US 6743022

I'll search for the specific patent number as requested.

Let me run a few more targeted searches to check for litigation and any CAFC 2026 activity.

US Patent 6,743,022 — Summary

Important scope note first: I searched for the specific number 6743022 (matching on both the bare number and the formatted US patent number 6,743,022). I did not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 docket entries involving this patent. The CAFC-adjacent hits my searches returned were unrelated: e.g., the string "2020 WL 6743022" is a Westlaw citation to In re Sitagliptin Phosphate Pat. Litig. (D. Del. 2020), not this patent, and cases like Ironburg Inventions v. Valve / In re Hybir have no connection to US 6,743,022. Several search results referencing "6743022" were simply a numeric page/list index or an unrelated Finnish fortification ID. So: no CAFC 2026 activity located.

Bibliographic data (from the patent record)

Assignee chain (per the record's assignment events): Original assignee listed as "Individual" (Sarel) → Home Medicine (USA) Inc. (2011 assignments from Sarel) → Dimicine Research IT, LLC (2008 assignment, recorded 2008-06-03) → F. Poszat HU, L.L.C. (2016 merger, effective 2015-08-12). Google Patents lists current assignee as F. Poszat HU, L.L.C. Treat these as sourced assertions, not a legal conclusion on current ownership.

Note on the title: the title literally contains the strings "ventification" and "identify." Per your instruction not to auto-correct identifiers, I reproduce them as-is; they appear to be typographical errors in the official record for "verification" and "identity," but I make no correction.

Abstract (essence)

A system and method for automated self-measurement of alertness, equilibrium, and coordination, and for verifying the identity of the person being tested. The self-tutoring/testing system includes: an identifying unit to identify the person to be tested; at least one self-tutoring unit to instruct the person in the test(s); at least one testing unit to perform the test(s); and an interpretation unit to evaluate the results.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — System for continuously verifying identity of a person being tested.
A system with four cooperating units: (1) an identity testing unit that runs an initial identification test and then subsequent identification tests at random intervals over a testing duration, thereby building an identification profile covering that duration; (2) at least one physiological testing unit that performs a physiological test on the person over the same duration, with the test selected randomly from a group of physiological tests; (3) an interpretation unit that evaluates both the identification results (to obtain the identity profile over the duration) and the physiological test results; (4) a storage unit; and (5) a comparison unit that compares the identification data from the initial and subsequent tests. Core idea: identity is re-checked at unpredictable times throughout the session, not just once at the start.

Claim 5 — Method for continuously verifying identity of a person performing a randomly selected task.
Steps: create and store an initial personal-characteristics profile before the task; continuously perform identification tests at random intervals while the person performs the randomly selected task; store each result; compare each random result against the initial profile and against previous randomly performed identification tests after each such test; and evaluate the result of the randomly selected task.

Claim 17 — Method for continuously verifying identity of a person performing a selected task.
Steps: select a task from a group of tasks; create and store an initial personal-characteristics profile before the task; perform identification tests at random intervals during the task; store each result; evaluate the task results; and compare each random identification test result against the initial profile at the completion of the task (i.e., an end-of-task comparison rather than the real-time, per-test comparison of claim 5).

Representative dependent claims: claim 2 (physiological test = alertness, steadiness, coordination, response time); claims 3 and 14 (interpretation to determine whether the person is under the influence of external substances/stimulants); claim 4 (multiple tests evaluated individually and/or in combination); claims 7/8 (compare profile against a database; profile = voice, iris, photographic images); claims 12/13 (evaluate tasks against stored results, in real time or off-line); claim 16 (identification tests = random photographing, random questions, iris/palm/fingerprint/face recognition).

Analytical observations

• The granted claims are all directed to identity verification (initial identification + repeated random-interval re-identification), even though the title/abstract emphasize alertness/equilibrium self-measurement. The alertness/posturography/eye-tracking subject matter is largely in the specification and dependent claims.
• The claim set reflects a clear effort to cover the "stand-in / proxy test-taker" problem: randomized, repeated identity checks bound to the performance of a physiological or other task.
• Related family: PCT/IL1999/000659 / WO 2000/033155 A2; priority to provisional 60/110,726; the specification also references related WO 98/02083 and US application 09/428,430 (medical condition sensing system).
• Citation landscape: 23 cited references (e.g., US 5,229,764 "Continuous biometric authentication matrix"; US 5,813,993 alertness/drowsiness detection; US 5,917,415 drowsiness monitor; US 6,229,908 driver alcohol ignition interlock), and 36+ later citing documents (notably the Predictive Safety SRP family on adaptive alertness testing, and the BioCatch authentication family). This citation network is relevant context if validity or scope is at issue.

Uncertainty / caveats

• I could not directly query a live USPTO Patent Center/PAIR record or an authoritative CAFC docket database in this session; my findings derive from the patent document mirror and supporting pages (Google Patents, Justia). Bibliographic fields are as stated in those records and should be confirmed against USPTO Patent Center and the USPTO Assignment database for legal purposes.
• No CAFC 2026 docket entry for US 6,743,022 was found. I cannot affirmatively prove a negative — absence of a hit may reflect search-access limits — but nothing in the results connected this patent number to any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal.
• The patent's status is shown as "Expired – Lifetime" with anticipated expiration 2019-12-03; I did not verify a lapse-for-nonpayment or other terminal event, and I make no legal conclusion on status.

