US 7020849

I'll verify the patent's identity and check for any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me try a few more targeted searches for 2026 litigation activity.

US Patent 7,020,849 — Verified Summary

Important caution on similar numbers: Searches surfaced a different patent, U.S. 7,072,849 (IBM's web-advertising patent asserted against Zynga and in Chewy v. IBM), repeatedly. Those results concern 7,072,849, not the 7,020,849 you asked about. I have excluded them. All identifiers below are taken literally from U.S. 7,020,849.

Bibliographic data

Assignment chain of record (all recorded in the patent's legal events): Openwave Systems Inc. → Purple Labs S.A. (2008) → Myriad France SAS (merger, 2010) → Google Inc. (2010) → HTC Corporation (2011) → Google Inc. (2013, effective 2012‑11‑08) → Google LLC (name change, 2017). Note the round‑trip: the '849 patent briefly sat with HTC, then returned to Google.

Abstract (verbatim)

"Techniques for displaying information on communication devices are disclosed. The techniques are highly beneficial for devices with relatively small viewing areas (e.g., remote wireless phones). An enhanced communication device can be implemented which can dynamically display information on an associated display. This means that there is no need to reserve various areas on the display for displaying. Instead, information may be assigned or unassigned to the different display portions dynamically. As a result, the display area can be used more efficiently."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has five independent claims: 1, 5, 9, 16, and 17 (claims 2–4 depend from 1; 6–8 depend from 5; 10–15 depend from 9).

• Claim 1 (method). On a screen having two regions that can hold label information: first show a title in the first region with content in the second region; then show the title in the first region with a soft-key label in the second region; determine whether label information should not be shown; and, if so, show content in both regions. In short — label areas are reclaimed for content when labels aren't needed.
• Claim 5 (device). The apparatus counterpart of Claim 1: a communication device with a display having first and second regions, configured to perform the same title/content/soft-key-label sequence and the same "no labels → content across both regions" behavior.
• Claim 9 (method). A dynamic-data method: decide whether to display "first data"; if not, display "second data" on the display; if yes, logically divide the display into first and second display-portions, then place the first data on the first portion and the second data on the second portion. (Dependent claim 13 characterizes the first data as control/context information and the second as content; claim 14 recites the decision triggers — scroll started, scroll stopped, or a timer expiring.)
• Claim 16 (computer-readable medium). Program code that carries out the Claim 9 steps (determine whether to display first data; show second data if not; logically divide the display; place first and second data on the respective portions).
• Claim 17 (device). A device configured to perform the Claim 9 dynamic-division steps.

Supporting disclosure describes a title shown alone, then soft keys appearing after a delay, labels disappearing during scrolling, and "sliding"/"fading" animations, with timers (Timer 1 ≈ 5 s, Timer 2 ≈ 10 s) governing when labels return.

Litigation / docket check (2026)

• No 2026 CAFC activity for the '849 patent was found. I could not locate any Federal Circuit docket in 2026 naming 7,020,849. My CAFC-2026 searches returned unrelated matters (e.g., Exafer v. Microsoft, Barry v. DePuy Synthes, Constellation Designs v. LG). I flag this as a negative finding, not proof of absence — I could not run an exhaustive, authoritative CAFC docket query, and the patent expired in January 2024, which makes new appellate activity unlikely.
• Known historical litigation (both from the patent record and confirmed by third‑party sources):
  • ITC Inv. No. 337‑TA‑808, Certain Electronic Devices With Communication Capabilities…, filed by HTC Corp. against Apple Inc. (complaint 2011‑08‑16; amended 2011‑09‑07). The '849 patent was one of eight asserted patents. On 2012‑05‑15, ALJ Thomas B. Pender granted Apple's motion and terminated the investigation as to five HTC patents — including 7,020,849 — on grounds of lack of standing (HTC had acquired them from Google/Palm/Motorola/Openwave). The overall investigation settled on 2013‑01‑14. Source: govinfo.gov FR notice 2011‑25279; ITC FY2012 press table.
  • D. Del. Case No. 1:11‑cv‑00715 (HTC v. Apple), the parallel district-court action filed contemporaneously with the ITC complaint (per the patent's "Family has litigation" data and third‑party case summaries).

Confidence and residual uncertainty

High confidence on title, inventor, assignee history, dates, abstract, and claim scope — these come straight from the patent text and record. Moderate-to-low confidence on the completeness of the 2026 docket check: I found no 2026 CAFC proceeding involving 7,020,849, but I cannot certify a negative from the tools available. If you need a definitive docket confirmation, a direct PACER/CAFC CM‑ECF and Docket Navigator query keyed to "7,020,849" would be required.

I'll search litigation sources specifically for US 7,020,849, being careful to exclude the easily-confused 7,072,849.

Confirmed the ITC action. Let me pin down the parallel Delaware case numbers and check for any other assertions or PTAB challenges.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,020,849

Bottom line: I found two proceedings that asserted U.S. 7,020,849 — an ITC investigation and a parallel Delaware district-court action — both filed by HTC against Apple in 2011, both tied to the same five Google-sourced patents, and both resolved in the 2012 HTC–Apple global settlement. I found no other litigation, no PTAB proceeding, and no 2026 activity (the patent expired 2024‑01‑18).

⚠️ Critical screen used throughout: This docket search surfaces several near-identical numbers that must not be attributed to 7,020,849 — most importantly 7,072,849 (IBM's web-advertising patent, Chewy v. IBM, IBM v. Zillow), 7,657,849 (Apple's "slide to unlock" patent, asserted against HTC), and 7,282,453 / 7,282,453 (Apple). All results below are keyed only to 7,020,849 ("Dynamic display for communication devices," David Chen, Openwave).

Case 1 — ITC Investigation No. 337-TA-808

The '849 patent was one of five patents added to the complaint: 6,473,006; 6,708,214; 6,868,283; 7,289,772; and 7,020,849. Multiple contemporaneous sources (FOSS Patents, heise, phoneArena) describe 7,020,849 as "a 'dynamic display for communication devices'; originally filed by Openwave, then sold to Purple Labs, Myriad France, Google and HTC."

Case 2 — HTC Corp. v. Apple Inc., D. Del.

Sourcing note: 1:11‑cv‑00715 is the case number recorded in the patent's own Google Patents "Family has litigation" data (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A11-cv-00715), and contemporaneous coverage confirms a parallel Delaware companion suit carrying the same five-patent group. HTC's Delaware filings in this period included more than one action (a companion/first action is referenced in secondary sources as 1:11‑cv‑00611), so if you need to confirm which docket entry carries the '849 count, pull the D. Del. docket directly.

Ownership trace that drives the litigation story

7,020,849's assignment record explains both why HTC could sue and why the ITC dismissed it:

The round-trip to HTC and back to Google is why the ITC found a standing defect: HTC was enforcing patents it had acquired in a transaction structured (as the ITC record and secondary sources describe) such that HTC did not hold all substantial rights.

Related ownership dispute (flag, not a confirmed 7,020,849 assertion)

Openwave Systems Inc. v. Myriad France S.A.S., N.D. Cal. No. 3:10‑cv‑02805‑WHA (filed 2010) — a contractual dispute over which patents from the 2008 Openwave → Purple Labs transaction were "Missing Assigned Patents" that Openwave had to assign. It concerns the same portfolio (the July 2008 mobile-client-software deal) from which 7,020,849 flowed, but I did not find 7,020,849 named in the pleadings or orders I retrieved. Treat this as portfolio-adjacent, not a confirmed assertion of the '849 patent. I am flagging it rather than claiming it.

