US 6990458

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 6990458, including any recent litigation activity.

Let me dig deeper into litigation dockets and any appellate activity.

Let me check for any 2026 appellate activity and confirm litigation status.

US Patent 6,990,458 — Analyst Summary

Note on methodology and limitations: I searched public web-indexed sources (Google Patents full text, FreePatentsOnline, Stanford NPE Litigation Database, Unified Patents litigation portal, and the case texts returned for the two district-court matters). I did not obtain a live, authenticated query of the USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB systems or of the CAFC/PACER 2026 docket, so appellate-status statements below carry a stated confidence level. I did not auto-correct the number; where results for the literal string "6990458" appeared for an unrelated jurisdiction, I flag it.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative full text)

Caution on the literal ID: the bare string "6990458" also resolves to an unrelated Japanese patent, JP 6990458 B2 (Teraspace KK, satellite-based services) — that is a different family and not the subject of this request.

Abstract (as issued)

A system for computer-aided technician dispatch and communication includes a communications system linking subscribers, a team of technicians, a service representative, and a user; an input terminal receiving service-request information from subscribers and work-order information from technicians; a server, coupled to the input terminals, for processing the information and generating a graphical representation of it; and a display presenting the graphical representation to a user. The disclosed method mirrors this in five steps (communicate → receive → enter → process into a graphical representation → display).

Independent claims — plain language

Claim 1 (system). A system for handling unassigned service requests that has:

• means for receiving multiple service requests that, as received, are unassigned;
• means for using programming to assign each unassigned request to one or more of a set of technicians, where the assignment is a function of at least: (a) each technician's skill level, (b) the skill level required by each unassigned request, (c) prior service requests already assigned to each technician (i.e., workload/history consideration), and (d) an amount of time to complete each request;
• means for displaying an indication if one or more requests remain unassigned after the processing; and
• means for displaying an indication of the status of one or more assigned requests.

Claim 7 (method). The same invention cast as a method: receiving unassigned service requests; using programming to assign technicians based on technician skill level, required skill level of the request, prior assignments to each technician, and time-to-complete; displaying an indication if any requests remain unassigned; and displaying a status indication for assigned requests.

Notably, the four independent-claim assignment factors are conjunctively recited ("as a function of at least … considering … considering … and an amount of time"), which is the point emphasized in third-party prior-art challenges to the patent.

Dependent claims (scope refinements)

• Claims 2, 8 — status display via a map showing the geographic location of assigned requests.
• Claims 3, 9 — required skill level expressed as a number of points based on a difficulty assessment.
• Claims 4, 10 — display of the geographic location of technicians.
• Claims 5, 11 — an icon representing cancellation of an assigned request.
• Claims 6, 12 — an icon representing the type of service request.

Litigation (verified in indexed sources)

• CSG Systems, Inc. v. TOA Technologies, Inc., No. 2:12-cv-00712, E.D. Tex. (Judge Rodney Gilstrap) — docketed with claim-construction and pretrial scheduling (Markman set 2013-12-05; pretrial 2014-05-19). Source: Plainsite docket.
• CSG Systems, Inc. v. TOA Technologies, Inc., No. 1:13-cv-02306, N.D. Ohio — listed in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database as a product-company plaintiff asserting this patent (along with its continuation US 7,725,344).
• Unified Patents' litigation portal also lists the E.D. Tex. and N.D. Ohio matters as the family's litigation events.

These are the litigation matters associated with the patent. I found no indexed evidence of PTAB (IPR/PGR) proceedings against 6,990,458 — the PTAB petition surfaced in my search (IPR2021-00333) concerns a different patent, U.S. 7,123,699, and should not be attributed here.

CAFC 2026 docket — explicit uncertainty

I could not confirm any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket involving US 6,990,458 in 2026. Searches returned only unrelated 2026 Federal Circuit content (e.g., an AeroVironment § 1498 en banc response). My searches did not evidence a 2026 CAFC appeal for this patent, and I do not have authenticated CAFC/PACER access in this session, so I cannot state with high confidence that none exists. Given the patent expired on 2017-08-28 and the associated district-court suits date to 2012–2013, an active 2026 appeal appears unlikely — but treat that as an inference, not a verified fact.

Confidence notes

• Bibliographic data, abstract, and claims are high confidence (taken from the authoritative issued text you supplied).
• Litigation identification is medium-high confidence (multiple independent indexes agree).
• 2026 CAFC status is low confidence / not established; I recommend a direct PatentCenter and CAFC/PACER docket check before relying on any appellate representation.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6990458. Let me start with the litigation portal data already referenced in the patent record and then search for details.

Let me dig into the specific cases and get details from the litigation databases.

I have the core case information. Let me verify outcomes and check for any additional cases.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,990,458 ("the '458 Patent")

Short answer: I found two federal district court cases involving U.S. Patent No. 6,990,458, both filed by the patent owner CSG Systems, Inc. against TOA Technologies, Inc. These are the same two dockets flagged in the patent's own Google Patents "litigation" record (E.D. Tex. 2:12-cv-00712 and N.D. Ohio 1:13-cv-02306). I did not find any other defendants, any appellate (CAFC) proceeding, or any PTAB/IPR challenge. I could not independently confirm the precise final disposition (e.g., settlement vs. voluntary dismissal) before running out of search steps — see the caveat below.

Case 1 — CSG Systems, Inc. v. TOA Technologies, Inc. (Eastern District of Texas)

Sources: Google Patents '458 record (litigation link to E.D. Tex. case 2:12-cv-00712); Plainsite docket for CSG Systems, Inc. v. TOA Technologies, Inc., 2:12-cv-00712, https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/s030ilk9/texas-eastern-district-court/csg-systems-inc-v-toa-technologies-inc/ ; complaint PDF (Scribd) at https://www.scribd.com/document/113008939/CSG-Systems-v-TOA-Technologies

Case 2 — CSG Systems, Inc. v. TOA Technologies, Inc. (Northern District of Ohio)

Sources: Stanford NPE Litigation Database, https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6990458 (lists "CSG Systems, Inc. v. TOA Technologies, Inc., 1:13-cv-02306, N.D. Ohio"); Google Patents '458 record (litigation link to N.D. Ohio case 1:13-cv-02306); complaint PDF at https://iknow.stpi.narl.org.tw/Post/Files/complaint/Complaint_pclass_13_A353_CSG%20Systems,%20Inc.%20v.%20TOA%20Technologies.pdf ; case index at https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/ohnd/1:13-cv-02306/csg-systems-inc-v-toa-tech-inc

Important notes and caveats

1. Only one defendant family. Every source I found names TOA Technologies, Inc. as the sole accused infringer for the '458 Patent. The Stanford NPE database categorizes CSG Systems as a "Product company" (asserting its own commercialized patents — the Workforce Express® product line), not as an NPE/PAE.

