US 7028102

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 7028102, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me search specifically for litigation and any 2026 CAFC docket activity involving this patent.

Let me do a couple of targeted checks for any 2026 appellate activity and confirm the prior-art use in the Flexiworld IPRs.

US Patent 7,028,102 — Summary

Search note / scope limitation: I could not run a live query against USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC docket system directly. The findings below come from the authoritative full-text record (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑27), corroborated by Unified Patents and Patent Leaderboard. I found no 2026 CAFC docket involving US 7,028,102 (see "Litigation / appellate status" below).

---

Bibliographic data

Discrepancy to flag (not auto-corrected): aggregator records (Unified Patents) list priority 1999-12-12, filing 2000-08-14 and grant 2006-04-10 — i.e., one day earlier across the board, likely a time-zone artifact. The patent face and Google Patents record state 1999-12-13 / 2000-08-15 / 2006-04-11, which I treat as authoritative.

Assignee note: Unified Patents lists "Original Assignee: Axis AB" with "Parent Company: Canon Inc." Axis AB is a Canon group company. Google Patents lists the current assignee as Axis AB. I have not independently verified any recorded assignment of the '102 patent itself to Canon.

---

Abstract

A selected document stored at a node of a network is presented using (i) a handheld device, (ii) a communication device for a presentation unit, and (iii) a device that handles presentation requests. Operating the handheld device, a user gets a presentation unit specification from the communication device. That specification, together with an address of the selected document, is sent to the request-handling device, where the document is converted into a format suitable for that presentation unit and is then presented. The system may use WAP to send information from the handheld device and to access the Internet, and Bluetooth or IrDA between the handheld device and the communication device. The system enables mobile printing and portable access to documents that cannot be displayed on a small screen.

---

Independent claims in plain language (claims 1, 5, 11, 14; 15 total claims)

Claim 1 — Method of presenting documents
On a wireless communication device, a user selects both a document offered by an information service provider and a presentation unit. The wireless device then receives a specification from that presentation unit that gives (a) a transport route to the unit and (b) its characteristics — where the characteristics include at least one of: manufacturer + model number, a device-driver filename, or a URL of a compatible device driver. The system then identifies both a device driver for that unit (from the characteristics) and an application to interpret the document (from the document's format), converts the document into a presentation file using that application and driver, and delivers the file over the specified transport route to the unit.

Claim 5 — System for presenting information
A system comprising: at least one presentation unit that responds to an identity request by delivering a specification (transport route + characteristics, including at least one of manufacturer + model, driver filename, or driver URL); at least one information service provider supplying documents; at least one wireless communication device that selects a document, receives the specification, and generates a presentation request containing the specification plus information identifying the selected document; and a device for handling presentation requests that identifies the driver (from the unit characteristics) and the interpreting application (from the document format), converts the document to a presentation file using both, and delivers it via the specified transport route.

Claim 11 — Presentation unit communication device (e.g., a print server / communications box attached to a printer)
The device has: a short-range wireless interface to talk to a wireless communication device; a presentation-unit interface (to the printer/display); and a processor that (a) responds to an identity request received over the short-range interface by delivering the specification (transport route + characteristics, including at least one of manufacturer + model, driver filename, or driver URL) and (b) responds to delivery of a presentation file from an information service provider by forwarding that file through the presentation-unit interface for actual presentation.

Claim 14 — Wireless communication device (e.g., a WAP cellular telephone)
The device has: a short-range wireless interface; a cellular telephonic interface; and a processor that, on user input, (a) opens a telephonic link to an information service provider, (b) opens a short-range link to a presentation unit and receives the specification from it (transport route + characteristics, including at least one of manufacturer + model, driver filename, or driver URL), and (c) forwards that specification to the information service provider over the telephonic link — thereby triggering conversion of a document held by the provider into a presentation file and delivery over the specified transport route to the unit.

Dependent claims add: transport route = unit address / URL / e-mail address (claims 2, 6, 12); broadcast identity request and user selection among responding units (claims 3, 15); cellular link for document selection + short-range link for unit selection (claims 4, 7, 8); an e-mail server for e-mail delivery of the presentation file (claim 9); and the request-handling device implemented as processes on the provider's server (claim 10).

---

Litigation / appellate status (including 2026 CAFC check)

• No 2026 CAFC docket or appeal involving US 7,028,102 was found. This is consistent with the patent's status: it expired on 2022-02-15 (adjusted expiration), so it is not an enforceable asset that would generate fresh infringement appeals in 2026.
• The '102 patent does, however, appear in post-grant proceedings as prior art, not as a challenged patent: it was filed as Exhibit 1014 in IPR2022-01112 (Roku, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.) at the PTAB. Its 1999 priority date makes it a natural prior-art reference against later "wireless printing / output device discovery" patents asserted by Flexiworld.
• Broad 2026 Federal Circuit searches (docket summaries, PTAB-appeal statistics, opinion round-ups) surfaced no case citing this patent. On the record available, the '102 patent was never the patent-in-suit in a reported action I could identify.

---

Sources

• Google Patents full text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7028102/en
• Unified Patents portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-7028102-B1
• Patent Leaderboard: https://www.patentleaderboard.com/patent/7028102
• PTAB exhibit (prior-art use): Docket Alarm, IPR2022-01112, Exhibit 1014 — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01112/Roku_Inc._v._Flexiworld_Technologies_Inc/docs/06-30-2022-Petitioner/Exhibit-1014-EX1014___US7028102_Larsson.pdf

Uncertainty to flag: (1) I could not confirm the current ownership chain beyond the original Axis AB grant, and the Canon Inc. "parent company" attribution is an aggregator label I did not verify against USPTO assignment records. (2) The date discrepancies above derive from third-party databases; the patent-face dates are used. (3) The absence of a 2026 CAFC docket is based on negative search results — I cannot prove a case does not exist, only that none appeared in the sources searched.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7028102. Let me run several targeted searches.

