US 7240106

I'll search for authoritative information on US 7,240,106, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check for litigation/PTAB activity and retrieve the exact independent claims.

Sourcing caveat up front

I searched for US 7,240,106 in the sources my tools can reach (Google Patents, Justia Patents, USPTO.report, FreePatentsOnline-adjacent mirrors, and open-web indexes of CAFC/Federal Circuit 2026 opinions and dockets). What I could not do: run a live query against USPTO Patent Center or the CAFC docket system directly, and I could not retrieve the full claim set of the granted patent (the patent text provided to me is truncated in the "Detailed Description," before the claims). Where I lack authoritative text, I say so rather than guessing.

Important negative finding on the 2026 CAFC question: my searches returned no Federal Circuit appeal, docket, or opinion in 2026 involving U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106. The 2026 CAFC hits that surfaced were unrelated cases that merely contained visually similar strings (e.g., Spero v. Mercedes-Benz USA, Nos. 2025-1306/1307/1473, involving U.S. 10,894,503). I interpret this as "nothing found," not as "confirmed no activity" — my search coverage of CAFC 2026 dockets is not exhaustive, and a Rule 36 summary affirmance or a stayed case could exist below the searchable index.

Also, per your instruction, I treated every identifier literally. Note that several search hits for "the '106 patent" belong to different patents (e.g., 8,648,106, 7,530,106, 7,020,106, 9,xxx,106) and I excluded those.

---

Bibliographic summary — US 7,240,106 B2

Note the assignment chain reflects the Compaq/HP merger, and the later HPE spin-merger — useful context for why "assignee" answers differ across databases (HP Development Co. LP vs. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP).

Abstract (verbatim)

"A technique for remotely configuring a computing device via a network. A device configuration system is provided to determine a network address of the computing device, to identify the computing device, and to facilitate network configuration of the computing device. The device configuration system also may include a remote interface and a remote device information system."

A useful one-line reading of the invention: the patent applies DHCP-style "zero-configuration" convenience to the server side — i.e., letting an administrator's machine discover a headless server/appliance on the network and push configuration to it, instead of the administrator having to know its IP address and configure it by hand or via a serial console.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

I can describe the independent claims with reasonable confidence based on the granted-claim text visible in the Justia excerpt and the corresponding published application; I flag the parts I cannot quote verbatim.

Claim 1 — Method of configuring a computing device coupled to a network (probably independent; exact wording not verified).
Mirrors the Summary section: electronically locating a computing device on a network, identifying the device, and configuring the device's network parameters based on that identification. The published application added dependent claims covering remote configuration of multiple located/identified devices, a resulting set of network parameters, and a network server configured by the method. I could not retrieve the literal text of granted claim 1, so treat the above as paraphrase of the disclosed aspect, not a quotation.

Claim 34 (granted) — "A method for networking a desired device."
This is the second independent method claim. From the dependent claims that point back to it (claims 39–50), it recites three core acts:

1. Electronically searching the network to identify the presence and location of the desired device (rather than passively waiting for it) — including searching for a desired identifier or "product identifier" of the device;
2. Triggering a sensory identification event, so a human can physically locate the box on a rack/in a room — e.g., transmitting an identification signal between the device and a remote interface over the network, lighting a light on the device, or illuminating a unit-identification indicator in a remote GUI; and
3. Remotely configuring operational parameters of the desired device over the network — e.g., configuring its network address, or pointing it at a remote configuration system with a device database (accomplished by transmitting a network address to the device so it can reach that remote configuration system).

Claim 51 (granted) — "A system of configuring a second computing device via a first computing device."
A system claim covering a device configuration assembly accessible by the first (admin) computer, comprising:

• a device discovery assembly "adapted for actively discovering" the second device on the network and further adapted to facilitate identification of that device via a sensory identification event; and
• a device setup assembly for initiating configuration of the second device over the network.

Dependents extend this to a first device with a display and input device, the second device being a network device (cache/file/application/web server), the Internet as the network, the configuration assembly residing on the first device, and the discovery assembly comprising a network addressing assembly (a network address management server, an internal addressing module, or a dynamic address assignment module).

Architectural point that ties the claims together: the patent's distinguishing move (developed in FIGS. 4 and 8) is that the admin-side tool first determines whether an external addressing system such as a DHCP server is already present on the network; if so, it suppresses its own internal addressing function to avoid conflicting responses, and otherwise it acts as the address assigner for only the class of "desired" devices (selected by manufacturer, device class, TCP/IP port, MAC address, installed software, etc.). That selective-DHCP behavior is what the related continuation, US 7,340,512 B2 (filed 2005-08-26, family priority 2001-04-25), claims directly in its own claim 1. I mention US 7,340,512 only as a same-family relation — it is a different patent number and I am not treating it as an answer to your query about 7,240,106.

2026 CAFC / litigation status

• No 2026 Federal Circuit docket or opinion for 7,240,106 was found in my searches. Absence of a hit is not affirmative proof of no litigation; I'd recommend a direct PACER/CAFC CM-ECF or Docket Navigator check to confirm.
• The patent is shown as expired (lifetime, adjusted expiration 2023-07-07), which substantially reduces the likelihood of new infringement litigation but does not foreclose other proceedings (e.g., appeals of earlier decisions, or PTAB/CBMR activity).
• I found no IPR/PGR petition identified against 7,240,106 in the search results. I cannot rule out one existing.

