US 6978475

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number and any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check for any 2026 Federal Circuit activity and the litigation docket history.

Let me do targeted checks for Federal Circuit or PTAB activity involving this patent.

Search results for US Patent 6,978,475

Important scope note first: I searched for Federal Circuit / CAFC 2026 docket activity tied to this specific number. No 2026 CAFC appeal, IPR/PGR appeal, or appellate docket referencing 6,978,475 was returned. My searches for Cedar Lane Technologies 6,978,475 Federal Circuit 2026 returned zero results, and the 2026 Cedar Lane dockets that did surface (e.g., N.D. Ill. 1:26-cv-00721; D. Del. 1:26-cv-00031; E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00042/00773; E.D.N.Y. 1:26-cv-00183) assert different patents — US 8,577,782 and US 8,438,485 — not 6,978,475. I cannot certify a negative from search alone, so treat "no 2026 CAFC activity" as no evidence found, not as a verified absence. All confirmed assertions were in district court, chief among them: W.D. Tex. 1:20-cv-00501 (2020); D. Colo. 1:21-cv-03154 (2021); D. Del. 1:22-cv-00470 and 1:22-cv-00471 (2022).

Bibliographic data

Assignment chain: eCable LLC → ValuePlus Technologies, L.L.C. (2007) → S. Aqua Semiconductor, LLC (2015) → Intellectual Ventures Assets 125 LLC (2018) → Avinnov LLC (2019) → Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (2019).

Date discrepancy (flagged, not auto-corrected): the Unified Patents portal shows priority 1999-11-23, application 2000-10-10, grant 2005-12-19, expiration 2022-04-21 — i.e., uniformly one day earlier than the Google Patents full text. Per the stated hierarchy I use the full patent text values (Nov 24 / Oct 11 / Dec 20 / Apr 22).

Classifications: H04N21/42203 (sound input device, e.g. microphone), H04N21/4782 (Web browsing/WebTV), H04N21/4227 (remote input), H04N21/233, H04M3/4938 (VoiceXML-style voice browser), H04M7/0027, H04N7/17318, H04N21/6187 (upstream via POTS), H04N21/6118 (cable modem downstream).

Abstract (as issued)

A telephone interface and voice recognition driven Internet browser system and method for accessing/browsing the Internet on a cable or satellite television includes a phone for receiving a voice signal from a user. The voice signal controls a telephone interface which displays Internet contents on the television via a cable or satellite television channel. The system also includes a voice recognizer, preferably operated on a supercomputer, for recognizing/interpreting/analyzing the voice signal and generating command signals to access/browse the Internet. The voice recognizer is capable of recognizing/interpreting/analyzing voice signals transmitted from a plurality of users in real time. The system further includes a stack of computers and an Internet browser. Each of the stack of computers is capable of accessing/browsing the Internet and retrieving/organizing requested Internet contents via the Internet browser. The requested Internet contents are sent to the user via a cable or satellite television channel.

Independent claims in plain language (25 claims total; independents = 1, 22, 23)

Claim 1 — Core "voice-in over phone / Web-data-out over TV" method. A four-step method for viewing Internet data on a TV:

1. Receive a voice signal from the user sent over a phone network, where the voice signal contains an instruction for browsing the Web.
2. Identify, at a location remote from the user, a Web-browsing instruction that corresponds to that spoken instruction.
3. Retrieve the data corresponding to the Web-browsing instruction.
4. Transmit the retrieved data back to the user over a television network, so at least portions can be displayed on the user's TV system.

The essential architecture is the split path: narrowband voice command goes up the phone line; broadband Web content comes down the television (cable/satellite) network.

Claim 22 — Substantively the same method, differently worded. Receive a voice signal delivered over a telephone network at a location remote from the user; identify the corresponding Web-browsing instruction; retrieve the data; transmit the data to the user over a television network for display. Its practical difference from claim 1 is that it omits the "instruction for browsing the Web" qualifier on the incoming voice signal, making it broader on that element.

Claim 23 — Same method, generalized upstream transport. Replaces the phone network with a generic "data transmission network": receive the user's voice signal over a data transmission network; identify, at a remote location, the corresponding Web-browsing instruction; retrieve the data; transmit it over a television network for display. Claims 24 and 25 narrow this back to a phone network and, alternatively, a cable network.

Notable claim-drafting observations (relevant to any invalidity/infringement analysis):

• All 25 claims are method claims. Despite the title ("...and apparatus") and a specification full of apparatus disclosure (phone 102, voice recognizer 114, supercomputer 116, cable hub CPU 118, CPU stack 122, data storage 126, ISP 128, filter 131, frame grabber 132, set-top box 110), no system/apparatus claim issued. Elements such as the identification filter, frame grabber, and "supercomputer" voice recognizer appear only in the specification and in dependent-claim-adjacent description, not as independently claimed structure.
• Claim 8 has unusual internal language — the unique identifier is "associated with the user and unable to direct the transmitted data to the user." This appears to track the specification's criticism of prior broadcast-then-filter schemes, but as drafted it is a negative/functional limitation of uncertain scope.
• Claim 16 appears malformed as issued: "The method of claim 15; wherein the included address phone number comprises: is unable to prevent other users from receiving the transmitted data." The antecedent basis is broken and the clause does not parse as a normal means-plus-function or structural limitation.
• Dependent claims 2/3 (cable hub / phone hub), 4 (digital phone network), 5 (natural language representation system), 6/7 (Web server / remote Web server request), 8/9 (unique identifier / set-top box identifier), 10/11 (identification at cable hub / phone hub), 12/13/14 (satellite, digital, or particular television channel), 15–18 (phone-number-derived address, equipment identifier, user identifier), 19–21 (PSTN, cable box, television).

Prosecution and prior-art context

• Priority document: provisional 60/167,505 (Nov 24, 1999), same four inventors.
• Known family: WO 2001/039476 A1 (ceased); EP 1 232 641 A1 (withdrawn); EP 2 219 357 A1 (withdrawn); AU 16617/01 (abandoned); US 7,086,079 B1 (CIP, expired); US 2006/0230422 A1 (CIP, abandoned).
• Notable prior art cited on the face of the patent includes TW 313727 B (Ren-Guey Lii, "Telephone remote-controlled cable TV internet system," 1997) — the closest conceptual neighbor to the claimed subject matter and the reference the specification itself describes as the "primitive and immature" prior approach; plus US 5,890,123 (Lucent, voice-controlled video screen display), US 5,953,007/5,950,167 (screen-less telephone-controlled computer operations), US 5,915,001 (Vois, universal access voice/speech data files), and WO 99/08084 (Stanford, "Accessing the internet using speech recognition").
• Two non-patent citations: Weekend Journal, "You Don't Need A Personal Computer," Sept. 17, 1999; and XP 000659566, "Integrated Web and Telephone Service Creation," Bell Labs Technical Journal, Winter 1997 (Atkins et al.).

