US 7185358

I'll search for authoritative information on US 7,185,358.

Now let me check for litigation / CAFC docket activity and the USPTO assignment record.

Let me check for any IPR/PTAB and Federal Circuit activity specifically involving 7,185,358.

US 7,185,358 — Analyst Summary

Confidence note up front: The bibliographic and claim data below is drawn from the patent text itself (Google Patents) and corroborating secondary databases. The litigation/enforcement portion is where I have less authoritative coverage — see the explicit uncertainty flags at the end. I found no CAFC 2026 docket referencing this patent, and I cannot treat that absence as proof, since I do not have direct CM/ECF or CAFC docket query access in this session.

Bibliographic Data

Prosecution family (important): US 7,185,358 is a divisional of application 09/313,067, filed 1999-05-17, which issued as US 6,209,103. A sibling divisional, application 09/595,814, issued as US 6,944,822. All claim the 1998-06-14 IL priority.

Abstract (as issued)

"A method for providing textual information in a network environment, the method comprising: receiving a request via a network for text-editable textual information; converting the text-editable textual information into a non-text-editable textual format on line upon receiving the request; and sending the non-text-editable textual information via the network. Network-based systems are also disclosed."

Note the mismatch worth flagging: the abstract and specification are broad (text rendering, image decomposition, password-limited software), but the granted claims of this divisional cover only the password/applet embodiment. The text-rendering and sub-image claims appear in the parent/sibling and PCT publication WO 1999/066666.

Independent Claim Overview (plain language)

Claim 1 — Method for limiting operational life of software

A server sends an executable program applet to a client over a network, with a password embedded inside the applet. That password is time/condition-limited. When the applet (running on the client) asks the server for information held in a restricted-access store, the request carries the embedded password. Each time such a request is received, the server authenticates the password. While the password remains valid, the server returns the requested information. The server then invalidates the embedded password when an invalidation event occurs — killing further access.

Key limitations to note: (a) the password is embedded in the applet itself and is transmitted with the applet, (b) authentication happens "whenever said receiving occurs" — i.e., repeated per-request validation, and (c) the applet includes executable code that runs on the client.

Claim 6 — Network-based software authentication system

The apparatus counterpart. A server has: a password generator, password validation apparatus, a restricted-access storage area, a program applet (executable on a client), and invalidation apparatus. The server is operative to (a) generate a limited-life password, (b) embed it in the applet and transmit the applet+password to a client, (c) receive the applet's request plus embedded password, (d) authenticate whenever the requested information sits in the restricted-access area, (e) transmit the information while the password is valid, and (f) invalidate the password on an invalidation event.

Dependent Claims

• 2 / 7 — invalidation at a predetermined time (arrival of a set clock time).
• 3 / 8 — invalidation after a lapse of a predetermined time from when the request was received.
• 4 / 9 — invalidation upon detection of lost communication with the client.
• 5 — the transmitting step includes generating the embedded password.

Technical substance / significance

The patent's premise (specification) is that copyright protection for network-delivered content fails because text is copy-pasteable, images can be scraped from the client's video buffer, and applets can be decompiled. Its three disclosed countermeasures are: (1) on-the-fly server-side rendering of HTML into non-editable graphics (GIF/JPEG) or text-to-speech, preserving hyperlinks via a graphical client map; (2) decomposition of images into color-separated or interference-pattern sub-images displayed in succession so the video buffer never holds more than one whole sub-image; and (3) embedded, server-authenticated, revocable passwords in applets. Only countermeasure (3) is claimed in this divisional — and it is the ancestor of modern token/session-expiry and per-request credential-validation patterns. The specification cites NGLAYOUT (Netscape) as a rendering engine.

Enforcement / Docket Status — with explicit uncertainty

• Current owner: Kioba Processing, LLC (acquired 2020-01-03 from Intellectual Ventures Assets 150 LLC; IV had acquired it 2019-11-06 from Gula Consulting, which came via Alearo Properties ← FI Delaware ← Finjan, Inc. ← Finjan Software, Ltd. ← Alchemedia Ltd.). [USPTO assignment records via Google Patents]
• Finjan-era marketing: US 7,185,358 appears in Finjan/Tradewave (later M86/Trustwave) product copyright notices listing it as a Finjan patent alongside US 6,209,103, US 6,944,822, etc. — evidence of portfolio use, not of assertion of this specific number. [support.trustwave.com/kb/attachments/1936.pdf]
• Kioba's 2020–2024 assertion campaign: RPX and Patexia dockets show Kioba sued numerous banks (American Express, Discover, Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Capital One, TD Bank, Frost, Zions, Prosperity, Texas Capital, Schwab, Citibank, BMO) between 2020 and 2024. The patents appearing in those public docket summaries are payment/mobile-payment patents — e.g., US 6,931,382; 6,917,902; 7,107,078; 6,332,134; 8,442,915 — not 7,185,358. I did not find a docket confirming that 7,185,358 itself was asserted in that campaign, and I would not assert that it was.
• PTAB: The IPR I can see in that family context is IPR2020-01695 (Unified Patents v. Kioba Processing), which appears tied to US 6,931,382 — not this patent. I found no IPR/PTAB proceeding naming 7,185,358.
• CAFC 2026: I found no Federal Circuit appeal in 2026 (or any year) referencing 7,185,358 in the sources I could reach. This is a negative finding from limited search coverage, not a verified absence. Note the patent's listed expiration (2019-06-06) would make it a poor candidate for live 2026 assertion; however, I also saw one secondary source (Unified Patents portal) list a sibling patent, US 6,944,822, with an expiration of 2021-04-03, which conflicts with its 20-year term calculation and may reflect PTA/terminal-disclaimer or data error. Treat all expiration dates here as low-confidence.

Data-quality caveats

• Inventor name is rendered "Guedaliah" in the 7,185,358 grant and "Guedallah" in the sibling US 6,944,822 PDF; I am reporting both as found rather than correcting either.
• Google Patents lists the priority date as 1998-06-14 (IL 124895) while one secondary aggregator listed US 6,944,822's priority as "1998-06-13" and filing as "2000-06-15" — off-by-one discrepancies in the aggregator, not in the patent. The authoritative filing date for 09/595,839 is 2000-06-16.
• The claim-6 preamble recites "a server computer" while the closing "wherein" clauses reference "said client computer," a minor antecedent-basis quirk typical of this family.

Bottom line: 7,185,358 is the applet-with-embedded-expiring-password divisional of the Schreiber/Guedaliah "prevent reuse" family, originally Finjan, now Kioba Processing, expired. Its broader text/image anti-copy claims live in US 6,209,103 and US 6,944,822, not here. I have no authoritative record of 7,185,358 being litigated or appealed in 2026, and I recommend direct verification via USPTO Patent Center and the CAFC docket before relying on that negative.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 7185358. Let me search authoritative sources.

Let me search more targeted sources for this specific patent number and its owners.

Answer: No confirmed litigation asserting US Patent 7,185,358

Working from the sources I was able to retrieve (Google Patents full text/assignment record for the ‘358 patent, Justia/Docket Alarm dockets, UniCourt, RPX Insight, PatSnap litigation summaries, and Finjan product/marketing materials), I could not identify any lawsuit in which US 7,185,358 was actually asserted as a patent-in-suit. I want to be explicit that this is a "not found," not a "does not exist" — and below I explain why the record points strongly toward there being little or no such litigation.

1. Why my searches point to "no ‘358 assertion"

The patent expired before the current owner's litigation campaign began. The Google Patents legal-status data for this record shows "Expired – Lifetime, expires 2019-06-06," with an adjusted-expiration event dated 2019-06-06. A patent that expired in mid-2019 could not have been asserted in the owner's later campaigns (2020–2024, described below). This is consistent with the absence of any ‘358 infringement suit in the sources I reviewed.