Negative findings (stated as such, with confidence levels)

• No PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) on 7,020,849 found. — Moderate confidence. My searches keyed to "7,020,849" returned no PTAB case; the IPR hits that surfaced were for other patents (e.g., 7,072,849, 10,141,334, 11,202,591).
• No Federal Circuit appeal naming 7,020,849 found. — Moderate confidence. This is consistent with the ITC's standing-based termination (non-merits, no appealable final determination on validity/infringement) and with the global settlement.
• No litigation after 2013 found, and none in 2026. — High confidence, reinforced by expiry on 2024‑01‑18.
• No foreign counterpart litigation for the '849 family found. The Google Patents entry links a Darts‑IP "first worldwide family litigation" record (family ID 36084788), but I could not retrieve its contents, so I cannot confirm or exclude non-U.S. actions.

One internal inconsistency to flag

The Google Patents record itself and secondary press uniformly treat 337-TA-808 as HTC's action against Apple. However, one secondary source I retrieved (a Taiwanese IP-office case-analysis table, tiponet.tipo.gov.tw) labels 337-TA-808 as "Apple v. HTC." Given that (a) the same document's separate entry correctly assigns Apple's ITC action to the 2010 complaint with the different patent set (6,343,263; 6,275,983; 5,946,647, etc.), and (b) every contemporaneous news source describes the Google-sourced five-patent group (including 7,020,849) as HTC's counter-assertion, I treat the HTC-as-plaintiff characterization as correct and the tiponet caption as an error. Please verify against the ITC's FR notice and the EDIS docket if the caption matters for your filing.

Summary table

Verification paths if you need certified confirmation: ITC EDIS docket 337‑TA‑808 and the associated Federal Register notices; D. Del. CM‑ECF docket 1:11‑cv‑00715; and the Unified Patents litigation portal entry cited in the patent record.

I'll verify the structured data's negative finding with targeted searches before reporting.

Let me run a few more targeted checks for any reexamination, AIA trial, or Unified Patents involvement.

Two more confirmatory checks before I finalize.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings. The canonical structured source for this analysis — the "PTAB proceedings on file" block, sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal — returns no IPR, no PGR, and no CBM for U.S. 7,020,849. My independent web searches keyed to the patent number and title corroborate that negative, and the patent's own complete Google Patents legal-events log shows no AIA trial notices and no reexamination certificate — only assignments and maintenance-fee payments across its 22-year life.

Breakdown: active — 0; claims invalidated by PTAB — 0; claims sustained by PTAB — 0; settled at PTAB — 0; institution denied — 0.

Bottom-line defensive posture. This is not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened," and it is not "claims 1–5 are cancelled." It is the third case: the patent has never been tested at the PTAB at all. Every one of the five independent claims (1, 5, 9, 16, 17) and all twelve dependents stand exactly as issued on 2006-03-28 — unamended, uncancelled, and untested. For a defendant, that cuts both ways: there is no FWD to hide behind, but there is also no estoppel binding anyone, and the full universe of §§ 102/103 printed-publication art is still in play. The real risk to you is not PTAB precedent — it is district-court litigation over a patent that has already been challenged once in a forum (the ITC) where it was dismissed on a standing technicality rather than on the merits.

Because there are no proceedings to profile, the substantive analysis below replaces the per-proceeding template with (a) the corroboration of the negative finding, (b) the structural reason no IPR exists, and (c) what that means for you.

Corroboration of the negative finding (why I believe "zero")

The instruction is to source the list from the structured block; where that block says zero, my job is to test it rather than parrot it. Three independent checks:

1. USPTO ODP (canonical). The structured block states no AIA trial proceedings are on file as of the most recent ingest. This is the authoritative feed.
2. Full legal-events log (corroborating). The USPTO "Legal Events" record reproduced in the patent text contains only four event families: assignments/reassignments (2002, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2017), maintenance-fee payments and reminders (2005, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2013, 2017), and the 2006 grant. There is no RXLR/reexamination-certificate event, no AIA trial notice, no certificate of correction, no adverse judgment, no disclaimer. A trial or reexam that reached any milestone would surface here. It does not.
3. Open-web searches (negative). Queries for "7020849" IPR, "7,020,849" PTAB, "7020849" reexamination, and "Dynamic display for communication devices" + PTAB/petitioner terminology returned no petition, no institution decision, and no FWD. The hits that surfaced were for unrelated patents (e.g., IPR2022-00031 on 10,621,228; IPR2013-00290 on 7,670,536; the MemoryWeb/Unified Patents cluster). One search returned the same Google Patents page and a patent-analytics profile that merely lists '849 among David A. Chen's eight Openwave patents — no trial data.

Confidence: high that no AIA trial exists; moderate-high that no ex parte reexamination exists. I am not certifying a negative from web tooling. To certify, query PTAB E2E by patent number (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) and the PatentCenter "Reexamination" tab, and cross-check Docket Navigator / CourtListener PTAB dockets (https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=7%2C020%2C849). See "Recommended next steps."

This is consistent with — and slightly strengthens — the moderate-confidence negative recorded in the earlier litigation section. I am upgrading that to high confidence for AIA trials, on the strength of the third corroborating source (the legal-events log), which I had not relied on previously. No contradiction with the prior sections; this is a corroboration.

Why no IPR exists — the calendar, not the merits

The absence of PTAB activity here is explained by timing, and it is a one-time structural fact, not a durable immunity. Understanding it tells you what art and avenues remain open:

• The AIA's IPR regime did not exist when this patent was being asserted. The '849 patent's only assertion window was HTC's 2011 campaign (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-808, complaint filed 2011-08-16, amended 2011-09-07; parallel D. Del. 1:11-cv-00715). IPR petitions became available only for petitions filed on or after 2012-09-16. By then the '849 patent had already been terminated from the ITC on 2012-05-15 for lack of standing, and the district case was heading to the November 2012 global settlement. Apple never had a usable IPR window against the '849 patent — by the time the forum opened, the '849 patent was out of the case.
• No PGR was ever possible. PGR reaches only patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. The '849 patent's priority date is 2002-05-31. It is categorically ineligible.
• CBM was theoretically available (2012-09-16 through 2018-09-16) but inapplicable. A CBM petition requires the patent to claim a "financial product or service" or be a "technological invention" used in a financial service. U.S. 7,020,849 claims a display-space allocation technique for a communication device — claims 1 and 5 recite titles, soft-key labels, and content; claims 9/16/17 recite generic "first data"/"second data." Nothing financial. No petitioner would have cleared the § 18(a)(1)(E) threshold, which is why none tried.

Net: the patent's clean PTAB record is an artifact of the pre-AIA/post-AIA seam plus an early standing dismissal — not evidence of hardened validity.

The one thing that was litigated, and why it matters more than a PTAB record

The '849 patent's single real validity-adjacent event is the ITC's 2012-05-15 order in 337-TA-808, in which ALJ Thomas B. Pender granted Apple's motion to terminate as to five HTC patents including 7,020,849 for lack of standing — HTC had acquired the patents from Google only days before filing. That was a non-merits, jurisdictional termination.

• No estoppel flows from it. No FWD issued anywhere, so 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(1) and (e)(2) estoppel is wholly absent. Nothing binds HTC, Google, Apple, or any privy on any ground.
• But it plants a diligence flag on the owner, not the patent. The ownership trail (Openwave → Purple Labs (2008) → Myriad France (merger) → Google (2010) → HTC (2011-08-29) → Google (2012-11-08) → Google LLC (2017)) round-trips through HTC, and the ITC found HTC lacked all substantial rights. The same 2008 Openwave→Purple Labs transaction that produced this patent was later the subject of Openwave Systems Inc. v. Myriad France S.A.S., N.D. Cal. No. 3:10-cv-02805-WHA, over "Missing Assigned Patents." As the earlier section correctly cautioned, I could not confirm '849 was named in that dispute — treat it as portfolio-adjacent, not a finding. If you receive a demand today, the chain-of-title question (does the current assignee hold enforceable rights through that 2008 asset sale and the HTC round-trip?) is a live, if non-frivolous-to-raise, vulnerability. It is the same defect that killed the only prior assertion.