2. The two dockets are closely related and may partly reflect the same dispute. The '458 complaint text hosted from the iknow.stpi.narl.org.tw library is captioned "IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS MARSHALL DIVISION," yet the accompanying Scribd cover sheet for 1:13-cv-02306-DAP describes the complaint as filed in the N.D. Ohio. This is a known indexing artifact for the CSG v. TOA complaints (a venue-transfer and refiling context). I was not able to definitively verify whether the Ohio action is a separate/parallel suit or a refiling following the E.D. Tex. venue proceedings, and I flag the conflicting filing-date data (Oct. 17, 2013 filing vs. a "Closed (04/18/13)" status label, which is internally inconsistent and almost certainly a database error).

3. Companion/sibling patent. The '458 Patent is a member of a family (from application 08/919,450, filed 1997-08-28) that includes a continuation, U.S. 7,725,344 (from application 11/014,133). Both patents were asserted together in both suits. The '458 Patent also has several sibling applications noted in its specification (Ser. Nos. 08/919,105; 08/919,475; 08/919,474; 08/919,218; 08/919,215).

4. No appeal or PTAB proceeding found. I found no Federal Circuit appeal and no IPR/PGR involving the '458 Patent. (The patent expired on its anticipated date of 2017-08-28, per the Google Patents record.)

5. Not confirmed. Because I exhausted my search budget, I could not pull the final dismissal/settlement orders from PACER, Docket Alarm, or Unified Patents. The precise final outcome (settlement vs. voluntary dismissal, and any transfer/consolidation relationship between the two dockets) should be verified directly in PACER for 2:12-cv-00712 (E.D. Tex.) and 1:13-cv-02306 (N.D. Ohio). I am explicitly flagging this rather than guessing.

Bottom line: The '458 Patent was asserted by CSG Systems, Inc. against TOA Technologies, Inc. in (i) E.D. Tex. 2:12-cv-00712, filed Nov. 12, 2012 (Judge Gilstrap; venue motion denied April 18, 2013; now closed), and (ii) N.D. Ohio 1:13-cv-02306 (Judge Polster; now closed). No other litigation for this patent is known to me.

I'll first verify whether any AIA trial proceedings exist for this patent, since the structured block reports none. Let me search.

PTAB Proceedings Report — US 6,990,458 B2

"System and method for computer-aided technician dispatch and communication"
Patent owner: CSG Systems, Inc. (Englewood, CO) · Priority/filing date: 1997-08-28 · Granted: 2006-01-24 · Statutory term ended (anticipated expiration): 2017-08-28 · Status: Expired – Lifetime
Report date: 2026-10-01

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — no Inter Partes Review, no Post-Grant Review, and no Covered Business Method review has ever been instituted against US 6,990,458. Breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. Bottom line for a defendant: nothing has been canceled and nothing has been confirmed — all 12 claims are PTAB-untested — but the patent itself expired on 2017-08-28, so the practical defensive posture is not "hardened patent, IPR needed" but rather "time-barred paper tiger": there is no injunction to fear and any damages case is capped by the patent's expiration and 35 U.S.C. § 286's six-year lookback.

This conclusion rests on two independent checks:

1. Canonical structured source ("PTAB proceedings on file" block, USPTO ODP): "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest."
2. Independent web search (USPTO PTAB/PTACTs, CourtListener, Google Patents litigation data, Stanford NPE Litigation Database, IPWatchdog-adjacent coverage): surfaced no IPR/PGR/CBM proceeding number, petition, institution decision, or Final Written Decision naming this patent.

There are no proceedings to enumerate

Because the proceeding count is zero, there is no FWD to quote, no claim-level disposition, no judge panel, and no estoppel generated. I am deliberately not inventing proceeding numbers (e.g., no "IPR2013-xxxxx") — none exists on the record.

⚠️ One artifact flagged for manual verification (not a confirmed proceeding)

During search I encountered a single USPTO PTACTs URL whose payload is the front page of the '458 patent:

• https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1540203/download-documents?artifactId=…

Interpretation, with appropriate caution: ptacts.uspto.gov was the PTAB's pre-E2E trial-portal host, and petitions/{id} paths were used for trial petition documents. This could indicate a petition or petition exhibit referencing the '458 patent — or it could be a document repository artifact, a related-family ('344) filing, or a stale/renamed link. I could not resolve it to a proceeding number, petitioner, filing date, or disposition before exhausting my search budget. Treat as unverified. A clean-room check of PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov/) by patent number and by "CSG Systems" / "TOA Technologies" as petitioner is the single most valuable confirmatory step (see Next Steps).

If that URL does resolve to a real petition, the correct posture changes from "zero proceedings" to "one petition of unknown outcome" — but the ODP structured feed, which is the canonical source for this task, shows none, so the default remains no PTAB activity on file.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 12 claims UNTESTED at the PTAB; none CANCELED; none SUSTAINED. The patent carries independent claim 1 (system, drafted entirely in means-plus-function form) and independent claim 7 (method), with dependents 2–6 (depending from claim 1) and 8–12 (depending from claim 7). Because no trial was ever instituted, the PTAB has never construed a single term, never ruled on any art, and never canceled anything. There is consequently no post-issuance narrowing at all — the claims stand exactly as granted in 2006. The only public signal of litigated scope is CSG's own pleading, which asserted "including but not limited to Claim 7" — see the complaint in the E.D. Tex. action (linked below). So claim 7 is the commercially asserted claim, and claims 1–6, 8–12 have never been publicly mapped to an accused product.

Estoppel landscape: empty. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is triggered only by an instituted IPR (and § 325(e)(2) by an instituted PGR). With no institution, no petitioner and no privy is estopped from anything. For a defendant currently facing assertion, the entire prior-art and statutory arsenal remains open in district court — § 102 and § 103 on the pre-1996 art (including the references CSG itself cited, such as Collins et al., "Automated Assignment and Scheduling of Service Personnel," IEEE Expert, Apr. 1994, pp. 33–39, and Sisley/Kruse resource-assignment patents), plus § 112 challenges (claim 1's means-plus-function format against the thin disclosure of "map generation means 118 / processing means 120 / routing means 122" invites a Williamson v. Citrix indefiniteness attack), and § 101 (a 1997-era business-method claim of the "apply it with a computer" species is Alice-exposed; third-party prior-art crowd-sourcing on the patent drew a July 2013 Ask Patents request aimed squarely at the skill-plus-map-plus-points limitations — https://patents.stackexchange.com/questions/46372).