‘358 is a divisional of the Finjan/Alchemedia family, but the Finjan infringement suits asserted sibling patents, not ‘358. The specification states: "This application is a divisional application of U.S. application Ser. No. 09/313,067 of Schreiber et al., filed May 17, 1999 now U.S. Pat. No. 6,209,103." The “‘358 patent appears in Finjan's 2008–2009 product brochures only as a portfolio patent-notice listing, alongside 6,092,194, 6,154,844, 6,167,520, 6,480,962, 6,209,103, 6,298,446, 6,353,892, 6,804,780, 6,922,693, 6,944,822, 6,993,662, 6,965,968, 7,058,822, 7,076,469, 7,155,743, 7,155,744, 7,418,731. See, e.g., https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/finjan-a-permanent-injunction-for-infringing-technology-found-in-mcafee-products and http://www.finjan.com/objects/brochures/IBM-ARS_2009.pdf.

The best-documented Finjan enforcement action in that era —

• Finjan Inc. v. Secure Computing Corp. (later McAfee), D. Del. — resulted in an August 2009 permanent injunction and affirmed jury verdict, but the press release identifies the asserted patents as U.S. 6,092,194 / 6,804,780 / 7,058,822 — not 7,185,358. Source: https://www.darkreading.com/vulnerabilities-threats/finjan-a-permanent-injunction-for-infringing-technology-found-in-mcafee-products.

A portfolio notice is not a pleading, and I found no complaint tying ‘358 to that or any other Finjan case.

2. The current owner is an active litigant — but on other patents

US 7,185,358's assignment chain (per the patent record) runs: Schreiber/Guedaliah → CSafe Ltd. → Alchemedia Ltd. → Finjan Software Ltd. → Finjan, Inc. → FI Delaware Inc. → Alearo Properties LLC → Gula Consulting LLC → Intellectual Ventures Assets 150 LLC (2019-11-06) → Kioba Processing, LLC (2020-01-03).

Kioba Processing, LLC is a prolific filer, but the cases I located identify asserted patents belonging to other families (mobile-payment/authentication patents such as US 6,917,902; 6,931,382; 7,107,078; 8,442,915 — not the Finjan content-security family):

Sources: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2020cv00328/[201247](/patent/201247) ; https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-kioba-processing-llc-v-jpmorgan-chase-co-et-al-[835895](/patent/835895) ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2021cv00218/[207129](/patent/207129) ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2022cv00317/[216755](/patent/216755) ; https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-kioba-processing-llc-v-zions-bancorporation-na-dba-amegy-bank-[1234593](/patent/1234593) ; https://www.patsnap.com/fr/resources/blog/litigation/kioba-processing-v-texas-capital-bank-mobile-payment-patents-patsnap/ ; https://www.patsnap.com/de/resources/blog/litigation/kioba-processing-v-charles-schwab-mobile-payment-patent-dispute-patsnap/ ; https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172764965-kioba-processing-v-citibank.

None of the docket material I retrieved names US 7,185,358 among the asserted patents. I also did not find any PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) referencing it.

3. Explicit caveats (please don't over-read this)

• I was unable to complete all planned verification queries (I hit a tool-call limit before checking the Unified Patents litigation case-list page directly, Docket Navigator, and the specific pleadings/exhibits in the Kioba campaign). The Citibank case in particular lists 7 patents-in-suit whose identities I could not confirm; if you need certainty on ‘358, that complaint's exhibits are the place to check.
• Absence of evidence ≠ proof of absence. Free docket aggregators (UniCourt, Justia, RPX snippets) are incomplete, and older 1999–2007 suits are poorly indexed. A pre-2019 assertion of ‘358 by Finjan/Alchearo/Alearo could exist without appearing in the sources retrieved.
• The patent's expiry (2019-06-06) is a strong practical reason no recent case would assert it, and it materially reduces the plausibility of any late-stage ‘358 suit.

4. Recommended verification steps

To close the gap definitively, I would (a) run "7,185,358" and "7185358" as exact-phrase searches in PACER's multi-district search and in Lex Machina / Docket Navigator, (b) pull the Citibank (6:23-cv-00787) complaint and its patent exhibits, and (c) check the USPTO assignment/reexamination and PTAB records for ‘358. If you'd like, I can attempt those targeted lookups (starting with the Citibank pleading and the Unified Patents portal) on your go-ahead.

Bottom line: Based on the sources retrieved, there is no confirmed litigation involving US Patent 7,185,358. The patent is part of the Finjan/Alchemedia content-security family (divisional of US 6,209,103, sibling of US 6,944,822) and is now held by Kioba Processing, LLC, but the enforcement activity I found in that portfolio involves other patents — and the ‘358 patent's own legal-status record shows it expired on 2019-06-06.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" default against public sources before writing this up.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,185,358: 0 (zero). The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings on file for this patent, and independent web searching surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition, institution decision, or final written decision naming the '358 patent — so the breakdown across active / claims-invalidated / claims-sustained / settled / institution-denied is 0 / 0 / 0 / 0 / 0. The defensive posture this creates is unusual and, on balance, favorable to an accused infringer: there is no PTAB ruling to run to, but there is also no § 315(e)(2) estoppel, and — more decisively — the patent's term is over (adjusted expiration 2019-06-06), so any demand letter built on it is directed at a dead right. The absence of PTAB activity on a patent this old and this widely licensed is itself an indication that nobody ever had a live, worthwhile reason to spend $300K challenging it.

Caveat on sourcing: I could not confirm the absence with a primary docket query (PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions are not searchable via the tools available here). The zero count rests on (a) the structured ODP block, and (b) negative web-search results across multiple query formulations. Treat it as high-confidence but verify on PTAB E2E before relying on it in a filing.

Proceedings

None. No per-proceeding sections are provided because no proceeding numbers exist to report, and proceeding numbers are never invented.

What I did find is adjacent, not on this patent, and is offered only as pattern context with an express reliability caveat:

• IPR2020-01695 — Unified Patents, LLC v. Kioba Processing LLC. Filed 2020-10-01; terminated 2021-02-26 as "Terminated-Settled"; panel Hyun Jung, James Tartal, John Pinkerton; TC 3600. The listed inventors are Dominic P. Laage and Maria T. Laage — i.e., the remote-asset-management family (US 7,110,792 / 7,107,078 et al.), not the Schreiber/Csafe family to which '358 belongs. (Docket Alarm listing)
• IPR2023-00147 — Askeladden L.L.C. v. Kioba Processing LLC, filed 2022-11-02, institution 2023-05-17, FWD 2024-03-25 (authoring APJ Josiah C. Cocks), challenging claims 8–23 of US 7,110,792 — again the Laage family, not the '358 family. The scraped record I retrieved did not populate the "claims invalidated" field, so I do not know the claim-level outcome and will not guess at it. (Patexia case summary)

The relevance of these two: they show that the current assignee, Kioba Processing LLC, is an active assertion vehicle that has drawn aggregator and competitor IPRs — just on its other, younger patent family. The '358 patent has not been part of that campaign.

Strategic summary

Claim status — everything is untested, and now untestable. US 7,185,358 issued with 9 claims, all confined to the software/password aspect of the disclosure. Claim 1 is a method claim (transmit an applet with embedded, limited-life password → receive request + password from the running applet → authenticate → serve restricted-access information while valid → invalidate on an invalidation event); claim 6 is the mirrored system claim; claims 2–5 and 7–9 are dependents reciting the invalidation triggers (predetermined time, lapse of time from request, loss of communication with client) and password generation. A crucial scoping point for anyone reading a demand letter: the famous text-to-image and sub-image-fragmentation subject matter described in the '358 specification is not claimed in '358. Because '358 is a divisional, that subject matter was prosecuted in the parent, US 6,209,103, and the sibling divisional US 6,944,822 (appl. 09/595,814). If a demand letter cites "rendering text as a non-editable image," it is almost certainly citing '103 or '822, not '358 — a distinction worth forcing the plaintiff to own early.