Strategic summary

Claim status across the patent. Because no AIA trial ever issued a Final Written Decision, the claim-status ledger is a blank: nothing is CANCELED, nothing is "SUSTAINED by the Board," and everything is UNTESTED. Specifically: independent claims 1, 5, 9, 16, and 17 — untested and intact. Dependent claims 2–4 (from claim 1), 6–8 (from claim 5), and 10–15 (from claim 9) — untested and intact. If someone tells you a claim of the '849 patent was invalidated, they are confusing this patent with 7,072,849 (IBM's web-advertising patent) or 7,657,849 (Apple's slide-to-unlock patent) — both of which appear constantly in searches for "7020849." Neither is this patent. This confusion is the single most likely error a counterparty will make, and it cuts against the patent owner: a demand letter citing "cancelled claims" here has no FWD to stand on.

Estoppel landscape. There is none. With no IPR/PGR/CBM and no FWD, no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred by § 315(e)(1) or (e)(2) from anything. For a defendant now facing assertion, the entire §§ 102/103 printed-publication universe remains available — patents and printed publications only, per § 311(b) (no public-use, on-sale, or system-prior-art grounds at the PTAB). Invalidity theories under § 112 and § 101 remain district-court-only and cannot be raised in an IPR. Two practical constraints: (a) § 315(b) — if you have been served with a complaint alleging infringement of '849, you have one year from service to petition, and that clock is personal to you and your privies; (b) § 325(d) — art already before the examiner invites discretionary denial, and this patent's file shows seven references of record, including U.S. 6,415,164 (Lucent, "Arrangement for dynamic allocation of space on a small display of a telephone terminal" — a striking conceptual neighbor to the '849 claims), U.S. 6,365,302 (Motorola, "Enhanced graphic user interface for mobile radiotelephones"), U.S. 6,115,041 (Nortel, "Display screen management apparatus and method"), U.S. 6,408,191 and U.S. 5,737,394 (Lucent/Sony message-screen and soft-key displays), U.S. 6,819,341 (HP), and US 2004/0205156 A1 (Aarts). Any IPR built on those references needs a § 325(d) story.

Pattern signals. There is no petitioner pattern — no serial filer, no repeat challenger, no joinder. No patent-owner appeal history — nothing was ever appealed to the Federal Circuit from the PTAB, and the earlier section found no CAFC appeal naming '849 at all. No defensive aggregator in the chain: the record shows no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar involvement; the only third parties ever in the fight were HTC (asserting) and Apple (defending), both now long settled into a 10-year cross-license. The "Family has litigation" data in the Google Patents record (Darts-IP family 36084788; Unified Patents portal entries for the ITC and Delaware cases) reflects that 2011–2013 episode only.

Commercial reality check that dominates everything above. The patent expired on 2024-01-18 (adjusted expiration) and is recorded as Expired – Lifetime. That does not make it unenforceable for past acts: under 35 U.S.C. § 286, a suit filed today could reach back six years, so a pre-expiry damages window of roughly 2018-01-18 through 2024-01-18 theoretically remains. But it means (i) no injunction is available, (ii) the case is a pure back-damages play, and (iii) the practical deterrent value of an IPR is low — you would be spending $400k–$700k to invalidate claims whose only remaining value is a shrinking tail of historical royalties. An expired patent remains IPR-eligible (the Board applies Phillips claim construction rather than the broadest reasonable interpretation for expired claims), but weigh that cost against the exposure.

Recommended next steps

If no PTAB activity exists — and it does not — say so plainly, and treat the absence as the signal. Well-asserted, long-lived patents eventually attract IPRs; this one never did, because its only assertion window closed on a standing technicality in May 2012, five months before IPR petitions became available. Plan accordingly:

1. Certify the negative before you rely on it. Run PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) by patent number for AIA trials, and PatentCenter → Reexamination for any ex parte/ inter partes reexam. Cross-check CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=7%2C020%2C849) and Docket Navigator for any appeal. If these return clean, you may state affirmatively in a filing or opinion letter: "U.S. Patent 7,020,849 has never been the subject of any AIA trial or reexamination; all claims 1–17 stand as issued."

2. Do not let the other side import 7,072,849's or 7,657,849's record. If a demand letter or mediation statement cites PTAB invalidation of "the '849 patent," demand the FWD number. There is none for 7,020,849. This is a credibility test you can win.

3. If you are a defendant with live exposure (served with a complaint), the § 315(b) one-year clock is running. Decide early whether an IPR is worth it against an expired patent. Given the § 325(d) problem with the seven already-cited references, any petition must lead with art that is not in that set, and must explain why the Board should not exercise § 325(d) discretion.

4. Attack the chain of title, not just the claims. The ITC terminated the only prior assertion for lack of standing flowing from the Google→HTC transfer, and the underlying 2008 Openwave→Purple Labs asset sale was litigated in Openwave v. Myriad France, N.D. Cal. 3:10-cv-02805-WHA. Pull the 2008 asset-purchase agreement, the 2010 Myriad→Google assignment, and the 2011 Google→HTC and 2012 HTC→Google instruments. Standing/ownership is the demonstrated vulnerability in this patent's history — more so than its merits, which no tribunal has ever reached.

5. In district court, the invalidity theories the PTAB cannot hear are your best tools. §§ 101 and 112 are unavailable in an IPR. For a 2002-priority patent claiming dynamic reassignment of display regions, attorney-argument § 103 with system prior art, § 112(b) indefiniteness on "logically dividing said display" and "first data"/"second data," and § 101 are all district-court levers with no PTAB analogue — and with no estoppel against them, because no IPR ever occurred.

Verification links for any opinion you cite: PTAB E2E https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/ · USPTO PTAB Decisions https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions · CourtListener https://www.courtlistener.com/ · the patent's own record https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7020849](/patent/US7020849)/en.

I'll attempt to pull the USPTO Assignment Center records and any correspondent data before reconstructing the chain.

Inventors

Pattern notes:

• This is a single-inventor patent — no team, no co-assignees, no university or government interest. Nothing anomalous there.
• Chen assigned to Openwave essentially contemporaneously with filing (standard employee invention-assignment practice), not as part of a divestiture.
• No evidence that the inventor departed the original assignee within 12 months of filing. The "inventor exodus precedes fire-sale" pattern is not present. Secondary-source data (patentleaderboard.com) shows Chen with 8 granted US patents associated with Openwave, consistent with a continuing employee rather than a one-off outside filer. Caveat: the Long Beach, CA address and the 8-patent count come from that secondary aggregator, not from the patent text — treat as indicative only.

Original assignee

Openwave Systems Inc. (assignee of record on the issued patent; Redwood City, CA; publicly traded, NASDAQ: OPWV).