Explicit uncertainties

1. Exact text of granted claims 1 and 34 — not retrieved; my description is a reconstruction from the dependent-claim language (granted) and the published application, which may have changed during prosecution (claim numbers did shift: the application's method-for-networking claim appears as claim 33/34, and the granted claim 34 reads differently than application claim 33 in some portions).
2. Total claim count — at least 66 confirmed; the upper bound is unverified.
3. Assignee of record today — Google Patents lists Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP; other databases show HP Development Company, L.P. The assignment chain (Compaq → CITG → HP → HPE) is documented in the record, so both appear in different fields/caches.
4. No 2026 CAFC activity — a negative search result, not a definitive clearance.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 7,240,106. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me check litigation-specific databases and the patent's legal events page more directly.

Summary of findings — U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106

Result: No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106 ("7,240,106") was identified in the sources I was able to search.

I searched for the specific number and related party names (Cochran, Little, Hewlett-Packard/Compaq), and reviewed the patent's own Google Patents page (which typically displays a "Litigation" section when known suits exist). I found no case captions, docket numbers, complaints, IPRs, or other enforcement activity naming 7,240,106 as a patent-in-suit.

What the record does show about this patent (context, not litigation):

• Title: "System and method for remote discovery and configuration of a network device"; inventors Charles W. Cochran and Billy S. Little; filed April 25, 2001 (App. No. 09/842,572); granted July 3, 2007; original assignee Compaq Computer Corp., now Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7240106](/patent/US7240106)/en
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration July 7, 2023). An expired patent generally cannot support prospective infringement relief, which is consistent with the absence of active litigation.
• It has been cited as prior art / background in later patents (e.g., US 7,925,729 and US 9,231,904) and a continuation (US 7,340,512, from App. 11/213,162) — these are citation/prosecution relationships, not litigation.
• Note: one search hit referenced a different patent, 8,648,106 (Hospira v. Fresenius Kabi), and another referenced 7,214,506 (Valeant v. Zydus). Those are distinct numbers and are not 7,240,106.

Important caveats / confidence level:

• I could not directly access PACER, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket, the Unified Patents litigation portal, or RPX/Insight in this session (my attempts to reach the Unified Patents and RPX-oriented queries returned no usable results or were cut off).
• My conclusion of "no litigation known" is therefore based on a limited, largely secondary-source search and should not be treated as a definitive clearance. A negative-litigation finding really needs to be confirmed against PACER/Unified Patents/RPX/Docket Navigator directly.

Recommendation: If this must be verified to a legal standard, the specific searches to run are: (1) PACER "Party" and "Patent" searches for 7,240,106 (or "7240106") across all district courts; (2) the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and its patent-number lookup; (3) Docket Navigator / Lex Machina patent-number search; and (4) the CAFC docket for any appeal. Based on the evidence gathered here, however, I found no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106.

I'll verify the structured data against web sources before drafting.

All initial hits reference different "106" patents (8,643,724; 8,370,106; 6,703,106; RE43,106). Let me confirm with more targeted queries.

Let me check for any proceeding on the continuation (7,340,512) and any IPR citing 7,240,106.

Proceedings overview

One sentence: As of 2026-09-29, there are zero AIA trial proceedings on file for US 7,240,106 — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBM reviews, no derivation proceedings — meaning there is nothing for a defendant to leverage (no claim has been canceled, no FWD exists, no estoppel has attached), and the only meaningful defensive posture is that the patent is expired as of 2023-07-07 and cannot support prospective relief.

Source and verification

• Canonical source (authoritative): the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this task states that the USPTO Open Data Portal API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 7,240,106. That is the controlling list and I have not augmented or replaced it.
• Web verification: I could not locate any IPR/PGR/CBM naming 7,240,106, its application number 09/842,572, its inventors (Charles W. Cochran / Billy S. Little), or its title ("System and method for remote discovery and configuration of a network device") as the challenged patent. Every "106" hit that surfaced was a different patent number:

This is the classic false-positive trap for the number "…106": the search results are dominated by unrelated patents that happen to end in 106. None of them is 7,240,106.

---

Proceedings on US 7,240,106

None. There are no proceeding entries to enumerate. Because the required output format is per-proceeding, and no proceeding exists, the sections below are omitted rather than fabricated (I will not invent an IPR number, panel, or FWD).

---

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. Not a single claim of 7,240,106 has been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed through an AIA trial. There is no Certificate of Cancellation, no IPR certificate, and therefore no claim that a defendant can point to as already dead. Any independent claim (e.g., a claim directed to determining a network address of a device, identifying it, and facilitating remote configuration) remains in the form the examiner granted on 2007-07-03 subject only to the ordinary presumption of validity under § 282. Said differently: a defendant facing a demand letter on this patent has no "the troll has no case on claim X" argument available from this record — the Board has never spoken.

Estoppel landscape: effectively empty. Since no petitioner has instituted an IPR or PGR on 7,240,106, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel has attached to anyone, and there are no privies carrying petitioner-side estoppel into a district court case. That cuts both ways: it means the entire prior-art universe is theoretically still available to a defendant to assert under §§ 102/103 in litigation — but it also means no one has yet done the work of testing this art at the Board. Contrast the familiar pattern where a defendant inherits a fully developed IPR record (institution decision + FWD + expert declarations) that can be recycled into the district court invalidity case. That shortcut does not exist here.

Pattern signals: none. No repeat petitioner, no serial-IPR campaign, no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) in the chain, and no patent-owner appeal history at the Federal Circuit, because there has been no trial to appeal. The patent simply appears never to have been asserted or challenged — consistent with the earlier litigation finding of no identified suits. I also searched the continuation, US 7,340,512 (App. 11/213,162, filed 2005-08-26, same inventors, same title), and found no IPR on that patent either; treat that as a secondary observation, not a verified clearance.

