US 7139983

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

Let me pull the actual claim text and check for any CAFC/PTAB activity specific to this patent.

US 7,139,983 B2 — Analyst Summary

Scope note: I searched for the literal number 7139983 and excluded results for similar/adjacent numbers. Two caveats up front: (1) the authoritative Google Patents text supplied to me was truncated before the claims, and my searches did not surface the verbatim claim set, so my claim-level discussion below is not verbatim and is flagged accordingly; (2) I found no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket activity involving this patent.

1. Bibliographic data (verified)

2. Abstract (verbatim from the record)

"A navigation interface display system generates a navigation element that organizes television programming data in an easy-to-use manner. The navigation element employs a hierarchical display protocol for a plurality of selection items that represent the various television programs, channels, and/or networks. The hierarchical display scheme displays a limited number of active selection items at a first magnification level and additional active selection items at a second magnification level. In addition, the selection items are displayed on distinctive areas or features of the navigation element, where such features represent different content genres or categories. Subcategories can also be displayed in a hierarchical manner, thus providing additional information related to the content as the magnification level of the navigation element changes."

3. What the specification discloses (verified from the patent text)

• A server‑centric architecture: the end‑user device "merely functions as a display element"; navigation interfaces are generated/maintained by interface servers (604) in a generic XML format, with per‑device presentation layers (602), application servers/head‑ends (804), application databases (606) and interface databases (608), plus producer tools (610).
• A hierarchical visibility protocol: only a limited number of active selection items appear at low magnification; additional active items and new sub‑objects/sub‑categories appear as the user zooms in. Active items at a lower zoom level are a (preferably proper) subset of those at a higher level. Inactive selection items are rendered (e.g., dashed/faded/smaller) to preview what becomes active at the next level.
• Spatial/geographical metaphor (islands, continents, rooms, etc.) with category labels ("Music," "Sports," "Movies") and sub‑regions ("Mystery," "Drama"), plus dynamic re‑mapping of items between objects as programming changes.
• Guidance indicators (directional arrows) showing neighboring selection items reachable via the current item; dynamic "closest neighbor" computation.
• Panning/zooming, a "show category"/jump feature, and a time‑shifting element (FIG. 9/10) allowing the user to move the displayed navigation map forward/back in time among half‑hour slots.
• Filtering of selection items (per‑user, global, and collaborative) and data‑mining of usage data.
• Selection‑item icons/labels/duration indicators with variable appearance (live now, to be recorded, recorded content, series, web content, pay‑per‑view, etc.).

4. Independent claims — not verified

I must be explicit: I could not retrieve the verbatim claim set of US 7,139,983 in this session. The Google Patents text provided cut off mid‑sentence in the "FIG. 11" flow description, before the claims, and my follow‑up searches returned the patent's abstract and citation tables but not its claim text. Accordingly:

• I cannot state the number of claims, the number of independent claims, or reproduce/paraphrase each independent claim with confidence.
• Any statement I made about specific claim language would be fabrication, so I am not making one.

What can be said with reasonable confidence, based only on the abstract and disclosure, is the character of the claimed subject matter: independent claims in this family are most likely directed to (a) a method of generating/displaying a hierarchical, magnification‑dependent television content navigation interface, (b) a corresponding system/apparatus, and (c) a processor‑readable/machine‑readable medium carrying program code for the same — the specification explicitly contemplates method, system, and "processor‑readable medium" implementations. This is an inference, not a verified claim reading. To obtain authoritative claim text, consult the USPTO Patent Center/Patent Public Search full‑text document, or the USPTO "Full‑Page Images" for US 7,139,983, which reproduce the printed claims.

5. Litigation and post‑grant activity

• Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. et al, D. Md. Civil Action 8:08‑cv‑02188 (Aug. 2008) — the '983 patent was one of four asserted (U.S. 7,158,118; 7,262,760; 7,414,611; 7,139,983), in parallel with ITC Investigation No. 337‑TA‑658. Contemporary reporting (CTIMES, Aug. 26, 2008) confirms the '983 patent was characterized as relating to the interface/control system for television screen input.
• No CAFC 2026 docket found for 7,139,983. I searched for 2026 Federal Circuit activity and found none naming this patent. ⚠️ Caution: a 2026 Federal Circuit matter (Gamevice v. Nintendo) involves a different patent also referred to by the shorthand "'713 patent" (an unrelated Gamevice patent asserted against the Nintendo Switch; CAFC affirmed non‑infringement Jan. 16, 2026, with remand and a Nintendo request to vacate the anticipation judgment, D. Md.). That short‑form "'713" reference is not US 7,139,983 and should not be conflated with it.
• I found no IPR/PGR or reexamination proceeding identified against US 7,139,983 in the sources searched. Absence of a hit is not affirmative proof of absence.
• Term: the patent is recorded as Expired – Lifetime with an adjusted expiration date of 2024‑03‑04, meaning the enforceable term has lapsed as of the April 2026 date you specified.

6. Family members (for cross‑checking)

Continuation/divisional filings claiming priority to this application include US 2006/0218587 A1, US 7,844,987, US 8,046,804, US 2008/0060009, 2008/0060011, 2008/0060020, 2008/0082927, and (via app. 13/230,268) US 9,552,128. If applicable, claim scope for this family should be read alongside those.

7. Explicit uncertainties

1. Claim text — unresolved (see §4). Do not rely on any claim characterization from me beyond the abstract‑level generality.
2. Priority date differs by one day between two secondary databases (2000‑04‑10 vs. 2000‑04‑09).
3. Assignee data is reported by aggregators and is expressly disclaimed by Google as unverified; the recorded chain is complex (SonicIsland → Hillcrest → IDHL → DRNC, with a Multiplier Capital security interest in between).
4. "Expired – Lifetime" and the 2024‑03‑04 adjusted expiration are recorded status fields, not legal conclusions.
5. No 2026 CAFC docket identified — a negative search result, not a certification.
6. Note also a date discrepancy in the task framing: the prompt states April 26, 2026, while my operating environment date is September 28, 2026; nothing in my findings turns on this, but flagging it for completeness.

I'll research this. Let me run multiple searches on litigation databases and court sources.

Let me dig into outcomes and any more recent assertions.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,139,983 ("Interactive content guide for television programming")

Bottom line: The '983 patent was asserted in exactly one campaign — Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. v. Nintendo (2008–2009), which was litigated in parallel in the District of Maryland and at the ITC and ended in a confidential settlement. I found no other cases, including none asserted by the current assignee, DRNC Holdings, Inc.

Case 1 — District court action

Sources: Stanford NPE Litigation Database (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7139983 and https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[138587](/patent/138587)); Justia Dockets (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/maryland/mddce/8:2008cv02188/[161113](/patent/161113)); Patent Arcade case update (https://www.patentarcade.com/2011/06/news-nintendo-sued-over-wii-again.html).

Case 2 — Parallel ITC Section 337 investigation

Sources: ITC/Federal Register notices (https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2009-02-27/pdf/E9-4157.pdf and https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2009-10-01/html/E9-23665.htm); Finnegan experience page (https://www.finnegan.com/en/work/experience/certain-video-game-machines-and-related-three-dimensional-pointing-devices-hillcrest-laboratories-v-nintendo-337-ta-658-itc.html); Oblon/Martindale ITC alerts (martindale.com/legal-news/article_oblon-mcclelland-maier-neustadt-llp_786358.htm and ...._697286.htm).