Uncertainty disclosures

1. No 2026 CAFC docket for 6,978,475 was located, and the patent's term expired 2022-04-22. An appeal in 2026 is not logically impossible (e.g., a long-tail damages or collateral dispute), but I found no docket, opinion, or Rule 36 affirmance tying this patent number to the Federal Circuit. Verify directly via PACER/CM-ECF and the Federal Circuit's docket before relying on this as a definitive negative.
2. The ±1 day bibliographic discrepancy between Google Patents and the Unified Patents portal is unresolved; I followed the instruction to prefer the full patent text.
3. Claim-text renderings above are quoted/copied from the Google Patents full text (which mirrors Justia). Claim 16's garbled text is reproduced as it appears in the record; I did not correct it.
4. I did not independently verify the current assignee of record with the USPTO Assignment database; the chain above is from Google Patents' reassignment table and is stated as such.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6978475 using multiple sources.

Let me dig into the specific cases from the patent's litigation record.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 6,978,475 ("Method and Apparatus for Internet TV")

Based on the patent's own litigation record (Google Patents / Unified Patents), corroborated by RPX Insight, Patexia, UniCourt, and PACER-derived dockets, I found four (4) U.S. cases that specifically identify U.S. Patent No. 6,978,475 among the patents-in-suit. All were filed by the current owner, Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (a Canadian NPE that acquired the patent out of the Intellectual Ventures → AVInnov LLC chain), and all involve cable/communications defendants.

Notes and supporting detail

• Case 1 (Comcast): Confirmed via RPX Insight (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-[1096889](/patent/1096889)-cedar-lane-technologies-v-comcast-cable-communications) and referenced in the Unified Patents litigation portal (case/1:20-cv-00501).
• Case 2 (WideOpenWest): The Patexia docket shows the complaint, an extension of time, a scheduling conference reset, and then a Notice of Voluntary Dismissal of Case filed 2022-02-15 by plaintiff's counsel Isaac Rabicoff (https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-WideOpenWest-Inc-id-[159643](/patent/159643)/documents). Venue listed as the District of Colorado (case/1:21-cv-03154), matching the patent's Darts-IP "Colorado District Court" entry.
• Cases 3 (Altice) and 4 (Cox): The Delaware docket confirms patent numbers 6,978,475 (and 8,165,867; for Altice also 6,629,077) were reported to the USPTO, and both cases were voluntarily dismissed in June 2022 (https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-v-Altice-USA-Inc-id-[163005](/patent/163005)/documents). Both were assigned to Judge Richard G. Andrews.
• Related Delaware filings (00472 and 00473): The Altice docket notes that four related cases — 1:22-cv-00470, -00471, -00472, and -00473 — were assigned to Judge Andrews as a group. I could confirm that the '475 patent is asserted in -00470 and -00471, but I could not independently confirm that the '475 patent (as opposed to the other Cedar Lane patents, e.g., the '790, '527, and '867 patents) was asserted in -00472 and -00473. Treat those two as related but unconfirmed for this specific patent.

Outcome summary: Every identified case involving the '475 patent ended in voluntary dismissal or early closure by the plaintiff; none reached a merits judgment, and no appellate (CAFC) decision involving this patent is known. This is consistent with Cedar Lane's general litigation pattern (per the KIPO report: of 367 cases through 2022, ~310 settled/dismissed and only a handful continued). The patent itself expired on 2022-04-22.

Sources: Unified Patents patent/litigation portal for US-6978475-B1; Google Patents litigation links (Texas W.D., Delaware, Colorado, and Darts-IP family data); RPX Insight; Patexia lawsuit dockets; UniCourt; CourtListener/PACER dockets.

Caveats: (1) I could not verify the precise filing date for the Colorado WideOpenWest case beyond the Dec-2021 docket activity, so I have not stated a specific day. (2) The Delaware "associated cases" list suggests two additional 2022 filings that may also assert this patent, but I could not confirm the patent number for those. (3) I found no litigation involving this exact patent number in any other forum; searches returned many other Cedar Lane patents (e.g., 6,473,527 and 6,972,790) which are distinct and should not be conflated with 6,978,475.

If you need me to pull the full PACER docket sheets or confirm the two unverified Delaware cases, I can run additional targeted searches.

I'll start by verifying the structured data against public sources, since the canonical ODP list is empty and I need to check whether any older or unindexed proceedings surface.

Let me run additional targeted checks — CBM eligibility, the district court cases, and any petition tied to the 2020–2022 litigation wave.

Let me confirm none of the four identified district court cases spawned a petition, and check for any CBM/derivation/PGR filings.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,978,475: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (canonical, sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no AIA trials, and independent web searches surfaced none either — no IPR, PGR, CBM, or derivation proceeding naming this patent. Breakdown: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB decision to lean on — and no PTAB loss to fear. The patent has never been tested at the Board, so its claims stand exactly as granted in 2005, but the patent expired 2022-04-22 ("Expired - Lifetime," adjusted expiration), which materially changes both the assertion risk and the IPR calculus (see below).

Because the count is zero, there are no per-proceeding sections to populate. Instead, below is what the absence means and what does exist around this patent.

No proceeding — verification trail

• Type: N/A — no AIA petition ever instituted or filed against US 6,978,475 as far as public sources reflect.
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No PTAB activity on file (ODP ingest, 2026-09-28).
• What the searches did turn up (do not confuse with this patent): Cedar Lane Technologies — the current owner of the '475 patent — has been a PTAB defendant, but on a different patent. In IPR2020-00006, Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., the Board reviewed US 7,173,177 (playlist owned/unowned indication), instituted on 2020-03-18, and issued a Final Written Decision on 2021-02-12 holding the asserted independent claim unpatentable; rehearing was denied 2021-12-08. (Unified Patents write-up; RPX Insight docket; Patexia document list). This is not a proceeding on the '475 patent and cannot be cited as claim-level invalidation of it.
• Judge panel: N/A for the '475 patent.
• Defensive value: Neutral-to-slightly-favorable. There is no estoppel to exploit, but also no adverse FWD binding the patent owner. The real defensive levers here are expiration and invalidity in district court, not PTAB history.

Strategic summary

Claim status — all 25 claims UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim of the '475 patent has been canceled, confirmed, or even instituted for review. Claims 1 and 22–23 are the independents (method claims for viewing Internet data on a TV via a voice signal over a phone/data network); claims 2–21 and 24–25 are dependents. If a demand letter today cites any of them, the claims are presumptively valid as issued — you cannot point to a Board cancellation. The countervailing fact is temporal: the patent's adjusted expiration is 2022-04-22, so any live assertion can only reach past damages within the 6-year § 286 lookback, and will be limited to the pre-expiration window. A defendant's enforcement exposure is therefore capped and, in most 2025-onward campaigns, likely nonexistent for going-forward conduct.