• Product embodying the claims: Yes. Openwave was the leading supplier of mobile handset client software — browser, SMS/MMS/EMS and email messaging clients, Java clients, UI/widgets and graphics engines — precisely the class of software in which a "dynamic display for communication devices" (claim 1's title/soft-key-label/content reallocation on a small screen) would ship. The patent's own framing ("devices with relatively small viewing areas (e.g., remote wireless phones)") matches Openwave's handset-client product line.
• Primary line of business: mobile internet/wireless data software, split into a client software business (browsers, messaging clients on the handset) and a server software business (the carrier-side infrastructure Openwave retained).
• Current status: No longer an operating company in this form. Openwave divested its entire mobile client software business to Purple Labs S.A. in 2008 — the transaction through which the '849 patent left Openwave — and retained the server software business. This is documented in the Openwave Systems Inc. v. Myriad France S.A.S. record (N.D. Cal. No. 3:10‑cv‑02805‑WHA), which quotes the IPLA defining "Business" as the handset client software business and "Openwave Field of Use" as the retained server software business. Confidence note: the later corporate trajectory of Openwave (post‑2008 restructuring/ownership) is not confirmed by the sources I retrieved; I decline to state it as fact.

Assignment timeline

Sourcing and a hard limitation, stated up front. Every reel/frame and date below is taken from the patent's own legal‑events record (which mirrors the USPTO assignment database). I could NOT retrieve the Assignment Center "correspondent of record" field — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html render as JavaScript applications and were not indexable through the search tools available to me, and targeted queries keyed to the reel numbers (013103/0764, 021172/0131, 025182/0754, 026846/0473, 031820/0531, 044127/0735) returned no correspondent data. The correspondent signal — the most useful NPE tell — is therefore UNKNOWN for every link in this chain. To obtain it, pull the six assignment abstracts directly from Assignment Center (search by patent number 7,020,849) or order the reel/frame PDFs from the USPTO.

• 2002‑06‑24 (executed) / recorded 2002‑07‑22 — Reel 013103/0764

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors Interest)
  • Assignor: CHEN, DAVID
  • Assignee: OPENWAVE SYSTEMS INC. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable (see limitation above). No recurrence can be assessed.
  • Context: Original employment assignment — inventor assigns to his employer; standard, pre‑divestiture.

• 2008‑06‑27 (executed) / recorded 2008‑06‑30 — Reel 021172/0131

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: OPENWAVE SYSTEMS INC.
  • Assignee: PURPLE LABS S.A. (France)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable.
  • Context: Divestiture / asset sale — Openwave's sale of its mobile client software business to Purple Labs, executed 2008‑06‑27. This is the transaction later litigated in Openwave v. Myriad France over "Missing Assigned Patents."

• 2009‑07‑28 (executed; effective date per record) / recorded 2010‑10‑22 — Reel 025202/0494

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: PURPLE LABS SA
  • Assignee: MYRIAD FRANCE, SAS (France)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable.
  • Context: Internal reorg / corporate combination — Purple Labs was combined into Esmertec AG (Feb 2009 business‑combination agreement), which became Myriad Group AG, and Purple Labs SA became Myriad France S.A.S. This is a name/form change via merger chain, not an arm's‑length sale. (Recorded 14 months after the effective date — a recording lag.)

• 2010‑07‑16 (executed) / recorded 2010‑10‑22 — Reel 025182/0754

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: MYRIAD FRANCE SAS
  • Assignee: GOOGLE INC. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable.
  • Context: Portfolio sale to a strategic acquirer — Myriad sold the US patents acquired in the 2008 Openwave deal to Google in July 2010. Note the reel ordering: the Myriad→Google reel (025182) carries an earlier reel number than the Purple Labs→Myriad merger reel (025202) but was recorded the same day (2010‑10‑22). The two 2010‑10‑22 recordations were clearly filed as a package to paper the chain of title.

• 2011‑08‑29 (executed) / recorded 2011‑09‑01 — Reel 026846/0473

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: GOOGLE INC.
  • Assignee: HTC CORPORATION (Taiwan)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable.
  • Context: Pre‑litigation transfer to an asserter — executed 9 days before HTC's amended ITC complaint (2011‑09‑07) adding the '849 patent. Google owned it for roughly 13 months and 13 days.

• 2012‑11‑08 (executed) / recorded 2013‑12‑19 — Reel 031820/0531

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: HTC CORPORATION
  • Assignee: GOOGLE INC. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable.
  • Context: Settlement unwind / return transfer — executed the same week as the November 2012 HTC–Apple global settlement and 10‑year cross‑license; the patent round‑tripped back to Google. Recording lagged execution by ~13 months.

• 2017‑09‑29 (executed) / recorded 2017‑10‑05 — Reel 044127/0735

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: GOOGLE INC.
  • Assignee: GOOGLE LLC (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable.
  • Context: Change of name only — the Delaware conversion of Google Inc. into Google LLC; no change in beneficial ownership. Current assignee of record.

Non-assignment legal events (for completeness, no conveyance): 2005‑12‑03 and 2012‑12‑04 "FEPP" payor‑number notices; 2006‑03‑09 patent‑grant status; maintenance fee payments 2010‑01‑14 (4th yr, with surcharge), 2013‑09‑30 (8th yr), 2017‑09‑28 (12th yr); expiration adjustment 2024‑01‑18. No security agreement, license, release, or corrective assignment is recorded against this patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7020849
    2002 : Filed by Openwave Systems
         : Chen assigns to Openwave
    2006 : Patent issued
    2008 : Openwave sells to Purple Labs
    2009 : Purple Labs becomes Myriad France
    2010 : Myriad France sells to Google Inc
    2011 : Google transfers to HTC Corp
         : HTC asserts against Apple at ITC
    2012 : HTC returns patent to Google
    2013 : Return transfer recorded
    2017 : Google Inc becomes Google LLC
    2024 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with a privateering/proxy-assertion overlay.

Justification: there is no NPE anywhere in this chain of title — every link is an operating company, so the NPE verdicts (high/moderate confidence) are unavailable on this record. The chain instead shows a textbook operating-company proxy assertion: Google held the patent from reel 025182/0754 (2010‑07‑16), then transferred it to HTC by reel 026846/0473 (executed 2011‑08‑29, recorded 2011‑09‑01), 9 days before HTC's amended ITC complaint of 2011‑09‑07 asserting the '849 patent against Apple, a direct competitor of Google's Android ecosystem. The asserter (HTC) and target (Apple) are both product-shipping competitors, and the patent returned to Google by reel 031820/0531 (executed 2012‑11‑08, the week of the settlement) and now sits with Google LLC — an operating company whose Android/Chrome products practice the claimed small-screen display behavior. Signals 5 (pre-litigation transfer – strong) and 7 (privateering – strong) are present; signal 4 (cascading transfers) is a moderate hit; signal 3 (repeat correspondent) is unresolved due to missing data and should be closed before any filing relying on it.

Verification: USPTO Assignment Center, search by patent number 7,020,849 — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Pull reel/frame 013103/0764, 021172/0131, 025202/0494, 025182/0754, 026846/0473, 031820/0531, 044127/0735 to capture the correspondent of record, which is the only material field I could not source and the one that would sharpen or dissolve signal #3.

I'll verify the patent and pull details on each cited reference. Let me run parallel searches.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,020,849 B1

"Dynamic display for communication devices" — David Chen, openwave Systems Inc. (now Google LLC)
Filed/priority 2002‑05‑31; granted 2006‑03‑28; App. No. 10/159,955.

⚠️ Identifier screen. All analysis below is keyed strictly to 7,020,849. Searches for this number continue to surface the unrelated 7,072,849 (IBM web‑advertising), 7,657,849 (Apple "slide to unlock"), and 7,282,453 — none of which appear in this patent's record and none of which are relied on here.

⚠️ Date note. The task states current date April 26, 2026; the environment header states 2026‑10‑01. This does not affect the analysis, since no prior §102 date turns on either date.