Case 3 — No subsequent cases found

• The '983 patent record on Google Patents flags the Maryland case (8:08-cv-02188) and ITC 337-TA-658 as the family's litigation, and notes a "First worldwide family litigation filed" entry (Darts-ip family 26891511) — consistent with the 2008 Nintendo campaign being the only assertion of record.
• The Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for patent 7139983 lists a single case: Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. et al, 8:08-cv-02188, D. Md.
• No litigation asserted by DRNC Holdings, Inc. (the assignee of record as of April 13, 2023, per the patent's assignment history) appeared in any of the sources I searched. I cannot rule out a very recent or state-court filing that is not yet indexed in these databases — I did not complete an exhaustive PACER/Unified Patents check before exhausting my search steps.
• I did not find any appellate (CAFC) decision on the '983 patent. The CAFC opinion surfaced in my search (08-1240, DePuy Spine v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek) is unrelated to this patent and mentions no 7,139,983 subject matter.
• Terminal disclaimer/status note: the '983 patent is recorded as Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration March 4, 2024, so the window for any new infringement suit on the patent itself appears closed.

Caveats

• I interpreted patent number 7139983 literally and did not substitute any similar number. Results for sibling patents in the same family (e.g., 7,158,118; 7,262,760; 7,414,611; 7,844,987; 8,046,804; 9,552,128) were excluded from the count above except where they were asserted together with the '983 patent in the Nintendo campaign, as noted.
• The settlement terms are confidential; no injunction, exclusion order, damages award, or validity/infringement ruling issued in either forum.

I'll start by verifying the structured PTAB list against public sources and hunting for any proceedings the ODP may not have indexed.

Let me dig further — checking for any IPR/CBM filings, related reexaminations, and later assertion history.

Let me check docket aggregators and reexamination records directly, plus any IPRs against the related Hillcrest family.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,139,983: zero. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal, most recent ingest) returns no AIA trial proceedings, and my independent web checks found no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition ever filed against this patent — no docket entries, no FWDs, no institution decisions, no PTAB appeals — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. I did confirm a substantial non-PTAB enforcement history (ITC § 337 action and a parallel D. Md. case against Nintendo, both circa 2008–2010), which is summarized below in place of the per-proceeding sections, because the instructed per-proceeding template cannot be honestly populated for proceedings that do not exist. Bottom line for a defendant: this is the "hardened-by-default, but unpicked" posture — the claims have never been tested at the PTAB (all claims UNTESTED), there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel binding anyone, and the full universe of § 102/§ 103 art remains available; the countervailing facts are that the patent expired 2024-03-04 and that the same portfolio now sits with a DRNC Holdings (InterDigital) monetization entity and has already been litigated to a favorable settlement once.

No PTAB proceedings — verified negative

• Type: N/A (no IPR / PGR / CBM filed)
• Filed: N/A — I found no petition date for any proceeding
• Status: Verbatim from the structured data: no AIA trial proceedings returned by the ODP as of the most recent ingest. My web checks are consistent (Google Patents' "Family has litigation" panel for this patent lists only the Maryland district court and ITC actions: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7139983/en). Note Google Patents' litigation metadata is limited to the listings shown on the page; a full PTAB E2E confirmation search was not available to me within this session, so treat "no PTAB activity" as high-confidence-but-not-exhaustively-verified.
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — no claim of US 7,139,983 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the Board. Do not let anyone tell you otherwise.
• Settlement / termination: N/A as to PTAB
• Appeal: No PTAB FWD exists, so no CAFC appeal from a Board decision exists. (There is no reported Federal Circuit opinion on US 7,139,983.)
• Defensive value: Zero estoppel, zero claim-cancellation leverage — but also zero Board guidance on construction, so claim scope is entirely open to you at institution if you ever choose to file.

Non-PTAB enforcement record (relevant context, not AIA proceedings)

• ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-658, Certain Video Game Machines and Related Three-Dimensional Pointing Devices, Complainant Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. (ALJ Luckern). US 7,139,983 was one of four asserted patents (with US 7,158,118, US 7,262,760, US 7,414,611). Per counsel-of-record's published case description, the investigation "settled favorably after full evidentiary hearing but before ALJ's initial determination" — i.e., no ID, no Commission opinion, no judicial claim construction, no validity adjudication. https://www.finnegan.com/en/work/experience/certain-video-game-machines-and-related-three-dimensional-pointing-devices-hillcrest-laboratories-v-nintendo-337-ta-658-itc.html
• D. Md. Case No. 8:08-cv-02188, Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. v. Nintendo Co., Ltd. et al (filed 2008). Listed as the only litigation on this patent in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[7139983](/patent/7139983)) and in the Unified Patents litigation links embedded in the Google Patents record (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Maryland%20District%20Court/case/8%3A08-cv-02188). Both proceedings were resolved as part of the same 2010 global resolution; I could not independently verify the exact dismissal date, so I do not state one.
• Ownership chain: Hillcrest Laboratories (original assignee) → IDHL Holdings, Inc. (2017-06-09) → DRNC Holdings, Inc. (2023-04-13). DRNC is now an InterDigital affiliate that also purchased the Edgio/Limelight patent portfolio out of bankruptcy in late 2024 — i.e., an active monetization operation, not a dormant shell. https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/news/85218-interdigital-acquires-bankrupt-cdn-provider-s-patents-after-drama-almost-torpedoes-deal
• Terminal status: Google Patents records Adjusted expiration 2024-03-04, legal status "Expired - Lifetime." That is a hard ceiling on damages exposure (§ 286 six-year lookback reaches back only to 2018-09-28 for pre-expiration conduct).

Strategic summary

Claim status: entirely UNTESTED. No claim of US 7,139,983 — not independent claim 1, not any dependent claim — has been canceled, confirmed, amended, disclaimed, or otherwise adjudicated at the PTAB. There is therefore no "surviving claim set" narrower than the issued claims, and no canceled claims a demand letter could be built on. Contrast that with the general pattern for well-asserted electronics patents of this vintage, which almost always attract at least one IPR within a few years of assertion; the absence here is explained by the 2010 settlement ending the only assertion campaign, followed by roughly a decade of dormancy until the portfolio moved to IDHL/DRNC. Two caveats: (1) I found no evidence of an ex parte reexamination either, but reexamination records are not covered by the ODP AIA-trial feed, so that is a residual item to verify; (2) the family is large — US 7,844,987, US 8,046,804, and US 9,552,128 all claim priority to this line (per the "Priority to" entries on the Google Patents record). Those siblings may have their own PTAB histories, and if a demand letter cites them, run the identical check against each. A cancellation of a sibling would not cancel this patent, and vice versa.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate. Because no IPR was ever filed, no party is subject to § 315(e)(2) estoppel on this patent, and there is no § 325(e) estoppel either. A defendant asserted today can raise any § 102 or § 103 ground based on patents and printed publications. The § 315(b) one-year clock runs from your own service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent — if a complaint was served on you more than one year ago and you are a real party in interest or privy, the petition is time-barred; if you have not yet been served, or were served recently, the door is open. Note also the § 315(a)(1) bar if you filed a declaratory judgment action challenging validity before the petition. Given the patent's age, expect the Director's "settled expectations" discretionary-denial doctrine (implemented under the March 26, 2025 interim processes memorandum) to be a live obstacle in 2026, as Unified Patents and others have argued in pending cert petitions. The merits may still be strong — no one has ever tested this art — but institution is not automatic for an expired 2000-priority patent.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner (there are no petitioners at all). No PTAB-averse patent owner behavior to read, because there has never been a PTAB trial — but note that the current owner, DRNC Holdings/InterDigital, is by reputation an aggressive, well-funded enforcer that litigates rather than folds. No defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar) appears anywhere in the chain for this patent. The practical read: this patent was asserted once, hard, against a deep-pocket target (Nintendo), settled favorably, and is now held by a professional licensor, which means any new assertion is more likely to arrive as a licensing demand letter or a new district court complaint than as a live litigation you can plan around.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not describe this patent as "hardened" or as having "survived IPRs." It has never faced one. The correct characterization in any defense memo or licensing negotiation is: all claims UNTESTED, no Board construction, no estoppel, full art universe available.
2. Verify the negative yourself before relying on it: run US 7,139,983 (and US 7,844,987 / US 8,046,804 / US 9,552,128) through PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) and confirm the post-2012 petition count is zero, and separately check the CRU/reexamination records for any ex parte reexam request. I could not complete a direct E2E query in this session, and I will not assert more than my searches support.
3. Check your § 315(b) clock immediately. The only date that matters is when you (or a privy/RPI) were served with a complaint on this patent. If you are still inside one year, an IPR is legally available; if outside, your validity fight is a district court / ITC fight, and § 282 invalidity is your only vehicle.
4. Calibrate to expiration. With the patent expired 2024-03-04, your exposure is backward-looking only (pre-2024-03-04 conduct, subject to § 286's six-year lookback from filing). Factor that into settlement math before spending on a petition; a petition may cost more than the realistic damages band.
5. If you do file, lead with § 103 combinations against the broad independent claim — the specification's own framing (hierarchical zoom levels revealing progressively more "active selection items," with the low-magnification set required to be a proper subset of the higher-magnification set) is broad, and the 2001-era electronic program guide art (e.g., the EPG and 3D/spatial-navigation references cited on the face of the patent and in the WO 2005/081893/106 search report for the Hillcrest family) is a natural starting point. Build the ground against the exact issued claim language; there is no prior Board construction to constrain you, which cuts both ways.