Result: No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,743,022 identified

Based on the searches I was able to run (Google Patents/Justia patent pages, CourtListener/recap, and general web searches keyed to the exact number and to the current assignee), I found no federal district court action, Court of Federal Claims action, ITC Section 337 investigation, PTAB/IPR proceeding, or Federal Circuit appeal in which U.S. Patent No. 6,743,022 is the asserted patent.

Important disambiguation — false positives you should not carry forward

These recur constantly in keyword searches and are not litigation against this patent:

1. "2020 WL 6743022" — This is a Westlaw citation, not the patent. It corresponds to In re Sitagliptin Phosphate ('708 & '921) Patent Litigation, No. 19-2902-RGA, 2020 WL 6743022 (D. Del. Nov. 17, 2020) (Andrews, J.) — a Merck sitagliptin case. The coincidence of the six digits "6743022" makes this the single largest source of noise in any docket search on this number.
2. U.S. Pat. No. 11,323,451 (Biocatch Ltd.) and other Biocatch patents list 6,743,022 (Sarel) as a cited prior-art reference on their face (see the Justia patent page for the '451 patent, which shows "6743022 | June 1, 2004 | Sarel"). A prior-art citation in a different patent family is not litigation involving the '022 patent. The Biocatch cases cited in the Google Patents "Cited By" table (e.g., the mule-account, proxy-server, and vishing cases) assert Biocatch's own patents, not this one.
3. F. Poszat HU, L.L.C. — This entity is the current assignee of record of the '022 patent (by merger from DiMicine Research IT, LLC in 2015), and it does appear in litigation and in EPO Board of Appeal proceedings (e.g., T 1761/14, concerning EP 02704664.8, "Payment Instrument Authorization Technique"), but only in connection with other patents in its portfolio — largely the former UK Ministry of Defence / QinetiQ holographic-display and 3D-interface families (e.g., EP 1,183,558; EP 992,163). No F. Poszat HU case asserting the '022 patent surfaced.

Posture of the patent itself

• Prosecution/history: Filed 1999-12-03 as PCT/IL1999/000659 (published WO 2000/033155 A2), claiming priority to provisional 60/110,726 filed 1998-12-03; granted 2004-06-01. Inventor Oded Sarel; original assignee individual.
• Ownership chain: Individual (Sarel) → Home-Medicine (USA), Inc. (2011 assignments, effective 2008) → DiMicine Research IT, LLC (2008-06-03) → F. Poszat HU, L.L.C. (merger, 2016-01-22, effective 2015-08-12).
• Maintenance fees: paid at years 4, 8, and 12 (2007-10-10, 2011-09-23, 2015-11-24).
• Term status: Google Patents records "Anticipated expiration 2019-12-03" and status "Expired - Lifetime." Because the 20-year term from the 1999-12-03 PCT filing date (and the 1998-12-03 priority date) ran out in 2019, the patent is expired and cannot now support an injunction or ongoing-royalty claim; any infringement suit would have had to be filed on or before that date, with pre-expiration damages only. That may partly explain the absence of litigation — a ~2019 expiration gives a short damages tail, and the last six years of the term passed without any assertion that I could locate.

Confidence and limitations (please read before relying on this)

• I could not query the sources you specified directly. I have no live PACER, Unified Patents litigation-portal, Lex Machina, Docket Alarm, or RPX access in this session, and my web-search budget was exhausted before I could run the targeted site queries (e.g., site:portal.unifiedpatents.com 6743022, site:docketalarm.com "6743022").
• All hits returned for the literal strings 6743022 and "F. Poszat HU" were the false positives catalogued above. I am therefore not able to state affirmatively that no suit was ever filed — only that an exhaustive-looking search found none. Absence of evidence here is weaker than usual because (a) pre-2010 docket data is unevenly digitized, (b) a case could have been filed and dismissed without a reported opinion, which would leave little web footprint, and (c) I was unable to run the database-specific queries.

Recommended verification steps before you certify "no litigation"

1. Unified Patents litigation portal — search the exact patent number in the litigation case list: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
2. CourtListener / RECAP — docket search on "6,743,022" and on "6:743,022"; also search party name F. Poszat HU and DiMicine Research IT to see the full assertion set for those entities and confirm the '022 is not among the asserted patents.
3. PACER — party searches for F. Poszat HU, L.L.C., DiMicine Research IT, LLC, and Home-Medicine (USA), Inc., plus a defendant-side search on likely targets (alertness/fitness-for-duty testing vendors, e.g., the Predictive Safety SRP family, Bertec, Sync-Think) to detect any case brought before expiration.
4. USPTO PTAB — AIA trial and reexam search on 6,743,022 (no IPR or reexam appeared on the patent's front-page/legal-events record, but confirm in Patent Public Search).
5. ITC EDIS — Section 337 investigations naming the patent (unlikely for an expired medical-device patent, but cheap to rule out).

If you need a formal opinion on this, the right characterization for now is: "No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,743,022 was identified; searches were limited by lack of direct PACER/Unified Patents access, and the results returned were predominantly false positives arising from the Westlaw citation 2020 WL 6743022 and from prior-art citations to the '022 patent in unrelated Biocatch patent families."

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

The first pass returned hits for a different patent (US 8,063,674 — Qualcomm/Apple). Let me confirm nothing exists for the Sarel patent specifically.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,743,022: 0 — no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition has ever been filed, instituted, or decided against this patent (breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied), so the patent stands with its original 18 claims fully intact and untested at the Board — which, given that it expired on 2019-12-03, means a defendant's best posture is that the asserted claims have never been construed or invalidated by anyone, but the entire damages tail is also gone.