Pattern signals. (i) No serial petitioner — no entity has filed even one IPR here, let alone multiple. That is atypical for an actively asserted patent, and it is best explained by (a) the patent's 2017 expiration, which removed the incentive to invalidate it, and (b) the nature of the enforcement. (ii) No PTAB appeal activity — no FWD, so no CAFC appeal of one; nothing on the Federal Circuit docket flows from a PTAB trial on this patent. (iii) No defensive aggregator in the chain. The "Unified Patents Litigation Data" and "Darts-ip" labels on the Google Patents page are data-source attributions for the litigation metadata, not evidence that Unified Patents filed anything. The only crowdsourced challenge appears as an individual Ask Patents prior-art request (2013-07-30, user "Davis"), not a documented Unified Patents IPR campaign. (iv) The real enforcement story is a practicing-entity toolmaker suing a competitor: CSG (product company) v. TOA Technologies, over CSG's Workforce Express® software versus TOA's ETAdirect/ETAworkforce cloud products, with an allegation that TOA hired former CSG personnel — a trade-secret-flavored, competitor-v.-competitor dispute, not NPE monetization.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify the flagged artifact and close the file, one way or the other.

• Search PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov/) by patent number 6,990,458 and by petitioner "TOA Technologies" / "CSG Systems."
• Pull the PTACTs petition link above and identify its proceeding number, petitioner, and filing date.
• Cross-check PTAB Final Written Decisions (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions) and CourtListener RECAP (https://www.courtlistener.com/) for any decision or appeal captioned CSG Systems v. TOA Technologies at the Board.

2. Pull the litigation dockets — that is where the "what actually happened" lives, since the PTAB has no story here.

• E.D. Tex. 2:12-cv-00712 (CSG Systems, Inc. v. TOA Technologies, Inc., Judge Rodney Gilstrap, filed 2012-11-12; later transferred to N.D. Ohio as 1:13-cv-02306): https://www.plainsite.org/dockets/s030ilk9/texas-eastern-district-court/csg-systems-inc-v-toa-technologies-inc/ · complaint PDF: https://iknow.stpi.narl.org.tw/Post/Files/complaint/Complaint_pclass_13_A353_CSG%20Systems,%20Inc.%20v.%20TOA%20Technologies.pdf
• Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[160563](/patent/160563) · Patent page: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6990458
• Determine whether the case settled/dismissed (my sources show mediator designation and a docket control order but no confirmed termination), whether a license issued, and whether the resolution covered the continuation US 7,725,344 B2 as well. Note that TOA was acquired by Oracle; any acquisition-related license would explain the total absence of PTAB filings.

3. If a demand letter is on your desk today, lead with expiration and the damages window — not with an IPR.

• The patent expired 2017-08-28. Infringement after that date is legally impossible.
• Under 35 U.S.C. § 286, recovery reaches back only six years before the complaint. A complaint filed on or after 2023-08-28 captures a damages window that is already closed at both ends — the recovery period cannot extend past the 2017 expiration, and the live six-year tail post-dates expiration. Assert any and all of this as an affirmative limitation before reaching invalidity.
• No PTAB estoppel constrains your prior-art case, so preserve § 102/§ 103 invalidity, § 112(f)/indefiniteness on means-plus-function claim 1, and § 101 contentions; do not assume the 2013-era art (Collins 1994; Sisley/Kruse) has been "used up" — it has not, because no IPR was ever filed.

4. Treat the absence of PTAB activity as the signal it is. Well-asserted patents that matter commercially normally attract IPRs (competitor-filed, aggregator-filed, or both). This one drew a competitor suit and a prior-art crowdsourcing request — and still no petition. The most likely reasons are expiration and the fact that the patent owner is a practicing company that settled rather than an NPE that litigates to judgment. That makes an IPR-based defense unnecessary: the defense here is the calendar (expiration + § 286) and the claim language, not the Board.

Confidence note: the "zero proceedings" conclusion is high-confidence as to the ODP structured feed and to everything my searches could reach. The only residual uncertainty is the single unverified PTACTs petition URL documented above.

I'll research the assignment/ownership record for this patent before building the timeline.

US 6,990,458 — Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction

Methodology caveat (read first): I could not obtain an authenticated, live query of the USPTO Assignment Center in this session. The assignment events below are taken from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events record in the full text you supplied, cross-referenced against SEC filings and court dockets. Crucially, I was unable to retrieve the reel/frame numbers for most records; the only reel/frame I can ground is 015177/0313, embedded in the record as the cross-reference for the 2010 Wells Fargo release ("RELEASE OF SECURITY (F/F 015177/0313)"). I have not invented the remaining reel/frame values — where they are missing, I say so. Correspondent/attorney-of-record data was likewise not retrievable here. Verify all of the below directly at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

Also note the caution from the prior section stands: the bare string "6990458" also resolves to an unrelated JP 6990458 B2; do not merge families.

Inventors

• All three inventor addresses resolve to the Denver/Englewood, Colorado area, consistent with CSG Systems, Inc.'s then-headquarters. No evidence any inventor departed the assignee. On the contrary, the inventors were still reachable to sign a confirmatory assignment in 2011 — 14 years post-filing — which is the opposite of a pre-fire-sale departure pattern.
• Unusual pattern worth flagging (not an NPE signal): the original 1998 recorded assignment named only Harrison as assignor, while the 2011 record names all three inventors. This indicates a chain-of-title defect (a missing co-inventor assignment) that was not cured until 2011 — roughly one year before CSG filed suit. That is a standing-record cleanup, not a fire-sale departure.
• The prior analyst summary is consistent with this; no contradiction.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: CSG Systems, Inc. (a Delaware corporation; address of record Englewood/Greenwood Village, Colorado).
• Ownership context at filing: CSG Systems, Inc. was a wholly-owned subsidiary of CSG Systems International, Inc. (NASDAQ: CSGS). CSGS was formed in October 1994 and acquired all outstanding stock of CSG Systems, Inc. from First Data Corporation (FDC) in November 1994; CSG Systems, Inc. had been an FDC division/subsidiary since 1982. (Source: CSG Systems International 1999 and 2002 Form 10-Ks, annualreports.com / stocklight.com.)
• Primary line of business: customer care and billing ("business support") software and processing services for the cable, satellite (DBS), and broadband/telecom markets — not a patent-holding entity.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Substantially yes. CSG's business explicitly extended "from the call center, to the field technicians, to the end consumer," and CSG acquired the SUMMITrak field-service dispatch software technology assets from TCI in September 1997 — the same month/year as this application's filing. CSG's 10-K risk factors state it "hold[s] a limited number of patents on some of our newer products." The patent's field-service/technician-dispatch subject matter sits squarely in an area CSG was then commercializing.
• Current status: Operating. CSG Systems International, Inc. (CSGS) remains an active, publicly traded communications-software company headquartered in Greenwood Village, CO. No bankruptcy, Chapter 7, or Chapter 11 event appears in the record for CSG — so the "bankruptcy fire-sale" path is affirmatively absent.
• Current assignee of record: still CSG Systems, Inc. There is no post-issuance transfer to any third party anywhere in the chain.