Sources consulted: USPTO ODP structured block (canonical, supplied in prompt); https://patents.google.com/patent/US7139983/en (litigation links, assignment chain, expiration); https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7139983; https://www.finnegan.com/en/work/experience/certain-video-game-machines-and-related-three-dimensional-pointing-devices-hillcrest-laboratories-v-nintendo-337-ta-658-itc.html; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Maryland%20District%20Court/case/8%3A08-cv-02188; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/International%20Trade%20Commission/case/337-TA-658; https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/news/85218-interdigital-acquires-bankrupt-cdn-provider-s-patents-after-drama-almost-torpedoes-deal.

I'll research the assignment record from USPTO sources and cross-reference with SEC filings and NPE directories.

Good hits. Let me dig into the specific assignment records and the parties involved.

I hit the search step limit while chasing the underlying USPTO reel/frame records directly. Here is the assignment reconstruction with everything I could verify, and explicit flags on what I could not.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 7,139,983 B2

Data-quality note up front (read this before using any reel/frame): I was unable to query the USPTO Assignment Center API/page directly in this session — my retrievals were search-mediated. The recordation dates and party names below are corroborated by the Google Patents legal-events feed (which is populated from USPTO assignment data) and, for the DRNC links, by RPX Insight. However, I did not retrieve a single authoritative USPTO reel/frame number for this patent chain. I am therefore not supplying invented reel/frame values. Where I do have a reel/frame-formatted identifier, I label it as an RPX Insight identifier and flag that it is unconfirmed against USPTO. Verification URL: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "7139983").

Inventors

Basis: PCT publication WO 01/077905 A3 (published 18 Oct 2001; PCT filed 15 Mar 2001) names SONICISLAND SOFTWARE, INC. as applicant and KELTS, Brett as inventor at that Costa Mesa/Newport Beach address pairing — the same Kelts/same technology space as the '983 family. The U.S. assignment recorded 2001-05-07 (Kelts → SonicIsland Software, Inc.) independently establishes the employer relationship at filing.

Unusual-pattern check — negative. This is a single-inventor patent, so the classic "all inventors departed within 12 months" fire-sale precursor cannot arise. There is no co-inventor team to analyze. The only near-filing event is the inventor's own assignment to his company, which is routine and the opposite of a departure signal.

Original assignee

Two answers must be kept separate, because they are not the same entity:

• As printed on the granted patent (issued 2006-11-21): Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc., Rockville, MD — recorded as assignee via the 2005-08-15 recordation, i.e., after the 2001 filing. Google Patents' "Original Assignee: Hillcrest Laboratories Inc" field reflects the granted-front-page assignee, not the first assignee in the chain of record.
• First assignee in the chain of title (recorded 2001-05-07): SonicIsland Software, Inc., Costa Mesa, CA.

SonicIsland Software, Inc. — the founder-stage company for the Kelts navigation-interface work. Its own PCT filings and the USPTO record establish it as the applicant/owner at filing. I found no evidence it ever shipped a commercial television product embodying the claims; its disclosures describe a server/presentation-layer navigation platform pitched to cable and satellite operators and to streaming-media providers (the sibling PCT WO 01/077905 is expressly about streaming media). Its current status is unresolved — I did not locate a dissolution, bankruptcy, or merger record for SonicIsland in this session. It appears to have been absorbed by the 2005 assignment to Hillcrest, which is the strongly supported reading.

Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc. — an operating company in the relevant period. It built and shipped 3D pointing / "Freespace" motion-control hardware and firmware (the Loop pointer, Kylo browser, CE device software) and licensed motion-sensing to TV and set-top makers; its Maryland/DC-area operation is the origin of the 2008 assertion campaign. On the '983 subject matter specifically, the record shows no Hillcrest-branded TV content-guide product — the '983 was asserted, not commercialized, by Hillcrest. Current status: not an intact independent operating company. The patent record shows a 2016-03-01 security agreement to Multiplier Capital, LP (a venture-debt lender — a distress/liquidity marker) followed by a 2017-06-09 transfer of the patent to IDHL Holdings, Inc. and a 2017-07-26 release by the secured party. ⚠️ I have moderate-confidence, unverified recall that Hillcrest Labs' operating business was later acquired (CEVA, Inc., ~2019); I could not confirm this in this session and it should be independently verified before being relied on.

Ultimate owner of the '983 today: DRNC Holdings, Inc., which is a subsidiary of InterDigital, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDCC) — verified from RPX Insight's 20 Feb 2025 report describing "InterDigital subsidiary DRNC Holdings, Inc." DRNC is a licensing-only entity with no products, and it is an active patent acquirer (it bought Edgio/Limelight's portfolio out of Edgio's Chapter 11 Delaware bankruptcy in Nov–Dec 2024 for $4.25M).

Assignment timeline

Recorded entries per the Google Patents legal-events feed (derived from USPTO records). Reel/frame not retrieved for any link except where an RPX Insight citation is given; those are unconfirmed against USPTO. Exact execution dates were captured only for the Multiplier Capital entries.

1. Executed ~2001-04/05 (exact date not captured) / recorded 2001-05-07 — Reel/frame: not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: Brett R. Kelts
   • Assignee: SonicIsland Software, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrieved
   • Context: Founder-to-company transfer of the application filed 2001-04-09 — internal formation step, not a monetization event.

2. Executed date not captured / recorded 2005-08-15 — Reel/frame: not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: SonicIsland Software, Inc. (Google Patents renders the name as "SONICSLAND SOFTWARE, INC." — a missing-"I" data artifact in the record, not a distinct entity)
   • Assignee: Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrieved
   • Context: Acquisition of the SonicIsland portfolio by an operating company (Hillcrest), roughly four years post-filing and ~9 months pre-issue — consistent with a technology/company acquisition, not a fire-sale.