No proceedings to report (verification of the null result)

I could not manufacture a proceeding section here, and you should not let anyone hand you one. The USTPO Open Data Portal structured block for this patent returns an empty AIA-trial list, and my independent searching surfaced zero Board filings under: 6743022, US 6,743,022, Sarel, Home Medicine (USA), Dimicine Research, or F. Poszat HU. If your clearance memo or an opposing expert report cites "the IPR on the '022 patent," that citation is wrong — see the three specific false positives below, all of which are different patents with similar-looking numbers:

Verification caveats (stated plainly): my web pass hit a step limit before I could pull a PTAB E2E docket screenshot or exhaustively clear pre-AIA ex parte / inter partes reexamination history. Confirm the null on PTAB E2E and USPTO Patent Center before you rely on it in a filing. Two procedural notes follow from the null:

• IPR is not legally barred by expiration. The Board routinely institutes on expired patents (it simply applies Phillips-style construction rather than the quantum/Phillips distinction that matters for unexpired claims). So the absence of filings is a commercial fact, not a statutory one.
• No FWD ⇒ no Federal Circuit appeal, no estoppel, no panel. There is no APJ panel to name, no institution decision to quote, and no claim-level verdict to report. Do not let anyone quote an "FWD" at you.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All 18 claims — independent claims 1, 5, and 17, and dependents 2–4, 6–16, 18 — are UNTESTED: never canceled, never confirmed, never construed by the Board or (as far as public dockets show) by a district court. The claimed subject matter is a system (claims 1–4) and methods (claims 5–18) for continuously re-verifying identity at random intervals during a randomly selected physiological/alertness test, with storage and comparison of the identification profile. Note the drafting tic that will drive any construction fight: claim 1's comparison unit compares the identification data of the initial and subsequent tests, and claim 5 requires comparing each random test "with the initial profile and with previous randomly performed identification tests" — that internal-consistency limitation is the narrow spot, not the alertness testing per se.

Estoppel landscape: completely open. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtains an FWD. No petitioner, no estoppel, no privies, no "reasonably could have raised" bar. A defendant asserted against today may run any prior-art ground in district court, including art that would have been IPR-eligible. The highest-value targets are the 23 references already of record in the patent, because they are § 102(b)-grounded against the ~1998-12-03 critical date and cannot be sworn behind:

• US 5,229,764 (Matchett) — "Continuous biometric authentication matrix." This is the single most dangerous reference on the face of the patent: continuous/repeated biometric re-verification of an identity over a session is its stated purpose, which maps onto the "at random intervals over a testing duration" core of claims 1, 5, and 17. Randomization of the interval is the only real gap to argue.
• US 5,813,993 (Consolidated Research) — alertness and drowsiness detection/tracking; US 5,900,827 (Boeing) — flight crew response monitor; US 5,913,415 (Atlas) — personal drowsiness alerting. These attack the "physiological test selected randomly from a group" element.
• US 6,205,233 (Invisitech) — personal identification using multiple low-cross-correlation parameters. Attacks the multi-parameter profile (voice/iris/photographic) of claim 8.
• US 4,740,072 (Titmus) — the applicant's own admitted starting point for automated vision testing.

Pattern signals. There is no defensive-aggregator play here at all — no Unified Patents, no RPX-style petitioner, no serial petitioner. The chain of title is pure monetization drift: Oded Sarel (individual) → Home Medicine (USA) Inc. → Dimicine Research IT, LLC (2008-06-03) → Home-Medicine (USA), Inc. (2011-07-19) → F. Poszat HU, L.L.C. (2016-01-22 merger), with a fee-payment lapse into "Expired – Lifetime" at 2019-12-03. A 23-year-old patent with zero Board filings, sitting in a 2016-vintage assertion vehicle, most likely signals (a) a licensing program that never generated a litigation worth an IPR, or (b) assertion only against small/non-US targets that lack the budget. Either way it is a low-temperature patent, not a hardened one.

The expiration point is your strongest fact, and it is not a PTAB point. Per the ODP record, legal status is "Expired – Lifetime" with anticipated expiration 2019-12-03. If you are served today (2026-09-28), the § 286 six-year damages lookback (≈2020-09-28 forward) falls entirely after expiry — an on-sale/infringement theory yields $0 in recoverable back damages. Caveat: verify on Patent Center whether any patent term adjustment (PTA) or § 154(b) extension pushes the true expiry later; the 2019-12-03 date is the "anticipated" 20-years-from-PCT-filing figure and PTA is common for 1999-era filings. Even a multi-year PTA, however, would not fully reopen the lookback window.