The initial searches surfaced the patent record but no litigation. Let me dig into litigation-specific sources.

No litigation surfaced. Let me do a few final confirmatory checks on litigation-specific databases.

Bottom line

I found no litigation involving US Patent 7,028,102. Based on my searches of patent-litigation sources (including the Unified Patents portal entry for this patent, PTAB/PTAB-related documents, and general litigation reporting), I could not identify any district court action, ITC investigation, PTAB/IPR/PGR proceeding, or Federal Circuit appeal in which US 7,028,102 was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue.

Under your instruction, I am not going to return cases for similar numbers. Both search queries did surface documents referencing confusable strings, and none of them relate to this patent:

I flag these explicitly because they clustered in the results and could easily be mistaken for this patent.

Patent identity (confirming the correct record)

Per the authoritative full text and the Unified Patents portal entry:

• Patent: US 7,028,102 B1, "Method and System for Presenting Information"
• Inventors: Olof Larsson; Lennart Fagerberg
• Original assignee: Axis AB
• Application: US 09/639,011; filed 2000-08-15
• Priority: 1999-12-13 (SE 9904552A); also U.S. Provisional 60/183,281 (2000-02-17)
• Granted: 2006-04-11; Expired – Lifetime; adjusted expiration 2022-02-15
• Family: SE515775C2 (SE9904552A)

Status table

Important caveats (please read)

1. This is a negative finding, not a certification. My searches were web-based and did not exhaustively query PACER, Docket Navigator, LexisNexis, or the full Unified Patents litigation caselist behind its search interface. It is possible that a suit exists that is not well indexed by public search engines — particularly older (2006–2015) district court cases, which are frequently poorly indexed online.

2. The Unified Patents portal entry did not return a litigation list. The page for US-7028102-B1 displayed bibliographic data and citation counts ("Referenced By (123)") but the searches surfaced no linked litigation caselist entry for this patent number.

3. No PTAB challenge found either. I located no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming this patent. This is consistent with the patent's profile: it is a practice-oriented mobile-printing patent originally held by an operating company (Axis AB, a network-camera maker), not an NPE asset, which reduces the likelihood of a validity challenge.

4. One data anomaly to treat cautiously. The Unified Patents portal entry lists "Parent Company: Canon Inc" while also listing Original Assignee as Axis AB. I could not verify this, and it is inconsistent with the patent record I have. I am reporting it as an unverified data artifact, not as fact; it has no bearing on the litigation question. If you need the chain of title, that should be confirmed through USPTO Assignment records rather than the portal.

5. Timing constraint. Because the patent expired 2022-02-15, any enforcement action would necessarily have been filed before that date, and recoverable damages would be limited to pre-expiration conduct (35 U.S.C. § 286's six-year lookback would also cap the window at roughly 2006–2022 at most).

Recommendation for definitive verification

If you need a defensible "no litigation" statement for a freedom-to-operate, validity, or damages opinion, verify against:

• PACER — party search for "Axis AB," "Axis Communications," and "Axis, Inc." across all districts
• Unified Patents Litigation Caselist — portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=7028102
• USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records for US 09/639,011 to confirm chain of title
• CAFC docket search for any appeal referencing 7,028,102

PTAB / AIA Trial Activity — U.S. Patent No. 7,028,102 ("Method and system for presenting information")

Source of record: USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this task, cross-checked against web sources. Research date: 2026-09-27.

---

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs, zero derivations; no institution decisions, no Final Written Decisions, no settlements, no PTAB-to-Federal-Circuit appeals. The structured ODP block returns no AIA trial proceedings, and targeted web searching surfaced no petition, no Board paper, and no CAFC docket naming U.S. Patent No. 7,028,102.

That is the whole picture: there is no PTAB record for this patent to hand a defendant a claim-level kill list — and there is no PTAB record to warn a defendant about either. The defensive posture is therefore not "hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "claims canceled"; it is untested at the Board, with the patent's practical exposure now governed by its expired status (legal status verbatim: "Expired - Lifetime, expires 2022-02-15") rather than by any administrative adjudication.

Fabrication guardrail: because no proceeding exists, no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, ground, or FWD disposition is reported below. I will not invent one. If a proceeding appears in a later ODP ingest or in a district-court filing I did not locate, the analysis below must be revised.

---

Per-proceeding detail

None available. No proceeding number exists to populate the template. For completeness on why the search came up empty, and on the only AIA vehicles that were ever legally available against this patent:

• IPR (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319) — the only vehicle with a live filing window, but none was filed. IPR remains statutorily available even against an expired patent, so a determined challenger is not procedurally barred — there is simply no petitioner of record.
• PGR (35 U.S.C. §§ 321–329) — statutorily unavailable. PGR reaches only patents with an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16. This patent's priority date is 1999-12-13 (SE 9904552) with a U.S. filing date of 2000-08-15, so it is a pre-AIA patent and was never PGR-eligible.
• CBM (§ 18 of the AIA, transitional) — window closed 2020-09-16. Even during the window, a mobile-printing/WAP/Bluetooth architecture would very likely have qualified as a "technological invention" and been excluded from CBM eligibility under § 18(d)(2). No CBM was filed.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 15 claims are UNTESTED — because no claims were ever challenged. Claims 1–15 stand exactly as issued on 2006-04-11, unamended, with no certificate of cancellation, no reissue, and no ex parte reexamination on the record I can locate. Crucially, "untested" here does not mean "strong." It means only that the validity fight, if it happens, has not been priced by the Board. The independent claims a defendant would face are claim 1 (method: select document + presentation unit at a wireless device, receive a specification specifying both transport route and unit characteristics, identify device driver + interpreting application, convert, deliver), claim 5 (system), claim 11 (presentation-unit communication device), and claim 14 (wireless communication device). Every one of those four independent claims is live and unadjudicated.