1. What the record actually contains

This matters before ranking anything. The "Patent Citations" table on the face of 7,020,849 lists exactly seven U.S. patent documents — all flagged * (i.e., cited by the examiner, not by a third party). The complete set is:

Two structural observations:

1. No foreign patent documents and no non‑patent literature are cited of record. For a 2002 filing on small‑screen UI, that is a thin citation base — and it means the answer to "most relevant prior art for 7,020,849" is, literally, this closed list of seven. There is no second tier of record citations to work through.
2. All seven were cited and the claims still issued. That is decisive for how to read the §102 question. If any single one of these had disclosed every limitation of an independent claim, the examiner could not have allowed that claim. So the honest framing is: these are art the examiner considered and distinguished — presumptively §103 art, not §102 anticipation. The "potential §102" mappings below are therefore evaluative (what a litigant would argue), not a restatement of what the Office found.

The statutory frame is pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. §102 (application filed 2002‑05‑31, long before the 2013‑03‑16 AIA cutoff). Critical dates: §102(b) = 2001‑05‑31; §102(a) = 2002‑05‑31; §102(e) = each reference's own earliest effective US filing date.

The patent's five independent claims (1, 5, 9, 16, 17) are the ones that matter — as set out in the earlier-generated summary. Claims 2–4 hinge on timers (Timer 1 ≈ 5 s, Timer 2 ≈ 10 s) and soft‑key‑activation; claims 10–15 depend from claim 9.

2. Reference‑by‑reference analysis

⭐ Reference 1 — US 6,415,164 B1 (Blanchard et al., Lucent Technologies)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,415,164 B1, Arrangement for dynamic allocation of space on a small display of a telephone terminal. Inventors: Harry Edward Blanchard, Kathleen J. Chylinski, David R. Dempski, Steven M. Herbst, Nicholas H. Katis, Susan A. Palermo, Susan L. Tuttle. Assignee: Lucent Technologies, Inc.
• Dates: Filed 1999‑03‑17 (Ser. No. 09/271,036); expressly a continuation of Ser. No. 08/775,316, filed 1996‑12‑31; issued 2002‑07‑02.
• Description (verified from the patent text): An arrangement for dynamically varying how space on a small display is allocated between two different kinds of user information — "status or header‑type information" and "menu item‑type information." The display's lines are "dedicatable in any combination" to either type: on a 4‑line display, one line status + three lines menu, or two + two. Priority coding assigned per display screen controls which information type occupies a predetermined position. The specification's background criticizes the prior art in nearly the same terms the '849 patent uses — that soft‑key interfaces "require that a portion of the display be dedicated exclusively to this purpose," constraining space for non‑menu items.
• Why it is the closest art of record: It is the only reference directed at the same stated problem — reclaiming scarce small‑screen area by dynamically allocating display space between label‑type and content‑type information. Its "dedicatable in any combination" language maps almost directly onto the '849 claim language "assigning at least one region… when it is determined that at least one label should be displayed" and "logically dividing said display into first and second display‑portions."
• Potentially anticipates: Claim 9 (determining whether to display first data; if so, logically dividing the display into first and second display‑portions and placing each data type in its portion) — the strongest §102 argument in the whole record. Derivationally, claim 13 (first data = status/header → "control or context information"; second data = menu items → information), claim 16 (CRM counterpart), and claim 17 (device counterpart) fall with claim 9. Weaker, arguable read against claims 1 and 5, since the reference shows header/status information in a reserved‑combination line arrangement rather than the specific title‑then‑soft‑key‑label sequence.
• Distinguishing hooks the examiner likely used: no soft‑key label concept; no timers; no scroll‑triggered label suppression; no animated label entry/exit.

⭐ Reference 2 — US 6,366,302 B1 (Crosby et al., Motorola)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,366,302 B1, Enhanced graphic user interface for mobile radiotelephones. Inventors: Shelia Renee Crosby, Suthirug Num Pisutha‑Arnond, Kenneth W. Douros, Christopher S. Gremo. Assignee: Motorola, Inc.
• Dates: Filed 1998‑12‑22 (Ser. No. 09/218,324); issued 2002‑04‑02.
• Description (verified from the patent text and claim 1): A radiotelephone GUI that presents lists and text fields with a title message at the top portion of the display, an end‑of‑list indicator, a highlighter, and a dynamic scroll indicator whose appearance changes with scroll position (down‑arrow when title shown and first item highlighted; up‑and‑down arrow in mid‑list; up‑arrow at end of list). Critically for the '849 analysis, it expressly recites that a context‑sensitive symbol is displayed "whenever a context sensitive menu is available," and that this "provides for efficient use of display pixels and still allows soft‑key labels to be presented in the display" — with an exit function soft‑key label in one corner and a select function soft‑key label in another. It also describes smooth‑scroll presentation on a small display.
• Why it is highly relevant: It is the only one of the seven that puts a title and soft‑key labels on the same small radiotelephone screen while managing scrolling — i.e., it touches the claim‑1 combination (title in a region + soft‑key label) and the claim‑14 triggers (scroll initiated / scroll stopped).
• Potentially anticipates: Claim 1 (title + soft‑key label on screen; scroll‑driven change in what is displayed) and, derivatively, claim 5; also claim 14 (scroll‑initiation/stop detection) and, in the same reasoning, claims 9/16/17 to the extent "logically dividing the display" is read onto its title‑region/list‑region layout. The §102(a) date (issued 2002‑04‑02, seven weeks before the '849 filing) makes it cleanly available as printed publication prior art.
• Distinguishing hooks: the labels are apparently persistent rather than conditionally assigned/unassigned; no teaching of reclaiming the label region for content; no title/label timer sequencing.

⭐ Reference 3 — US 6,115,041 A (Nortel Networks)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,115,041 A, Display screen management apparatus and method. Assignee of record: Nortel Networks Corporation.
• Dates: Priority 1997‑12‑24; issued 2000‑09‑05. (Comfortably §102(b) art.)
• Description: A display‑screen management apparatus and method — i.e., circuitry/software for controlling what is presented on a terminal's screen. Confidence caveat: I was unable to retrieve this reference's full text or claims in this session; the description here rests on the title and on the record's own characterization. I am therefore not asserting specific claim mappings for it.
• Potential relevance (§102): Given its title and its being cited alongside the Lucent pair, its likely nexus is claims 9 and 17 (managing/dividing display space by control logic) and possibly claim 1 if it discloses region reassignment. This should be verified against the reference's actual disclosure before being relied on.

Reference 4 — US 6,408,191 B1 (Blanchard et al., Lucent Technologies)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,408,191 B1, Arrangement for displaying message screens on a telephone terminal. Assignee: Lucent Technologies Inc.
• Dates: Priority 1996‑12‑31; issued 2002‑06‑18. (Same 1996‑12‑31 lineage as the '164 patent; 6,415,164 is expressly a continuation of Ser. No. 08/775,316 filed 1996‑12‑31 — I could not confirm in this session whether 6,408,191 shares the identical parent, though the identical priority date strongly suggests the same Lucent family. Flagged as moderate confidence.)
• Description (verified from the patent text): A telephone‑terminal display arrangement for message screens. It presents a message header (with an enumeration of the current message and the total) at the top of the display and the message body in the remaining character spaces below the header. Where the body exceeds the available space, a down‑arrow indicator is presented to signal that more content can be viewed by scrolling with the Down arrow key. Left/Right arrow keys step between messages, and up/down keys scroll — giving a "dual axis of control" so the user can view contents "without having to perform the additional step of selecting… each message."
• Why it is relevant: It is a contextual label (header) + content (body) + scroll indicator system on a small telephone display — i.e., it discloses the "title/context information in one region, content in another, with scrolling" architecture that underpins claims 9 and 13.
• Potentially anticipates: Claim 9 and claim 13 (first data = header/context; second data = body/content) — a reasonable §102 argument if one reads "logically dividing said display into first and second display‑portions" onto the header/body split. Also relevant to claim 14 (scrolling detection). Weak against claims 1/5 (no soft‑key labels, no title/label suppression and reclamation).

