Invalidity dossier
US 6965868
System and method for promoting commerce, including sales agent assisted commerce, in a networked economy
Current assignee: Individual
Added 9/23/2026, 7:22:18 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 6965868 B1
Title: System and method for promoting commerce, including sales agent assisted commerce, in a networked economy
Patent number: US6965868B1
Application number: US09/490,087
Inventor: Michael David Bednarek
Assignee: Individual (original assignee also listed as Individual)
Prior art date: 1999-08-03
Filing date: 2000-01-24
Publication (grant) date: 2005-11-15
Legal status: Expired – Fee Related; adjusted expiration 2020-09-25
Purpose: The patent describes systems, tools and methods for promoting commerce in a networked economy, including conducting sales agent assisted commerce involving one or more distributed vendors over networked computers. The stated goal is to combine the advantages of customer/sales-agent interaction with the convenience and efficiency of electronic commerce. Related subject matter includes incentive and promotional programs, a merchant finder and cellular position locator, wireless-enabled smart cards, and virtual retailing ("Vetail") that simulates positive aspects of the traditional retail experience.
Plain-language scope: In the excerpted text, the invention provides discrete components usable alone or together: an incentive program; a merchant finder/position locator; a system for sales-agent-assisted commerce across distributed vendors; and smart cards with wireless connectivity. For customers, described benefits include personal service via instant messaging, one-step shopping, attractive merchandise display, ease of use, a single payment for a basket of goods potentially from multiple merchants, a single transaction, and 24/7 virtual retail availability. Classifications listed include G06Q30/06 (e-shopping) and G06Q30/02 (marketing; incentives/discounts).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6965868/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide claims text, a full written description, a complete list of prior-art references, or the precise claim scope. It does not establish current ownership, enforceability, validity, or litigation history, and no such research was performed. The excerpt also does not describe implementation details beyond the general component descriptions above.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:42:08 PM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.