The far more important fact for a defendant today is expiration, not validity. Google Patents records the patent as Expired - Lifetime, expires 2022-02-15 (adjusted expiration). A patent owner cannot recover damages for infringement occurring after expiration, so any current demand letter built on ongoing conduct is facially defective as to post-2022-02-15 activity. Combined with the six-year damages lookback, the practical damages tail is essentially closed. If you are receiving a demand today citing US 7,028,102, the first question is not "is claim 1 invalid?" but "what pre-expiration, non-time-barred acts are even alleged?" Also verify ownership/standing: the record shows Axis AB as original and listed current assignee (assignment recorded 2000-12-19, inventors Fagerberg and Larsson), while at least one third-party patent database lists Canon Inc. as the parent company — a chain-of-title worth confirming before engaging on the merits.

Estoppel landscape: empty, and that cuts both ways. Because no IPR reached a Final Written Decision, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached to anyone. No petitioner is barred from raising § 102/§ 103 grounds, and equally, no defendant can point to an earlier petitioner's win. There is no General Plastic / serial-petition story, no Fintiv discretionary-denial history, and no defensive aggregator in the chain. Notably, the sibling searches surfaced a Unified Patents track record of IPRs in the wireless-printing space (e.g., Unified Patents, LLC v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., IPR2022-00775), but that proceeding targets Flexiworld's patents — it is not a challenge to, and does not involve, US 7,028,102. Do not conflate them.

One genuinely useful cross-picture signal: US 7,028,102 appears on the face of the Flexiworld Technologies wireless-printing patent family as cited prior art — the "Cited By" list for '102 includes Flexiworld-family members such as US 8,285,802, US 10,860,290, US 10,915,296, US 11,204,729, plus US 9,384,356. In other words, '102's 1999/2000 mobile-printing disclosure has been used against later NPE wireless-printing patents. That makes '102 valuable as a prior-art citation and invalidity anchor for a defendant facing a different wireless-printing patent — even though '102 itself is unenforceable going forward.

---

Recommended next steps

1. Treat this patent as "no PTAB activity — and none likely." With the patent expired and no petitioner ever having filed, there are no trial-stage milestones to track: no § 314(b) one-year institution clock running, no institution deadline, no oral hearing, no FWD due date. Any "IPR is pending" representation made to you about this patent is false; ask for the proceeding number and check the PTAB E2E docket directly: https://ptab.uspto.gov/ (search patent 7,028,102).
2. If you are a defendant receiving a demand or complaint citing '102: (a) confirm the asserted claims and the accused acts; (b) confirm every accused act occurred before 2022-02-15, or the claim fails as a matter of law; (c) apply the six-year damages bar (35 U.S.C. § 286); (d) verify current ownership and standing. Link the authoritative patent record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7028102/en.
3. If the demand is a package including other mobile/wireless-printing patents, mine the '102 specification and its 1999-12-13/2000-08-15 priority for § 102/§ 103 art against those other patents — the Flexiworld family's citation of '102 shows this is a proven line of attack. For any other patent in the demand, pull the actual PTAB record (IPR2022-00775 is a live example in that space) before deciding whether to buy peace or litigate. https://www.courtlistener.com/ for any CAFC appeal in that family.
4. Absence-of-IPR is a real diagnostic. Well-asserted, commercially meaningful patents almost always attract a post-grant challenge; a 25-year-old patent with zero AIA filings in the space where NPEs have been active is consistent with a patent that was never worth attacking on its own. But it is a negative signal about assertion value, not a substitute for a validity analysis — and it is not a holding you can cite to a court.

Confidence statement: high confidence that no AIA proceeding exists on the ODP feed (per the structured block). Moderate confidence that no unindexed proceeding exists elsewhere, based on web searching; I found no petition, Board decision, or CAFC docket referencing US 7,028,102. I did not locate a definitive "PTAB decisions" page entry, a Docket Alarm PTAB docket, or a Unified Patents PTAB record for this patent — which is itself consistent with there being none, but I state it as a search result, not as a certified negative.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 7,028,102 through USPTO assignment records and corporate-ownership sources.

Let me try to pull the actual USPTO assignment records and Google Patents legal events.

Search budget is exhausted. Here is the assignment analysis based on the authoritative full text, the sources retrieved, and the corporate-ownership record I was able to confirm.

---

Inventors

Pattern flags — none of the classic pre-fire-sale tells present:

• No inventor departure signal. Both inventors are named as assignors on the 2000-12-19 assignment to Axis AB, i.e. they executed the standard employment/assignment instrument. Nothing in the record suggests either inventor was divested or that the portfolio was orphaned.
• Data caveat (do not treat as a finding): Patent Leaderboard's inventor pages resolve the name "Olof Larsson" to two different employers — an "Axis Ab" page and a "Scania CV AB — 9 Patents" page, both of which list US 7,028,102. This is almost certainly a name-string collision on a very common Swedish name, not evidence of a job change by this inventor. I raise it only so it is not mistaken for a mobility signal. Do not rely on Patent Leaderboard for inventor-employer attribution; the authoritative record (Google Patents / the issued patent) names Axis AB as original assignee.

---

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Axis AB, Lund, Sweden (original assignee and, per the only recorded assignment, the owner from 2000 to the present).
• Line of business at filing: Axis AB was founded in 1984 and built its original business on network connectivity products — network print servers and device connectivity — before becoming the global leader in network/IP surveillance cameras. That history matters here: the patent's central commercial embodiment (a communication device / print server that receives a converted print file and drives a printer, delivering a "printer specification" including manufacturer, model, PnP ID, driver URL and transport route) maps directly onto Axis's print-server product line from that era. On the face of the specification (FIGS. 2–4, 7a–7b), Axis AB plausibly shipped a product embodying the claims. I was not able to retrieve a specific product SKU/manual confirming this, so treat "shipped a product" as inferred from the specification's embodiment and Axis's contemporaneous product line, not as a verified fact.
• Current status: Operating, as a wholly-owned Canon subsidiary. Canon Inc. launched a recommended public tender offer on 2015-02-10 at SEK 340/share (~SEK 23.6 bn / ~US$2.8 bn — Canon's largest-ever acquisition). Canon crossed 75.5% on 2015-04-08 and had ~84.8% by 2015-05-08. Critically, Canon committed that Axis would "continue to remain as a separate legal entity within the Canon Group," with management, HQ, and R&D staying in Lund. That structural fact is the key to the whole assignment analysis below.
• Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy, no Chapter 7/11 anywhere in the record.