Recommended next steps

1. Treat the null as verified, not assumed. Pull the Patent Center "Patent Term Adjustment" and "Transactions" tabs and the PTAB E2E proceeding search for application 09/857,377 before filing anything. Confirm (i) no AIA trial, (ii) no ex parte/inter partes reexamination, (iii) actual expiry including PTA/terminal disclaimer. An ex parte reexamination request under § 302 is theoretically still available even now (no time bar, § 315(a)(1) estoppel would follow a civil-action filing), but on an expired patent it is a poor spend versus a § 112/§ 102 district-court motion.
2. Attack the damages case first, merits second. If the demand letter post-dates 2019-12-03, run the § 286 math and consider a Rule 12 motion or early summary judgment of no recoverable damages. That is cheaper than any validity fight.
3. If invalidity is needed, start with Matchett (US 5,229,764) + a alertness-monitoring reference (US 5,813,993 or US 5,900,827), and center the argument on the random-interval and randomly-selected-test limitations — those are the only elements Matchett doesn't plainly disclose, and they are the limitations the specification discusses least (FIG. 6's loop, steps 158–164, is described functionally). Because no IPR exists, you are free to run this combination anywhere, with no § 315(e)(2) bleed-through risk.
4. No proceedings are pending, so there are no trial-stage milestones to track. If a petition is filed by someone else later, the clock that matters is the § 314(b) three-month institution deadline (waivable to six months for good cause) from the preliminary-response due date, then the § 316(a)(11) 12-month FWD deadline from institution. For your own potential petition, the § 315(b) one-year bar runs from service of your complaint — but weigh that against the fact that an expired patent gives you little leverage from an IPR win.

I'll research the assignment record, correspondents, and asserter-directory footprint for US 6,743,022.

I have the recorded-assignment events (from the patent's legal-events record, which mirrors USPTO Assignment Center recordations) and the entity/address evidence. One field — the correspondent of record — I could not retrieve before hitting my search step limit; I flag that explicitly rather than fill it in, per your no-fabrication constraint.

Inventors

Unusual pattern — flagged: the inventor held personal title for ~9–10 years after filing, and the assignment to the operating company was back-filled. Sarel's assignment to Home Medicine was executed 2008-03-26 / 2008-04-09 but not recorded until 2011-07-19 (reels 026615/0710 and 026616/0969), i.e., three years after execution. Corroborating tell: the maintenance-fee record shows small-entity status claimed 2006-10-31, then converted to "no longer small / undiscounted" on 2008-11-02 — timed to the 2008 transfer to an LLC. This is a solo-inventor → cleanup → transfer trajectory, not a corporate R&D handoff.

Original assignee

"Individual" (Oded Sarel) — the patent granted 2004-06-01 to the inventor personally; no corporate assignee appeared on the face of the issued patent. The first operating entity to hold an interest was Home Medicine (USA) Inc. (recorded address given as Israel), a company in the medical self-testing / telemedicine space (it later became the named assignee in the 2011 recordations). I found no evidence of a shipped commercial product embodying the claims, no SEC registration, and no independent confirmation of current operating status. Status: unclear / appears dormant — its only USPTO footprint on this patent is the 2008-outbound assignment to Dimicine and the 2011 back-fill recordings.

Assignment timeline

Sourcing caveat: these four events are drawn from the patent's USPTO legal-events record (Google Patents mirror, which reproduces the Assignment Center/Assignment Search recordations). I could not run a live assignmentcenter.uspto.gov query this session, and the correspondent of record field did not surface in any searchable copy — I have left it as not retrieved rather than guess. Verify correspondents directly in Assignment Center before relying on signal #3 below.

• 2008-03-26 (executed) / recorded 2008-06-03 — Reel 021029/0697

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Home Medicine (USA) Inc.
  • Assignee: Dimicine Research IT, LLC (Delaware)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved in this session
  • Context: transfer to holding entity — the operating medical company assigns the patent to a Delaware LLC bearing "Research IT" naming, two months after execution.

• 2008-03-26 (executed) / recorded 2011-07-19 — Reel 026615/0710

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Sarel, Oded
  • Assignee: Home-Medicine (USA), Inc. (address of record: Israel)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved in this session
  • Context: chain-of-title back-fill — the inventor-to-operating-company link (effective the same day as the Dimicine transfer) was only perfected on the record three years later.

• 2008-04-09 (executed) / recorded 2011-07-19 — Reel 026616/0969

  • Conveyance: Confirmatory Assignment
  • Assignor: Sarel, Oded
  • Assignee: Home Medicine (USA) Inc. (address of record: Israel)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved in this session
  • Context: correction/cleanup — a confirmatory instrument used to cure the defective recorded chain from the two 2008 events above.

• 2015-08-12 (effective) / recorded 2016-01-22 — Reel 037563/0857

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: Dimicine Research IT, LLC
  • Assignee: F. Poszat HU, L.L.C. (Delaware)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved in this session
  • Context: transfer-to-aggregator by merger — the LLC is absorbed into a Delaware patent-holding entity.

Entity evidence for the terminal assignee (concrete, not naming-based): F. Poszat HU, L.L.C.'s address of record in the patent family is 2711 Centerville Road, Suite 400, Wilmington, DE 19808 — a well-known registered-agent/maildrop service address (appearing as the applicant address on the related WO 2008/067482 publication). It is a non-practicing patent holder with ~374 patents (Patsnap) derived principally from the UK Secretary of State for Defence / QinetiQ holographic-display and 3D-interface portfolio (e.g., US 7,932,873; US 8,363,295; EP 0992163; EP 1425634), and it has appeared in EPO Board of Appeal proceedings asserting those patents (T 1761/14). So the terminal owner is a genuine aggregation/monetization vehicle, even though this patent's medical subject matter is far from its core holography holdings — it rode in via the Dimicine merger.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6743022
    1998 : Priority date December 3
    1999 : PCT filing by Oded Sarel
    2004 : Patent issues to inventor as individual
    2008 : Sarel assigns to Home Medicine USA
         : Home Medicine assigns to Dimicine Research
    2011 : 2008 Sarel assignment recorded
         : Confirmatory assignment recorded
    2015 : Dimicine merges into F Poszat HU
    2016 : Merger recorded at USPTO
    2019 : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The record shows a clean operating-company → holding-LLC → aggregator trajectory: Home Medicine (USA) Inc. assigned to Dimicine Research IT, LLC (reel 021029/0697, eff. 2008-03-26), which then merged into F. Poszat HU, L.L.C. (reel 037563/0857, eff. 2015-08-12) — a Delaware entity at a registered-agent address (2711 Centerville Rd Ste 400, Wilmington DE 19808) holding ~374 patents with no products, i.e., a concrete shell/aggregation tell rather than a naming inference. That single strong signal, reinforced by the same-day 2008 chain-of-title cleanup and the 2011 back-fill recordations, drives the call; it stays at moderate rather than high because (a) F. Poszat HU does not appear on the enumerated public NPE lists, (b) the correspondent field could not be checked (signal #3 unresolved), and (c) this specific patent was never asserted and expired in 2019. It is not an operating-company assertion (the current owner does not practice) and not a defensive-aggregator outcome (the chain does not end at RPX/AST/LOT/Unified).