Estoppel landscape — none created. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that obtained an FWD; no one did here, so no prior-art ground is off the table by reason of PTAB estoppel. That's a double-edged sword: you are free to raise any § 102/§ 103 art you can find, but you get no benefit from a prior petitioner's work product or a Board ruling. Note also that the § 315(b) one-year window has long since closed for the defendants sued in the 2020–2022 wave (W.D. Tex. 1:20-cv-00501; D. Del. 1:22-cv-00470 and 1:22-cv-00471; D. Colo. 1:21-cv-03154). And because the patent has expired, an IPR is of limited practical utility — the Board will not permit claim amendments to an expired patent, and the remedy is purely retrospective.

Pattern signals. Cedar Lane Technologies is a high-volume Canadian NPE (operating from 560 Baker Street, Nelson, BC) that acquired its portfolio from Intellectual Ventures via AVInnov, and its litigation is overwhelmingly in W.D. Tex. before Judge Alan Albright, litigated principally through Rabicoff Law. Its hundreds of suits resolve almost entirely by settlement or voluntary dismissal rather than judgment. A defensive aggregator has engaged this patent owner before — Unified Patents — but against US 7,173,177, not the '475 patent. No petitioner has filed multiple IPRs against the '475 patent (there are none at all), and there is no Federal Circuit appeal of any '475 PTAB decision (none exists). Its family members (US 7,086,079 and abandoned US 2006/0230422) likewise show no PTAB activity in the materials reviewed.

Caveat on confidence. My searches were bounded, and I could not exhaustively query PTAB E2E or PACER within available steps. I found nothing, and the ODP structured list is empty, but a recently filed petition not yet ODP-indexed cannot be entirely excluded. Treat "zero proceedings" as high-confidence but not absolute, and re-run a PTAB E2E party-name search for "Cedar Lane Technologies" immediately before relying on this.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant currently receiving assertions:

1. Do not expect PTAB cover — and don't need it. With no FWD on the '475 patent, there is no invalidated claim to invoke and no estoppel to leverage. Build your defense on (a) expiration (2022-04-22) and the § 286 six-year damages bar, and (b) § 102/§ 103 invalidity and § 112 arguments in district court or on summary judgment.
2. Mine the cited art already of record as a starting kit for invalidity contentions. The '475 patent's face cites directly on-point references: US 6,253,238 (ICTV — "Interactive cable television system with frame grabber," which touches the frame-grabber concept), US 6,543,052 (Fujitsu — "Internet shopping system utilizing set top box and voice recognition," touching the voice-recognition + set-top combination), WO 1999/008084 (Stanford — "Accessing the internet using speech recognition"), and US 6,546,002 (Kim). These were before the examiner but can anchor obviousness combinations.
3. Confirm the PTAB docket yourself before finalizing strategy: run a party search for "Cedar Lane Technologies" in PTAB E2E and check the Unified Patents portal page for US 6,978,475, which shows no IPR activity.
4. If an IPR is nonetheless contemplated, remember four realities: (i) the expired status blocks claim amendments; (ii) the § 315(b) window is closed for the known 2020–2022 defendants; (iii) the patent owner is litigation-experienced and settled rather than fought to FWD against Unified; and (iv) the absence of any prior petition means you would be the first to test these claims — an upside (clean slate) and a cost (no free roadmap from prior briefing).

Link to the only adjacent PTAB decision worth studying (different patent, same owner, same technology-adjacent portfolio): the IPR2020-00006 Final Written Decision and subsequent rehearing denial are docketed at RPX Insight and summarized at Unified Patents. Do not cite it as invalidating any claim of the '475 patent — it does not.

I'll research the assignment chain, correspondents of record, and NPE directories. Let me run several targeted searches in parallel.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 6,978,475 B1

Scope / source caveat (read first): In this session I could not directly pull the USPTO Assignment Center API/UI records for this patent (the assignment search did not return reel/frame or correspondent fields). The assignment events and dates below are the "reassignment" entries from the Google Patents full text (authoritative per the stated hierarchy), cross-checked against RPX Empower and Unified Patents reporting. Reel/frame numbers and recorded correspondents were not retrievable here and are marked accordingly — they are the single most important thing to verify at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ before relying on this as a complete record. I have not fabricated any reel/frame or correspondent values.

Inventors

• All four inventors co-signed the inventor → eCable LLC assignment recorded 2001-02-12 (Google Patents reassignment entry; assignors listed as FRIEDSON, TOLKACHEV, KUNIN, VINOGRADOV).
• Departure pattern: Not determinable. I found no evidence of inventor resignation/retention events, and inventorship is entirely disconnected from the later ownership chain (no inventor appears as a signatory after 2001). The absence of inventor involvement post-2001 is normal for an assigned patent and is not itself a fire-sale signal.
• The co-inventors also appear on the sibling CIP US 7,086,079 and the abandoned US 2006/0230422, consistent with a single closely-held team rather than a corporate research group.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: eCable LLC (Minnesota; "eCable" spelled "ECABLE LLC" in USPTO records).
• Primary line of business: The specification describes a service ("hardware-less Internet service") delivered by a cable operator using conventional TVs and phones — eCable appears to have been a venture-stage service/delivery startup, not a hardware manufacturer.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear / no evidence found. The claimed subject matter is a split-path method (voice command up over the phone network; Web data down over the cable/satellite network). I found no evidence eCable commercially deployed such a service. The company's patents were sold off by 2007, which is consistent with a failed or pivoted venture, but I cannot state a dissolution date.
• Current status: Not an operating concern / status unresolved. The patent (and family) no longer resides with eCable after 2007; no SEC filings surfaced for eCable LLC (it is an LLC, and I found no public-company filings). Treat "dissolved/defunct" as plausible but unverified.

Assignment timeline

Backbone dates are the Google Patents "reassignment" legal events. Reel/Frame and Correspondent are marked "not retrieved" because the Assignment Center records were not reachable in this session. Where a signatory name is reported, it comes from RPX Empower reporting (Avinnov) and is cited as such.

2001-02-12 (executed ~2000–2001) / recorded 2001-02-12 — Reel not retrieved (verify)

• Conveyance: Assignment (inventors → company)
• Assignor: Kunin, Tolkachev, Freidson, Vinogradov (all four named inventors)
• Assignee: eCable LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved (verify at Assignment Center)
• Context: Initial prosecution assignment — standard inventor-to-company transfer at formation/filing.

2007-07-12 (executed ~2007) / recorded 2007-07-12 — Reel not retrieved (verify)

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: eCable LLC
• Assignee: ValuePlus Technologies, L.L.C.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Asset sale / divestiture — original startup exits the chain; first hop away from an operating entity toward a holding vehicle.

2015-10-07 (executed ~2015) / recorded 2015-10-07 — Reel not retrieved (verify)

• Conveyance: Merger (per Google Patents; not a plain assignment)
• Assignor: ValuePlus Technologies, L.L.C.
• Assignee: S. Aqua Semiconductor, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Internal reorganization / merger — the "Merger" conveyance type indicates ValuePlus was absorbed into S. Aqua Semiconductor LLC (an Intellectual Ventures-affiliated holding entity), not sold at arm's length.