Contradiction resolved from the prior section

The litigation summary flagged the Unified Patents portal's "Parent Company: Canon Inc" as an "unverified data artifact… inconsistent with the patent record." I can now resolve that: it is not an artifact — it is correct, and it is not inconsistent. Canon Inc. is Axis AB's corporate parent following the 2015 tender offer, even though Axis AB remains the legal owner of record of the patent. The portal's "Original Assignee: Axis AB / Parent Company: Canon Inc" pair is coherent. The prior section's caveat can be upgraded from "unverified artifact" to "explained."

(Minor portal artifacts worth noting for precision: Unified Patents lists priority 1999-12-12 vs. the authoritative 1999-12-13, and grant 2006-04-10 vs. 2006-04-11 — a consistent off-by-one, likely a timezone/UTC rendering issue, not a different patent. The portal's blank "Current Assignee" field is also consistent with what I find below: there is no post-issuance assignment to populate it.)

---

Assignment timeline

One (1) recorded assignment exists. The US Patent Assignment Search database covers records back to August 1980, so a 2000-dated filing is well inside coverage — the single entry is not a coverage gap.

• Recorded 2000-12-19 — Reel/frame: not surfaced in the sources available to me (see gap note below)
  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
  • Assignor: FAGERBERG, LENNART; LARSSON, OLOF
  • Assignee: AXIS AB (Lund, Sweden)
  • Correspondent: not surfaced in the sources available to me — I will not invent one.
  • Context: Inventor-to-employer assignment of the application (executed as a condition of employment); the standard pre-issuance perfection of title. Not a fire-sale, reorg, securitization, or asserter transfer.

Everything else in the record is corporate control, not patent assignment. The 2015 Canon transaction was a share purchase (tender offer) of Axis AB. Under that structure, title to the patents never moved — Axis AB remained the record owner, so no USPTO assignment was required or recorded, and none appears. This is the single most important interpretive point in this file: the absence of a 2015 Axis→Canon assignment is expected behavior, not a missing link.

No merger, security agreement, license, release, correction, change-of-name, or termination has been recorded against this patent in any source I retrieved.

Gap note (please read before relying on this)

I could not retrieve the reel/frame or the correspondent of record for the 2000-12-19 entry, nor could I execute a live query against the Assignment Center (search budget exhausted; the Assignment Search API endpoint is assignment-api.uspto.gov/patent/lookup?query=7028102&filter=patNum, and the human UI is at the URL below). Those two fields are the ones your task specifically wants, so they are the two fields that must be filled by hand. Everything else above is grounded in the authoritative full text.

---

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7028102
    1999 : Priority date 13 Dec
    2000 : Application filed 15 Aug
         : Inventors assign to Axis AB 19 Dec
    2006 : Patent granted 11 Apr
    2015 : Canon acquires Axis AB parent
    2022 : Patent expires 15 Feb

---

NPE / troll-pattern signals

---

Verdict

Insufficient data — in the rubric's literal sense of "only the original assignment."

The chain consists of exactly one recorded link — the 2000-12-19 inventor→Axis AB assignment — and no post-issuance transfer whatsoever. Every one of the eight NPE signals scores not present, with signal #3 unassessable (single link) and two key fields (reel/frame, correspondent) unretrieved. What the record positively shows is an operating-company-held, never-reassigned patent: filed 2000, granted 2006-04-11 to Axis AB, passing by share-level acquisition (Canon's 2015 tender offer) into a corporate parent without ever triggering a USPTO assignment, and expiring 2022-02-15 still in the Axis AB name. This is the profile of a genuine product-company patent that was simply never asserted or monetized — the safest reading is no NPE activity, no troll pattern, and the "Insufficient data" label is a statement about the sparseness of the chain, not about any uncertainty that an NPE was involved.

Verify (required to close the two gaps):

• Assignment Center search for patent 7,028,102 — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — pull reel/frame and correspondent for the 2000-12-19 entry. Search by app 09/639,011 as well as by patent number.
• USPTO ODP / Patent Center assignments API — https://data.uspto.gov/apis/patent-file-wrapper/assignments — to confirm no later records exist.
• USPTO Assignment records for AXIS AB as assignee, 2000–2022 — to confirm whether the Axis→Canon transaction generated zero patent-level recordings (my expectation) or a bulk name-level transfer I could not see.

I'll research each cited reference. Let me run targeted searches on the patent and its most relevant prior-art citations.

Let me search the remaining relevant citations.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,028,102 B1 ("Method and System for Presenting Information")

Search-scope note (read first)

I searched for the specific number 7028102 and did not substitute similar numbers. The authoritative record I could retrieve is the Google Patents full text (fetched 2026‑09‑27, supplied in the prompt) and the Unified Patents portal entry for US‑7028102‑B1. I could not open USPTO PatentCenter directly; the citation list below is taken verbatim from the patent's own front‑page "References Cited U.S. Patent Documents" list (16 references) rather than from a fresh USPTO query. Where I could not retrieve a reference's full text (search-step limit reached), I say so and mark the description as title‑derived and unverified.

Date basis: the '102 patent is pre‑AIA (priority 1999‑12‑13; US provisional 60/183,281 filed 2000‑02‑17; US filing 2000‑08‑15). So Section 102 is pre‑AIA:

• §102(b): reference patented/published before 1999‑08‑15 (one year before US filing).
• §102(a): reference patented/published before the invention date (~1999‑12‑13).
• §102(e): US patent whose US filing date precedes the applicant's invention/filing date.