3. Executed 2016-03-01 / recorded 2016-03-01 — Reel/frame: not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Security Agreement (security interest, not a title transfer)
   • Assignor: Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc.
   • Assignee: Multiplier Capital, LP
   • Correspondent: not retrieved
   • Context: Securitization — IP collateral pledged to a venture-debt fund; a liquidity/distress marker for Hillcrest.

4. Executed ~2017-06 / recorded 2017-06-09 — Reel/frame: not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc.
   • Assignee: IDHL Holdings, Inc. (Wilmington, DE)
   • Correspondent: not retrieved
   • Context: Transfer to a holding company — first link in the chain where the holder is presumptively non-operating. ⚠️ IDHL's principals and parentage are unresolved. I could not verify whether IDHL is an InterDigital-affiliated vehicle; its Wilmington, DE nexus postdates and shares a city with InterDigital/DRNC's address, but that is an unverified hypothesis, not a finding.

5. Executed 2017-07-26 / recorded 2017-07-26 — Reel/frame: not retrieved

   • Conveyance: Release (by secured party)
   • Assignor: Multiplier Capital, LP
   • Assignee: Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc.
   • Correspondent: not retrieved
   • Context: Securitization unwind — the 2016 lien was discharged after the IDHL assignment recorded 2017-06-09, i.e., the payoff appears tied to the portfolio sale.

6. Executed ~2023-04 / recorded 2023-04-13 — RPX Insight identifier 69800/653 (formatted as reel/frame; 6 assets: 3 patents, 3 publications); USPTO reel/frame not independently confirmed

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: IDHL Holdings, Inc.
   • Assignee: DRNC Holdings, Inc. — 200 Bellevue Parkway, Suite 300, Wilmington, DE 19809 (an InterDigital corporate address, not a registered-agent mail drop)
   • Correspondent: "PATENT DOCKETING, 200 BELLEVUE PARKWAY, SUITE 300, WILMINGTON, DE 19809" — ⚠️ FLAG: this same correspondent recurs on at least one other DRNC recording (RPX identifier 70071/327, 322 assets: 287 patents, 35 publications; near-certainly a different, larger portfolio such as the Nov–Dec 2024 Edgio Chapter 11 purchase — not confirmed to include the '983). Note the correspondent is an entity-level docketing desk, not a named attorney, so the classic "repeat-player lawyer behind the shells" tell cannot be run on this chain; the recurrence is at the assignee-address level, not the individual-attorney level.
   • Context: Transfer to a licensing-only parent (InterDigital's holding subsidiary). Cross-border corroboration: the Dutch register shows a 2024-08-27 assignment (71)/(73) DRNC Holdings, Inc. for a G06F3/048-family division — evidence DRNC is actively consolidating the former Hillcrest portfolio.

Terminal note: the patent is recorded Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2024-03-04. No assignment dated on or after that date pertains to the '983.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7139983
    2000 : Priority date 10 April 2000
    2001 : Application filed 9 April 2001
         : Kelts assigns to SonicIsland Software
    2005 : SonicIsland assigns to Hillcrest Labs
    2006 : Patent issues as US 7139983
    2008 : Hillcrest sues Nintendo in D Md
         : Parallel ITC case 337-TA-658
    2009 : Both cases settle
    2016 : Security agreement to Multiplier Capital
    2017 : Hillcrest assigns to IDHL Holdings
         : Multiplier Capital releases the lien
    2023 : IDHL assigns to DRNC Holdings
    2024 : Recorded expiration 4 March 2024

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (moderate).
The patent left an operating company (Hillcrest) for IDHL Holdings, Inc. (recorded 2017-06-09) and then DRNC Holdings, Inc. (recorded 2023-04-13). Both are "Holdings" entities; DRNC is a confirmed licensing-only subsidiary of InterDigital with no products. Mitigating facts I must state: (a) DRNC's recorded address — 200 Bellevue Parkway, Suite 300, Wilmington, DE 19809 — is an InterDigital corporate campus address, not a registered-agent service address, so the "mail-drop shell" tell fails; (b) no evidence of a single-member Delaware/Texas LLC; (c) DRNC's assets are publicly parented and traceable to a NASDAQ-listed issuer. This is a non-practicing-owner transfer, but not an anonymous front.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PARTIALLY PRESENT / UNCLEAR.
The current holder DRNC Holdings, Inc. is a subsidiary of InterDigital, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDCC) — a pure patent-licensing company that litigates extensively and buys portfolios out of bankruptcy (Edgio, Nov–Dec 2024, $4.25M; RPX Insight, 20 Feb 2025). InterDigital/DRNC do not appear on the enumerated lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg), and I found no Unified Patents or RPX "high-frequency plaintiff" listing naming DRNC for this patent. IDHL Holdings, Inc. — unresolved; no asserter-directory hit located. Note the inverse datum: in the only campaign involving the '983, Stanford's NPE Litigation Database classifies the then-plaintiff Hillcrest as a "Product company," not an NPE — that classification is evidence against treating the 2008 assertion as troll activity.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — WEAK / UNCLEAR (flagged, not a finding).
Correspondent "PATENT DOCKETING" at 200 Bellevue Parkway, Suite 300, Wilmington, DE 19809 appears on DRNC assignment record 69800/653 and again on DRNC assignment record 70071/327 (RPX Insight). That is recurrence on the DRNC links only — it does not span the 2001, 2005, 2016 or 2017 links, for which I retrieved no correspondent. Critically, the field is populated by a corporate docketing desk, not an individual attorney, so this fails the test the task actually specifies (same lawyer running successive shells). Per the instruction that a single/uniform appearance by a firm doing mixed NPE and operating-company work is not a finding, I record this as weak and unresolved.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (weak-to-moderate).
Three recordings in ~17 months: Multiplier Capital security agreement (executed/recorded 2016-03-01), Hillcrest → IDHL assignment (recorded 2017-06-09), Multiplier release (executed/recorded 2017-07-26), followed by IDHL → DRNC (recorded 2023-04-13). That is a securitization → sale → lien discharge cluster, not a chain of unrelated LLCs: I found no evidence of shared principals or a shared correspondent address across the IDHL and DRNC links — the correspondent is unknown for the IDHL link. Cascading recording density is present; cascading shell-LLC structure is not established.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The only infringement suit naming this patent is Hillcrest Labs v. Nintendo, D. Md. 8:08-cv-02188, filed 2008-08-20 (with ITC 337-TA-658 instituted 2008-09-23). The most recent assignment before that date is recorded 2005-08-15 — nearly three years earlier, far outside the 6-month window. The post-litigation transfers (2017-06-09 to IDHL; 2023-04-13 to DRNC) both postdate the 2008–2009 campaign and the patent's 2024-03-04 expiration. No assignment in this chain was arranged to enable assertion of this patent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT on the '983 chain (with one important caveat).
No Chapter 7/11 filing by Hillcrest Laboratories appears in the assignment/legal-events record, and I located no Hillcrest bankruptcy docket. The 2016 secured loan + 2017 portfolio sale + lien release is consistent with pre-insolvency distress, but that is an inference, not a recorded bankruptcy. ⚠️ Caveat, stated so it is not misread: DRNC Holdings did acquire patents out of the Edgio Chapter 11 sale (Nov–Dec 2024), but that purchase concerned Edgio's portfolio — it is not evidence about how DRNC obtained the '983, and the two must not be conflated.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Privateering requires an operating company transferring patents to an NPE that then asserts on the operating company's behalf against its competitors. Here, Hillcrest's 2008 assertion against Nintendo was made by Hillcrest itself, as the owner, before any transfer. After the 2017 and 2023 transfers, no suit was ever filed on the '983 by IDHL or DRNC, and no SEC/Federal Register/Patent Progress/EFF item indicating a Hillcrest-sponsored assertion campaign was located. The patent is expired as of 2024-03-04, closing the assertion window.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, Allied Security Trust, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or the Open Invention Network. It terminates at DRNC Holdings, Inc., an assertive licensing entity affiliated with InterDigital. No neutralization signal.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: exactly one strong signal is documented — the patent passed, in two recorded steps, from an operating company to non-practicing holders, i.e., Hillcrest Laboratories → IDHL Holdings, Inc. (recorded 2017-06-09) and IDHL Holdings → DRNC Holdings, Inc. (recorded 2023-04-13; RPX identifier 69800/653), the latter being a licensing-only subsidiary of InterDigital, Inc. — with a venture-debt securitization (Multiplier Capital, 2016-03-01) and a lien release (2017-07-26) bracketing the first step. That is one strong signal plus two weak ones (a three-recording cluster inside ~17 months; a recurring assignee-side docketing correspondent across DRNC records 69800/653 and 70071/327), which lands at moderate, not high. Two facts must be carried with the verdict: (i) the only actual assertion of this patent was by Hillcrest itself in 2008, classified by Stanford's NPE database as a "Product company" — an operating-company assertion, not an NPE campaign; and (ii) no post-2017 owner ever asserted it, and it expired 2024-03-04. The NPE characterization therefore describes the ownership structure of the asset's final holders, not the litigation history of the patent.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent number 7139983) — and, for the reel/frame values I could not retrieve, request the full-page assignment abstracts from the USPTO Assignment Search Room, which will show the correspondent of record for the 2001, 2005, 2016 and 2017 links that remain blank above.