Verification links: USPTO Assignment Search (by patent number) — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html and https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ ; check reels 021029/0697, 026615/0710, 026616/0969, 037563/0857 for the correspondent-of-record field, which is the one gap in this chain.

Two flags for the file (consistency with earlier sections):

1. Assignee-chain ordering contradiction to resolve. The earlier summary sequenced the chain as "Sarel → Home Medicine → Dimicine (2008-06-03) → Home-Medicine (2011-07-19) → F. Poszat HU." The record actually shows the Home-Medicine 2011 events are back-fills of 2008-executed instruments (not a later transfer from Dimicine), and the Dimicine→F. Poszat HU step is a 2015 merger recorded 2016-01-22. The economic chain is: Sarel → Home Medicine (2008) → Dimicine (2008) → F. Poszat HU (2015). Treat the 2011 dates as recording dates, not execution dates.
2. The initial assignment was never recorded pre-issuance, so for the 2004–2008 window the patent of record stood in the inventor's name — relevant if anyone argues a standing/chain-of-title defect for that period.

I'll verify the cited references against live sources before writing up the § 102 analysis.

Let me verify the remaining key references in the citation list.

Let me verify the alertness/drowsiness references and a few remaining cited patents.

Prior-Art Analysis Under 35 U.S.C. § 102 — U.S. Patent No. 6,743,022 B1

Analyst note / scope. This section is deliberately § 102-focused and complements (does not repeat) the § 103 analysis already prepared. Where the obviousness section built combinations, this section tests each cited reference alone against the claims and records the specific element that defeats anticipation.

1. Patent identification (exact-number confirmation)

Searches for the bare number 6743022 and the formatted 6,743,022 returned the correct record. The authoritative full text you supplied, the Google Patents record, and the printed Official Gazette entry (Indiana Virtual Disk Library, Issue 1283-1) all agree:

No similar-number records were carried forward. The only recurring false positive — the Westlaw cite "2020 WL 6743022" — is In re Sitagliptin Phosphate Pat. Litig., not a patent (documented in the litigation section above).

2. Critical-date framework (pre-AIA § 102)

Priority is 1998-12-03 (provisional), with the PCT filed 1999-12-03. The '022 patent is therefore governed by pre-AIA § 102/§ 103. This matters because several of the strongest references were granted after the critical date and can only qualify as prior art under pre-AIA § 102(e) (US patent/application "by another" filed before the applicant's invention). I flag the basis for each reference. The $102(b) references (published more than one year before the US filing date) cannot be sworn behind and are the most robust.

3. Reference-by-reference § 102 chart (all 23 citations on the face of the '022 patent)

The 23 references break into the five relevance tiers below. Bottom-line method note: under the all-elements rule, no single cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–18; each is § 102(a)/(b)/(e) art that supports § 103. I nonetheless identify, for each reference, the claim(s) it comes closest to anticipating and the precise missing element.

Tier 1 — Directly on-point to the claimed subject matter

1. US 5,229,764 A — "Continuous biometric authentication matrix"

• Full citation: Matchett, Noel D. & Kehoe, Brian D.; U.S. Patent 5,229,764; App. 07/718,174.
• Dates: filed 1991-06-20; granted 1993-07-20. § 102(b).
• Description (verified): A biometric system that stores reference biometric data (thumbscan, digital photo, voiceprint, fingerprint, retinal scan) and then re-tests the user "continuously, at intermittent or random intervals" during use, comparing each new sample to the reference and terminating access on failure. Claims 21/22/23 expressly recite periodic, non-equal, and randomly selected intervals. Background identifies "user substitution" as the problem and prescribes random-interval re-checks.
• § 102 assessment: Potentially anticipatory of the identity-verification half of claims 1 and 5 (and of claim 16's ID-test types), but not of any claim as a whole. Matchett discloses the identity testing unit, random-interval subsequent ID tests, storage, and comparison-unit elements of claim 1 — but it discloses no "physiological testing unit," which is a required element of claim 1. Missing element: physiological/alertness testing. (Note: Matchett is the reference that also supports the obviousness combination in the § 103 section above.)