The controlling fact: term. Google Patents records the legal status as Expired – Lifetime, expires 2019-06-06 (the family's 20-year term runs from the 1999-05-17 filing of application 09/313,067, to which '358 claims benefit). The parent '103 and sibling '822 share that same 1999 priority chain and are likewise expired. Consequence: no infringement claim can arise from any conduct after mid-2019, the damages window is closed except for old, unexpired-period conduct (which is itself time-barred in most fora by the six-year § 286 lookback and by laches-type defenses in equity), and post-2019 injunction theories are legally impossible. That is a far stronger, cheaper defense than any IPR outcome.

Estoppel landscape: none, and that's the good news. Because no IPR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached to anyone. There is no petitioner, no privy, and no "grounds raised or reasonably could have raised" bar. A defendant today faces no PTAB-derived estoppel; conversely, it also has no FWD to point to. The full universe of invalidity art remains theoretically available — but the more efficient path is simply that the patent is expired and, if the asserted claims are those of '358, they are also narrowly drawn around a 1998-era embedded-password applet architecture that the prior art (e.g., the already-of-record US 5,638,513 to Ananda, "Secure software rental system using continuous asynchronous password verification," and US 5,878,291 / 5,875,296 to IBM on Java applet/Web-server security) squarely addresses.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner exists on this patent because there is no petitioner at all. The patent owner has never pursued a PTAB appeal on this patent — there is nothing to appeal. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, Askeladden) has ever targeted '358; the aggregator activity in the Kioba portfolio is aimed at the Laage patents. The patent's own prosecution history shows the Schreiber/Csafe family being commercialized through Csafe → Alchemedia → Finjan Software → Finjan, Inc. → FI Delaware → Alearo → Gula Consulting → Intellectual Ventures Assets 150 → Kioba Processing LLC (assignment effective 2019-11-15, recorded 2020-01-03) — a standard IV-disposal chain, and notably the transfer happened after the '358 term had already run out.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and the letter cites the '358 patent: the dispositive response is term, not invalidity. Demand the plaintiff identify (i) the specific claims asserted, and (ii) the accused acts and their dates. Then run the arithmetic: the adjusted expiration is 2019-06-06, so no post-expiration conduct is actionable and § 286 caps the recovery window at six years before filing. If the asserted claims are the methods/systems of claims 1–9 here, there is no live claim. There is no FWD to link to — say so in the letter rather than implying one exists.
• If the letter actually cites the text-rendering or image-fragmentation technology featured in the '358 specification: re-paper it as a citation to US 6,209,103 and/or US 6,944,822, both of which share the 1999-05-17 priority filing and are equally expired. Same term argument, different patent number — and check whether those two have any PTAB or litigation history of their own before conceding anything.
• Verify before you rely. Pull the case list for US 7,185,358, US 6,209,103, and US 6,944,822 on USPTO PTAB E2E and search the PTAB Decisions database; cross-check any Federal Circuit docket on CourtListener. My searches were negative, but PTAB E2E is the authoritative source and ODP indexing can lag.
• Because there is no PTAB activity at all, note the signal explicitly. For a 1998-priority patent that has passed through IV to an NPE, the absence of any IPR/PGR/CBM over the entire life of the AIA (2012–present) is meaningful: no accused party ever judged the patent worth a post-grant challenge. Combined with expiration, that is about as thin an assertion posture as a patent can present.

I'll ground the ownership-chain analysis with searches on the key entities before writing.

Good grounding. Now let me try to pull recorded correspondents and the post-2011 chain specifics.

US 7,185,358 B1 — Ownership Chain Reconstruction

Patent: Method and apparatus for preventing reuse of text, images and software transmitted via networks
Appl. No.: 09/595,839 (divisional of 09/313,067 → US 6,209,103) · Filed: 2000‑06‑16 · Priority: IL 124895, 1998‑06‑14 · Granted: 2007‑02‑27 · Adjusted expiration: 2019‑06‑06

Sourcing note up front. All reel/frame numbers, conveyance types and effective/recording dates below come from the USPTO assignment records as rendered in the Google Patents legal‑events table for this patent (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7185358/en#legalEvents) and are cross‑checked against Google's reassignment entries in the full text you supplied. I was not able to retrieve the correspondent of record (attorney/firm) for most links. The Assignment Center search UI at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ is a JavaScript application that my search tools cannot query, and Google Patents omits the correspondent field entirely. I retrieved exactly one correspondent, for the 2003 Alchemedia→Finjan recording, from a secondary index (PlainSite). I have left every other correspondent field marked [not retrieved] rather than guess. This is the single biggest gap in the report and it directly limits signal #3 below.

Inventors

Notes and unusual patterns:

• Both named inventors are the only inventors on this patent. The sibling family members (US 6,209,103; US 6,944,822; US 6,994,662) share Schreiber, with US 6,994,662 adding a third inventor, Moshe Rubin.
• The inventors' original assignment to CSAFE Ltd. was executed in 1999 but not recorded at the USPTO until 2011‑11‑16 (Reel 027236/0658, signing dates 1999‑05‑04 to 1999‑05‑09). That is a 12‑year recording gap. It is not evidence of inventor flight — rather, it is a title‑cleanup recording filed roughly six weeks after the Finjan→FI Delaware→Alearo transfer batch (Reels 027010/0878 and 027012/0458, recorded 2011‑10‑04). Belt‑and‑braces perfection of chain of title ahead of a portfolio transfer is a classic move.
• No inventor departed‑then‑re‑assigned pattern. Neither inventor appears again anywhere in the chain after the 1999 assignment; no inventor is a named assignor or assignee on any later record.
• I could not verify either inventor's subsequent employment from the sources retrieved. A third‑party profile lists Schreiber as "founder of Alchemedia and founder of 1 other company" but does not name that company; I am not asserting an identity for it.

Original assignee

Two different entities matter, and they are distinct:

• Applicant at filing (2000‑06‑16): CSAFE Ltd. — the Israeli company founded by Daniel Schreiber in 1998, headquartered in Beit Shemesh, Israel ("cSafe Ltd").
• Assignee named on the issued patent (2007‑02‑27): Finjan Software, Ltd. — Google Patents' "Original Assignee" field. By issuance, title had already passed through the CSAFE→Alchemedia name change (effective 2000‑01‑17) and the Alchemedia→Finjan Software asset purchase (executed 2003‑05‑15).

Product / business:

• CSAFE / Alchemedia was an Enterprise Digital Rights Management (EDRM) vendor. It shipped a real product — Mirage Enterprise 3.x and the earlier "Clever Content" DRM product — marketed as "Secure Display" technology for shielding displayed documents from capture and redistribution, sold into automotive, energy, pharma, aerospace, financial services and government accounts. This patent family is the patent backbone of that product line.
• Commercially, the product failed. Alchemedia raised roughly $26–30M over three rounds, its image‑protection technology did not sell as expected, ~55 of 85 employees were laid off by mid‑2001, and Schreiber pivoted the company to document DRM. It reportedly reached profitability in Q4 2002 but was still sold for only "several million dollars."

Current status:

• CSAFE Ltd. / Alchemedia Ltd.: dissolved — assets and IP acquired by Finjan Software in the December 2002–May 2003 transaction. Israeli press coverage at the time stated most of its investors likely would not recover their investment.
• Finjan Software, Ltd.: became Finjan, Inc. (2009 reorg), renamed FI Delaware Inc. (2010), and today trades on as Finjan LLC under Finjan Holdings LLC — an operating security company turned licensing business (Finjan Holdings reported ~$50.5M gross revenue in 2017, largely licensing). Finjan Holdings was acquired by affiliates of Fortress Investment Group, closing 2020‑07‑24, for ~$43.9M. Note that this patent left Finjan in 2011 and is not part of the Fortress‑acquired Finjan portfolio.

Assignment timeline

Every recorded assignment, oldest to newest. Where the record supplies only an "effective date" rather than an execution date, that is noted; where the record supplies the actual paperwork signing date, that is noted. Reel/frame is present for all nine records.

1. 1999‑05‑04 to 1999‑05‑09 (executed) / recorded 2011‑11‑16 — Reel 027236/0658

• Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → company)
• Assignor: Daniel Schreiber; David Guedaliah
• Assignee: CSAFE Ltd.
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: original inventor assignment, recorded 12 years late as part of a 2011 title‑cleanup batch ahead of the Alearo transfer.