Contradictions / corrections to the earlier sections

• The prior Patent summary listed the assignee chain beginning with Kelts → SonicIsland → Hillcrest and named DRNC as current assignee, but did not identify DRNC as an InterDigital subsidiary. That identification is new here and is the single most consequential fact for the NPE analysis.
• The prior summary used Google Patents' "Original Assignee: Hillcrest Laboratories, Inc." That is the printed-patent assignee; the first recorded assignee is SonicIsland Software, Inc. Both are correct for their respective definitions — the distinction is now made explicit.
• The prior summary's "no IPR/PGR found" stands unchanged; I found nothing new.
• Priority-date discrepancy (2000-04-10 vs 2000-04-09) remains unresolved; nothing in this analysis turns on it.
• Unresolved and flagged, not asserted: (a) the identity/principals of IDHL Holdings, Inc.; (b) the reel/frame numbers for five of six links; (c) whether RPX identifier 70071/327 (322 assets) or 69800/653 (6 assets) is the recording that actually conveyed the '983 — I confirmed only that both are DRNC-side recordings with the same correspondent, and that 69800/653's size (3 patents + 3 publications) is consistent with a single-family transfer without proving it.

I'll research the prior art citations on the face of US 7,139,983. Let me run several targeted searches.

I need the actual front-page citation list. Let me pull the printed patent and other citation databases.

The Google Patents citation list isn't surfacing via search snippets. Let me try to retrieve the printed front page directly.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,139,983 B2 ("Interactive Content Guide for Television Programming")

Analyst note on method and a required correction up front. I treated the identifier 7139983 literally and excluded every adjacent number that the search engines kept returning (e.g., US 7,836,466, US 8,108,795, US 7,757,254, US 6,121,970, US 8,095,565, US 7,734,579, US 6,268,849, US 2006/0218587 A1, US 2010/0010772) except where those documents cite the '983 — that is a legitimate use of a document that cites the patent under review, not a substitution for it. I also flagged, as my previous section did, that the environment date is 2026-09-28 while the task states April 26, 2026; nothing below turns on the discrepancy.

Critical gap, stated plainly: I could not retrieve the verbatim front-page "References Cited" list of US 7,139,983 in this session. The Google Patents page for the patent renders its bibliography and description but the examiner-citation table did not surface in my retrievals; uspto.report's page for the grant returned OCR fragments of the description, not the front page; and I exhausted my search steps while trying to reach the patentimages.storage.googleapis.com PDF of the printed document and the EPO/Espacenet citation annex. I will not reconstruct that list from memory. Fabricating a front-page citation table is exactly the failure mode a prior-art memo cannot afford, because every downstream § 102 mapping depends on which references actually received an examiner citation and in what category ("X" vs. "A"). What follows is therefore divided into (1) what the record does verify, (2) a sourced analysis of the most relevant art identified by me, not by the examiner, properly labeled, and (3) the exact steps needed to close the gap.

1. The citation record as verified in this session

1.1 Aggregate counts on the '983 record

Read this carefully: "Patent Art (47)" is an aggregator's count of the prior-art references associated with the publication record (it may blend the published application's citations with the grant's). It is not a verified enumeration, and I am not treating it as one. It does, however, establish two useful things: (a) the examiner-side citation universe is modest (roughly four dozen patent documents — a normal load for a 2001-filed TV/EPG case), and (b) the NPL field is recorded as empty, which is a meaningful negative: the classic zoomable-interface and fisheye-view literature that is most on point for this patent's novelty hook (see §2.3 below) appears not to have been cited.

1.2 Verified forward-citation evidence (the '983 used as art)

These I confirmed directly in this session — each is a patent whose citation table lists the '983. They matter because they confirm how the field and later examiners characterized the '983's disclosure:

Note the classifier. US 8,108,795 files the '983 under 715/802 — the GUI/on-screen-workflow class — which corroborates that examiners in adjacent art units read the '983 as a user-interface reference, not an EPG-data reference. That is consistent with the patent's own framing (hierarchical navigation objects, magnification, guidance indicators) and with the CPC set already on the record (H04N21/482, H04N21/4314, G06F16/444, G06F16/447, G06F3/0481, G06F2203/04806).

1.3 The '983 family disclosure as trial art (verified, with a caveat)

My searches surfaced PTAB petitions in which a "Kelts" exhibit is used to invalidate other parties' patents:

• IPR2020-01332 (Perez + Kelts combination), Preliminary Guidance at https://www.winston.com/a/web/[247182](/patent/247182)/PTAB-IPR2020-01332-14.pdf — Petitioner combined Perez (VOD/EPG metadata) with "Kelts" to meet hierarchical category/subcategory, VOD menu, template, and time-based-availability limitations of a later VOD patent.
• Petitions 1539702, 1539122, and 1490274 at PTAB E2E — extensive reliance on "Kelts" for "map items," map-item filtering, "generic map format descriptors," data-mining/tracking of navigation paths, and a "standard search engine interface" (cited to ¶¶ [0105]–[0106], [0113], [0129], [0158], [0167], [0187], [0226], [0310], [0351], [0391]–[0406] and reference numerals 502/504/506/516/612/1002/1006/1008).

Careful: those paragraph numbers and reference numerals do not match US 7,139,983 (which uses 102/104/602/604/606/608/610/802/804/806/808 and does not contain the cited paragraphs at those locations). The "Kelts" exhibit in those IPRs is therefore almost certainly a later Hillcrest/Kelts family document (a continuation in the 7,844,987 / 8,046,804 / 9,552,128 line), not the '983 itself. I flag this rather than assert it: I could not pull the exhibit cover page. The takeaway that does hold — and that strengthens the earlier "broad-disclosure" observation — is that the Kelts family specification has been used successfully enough as § 102/§ 103 art that petitioners reached for it repeatedly.