Assignment timeline

Chronological, from the legal-events record. Because reel/frame could not be retrieved live, I state "R/F not retrieved" and mark the one grounded reference. All are executed/recorded dates as listed by the source; where the source gives a single date I use it for both.

• 1997-08-28 / filed 1997-08-28 — R/F not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Application filing (not an assignment)
  • Assignor: n/a
  • Assignee: CSG Systems, Inc. (applicant)
  • Correspondent: unknown
  • Context: Original filing by the operating company.

• 1998-06-08 / recorded 1998-06-08 — R/F not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: HARRISON, CLIFFORD A. (only)
  • Assignee: CSG SYSTEMS, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved in this session
  • Context: Original employment/invention assignment — defective as recorded because it named only one of three inventors.

• 2002-04-03 / recorded 2002-04-03 — R/F not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: CSG SYSTEMS, INC. (DE corporation)
  • Assignee: BNP PARIBAS (as lender/agent)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — patent pledged as collateral for a credit facility. Lien, not an ownership transfer.

• 2004-06-30 / recorded 2004-06-30 — R/F not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
  • Assignor: BNP PARIBAS, as Administrative Agent
  • Assignee: CSG SYSTEMS, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Release of the 2002 lien (repayment/refinancing).

• 2004-09-24 / recorded 2004-09-24 — Reel/Frame 015177/0313 (grounded indirectly: the 2010 release cross-references this reel/frame)

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: CSG SYSTEMS, INC.
  • Assignee: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (as Administrative Agent)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — collateral under CSG's credit agreement in which Wells Fargo was Administrative Agent (the CSG 10-K lists a $100M Credit Agreement with Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. as Administrative Agent). Lien, not an ownership transfer.

• 2010-01-15 / recorded 2010-01-15 — references Reel/Frame 015177/0313

  • Conveyance: Release of Security (f/f 015177/0313)
  • Assignor: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, as Administrative Agent
  • Assignee: CSG SYSTEMS, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Release of the 2004 Wells Fargo lien.

• 2011-07-21 / recorded 2011-07-21 — R/F not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignors: HARRISON, CLIFFORD A.; WEBER, EMERY J.; BUSH, PHILLIP M.
  • Assignee: CSG SYSTEMS, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved in this session — this is the key recurrence check I could not complete
  • Context: Corrective/confirmatory assignment curing the 1998 record that omitted two inventors. Functionally a standing-record cleanup ahead of litigation (suit filed ~13 months later).

• 2018-03-06 / recorded 2018-03-06 — R/F not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: CSG SYSTEMS, INC.
  • Assignee: BANK OF AMERICA, N.A., as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization — later-generation credit facility lien.

• 2025-03-18 / recorded 2025-03-18 — R/F not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignor: BANK OF AMERICA, N.A., as Collateral Agent
  • Assignee: CSG SYSTEMS, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Release of the 2018 lien. (Occurs after the patent's 2017-08-28 expiration; a lien-release bookkeeping step, no ownership effect.)

Bottom line of the chain: every recorded event is either (a) an assignment to CSG Systems, Inc., (b) a lien in favor of a bank, or (c) a release of such a lien back to CSG. The patent never left CSG ownership.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6990458
    1997 : Filed by CSG Systems Inc
    1998 : Inventor assignment to CSG
    2002 : Security interest to BNP Paribas
    2004 : BNP release back to CSG
         : Security agreement to Wells Fargo
    2010 : Wells Fargo release back to CSG
    2011 : Confirmatory assignment from inventors
    2012 : CSG sues TOA Technologies
    2013 : Case transferred to N D Ohio
    2018 : Security agreement to Bank of America
    2025 : Bank of America release back to CSG

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignee bears an "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" suffix, and there is no LLC anywhere in the chain. Every assignment runs to CSG Systems, Inc., an operating company. (Contrast the pattern the task describes: none of it appears.)

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. The sole owner/asserter is CSG Systems, Inc. Stanford's NPE Litigation Database classifies CSG in the "Product company" asserter category (not NPE) for both docket entries involving this patent (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6990458). CSG does not appear on any of the listed NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). No evidence of an asserter-category entity in this family.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not determinable. The single most diagnostic field you asked for — the recording attorney/firm of record — could not be retrieved for any entry in this session, so I cannot assess recurrence. This is the one check I most recommend running manually: open each of the eight entries at the Assignment Center and compare correspondent fields, with particular attention to the 1998 vs. 2011 assignments (the title-cure pair). I will not guess a name.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. There are zero chained-LLC transfers; the only same-year clustering (2004) is a lien release on the identical collateral following a refinance, not a cascading ownership shuffle.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present (weak, non-transfer type). The 2011-07-21 confirmatory assignment sits ~13 months before the August 2012 E.D. Tex. complaint — outside the 6-month window, and it is a corrective title record, not an arm's-length transfer to an asserter. So the classic "transfer-just-before-suit-to-set-venue" tell does not fire. It is worth noting only as a chain-of-title hygiene step in advance of assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No CSG Chapter 7/11 appears in the record or in CSG's SEC filings; CSG remained an operating public company throughout. The patents were never sold in a bankruptcy estate.

7. Privateering — not present. CSG asserted the patent in its own name against a competitor (TOA Technologies) in a dispute over two related patents (this one plus its continuation US 7,725,344). There is no evidence of a separate NPE asserting on CSG's behalf, and no SEC disclosure of such an arrangement. The Fed. Cir. even addressed the case on mandamus (In re TOA Technologies, Inc., Oct. 3, 2013), which is characteristic of ordinary operating-company litigation, not a shell-asserter campaign. Dockets: E.D. Tex. 2:12-cv-00712; N.D. Ohio 1:13-cv-02306 (venue transferred per the mandamus).

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates with the original operating assignee, CSG Systems, Inc., following a routine lien release.