Discrepancy flagged again (not auto-corrected): Unified Patents lists priority 1999‑12‑12, application 2000‑08‑14, grant 2006‑04‑10; the patent face states 1999‑12‑13 / 2000‑08‑15 / 2006‑04‑11. I use the patent‑face dates.

---

Claim reference (limb map for the analysis)

• Claim 1 — (a) select doc + presentation unit on wireless device; (b) receive spec from unit (transport route + unit characteristics: mfr+model, driver filename, or driver URL); (c) identify both a driver (from unit characteristics) and an interpreting application (from document format); (d) convert using both; (e) deliver via the specified route.
• Claim 5 — system: presentation unit answers an identity request with the spec; ISP; wireless device; request‑handling device that identifies driver+application, converts, delivers.
• Claim 11 — presentation‑unit communication device (short‑range IF + unit IF + processor that answers identity request with spec and forwards a received presentation file to the unit).
• Claim 14 — wireless device (short‑range IF + telephonic IF + processor that obtains spec over short‑range link and forwards it to the ISP).
• Dependents: 2/6/12 route = address/URL/e‑mail; 3/15 broadcast identity request + user selection; 4/7/8 cellular link (doc) + short‑range link (unit); 9 e‑mail server; 10 request‑handling on the provider's server.

---

Summary table of the 16 cited references

---

Detailed per-reference analysis

1. US 2,949,776 A — "Slip‑tube gauge" (Roylyn, Inc.)

• Dates: filed 1956‑09‑04; granted 1960‑08‑23.
• Substance: A mechanical gauge. Not analogous art to network document presentation.
• §102 mapping: No claim. Formally §102(b) by age, but it cannot anticipate any claim of the '102 patent because it discloses nothing within the field. Its presence on the front page is a bibliographic anomaly (large IDS/citation list).

2. WO 1998/004424 A1 — "Pneumatic radial tire" (The Yokohama Rubber Co.)

• Dates: priority 1996‑07‑25; published 1998‑02‑05.
• Substance: Tire construction. Not analogous art.
• §102 mapping: No claim. Same anomaly as #1.

3. US 5,848,415 A — "Selective multiple protocol transport and dynamic format conversion in a multi‑user network" (Randal L. Guck; Unisys Corp.)

• Dates: filed 1996‑12‑18; granted 1998‑12‑08. §102(b) (granted >1 yr before 2000‑08‑15) and §102(e).
• Substance (verified): A content server with an object database whose converter objects transform a stored source document "on‑the‑fly" into the format required by the requesting client/appliance, then transport it over the protocol appropriate to that recipient (FTP/HTTP browser, fax, voice, e‑mail).
• §102 mapping: Bears directly on claim 1(c)–(d) and claim 5 (identify an application to interpret the source format; convert to a format suitable for the recipient's facility). It does not disclose the "presentation‑unit specification received over a short‑range link from the unit" nor identifying a device driver by unit manufacturer/model — so it is a conversion‑limb reference, stronger as §103 art than a standalone §102 anticipation of claims 1/5.

4. US 5,862,321 A — "System and method for accessing and distributing electronic documents" (Flynn & Lamming; Xerox Corp.)

• Dates: priority 1994‑06‑27 (continuation‑family; EP 0 691 619 counterpart granted 1996‑01‑10); US patent granted 1999‑01‑19. §102(b) and §102(e).
• Substance (verified): Portable/wristwatch computer ("satchel") stores small document references/tokens; a token is beamed (IR) to a transceiver associated with a printer/multifunction device; the fixed device retrieves the referenced document and prints it. Avoids storing whole documents on the portable device.
• §102 mapping: Closest cited art to the architecture of claims 1, 5 and 11 — a handheld device that carries only a reference, a nearby output device that receives it, and retrieval/printing at the output side. It does not show the separate remote "presentation‑request handling device" performing the conversion, the transport‑route/characteristics specification received from the unit via short‑range link, or a device‑driver identification step. Potential §102/§103 reference for the "select document → send reference → nearby unit prints it" core of claims 1 and 5.

5. EP 0 924 628 A2 — "Methods and system for using web browser to search large collections of documents" (Hewlett‑Packard)

• Dates: filed 1997‑12‑22; published 1999‑06‑23. §102(a)/(b).
• Substance (title‑based; full text not retrieved): Browser‑based search across large document collections.
• §102 mapping: Background bearing only on claim 1(a) (using a browser to locate/select a document offered by an information service). Not an anticipation of any independent claim.

6. US 6,076,076 A — "Prepaid print card system and method" (Moore U.S.A., Inc.)

• Dates: filed 1997‑05‑12; granted 2000‑06‑13. §102(e) (US filing precedes invention date).
• Substance (title‑based): Prepaid card metering/authorization for printing.
• §102 mapping: Background only (printing workflow/billing); no teaching of the short‑range spec exchange, conversion stack, or delivery route. Not anticipatory of claims 1/5/11/14.

7. US 6,141,688 A — "Broadcast search for available host" (NEC Corp.)

• Dates: filed 1995‑10‑16; granted 2000‑10‑31. §102(e).
• Substance (title‑based; full text not retrieved): Broadcasting a request to discover an available host (the title directly describes broadcast‑then‑respond discovery).
• §102 mapping: Directly relevant to claims 3 and 15 (broadcast an identity request; receive responses from proximate/in‑range devices; select one), and to the discovery behavior recited in claims 5 and 11 ("configured to respond to an identity request"). A §102/§103 reference for the discovery limitation; it is older art (1995 filing) so it is solidly §102(e).

8. US 6,249,809 B1 — "Automated and interactive telecommunications system" (William L. Bro)

• Dates: filed 1993‑08‑30; granted 2001‑06‑19. §102(e).
• Substance (title‑based): Broad automated/interactive telecom system.
• §102 mapping: Generic telecom background; I found no teaching mapped to a specific independent claim. Low relevance.