2. US 6,229,908 B1 — "Driver alcohol ignition interlock"

• Full citation: Edmonds, III, Dean Stockett; U.S. Patent 6,229,908 B1; App. filed 1996-04-26 (provisional 60/017,053).
• Dates: filed 1996-04-26; granted 2001-05-08 (grant post-dates the '022 critical date → § 102(e)).
• Description (verified): Measures a physiological variable (blood-alcohol) through a bodypart and "substantially simultaneously determines whether the operator is the … principal operator … by scanning the operator's fingerprint" against a stored reference image (claims 6–9, 14). The unit performs "random rolling retests" — expressly "at random time intervals, preferably between five to twenty five minutes" — and terminates/prevent operation unless the fingerprint and physiological data match. Background identifies the exact abuse the '022 patent targets: "persons other than the driver may take and pass the alcohol concentration test."
• § 102 assessment: The single closest reference — potentially anticipatory of claim 1 in all elements EXCEPT one. Edmonds discloses: initial ID test (store fingerprint) + subsequent ID tests at random intervals over the session; a physiological test performed over that same session; an interpretation unit (microprocessor converts measurements, compares to threshold); a storage unit; and a comparison unit comparing identification data of the initial and subsequent tests. Missing element: the physiological test must be "selected randomly from a group of physiological tests." Edmonds has a single physiological test type (blood-alcohol), so it cannot meet that limitation, and the all-elements rule defeats anticipation of claim 1. It is likewise the primary § 102 support for dependent claims 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 14, 16 (substance-influence determination; match-gated operation; comparison to stored operator data; fingerprint ID) — but as a dependent-claim matter it is § 103-relevant, since each dependent incorporates unmet elements of claim 1/5.

3. US 6,205,233 B1 — "Personal identification system using multiple parameters having low cross-correlation"

• Full citation: Morley, Richard E. & Hill, Lawrence W.; Invisitech Corporation; U.S. Patent 6,205,233 B1; filed 1998-09-16 (provisional 60/058,956, 1997-09-16).
• Dates: filed 1998-09-16; granted 2001-03-20 (§ 102(e)).
• Description (verified): Builds a subject profile from a plurality of statistically independent parameters (height, weight, stride, voice timbre, keystroke timing, etc.), stores an "accepted profile" repository, and compares/updates via a profile verifier (claims 1, 5, 6, 12, 22).
• § 102 assessment: Potentially anticipatory of nothing as a whole; closest to the multi-parameter profile elements of claims 7, 8, and 15. Discloses profile-building, storage, and database comparison (claims 7, 15) and multi-parameter identification including voice (claim 8). Missing element relative to claim 1: no physiological/alertness test and no random-interval re-testing.

4. US 5,813,993 A — "Alertness and drowsiness detection and tracking system"

• Full citation: Consolidated Research of Richmond, Inc.; U.S. Patent 5,813,993 A.
• Dates: priority 1996-04-05; granted 1998-09-29 (§ 102(a)/(b)).
• Description (verified): Automated real-time alertness/drowsiness detection and tracking producing a continuous alertness measure compared against a threshold.
• § 102 assessment: No anticipation of any claim; supplies the "physiological test = alertness" element (claims 2, 10, 11) but discloses no identity verification, no random-interval re-identification, and no comparison of initial/subsequent ID data.

5. US 5,900,827 A — "Flight crew response monitor"

• Full citation: The Boeing Company (Graham et al.); U.S. Patent 5,900,827 A.
• Dates: priority 1988-06-07; granted 1999-05-04 (§ 102(e); US patent on an application filed long before the critical date).
• Description (verified): Measures the alertness level of a flight crew and escalates warnings. Its background expressly discusses prior solutions using "random questions on a display which require the pilot to respond" — the same "random questions" re-verification technique the '022 specification describes.
• § 102 assessment: No anticipation of any claim. Relevant to the alertness-metric element (claims 2, 10, 11) and to the "random questions" identification technique (claim 16). Caveat already flagged in the § 103 section: Boeing disparages the timer-alarm/random-question approach as "an aggravation to an alert crewman," so it cuts both ways (possible teaching-away argument).

Tier 2 — Alertness / attention / drowsiness monitors (physiological-testing category)

Each of these supports the "alertness/steadiness/coordination/response time" element (claims 2, 10, 11) but anticipates no claim as a whole — none discloses identity verification.

Tier 3 — Testing/diagnostic instrumentation, cognitive assessment, expert systems

Tier 4 — Identity verification / biometrics (claims 7, 8, 16 support)

Tier 5 — Informed consent / mental-health / patient monitoring (background; bears on the unclaimed document-comprehension embodiment)

4. Documents incorporated by reference (not "prior art" in the § 102 sense)

The specification incorporates two documents that are part of the disclosure, not third-party art:

• PCT application WO 98/02083 — the present inventors' own earlier application ("automatic management of summoning, identifying, self-testing and/or self tutoring of subjects"). Cited throughout the '022 specification as the source of the summoning/scheduling and vision-self-testing disclosure.
• U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/428,430 — the applicants' own "medical condition sensing system" (virtual-reality glasses for visual acuity, twelve-lead ECG, spirometry).

Because both are the applicant's own work and expressly incorporated, they are not § 102 prior art to the '022 claims; they are relevant only as part of the written description (and could matter to § 112 support and effective-filing-date questions).

5. Bottom-line § 102 conclusion

1. No single cited reference anticipates any of claims 1–18. Every independent claim (1, 5, 17) requires the conjunction of (a) randomized, repeated identity re-verification over a testing duration with (b) a physiologically- or task-based test selected "randomly from a group." No cited reference discloses both halves. Under the all-elements rule, anticipation is unavailable.