Note on the security interests: the BNP Paribas (2002), Wells Fargo (2004), and Bank of America (2018) records are bank liens / collateral filings, not ownership conveyances. They are frequently mistaken by automated NPE screens for transfers; here they should be treated as negative for NPE purposes.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

CSG Systems, Inc. — an active communications-software company (subsidiary of NASDAQ-listed CSG Systems International, CSGS) — is the only assignee across the entire recorded chain (1998 assignment; 2011 confirmatory assignment; 2002/2004/2018 security agreements with BNP Paribas, Wells Fargo and Bank of America; and the corresponding 2004/2010/2025 releases). Nothing in the record shows a shell-LLC transfer, a known-NPE assignee, a cascading LLC chain, a bankruptcy sale, or a privateering arrangement. CSG asserted the patent itself as a practicing entity against competitor TOA Technologies (E.D. Tex. 2:12-cv-00712 → transferred to N.D. Ohio 1:13-cv-02306, per In re TOA Technologies), and Stanford's NPE database classifies CSG as a "Product company."

The two open items that could refine this call, both requiring a manual Assignment Center lookup, are (a) the correspondent of record on each entry (signal 3) and (b) the exact reel/frame numbers, which I declined to fabricate. Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 6990458).

I'll research the prior-art references cited on the face of US 6,990,458, verifying the key references and their content.

Let me verify additional examiner-cited references relevant to dispatch, scheduling, and skill matching.

I've reached my search-step limit, so I'll give you the analysis based on the authoritative patent text you supplied plus the references I could verify live. A note on scope up front, because it materially affects how complete this answer can be.

Prior-art analysis — US 6,990,458 B2 ("the '458 patent")

Critical accuracy caveats (read first)

1. The "USPTO database" framing. I do not have an authenticated, live PatentCenter / PTAB query in this session. What I did retrieve live were Google Patents, uspto.report, Espacenet/INPADOC, FreePatentsOnline, Stanford NPE, and Unified Patents entries. Where I state a citation I cite the source. I did not obtain a fresh examiner's citation list from PatentCenter; the citation set below is derived from the face of the patent as issued (the "Citations (136)" section of the authoritative full text you supplied plus verification searches).

2. The citation list was truncated in the material provided to me. The "Citations (136)" block in the supplied full text cuts off at US 5,574,898. So I can speak with confidence only about the references that appear above that truncation point (roughly the first ~120 of ~136), plus the ones I verified live. I flag this rather than pretend the list is exhaustive.

3. Literal-ID discipline. Searching the bare string "6990458" surfaces both US 6,990,458 B2 (correct) and an unrelated JP 6990458 B2 (Teraspace KK — satellite services; flagged in the earlier summary). I exclude the Japanese document.

4. Anticipation vs. obviousness. The task asks "which claim(s) it potentially anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102." Anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every limitation — including the means-plus-function elements. I therefore distinguish, per reference, between (i) references that are genuine single-reference §102 candidates for the independent claims and (ii) references that are better characterized as §103 (combination) art. Asserting full anticipation without a full element-by-element chart would overstate my confidence, and I say so explicitly below.

The target claims (for the mapping that follows)

Reproduced from the earlier analysis so the §102 mapping is legible:

• Claim 1 (system) / Claim 7 (method): receive unassigned service requests → use programming to assign technicians as a function of (a) technician skill level, (b) required skill level of the request, (c) prior requests already assigned to that technician, and (d) time-to-complete → display an indication if requests remain unassigned → display a status indication of assigned requests.
• Claims 2, 8: status display = map of geographic location of assigned requests.
• Claims 3, 9: required skill level = points based on a difficulty assessment.
• Claims 4, 10: display of geographic location of the technicians.
• Claims 5, 11: icon representing cancellation of an assigned request.
• Claims 6, 12: icon representing the type of request.

Most relevant prior art — citation, date, description, claim mapping

Tier 1 — best single-reference candidates for the independent claims

1. US 5,462,768 A — Sisley et al. (Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. / 3M)

• Title: "Method for resource assignment and scheduling"
• Filing / issue dates: filed 1994-02-25; issued 1995-11-14 (EP counterpart EP 0 669 586 A2, pub. 1995-08-30, from US priority 201,664 of 1994-02-25).
• Examiner-cited (asterisked on the face of the patent).
• Description: Computer-implemented assignment of field-service service calls to service technicians using a modified "best-first" search combining optimization, AI, and constraint processing. It expressly considers "the characteristics of the call, the customer's contract requirements, the dynamic call load among the technicians, and available technician resources," travel time, urgency, and prior technician/customer relationships; it readjusts an existing assignment set as the call load changes and presents an interactive scheduler window showing technicians and their assigned/scheduled calls. (Verified: Google Patents US5467268A; EP0669586A3 abstract.)
• §102 candidates: Claims 1 and 7 — the strongest single-reference candidate, because it discloses (a) receiving unassigned service calls, (b) assigning them to technicians as a function of call characteristics (arguably covering required-vs-technician skill), prior assigned workload, and time, and (d) presenting assignment/schedule status. The weakest link for pure anticipation is element (c) ("indication if one or more remain unassigned") and the explicit skill-level limitation — these are best argued in combination (§103) rather than as clean §102 anticipation.
• Also relevant to claims 4/10 (technician schedules/availability shown) and claim 2/8 (interactive schedule display, though it is a schedule window, not a geographic map — see caveat under US 5,122,959).

2. US 5,122,959 A — Nathanson et al. (Automated Dispatch Services, Inc.)

• Title: "Transportation dispatch and delivery tracking system"
• Filing / issue dates: filed 1988-10-28; issued 1992-06-16.
• Not asterisked in the visible citation list (i.e., likely cited by/considered but not flagged examiner art) — I list it anyway because it is substantively the closest art on the graphical map claim family.
• Description: Integrated vehicle dispatch system with order-entry and dispatch workstations, a candidate-selection program choosing "best candidate" vehicles on weighted criteria (time to pickup, distance, and capabilities of each vehicle), automatic assignment, progress monitoring, AVL (automatic vehicle location), and a graphic map display that "employs icons indicating said pickup location and said delivery location" and highlights routes. (Verified: Google Patents US5122959A; EveryPatent full claim text, claims 21–39.)
• §102 candidates: Claims 2 and 8 (map showing geographic location of assigned requests — arguably the single best §102 reference for these), claims 4 and 10 (location of dispatched assets/vehicles), and claims 5/11 and 6/12 (icons representing locations/types). For claims 1/7, it discloses receiving orders, criteria-based assignment, and monitoring, but its "capabilities" factor is vehicle capability rather than a skill level, and its "prior assigned workload/time" factor is travel-time based — so it is a §102 candidate for the dependent display claims and at most §103 art against independent claims 1/7.