2. Effective 2000‑01‑17 / recorded 2003‑05‑01 — Reel 014012/0611

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: CSAFE Ltd.
• Assignee: ALCHEMEDIA LTD.
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: change of name only — internal corporate act; recorded a decade after the effective date, during the Finjan closing.

3. 2003‑05‑15 (executed) / recorded 2003‑08‑04 — Reel 014345/0969

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Alchemedia Ltd.
• Assignee: Finjan Software, Ltd.
• Correspondent: MARC A. SOCKOL, ESQ, Squire Sanders (US) LLP, 600 Hansen Way, Palo Alto, CA 94304‑1043 (retrieved via PlainSite's index of the 2003‑05‑15 / 2003‑08‑04 Alchemedia→Finjan Software assignment; PlainSite lists the parent patent US 6,209,103 under reel 14344/410 while Google lists this patent under 014345/0969 — I could not reconcile the reel discrepancy without the underlying images, but the execution date, recording date and parties are identical, so these are the same transaction.)
• Context: acquisition — Finjan Software bought all Alchemedia assets and IP; the deal was initiated by shared investor Israel Seed and announced December 2002.

4. Effective 2009‑11‑02 / recorded 2009‑11‑24 — Reel 023556/0853

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Finjan Software, Ltd.
• Assignee: Finjan, Inc. (California)
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: internal reorg — consolidation of the operating subsidiary that would front Finjan's licensing/enforcement program.

5. Effective 2010‑12‑08 / recorded 2011‑10‑04 — Reel 027012/0458

• Conveyance: Change of Name
• Assignor: Finjan, Inc.
• Assignee: FI Delaware Inc.
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: change of name only, re‑domesticating the holding entity ahead of the sale in entry 6.

6. Effective 2011‑08‑15 / recorded 2011‑10‑04 — Reel 027010/0878

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: FI Delaware Inc.
• Assignee: ALEARO PROPERTIES LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (Delaware)
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: transfer to a non‑practising holding vehicle — the point at which this patent family leaves the Finjan operating/licensing business. Recorded the same day as entry 5, with consecutive reel numbers.

7. Effective 2015‑08‑26 / recorded 2016‑01‑20 — Reel 037539/0253

• Conveyance: Merger
• Assignor: Alearo Properties Limited Liability Company
• Assignee: GULA CONSULTING LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY (Delaware)
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: internal reorg within a fund structure — Alearo merged into Gula; no third‑party buyer.

8. Effective 2019‑10‑31 / recorded 2019‑11‑06 — Reel 050924/0979

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Gula Consulting Limited Liability Company
• Assignee: INTELLECTUAL VENTURES ASSETS 150 LLC (Delaware)
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: transfer inside the Intellectual Ventures monetization structure — the "IV Assets NNN" series LLCs are IV's divestiture vehicles. 15 days after this transfer, entry 9 followed.

9. Effective 2019‑11‑15 / recorded 2020‑01‑03 — Reel 051464/0203

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: INTELLECTUAL VENTURES ASSETS 150 LLC
• Assignee: KIOBA PROCESSING, LLC (Georgia)
• Correspondent: [not retrieved]
• Context: transfer to an active assertion vehicle — Kioba began a bank/fintech enforcement campaign in 2020 (see signals below).

Also on the record: a USPTO legal-event entry dated 2019‑06‑06, "Adjusted expiration," i.e. the term adjustment date. This patent expired in June 2019 — before entries 8 and 9 were executed.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7185358
    1998 : Schreiber founds cSafe Ltd in Israel
    1999 : Inventors assign rights to cSafe Ltd
    2000 : cSafe renamed Alchemedia Ltd
    2003 : Alchemedia sold to Finjan Software Ltd
    2009 : Finjan Software assigned to Finjan Inc
    2010 : Finjan Inc renamed FI Delaware Inc
    2011 : FI Delaware assigned to Alearo Properties
         : Inventor-to-cSafe deed recorded late
    2015 : Alearo merges into Gula Consulting
    2019 : Gula assigned to IV Assets 150
         : IV Assets 150 assigned to Kioba
         : Patent term expires in June
    2020 : Kioba begins bank litigation campaign

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT

The patent moves out of an operating company into a non‑practising holding LLC at Reel 027010/0878 (FI Delaware Inc. → Alearo Properties LLC, effective 2011‑08‑15), and then through two further vehicular LLCs: Gula Consulting LLC (merger, Reel 037539/0253) and Intellectual Ventures Assets 150 LLC (Reel 050924/0979).
Concrete evidence beyond naming:

• Alearo Properties LLC is recorded as "Original Assignee" on sibling family patents (US 6,944,822; US 6,994,662; US RE44,209) and holds no products — it appears only as a title holder.
• Gula Consulting LLC's corporate parent is on the public docket as Intellectual Ventures' fund. In The Travelers Indemnity Company v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al. (D. Del. 1:26‑cv‑00397, filed 2026), the Rule 7.1 disclosure identifies the corporate parent of Gula Consulting LLC, Callahan Cellular LLC, Cufer Asset Ltd. LLC, OL Security LLC and Tamiras Per Pte. Ltd. as Invention Investment Fund II, LLC — i.e. an Intellectual Ventures fund. Gula is litigated alongside Intellectual Ventures I LLC, Intellectual Ventures II LLC and Zarbana Digital Fund LLC.
• Reels 027010 and 027012 were recorded on the same day (2011‑10‑04) with consecutive reel numbers, and the inventor‑assignment cleanup (027236/0658) followed six weeks later — a batched, coordinated filing.
  Caveat: I could not retrieve the registered addresses on the assignment cover sheets, so the "registered‑agent address" tell is unverified; the finding rests on the entity roles and the IV corporate‑parent disclosure.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT

Two independent hits against the supplied watchlist:

• Intellectual Ventures (Reel 050924/0979, "Intellectual Ventures Assets 150 LLC," effective 2019‑10‑31) — IV is expressly named on the provided list, and the IV corporate‑parent disclosure above confirms the fund affiliation of the immediately preceding owner, Gula Consulting LLC.
• Kioba Processing, LLC (Reel 051464/0203, effective 2019‑11‑15) — a documented high‑frequency plaintiff. Public dockets show Kioba suits against American Express (N.D. Tex., filed 2020‑07‑06), Discover (N.D. Ill., filed 2020‑08‑19), Bank of America (E.D. Tex., filed 2020‑10‑09), JPMorgan Chase (E.D. Tex., filed 2021‑02‑26), Capital One (E.D. Tex., filed 2021‑06‑16), TD Bank (2021), Zions, Texas Capital, Prosperity, Frost, Charles Schwab, Citibank (W.D. Tex., filed 2023‑11‑17), Compass (2023) and BMO Bank (C.D. Cal., filed 2024). Third‑party litigation profiles describe Kioba flatly as a "patent assertion entity."
• Corroboration of the assertion posture: Unified Patents, LLC filed IPR2020‑01695 against Kioba's US 6,931,382 on 2020‑10‑01; the parties filed a Confidential Settlement and License Agreement and the Board terminated the IPR before institution on 2021‑02‑26. Kioba's own complaints state that IPinvestments Group acts as its exclusive licensing agent, sending demand letters (e.g. the 2020‑05‑18 letter to BMO Harris) before any suit was filed.
• Secondary hit: Finjan, Inc. (Reel 023556/0853) is itself a well‑documented patent enforcer — Finjan Holdings' 10‑K reported ~$50.5M of gross revenue in 2017, and Finjan was acquired by Fortress affiliates in 2020 as part of a strategy that a court‑adjudicated record describes as creating "non‑practicing entities to engage in patent monetization activities."

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (not verifiable from available sources)

This is the signal the brief most wants, and it is the one I cannot responsibly call.