2. Closest to anticipation — and worth charting first in any validity challenge:

   • US 6,229,908 B1 (Edmonds) — discloses everything in claim 1 except a physiological test "selected randomly from a group"; this is the narrowest gap in the cited art.
   • US 5,229,764 (Matchett) — discloses everything in the identity half of claims 1/5/17 except the physiological/task evaluation; its claims 21–23 expressly recite random intervals.

3. What each tier establishes:

   • Matchett + Edmonds supply the identity half;
   • Consolidated Research ('993), Boeing ('827), Montor ('466), General Signal ('412), Adams ('030), Brigham & Women's (WO'739), and Atlas ('415) supply the alertness/physiological half;
   • Invisitech ('233) supplies multi-parameter profiling / database comparison;
   • Lucent ('704), Smarttouch ('719), and Johnson ('149) supply identity-verification techniques;
   • the remaining Tier 3/5 references supply only contextual/background support.

4. Cross-reference to the § 103 section (no contradiction): This § 102 result is consistent with — indeed it explains — the § 103 framing already prepared. Because no reference anticipates individually, the validity case must be a combination (§ 103), and the obviousness write-up correctly centers the combination on Edmonds + Matchett with the alertness references as secondary teachings. Nothing in the record I reviewed contradicts that framing.

Caveat on statutory basis: the § 102(a)/(b)/(e) labels above are my classification from filing/grant dates and are stated at the confidence those dates permit. Dates are taken from the patent's own front-page citation table (authoritative per your instruction) and cross-checked against Google Patents/FPO pages. For a formal opinion, confirm each reference's actual filing/publication dates and status in USPTO Patent Center / Public Search, particularly for the 1998-dated references (#4, #12, #13, #14, #18), where the § 102(b) vs. § 102(a) line is sensitive to whether the critical date is the 1998-12-03 provisional or the 1999-12-03 PCT filing.

I'll ground the key references before building the combinations.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,743,022 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre-AIA)

Analysis date per your instruction: April 26, 2026. (Note: the session header carries a conflicting stamp of 2026-09-28. Nothing in this analysis turns on which is correct — the patent expired 2019-12-03 either way — but flagging the discrepancy rather than silently picking one.)

0. Correction to the earlier sections — flagged explicitly

The earlier "Strategic summary" stated: "Randomization of the interval is the only real gap to argue." Live-source verification now contradicts that. Matchett, US 5,229,764, expressly claims random intervals:

Claim 21. "…wherein said intermittent intervals are periodic, equal intervals."
Claim 22. "…wherein said intermittent intervals are non-equal intervals."
Claim 23. "…wherein said intermittent intervals are randomly selected intervals."
(US5229764 full text)

Matchett's specification also states the anti-substitution rationale verbatim — "if biometric checks are increased in duration and/or number, security would be enhanced… especially if performed at random intervals" — and expressly addresses "user substitution" (an authorized user handing the task over to an unauthorized one). That is the same problem the '022 patent's FIG. 6/7 embodiments solve. So the earlier section's "only real gap" is not a gap. The remaining genuine gap is narrower and is identified in §5 below.

Treat the earlier section's Matchett discussion as superseded on this point.

1. Framework

The specification itself supplies several applicant admissions that must be factored in (they are § 103-relevant admissions about the state of the art, not prior art per se):

1. "These components are generally well known in the art and commercially available" (all of the FIG. 1 hardware, incl. the posturograph and eye tracker).
2. "Apparatus can use various existing alertness tests, such as response speed, details perception, pulse changes… walking foot-by-foot on a marked line, eye movement tracking, equilibrium system test (E.N.G., Posturography), eye-hand coordination."
3. "The selection of tests can be random or pre-defined."
4. U.S. 4,740,072 (Titmus/Griffin) is admitted as the automated vision-testing starting point.

Points 1–3 are fatal to any argument that the building blocks or the randomization option were the inventive contribution.

2. The prior-art arsenal (23 references of record) — mapped by limitation

Statutory basis is stated provisionally; confirm each reference's § 102 category against its actual filing/publication dates before filing.

3. Claim 1 — element-by-element

Claim 1 is obvious over Matchett + Consolidated Research '993 (with Edmonds '908 as a secondary reference for the impairment variant). Every element but one is in Matchett alone; the one missing element is a known class of tests the applicant itself calls "existing," combined with a random-selection option the applicant itself calls an available design choice.

4. Independent claims 5 and 17

Claim 5 (create/store initial profile → random-interval ID tests while performing a randomly selected task → store → compare with initial profile and with previous randomly performed ID tests → evaluate task result):

• Matchett claims 11/15/23 give the create-store-test-at-random-intervals-store-compare loop, including sampling during normal use (cl. 15, 24: biometric sensor integrated into the mouse/joystick so the check occurs while the user works) — that is "while the person performs said task."
• Task selection: the "group of tasks" is claim 2's enumerated group; selecting among them is the admitted design option (§1, admission 3).
• "and with previous randomly performed identification tests": Invisitech claims 5, 6 and 22 — the profile verifier compares the current subject profile to the accepted profiles and updates the accepted profile as a function of the comparison, i.e., later tests are evaluated against the accumulated history, not just the enrolment.
• Edmonds '908 or Consolidated Research '993 supply "evaluating a result of said randomly selected task" as an impairment/alertness verdict.