3. US 5,241,465 A — Oba et al. (Hitachi, Ltd. / Hitachi Microcomputer System Ltd.)

• Title: "Method for determining optimum schedule in computer-aided scheduling system"
• Filing / issue dates: filed 1991-04-23; issued 1993-08-31 (JP priority 1990-04-27).
• Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• Description: Computer-aided scheduling using a strategy-decision table and an optimization-definition table to iteratively generate and improve schedules and select an optimum by evaluation value. (Verified: US5241465 PDF cover + abstract, Google Patents.)
• §102 candidates: Claims 1 and 7 — but only partially: it discloses the processing/allocation engine element (b) generally, not the specific four-factor assignment (skill + prior assignments + time-to-complete) nor the unassigned/status display elements. Best treated as §103 art combined with a display/dispatch reference.

Tier 2 — the graphical-status/dispatch-display line

4. US 4,937,743 A — Rassman et al. (IntelliMED Corp.; later Resource Scheduling Corp.)

• Title: "Method and system for scheduling, monitoring and dynamically managing resources"
• Filing / issue dates: filed 1987-09-10; issued 1990-06-26 (EP equivalent EP 0 306 965, pub. 1989-03-15).
• Examiner-cited (asterisked — it is the very first asterisked patent on the face of the '458 patent).
• Description: Computer database + graphical display of resource utilization as a function of time, with "scheduling indicia," "status indicia," and "conflict indicia" (color, flashing, shapes, icons); dynamic real-time updating; rule-based automatic rescheduling; a cancelled procedure denoted by opposite-direction cross-hatching; resources including personnel with restrictions ("only doctors J, K, and L are authorized"). (Verified at length: Google Patents / uspto.report US4937743.)
• §102 candidates: Claims 5 and 11 (an icon/indicia representing cancellation — the cross-hatched "cancelled procedure" cell) are the cleanest §102 hits. It also strongly supports claim 1/7 element (d) (status indicia of scheduled resources) and claims 6/12 (different types of resources indicated). Caveat: its display is a time-versus-resource bar chart, not a geographic map, so it does not anticipate claims 2/8 or 4/10 (geographic map/location). Its "authorized personnel" rules are a §103 factor for the skill element, not clean anticipation of claim 1.

5. WO 1991/003118 A1 — Alamo City Technologies, Inc.

• Title: "Emergency call locating system"
• Publication date: 1991-03-07.
• Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• Description: Locating emergency calls (incidents) and presenting them, i.e., a map/incident-location display of service requests.
• §102 candidates: supports claims 2/8 and 6/12 (geographic location/type display of requests). I did not fully verify its text this session — treat as medium confidence.

Tier 3 — scheduling, maintenance, and assignment art (mostly §103 material)

6. US 5,099,431 A — (International Business Machines Corp.)

• Title: "Automated re-work shop order scheduling system"
• Filed / issued: 1989-10-23 / 1992-03-24. Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• Description: Automated scheduling of re-work shop orders (task assignment with skill/resource considerations in a shop environment).
• §102 candidates: §103 art for claim 1/7 element (b) (assigning pending jobs to resources); unlikely to anticipate the display elements. Medium confidence (not re-verified this session).

7. US 5,175,684 A — (The Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania)

• Title: "Method for analyzing and generating optimal transportation schedules for vehicles such as trains and controlling the movement of vehicles in response thereto"
• Filed / issued: 1990-12-18 / 1993-01-05. Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• §102 candidates: §103 art for time-based assignment/scheduling element and vehicle tracking (claims 1/7; possibly 4/10). Medium confidence.

8. US 5,255,181 A — (Motorola, Inc.)

• Title: "Method of planning organizational activities"
• Filed / issued: 1990-06-01 / 1993-10-19. Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• §102 candidates: §103 art for resource/activity assignment (claim 1/7 element (b)). Medium confidence.

9. US 5,295,065 A — (Motorola, Inc.)

• Title: "Resource-lot association coordinator"
• Filed / issued: 1990-06-01 / 1994-03-15. Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• §102 candidates: §103 art — coordinating resources to tasks/units. Medium confidence.

10. US 5,197,004 A — (Resumix, Inc.)

• Title: "Method and apparatus for automatic categorization of applicants from resumes"
• Filed / issued: 1989-05-08 / 1993-03-23. Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• §102 candidates: the best face-citation for the skill-matching concept — relevant to claims 3/9 (required skill represented by points/difficulty assessment) and to the skill factor in claims 1/7. It is résumé categorization, not service-request assignment, so it is §103 material, not standalone §102 art. Medium confidence.

11. US 5,343,387 A — (Hitachi, Ltd.)

• Title: "Cyclic maintenance work schedule table preparation system"
• Filed / issued: 1990-11-27 / 1994-08-30.
• §102 candidates: §103 art for maintenance-visit scheduling (claims 1/7). Medium confidence (from face-citation list only; not separately re-verified).

12. US 5,572,438 A — (TECO Energy Management Services)

• Title: "Energy management and building automation system"
• Filed / issued: 1995-01-05 / 1996-11-05. Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• §102 candidates: generally remote monitoring/control of a service infrastructure; peripheral §103 art, weak against the dispatch-specific elements. Low-medium relevance.

13. US 5,379,259 A — (Communications Manufacturing Company)

• Title: "Data terminal having program language support library…"
• Filed / issued: 1990-04-23 / 1994-12-27. Examiner-cited (asterisked).
• §102 candidates: field data terminal hardware/software; peripheral §103 art (technician data-entry/communications). Low-medium relevance.

Co-pending sibling applications — NOT anticipatory art (flagging explicitly)

The specification states the '458 patent is related to five co-pending applications filed the same day (1997-08-28): Ser. Nos. 08/919,105; 08/919,475; 08/919,474; 08/919,218; 08/919,215, plus the later continuation 11/014,133 → US 7,725,344 B2. Because these share the same inventive entity (Harrison, Weber, Bush), they are not "by another" and therefore are not §102(a)/(b) prior art against the '458 patent; they matter only as family/priority and possible §102(e)/double-patenting considerations. I state this to pre-empt a common error in citation-list reading.

Bottom-line §102 assessment (per claim)

Honest conclusion: On the face citations, the reference set is dominated by §103-combination art, not clean single-reference anticipation of the two independent claims. The most dangerous references for claims 1/7 are US 5,462,768 (3M) and US 5,122,959, and the most dangerous for the dependent display claims (2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12) are US 5,122,959 and US 4,937,743. I could not complete a full element-by-element §102 chart against the entire 136-item list because the supplied text truncated it at US 5,574,898 and I ran out of retrieval steps; the references above that point are covered, and I have flagged the ones I could not independently re-verify as medium confidence.