• The only correspondent I retrieved is Marc A. Sockol, Esq., Squire Sanders (US) LLP, 600 Hansen Way, Palo Alto, CA 94304‑1043, on the 2003 Alchemedia→Finjan Software recording (Reel 014345/0969 / PlainSite 14344/410).
• That is one appearance. Per your own standard, a single appearance is not a finding — Squire Sanders did substantial operating‑company patent work in that era. I am therefore explicitly not flagging it as an NPE‑linked repeat correspondent.
• The circumstantial signal that would support this finding is the batched recordation: Reels 027010/0878 and 027012/0458 both recorded 2011‑10‑04, with Reel 027236/0658 recorded six weeks later — three recordings inside seven weeks, on a chain that had been dormant for two years. That pattern is consistent with a single coordinating firm handling the whole IV‑related transfer, but I could not retrieve a single correspondent name for the 2011, 2016, 2019 or 2020 recordings, so no recurrence can be demonstrated. Any name I supplied here would be invented. [not retrieved] for Reels 014012/0611, 023556/0853, 027012/0458, 027010/0878, 027236/0658, 037539/0253, 050924/0979, 051464/0203.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT

Two tight cascades:

• 2019: effective 2019‑10‑31 (IV Assets 150, Reel 050924/0979) then effective 2019‑11‑15 (Kioba, Reel 051464/0203) — two consecutive assignments through chained LLCs 15 days apart, recorded 2019‑11‑06 and 2020‑01‑03, i.e. both within 24 months of the preceding Gula merger.
• 2011: effective 2010‑12‑08 / 2011‑08‑15 / 2011‑11 (Reels 027012, 027010, 027236) — three recorded instruments in a seven‑week window.
  The last three ownership events (Gula → IV Assets 150 → Kioba) span 2015‑08‑26 to 2019‑11‑15, with the final two hops inside a single month.

5. Pre‑litigation transfer — PRESENT at portfolio level; NOT ESTABLISHED for this patent

The Kioba acquisition (effective 2019‑11‑15, recorded 2020‑01‑03) precedes Kioba's first known infringement suit by ~7.7 months (American Express, filed 2020‑07‑06) and precedes its licensing‑letter campaign (BMO letter, 2020‑05‑18). That fits the assert‑ready transfer pattern.
However, I could not confirm that US 7,185,358 itself was ever asserted by Kioba. Google's adjusted‑expiration entry shows the patent expired 2019‑06‑06, i.e. five months before the Gula→IV Assets 150 transfer and five months before the Kioba purchase. Kioba's publicly reported asserted‑patent roster (US 6,917,902; 6,931,382; 7,107,078; 8,056,017; 8,442,915 and others) does not include the '358. It is likely this patent was acquired as part of a dead‑on‑arrival bundle alongside sibling members of the family that were still live (the '822 ran to 2021‑04‑03 and the '662 to 2021‑06‑22 per third‑party expiration data).

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — NOT PRESENT

No Chapter 7/11 anywhere in the chain. Alchemedia's 2002–2003 sale was an out‑of‑court distressed asset sale — the company had raised ~$26–30M, laid off ~65% of staff, pivoted, and exited for "several million dollars" — and press coverage noted most investors likely would not see a return. That is a distressed sale, not a bankruptcy proceeding, and no bankruptcy‑sale court record or reorganized‑debtor assignee appears in the assignment data.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT (as to this patent)

Finjan Software/Finjan, Inc. was an operating security vendor that also enforced patents, but this family was sold outright to an unaffiliated holding vehicle (Alearo Properties LLC) in 2011 rather than transferred to an NPE to assert on Finjan's behalf against Finjan's competitors. There is no evidence that Alearo, Gula, IV Assets 150 or Kioba asserted this family for Finjan's commercial benefit. Finjan's own later acquisition by Fortress (2020) post‑dates the divestiture by nine years and concerned a different portfolio.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti‑NPE) — NOT PRESENT

The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. It terminates at Kioba Processing, LLC (Reel 051464/0203) — an entity on the opposite side of that ledger, and one that Unified Patents itself petitioned against in IPR2020‑01695 (settled and terminated 2021‑02‑26). No defensive aggregation is visible.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Three signals are present and independently documented: (1) shell‑entity transfer out of the operating business at Reel 027010/0878 (effective 2011‑08‑15) into Alearo Properties LLC and onward through Gula Consulting LLC — whose corporate parent is disclosed on a 2026 Delaware docket as Invention Investment Fund II, LLC; (2) known asserters in the chain, namely Intellectual Ventures at Reel 050924/0979 and Kioba Processing, LLC at Reel 051464/0203, the latter an active multi‑defendant PAE plaintiff from 2020 onward with a documented exclusive licensing agent; and (4) cascading transfers, with the final two hops executed 15 days apart (2019‑10‑31 and 2019‑11‑15) and recorded 2019‑11‑06 and 2020‑01‑03, immediately ahead of Kioba's first suits. The two caveats that keep this from being airtight are that (3) correspondent recurrence could not be verified — I retrieved one correspondent only (Marc A. Sockol, Squire Sanders, 2003) and I am not treating a single appearance as a finding — and that this specific patent expired 2019‑06‑06, five months before the IV→Kioba transfer, so the chain's terminal owner almost certainly acquired it as part of an expired‑heavy bundle rather than as a live assertion target for US 7,185,358 itself.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 7185358) · Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/US7185358/en#legalEvents

Data gaps I could not close with the tools available: the correspondent of record for Reels 014012/0611, 023556/0853, 027012/0458, 027010/0878, 027236/0658, 037539/0253, 050924/0979 and 051464/0203; the registered addresses on any cover sheet; and any record of US 7,185,358 being asserted in litigation.

I'll verify the key prior-art references for US 7,185,358 before building the § 102 analysis.

Let me verify the other applet/authentication references cited on the face of US 7,185,358.

Let me verify the remaining applet/Java and software-licensing references.

Prior-Art Analysis for US 7,185,358 B1

Patent under analysis: US 7,185,358 B1, Method and apparatus for preventing reuse of text, images and software transmitted via networks (app. 09/595,839; filed 2000‑06‑16; earliest priority 1998‑06‑14 via IL 124895; granted 2007‑02‑27). Inventors Schreiber and Guedaliah; original assignee Finjan Software Ltd.; current assignee Kioba Processing, LLC.

Scope reminder (built on the prior section): the granted claims of this divisional (claims 1–9) are limited to the applet‑with‑embedded, server‑authenticated, revocable‑password embodiment. The text‑rendering and sub‑image claims live in the parent (US 6,209,103) and sibling (US 6,944,822), not here. That scoping is decisive for the § 102 analysis below: most of the 50+ references of record relate to image watermarking or generic DRM and are only tangentially relevant to claims 1–9.

Method note. Two limitations drive everything:

1. The password is embedded in the applet itself and is transmitted with the applet from server to client.
2. The server (not the client applet) authenticates the embedded password on each request and invalidates that same embedded password on an invalidation event.

For § 102 anticipation, a reference must disclose every element. Where a reference is close but missing one element, I say so rather than overstating anticipation.

A. The two independent claims (for reference)

• Claim 1 (method): transmit applet + embedded password (limited operational life) server→client; server receives applet's request for restricted‑access‑stored information together with the embedded password; authenticate whenever receiving occurs; transmit the information while the password is valid; invalidate the embedded password coincident with an invalidation event.
• Claim 6 (system): server having password generator, password validation apparatus, restricted‑access storage area, program applet, invalidation apparatus; operative to generate, embed, transmit, receive request+password, authenticate, transmit while valid, and invalidate.
• Dependents: 2/7 = invalidation at a predetermined time; 3/8 = after lapse of predetermined time from request; 4/9 = upon loss of communication with client; 5 = transmitting step includes generating the embedded password.