2018-12-18 (executed nunc pro tunc) / recorded 2018-12-18 — Reel not retrieved (verify)

• Conveyance: Nunc pro tunc assignment
• Assignor: S. Aqua Semiconductor, LLC
• Assignee: Intellectual Ventures Assets 125 LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Transfer into the IV aggregation structure — the "nunc pro tunc" (back-dated) recording is characteristic of IV's family-wide cleanup/consolidation of portfolio assets.

2019-02-06 (executed ~2018-12; RPX reports the acquisition as "December 2018") / recorded 2019-02-06 — Reel not retrieved (verify)

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Intellectual Ventures Assets 120/125 LLC
• Assignee: AVInnov LLC
• Correspondent: not retrieved; RPX Empower reports Steven R. Pederson signed for AVInnov as its manager (a principal, not a recording correspondent)
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter — IV moves a ~3-dozen-patent former-IV portfolio into a litigation vehicle (AVInnov), which sued Charter Communications on 2019-02-22 (D. Del. 1:19-cv-00373) within ~2 months.

2019-10-17 (executed per RPX: 2019-10-07; signed by Steven R. Pederson for AVInnov) / recorded 2019-10-17 — Reel not retrieved (verify)

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: AVInnov LLC
• Assignee: Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.
• Correspondent: not retrieved (verify)
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter — AVInnov voluntarily dismissed its Charter suit (Aug 2019) and assigned its entire portfolio to Cedar Lane, which re-filed against Charter (D. Del. 2:19-cv-00368, 2019-11-09) roughly one month later.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6978475
    2000 : Application filed by four inventors
    2001 : Inventors assign to eCable LLC
    2005 : Patent issued
    2007 : eCable sells to ValuePlus Technologies
    2015 : ValuePlus merges into S Aqua Semiconductor
    2018 : S Aqua assigns to IV Assets 125
    2019 : IV Assets transfers to Avinnov
         : Avinnov assigns to Cedar Lane Technologies
    2020 : Cedar Lane sues on portfolio patent

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Concrete evidence: the chain leaves the operating entity permanently by 2007-07-12 (eCable → ValuePlus) and thereafter runs only through holding/licensing vehicles — ValuePlus Technologies L.L.C. (2007), S. Aqua Semiconductor, LLC (merger, 2015-10-07), Intellectual Ventures Assets 125 LLC (2018-12-18), AVInnov LLC (2019-02-06). Every post-2007 link is a non-operating vehicle with a "Technologies / Semiconductor / Assets / [nonsense word]" naming convention. Cedar Lane's only "product" is litigation. Caveat: naming alone is not the finding — the finding is the absence of any operating transferee combined with the consecutive conveyance types (Assignment → Merger → Nunc pro tunc → Assignment → Assignment).

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (strong).

• Intellectual Ventures ("Intellectual Ventures Assets 125 LLC," 2018-12-18) is a named aggregator/NPE.
• Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (2019-10-17) is independently classified as an NPE by Unified Patents ("owned and asserted by Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., an NPE") and by the Stanford NPE Litigation Database ("Non Practicing Entity"); a 2022 Korean IP-office NPE study ranked Cedar Lane #5 with 272 suits for 2019–2022. Cedar Lane is a Canadian company (reported principal place of business 560 Baker Street, Suite 1, Nelson, BC V1L 4H9) and does not appear on the classic Acacia/Marathon/Wi-LAN lists but is a high-frequency plaintiff on Unified/RPX/Stanford directories.
• AVInnov LLC is described by Unified and RPX as an NPE.
• Note: I could not confirm a Cedar Lane match against RPX-maintained lists in this session; the Unified and Stanford confirmations are sufficient for the "known asserter" call.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (not retrievable).
I could not retrieve the recorded correspondent for any link, so I cannot cite recurrence — and I will not infer it. Two adjacent, litigation-side facts worth checking (they are not recording correspondents on their face):

• AVInnov's October 2019 assignment was signed by Steven R. Pederson, manager (RPX Empower). Pederson is a repeat IV-adjacent signatory worth checking against other recorded IV→NPE assignments.
• Cedar Lane's litigation counsel of record include Philip P. Mann (Mann Law Group PLLC) and Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC) — Rabicoff is Cedar Lane's high-volume filer (the two were sanctioned in N.D. Cal. in 2020). These are courtroom, not assignment-recording, correspondents. Verify the recording correspondents on each reel at the Assignment Center; that field is the key unresolved item in this reconstruction.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Four chained transfers inside ~4 years (2015-10-07 → 2018-12-18 → 2019-02-06 → 2019-10-17), with the last two only ~8 months apart, and RPX reporting that AVInnov's entire portfolio moved to Cedar Lane as a block. The IV-family nunc pro tunc recording (2018-12-18) is a hallmark of coordinated, family-wide repapering.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT / directionally supported.
The Avinnov → Cedar Lane assignment is executed 2019-10-07 / recorded 2019-10-17, and Cedar Lane filed the first litigation tied to this patent family in W.D. Tex. 1:20-cv-00501 (2020) — within roughly 3–6 months. RPX documents the equivalent pattern on a sister patent: AVInnov dismissed Charter in Aug 2019, assigned to Cedar Lane in Oct 2019, and Cedar Lane re-sued Charter in Nov 2019. Caveat: I did not independently confirm that US 6,978,475 specifically (vs. a sister patent) is asserted in 1:20-cv-00501; the Google Patents "Family has litigation" table ties these dockets to the family. Verify the patent-in-suit list in the complaint.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT / unclear.
No bankruptcy docket for eCable or ValuePlus surfaced, and the IV → AVInnov movement (2018-12) is a portfolio monetization sale, not a court-supervised fire-sale. Do not characterize this chain as a bankruptcy sale.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The end state is a classic IV-style monetization funnel (IV → dedicated vehicle → Cedar Lane), but I found no SEC filing or Patent Progress/EFF coverage showing a specific operating company transferring this patent to an NPE to assert against its own competitors. Not established.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. To the contrary, it terminates at a litigating plaintiff (Cedar Lane), and Unified Patents has challenged Cedar Lane patents (IPR2020-00006 against US 7,173,177).

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Justification: The record shows (i) shell-entity transfer — the patent leaves the operating assignee eCable permanently at the 2007-07-12 assignment to ValuePlus Technologies L.L.C. and thereafter passes only through non-operating vehicles (2015-10-07 merger into S. Aqua Semiconductor; 2018-12-18 nunc pro tunc to Intellectual Ventures Assets 125; 2019-02-06 to AVInnov); and (ii) known asserter in the chain — the chain lands at Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (2019-10-17), independently classified as an NPE by Unified Patents and the Stanford NPE Litigation database and ranked a top-5 NPE by suit volume, after passing through the Intellectual Ventures aggregation structure. The cascading transfers (2018-12-18 → 2019-02-06 → 2019-10-17) and the timing of the Cedar Lane takeover relative to the 2020 W.D. Tex. suit reinforce the call, which meets the "2+ strong signals" threshold. Two caveats temper full completeness rather than the verdict: recording correspondents/reel-frame were not retrieved (signal 3 left UNCLEAR), and I did not confirm that this specific patent — versus a sister family member — is the one asserted in 1:20-cv-00501. Both should be closed out by pulling the reel images.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6978475; also reachable via the index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Google Patents legal-events record for cross-reference: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6978475B1/en.