2. Most relevant prior art identified by me (not the examiner's list)

Label: unverified as to citation. Nothing in this section should be quoted as "cited on the face of US 7,139,983." Each row carries a confidence grade for the bibliographic data; I have marked where a detail must be confirmed against the printed document. I selected the art because it maps onto the claim-elements that the specification itself frames as the invention (per my earlier section: hierarchical magnification-dependent visibility of active selection items, genre-organized navigation objects, subcategory disclosure at higher zoom, guidance indicators, time-shift element) — and because these are the documents a competent § 102/§ 103 attack on this claim family would be built from.

2.1 Foundational EPG/schedule-display art (§ 102 backdrop)

2.2 Interactive-guide and EPG "selection item → target" art (§ 102 on the selection mechanics)

2.3 Zoom / multiscale-detail art — the art that actually matters (and appears NOT to have been cited)

This is the analytically important finding. The '983's genuine novelty hook, as the specification and abstract frame it, is not the EPG content at all — it is the rule that a limited set of active selection items is displayed at a first magnification level, a strictly larger (proper-subset) set at a second level, with new sub-objects/sub-category labels appearing as magnification increases, and that inactive items are rendered to preview the next level. That is a multiscale / semantic-zoom interface proposition, and the relevant art is GUI-research literature and multiscale-UI patents — which is precisely the category the record shows as NPL = 0.

Caveat on this subsection: these are my identifications, not record citations. The aggregate count suggests the examiner did not cite them, but the count is the only evidence I have and it is not a substitute for the printed front page.

3. The § 102 mapping problem — and a newly established fact about the claims

3.1 New finding: the '983 has at least 23 claims, with at least three independent claims

My earlier section had to flag the claim set as entirely unverified. Cross-referencing the ITC record captured in the litigation section resolves part of that now:

Jan. 21, 2009 — Hillcrest moved to amend the complaint/notice of investigation to add claims 3, 13 and 20 of the '983 patent and to terminate claims 5, 6, 15, 16, 22 and 23 of the '983 patent" (ITC Inv. No. 337-TA-658, Order No. 13, granted Feb. 5, 2009).

That single procedural fact establishes, on the record and without inference:

• The '983 contains claims numbered at least 1 through 23.
• Claims 3, 5, 6, 13, 15, 16, 20, 22, 23 all exist.
• The numerical grouping is consistent with at least three independent claims — most plausibly a first group beginning at claim 1 (dependents 2–6+), a second group beginning around claim 11–13 (dependents 14–16), and a third group beginning around claim 20–21 (dependents 22–23). This grouping is my inference from claim numbering conventions, not a verified reading.
• Because the asserted claims were terminated/added in 2009, the litigated claim set (3, 13, 20) is a narrow, dependent-heavy subset — which is itself a data point that Hillcrest chose claims of narrower scope when it had to plead them.

I still cannot supply verbatim claim language, and I still will not paraphrase claim text I have not read. Everything in § 2 is therefore mapped to claim elements, not claim numbers.

3.2 Why most of this art is § 103, not § 102

Weighted against the patent's own characterization, the realistic assessment is:

• True § 102 candidates (single-reference anticipation of an entire claim) are limited. US 6,151,059 is the best candidate against an "active selection items on distinctive areas of a navigation element" claim; US 5,801,753 is the best candidate against a server-generates/displays-remotely claim. Neither teaches the magnification-dependent proper-subset rule.
• The independent claims built around the magnification hierarchy are where § 102 is weakest and § 103 is strongest: a combination of (i) a category-organized EPG display (US 6,151,059 / US 6,002,394) with (ii) multiscale-detail disclosure (Bederson & Hollan '94 / Furnas '86) supplies every element, with a clean motivation (avoid overwhelming the viewer — a motivation the '983 itself articulates with the roadmap analogy).
• The dependent claims (e.g., duration indicators, guidance arrows, time-shifting over half-hour slots, filtering, inactive-item rendering) are the ones most exposed to single-reference art, because each is a discrete, well-known EPG UI feature. The time-shift element in particular has deep § 102 exposure in the EPG grid art of the mid-1990s (two-dimensional time-vs-channel grids), which was the industry standard layout by 1995.

Bottom line for mapping: I can responsibly say which claim elements each reference reaches; I cannot responsibly say "anticipates claim N" without the claim text, and any analyst who supplies that mapping from the front page alone would be inferring. My earlier section's caution stands: all claims are UNTESTED — no Board construction, no court construction (the 2009 matters settled pre-ID and pre-trial), so there is no adjudicated claim scope to map against either.

4. Where this leaves the analysis

1. The deliverable you asked for is only half-obtainable from open aggregators. The '983's own examiner-cited list is a 47-document universe that I could count but not enumerate in this session. Everything in §2 is my identification, labeled as such, and must be verified before use.
2. The most valuable finding is a negative one: the multiscale/zoomable-interface literature that maps onto the '983's actual novelty hook (Bederson & Hollan 1994; Furnas 1986; Bier 1993) is recorded as not cited (NPL = 0). If that holds on the printed front page, the strongest § 102/§ 103 art against the hierarchical-magnification claims was never before the examiner.
3. The claim-set gap is now partially closed: ≥23 claims, with claims 3, 13, 20 asserted and 5, 6, 15, 16, 22, 23 terminated in the 2008–09 ITC matter — but verbatim claim text is still required before any claim-number-level § 102 mapping is made.
4. No change to the strategic picture from my earlier sections: the patent is recorded Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2024-03-04; there are zero PTAB proceedings on it; there is no estoppel binding anyone; and the same portfolio is held by an active monetization entity (DRNC Holdings/InterDigital).

Verification checklist to close the gap

Sources consulted this session: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7139983/en (patent text, family, litigation links, expiration); https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-20020059603-A1 (citation counts); https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7139983; https://golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_7139983_Interactive_content_guide_for_television_programming-R9W8955; https://patents.google.com/patent/US7836466, /US8095565B2, /US6121970A, /US6268849B1, /US20100010772, /US8108795, /US7734579 (forward-citation tables); https://www.winston.com/a/web/247182/PTAB-IPR2020-01332-14.pdf (Perez + Kelts IPR); PTAB E2E petition documents 1490274, 1539122, 1539702; https://www.finnegan.com/en/work/experience/certain-video-game-machines-and-related-three-dimensional-pointing-devices-hillcrest-laboratories-v-nintendo-337-ta-658-itc.html; https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7139983.

I'll build on the prior sections (which established: claims never verified verbatim, all claims UNTESTED, only enforcement was the 2008–09 Nintendo campaign, expired 2024-03-04). Let me gather prior-art reference identifiers and try once more for the claim text.

Let me pull the citation tables (both what the '983 cites and what cites it) and the claim text directly.

Excellent — I found a sibling publication (US 2002/0112237 A1) with the same disclosure, plus an ISR citing several menu-navigation references. Let me verify the key prior-art candidates' identities and dates.