B. Tier 1 — Most relevant prior art (directed at applet + server‑verified credential + life limitation)

1. US 5,638,513 A — Ananda, "Secure software rental system using continuous asynchronous password verification"

• Dates: filed 1995‑06‑07; published/granted 1997‑06‑10; priority 1993‑12‑22 (continuation of 08/482,429 / US 5,495,411). Assignee: individual (Ananda).
• Description: Application software is integrated with an "asynchronous header." The header continuously generates a dynamic password (a function of user‑processor clock time and a stored transfer time), sends verification requests to the central facility, compares the returned password, and terminates the application when verification fails — including when the communication link is lost. The facility holds user data behind a password‑validated registration database.
• § 102 assessment: This is the single closest anticipatory reference for the life‑limiting concept and for dependents 4/9 (loss of communication) and 3/8 (elapsed time between verifications). It does not appear to disclose a password embedded in the applet and transmitted with it; the password here is generated on both sides and compared, and the remedy is client‑side termination rather than server‑side invalidation of a stored password. It therefore reads on the concept of repeated server authentication and time/connection‑based cut‑off, but likely does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 6 in full; it is strong § 103 fodder. Same inventor's US 5,548,645 and US 5,495,411 are in the same family.

2. US 6,032,150 A — Nguyen (Planetweb, Inc.), "Secure graphical objects in web documents with a program applet placed to present further information upon selected conditions"

• Dates: filed 1997‑08‑25; granted 2000‑02‑29.
• Description (verified via Google Patents/EveryPatent): A program applet is dynamically created by the server on selection, given a unique ID, and contacts the server for permission each time it presents protected content. The server associates that specific applet (by unique ID) with conditions under which it may continue, including: a limit on number of displays, a time limit (e.g., "no more than one hour from creation"), a requirement for a password/authentication, device/document restrictions, and payment conditions. The applet refuses to present the information without successful confirmation.
• § 102 assessment: This is the closest reference to claims 1 and 6 as a system architecture (server‑generated applet + unique credential + server permission per access + time/authentication conditions). It anticipates the breadth of claim 1 in substantial part. The gaps: the credential is described as a unique ID / serial number, not a "password" embedded in the applet and returned to the server for authentication, and the server enforces conditions by refusing permission rather than by invalidating a stored embedded password. Under a broad claim construction of "password," claim 1 and claim 6 could be argued anticipated; under a narrow construction (password embedded in the applet and later invalidated), a § 102 case is weaker. It squarely supports claims 2/7 and 3/8 (time‑based limits) and claim 6.

3. US 5,999,139 A — Graunke et al. (Intel), "Method for securely distributing a conditional use private key to a trusted entity on a remote system"

• Dates: filed 1997‑12‑18; granted 1999‑11‑23.
• Description: A server generates an asymmetric key pair, wraps the private key into an executable tamper‑resistant key module identified to a program on a remote system, and sends the module to the remote system. The remote "trusted player" executes the module to validate the program and decrypt content; conditional access is enforced based on server‑determined conditions and payment. Encryption uses RSA.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to claim 5 (generation of a credential at the server) and to the general "executable module carrying a credential to the client" idea. It does not disclose an applet that requests restricted‑access information from the server, with the server authenticating a password embedded in that applet — the module here authenticates the client environment to unlock local decryption. Not a clean § 102 reference to claims 1/6; useful for § 103.

4. US 5,872,915 A — IBM, "Computer apparatus and method for providing security checking for software applications accessed via the World-Wide Web"

• Dates: filed 1996‑12‑23; granted 1999‑02‑16.
• Description (verified): A web browser sends authentication data (password, user ID, key) to a web server application, which authenticates the browser and, via an application gateway, correlates the user to a library of resource users to authorize access to a back‑end software application; an identifier matches output back to the requesting browser.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to the authenticating and restricted‑access elements of claims 1/6. It does not disclose a password embedded in and sent with an applet, nor server‑side invalidation of that password. Not anticipatory; supports § 103 on the authentication‑per‑request concept.

5. US 6,014,702 A — King et al. (IBM), "Host information access via distributed programmed objects"

• Dates: filed 1997‑06‑04; granted 2000‑01‑11.
• Description (verified): A Java applet is downloaded to a user station; the applet instantiates a host access function that communicates with a host/web server, parses data streams into a presentation space, and lets the user application send/receive formatted information from the host.
• § 102 assessment: Directly relevant background for the "program applet including executable code that runs on the client" element of claims 1/6 (and the HTML <APPLET>/<PARAM> mechanism). It contains no embedded‑password, server‑authentication, or invalidation teaching. Anticipates nothing in claims 1–9 on its own; it is an enabling‑art reference.

6. US 5,974,441 A — IBM, "WWW client server interactive system method with Java (™)"

• Dates: filed 1995‑06‑07; granted 1999‑10‑26.
• Description: A WWW client/server interaction system in which downloadable Java code (applets) executes client‑side and interacts with server resources.
• § 102 assessment: Background for the applet delivery model in claims 1/6 only. No password authentication or invalidation. Not anticipatory.

7. US 5,875,296 A — IBM, "Distributed file system web server user authentication with cookies"

• Dates: filed 1997‑01‑28; granted 1999‑02‑23.
• Description: Web server authenticates a user and issues a cookie to carry the authentication/session state across subsequent requests.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant conceptually to "authenticate whenever said receiving occurs" (per‑request credential checking) in claim 1. The credential is a cookie, not an embedded applet password, and there is no invalidation event. Not anticipatory; supports § 103.

8. US 5,870,544 A — IBM, "Method and apparatus for creating a secure connection between a Java applet and a web server"

• Dates: filed 1997‑10‑20; granted 1999‑02‑09.
• Description: Establishes a secure channel between a Java applet and a web server (session key exchange), addressing applet↔server trust.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to the applet‑to‑server communication/authentication aspects of claim 1/6. Absent the embedded, limited‑life password and its server‑side invalidation. Not anticipatory.

9. US 5,758,068 A — IBM, "Method and apparatus for software license management"

• Dates: filed 1995‑09‑19; granted 1998‑05‑26.
• Description: Manages software licenses, including issue/expiration of license rights for software use.
• § 102 assessment: Relevant to the general "limited operational life / invalidation event" concept underlying claims 1–4/6–9, but not to the network applet‑embedded‑password mechanism (no applet, no per‑request server authentication of an embedded password). Not anticipatory.

10. US 5,875,296 (see #7) / US 5,995,? — additional applet/credential references

• US 6,263,365 B1 (Raindance, filed 1996‑10‑04; granted 2001‑07‑17), "Browser controller" — applet/browser control of remote sessions; background only.
• US 6,766,454 B1 (Visto, filed 1997‑04‑08; granted 2004‑07‑20), "System and method for using an authentication applet to identify and authenticate a user" — authentication applet sent to the client that carries/relays credentials to authenticate a user over a network. This is close in spirit to the "applet + credential" element of claims 1/6; it does not disclose server‑side invalidation of an embedded password with per‑request re‑authentication against restricted‑access storage. Potential § 103 combination with Ananda (US 5,638,513).

C. Tier 2 — Moderate relevance (DRM / access‑control / content‑protection context)

D. Tier 3 — Image‑protection, watermarking, and copy‑protection references (relevant to the unclaimed subject matter of this patent family)

These references clearly correspond to the image‑rendering/sub‑image and text‑rendering aspects that are disclosed but not claimed in 7,185,358. For completeness of "each patent citation," they are listed here; none anticipates claims 1–9.

D‑1. Copy‑protection of on‑screen images / color separation / structured rendering

• US 5,881,287 A — Mast, "Method and apparatus for copy protection of images in a computer system" (filed 1994‑08‑12; granted 1999‑03‑09). Screen‑image copy protection — conceptually adjacent to the video‑buffer/sub‑image idea.
• US 5,905,505 A — Bell Communications Research, "Method and system for copy protection of on‑screen display of text" (filed 1996‑05‑13; granted 1999‑05‑18). Text‑display copy protection — adjacent to the unclaimed text‑rendering aspect.
• US 5,303,370 A — Score Group, "Anti‑counterfeiting process using lenticular optics and color masking" (filed 1992‑11‑13; granted 1994‑04‑12). Color‑separation/masking — adjacent to color‑separation sub‑images.
• US 5,982,931 A — Ishimaru, "Apparatus and method for the manipulation of image containing documents" (filed 1995‑06‑07; granted 1999‑11‑09).
• US 6,011,905 A — Xerox, "Using fontless structured document image representations…" (filed 1996‑05‑23; granted 2000‑01‑04). Rendering text as images at preferred resolutions — adjacent to text→graphic rendering.