Recommended next steps (if you need a litigation-grade chart): (1) pull the complete "References Cited" list from PatentCenter for 08/919,450 to capture citations 121–136; (2) obtain full text of US 5,099,431, US 5,175,684, US 5,255,181, US 5,295,065, US 5,343,387, and WO 91/003118 to confirm element-level disclosure; and (3) confirm whether any of these were applied by the examiner in a §102 rejection during prosecution (the file history will show which reference was mapped to which claim). I do not have PatentCenter file-history access here and will not guess at it.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me pull details on the key examiner-cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,990,458 B2

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA, priority date 1997‑08‑28)

Methodology / sources. This analysis uses the prior‑art references listed in the "Citations (136)" and family‑citation sections of the authoritative patent record (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6990458](/patent/US6990458)/en), supplemented by verification searches of individual references. All references below pre‑date the 1997‑08‑28 priority date and therefore qualify as prior art under pre‑AIA § 102(b). I did not retrieve the file wrapper / prosecution history in this session, so I cannot confirm which of these references the examiner actually applied against the issued claims (as opposed to merely listing). That limitation is material and is flagged again at the end.

I build on — and do not repeat — the earlier summary/claim‑construction sections. Bracketed cross‑references are to those sections.

1. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

As of August 1997, a POSITA would be a software engineer/systems analyst with a bachelor's degree in computer science or a related field (or equivalent experience) and roughly 2–4 years' experience building field‑service, workforce‑management, vehicle‑dispatch, or production‑scheduling applications on workstation/server platforms, plus familiarity with relational databases and graphical user interfaces. This is consistent with the subject matter of the cited art (all in the scheduling/dispatch arts) and with the patent's own admission that it ran "under a common operating system, such as Windows 95 or UNIX."

The field is mature and crowded: computer‑aided resource assignment/scheduling and vehicle/technician dispatch both existed well before 1997 (see below), and the asserted invention is an application‑level integration of known elements rather than a new computational technique.

2. The operative claim limitations

Claim 1 (system) and claim 7 (method) require, conjunctively:

Dependent claims add: map with geographic request locations (2, 8); required skill as number of points based on difficulty (3, 9); technician geographic location (4, 10); icon representing cancellation (5, 11); icon representing type of request (6, 12).

Note L2's phrasing ("as a function of at least …; means for considering …; and an amount of time …") is a conjunctive recitation — all four factors must be considered together. Any obviousness ground must therefore reach all four.

3. Principal prior‑art references (all examiner‑cited on the face of the patent)

Additional examiner‑cited scheduling/dispatch art in the same vein: US 5,099,431 (IBM, automated re‑work shop‑order scheduling), US 5,255,181 (Motorola, planning organizational activities), US 5,343,387 (Hitachi, cyclic maintenance work‑schedule preparation), US 5,177,684 (Univ. of Pennsylvania, optimal transportation schedules), US 5,428,546 (Mobile Information Systems, vehicle‑location tracking).

Critical admission in the specification. The '458 patent's own Background states that dispatchers in the prior art "use a conventional map and colored pins to represent the location of work orders and the location of technicians on the map," and that incoming dispatch information was "list‑based…not formatted graphically." This is a binding admission that map‑based, color‑coded, icon‑like status visualization of work orders and technicians was known — the entire premise of the alleged invention is automating a known manual visualization (L3/L4 and claims 2–6). See the earlier [Patent summary] for the issued claim text.

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claims 1 and 7 obvious over US 5,467,268 in view of US 4,937,743

L1 (receiving unassigned requests). '268's call‑taker receives incoming service calls and places them in a "pending" pool; calls remain unassigned until the dispatcher/A‑S module commits them to a technician ("committed" area). Received‑and‑unassigned is express.

L2 (assignment algorithm). '268 expressly assigns calls to technicians "based on … the characteristics of the call, the customer's contract requirements, the dynamic call load among the technicians, and available technician resources," and its core mechanism operates on an "existing assignment set" of "pending resource requests assigned among the resource providers." Mapping to the four conjunctive factors:

• technician skill level / required skill level → "customer's contract requirements" (qualification the technician must satisfy) and "characteristics of the call" (what the call requires); the field's resource‑qualification matching is independently established by '743 ("only doctors J, K and L are authorized"; room suitability by procedure).
• prior service requests assigned to each technician → "the dynamic call load among the technicians" and the existing‑assignment‑set search tree, which by definition must read what is already assigned to each technician.
• amount of time to complete → '268's optimization considers response/travel/urgency and scheduling times; '743 supplies express per‑task durations ("an appendectomy should be scheduled to take 90 minutes").

L3 (indication of remaining‑unassigned). '268 notifies users of its assignment recommendation (and where none satisfies constraints, the pending pool persists); '743 discloses the closest generic mechanism — conflict/status indicia communicated on a display "whenever an attempt is made to set up a schedule that involves apparently inconsistent or incompatible use of a given resource," alerting the operator that the item could not be accommodated. A POSITA adding '743's indicia to '268's engine arrives directly at L3.

L4 (status of assigned requests). '743 discloses "status indicia" that dynamically reflect the current status of scheduled items in real time, using colors, shadings, flashing, and geometric symbols, plus automatic updates as events occur. '268 supplies the assigned‑call view (scheduler window with per‑technician call blocks).

Motivation. '268 and '743 are in the same field (computer‑aided assignment and monitoring of limited human resources), address the same problem (keeping a live allocation accurate and legible as events change), and are architecturally compatible (database + workstation display). '743 is the leading‑edge prior‑art display/monitoring system for exactly the scheduling problem '268 automates; a POSITA improving '268 so a dispatcher could perceive allocation state at a glance would naturally adopt '743's well‑known status/conflict indicia. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a known technique (graphical status indicia) applied to a known system (automated dispatch) to yield a predictable result is obvious as a matter of common sense; and there were only a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" for displaying allocation status.

Ground 2 — Claims 2, 4, 8, 10 (map and technician geographic location) obvious over the Ground 1 combination in further view of US 5,122,959

'2959 claim 21 claims a "graphic display revealing an entire map of the delivery and pickup locations," and claim 22 an "icon indicating said pickup location and said delivery location"; other claims describe candidate selection by "distance the vehicle must travel," automatic vehicle location update, and progress monitoring. That is the geographic‑map + icon + fleet‑location combination recited by claims 2/4/8/10, transposed from vehicles to technicians. The motivation is expressly stated in these references themselves: '268 aims to "increase resource provider productivity by reducing travel time," which requires knowing where the resource is relative to the work — precisely the information '2959's map supplies. The patent's own Background admits the manual map‑and‑pins practice (supra §3), confirming that automating a geographic dispatch map was the recognized objective, not an unexpected advance.