---

Recommended next steps

1. Do not build a PTAB strategy around this patent. There is nothing to build on: no FWD to cite, no invalidation to lean on, and no estoppel record. If you need an invalidity position, it must be developed from scratch (§§ 102/103, plus possibly § 112) in the forum where you are actually being sued.
2. Lead with expiration. The record shows Status: Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2023-07-07 (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US7240106/en). For conduct occurring after that date there is no infringement; for older conduct, damages under § 286 are limited to six years back from the complaint. Confirm the expiration and any PTA/terminal-disclaimer math against USPTO Patent Center before relying on it — the "adjusted expiration" figure reflects a PTA calculation I have not independently recomputed.
3. If you nonetheless want a Board ruling, note practical limits. An IPR can be filed against an expired patent, but the patent owner cannot amend claims to survive, and the Board has broad discretion to deny institution where a trial would serve no purpose (e.g., the patent has lapsed and there is no live commercial dispute). A petition here would also have to be a from-scratch art search with no prior petition scaffolding. If any deadline under § 315(b) is running from service of a complaint, that 1-year bar still governs — but weigh it against the near-certainty that expiration moots the dispute.
4. Re-verify against primary databases. My web verification was secondary-source-only; I could not reach PTAB E2E, the USPTO ODP proceedings endpoint, or Docket Navigator in this session. To make the "no PTAB activity" finding audit-proof, query PTAB E2E / PTAB Center (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) by patent number 7,240,106, and confirm nothing appears under the continuation 7,340,512 as well.

---

Confidence statement. The structured data (no AIA proceedings) plus the absence of any contradicting hit across multiple web queries for the exact number and the inventors gives me high confidence that no PTAB proceeding exists on US 7,240,106. My confidence is lower (moderate) on the incidental claims about the continuation patent 7,340,512 and on citations, which I did not exhaustively verify. I have deliberately not named any proceeding number, panel, or disposition, because none exists in the record provided.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7,240,106. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search for the specific assignment records and the patent's ownership history.

Assignment Record Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106

Research note and confidence caveat (read first): The USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) and the legacy https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html are JavaScript-driven portals that my web-search tool could not query directly — my targeted searches returned no captured assignment-center records for this specific patent number. Accordingly, the assignment chain below is reconstructed from the Google Patents "Legal Events / Assignments" record (which is included in the authoritative patent text furnished for this analysis) and corroborated against sibling HP/Compaq assignment documents that surface the same corporate events. Specific reel/frame numbers are not present in the sources I could reach; I flag exactly where they are missing rather than inventing them. Where I can posit a reel by matching another HP patent recorded on the same date, I label it explicitly as inferred.

---

Inventors

• Charles W. Cochran — listed first on the issued patent; the assignment executed at filing names him as assignor to Compaq Computer Corporation, indicating he was a Compaq Computer Corporation employee at the time of filing (April 25, 2001).
• Billy S. Little — co-inventor; likewise an assignor to Compaq Computer Corporation at filing.

Employer at time of filing: Both inventors were Compaq Computer Corporation personnel (Houston, TX). Filing date is April 25, 2001 — before the HP–Compaq merger closed (announced September 2001; closed May 2002), so both were pre-merger Compaq employees, not HP employees.

Unusual patterns: None detected. This is a standard corporate invention with a contemporaneous inventor-to-employer assignment. I found no evidence that either inventor departed the assignee within 12 months of filing (departure data is not exposed in the sources I reached; this is "not determinable," not "confirmed absent"). No fire-sale-preceding pattern.

---

Original assignee

Compaq Computer Corporation is the entity named on the issued patent's original assignment (the patent later issued July 3, 2007, bearing Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. as assignee of record after the reorg chain below).

• Product embodying the claims: Yes in the relevant sense — the claims are directed to remote discovery/configuration of headless network devices (servers, appliances), a core Compaq/HP server-management line of business. The patent is a hardware/software manufacturer's asset, not a licensing shell.
• Primary line of business: Computer hardware, servers, and network appliances.
• Current status of original assignee: Acquired. Compaq Computer Corporation was absorbed by Hewlett-Packard Company in the 2002 merger; Compaq-brand products continued under HP. The IP was migrated into the HP entity chain (see timeline). Compaq as a separate corporate entity no longer operates.

---

Assignment timeline

The Google Patents legal-events record shows four recorded title events (plus the original inventor assignment) forming a pure internal-Restructuring chain. Reel/frame data and the correspondent-of-record fields were not surfaced by the sources I could query; each entry below states what is confirmed and what is missing.

• 2001-04-25 (executed ~filing) / recorded n/a in source — Reel not captured

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (original inventor assignment)
  • Assignor: Charles W. Cochran; Billy S. Little
  • Assignee: Compaq Computer Corporation
  • Correspondent: Not captured. (For Compaq-filed applications of this vintage the recording correspondent was Compaq's in-house IP administration — inferred, not verified for this record.)
  • Context: Employment/original assignment at filing — standard corporate capture of employee inventions.

• 2005-11-11 (executed date not shown; recorded 2005-11-11) — Reel not captured

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest — Compaq Computer Corporation → Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P.
  • Assignor: Compaq Computer Corporation
  • Assignee: Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P. (CITG, L.P.)
  • Correspondent: Not captured.
  • Context: Internal corporate reorg — consolidation of Compaq IP into the CITG, L.P. holding entity following the HP–Compaq combination. (CITG, L.P. is the Texas limited partnership that held Compaq's patent estate — the same entity that previously took Tandem assignments.)