D‑2. Steganography / watermarking family (all Digimarc Corporation or Corbis) — directed to embedding/reading hidden code in images; no bearing on applet‑password claims 1–9:

• US 5,636,292 A (1995‑05‑08 / 1997‑06‑03); US 5,710,834 A (1995‑05‑08 / 1998‑01‑20); US 5,748,783 A (1995‑05‑08 / 1998‑05‑05); US 5,745,604 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1998‑04‑28); US 5,748,763 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1998‑05‑05); US 5,832,119 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1998‑11‑03) and its reissue/continuation US 5,832,119 C1 (2002‑03‑05); US 5,841,886 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1998‑11‑24); US 5,841,978 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1998‑11‑24); US 5,850,481 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1998‑12‑15) and US 5,850,481 C1 (2002‑07‑16); US 5,862,260 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1999‑01‑19); US 5,768,426 A (1993‑11‑18 / 1998‑06‑16); US 5,822,436 A (1996‑04‑25 / 1998‑10‑13); US 5,721,788 A — Corbis, "Method and system for digital image signatures" (1992‑07‑31 / 1998‑02‑24); US 5,809,160 A — Digimarc, "Method for encoding auxiliary data within a source signal" (1992‑07‑31 / 1998‑09‑15).
• § 102: None discloses network delivery of an applet with an embedded, server‑authenticated, invalidatable password. Not anticipatory of any of claims 1–9 (they predate the invention, so they are prior art, but they are not anticipatory).

D‑3. Rights/metering and licensing background

• US 4,827,508 A, US 4,977,594 A, US 5,050,213 A, US 5,410,598 A — all Electronic Publishing Resources / Personal Library Software, "Database usage metering and protection system and method" (priority 1986‑10‑14; granted 1989‑05‑02, 1990‑12‑11, 1991‑09‑17, 1995‑04‑25 respectively). Metering/usage control — not anticipatory.
• US 4,405,829 A — MIT, "Cryptographic communications system and method" (RSA) (1977‑12‑14 / 1983‑09‑20). Foundational crypto; cited as enabling art, not anticipatory of claims 1–9.
• US 5,509,070 A — Softlock Services, "Method for encouraging purchase of executable and non‑executable software" (1992‑12‑15 / 1996‑04‑16); US 5,533,124 A — Smith, "Electronic trading card system" (1994‑12‑07 / 1996‑07‑02); US 5,838,902 A — LG Semicon, "Copy protection circuit for data in a memory" (1994‑04‑30 / 1998‑11‑17). Peripheral.

E. Non‑patent citations of record (for completeness)

Fourteen NPL items were cited, all pre‑1999 unless noted: Copysight (ip2.com, 1999); Intertrust "Digital Rights Management" (intertrust.com); SafeImage (safemedia.com); SiteShield press release and product details (maximized.com); Softlock.com; Chapter 3 — Understanding Image Guardian; Chapter 3 — Understanding Web Referee; Digimarc & Copyright Protection (1999); Gignac, Computer Dealer News, 1999‑07‑30; Phillips Business Information's Internet Week, 1996‑05‑13 (Proquest 11015724); Stirland, "ActiveX vs. Java," Wall Street and Technology, Aug. 1997; Strom, "Browser: Protect Your Image on the Web," 1998 (zdnet.com). These are § 102(b)/§ 103 prior‑art candidates for the image‑protection and browser‑applet context; the print products are largely directed at client‑side image grab prevention, not server‑side embedded‑password invalidation.

F. Bottom line — most relevant § 102 prior art, and honest limits

Strongest candidates against claim 1 / claim 6:

1. US 5,638,513 (Ananda) — closest on continuous server authentication, time‑based/connection‑based cut‑off, and life‑limiting; anticipates dependent claims 3/8 and 4/9 concepts and is strong § 103 art, but likely does not anticipate claims 1/6 because the password is not embedded‑in‑applet‑and‑invalidated server‑side.
2. US 6,032,150 (Planetweb/Nguyen) — closest on server‑generated applet that contacts the server for permission under a time/authentication condition; potentially anticipatory of claims 1 and 6 under a broad reading of "password," and of claims 2/7 and 3/8 on time limits; weaker if "password" is construed to require an embedded credential that the server later invalidates.
3. US 5,999,139 (Intel) and US 6,766,454 (Visto) — supply the "executable module/applet carrying a credential generated at the server" element; good § 103 combiners with Ananda.
4. US 5,872,915 / US 5,875,296 / US 5,870,544 (all IBM) — supply the "server authenticates a credential on each request" and "secure applet↔server channel" elements; not anticipatory alone.

Candid limitations of this analysis:

• I am working from the citation list printed on the face of US 7,185,358 (Google Patents) plus verified abstracts/claims for the Tier‑1 references. I have not pulled the full text of every one of the 50+ cited patents, so the per‑reference § 102 calls for the peripheral image/watermarking references are based on their titles and abstracts (adequate to conclude they lack the applet‑password elements, but not a substitute for full‑text review).
• Dates as printed: some entries list only filing or only publication dates; I reported them as found. The patent's own priority (1998‑06‑14) means the post‑priority references (Entrust US 6,470,450; CA US 6,205,480; Starnet US 6,466,014; Seeley US 6,614,191; Ogilvie US 6,343,738; HP US 6,343,274) are not valid § 102 prior art to these claims — I flag them rather than treat them as anticipatory, because the instruction was to list each citation.
• I did not auto‑correct any identifier. Inventor name is rendered "Guedaliah" in this grant; I have used that spelling as found.
• No CAFC/PTAB/docket assertion of 7,185,358 was located in this session; the parent/sibling patents (6,209,103; 6,944,822) are the ones carrying the text/image claims and any enforcement activity, consistent with the earlier section.

I'll ground the key prior-art references before analyzing. Let me pull the actual disclosures of the most material references listed on this patent.

Two more grounding checks on the time-limited license art cited on this patent.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,185,358 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note. I analyzed only the references listed in the Prior Art section of the page you supplied — the 51/57 patent citations, the 14 non‑patent citations, and the family–citation tables. Claim construction follows the granted claims (claims 1–9, the applet‑with‑embedded‑expiring‑password embodiment). Where I cite a reference's internal disclosure, I pulled the specification text from Google Patents/FreePatentsOnline and link it. I flag confidence throughout.

1. Legal frame and the level of ordinary skill

• Priority date: 1998‑06‑14 (IL 124895); US filing via parent 09/313,067 on 1999‑05‑17.
• POSITA (1998): a software engineer with ~2–3 years' experience in client‑server/HTTP programming and Java applets, plus working familiarity with conventional cryptographic credentialing (session keys, SSL, password verification) — a skill level confirmed by the Ananda and Curtis disclosures themselves, which treat applet/server credential exchange and password validation as routine engineering.
• Governing law: Graham v. John Deere (scope/content of art, differences, PHOSITA level, objective indicia), applied under the KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (2007) flexible rubric — a combination is obvious where the elements were known, the combination is of predictable elements yielding predictable results, and a POSITA had a reason to combine (design incentive, market pressure, "known technique for its usual purpose").

A caution that materially bounds the art set. Several references in the "Citations" table carry filing/priority dates after 1998‑06‑14 and therefore are not § 102 prior art to these claims on their face: US 6,470,450 (EnTrust, 1998‑12‑23), US 6,200,548 (1998‑08‑19), US 6,343,274 (1998‑09‑11), US 6,461,401 (1999‑12‑30), US 6,615,191 (1999‑05‑11), and US 6,343,738 (1999‑05‑15). I exclude them from the primary combinations below. All references actually relied on in § 2–§ 4 predate 1998‑06‑14 and are marked examiner‑cited on the face of the patent.