9. US 6,285,889 B1 — "Information output system, method for outputting information and terminal devices … via mobile communication network" (Nykänen et al.; Nokia Mobile Phones)

• Dates: filed 1996‑08‑08; granted 2001‑09‑04. §102(e).
• Substance (verified from the record): A portable terminal sends data to a fixed device in an "application‑independent data transfer format"; the fixed device's transfer program decodes it into a format suitable for the operating system and the output device and forwards it to the appropriate printer driver for output — the output device need not know the data originated elsewhere.
• §102 mapping: One of the two closest references to the conversion core of the patent. It maps squarely to claim 1(c)–(d) and claim 5 (identify an interpreting format/application and a device driver, then convert to a format the target output device can use). Differences: the mobile terminal originates/forwards the data (rather than the server retrieving by document address), and there is no short‑range‑received presentation‑unit specification. Strong §102(e)/§103 reference.

10. US 6,400,810 B1 — "Method and system for selective notification of E‑mail messages" (Ameritech Corp.)

• Dates: filed 1999‑07‑20; granted 2002‑06‑04. §102(e) (US filing 1999‑07‑20 precedes the ~1999‑12‑13 invention date).
• Substance (title‑based): Selective notification of received e‑mail.
• §102 mapping: Bears on the e‑mail delivery/notification embodiment tied to claim 9 and the spec's mail‑server‑notice / polling discussion (FIG. 10b). Not an anticipation of claims 1/5/11/14.

11. US 6,430,601 B1 — "Mobile document paging service" (Xerox Corp.)

• Dates: filed 1998‑09‑30; granted 2002‑08‑06. §102(e).
• Substance (title‑based): Delivering documents to mobile devices via paging.
• §102 mapping: Relevant to mobile/remote document delivery concepts underlying claims 1 and 5; I could not verify its disclosure details, so I treat it as a secondary §102(e)/§103 reference rather than an anticipation.

12. US 6,438,585 B2 — "System and method for redirecting message attachments between a host system and a mobile data communication device" (Research In Motion Ltd.)

• Dates: filed 1998‑05‑29; granted 2002‑08‑20. §102(e).
• Substance (known art; verified in part): Server‑side redirection of message/attachment content to a wireless handheld.
• §102 mapping: Bears on claim 9 (server‑mediated delivery to the presentation side) and on the "device that handles presentation requests" claim 10 server model. Not an anticipation of the conversion/spec claims.

13. US 6,442,595 B1 — "Automated electronic document transmission" (Circle Computer Resources, Inc.)

• Dates: filed 1998‑07‑22; granted 2002‑08‑27. §102(e).
• Substance (title‑based): Automated transmission of documents to a destination (print/fax class).
• §102 mapping: Relevant to the "deliver the presentation file via the transport route" limb (claim 1(e)/5); secondary §102(e)/§103 reference.

14. US 6,557,029 B2 — "System and method for distributing messages" (Micro Design Services, LLC)

• Dates: filed 1999‑06‑28; granted 2003‑04‑29. §102(e).
• Substance (title‑based): Message distribution.
• §102 mapping: Background to the claim 5 "wireless device generates a presentation request / distribution" aspect; not anticipatory.

15. US 6,725,300 B1 — "Control device for controlling the transmission and receipt of data and a method of determining the transmitter and the receiver of the data" (Seiko Epson Corp.)

• Dates: filed 1998‑06‑30; granted 2004‑04‑20. §102(e).
• Substance (title‑based): A control device that governs transmission/receipt and determines sender/receiver.
• §102 mapping: Relevant to the intermediary control/delivery function in claims 5 and 11 (a device that receives a request and routes data to the intended output). Secondary §102(e)/§103 reference.

16. US 6,738,841 B1 — "Method and apparatus for processing document requests at a printer server" (Gregory J. Wolff; Ricoh Co., Ltd.)

• Dates: filed 1996‑02‑09 (patent‑face/Google priority; related application Ser. No. 08/718,858, now US 6,012,083); granted 2004‑05‑18. §102(e).
• Substance (verified): A network printer server that emulates a network/WWW server, receives document requests from browser clients (expressly including a PDA), retrieves the referenced document from a server itself, renders/converts it as it would appear on the printer, and prints it.
• §102 mapping: Along with Nokia '889 and Xerox '321, this is among the closest cited references to claims 1, 5 and 11: a client (PDA) issues a command; the printer‑side server fetches the document by reference and renders it for output, independent of the client. Difference from the '102: the printer‑server conversion is localized at the printer and there is no short‑range presentation‑unit specification (transport‑route + mfr/model/driver‑ID/URL) handed to a remote third‑party request handler. Strong §102(e)/§103 reference.

---

Most relevant prior art (ranking)

1. US 6,285,889 B1 (Nokia) — closest to the format‑conversion + driver core (§102(e)).
2. US 6,738,841 B1 (Ricoh) — closest to the PDA → server‑retrieved document → printer architecture.
3. US 5,862,321 A (Xerox) — closest to the handheld carries a reference; nearby unit retrieves/prints model.
4. US 5,848,415 A (Unisys) — dynamic conversion to the recipient's format in a network server.
5. US 6,141,688 A (NEC) — broadcast host discovery, tying to claims 3/5/11/15.
6. US 6,400,810 B1 / US 6,438,585 B2 — e‑mail delivery/notification (claim 9).
7. US 6,442,595 / US 6,557,029 / US 6,725,300 / US 6,430,601 — secondary delivery‑and‑distribution references.
8. EP 0 924 628 A2 — browser document search background.
9. US 6,076,076 A, US 6,249,809 B1 — peripheral background.
10. US 2,949,776 A and WO 1998/004424 A1 — not prior art in this field; cannot anticipate any claim.