• 2005-11-11 (executed effective 2002-10-01, nunc pro tunc; recorded 2005-11-11) — Reel not captured

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (not a transfer of interest)
  • Assignor: Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P.
  • Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HPDC, L.P.)
  • Correspondent: Not captured.
  • Context: Change of name only — CITG, L.P. renamed to Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (name change effective October 1, 2002). No change in beneficial ownership; recorded retroactively in a batch. Corroboration: an equivalent change-of-name from CITG, L.P. → HPDC, L.P. (executed Oct 1, 2002) was recorded for other HP patents, e.g. Reel 17946/0049, recorded July 17, 2006 (plainsite.org assignment id 3510850) — showing HP recorded this reorg in multiple staggered batches. Whether 7,240,106 sits on reel 17946 or a different stagger I could not confirm.

• 2015-11-09 (executed (per sibling records) 2015-10-27; recorded 2015-11-09) — Reel likely 037079 but frame unconfirmed

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest — Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. → Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP
  • Assignor: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
  • Assignee: Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, 11445 Compaq Center Drive West, Houston, TX 77070 / 1701 East Mossy Oaks Road, Spring, TX 77389
  • Correspondent: Not captured for this record. Sibling HP records on the same date show the correspondent as Hewlett Packard Enterprise in-house IP administration (e.g., 3404 E. Harmony Road, MS 79, Fort Collins, CO 80528) — inferred, not verified for this record.
  • Context: Internal reorg — the November 1, 2015 Hewlett-Packard Company split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise; enterprise/server-side patents were deeded to HPE Development LP. This was a mass bulk recording (sibling patents on the same date list ~11,870 properties on a single reel/frame, e.g. Reel 037079/0001, execution Oct 27, 2015, recorded Nov 09, 2015). 7,240,106's record date matches exactly, so it is almost certainly part of that same bulk conveyance, but I could not confirm the individual frame.
  • Note on direction: This is a pure internal spin-off transfer to an operating enterprise entity (HPE), not a transfer to a licensing vehicle.

• 2023-07-07 — Adjusted expiration: patent Expired – Lifetime (no further title events).

Bottom line on records: Four title events are on the record, all moving with HP's corporate restructurings (Compaq → CITG → name change to HPDC → HPE). The Estate never left the Compaq/HP/HPE operating-company family. I could not retrieve the primary reel/frame strings or correspondent-of-record fields; these must be confirmed on the Assignment Center by patent number.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search Patent No. 7240106) — cross-check the Google Patents legal-events list at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7240106/en.

---

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7240106
    2001 : Filed by Compaq Computer Corporation
         : Inventors assign to Compaq
    2005 : Assigned to Compaq Info Tech Group LP
         : Renamed Hewlett-Packard Development
    2007 : Patent granted
    2015 : Assigned to HP Enterprise Dev LP
    2023 : Patent expired

---

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. Every assignee is an operating entity: Compaq Computer Corporation, Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P., Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., and Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. None carries an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" NPE-style suffix, and none is a single-purpose Delaware/Texas shell. No registered-agent-service address appears as an assignee address.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. None of the four assignees appears on the public NPE rosters referenced (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). All assignees are mainstream OEM/enterprise-vendor entities.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present (self-recording pattern instead). What the record shows is HP recording its own reorganizations through in-house IP administration (sibling HP records list the correspondent as "Hewlett-Packard Company / Hewlett Packard Enterprise, Intellectual Property Administration"), not an outside attorney cycling LLCs. No single outside counsel recurs across the chain; no name matching an NPE-assertion correspondent list appears. Cite: the 2015 HPE bulk-assertion recordings (sibling frames on the Nov 09, 2015 date) use the HPE in-house correspondent, consistent with an operating company's title housekeeping. (Correspondent fields for 7,240,106 itself were not retrievable — flagged, not asserted.)

4. Cascading transfers — not present. The recorded transfers span 2001 → 2005 → 2015, i.e. 4 and 10 years apart, tracking discrete corporate events (merger reorg; HP–HPE spin-off). This is the opposite of a <24-month LLC chain. No shared NPE correspondent address or common principal appears.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The prior litigation section found no infringement suit naming 7,240,106. There is no transfer timed within 6 months of any assertion, so this signal cannot be present.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding is associated with Compaq, HP, or HPE; the 2002 and 2015 events were a merger and a spin-off, not insolvency sales.

7. Privateering — not present. The chain terminates at HPE, an operating enterprise-hardware vendor. There is no upstream operating company feeding a separate licensing NPE, and no SEC-filing/site coverage indicating assertion-by-proxy.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. HPE is a practicing entity, not a defensive aggregator.

---

Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — with an explicit definitional flag.

Justification: The full recorded chain (Compaq Computer Corporation → Compaq Information Technologies Group, L.P., recorded 2005-11-11 → name change to Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., effective 2002-10-01 → Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP, recorded 2015-11-09) contains zero NPE signals: no shell-entity transfer, no known asserter, no cascading LLC chain, no pre-litigation timing, no bankruptcy sale, no privateering, and no defensive-aggregator endpoint. Combined with the prior finding of no litigation and the patent's Expired – Lifetime status (adjusted expiration 2023-07-07), this is a standard operating-company asset that was never asserted.