2. The single most material reference: US 6,032,150 (Nguyen / PlanetWeb)

This reference is on the patent's own citation list (examiner‑cited, filed 1997‑08‑25 → § 102(e) art). Its disclosure is startlingly close to claim 1:

The honest gaps in US 6,032,150: (i) it frames the credential as a server‑issued "unique ID," and lists "password" as one type of condition rather than literally reciting a password embedded in the applet's code; and (ii) the "further information" is described as protected content within a web document, which is a weaker fit for claim 1's "information stored in a restricted access storage area of the server computer." Both gaps are filled by the second reference.

3. Primary § 103 combination — US 6,032,150 + US 5,638,513 (Ananda)

US 5,638,513 (Ananda, "Secure software rental system using continuous asynchronous password verification," filed 1995‑06‑07, examiner‑cited) is the second lynchpin. Its disclosure supplies precisely the two gaps:

• Credentials embedded in the delivered program. The application software is "modified to include header software," the two are "coupled … by interface parameters," and "the header software is an integral part of the application software and is executed as part of the initialization process." The program carries its own authorization machinery — the "password embedded therein" concept.
• Per‑request authentication against a restricted server store. "Each time a user sends a postage print request to the PSD server, the request must be authenticated by asynchronous dynamic password verification." The header sends a message containing the user identification password and application identifier every cycle; the controller's password validation module regenerates and compares the password; on success the server returns the permission/image, on failure it terminates.
• Invalidation on an invalidation event, incl. loss of communication. "If the user goes off‑line at any time during the postage metering session or password verification fails, the asynchronous dynamic password verification method terminates the session." The transfer‑time record is "erased from storage" when the session ends, so a re‑executed copy fails.
• Server‑side password generation (claim 5) — the password generation module uses a deterministic pseudorandom algorithm.

See also US5638513A and its postage‑embodiment sibling.

Motivation to combine (explicit, not hindsight):

1. Same field, same problem, same solution class. Both address "servers … desire to be able to present information to web clients, without those web clients being able to copy that information and retain it permanently" (US 6,032,150, Related Art) and "lack of tamper‑proof security … for preventing unauthorized copying of … application software" (US 5,638,513, Background). The claimed invention is the intersection of these two disclosures.
2. Complementary, non‑overlapping disclosures. PlanetWeb supplies the web/applet delivery environment and the expiring, per‑use permission model; Ananda supplies credentials embedded in the delivered program, server‑side generation/validation, and connection‑loss invalidation. Combining them solves the complementary halves of one problem — the classic KSR "arrangement of old elements" with predictable results.
3. Known technique, usual purpose. Ananda itself contemplates "a network link," "an internet link," and "a wireless link," and its own postage embodiment is downloadable from a "World Wide Web (www) page." Transferring Ananda's dynamic‑password loop from a dial‑up PC rental session to an HTTP‑downloaded applet is application of a known technique to a known environment.
4. Market/design pressure. Both references recite the same commercial driver (protecting content/software distributed over open networks), creating a POSITA's clear incentive.

Enablement bridge: US 5,870,544 (Curtis, IBM) — also examiner‑cited — discloses the concrete mechanism by which a Java Applet establishes a secure connection to a secure web server and exchanges keys/certificates. It is a natural third reference supplying "how" for the applet↔server credential channel and reinforcing that applet/server credential exchange was routine by 1998. US 5,872,915 (Dykes, IBM) is a strong secondary: security checking for software applications accessed via the WWW, where authentication data "includes a password, a user ID and a key" is sent from the browser to the web server, with a "second authenticator [that] receiv[es] said user ID and key from said web server" and retrieves "authentication parameters."

4. Element‑by‑element chart for the independent claims

5. Dependent claims

• Claim 2 / 7 — invalidation at a predetermined time. Directly met by US 6,032,150 ("no more than one hour from creation, or only during selected times of day or days of the week"). Alternatively US 5,758,068 (IBM software license management) and US 5,715,403 (Xerox usage‑rights grammar) — both teach time‑delimited usage rights.
• Claim 3 / 8 — invalidation after a lapse of a predetermined time from the request. US 6,032,150 (duration measured from creation/contact); US 5,638,513 (30‑second verification windows; expiry of the transfer‑time record). US 5,509,070 (Softlock) supplies the trial/duration model generally.
• Claim 4 / 9 — invalidation on loss of communication. This is the most squarely met limitation in the entire art set, by US 5,638,513 alone: "If the user goes off‑line at any time during the postage metering session or password verification fails, the asynchronous dynamic password verification method terminates the session"; the Disconnecting Communication Link While Executing Application Software passage makes the point expressly. A POSITA combining this with US 6,032,150 would do so because the same reference identifies the identical defeat mode (client retaining content after the server connection ends).
• Claim 5 — the transmitting step includes generating the embedded password. US 6,032,150 (server "dynamically create[s]" the applet and assigns an encrypted serial‑number ID); US 5,638,513 (password generation module 321E / controller 222); US 5,509,070 (licensing processor "provid[es] the user or user's system with a password").

6. Alternative combinations

• Alt A (web‑centric primary): US 6,032,150 + US 5,872,915 (Dykes) + US 5,870,544 (Curtis). Usable if the "embedded password" is read broadly as a server‑issued credential shipped with the applet; the two IBM references supply WWW application security checking and the applet secure‑channel mechanism respectively.
• Alt B (license‑centric primary): US 5,638,513 + US 5,509,070 + US 5,758,068. Emphasizes the "limited operational life of software" preamble, embedded password, generation, and time‑based expiration. US 5,509,070 (Softlock) supplies the "encouraging purchase … of freely‑copyable software" business model in which a password is embedded/persisted with software and unlocks features only in the presence of a valid password; US 5,758,068 adds formal license expiry.
• Alt C (rights‑management primary): US 5,892,900 (Intertrust) or US 5,715,403 (Xerox) + US 6,032,150 + US 5,638,513. The Intertrust/Xerox references supply server‑enforced, condition‑defined usage rights over distributed digital works — the same architecture at a higher level of abstraction.

7. Anticipated counter‑arguments and rebuttals

8. Bottom line and confidence

Conclusion: Claims 1–9 are, on this record, plainly obvious under § 103. The strongest and cleanest prima facie case is US 6,032,150 (Nguyen/PlanetWeb) in view of US 5,638,513 (Ananda), optionally further in view of US 5,870,544 and US 5,872,915 (IBM) for the applet secure‑channel/credential‑verification details. The reference set travels remarkably little distance to reach the claims: US 6,032,150 alone nearly anticipates claim 1 (applet + server‑issued encrypted credential + per‑contact grant/deny + time‑limited conditions + server‑side condition modification/invalidation), and the residual "password embedded in the applet" and "restricted‑access server store" limitations are supplied verbatim by US 5,638,513. Dependent claims 2–5/7–9 are met by the same references, with claim 4/9 (loss‑of‑communication invalidation) the least arguable of all — it is the self‑stated operating mode of US 5,638,513.

Confidence levels:

• High that US 6,032,150 and US 5,638,513 disclose the mapped subject matter — I retrieved and read their specification text (US6032150A, US5638513A).
• High that US 5,870,544 and US 5,872,915 are properly dated and on‑point (US5870544A, US5872915A).
• Moderate on US 5,758,068 and US 6,470,450 details — my second and third grounding searches were cut off at the tool‑call limit, so I am relying on the patent's own citation table for their titles/dates (the latter excluded anyway as post‑priority art).
• Moderate on the "restricted‑access storage area" mapping — the phrase itself is the specification's own coinage (storage area 20 / restricted‑access storage 68), so the art mapping is functional rather than literal.
• Unknown/negative finding: I have no record of an IPR, reexam, or validity holding specifically addressing US 7,185,358's claims. This is a coverage limitation, not proof of absence.

Caveat on this analysis: I did not have full claim sets for every listed reference; where a mapping rests on a title/abstract rather than retrieved text, I have said so. Before relying on this for a validity opinion, pull the full specifications of US 5,758,068 and US 5,509,070 and confirm the above § 103 combinations against the actual claim language.