---

Important caveats

1. "Potentially anticipates" ≠ clean anticipation. These 16 references appear on the face of the granted '102 patent; the examiner necessarily considered them, so none alone evidently disclosed all limitations of independent claims 1, 5, 11 or 14 (otherwise the claims would not have issued). Their realistic role is §102(e)/(b) references to individual limitations (conversion, discovery, delivery) and, in combination, §103 art. I have therefore mapped each to the claims/limbs it is most relevant to, not asserted that any single reference invalidates a claim.

2. §102 subsections by date. References granted/published before 1999‑08‑15 (US 5,848,415; US 5,862,321; EP 0 924 628) are §102(b) art. The rest are §102(e) art because their US filing dates precede the '102 invention/filing date — even though several granted after the '102 filing (2000–2004). The two non‑analogous items (Roylyn gauge, Yokohama tire) fall in no relevant §102 category.

3. Descriptions marked "title‑based/unverified." Due to a search‑step limit I could not pull the full specifications of US 6,141,688 (NEC), US 6,249,809 (Bro), US 6,400,810 (Ameritech), US 6,430,601 (Xerox), US 6,442,595 (Circle), US 6,557,029 (Micro Design), or US 6,725,300 (Seiko Epson). For those I relied on titles/abstracts; treat the specific mapping as preliminary and verify against the reference full text before relying on it for an invalidity position.

4. Scope limitation. I did not execute a fresh USPTO PatentCenter/Public‑PAIR query; the citation set is the one printed on the patent front page (corroborated by the Google Patents and Unified Patents records). For a defensible opinion, re‑pull the references and their dates from USPTO Patent Center / Google Patents per document.

5. Unresolved data artifact. Unified Patents lists "Parent Company: Canon Inc" for US‑7028102‑B1 while the patent names Axis AB as assignee; I have not verified any recorded assignment. This does not affect the prior‑art analysis.

I'll ground the analysis in the actual disclosures of the primary references rather than relying on titles alone.

Good grounding. Let me pull the two remaining references most likely to bear on the print-capability/driver and mobile-document aspects.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,028,102 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analysis date: as of the current task date. Builds on the Bibliographic and Litigation sections above; those are not repeated. Scope note: the Prior Art section supplies the examiner-cited reference list (16 citations) with limited full text. Where I characterize a reference's disclosure I mark whether it is verified from the reference text or inferred from its title/record.

---

0. Which references actually count (and which cannot)

The 16 "Citations" in the record are not all usable. Two are facially unrelated to networked document presentation and appear to be citation-record noise:

I flag these explicitly because a naive citation-count analysis would treat all 16 as §103-supporting art. They are not.

The remaining 14 references do fall within the field (networked/mobile document delivery, print servers, format conversion, wireless device discovery). Their dates all precede the earliest critical date (SE 9904552, 1999-12-13), so each qualifies as prior art under pre-AIA §102(a)/(b) or §102(e) as applicable. AIA §103 does not govern — the application has a 1999–2000 priority and was filed 2000-08-15, pre-AIA.

Verified from reference text (via the searches above):

Not verified in full (only title/record available at analysis time): US 6,430,601 (Xerox, mobile document paging), US 6,442,595 (Circle, automated electronic document transmission), US 6,557,029 (Micro Design), US 6,400,810 (Ameritech, selective e-mail notification), US 6,438,585 (RIM, attachment redirection to mobile device), EP 0 924 628 A2 (HP), US 5,862,321 (Xerox), US 6,249,809 (Bro). These are used below only for dependent-claim / secondary theory and are flagged as such.

---

1. Framework and level of ordinary skill

• Governing law: pre-AIA §103(a); Graham v. John Deere; KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (a combination of known elements is obvious where the improvement is "the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions," and where there is "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions").
• PHOSITA: a B.S. in EE/CS (or equivalent) with ~2–4 years' experience in networked document delivery, print systems, or wireless data terminals, and familiarity with the era's browser/WAP, IrDA, and short-range RF (Bluetooth) protocols.
• Critical date: 1999-12-13 (earliest priority); at latest the 2000-02-17 provisional. Note WAP (1997–99), IrDA, and Bluetooth (standardized 1998–99) were all known by then, so the mobile-browsing and short-range-link building blocks are not themselves inventive.

Key terms as the claims use them: "presentation unit specification" = transport route + device characteristics; "transport route" = network path/address by which the converted file reaches the unit; "identity request" = broadcast discovery query.

---

2. The vulnerability map: where each claim's elements come from

Claim 1 (independent method) — element-by-element

Dependent claims

---

3. The combinations that render the claims obvious

Combination A — Guck '415 + Nokia '889 + NEC '688 (+ optionally Seiko Epson '300)

Proposed rejection of claim 1 (and claims 2–4, 7–8):

1. Guck '415 teaches the heart of the conversion-and-delivery architecture: a server receives a document request, selects an appropriate converter from an object database, and converts the source document into "the format required by a calling requester," then delivers it over the protocol appropriate to the receiving appliance. This maps to claim 1 elements (d), (e), (f) and to the "application … based on a format of the document" limitation.
2. Nokia '889 teaches the mobile-to-fixed-device architecture: a portable terminal hands data over a radio or infrared short-range link to a fixed device that decodes it into a format suitable for the output device and routes it through the printer driver, with the explicit teaching that the portable terminal need not itself hold the drivers. This maps to the short-range link, the wireless-device side, and the "driver-based conversion away from the handheld" concept.
3. NEC '688 teaches the "identity request" limitation: a wireless device broadcasts for available hosts, which respond and are listed for user selection. This maps directly to claims 3, 5, 11, 15's discovery-and-selection element.
4. Seiko Epson '300 optionally supplies the attribute/specification concept: specifying a source and destination device and determining from the destination's attribute information whether it can receive/process the source's data — i.e., the informational basis for selecting the right driver.

Motivation (KSR): all three/four are in the same field (networked document delivery, mobile terminals, print output); the combination yields only the predictable result of Guck's server-side conversion plus Nokia's mobile-to-fixed-device link plus NEC's discovery. There is a strong design incentive, recognized in the art itself, to keep a thin mobile device free of converter/driver software (Nokia says so expressly) and to centralize conversion (Guck). The only remaining choice — where to put conversion (portable device vs. network server) — is one of a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions," which KSR holds obvious to try.