I hit my search-step limit, so the analysis below is built strictly on the artifacts I actually retrieved this session. Two threshold flags before the § 103 work, because both affect how much weight you can put on any explicit mapping:

Flag 1 — Claim text. Consistent with the earlier sections, I still could not retrieve the verbatim claim set of US 7,139,983. The element-by-element mapping below is keyed to (a) the abstract and specification of the '983, and (b) representative claim language I did retrieve from a sibling in the same family — US 2008/0060010 A1, claim 27 ("defining a plurality of different categories of media, each of said different categories having a portion of said user interface allocated thereto for presenting selection objects therein; categorizing media items available from a plurality of different sources into at least one of said plurality of different categories; and displaying a selection item associated with its respective media item within said portion…"). That is not the '983's claim language and must not be quoted as such. Every mapping must be re-run against the issued '983 claims from USPTO Patent Public Search.

Flag 2 — "Prior Art section." No verbatim prior-art section was supplied in the prompt body. I therefore treated the citation/ISR-derived references surfaced on this page ("References Cited" tables, the PCT search report text, and the specification's own admitted background) as the prior-art universe. All references below are from that set.

Flag 3 — a cross-reference that refines (not contradicts) the earlier PTAB section. In searching, I found a PTAB petition (No. 1539503) whose exhibits quote the same specification as the '983 but in "map items / graphical feature / navigation map" nomenclature (e.g., "map items within the subcategory of 'Drama' may be located proximate to a first area on the graphical feature…"). That indicates a sibling Hillcrest family member was challenged at the Board. This does not contradict the earlier finding of zero PTAB proceedings against US 7,139,983 — it is the same disclosure under a different patent number. But it is a lead that should be chased, because a sibling's Board record could contain constructions and art relevant here. I could not confirm the sibling's number before exhausting my search steps.

1. Legal framework applied

• Governing standard: 35 U.S.C. § 103 as construed in Graham v. John Deere (scope/content of art, differences, PHOSITA level, secondary considerations) and KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (a combination is obvious where the elements were known, the combination yields predictable results, and a POSITA had a reason to combine — including "design incentives" and "market forces").
• Critical date: priority April 10, 2000 (Google Patents) / April 9, 2000 per the Unified Patents listing — the one-day discrepancy flagged earlier is immaterial here, because every reference below predates 1999. For § 102(a)/(e) purposes the April 9, 2001 filing date gives additional headroom against art issued in 2000–2001.
• PHOSITA: a designer/engineer with ~2–4 years' experience in interactive television or consumer GUI design, familiar with set-top EPG platforms, on-screen menu hierarchies, remote-control-driven navigation, and 2D/3D graphics rendering. This is the level the '983's own specification implies (it expressly assumes "remote control device[s] having a limited number of directional navigation buttons, function keys, or menu buttons" and "conventional and well-known aspects of such presentation devices").
• Fields of endeavor / analogous art: (i) electronic program guides and interactive television; (ii) on-screen hierarchical menu systems; (iii) zoomable/pan-and-zoom graphical user interfaces; (iv) 3D graphics rendering on consumer devices. All references below fall within (i)–(iii), which is where a PHOSITA faced with the '983's stated problem ("support thousands of media sources and channels without overwhelming the user") would look.

2. Reference inventory — identity and dates as retrieved this session

Not verified this session (do not cite without checking): US 6,016,141 (Knudson), US 6,177,931 (Gemstar), US 5,585,865, US 5,589,892, US 5,353,121/5,479,266 series. These are the classic EPG-hierarchy references I would normally lead with, but my searches returned no confirming text for them, so I am not asserting their content.

Also flagged, not prior art: US 2002/0112237 A1 (published 2002-08-15) carries essentially the identical disclosure to the '983 — same "graphical feature 122 / Movies," same zoom process 1500, same active-vs-inactive item conversion, same time-shift element. It is a family member, not prior art, and may in fact be the very application whose specification the '983 shares. Its existence is useful for one point only: the '983's disclosure was drafted and repeated across a large family, which tells you the applicant regarded the disclosed features (not one narrow embodiment) as the invention — a scope posture that makes the § 103 fight correspond to whichever features the issued claims actually recite.

3. The claim-element set analyzed (inferred, flagged as such)

Based on the abstract and spec, the independent claims almost certainly recite a subset of:

Element set A–C is the heart; D–E is the likely novelty hook; F–J are the dependent-claim/embodiment layer. Note that the specification itself frames A–C as the "hierarchical protocol" and expressly likens it to a roadmap ("the most important information, e.g., major cities and highways, is displayed prominently and more obscure information … only displayed on a more detailed (or magnified) map view") — a self-supplied motivation statement that can be quoted back at the patent owner under KSR.

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — § 103: US 5,677,708 (Microsoft) in view of WO 99/22290 (Philips)

• What US 5,677,708 teaches (as retrieved/metadata): a Microsoft system for displaying a list on a display screen; in the PCT/EP 00/03637 search report it is cited as a "Y" reference for a claim set directed to items arranged in one or more levels, a focus area, and shifting among the items of a next higher or lower level — i.e., multi-level, focus-driven on-screen list navigation. (Column 9:56–19:13 and Figs. 3–8 were the cited passages.)
• What WO 99/22290 teaches (verbatim from the retrieved front page): "a first sequence of icons are displayed one after the other in a field on the display… The icon being displayed is made selectable… Upon selection of a particular icon of the first sequence, a second sequence of icons associated with the selected icon of the first sequence are displayed one after the other in another field… The sequences of icons, displayed in the different fields, constitute a hierarchical two-level menu structure which can now be realised with only two fields on the display."
• Mapping: A (navigation element with graphical objects/categories) ← Philips' first/second icon sequences; B (selection items for content sources) ← icons representing selectable items; C (limited items at one level; more items at a "higher" level) ← Philips' two-level structure where a selected icon reveals an associated second sequence, and Microsoft's list-in-levels with focus-area navigation. H (magnification/selection control signal) ← selection of an icon as the trigger.
• Motivation (KSR (A), (C), (D)): Both references are in the same field (on-screen list/menu display for consumer devices), solve the same problem (too many items for the available display area and for a limited-button input device), and use the same known mechanism (hierarchy + focus + reveal-on-selection). Philips expressly states the design objective — realizing a hierarchical two-level menu "with only two fields on the display" — which is precisely the screen-real-estate constraint the '983 identifies as its reason for the hierarchical visibility protocol. A PHOSITA seeking to build a channel guide for hundreds of channels would have been motivated, as a matter of design choice, to graft Microsoft's focus-area list navigation onto Philips' hierarchical icon reveal. Expectation of success is high: both are list/menu rendering systems, and the combination requires no new hardware or unpredictable physics.

Ground 2 — § 103: US 5,606,374 (IBM) in view of US 5,677,708 (Microsoft) and the IBM TDB "Dynamic Icon Presentation"

• What US 5,606,374 teaches (as retrieved): an IBM video receiver display of a menu overlaying video — i.e., the set-top/video-receiver context in which a menu is composited over a video signal (EPG-domain art, filed 1995, issued 1997).
• What the IBM TDB (Sept. 1992) teaches: dynamic icon presentation — modulating how an icon is presented (the exact technique for the '983's "variable characteristic" selection items and active/inactive rendering).
• Mapping: the "the end user device merely functions as a display element" and set-top/television-receiver architecture ← IBM '374's video receiver display; E (visually distinguishable / dynamically varying selection-item appearance) ← TDB "Dynamic Icon Presentation"; A–C, H ← Microsoft '708.
• Motivation (KSR (B), (F)): combining a menu-over-video renderer with a focus-driven multi-level list, and then applying known dynamic icon presentation, is the predictable use of known techniques to improve a similar device in the same way. The market force is express and documented: the cable/satellite EPG boom of the mid-to-late 1990s, with channel counts growing far faster than screen area, created a recognized incentive to compress and hierarchically organize channel listings — the '983 spec says as much.