Contradictions / flags vs. prior sections

• Date discrepancy reprised (unresolved): The Google Patents legal events use 2018-12-18 for the IV Assets 125 recording and 2019-10-17 for the Cedar Lane recording; RPX Empower states the AVInnov→Cedar Lane assignment is dated October 7, 2019 (execution) and reports the IV→AVInnov acquisition as December 2018. These are consistent with a ~10-day execution-to-recording lag, not a contradiction, but the execution-vs-recording distinction should be confirmed on the reel images.
• No contradiction with the earlier sections re: assignee chain (eCable → ValuePlus → S. Aqua → IV Assets 125 → Avinnov → Cedar Lane) or the 2022-04-22 adjusted expiration; the RPX/Unified reporting independently confirms the IV→Avinnov→Cedar Lane hand-off that the prior section inferred from reels.
• Open item requiring the Assignment Center: recorded correspondents of record per reel/frame. This is the only material field in the requested output I could not substantiate, and I have deliberately left it blank rather than estimate it.

I'll verify key details on the most relevant cited references before building the anticipation analysis.

Let me verify several more of the highest-relevance cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,978,475 ("Method and apparatus for Internet TV")

Scope note and method limitation (read first)

• What I could and could not do. I did not successfully execute a live query against USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter in this session (search budget exhausted after four verification queries). The citation set below is therefore taken from the authoritative patent document provided in this thread — the "Patent Citations" table on the face of US 6,978,475 as mirrored on Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6978475/en) — not from a fresh USPTO database pull. Treat the citation roster as reliable (it is the patent's own front page) but treat any characterizations I did not independently verify as flagged.
• References I did independently verify live: WO 99/08084 A2 (Stanford), US 5,890,123 A (Lucent), US 6,253,238 B1 (ICTV), US 6,543,052 B1 (Fujitsu), and indirectly TW 313727 B.
• Governing law. Priority is 1999-11-24 (provisional 60/167,505). Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102/103 applies.
• One contradiction with a previously generated section, flagged not corrected. The earlier "Prosecution and prior-art context" section cites "US 5,953,007/5,950,167 (screen-less telephone-controlled computer operations)." The front-page citation table contains no US 5,953,007 and no 5,950,167. It contains US 5,950,167 A — "Screen-less remote voice or tone-controlled computer program operations via telephone set" (Lucent, filed 1998-01-26). I use US 5,950,167 A below.

1. The § 102 framework that governs this whole analysis

All 25 claims are method claims; the three independents are 1, 22, and 23, and every dependent claim inherits a "voice signal" limitation. This creates a single, decisive gating requirement:

The analytic consequence: to anticipate under § 102, a single reference must disclose voice input and Web-data retrieval and TV-network delivery of the retrieved data. The cited art splits cleanly into two families that each fail one half of that conjunction:

• Voice/telephone-Internet access that returns audio — discloses (a)–(d) but not (e) (no television network);
• TV/Web systems with non-voice input (buttons, remotes, keyboards) — discloses (b)–(e) but not (a) (no voice signal).

Accordingly, no reference on the face of the '475 patent appears to literally anticipate claims 1, 22, or 23, and none anticipates any dependent claim either (all inherit the voice limitation). The cited art is overwhelmingly § 103 obviousness material, not § 102 anticipation material. A small number of references are genuine § 102 candidates whose full texts must be read before that conclusion is final (§ 4 below).

2. Tier 1 — Closest references (the ones that matter)

2.1 TW 313727 B — Ren-Guey Lii, "Telephone remote-controlled cable TV internet system"

• Citation: Taiwan Patent 313727 B. Priority 1996-05-25; published 1997-08-21.
• Date status: § 102(b) (printed publication/patent more than one year before 1999-11-24).
• Description: The conceptual archetype of the invention — a subscriber's push-button telephone remote-controls, over the telephone network, an Internet "main unit" at the cable provider's end, with Internet resources delivered back to the subscriber's cable television. The '475 specification itself identifies this approach as the prior art it improves on, calling it "primitive and immature" and criticizing (i) channel-bandwidth limits, (ii) the unfriendly push-button interface, key-layout variance, key malfunction, and (iii) rotary phones.
• § 102 analysis: Discloses the phone-in / cable-out split path and remote identification of a browsing request. It does not disclose a voice signal — the disclosure is expressly button-key/DTMF driven. Therefore it anticipates none of claims 1–25 literally, but it is the single most important § 103 base reference (it supplies the entire architecture; the only missing element is voice). Any validity challenge to the '475 should lead with TW 313727 + a speech-recognition reference.
• Flag: I did not retrieve the TW 313727 full text; the characterization above relies on the '475 specification's own description of the prior approach plus the patent's citation entry. Verify the disclosure before relying on it.

2.2 WO 99/08084 A2 — Board of Trustees, Leland Stanford Jr. University (Scott & Miller), "Accessing the internet using speech recognition"

• Citation: PCT/US98/15528; priority US 08/907,628 (1997-08-08); international filing 1998-07-22; published 1999-02-18. (Verified live.)
• Date status: § 102(a) printed publication (published before the 1999-11-24 priority date).
• Description (verified): Provides speech access to the Internet over standard telephone lines via a "speech server" resident on the telephone system, combined with a web browser and "control links"; the abstract states "Access to the Internet is provided using a standard web browser with the additional use of speech recognition. Standard access to the Internet can then be gained using the telephone network." Expressly contrasts with desktop/local-recognizer approaches (TI, Apple, Microsoft) and touts that "telephone access serves a far greater potential audience."
• § 102 analysis: Discloses (a) a voice signal over a telephone network, (b) a Web-browsing instruction, (c) identification at a remote location (speech server in the telephone system), and (d) retrieval of Web data. It fails element (e) — the retrieved content is returned as speech over the phone, not over a television network. Anticipates no claim. Excellent § 103 art for the voice/remote-recognition half of claim 1.