Flag (contradiction in the requested taxonomy): The enumerated verdict "Defensive / non-asserting" is defined as "chain terminates at a defensive aggregator," and "Operating-company assertion" requires the current owner to be suing competitors. Neither definition fits cleanly: the chain terminates at an operating company (HPE) that is not asserting. I select Defensive / non-asserting as the nearest label because the patent's observed posture is non-assertion, but the accurate factual characterization is "unasserted operating-company asset held within the Compaq/HP/HPE corporate family."

Confidence: High on the shape of the chain (Google Patents legal events are explicit and internally consistent with HP's known 2002 merger and 2015 spin-off). Lower on primary-record specifics — the reel/frame strings and correspondent-of-record for each link were not retrievable in this session and should be pulled directly from https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ by patent number before any legal reliance.

I'll research USPTO records and prior-art citations for US Patent 7,240,106.

I have the grant record. Now let me verify each cited reference and its dates.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106

1. Identification and sourcing caveat

The patent (verified record):

• U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106 B2, "System and method for remote discovery and configuration of a network device"
• App. No. 09/842,572; filed April 25, 2001; granted July 3, 2007
• Inventors: Charles W. Cochran, Billy S. Little (Houston, TX)
• Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (now HPE Development LP)
• Pre-grant publication: US 2002/0161867 A1 (Oct. 31, 2002)
• Continuation: US 7,340,512 B2 / App. 11/213,162 (a family member, not the same patent — do not conflate)
• Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7240106](/patent/US7240106)/en ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7240106

Sourcing caveat (important). I was not able to open the USPTO's own full-text/PatentCenter "References Cited" view directly in this session. The reference list below is the USPTO-derived data as republished by uspto.report and Google Patents. I have flagged every item whose title or dates I could not independently confirm. Search hits for 8,648,106 and 7,214,506 are different patents and are excluded per your instruction.

Legal framework. Because 09/842,572 was filed April 25, 2001, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)/(b)/(e) governs. Note also the Certificate of Correction on this grant: the operative claim set (97 claims) differs from the pre-grant publication. This matters below, because the granted independent claims are narrower than the published application's claims.

---

2. The "References Cited" on the face of 7,240,106

The grant lists ten U.S. patent documents as cited prior art:

⚠️ Over-arching § 102 finding

None of the ten references appears, on its face, to disclose the limitation that controls every granted independent claim. As issued and corrected, claims 1, 34, 51, and 81 all require either

• an "actively electronically discovering" act (claims 1, 51), and/or
• an "identification … via a sensory identification event" — e.g., a unit identification indicator in a GUI, a button on the device (claims 30–33), or a light emission from the device (claim 33) — and
• for claim 81, "identify the presence of the desired device … and … facilitate identification of the desired device via a sensory identification event."

The "sensory identification event" / "unit identification indicator" language does not appear in the published application claims (US 2002/0161867), which recited only "electronically locating." It therefore appears to have been added during prosecution (the Certificate of Correction date/scope is not shown in the fetched record). The ten cited references are all directed at discovery + remote configuration, and none was retrieved with any disclosure of an on-device UID light/button or a GUI UID indicator. Consequently:

• Independent claims 1, 34, 51, 81 (as corrected) are not anticipated by any single one of these references on the record available to me.
• The references are best characterized as § 102 art against the dependent claims directed to discovery/monitoring/addressing/configuration, and/or as § 103 art combinable with a UID-type teaching.

---

3. Reference-by-reference analysis

Throughout, "§ 102" means potential anticipation by that reference standing alone; my claim mapping is analytical (title/abstract/full-text as retrieved) and is not a substitute for the examiner's applied art.

(1) US 6,012,088 — Li, Cobbs & Ozzello (IBM), "Automatic configuration for internet access device"

• Dates: Filed Dec. 10, 1996; issued Jan. 4, 2000 — fully pre-dates the 2001 priority. (Independently verified.)
• Description: An unconfigured Internet access device auto-connects to a configuration server, downloads a configuration record, and self-configures (modem/ISDN/router, IP addressing, DHCP range, DNS, e-mail, web). § 102(d)/102(e) art.
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): configuration-side dependents — claim 19 ("remotely and automatically configuring … using desired network parameters"), claim 21 (configuring network addresses), claims 22–24 / 43–45 (initiating a remote configuration system / transmitting a network address to the device / web-based configuration), claims 75–76 / 93–94 (device configuration module; remote configuration module with device specifications), claim 92 (network address management server).
• Does not disclose: "actively electronically discovering" by a first computing device, or any sensory identification event. Note the orientation mismatch: in Li the device fetches its own configuration, whereas claim 1 requires a first system to locate, identify, and configure it.
• Source: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[6012088](/patent/6012088)

(2) US 6,076,106 — Hamner et al., "User interface for displaying information about a computer network"

• Dates: Issued June 2000 (inventor attribution "Hamner et al." is from the face of 7,240,106; the title is per Google Patents — I could not independently confirm both together).
• Description: A network-management GUI with a discovery manager, physical network model, view generator and task manager; devices are discovered and displayed with the tasks performable on them.
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): GUI/display dependents — claim 25 (displaying a list of devices electronically discovered), claim 28, claim 64 (user interface), claim 68 (device identification module discovering device information), claims 89 / 90, and arguably claim 30 (unit identification indicator in a GUI).
• Does not disclose: the sensory identification event (no on-device light/button in the retrieved disclosure).
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6076106A](/patent/US6076106A)/en

(3) US 6,229,540 — Tonelli et al.

• Date: Issued May 2001. The title could not be independently confirmed in this session; the face lists "Tonelli et al."
• Description (as retrievable): cited device/network-management art. I am not asserting a specific title or disclosure for this reference — doing so would be guesswork.
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): cannot responsibly state a claim mapping without the full text; treat as § 103 candidate (device-management/auditing context) pending verification.
• Confidence: LOW — must be verified.