Ground 3 — Claims 5 and 11 (cancellation icon) obvious over Ground 2 in view of US 4,937,743 (and US 5,467,268)

'743 expressly discloses that a cancelled procedure is denoted by a distinguishing cell marking ("opposite direction cross‑hatching of the Case tuv cell denotes a cancelled procedure") — i.e., a visual indicator representing cancellation, the functional equivalent of the claimed "icon." '268's companion disclosure further treats a "cancel‑call‑event" as a first‑class state that updates the assignment model (US 5,764,953, https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[5764953](/patent/5764953).html). Combining a canceled‑status indicator with '2959's map icons yields claims 5/11. Motivation: cancellation is a routine dispatch event; displaying it distinctly is the whole point of a status‑coded status display and is predictable.

Ground 4 — Claims 6 and 12 (type icon) obvious over Ground 2 in view of US 4,937,743 / US 5,255,181

'743 discloses indicia that "identify the type of conflict involved" and distinguishes real vs. apparent conflicts by different indicia types; '2959 distinguishes pickup vs. delivery icons. Using distinct graphical symbols to encode the category of an item is the ordinary, well‑understood function of an icon and is taught in both references. Claims 6/12 require nothing more than type‑coding the map icons of Ground 2.

Ground 5 — Claims 3 and 9 (required skill represented as points based on a difficulty assessment)

This is the narrowest and weakest‑supported set. The concept of numerically scoring task difficulty/priority and summing scores against a capacity limit is conventional scheduling practice: '465 uses numeric evaluation values with an "improvement precedence" to rank candidate schedules; '268 weighs "urgency" and other criteria in an objective function; '743 assigns standard durations/effort per procedure type; '2959 ranks candidate vehicles/events by weighted criteria. The '458 specification's own quota concept ("connecting a customer to cable in a pre‑wired apartment may be worth 20 points… installing cable to a house that has not been pre‑wired may be worth 50 points") is a mere data‑representation/scale choice applied to that known scoring practice. A ground here should be pleaded as "numeric scoring of task difficulty was a known technique applied to the known assignment engine of Ground 1," not as an express single‑reference teaching.

5. Why a POSITA would have combined the references (motive + reasonable expectation of success)

1. Same field, same problem. All of '268, '743, '2959, '465 and '295' are computer‑aided assignment, scheduling, dispatch, and monitoring systems for limited field resources — legally the same "art" as the '458 patent's technician‑dispatch subject matter.
2. The references cross‑identify each other's art. '295's claims cite '268; the '458 patent's own specification lists '268, '743, '2959, '465 and '295 among its considered references — objective evidence that a POSITA in 1997 would have had all of them at hand. The 3M family's own search report cites the Collins service‑personnel paper alongside '743.
3. Explicit suggestion in the references' stated goals. '268 aims to "increase dispatcher productivity by generating automated assignment and scheduling recommendations" and to "reduce travel time"; '2959 aims to display dispatch state "on a graphic map"; '743 aims for "dynamic" real‑time display of scheduling status. The claimed invention is the meeting of these stated goals, not a departure from them.
4. Predictable, finite solution space. KSR governs: combining a known automated assignment engine ('268) with known graphical status/conflict indicia ('743) and a known dispatch map with icons ('2959) to solve the recognized problem of dispatcher comprehension of allocation state is "the product…of ordinary creativity, not innovation." Each reference performs the same function it performs in its own context, with no change in operating principle and no unexpected result.
5. The patent's own admissions supply the motivation. The Background (§3) concedes the manual map/colored‑pin practice and list‑based dispatch; converting that admitted practice to an automated graphical system is the explicit object of the patent, and doing so with known scheduling engines is routine.

6. Rebuttal considerations and honesty caveats

• Prosecution history cuts against a § 103 attack. All of these references appear in the patent's "Citations" list, i.e., they were before the examiner, and the claims still issued. Whether the conjunctive four‑factor recitation of claim 1 was added to overcome some of this art cannot be determined without the file wrapper, which I did not obtain. A serious invalidity analysis must read the 1997–2005 prosecution history (the pre‑grant publication US 2003/0069797 A1 suggests a lengthy pendency with amendment).
• Means‑plus‑function. Claim 1 and dependent claims are drafted in "means for" form; under pre‑AIA § 112 ¶ 6 the means are limited to the corresponding structures disclosed (map generation means 118, service request/work order processing means 120, routing means 122, database 124, input terminals 100/102, communications system 106) and their equivalents. A § 103 mapping must show the prior‑art structures correspond to those structures, not merely to abstract functions.
• Weakest limitations. L2's "prior service requests assigned to each technician" (as a recited factor) and claims 3/9's "number of points" are the limitations most likely to survive a well‑pleaded prima facie case, because the references disclose workload/assignment‑set tracking and numerical scoring in different vocabularies rather than with the '458 patent's exact framing. The strength of any single ground therefore depends on how narrowly those terms are construed.
• Confidence. The reference bibliographic data, dates, and the quoted passages above are high confidence (taken from the reference texts/family records linked above). The claim‑charting of L3/L4 and claims 3/9 is medium confidence, because for US 5,467,268 I reviewed the description/claims‑family material rather than a byte‑for‑byte full‑text dump of every claim, and because I did not review the '458 prosecution history.
• No reexamination/PTAB record. As noted in the earlier [Patent summary] and [Litigation summary], I found no IPR/PGR against the '458 patent, and the patent expired 2017‑08‑28; this is therefore a retrospective/hypothetical validity analysis, not a live-controversy opinion.

Bottom line. Claims 1 and 7 are prima facie obvious over US 5,467,268 (automated field‑service call assignment considering call characteristics, contract/qualification requirements, the existing assignment set/workload, and time) in view of US 4,937,743 (real‑time graphical status/conflict indicia, cancellation marking, resource‑capability matching). Claims 2/4/8/10 are further obvious over US 5,122,959 (map display with location icons, weighted criteria including vehicle capabilities, fleet location monitoring); claims 5/6/11/12 over the cancellation‑marking and type‑identifying indicia of '743 and '2959; and claims 3/9 over the known numeric‑scoring/evaluation techniques of US 5,241,465/US 5,467,268. Each ground is supported by an explicit same‑field motivation and by KSR's predictable‑combination principle — subject to the caveats in §6 (undetermined prosecution history; means‑plus‑function structural correspondence; and the comparatively weak "points" and "prior assignments" limitations).