2.3 US 5,890,123 A — Brown & Buntschuh, Lucent Technologies, "System and method for voice controlled video screen display"

• Citation: filed 1995-06-05; issued 1999-03-30. (Verified live.)
• Date status: § 102(b) (issued more than one year before 1999-11-24).
• Description (verified): A voice-controlled system that derives language models/grammars from incoming data links (anchors/hot spots) of a video screen display and feeds them to a speech recognizer; expressly usable for "hands-free navigation" of the World Wide Web via a web browser (FIG. 2), and expressly adaptable "for use as an interactive television," with a cableless "mouse" modified to include a microphone, or a wall-mounted microphone. Data connection may include cable television. Includes a server (102) that accesses documents and serves data to the system, a web browser, an interpreter/grammar compiler, and a speech recognizer (106).
• § 102 analysis: Discloses voice-driven Web browsing and even the TV environment, but the speech recognizer sits at the user's location (microphone into the local recognizer/grammar engine), and content is retrieved over the data connection to the local display — there is no voice signal transmitted over a phone network to a remote recognition site. Anticipates no claim. Strong § 103 art; note that its "server 102" disclosure could be argued to supply a remote retrieval element.

2.4 US 6,253,238 B1 — Lauder & Hoarty, ICTV, Inc., "Interactive cable television system with frame grabber"

• Citation: filed 1998-12-02; issued 2001-06-26. (Verified live.)
• Date status: § 102(e) (U.S. application filed before the 1999-11-24 priority date).
• Description (verified): Headend processor + frame grabber; a web-browser process runs at the headend; return-path data may arrive over ordinary telephone lines (telephone interface 413 / telephone return path 101); frames are uniquely addressed to a subscriber's digital set-top and transmitted over a common channel, and "only the digital settop terminal to which the frame of video is addressed will decode the frame." OCR can extract a URL from a frame. Claim 9 is a frame-grab method; claim 10 recites an interactive session with command data.
• § 102 analysis: This is the reference the '475's own frame grabber 132, filter 131, and "own channel without losing privacy" description map onto, so it is materially relevant to the concepts underlying claims 8, 9, and 14. But its input is a subscriber selection device (keyboard/mouse/remote), not a voice signal. Anticipates no claim (all claims require voice). Prime § 103 art for claims 8/9 (identifier-addressed data / addressed set-top) and for the frame-grabber refresh concept.

2.5 US 6,543,052 B1 — Nobuo Ogasawara, Fujitsu Ltd., "Internet shopping system utilizing set top box and voice recognition"

• Citation: filed 1999-07-09; issued 2003-04-01. (Verified live.)
• Date status: § 102(e) (filed 1999-07-09, before the 1999-11-24 priority).
• Description (verified): A television–set-top-box combination with a remote control unit containing a microphone; the STB contains the voice-recognition software and a Web browser, generates an audio-visual display on the TV in response to input data, and connects to an ISP via an internal/external modem and/or cable modem. Remote control may also carry a camera, speaker, and act as a cordless phone/videophone handset.
• § 102 analysis: This is the strongest literal § 102 candidate in the entire citation set and deserves full-text scrutiny. It discloses voice input (a), Web-browsing retrieval (b)–(d), and TV display (e)–(f). Its vulnerability as § 102 art is element (a)'s transport: the voice signal travels over the wireless remote-control link, which is not a "phone network," so it cannot anticipate claim 1, 22, 24, or 25. It could be argued to anticipate claim 23 if (i) the remote-control RF/IR link is treated as a "data transmission network," and (ii) the STB→TV link is treated as the "television network." Both are aggressive readings; the second in particular is vulnerable because in Ogasawara the retrieved Web data arrives at the STB over the modem/cable-modem path, and the "television network" in the '475 is the cable/satellite distribution plant. Net: claim 23 is the only claim even arguably anticipated, and I would not assert that reading as more likely than not. Also note named-examiner overlap: the '475 was examined by Kieu-Oanh Bui, who was Assistant Examiner on the ICTV frame-server art (US 6,205,582).

2.6 US 5,950,167 A — Lucent Technologies, "Screen-less remote voice or tone-controlled computer program operations via telephone set"

• Citation: filed 1998-01-26; issued 1999-09-07. (Examiner-cited.)
• Date status: § 102(a)/(b).
• Description: Voice- or tone-controlled remote operation of computer programs through a telephone set; the invention is expressly "screen-less."
• § 102 analysis: Supplies (a) voice-over-telephone control and (d) program/data retrieval, but by design has no television display — element (e)/(f) is affirmatively absent. Anticipates no claim. Good § 103 art combined with a TV-output reference.

2.7 US 5,915,001 A — Vois Corporation, "System and method for providing and using universally accessible voice and speech data files"

• Citation: filed 1996-11-14; issued 1999-06-22. (Examiner-cited.)
• Date status: § 102(b) (issued >1 yr before priority).
• Description: Universal voice access to and navigation of WWW/speech data files via the telephone; content returned as audio to the caller.
• § 102 analysis: (a)–(d) present, (e) absent (audio delivery, not TV). Anticipates no claim. § 103 art for the voice/telephone half.

2.8 US 5,953,007*

2.8 US 5,953,007 — see contradiction note

(Reserved: the previously generated section cited "US 5,953,007/5,950,167." Only US 5,950,167 is actually on the face of the '475. If a US 5,953,007 exists and was in fact considered, its identity is unverified here and should be checked in PatentCenter's IFW, not assumed.)

2.9 US 6,525,329 / not applicable — (omitted)

3. Tier 2 — Moderate-relevance references (element-level § 103 value; no § 102 anticipation)

Each of the following lacks at least the voice element or the TV-network element, so none anticipates any claim; each is noted for the element(s) it supplies.

4. Tier 3 — The genuine § 102 candidates that warrant full-text review before you finalize

These are the only references whose titles/dates suggest they might combine voice input with remote retrieval and a non-phone output. I could not verify their full texts within the search budget; I flag rather than assert.

5. Bottom line on § 102

1. No cited reference appears to anticipate any of claims 1–25. Every claim requires a voice signal, so the television/Web references (TW 313727, US 6,253,238, WebTV family, Sanyo EP 0 843 458, Access JPH 10-98654) fail element (a), and the voice/telephone-Internet references (WO 99/08084, US 5,915,001, US 5,950,167) fail element (e) or (f) because they return audio, not television-delivered Web data.
2. The single narrowest § 102 opening is claim 23 (the generic "data transmission network" claim), potentially read onto US 6,543,052 B1 — but only if the remote-control RF/IR link is stretched to be a "data transmission network" and the STB→TV link is stretched to be a "television network." I would not treat that as a probable anticipation; it is a plausible one to test.
3. The strongest overall validity theory is § 103, not § 102: TW 313727 B (entire phone-in/cable-out architecture) in view of WO 99/08084 A2 and/or US 5,890,123 A (speech recognition + Web browsing) and US 5,950,167 A (voice/tone control over a telephone), optionally with US 6,253,238 B1 (frame grabber; addressed-set-top delivery) for claims 8, 9, and 14, and US 5,900,870 A / EP 0 854 417 A2 for the voice-input element.
4. All of the above is subject to the caveat that I did not complete a live USPTO full-text pull. For a filing-grade analysis, read the full texts of the six unverified Tier-3 candidates (US 6,546,002; 6,643,620; 6,941,273; 6,157,705; 6,657,605; 6,587,822) plus TW 313727 B, and confirm the citation list against the USPTO PatentCenter IFW "References Cited" for application 09/686,114, which also captures any examiner-cited art not mirrored in the Google Patents table.