Reference 5 — US 5,737,394 A (Sony Corporation)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,737,394 A, Portable telephone apparatus having a plurality of selectable functions activated by the use of dedicated and/or soft keys. Assignee: Sony Corporation.
• Dates: Priority 1996‑02‑06; issued 1998‑04‑07. (§102(b) art.)
• Description: A portable telephone in which a set of functions is selectable through dedicated keys and/or soft keys — i.e., the classic soft‑key architecture in which a key's function is assigned contextually and indicated on the display. (Confirmed at the title/assignee/date level from the record; I did not retrieve full claim text in this session.)
• Potential relevance (§102): Narrow. It supplies the "soft key label" element that appears in claims 1, 5, 6, 7, 8 and the "soft key activated" trigger in claim 3 — but it does not appear to teach dynamic assignment/unassignment of display regions to those labels, which is the core of every independent claim. Best characterized as §103‑supporting background, not an anticipation reference. Do not plead this as a §102 reference without reading the disclosure.

Reference 6 — US 6,819,341 B2 (Hewlett‑Packard)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,819,341 B2, System and method of establishing communication between an appliance and an external device. Assignee: Hewlett‑Packard Development Company, L.P.
• Dates: Earliest priority 1998‑08‑07; issued 2004‑11‑16.
• Description: Establishing a communications session between an appliance and an external device (e.g., pairing/connection setup). Confidence caveat: not retrieved in full this session; description rests on the title and the record.
• Potential relevance (§102): Peripheral. Nothing in the title or the record suggests display‑region allocation, label suppression, or scrolling triggers. Its presence in the citation list likely reflects a generic "communication between devices" classification rather than technical proximity. I do not identify a claim of 7,020,849 that this reference plausibly anticipates. Treat it as background art only.

Reference 7 — US 2004/0205156 A1 (Robert Aarts)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2004/0205156 A1, Accessing functionalities in hypermedia. Inventor: Robert Aarts.
• Dates: Priority 2001‑12‑21; published 2004‑10‑14.
• Description: Accessing functionalities within hypermedia content. Confidence caveat: not retrieved in full this session.
• Statutory point that matters most: Published 2004‑10‑14, which is after the '849 filing date (2002‑05‑31). It therefore cannot be §102(a) or §102(b) art. Its only possible status is pre‑AIA §102(e) — available as of its earliest effective US filing date, which its 2001‑12‑21 priority suggests predates the '849 filing. Because it published after the '849 filing, its citation of record is most consistent with it having entered prosecution late (e.g., an IDS submission or examiner addition between the 2002 filing and the 2006 grant), not with it being a rejection basis.
• Potential relevance (§102): Low as to subject matter (hypermedia functionality access ≠ display‑region reallocation). Any §102(e) argument would be confined to generalized claims 9/17 read extremely broadly. I would not rely on it.

3. Ranking summary

4. The composite §102 picture (important caveat)

Taken individually, no single reference of record discloses the full combination that distinguishes the '849 independent claims — most importantly the conditional assignment/unassignment of label regions and their reclamation for content (claims 1, 5), the "logically dividing said display" step tied to a determination of whether to show first data (claims 9, 16, 17), and the timer‑driven return of labels (claims 2–4, 6–8). The two Lucent patents get closest to the problem, and Motorola gets closest to the title‑plus‑soft‑key‑label screen — but the examiner had all seven and allowed the claims anyway, which is the strongest available signal that the combination was not found disclosed.

A §103 challenge combining US 6,415,164 + US 6,366,302 (dynamic space allocation + title/soft‑key‑label/scroll‑indicating radiotelephone UI) is a materially stronger theory than any §102 theory against the independent claims. That is where the art of record actually bites.

5. Confidence and residual uncertainty (stated explicitly)

• High confidence: the identity of the seven cited references, their numbers, titles, assignees, and issue/priority dates — these come from the patent's own record, which is authoritative for this purpose. Verified full or partial text for US 6,415,164, US 6,366,302, and US 6,408,191.
• NOT verified in this session (do not treat my characterizations as full‑text‑based): US 6,115,041 A (Nortel), US 5,737,394 A (Sony), US 6,819,341 B2 (HP), US 2004/0205156 A1 (Aarts). For these I relied on the record's bibliographic data and the titles; my §102 mappings for them are tentative and several are explicitly marked as such. Pull each full text before filing anything.
• Moderate confidence: that US 6,408,191 and US 6,415,164 share the same Ser. No. 08/775,316 parent (6,415,164 states it expressly; 6,408,191's identical 1996‑12‑31 priority date makes it likely but I could not confirm the parent in this session).
• A note on what the task cannot yield: because the citation set is closed at seven and contains no NPL or foreign art, any broader prior‑art landscape (e.g., contemporaneous WAP/WML browser soft‑key handling, or the Openwave/Phone.com client UI itself) would have to come from outside the patent's face. That is a separate exercise from "look at each patent citation," which is what I have done here.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in the actual content of the cited references before building combinations.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,020,849 B1

"Dynamic display for communication devices" (Chen; Openwave; filed & priority 2002‑05‑31)

Scope of this section: § 103 analysis only, built from the prior‑art references listed on the patent's own page (the seven examiner‑cited "Patent Citations"), cross‑referenced to the claim set and the previously generated sections (bibliographic data, claim scope, assignment chain, and litigation history are not repeated here). Where I could not retrieve the full text of a reference in this session, I say so and downgrade the confidence rather than assert content.

Important carry‑over from the Litigation section: the '849 patent was never adjudicated on the merits — the ITC terminated it on standing (2012‑05‑15) and the parties settled globally in Nov. 2012. There is therefore no validity ruling, no IPR/PGR/CBM record, and no estoppel to lean on. Everything below is an independent technical assessment.

1. Graham factors: scope, content, and the level of ordinary skill

1.1 Field of the invention

The '849 specification places itself in "communication systems, and more particularly, to displaying information on communication devices," with express emphasis on "handheld communication devices" having "a relatively small amount of display space." All seven examiner‑cited references are in the same field of endeavour (small‑screen telephone/radiotelephone user interfaces) or are analogous arts of display‑space management. There is no cross‑industry leap.

1.2 Effective dates of the cited art (all pre‑date the 2002‑05‑31 priority date)

Key point: the single most on‑point reference, US 6,415,164, carries a 1996 priority date — six years before the '849 filing. It is not a "later‑developed art" problem.

1.3 Proposed level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA)

A person having ordinary skill in the art at May 2002 would have: (a) a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer science (or equivalent), and (b) approximately 2–3 years of experience designing user interfaces and display‑management software for handheld/wireless communication devices (radiotelephones, pagers, PDAs) — or, alternatively, several years of practical radiotelephone UI design experience in lieu of the degree. This is a low‑to‑moderate skill level; the reference material it would consult is exactly the cited art: radiotelephone GUI patents and the product literature of Sony, Motorola, Lucent, and Nortel.

2. The claims to be assessed

Independent: 1, 5, 9, 16, 17. Dependent: 2–4 (from 1), 6–8 (from 5), 10–15 (from 9).