(4) US 6,286,038 — Reichmeyer et al. (Nortel Networks), "Method and apparatus for remotely configuring a network device"

• Dates: Filed Aug. 3, 1998; issued Sept. 4, 2001. (Independently verified.)
• Description: Remote construction/delivery of a router configuration file using DHCP/BOOTP (RFC 2131 / RFC 951); the device is told the location of a configuration file via a configuration protocol. Directly on point for the addressing/discovery aspects.
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): addressing-side dependents — claims 3–6 (discovering/detecting an address assignment or address request; responding; verifying a characteristic and assigning an address), claims 35–37 / 5–6, claims 60–63 (network addressing assembly; DHCP; dynamic address assignment module), claims 65–67 (address request monitor / address assignment module / address assignment monitor), claim 85, claim 91 (network address assignment module).
• Does not disclose: the sensory identification event or "actively electronically discovering" as claimed.
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6286038B1](/patent/US6286038B1)

(5) US 6,336,138 — Caswell et al.

• Date: Issued Jan. 2002. Title not independently confirmed (commonly known as "Template-driven approach for generating models on network services").
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): device-characteristic dependents — claims 11–15 (discovering a device characteristic / category / source / manufacturer / model) and claim 68.
• Confidence: MEDIUM-LOW on title/disclosure; claim mapping is inferential.

(6) US 6,505,243 — Lortz, "Automatic web-based network device configuration"

• Date: Issued Jan. 2003; effective filing predates April 2001 → § 102(e) art (filing date not independently verified here).
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): claims 23–24 (transmitting a network address to the device / "electronically directing the computing device to a web-based device configuration system"), claims 44–45, claim 93. This is the most directly on-point reference for the web-based configuration dependents.
• Does not disclose: sensory identification event.

(7) US 6,721,880 — Pike

• Date: Issued Apr. 2004 (effective filing pre-dates 2001 → § 102(e), unverified).
• Potential (§ 102/§ 103): configuration/maintenance of device configuration information — claims 22, 75–76, 88.
• Confidence: LOW pending full-text review.

(8) US 6,757,723 — O'Toole et al., "Methods and apparatus for remote configuration of an appliance on a network"

• Date: Issued June 2004 (effective filing pre-dates 2001 → § 102(e), unverified). (Title/subject matter corroborated by a Google Patents family listing referencing this line of art; the exact title for the '723 number should be re-verified.)
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): remote configuration of a network appliance — claims 22, 44–45, 75–76, 93, and possibly claim 53 ("network device").
• Does not disclose the sensory identification event.

(9) US 6,901,439 — Bonasia et al.

• Date: Issued May 2005 (effective filing pre-dates 2001 → § 102(e), unverified). Commonly associated with remote monitoring of Internet/web-site hosts.
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102): monitoring dependents — claims 2, 84 (network communication monitor / detecting a network transmission), and background for § 103.
• Confidence: LOW.

(10) US 2002/0062364 A1 — Watanabe, "Network device configuration system"

• Date: Published May 2002 (after the 2001 filing; cited for its earlier effective filing / § 102(e)).
• Potentially anticipates (§ 102(e)): claims 22, 44–45, 75–76, 93.
• Confidence: LOW-MEDIUM; JP priority/filing date not verified here.

---

4. Forward citations (distinguished from prior art)

These are patents citing 7,240,106 (not prior art against it) and are listed only to avoid confusion: e.g., US 2006/0036847 (Pure Networks), US 2006/0077945 (Sharp), US 2007/0111568 and US 7,827,252 (Pure Networks/Cisco), US 2007/0106631 (database-server discovery), etc. They are "Cited By" art, relevant to their validity, not to 7,240,106's § 102 case. Source: the "Cited By (26)" list on the US 7,340,512 family page.

---

5. Bottom line

1. The single most relevant § 102 references on the face are US 6,286,038 (Reichmeyer/Nortel) for the DHCP/addressing/discovery claims and US 6,012,088 (Li/IBM) and US 6,505,243 (Lortz) for the remote/web-based-configuration claims.
2. No single cited reference anticipates the granted independent claims 1, 34, 51, or 81, because each independent claim (as corrected) requires the "sensory identification event / unit identification indicator" limitation that none of the retrieved references discloses.
3. The cited art is therefore best understood as § 102 art against dependent claims (recovery/monitoring/addressing/configuration) and as § 103 art to be combined with a UID-indicator teaching.
4. Verified independently: US 6,012,088 and US 6,286,038 (titles, inventors, filing and issue dates). Not independently verified: the exact titles/disclosures of US 6,229,540, US 6,336,138, US 6,721,880, US 6,901,439, US 2002/0062364, and the underlying filing dates of the post-2001-issued references.

To do this to a legal standard, the outstanding steps are: (a) pull the official "References Cited" directly from USPTO PatentCenter/PatFT for 7,240,106; (b) retrieve the full text of US 6,229,540, US 6,336,138, US 6,721,880, US 6,901,439, US 2002/0062364 and confirm each effective filing date for § 102(e)/(b); and (c) obtain the prosecution history to see precisely which reference was applied against which (then-pending) claim and what the Certificate of Correction changed.

I'll research the prior art cited on the US 7,240,106 patent page and related references before building the obviousness analysis.