I'll verify the key prior-art references' disclosures before building the § 103 combinations.

Let me verify a few more load-bearing references for the dependent claims.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,978,475 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

This section builds on the claim analysis, prior-art inventory, and uncertainty disclosures already generated. It does not repeat the bibliographic, litigation, or PTAB sections; where it contradicts them, that is flagged explicitly at the end.

1. Legal frame, effective date, and the person of ordinary skill

Governing provision. The application was filed October 11, 2000 and claims benefit of provisional 60/167,505 (Nov. 24, 1999). Pre-AIA § 103(a) therefore governs. The KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) framework (predictable combinations of known elements; "design incentives and other market forces"; "any need or problem known in the field") applies with full force to this art area, because the asserted advance here is a substitution of a known input modality into a known system architecture.

Critical date. All combinations below rely only on art with a § 102(e)/§ 102(b) date before November 24, 1999. Every reference used is either cited on the face of the patent or dated in the record as pre-1999.

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA). A person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer science and roughly 2–3 years of experience in interactive television, cable/broadcast data delivery, and speech-recognition user interfaces. The art was, by 1999, a mature convergence field: WebTV, ICTV, ACTV, and the Bell Labs telephone-service work were all public, and off-the-shelf speech recognizers were commercially available (a point the record's own cited art confirms — e.g., the examiner-cited ICTV family and the voice-recognition references below).

Threshold observation that drives the whole analysis. As noted in the previously generated claim section, all 25 claims are method claims; no apparatus claim issued. The structural features the specification touts as inventive — the caller-ID filter 131, the frame grabber 132, and the supercomputer concurrency for many simultaneous users — appear only in the specification and figures. They are not recited in any independent claim. Claims 1, 22, and 23 recite only: (i) voice in over a network, (ii) remote identification of a Web-browsing instruction, (iii) retrieving the data, and (iv) delivering the data over a television network. That is the entire patentable footprint, and it is squarely covered by the art of record.

2. Claim 1 — element-by-element mapping

Claim 1 (reproduced from the full text): "receiving a voice signal transmitted from a user over a phone network, the voice signal including an instruction for browsing the Web; identifying, at a location remote to the user, a Web browsing instruction corresponding to the instruction included in the received voice signal; retrieving data corresponding to the Web browsing instruction; and transmitting the retrieved data to the user over a television network…"

Result. Every element of claim 1 is disclosed across the on-point art, and the central architecture — voice (or keypad) command up the narrowband phone line; Web content down the broadband television network — was expressly admitted to be old. The '475 specification itself states that "a concept of a telephone remote-controlled cable television Internet was once introduced, in which button keys of a push button-type telephone … are used to simulate functions of a computer mouse or a computer keyboard to remote-control, via a telephone network, an Internet main unit at a cable television provider's end, so as to acquire Internet resources around the world." That is a binding admission of the entire claim-1 architecture, leaving only the input modality as the alleged point of novelty.

3. The primary ground: TW 313727 in view of US 5,890,123

The combination. TW 313727 discloses the full system skeleton claim 1 requires: a telephone remote-controlling a cable-television Internet system, with a remote "Internet main unit" at the provider end and content returned to the subscriber's cable TV. US 5,890,123 supplies the one missing ingredient — voice as the control signal, including speech recognition against a grammar derived from Web page content, remote-microphone capture, and output on a television screen over a cable-television data connection.

Motivation to combine (KSR factors):

1. Same field and same problem. Both references address enabling a person who is not seated at a personal computer to reach and navigate the Internet/Web using ordinary consumer devices. The '475 specification frames the problem identically: "there is a need to have a 'hardware-less' Internet service to access/browse the Internet via conventional televisions and phones."

2. The reference combination is a known technique applied to a known device. Voice control was a recognized, off-the-shelf alternative to keypads and keyboards; the field had already applied it to Web browsing specifically (US 5,890,123; WO 99/008084). Substituting a voice-recognition front end for the touch-tone front end of TW 313727 is precisely the KSR "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way."

3. The patentee's own statement of the problem supplies the reason to modify. The specification criticizes the button-key interface as "not user-friendly," complains that "different telephones may have a different arrangement for the button keys," notes that "button keys on a telephone may malfunction after a period of use," and points out that "quite a few people are still using conventional rotary telephones which do not have push button keys." Those are exactly the ergonomic shortcomings that motivate migration to speech input — i.e., the patent's own background is the motivation.

4. Reasonable expectation of success / predictable results. US 5,890,123 and WO 99/008084 each independently demonstrated that speech could drive a Web browser over a telephone/cable path. Combining a working voice-browser front end with a working telephone-to-cable-TV transport is a predictable aggregation of known elements — not an unpredictable art requiring trial-and-error experimentation.

4. The alternative (and arguably stronger) ground: US 6,543,052 in view of a television-network delivery reference

The combination. US 6,543,052 (verified) is the closest single reference to the "Internet-on-TV-by-voice" concept: a set-top box equipped with "an internal or external modem and/or cable modem, configured to communicate with an Internet service provider over the appropriate transmission media," running "voice recognition software" to drive "a Web browser" that "generates an audio-visual display on a display unit," with a "remote control unit [including] a microphone" for the "voice data." Notably, US 6,543,052 identifies the same motivating problem the '475 patent does — that keypads on remote controllers "might be a laborious task for the user" and that "voice input is easier and more efficient than keypad input."

US 6,543,052 is cited on the face of the '475 patent (cited by third party, priority 1999-07-08/09), so the examiner had it before him. To the extent one reads its voice recognition as residing at the set-top rather than at a "location remote to the user" (claim 1), the gap is filled by either (i) WO 99/008084/US 6,101,473 (server-side speech recognition reached over the telephone network) or (ii) US 5,890,123's server/parser architecture. The combination thus covers every limitation of claim 1 and of claim 21 ("the television system comprises a television") with a television display unit.

Motivation is, again, express in both references: ease of use for non-technical users, elimination of keypad learning, and reuse of the installed telephone network as the return path. A POSITA optimizing a set-top/WebTV-style product for the non-PC home would have been led directly to this combination.

5. Claim 1 as practiced wholly by the speech-recognition art of record

The record contains speech-recognition-to-Internet references independent of any cable-television reference:

• WO 99/008084 — speech recognition + standard Web browser + telephone-network access (verified).
• US 5,890,123 — voice-driven Web browsing, remote microphone, television-screen output, cable-television data connection (verified).
• US 5,904,870 (Vis Tell, "Voice recognition and display device apparatus and method").
• US 5,915,001 (Vois, universally accessible voice and speech data files).
• US 5,892,? / US 5,888,? / US 5,884,262 (Bell Atlantic, "Computer network audio access and conversion system").
• NPL: ATKINS et al., "Integrated Web and Telephone Service Creation," Bell Labs Technical Journal, Winter 1997 — expressly cited as XP 000659566 of record. This reference teaches the integration of Web content with telephone-network service creation — i.e., a telephone-side platform that fetches Web material and returns it to a caller, which maps onto claim 1's "identifying at a remote location" and claim 11 ("identifying … at a phone hub") and claim 19 ("the phone network comprises a PSTN").

