serve content during otherwise idle viewing time" concept.
• Motivation (KSR): the classic third-party ad-serving architecture — a publisher serves the page; a separate ad/information server serves the ad object, enabling centralized refreshing, targeting, billing and economies of scale (the '025 spec itself describes a master server + information warehouse distributing objects to web servers, FIG. 10). A POSITA would combine IPF's embedded tag + Reilly/Murphy's advertising content to get claim 10 with a strong expectation of success.

Claim 13 (server serving a page containing browser-executable code for advertising content displayable independently)

Same mapping as claim 1 plus Filepp/Murphy/Reilly for "advertising content." Obvious for the same reasons.

Claim 18 (displayable in a popup window)

• IPF '581 expressly produces a new, independent browser window ("each consumer product information display (CPID) enabling GUI … is a new and independent Web browser having a Netscape-type framework") launched from an embedded tag. Popup/second-window display was also AAPA. This dependent claim is very weak.

4. The §103 combinations and why a POSITA would combine

Common motivation thread (fully supported by the references and by the '025's own problem statement): the '025's asserted insight is that the wait between link activation and page delivery is "otherwise non-productive." Every one of Filepp, Murphy, Reilly and Wolfe is directed to putting otherwise-idle screen/capacity to commercial or informational use, and all describe the same architecture (central server → client display of downloaded content). Under KSR, the stated benefits (advertising revenue subsidizing content; reduced perceived latency; targeting) supply ample motivation, and implementation (an HTML/script tag, a Java applet, a cache, a second window) was entirely conventional by October 1995 — the '025 spec itself names Java applets, caches and plug-ins as available tools. Reasonable expectation of success: high for all independent claims.

5. Where the invalidity case is weakest (candid counterarguments)

1. Claims 5, 6, 14 — masking content in an HTML comment tag that the browser is designed to ignore. None of the confirmed ad-delivery references (Filepp, Murphy, Reilly) hides the advertising inside the retrieved page in a structure the browser is specified to discard; Filepp displays ads in a visible partition, and IPF in a separate window. A patent owner can argue that repurposing the comment tag to carry renderable content changes the principle of operation of that tag and requires browser modification (the spec anticipates this: other tags "may be used … including … a tag dedicated to masking an information object"). Rebuttal under KSR: (i) the spec admits the SGML proposal already permitted HTML elements inside comments, so no new tag semantics were needed; (ii) using a known mechanism to hide data from display routines while extracting it is a predictable use of a known technique. This is a genuinely contestable point, and it is the limitation that gives the family its narrowest, most defensible claims.
2. Claim 1's "independent of display … of the page of information." Filepp's AD partition is arguably part of the served page. Reilly (separately delivered/displayed ad content) and IPF (independent window) close the gap, but the combination is more vulnerable than the mapping of claims 1/13's other elements. If the term is construed narrowly (separate window/interstitial overlay), claim 18's dependency and IPF become the decisive art.
3. Nothing on the page shows an examiner or PTAB adjudication of the '025 specifically. The Schmandt declarations surfaced in search (e.g., re U.S. 8,606,819 and a '470 patent) involve different patents. Do not treat them as findings about the '025.
4. Several of my strongest documents are forward citations (Adrea '949, IPF '581, Wolfe '103) rather than face-of-patent art, and their dates need §102(e) verification — see §6.

6. Priority/date vulnerabilities that would materially strengthen the §103 case

• Family patents create no §102(b) art because the one-year grace runs from the earliest U.S. filing date (In re Chu; MPEP 2133) — hence the terminal disclaimer (obviousness-type double patenting) rather than a §102(b) rejection. Correctly characterized: evidence of lack of patentable distinctness from '643/'619/'586, not prior art.
• Claim 10's "content is served from a server distinct from the first server" and claim 18's "popup window" were granted on the 2001-02-05 continuation. If those limitations are not supported under §112 by the 1995 ('876), 1996 ('795) or 1998 ('726) applications, their critical date is 2001-02-05, which would open up much stronger art:
  • Unicast Communications, US 6,317,761 / WO 99/60504 (priority 1998-05-15): "Technique for implementing browser-initiated user-transparent advertising and for interstitially displaying an advertisement … through a web browser in response to a user click-stream" — this title alone maps onto claim 10/18 language.
  • DoubleClick, US 5,948,061 (1996-10-29): third-party delivery/targeting/measuring of advertising over networks — squarely on point for the "distinct server" limitation.
  • WebTV, US 6,237,039 (downloading auxiliary data to a client during client idle periods) and US 6,317,791 (distributing data for display during start-up) — the "idle time" concept of the '025 abstract.
    With a 2001 date, these become §102(a)/(e) art and, in my view, claim 10 would be at serious risk of anticipation (Unicast) or obviousness (DoubleClick + Reilly).
• Date verification still needed for the two references I leaned on most from the forward lists: IPF '581 (its 1994-04-22 priority runs through a 1999 CIP; the servlet-tag/independent-window disclosure may be later-added matter) and Adrea '949 (a 1999 CIP of 1993/1994 programs; the "insert messages or advertisements into the file server" and time-gated ad-page passages may be CIP matter with a 1999 effective date). Confirming what each CIP added is the single highest-value next step, because both would otherwise be excellent art.

7. Bottom line

• Claims 1, 2, 13, 15, 18 (and 7): highly likely obvious. Best combinations: Filepp '632 + Murphy '195 + Reilly '549 over the '025's own admitted prior art; for claim 18, add Perkowski/IPF '581's independent browser window.
• Claims 3, 4, 11, 16, 17: likely obvious — AAPA link/URL processing + advertising-display art (+ Filepp targeting for the "advertises goods or services associated with the second page" limitation).
• Claims 8, 9: likely obvious — AAPA fill-in form tags + Filepp/Murphy advertising/interactive content.
• Claims 10, 12: likely obvious via Perkowski/IPF '581 + Reilly or Murphy (+ Wolfe for caching/idle-time), decisively so if the 2001 priority date applies, in which case Unicast US 6,317,761 and DoubleClick US 5,948,061 should be added.
• Claims 5, 6, 14 (comment-tag masking) and the "independent of display" limitation of claim 1/13: the genuinely contestable limitations. They are obvious under a KSR-style "known technique for a new purpose" analysis anchored on the specification's own admission that comment tags are known and that HTML elements may be nested in comments, but a skilled patent owner has a real, if narrow, argument that this "changes the principle of operation" of the comment tag and requires browser modification.

Confidence notes (per operating rules): the '025 claims, priority date, family structure, terminal disclaimer, litigation history and expiration data are grounded in the patent page and the Oct. 2002 Official Gazette listing. The face-of-the-patent citation list is grounded in Justia; I could not independently verify the technical content of every listed reference, so only Filepp '632, Murphy '195, Reilly '549 and the cited-by documents (IPF '581, Adrea '949, Wolfe '103, Unicast '761) are characterized with substantive detail, and those characterizations should be confirmed against the reference texts before being relied on. Titles/dates I have flagged as recollection rather than verified text (e.g., Murphy '195's exact title) should be checked.