Ground 3 — § 103: US 5,059,965 (Geiser) in view of US 5,677,708 (Microsoft) and Pad++ (Bederson et al.)

• What US 5,059,965 teaches: cited as the "X" (single-reference) anticipation document against independent claims 1 and 12 of the PCT/EP 00/03637 application — "the whole document" — which in context is a multi-level menu display disclosure. That is strong evidence that the multi-level menu display itself was squarely in the art by 1991.
• What Pad++ teaches (as characterized in the Apple petition materials): "a graphical interface system based on zooming, as an alternative to traditional window and icon-based approaches… objects can be placed in the graphical workspace at any size, and zooming is the fundamental navigational technique… provides simple methods for visually navigating complex information spaces that ease the burden of locating information while maintaining an intuitive sense of location and of relationship between information objects."
• Mapping: C, D, H (first/second magnification levels with progressively revealed items; magnification as the navigation control) ← Pad++'s zoom-as-navigation paradigm and its spatial-memory rationale; A, B ← Geiser's multi-level menu; the "hierarchical protocol" framing ← the combination.
• Motivation (KSR (C), (E)): The '983's own stated benefit — "the interactive interface leverages spatial memory to allow users to quickly re-locate media items that they found during a previous viewing" — is literally Pad++'s stated objective ("maintaining an intuitive sense of location and of relationship between information objects"). Where a secondary reference articulates the very advantage the applicant asserts, the motivation to combine is supplied by the applicant's own specification. Pad++ was a widely published, well-known 1994–1998 ZUI research system, and its application to a television information space is a straightforward, obvious-to-try extension.

Ground 4 — § 103: WO 99/22290 (Philips) in view of EP 0 645 604 (Peugeot/Citroën), US 5,283,560 (Bartlett) and US 5,289,573 (Harada)

• What these teach: EP 0 645 604 = an on-board hierarchical menu user interface (the "graphical feature"/cluster-of-objects presentation idiom in a consumer display context); US 5,283,560 = cited "Y" against a claim to a focus area showing a combination of two linked items of two neighboring levels — i.e., simultaneous display of a parent item and its children (the '983's "selection items displayed on or proximate to a navigation object"); US 5,289,573 = cited "A" for an abstract/figures disclosure involving on-screen selection.
• Mapping: F (sub-objects/sub-categories at deeper levels, with parent+child co-displayed) ← Bartlett's two-linked-items-of-neighboring-levels focus area and Philips' associated second sequence; A, B ← Philips/EP 0 645 604.
• Motivation (KSR (A), (D)): These are all hierarchical consumer-display menu systems. Bartlett in particular teaches exactly the parent/child co-display relationship that the '983 uses to justify placing selection items "on or proximate to" a navigation object. Combining them adds nothing more than a predictable arrangement of known UI elements, with each reference performing its own known function.

Ground 5 — § 103 (alternative, "obvious to try"): any one of the above in view of the '983's own design-choice admissions

The '983 specification makes several admissions that function as a roadmap for the obviousness case and are quotable in a petition or an invalidity contention:

1. The metaphor is arbitrary. "Navigation interface display 100 need not employ a geographical map analogy; display 100 may utilize any suitable design or graphical features… display 100 may employ graphical objects and features that represent any suitable theme, e.g., a carnival theme, a solar system theme, an abstract theme, a container theme, a library theme, or the like."
2. The category set is arbitrary. "The prioritization metric can be based on the frequency of selection… may be based on specified preferences…" and "the order in which categories and subcategories are displayed… may follow any suitable prioritization scheme or metric."
3. The hardware is conventional. "Presentation devices are preferably configured in conventional ways known to those skilled in the art"; the system "may utilize any number of commercially available servers."
4. The problem is stated generically. "adapt to a large number of content providers, channels, stations, or the like" and "support thousands of media sources and channels without overwhelming the user."

Under KSR, where the specification frames the distinguishing features as "any suitable" design choices and the reference combination supplies the same functional result, the claimed subject matter is the predictable product of a finite set of identified solutions — classic obvious-to-try.

5. Where the art may not reach (honest defense-side gaps)

This is the part that matters most for a real petition, and it is where I cannot be definitive without the claim text:

Bottom line on the gaps: the broadly-claimed hierarchical-zoom EPG concept is, on the art retrieved, highly vulnerable. The most defensible positions for the patent owner, if any, are (i) the cumulative proper-subset limitation (D), and (ii) the inactive-item-as-preview limitation (E). Everything else appears to be a predictable assembly of 1990s hierarchical-menu and zoomable-UI art.

6. Secondary considerations — likely unavailable

Per the earlier sections, US 7,139,983 was asserted once (Hillcrest v. Nintendo, D. Md. 8:08-cv-02188; ITC 337-TA-658) and resolved by confidential settlement with no validity ruling, no injunction, no damages award, and no exclusion order, and it expired 2024-03-04. There is therefore no judicial finding of validity, no nexus-supporting commercial success evidence of record, and no Board decision to weigh against the prima facie case. No secondary-consideration counterweight should be assumed.

7. Recommended next steps (verify-or-die list)

1. Pull the issued claims for US 7,139,983 from USPTO Patent Public Search / Patent Center Full-Page Images. The whole analysis above is element-mapped to inferred features; re-map A–J to the literal claim language before this is used in a petition, IDS, or contention. Pay particular attention to whether D and E are in independent claim 1 or only in dependents, and whether claim 1 recites the server/presentation-layer split.
2. Retrieve the full text of US 5,677,708 (Microsoft, 1995/1997) and confirm the column 9:56–19:13 passages cited in the ISR regarding levels and focus-area navigation — this is the workhorse reference and its characterization must be verbatim-supported.
3. Pull US 5,606,374 (IBM) front page and confirm the exact title (truncated in the citation table as "Video receiver display of menu overl…") and its overlay/EPG content.
4. Chase the sibling PTAB petition 1539503 — identify the patent number, read the Board's institution decision and the art asserted, since it applies to the identical specification and may already contain an accepted element mapping.
5. Verify the EPG-hierarchy references I could not confirm (US 6,016,141 Knudson; US 6,177,931 Gemstar/Alexander; StarSight and UVSC/Prevue art) — these are the natural companions for elements C–E and I.
6. Fix the priority date (2000-04-10 vs 2000-04-09) from the file wrapper. As noted, nothing in this analysis turns on it because all references predate 1999, but it must be stated correctly in any petition.

8. Explicit uncertainties

1. Claim text remains unverified. All elements above are inferred from the abstract/spec and from a sibling claim (US 2008/0060010). This is the single largest limitation on the analysis.
2. Reference content is only partially verified. For US 5,677,708, US 5,283,560, US 5,289,573, US 5,059,965, EP 0 645 604, US 5,552,806, US 5,606,374 and the IBM TDB, I confirmed identity, dates, and the category of teaching from citation tables/ISRs — but in most cases I did not read the reference bodies. The characterizations are therefore provisional; the column/line cites must be checked.
3. Pad++ is characterized second-hand (through the Grimes declarations recited in an Apple petition), not from the primary Bederson papers.
4. The Petition 1539503 sibling identification is incomplete — I saw the shared specification but not the patent number of record.
5. No assertion is made about references I searched for and could not confirm (e.g., US 6,016,141, US 6,177,931). Absence of confirmation is not evidence of absence.
6. Date discrepancy acknowledged: the task states April 26, 2026; my environment date is September 28, 2026. Nothing here turns on it.