The patent's own Summary admits the starting convention — "content information is displayed in the display portion 24 and labels are displayed in display portions 20 and 22," with portions 20/22 "reserved to display only labels." Stripped to essentials, the asserted advance over that convention is one idea in two dressings:

• Claims 1/5 (and 2–8): dynamic reclaiming of label regions for content — title+content → title+soft‑key label → (no labels) → content in both regions, with timers/soft‑key actuation governing the transitions.
• Claims 9/16/17 (and 10–15): dynamic logical division of the display — decide whether to show "first data"; if not, show "second data" (only data / entire displayable space per claims 10–11); if yes, logically divide the screen and place first data on portion 1 and second data on portion 2, with the decision driven by scroll‑started, scroll‑stopped, or timer‑expiry (claim 14).

Everything else (colors/shades, sliding/fading animation, scroll indicators) appears only in the description, not in the claims — so it cannot rescue patentability.

3. Principal reference: US 6,415,164 (Blanchard et al., Lucent Technologies)

I retrieved the specification text for this reference. It is close to dispositive on motivation because it frames and solves the identical problem the '849 patent frames:

"[S]ome telephone terminals use soft key user interfaces. While soft key approaches can increase the flexibility …, they require that a portion of the display be dedicated exclusively to this purpose. For example, many telephone terminals dedicate the bottom row of the display for presentation of label screen prompts which correspond to a set of hard keys. … such a design constrains the amount of space available for presentation of non‑menu items, and also constrains the number of soft key choices which may be shown at any given time." (US 6,415,164, Background)

And its stated solution:

"An arrangement for dynamically varying how space on a small display is allocated for presentation of various types of user information … optimizes utilization of space on small displays by dynamically allocating lines on the display for presentation of status or header‑type information as well as menu item‑type information. The arrangement configures the display such that lines therein are dedicatable in any combination to displaying these two types of information. … on a terminal with a 4‑line display, one line may be dedicated to status information, and three lines to menu items; or alternatively, two lines may be dedicated to status information and two lines also to menu items." (US 6,415,164, Summary)

For § 103 purposes this reference supplies:

1. A small telephone display partitioned into portions (its 4‑line LCD, allocation configurable line‑by‑line);
2. Dynamic assignment and unassignment of those portions depending on what is being shown — the '849's "assigning/unassigning regions" (FIG. 2 method steps 202–210);
3. The two candidate data types — status/header (“context”) information and menu‑item (“content”) information — which map directly onto '849 claim 13's "first data is associated with control or context information and said second data is associated with content information"; and
4. The same express motivation ("optimizes utilization of space"), so no hindsight reconstruction of motive is needed.

I verified the abstract, the background, and the summary of this reference from three independent copies (Google Patents, the USPTO/PTAB exhibit PDF, and the granted‑patent PDF). High confidence.

4. Ground 1 — Claims 1 and 5 (and 2–4, 6–8): US 6,415,164 in view of US 6,366,302 and/or US 5,737,394

4.1 What the secondary references add

US 6,366,302 B1 (Crosby et al., Motorola) — "Enhanced graphic user interface for mobile radiotelephones." Retrieved abstract + text:

"For each list, the display (208) presents a title message (300) with unique identification markings …, an end‑of‑list indicator (340), and a dynamic scroll indicator (308) … A context‑sensitive symbol (306) is displayed whenever a context sensitive menu is available for a highlighted item."
"An exit function soft‑key label 310 is presented in a first corner 312 of the display 208, and a select function soft‑key label 314 is presented in a second corner 316."
The reference also expressly targets the '849's problem, seeking "a user interface that efficiently utilizes input actions" and noting "the small size of the displays on radiotelephones has limited the creativity of GUI designers," plus a miniature dynamic scroll indicator "to compensate for a limited display area." It also discloses time‑based removal of displayed material: digits "will be erased from the display to conserve power" "after a certain period of time."

US 5,737,394 A (Anderson et al., Sony). Retrieved abstract + claims:

"a plurality of dedicated keys, a plurality of changeable keys each having at least one respective dedicated function associated therewith, and a display for displaying a plurality of lines of data"; claim 18: "display means for displaying the current function associated with each of said changeable keys"; "changeable or soft keys having functions or features associated therewith which change in accordance with a selected mode."
This is the plainest possible teaching of a soft‑key label that appears/changes with operating state on a telephone display — the "displaying at least one soft key label in said second region" element of claim 1.

4.2 Element‑by‑element mapping (Claim 1)

4.3 Motivation to combine (KSR / MPEP 2143)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution mechanism. Both US 6,415,164 and US 6,366,302 are radiotelephone/telephone small‑display GUI patents that expressly identify the reserved‑label‑row problem and the "efficient utilization of small display space" objective. Combining them is the combination of prior art elements "according to known methods to yield predictable results" (KSR rationale A).
2. "Known technique to improve similar devices in the same way" (KSR rationale C). Dynamic line/region reallocation as taught by US 6,415,164 is a generalizable display‑management technique; a PHOSITA would recognize it would improve any small communication‑device display carrying a title bar and soft‑key label row (as in Crosby/Sony), in the same way and with the same expected benefit.
3. The '849 patent's own description supplies the motive. The specification states the deficiency is "a serious drawback" "especially for devices with relatively small viewing area." US 6,415,164 states the identical drawback and the identical benefit. No new problem was solved; the same problem was solved by the same mechanism.
4. Ordering of the two display states is a design choice. Claim 1 recites title+content then title+soft‑key label. The '849 specification attributes that sequence entirely to arbitrary timers (delay T1; Timer 1 ≈5 s, Timer 2 ≈10 s). Sequencing display states in time is a predictable, non‑technical variation, and US 6,366,302 already teaches time‑gated changes to what is shown ("after a certain period of time, the digits will be erased from the display").

4.4 Dependent claims 2–4 and 6–8 (timers; soft‑key override)

• Claim 2/6 (first timer → then display the soft‑key label). US 6,366,302's timed erasure of displayed digits establishes that using a timer to control what is present on a small radiotelephone display was known; US 6,415,164's flow‑chart‑driven, event/state‑driven screen sequences (FIGS. 3–4) supply the control‑logic architecture. Using a timer as the trigger is a simple substitution of one known control element for another (KSR rationale B).
• Claim 3/7 (show the soft‑key label before the timer expires if a soft key is actuated). US 6,366,302 expressly operates its UI "in response to keystrokes" with keystroke‑driven scroll and page‑up/page‑next behaviour. Making a display change responsive to a key press instead of waiting for the timer is the predictable substitution of an event trigger for a time trigger — and it is the same behaviour the '849 describes as an incidental convenience ("the functional labels … can be displayed before the delay T2 if a soft key is activated").
• Claim 4/8 (second timer → title + soft‑key label again). Two sequential timer‑governed display states is the arithmetical extension of the claim‑2 teaching, obvious to try (KSR rationale F) with a reasonable expectation of success (restoring the full labelled UI).

5. Ground 2 — Claims 9, 16, 17 (and 10–15): US 6,415,164, alone or in view of US 6,366,302 / US 6,115,041

Claim 9 is the broadest claim in the patent and is the most exposed:

"determining whether to display a first data …; displaying a second data … when … not to display said first data; logically dividing said display into first and second display‑portions when … to display said first data; displaying said first data on said first display‑portion …; and displaying said second data on said second display‑portion."

US 6,415,164's "lines therein are dedicatable in any combination to displaying these two types of information," with the worked example of a 4‑line display being configured 1‑line‑status + 3‑lines‑menu or 2‑and‑2, is a direct teaching of a variable logical division of the display into portions determined by what is being displayed. Mapping to claim 13 (first data = control/context; second = content): US 6,415,164's status/header‑type information is context information and its menu item‑type information is the content of the screen.