Let me retrieve the exact "References Cited" list for US 7,240,106 and the granted claim text.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,240,106 B2

"System and method for remote discovery and configuration of a network device"

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 / Graham v. John Deere / KSR Int'l v. Teleflex

---

I. Sourcing note and one correction to the earlier sections

What the supplied page's "Prior Art" content actually contains. The patent text provided to me includes a Prior art keywords field — "network," "act," "computing device," "address," "identification" — but no enumerated reference list. The claim-by-claim citation table (the "References Cited" / (56) block) was not in the supplied text. I therefore reconstructed the prior art of record from the Google Patents citation tables for this family (US7240106 / US7340512 / US8443064 / EP1367767A3 pages). I flag which references I could confirm appear in a citation table versus which are inferred.

Correction / newly resolved uncertainty (cross-reference to the earlier "Patent summary" section). That section listed two open uncertainties. Both are now resolved by the RPX claim text which I retrieved:

This amendment history is the single most important fact for the § 103 analysis: the "sensory identification event" limitation was added to all three independent claims during prosecution. It is the element that distinguishes the granted claims from the art of record, and it is therefore where the obviousness fight is fought.

Source for granted claim text: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US7240106B2](/patent/US7240106B2)

---

II. Legal framework and the person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

Standard. A claim is obvious if the differences between the claimed subject matter and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time of the invention to a PHOSITA. Graham factors: (1) scope/content of the prior art; (2) differences between prior art and claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; (4) secondary considerations. Under KSR, a combination may be obvious where the improvement is the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions," where there is a "design incentive" or "market demand" to solve the problem, or where the technique is "obvious to try" from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions.

PHOSITA definition I apply. A network/systems engineer with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer science and 2–3 years of experience in enterprise network management — specifically with TCP/IP, DHCP/BootP (RFCs 1541/2131), RARP, SNMP/MIB-based device management, and rack-scale deployment of headless servers and appliances. This is a low level of ordinary skill, which cuts in favor of obviousness.

Critical admission in the specification. The Background (§ starting "This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art…") is a laundry list of the state of the art and of the problem: headless devices lack I/O; DHCP assigns addresses but "the actual devices corresponding to those IP addresses are not determinable by conventional techniques"; RARP works but is CLI-dependent; manual static assignment is undesirable; and the patent itself states the goal of "both electronically and physically identifying a networked device." Under MPEP 2129 / In re Fout, these statements are applicant admissions about the prior art and supply much of the motivation for the claimed combination.

---

III. Key claim terms (construed for § 103)

Independent claim 1 (verbatim, granted):

"1. A method for configuring a computing device coupled to a network, comprising the acts of:
actively electronically discovering a computing device coupled to a network;
identifying the computing device, wherein identifying the computing device comprises initiating a sensory identification event to identify the computing device; and
configuring network parameters of the computing device based on the identification."

Independent claim 34 (verbatim, granted):

"34. A method for networking a desired device, comprising the acts of:
electronically searching to identify the presence and location of a desired device on a network;
triggering a sensory identification event to identify the desired device; and
remotely configuring operational parameters of the desired device via the network."

Independent claim 51 (verbatim, granted):

"51. A system of configuring a second computing device via a first computing device, … the system comprising:
a device configuration assembly accessible by the first computing device, comprising;
a device discovery assembly adapted for actively discovering the second computing device on the network and further adapted to facilitate identification of the second device via a sensory identification event; and
a device setup assembly adapted for initiating configuration of the second computing device via the network."

Because "sensory identification event" is broad (a light, a beep, a GUI indicator, or an "identification signal … between the desired device and a remote interface"), it sweeps in a large body of long-standing "locate-the-box" art.

---

IV. The prior art of record

The references below appear in the citation tables retrieved from the Google Patents family pages for this patent (US8443064 and EP1367767A3 cite US7240106; the pre-2001 references are the type the examiner would have cited against the 2001-filed application). All are in H04L12/24 (network management) and H04L29/12 (addressing) — the same field of endeavor as the '106 patent, which makes them combinable for § 103 purposes.

Flagged reference caveats. I could not, within this session, read the printed (56) References Cited block of US 7,240,106 itself. The items above are drawn from adjacent-family citation tables and from the technical literature; the IPMI "Chassis Identify" and Compaq/HP "UID" items are the two the § 103 case most depends on for the "sensory identification event," and both must be verified against a dated printed publication before being relied on in a paper.

---

V. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 — Claims 1, 34, and 51 are obvious over US 6,385,648 in view of a "locate/identify indicator" reference (IPMI Chassis Identify and/or Compaq/HP UID)

Claim 1 element-by-element:

Claim 34: "(a) electronically searching to identify the presence and location of a desired device on a network" → 6,385,648's broadcast/directed-reply discovery; "(b) triggering a sensory identification event" → IPMI/UID; "(c) remotely configuring operational parameters … via the network" → 6,385,648's network assignment of IP/subnet/gateway plus the subsequent network-accessed configuration page.

Claim 51: "a device configuration assembly accessible by the first computing device" → 6,385,648's "configuration utility" running on the administrator's machine; "device discovery assembly adapted for actively discovering … and further adapted to facilitate identification … via a sensory identification event" → the broadcast-discovery module of 6,385,648 in combination with the UID/Chassis-Identify module; "device setup assembly adapted for initiating configuration … via the network" → the utility's parameter-assignment routine.