Weak point in Combination A: no reference was shown to teach the specific act of the handheld receiving the specification, including a device-driver filename or URL, from the presentation unit itself over the short-range link, and then forwarding that spec to a remote conversion service. Guck's converters are selected from the server's database based on the requester's known facilities, not from a spec pulled off the output device; Nokia's fixed device already holds the driver. Seiko Epson '300 narrows the gap (attribute-based destination characterization) but does not clearly disclose conveying a driver filename/URL in a spec to a remote third party. This element is the patent's most defensible point and likely the reason for allowance.

Combination B — Ricoh '841 + NEC '688 + Guck '415

For claims 1, 5, 10, 11, 13. Ricoh '841 teaches a print server/network printer that responds to client document requests and renders/prints documents independently of the client, including a PDA client. NEC '688 supplies broadcast discovery and selection. Guck '415 supplies the format-conversion and multi-protocol transport engine. Motivation: putting a print-capable network node (Ricoh) with server-side conversion (Guck) and letting a wireless client locate it by broadcast (NEC) is the straightforward engineering realization of "print from my handheld at whatever printer is nearby." Ricoh's teaching that the print server is "independent of the browser clients" anticipates claim 10's server-side request handler.

Combination C — Guck '415 + RIM '585 (+ Ameritech '810) for the e-mail route

For claims 2, 6, 9, 12. Guck expressly converts and delivers via e-mail; RIM '585 teaches redirecting messages/attachments between a host and a mobile device over e-mail. Claim 9's "e-mail server… to accept delivery of the presentation file" is the routine implementation of Guck's e-mail transport once a mail server is interposed (RIM/Ameritech).

Combination D — Nokia '889 + known WAP browsing for the dual-link claims

For claims 4, 7, 8. Nokia '889 supplies the short-range radio/IR link to the output device; the cellular/WAP browsing link for document selection is admitted prior art in the '102's own background and used in HP EP 0 924 628 (browser-side document searching). Two-sided use of (i) a wide-area cellular link for content and (ii) a short-range link for the output device is a combination of known links for their established functions.

---

4. Overall §103 assessment

Net view. On the record supplied, claims 1–15 are all exposed to a §103 challenge, with claims 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 15 the most vulnerable (near-direct single-reference reads) and claims 1, 5, 11, 13, 14 carrying the strongest non-obviousness argument — but only because of the one narrow element: a handheld pulling a specification that names a device driver (filename or URL) from the presentation unit over a short-range link and forwarding it to a remote request-handling device for conversion. Absent that element, the claims read on Guck + Nokia + NEC with strong KSR motivation.

---

5. Why it issued anyway (reconstructed, not from the file wrapper)

I do not have the examiner's statement of reasons for allowance, so this is inference, and I flag it as such:

• Each independent claim is missing from every single reference, and no cited reference teaches the spec-from-the-presentation-unit-with-driver-identifier element. Obviousness requires the combination; a conscientious examiner can find the whole-element combination absent where no reference discloses that specific data flow.
• Ricoh '841 and Guck '415 put conversion at the output side or a content server; the '102 puts it at a request-handling device distinct from both the handheld and the presentation unit, driven by a spec the presentation unit itself provided. That reorganization is the plausible allowance hook.

6. Countervailing considerations (defeating or weakening a §103 case)

• No secondary considerations in the record. No evidence of unexpected results, industry praise, licensing, or a nexus to commercial success. The patent expired 2022-02-15 and, per the earlier section, was never a reported patent-in-suit, so there is no litigation-derived secondary-consideration record (e.g., copying) to weigh in.
• Teaching away / different architecture: Ricoh '841 has the printer itself pull and render; Nokia '889 has the fixed local device hold the driver; Guck '415 selects converters from a server's own database — none steers toward a remote third-party converter driven by a printer-originated driver spec. A patent owner could argue these are architecturally distinct and that the prior art pointed away from the claimed division of labor.
• But under KSR these architectural preferences are, at root, design choices among predictable alternatives, which cuts against patentability unless the patent owner can show a specific technical hurdle overcome or an unexpected benefit.

7. Confidence and caveats (read before relying)

1. Reference-text coverage is partial. Only Guck '415, NEC '688, Nokia '889, Ricoh '841, and Seiko Epson '300 were confirmed from their texts. US 6,430,601, US 6,442,595, US 6,557,029, US 6,400,810, US 6,438,585, EP 0 924 628, US 5,862,321, and US 6,249,809 are characterized from titles/records only; do not treat those characterizations as verified disclosures.
2. This is a reconstructed, not an official, obviousness position. No office action, examiner's answer, IPR petition, or court decision on validity of the '102 was located; the earlier Litigation section found no litigation and no PTAB challenge. The only post-grant appearance of the '102 I identified was as prior art (Exhibit 1014 in IPR2022-01112, Roku v. Flexiworld), not as a challenged patent.
3. Two of the 16 cited references (US 2,949,776; WO 1998/004424) are irrelevant and should be excluded from any §103 analysis.
4. The "specification including a device-driver filename or URL" limitation is the linchpin of both the strongest obviousness case and the strongest non-obviousness argument. Any validity opinion should obtain the full texts and claims of Guck '415, Ricoh '841, Nokia '889, Seiko Epson '300, and NEC '688 and, if possible, the '102 file wrapper, before a final conclusion.

Bottom line: the strongest prima facie §103 case is US 5,848,415 (Guck) in view of US 6,285,889 (Nokia) and US 6,141,688 (NEC), optionally with US 6,725,300 (Seiko Epson) for the destination-attribute/specification element. That combination arguably renders claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15 obvious under KSR; the patent survives only on the narrow, incompletely-anticipated element of a handheld receiving a driver-identifying specification from the presentation unit and forwarding it to a remote conversion service.