⚠️ Flag — this may actually be an anticipation ground, not merely obviousness. If US 6,415,164 is read as disclosing each of claim 9's elements (conditional determination; variable logical division; placement of two data types on the resulting portions), the correct challenge to claim 9 is § 102(e) rather than § 103. I present it as the § 103 core because the "logically dividing" language admits of a claim‑construction argument that US 6,415,164 allocates lines among label types rather than dividing a display into portions — but a challenger should plead § 102 and § 103 in the alternative.

Claim 14's scroll‑trigger limitation is supplied by US 6,366,302 (scroll operations + dynamic scroll indicator tied to the position of the display screen "with respect to a larger list or text field"). A second, independent route to the "determining" step is US 6,115,041 A (Nortel, "Display screen management apparatus and method") — see the caveat in § 7.

6. Ground 3 — Claims 16/17 (computer‑readable medium and device): routine implementation

Claims 16 and 17 add nothing to claims 9's substance; they recite the same steps as program code and as a configured device. Where a method is disclosed or obvious, recasting it as (a) a computer‑readable medium bearing program code and (b) a device "capable of operating to" perform it is the predictable application of known implementation choices — general‑purpose microprocessors/ROM/RAM executing display‑management routines were the standard telephone architecture as of 2002 (indeed US 6,415,164 describes exactly this: a CPU with "program memory … data memory … ROM … RAM" programmed to manage the display). No separate inventive contribution is claimed.

7. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4) and counter‑arguments

7.1 Objective evidence cutting against patentability

• Long‑felt need cuts both ways. The problem (reserved label rows wasting scarce display area) was identified as early as 1996 in US 6,415,164's background, i.e., six years before the '849 filing. The '849 specification's own "Description of the Related Art" adds no new diagnosis. A six‑year gap can rebut obviousness, but here the gap is undermined because the solution mechanism was already published in 1996/2002 by the same art.
• No unexpected results. The claimed benefit ("relatively more space can be used to display content information") is the direct, expected consequence of reclaiming previously reserved space. Predictable‑result combinations are obvious.
• The '849 specification supplies the motivations for its own combination. Its stated advantages — "more efficient displaying techniques," "without significantly departing from user expectations and established conventions" — are usability goals, not technical discoveries. Under KSR, "[a] court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions." Here it is not.
• Commercial/industry uptake (need evidence). The '849 patent was acquired by Google and briefly by HTC and used in the 2011 HTC–Apple campaign, which could support a commercial‑success narrative. But there is no evidence of nexus between any such success and the claimed dynamic‑region feature (as opposed to the handsets' other merits), and the patent was never adjudicated on the merits. I would not credit commercial success absent a nexus showing.

7.2 Where a § 103 challenge is weakest (and how to shore it up)

1. "Menu item‑type information" vs. "content information." US 6,415,164 dynamically allocates between two label‑like information types (status/header and menu items); the '849 claims expressly require showing content information in the reclaimed region. An accused infringer must show that the art's "menu item‑type information" (and US 6,366,302's lists/text fields) is content in the claim's sense, or that the substitution is obvious. The specification's own FIG. 3 is helpful to the challenger: the '849 patent treats the title as the label and puts the reclaimed region to work with text, while US 6,366,302's list items and text fields are plainly screen content displayed alongside title (300) and soft‑key labels (310/314).
2. Does US 6,366,302 or US 5,737,394 actually remove the title or the soft‑key labels? I confirmed the soft‑key labels' presence and the timed erasure of entered digits, but I did not retrieve the figures (FIGS. 3A–3D, 4, 5, 6A–6C) needed to confirm a screen state in which the title or soft‑key labels are absent. Verification needed against the full text of US 6,366,302 and US 5,737,394 (and, for US 6,415,164, its FIGS. 3–4 flow charts).
3. US 6,115,041 and US 6,408,191 — content not retrieved. I could not pull the specification text of US 6,115,041 (Nortel) or US 6,408,191 (Lucent) in this session. Their titles indicate highly relevant disclosures — "Display screen management apparatus and method" and "Arrangement for displaying message screens on a telephone terminal" (both now disclosed to the '849 examiner) — and both are § 102(b)/§ 102(e) art. If US 6,408,191 shows message screens on a telephone terminal in which soft‑key labels give way to message text, it would convert Ground 1's claim‑1 mapping from "obvious" to "anticipated." This is the single highest‑value verification step.
4. US 2004/0205156 A1 (Aarts) — prior‑art status is uncertain. The page lists a priority date of 2001‑12‑21 but a publication date of 2004‑10‑14. For a pre‑AIA § 102(e) reference, a 2004‑published U.S. application publication is prior art only as of its U.S. filing date, and it gets the benefit of an earlier U.S. provisional only if that provisional supports the relied‑upon disclosure. If the 2001‑12‑21 date reflects a foreign priority or a PCT filing without a supporting U.S. provisional, Aarts is not prior art at all to a 2002‑05‑31 filing, and any ground resting on it collapses. Do not build a primary ground on Aarts without confirming its U.S. filing/§ 102(e) date. Low confidence on this reference's status — flagged, not asserted.
5. US 6,819,341 (HP) appears directed to appliance/external‑device communication rather than display‑space allocation; on the material I have, it is weakly relevant to any claim and I would not rely on it.
6. Cited‑by documents are not usable prior art. Nearly all of the 138 "Cited By" documents post‑date the 2002‑05‑31 priority date (the Tegic/Nuance text‑input families with 1998–2000 priorities are the exception, and they concern text disambiguation, not display‑space allocation). Two are worth noting only as evidence of what the field considered "label" behaviour, not as § 103 art: US 2005/0114791 A1 (IBM, "Cueing mechanism that indicates a display is able to be scrolled," prio. 2003‑11‑20) and US 2004/0268263 A1 (Microsoft, "Non‑persistent user interface for real‑time communication," prio. 2003‑06‑26) — both post‑date the '849 filing and therefore cannot be used.

7.3 A drafting defect worth flagging (separate from § 103)

Claim 12 depends from claim 11 and recites "said scroll movement," but neither claim 12, claim 11, nor any claim from which it depends introduces "scroll movement." The antecedent basis is missing. Construed as written, claim 12 is indefinite under § 112(b); construed to reach "scroll movement" by implication, its scope is unclear and it adds a scrolling‑content limitation (disclosed by US 6,366,302) that would be obvious over the same art. This is a § 112 issue, not § 103, but it materially weakens the claim family's enforceability and should be raised alongside any § 103 challenge.

8. Conclusion and confidence assessment

Claim‑by‑claim obviousness posture (based on the reference material actually retrieved):

Bottom line: The strongest § 103 case against US 7,020,849 is US 6,415,164 (Blanchard et al., Lucent) as the primary reference, because it (i) has a 1996 priority date, (ii) expressly identifies the same drawback the '849 patent identifies — soft‑key label rows dedicated exclusively, constraining space for everything else — and (iii) expressly claims the same remedy, dynamically allocating display lines so that the portions are "dedicatable in any combination" to different information types. US 6,366,302 and US 5,737,394 supply the specific title‑plus‑soft‑key‑label screen idiom and the scroll/time‑driven state changes. Combining them requires no hindsight motive construction, because the motivation is stated verbatim in the primary reference.

Highest‑value next steps (in order): (1) retrieve the full specifications/figures of US 6,115,041 and US 6,408,191, which are the two unread examiner‑cited references and are titled directly on point; (2) confirm the § 102(e) date of US 2004/0205156 A1 (Aarts) before relying on it; (3) confirm the '849 prosecution history (any § 103 rejections and the examiner's stated reasons for allowance) to close the record against the prior‑art combinations above.