Adding any of the television-delivery references (TW 313727; ACTV '664/'181; Sanyo EP 0843458; Sony WO 98/056188; Phoenix '849; the WebTV family) to supply the final "over a television network" limitation completes claim 1. The motivation is again the identical problem: reaching the non-PC user through the television the user already owns.

6. Independent claims 22 and 23

Claim 22 recites the same four steps but drops the "instruction for browsing the Web" qualifier from the incoming voice signal and recites the remote location as "delivered over a telephone network at a location remote from a user." Because it is broader on the voice-signal element (as flagged in the earlier claim analysis), it is if anything more vulnerable: each of the grounds in §3–§5 discloses receiving voice over a telephone network at a remote location, identifying a browsing instruction, retrieving, and transmitting over a television network. Grounds §3 and §4 fully cover it.

Claim 23 generalizes the upstream transport to "a data transmission network" and is narrowed downward only by claims 24 (phone network) and 25 (cable network). Claim 23 is therefore covered by the same combinations, and claims 24 and 25 are separately covered by WO 99/008084 (phone network) and TW 313727 / US 6,253,238 (cable network), respectively.

7. Dependent claims 2–21, 24–25

Every dependent claim maps to art already of record or to the two verified 1999-era references, and each added limitation is a conventional design choice (hub location, transport type, display device, addressing scheme) within the ordinary skill level.

8. Motivation to combine — consolidated (KSR)

A POSITA would have been motivated to combine these references for several independently sufficient reasons:

1. Identity of field and problem. All references target Internet/Web access from ordinary consumer devices (telephone, television, set-top) by non-technical users.
2. Known technique, same function. Voice control had already been applied to Web navigation (US 5,890,123; WO 99/008084; US 6,543,052) and to telephone-based services (Atkins et al.). Substituting it for a keypad is a "familiar element … performing the same function it was known to perform."
3. The problem to be solved is stated in the specifications themselves. Both the '475 patent and US 6,543,052 identify the keypad/remote-control learning burden as the impelling problem — an express design incentive under KSR.
4. Predictable results. Combining a working voice-driven browser front end with a working telephone-up/cable-down transport yields no unexpected result; the references each predict success.
5. Market forces. By 1999–2000, multiple unrelated entities (Lucent, Stanford, Fujitsu, ICTV, Sanyo, Sony, WebTV) were converging on voice- and TV-based Internet access, evidencing that the combination was "obvious to try" in the KSR sense.

9. Rebuttal to expected secondary-consideration arguments

• "The prior push-button interface was crude." That is a criticism of a reference's input device, not teaching away from the claimed invention. To the contrary, it supports the motivation to substitute voice.
• "The invention serves a virtual number of users." The bandwidth/concurrency advantage is attributed in the specification to the frame grabber 132 and filter 131 — neither is claimed. It cannot support patentability of claims 1, 22, or 23. (And the enabling delivery architecture — common channel, per-subscriber addressing, still-frame "interactive pages" — is taught by verified US 6,253,238.)
• No unexpected results. The asserted benefits (user-friendliness, no per-user computer maintenance) are the ordinary and expected consequences of moving the browsing function to the headend and the input to speech.
• Claim 8's negative limitation ("unable to direct the transmitted data to the user") cuts against, not for, validity: it appears to describe a broadcast-and-filter scheme, which is the very scheme the specification depicts, and which conflicts with the directed-addressing teaching of US 6,253,238. Its imprecision also courts a § 112(b) challenge independent of § 103.

10. Bottom-line obviousness conclusion

• Claim 1 would have been obvious over TW 313727 in view of US 5,890,123, and also over US 6,543,052 in view of WO 99/008084 (or US 5,890,123). Secondary considerations are unpersuasive because the touted features are unclaimed.
• Claim 22 is obvious on the same grounds (broader on the voice-signal element).
• Claim 23 is obvious on the same grounds; claims 24–25 are obvious over WO 99/008084 and TW 313727 / US 6,253,238, respectively.
• Claims 2–21 are obvious as set out in the chart, each being a conventional design choice over the same primary combinations.
• Claim 16 is not meaningfully assessable under § 103 as issued and is separately exposed under § 112(b).

The strongest practical takeaway: the patent's own Background admits the full claim-1 architecture ("telephone remote-controlled cable television Internet … to remote-control, via a telephone network, an Internet main unit at a cable television provider's end"), reducing the asserted advance to the substitution of speech for a telephone keypad — a substitution that the verified 1995–1999 art (US 5,890,123; WO 99/008084; US 6,543,052) had already made in the same field.

11. Contradictions with previously generated sections (flagged, not auto-corrected)

1. Prior-art identifier discrepancy. The earlier "Patent summary" cites "US 5,953,007/5,950,167 (screen-less telephone-controlled computer operations)." The full-text citation list supplied with the patent does not contain US 5,953,007; it contains US 5,950,167 (Lucent, "Screen-less remote voice or tone-controlled computer program operations via telephone set"). I have relied on US 5,950,167 and have not relied on "5,953,007." The number is reproduced here as it appeared, without correction.
2. Priority/date discrepancy (±1 day) noted in the prior summary is carried forward; for § 103 critical-date purposes I have used November 24, 1999, per the full patent text, as instructed. This does not change any combination above, since all references are comfortably pre-1999.
3. Claim 1 vs. Claim 22 breadth — the earlier observation that claim 22 omits the "instruction for browsing the Web" qualifier is relied on and reinforced here (it makes claim 22 broader and therefore easier to invalidate).

12. Uncertainty disclosures

• Verified this session: US 5,890,123; WO 99/008084 (and its US 6,101,473 counterpart); US 6,543,052; US 6,253,238; and their key disclosures quoted above.
• Not independently verifiable this session (search budget exhausted): the substantive disclosure of TW 313727 (my searches returned no results), US 5,950,167, US 6,546,002, and the Atkins et al. Bell Labs NPL (XP 000659566). For TW 313727 and the NPL I rely on (i) the reference titles as they appear on the face of the patent and (ii) the '475 specification's own description of that prior art, which is itself an evidentiary admission. Before filing any invalidity contention, obtain and pin the actual documents (TW 313727; US 5,950,167; Bell Labs Technical Journal, Winter 1997) and verify the passages cited.
• Claim 16 text is reproduced as issued; it does not parse and I have not attempted to correct or interpret it substantively.
• This is a technical obviousness assessment, not a legal opinion. Claim construction (especially of claims 8 and 16), the proper POSITA definition, and any secondary-considerations evidence should be developed with counsel.