Claim 17 differs from claim 5 only in (i) "selecting" rather than "randomly selecting" the task and (ii) comparing against the initial profile "at the completion of said task." Both differences are timing/ordering choices with no unexpected result — squarely the KSR "design choice" and "predictable variation" categories. Matchett's stored battery of intermittent samples supports deferred (batch) comparison as readily as real-time comparison.

5. The two genuine gaps — and how to close them

Gap A — "physiological test selected randomly from a group of physiological tests."

Nothing of record randomly selects which test is administered. Close it with an express KSR rationale rather than a missing reference:

1. Matchett teaches the operative principle. Matchett explains why randomization matters: "A short term biometric 'charade'… need only be short term since only the initial check need be fooled… to be required to sustain it indefinitely could increase the difficulty to near impossibility… especially if performed at random intervals." A POSITA reading that teaching would apply the same unpredictability to the content of the examination — a proxy test-taker can rehearse a fixed test battery but not one drawn at random. That is a rationale within the primary reference, the strongest form of KSR motivation.
2. Johnson '149 independently recognizes the proxy-test-taker problem in an examination setting, supplying the "reasonably pertinent to the problem" link.
3. Health Hero '943/'801 discloses a modular instrument with plural selectable measurement protocols, showing that selection among a battery is conventional apparatus design.
4. Applicant admission: "The selection of tests can be random or pre-defined."
5. Obvious to try: a small, fully enumerated set of known tests (response speed, details perception, posturography/ENG, eye tracking, eye-hand coordination) — KSR's "finite number of identified, predictable solutions."

Gap B — claim 5's "compare with previous randomly performed identification tests." Closed by Invisitech's adaptive profile updating (claims 5/6/22). Also note this limitation is internally redundant: comparing each new sample to an enrolment profile already establishes continuity across the session.

6. Motivation to combine — the KSR rationales, stated as you would plead them

7. Claim-by-claim disposition

8. Anticipation fallback (§ 102) — note the construction fork

Invisitech/Matchett aside, consider a single-reference anticipation of claims 1, 6, 8, 16 and 18 by Matchett alone if "physiological test" is construed broadly as any measurement of a bodily/behavioral characteristic. Matchett's biometric menu expressly includes biochemical analysis, body measurements, keyboard typing pattern, dynamic signature, voiceprint and digital photo — all measurements of the person, taken continuously and at random intervals (cl. 23), with a plurality of devices (cl. 6). Claim 16's recitation of "photographing… at random intervals" maps onto it verbatim.

Caveat: the '022 specification uses "physiological test" in contradistinction to identification, describing it as alertness/equilibrium/coordination testing. Under a Phillips construction the term is likely limited to the alertness-type tests, which pushes you back to obviousness. Plead both: anticipation if broad, obviousness over Matchett + '993 if narrow.

9. Secondary considerations

On the record assembled in the earlier sections — no litigation, no IPR, no identified commercial embodiment, no evidence of copying, licensing, industry praise or long-felt unmet need attributable to the claims — there is no secondary-considerations evidence to rebut the prima facie case. Two cautions:

• This is a "not found," not a proven negative; the earlier litigation section already flags its own search-access limits.
• Theoretically the patentee could argue unexpected results from randomizing the physiological battery (e.g., reduced gaming). That argument fails on the record because the specification reports no comparative data and, more damagingly, affirmatively describes randomization as a pre-existing option. No nexus evidence → no weight. In re Kao.

10. Counterarguments to pre-empt

1. "Non-analogous art." Matchett is data-security; the physiological refs are medical. Rebut: same field of endeavor as the claims (continuous identity verification) and the physiological refs are from the field the patent itself names; both are reasonably pertinent to the impersonation/impairment problem. KSR discards rigid field-of-invention walls.
2. "The examiner allowed over Matchett." Allowance is not immunity; a granted patent carries a presumption of validity requiring clear and convincing evidence in district court, but only a preponderance in an IPR — and an expired patent remains IPR-eligible. Pull the file wrapper for application 09/857,377 before filing: the examiner's reasons for allowance will reveal which limitation the applicant relied on (almost certainly "physiological test… randomly selected"), and that statement frames the obviousness attack.
3. "Teaching away / bodily integration." Matchett prefers non-distracting sensors; the '022 tests (eye tracking, posturography, light-pen drawing) are likewise unobtrusive — no teaching away.
4. "Randomization was the point of novelty." Matchett cl. 23 neutralizes this; so does the applicant's own admission.
5. "Claims are indefinite." Claim 1's "comparison unit for comparing identification data of said initial and subsequent identification tests of said identification profile" is circular and arguably lacks antecedent clarity; claim 1's physiological test is "selected randomly" without a disclosed mechanism. Raise under § 112(b)/Nautilus as a parallel invalidity theory — the specification discloses no algorithm for random selection or for profile comparison.
6. § 101 adjacency. Claims 1 and 5 recite comparing data and verifying identity with generic hardware; an Alice step-one/step-two challenge is available, though the "random intervals during a physiological test" and "capture during task performance" limitations are materially more integrated than the claims invalidated in Electric Power Group or In re TLI.

11. Bottom line

Verification actions before relying on this: (1) pull the file wrapper for 09/857,377 for the examiner's reasons for allowance; (2) confirm each reference's § 102 date/status against its face (the § 102(b)/(e) assignments in §2 are provisional); (3) confirm whether the posturography/eye-tracking hardware identified in the specification (Tetrax Ltd.; Applied Science Laboratory; I Scan Inc.) was on sale or publicly used before 1998-12-03, which would add a § 102(b) "known or used/on sale" ground independent of any patent reference.