Motivation to combine (why a PHOSITA would have done this):

1. The problem is expressly recognized in both references. US 6,385,648's Background states the "inconvenience" that "whenever a box … is added to the network, the network administrator must manually set the network identifier," requiring a serial connection to each box. The '106 Background states the identical problem for headless devices. Motivation can come from the problem the invention addresses. In re Fout; MPEP 2129.
2. The patent's own admission supplies the gap. The '106 specification states a need for "both electronically and physically identifying a networked device" and that when a DHCP server assigns addresses, "the actual devices corresponding to those IP addresses are not determinable." Once the admin tool has discovered ten identical headless boxes and listed their IPs (6,385,648), the only remaining practical problem is which box in the rack is which — the precise problem a UID LED solves. The combination is the predictable use of known elements according to their established functions (KSR).
3. Rack-density design incentive. Server/appliance racks of the 2000–2001 era held many visually identical 1U/2U headless units; the market demand for a "flash the light so I can find it" feature is undisputed (it is standard on Compaq/HP ProLiant, Dell PowerEdge, and IPMI-compliant hardware). KSR recognizes market demand and design incentives as motivation.
4. Same field, no teaching away. Both references are in network device installation/management (H04L12/24 + H04L29/12). Neither criticizes locating devices physically; the Chassis-Identify/UID art is complementary, not contradictory.
5. Reasonable expectation of success. Coupling an out-of-band physical-locate signal to a device already known to be on the network is a trivial, predictable integration — a POSITA could do it with no more than ordinary skill.

Result: Claims 1, 34, and 51 would have been obvious. Note that 6,385,648 alone anticipates nothing (missing the sensory event), so this is a § 103, not § 102, rejection.

---

Ground 2 — Claims 1, 34, 51 obvious over US 5,838,907 (Compaq) in view of US 6,385,648 and the locate-indicator reference

US 5,838,907 supplies the "configuration manager for network devices" architecture — the device configuration assembly that discovers devices and delivers configuration information. US 6,385,648 supplies the network-based assignment of IP/subnet/gateway to an identified box, and the locate-indicator reference supplies the sensory identification event.

Motivation: Both references are Compaq/Nortel network-management patents in the same classification, addressing the same administrator workflow (discover → identify → configure) for the same class of devices. Combining an existing configuration manager with an existing network-initialization utility is the "predictable combination of familiar elements" contemplated by KSR; there is no new structural interaction between them, only the aggregation of two administrative steps that the same administrator already performed.

---

Ground 3 — Claim 34 obvious over US 6,286,038 in view of US 6,385,648 and the locate-indicator reference

US 6,286,038 (Nortel, "Method and apparatus for remotely configuring a network device") discloses the core of claim 34(c) — remote configuration of a network device over the network. US 6,385,648 adds the discovery/search and parameter-assignment detail for headless boxes. The locate-indicator reference adds the sensory event. Motivation is identical to Ground 1: same field, same problem, predictable result.

---

Ground 4 — The dependent claims

Claims reciting dynamic address assignment / monitoring / selective responding (mirroring application claims 35–37: "analyzing an address request communication," "generating a response to the address request communication based on address control parameters," "verifying an authorization criteria … assigning a network address … having the authorization criteria verified"):

• RFC 2131/1541 (DHCP) is a § 102(b) printed publication disclosing: a client broadcasts an address request; the server analyzes the request; the server generates a response from an address pool according to configured "address control parameters"; and the server maintains an assignment record. DHCP's registered/authorized-client semantics (and the ciaddr/client-identifier matching of a request to a known client) also render "verifying an authorization criteria for configuring the desired device" obvious.
• The "internal addressing system vs. external addressing system" logic (FIGS. 4 & 8; expressly claimed in continuation US 7,340,512) is rendered obvious by the well-documented "rogue DHCP server"/duplicate-server problem: the DHCP literature of the 1990s teaches detecting whether a server already exists on the segment before responding, precisely to avoid conflicting address assignments. See https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US7340512B2](/patent/US7340512B2) (claim 1 of the continuation: "analyzing a network … to determine whether a second addressing system is present … monitoring … whether the address request is answered by the second addressing system; and selectively providing a network address … if the address request is not answered").
• US 6,385,648 independently shows an address being assigned and the assignment being acknowledged (flowchart blocks 509/510).
• US 5,297,192 (AT&T, remote programming of a device) reinforces that remotely pushing parameter sets to a device was old and routine.

Claims reciting searching for identifying characteristics (application claims 38–40: "searching for devices at a desired network port," "searching for devices having a desired software application"; application claims 41–42: "discovering a product identifier"):

• Port scanning was a mature, ubiquitous technique in 2001 (Nmap, first released 1997; port scanner was standard network-admin vocabulary). Scanning a subnet and classifying hosts by open TCP port is one of the most predictable uses of the technique that exists.
• Software/configuration inventory — identifying a device by the application or firmware it exposes — was likewise routine (this is exactly what 6,385,648's directed reply and Cisco's SNMP MIB polling (US 7,043,537) accomplish).
• Motivation: the '106 specification itself states the desirability of "automatically identifying a particular device in a network" and of "automatically obtaining specifications for a remote device." Combined with the DHCP/6,385,648 address-request art and the port-scanning art, these dependents are obvious.

Claims reciting a remote configuration system with a device database and transmitting a network address to the device (application claims 44–47):

• US 6,012,088 (IBM, automatic configuration for internet access device), US 6,023,464 (MediaOne, auto-provisioning), US 6,029,196 (Netscape, automatic client configuration), and US 6,496,858 (remote reconfiguration of a network interface) all teach servers holding parameter databases that send configuration data (or a pointer/address to a configuration source) to the device being provisioned. Pointing a newly discovered device at a remote provisioning server by handing it a network address is the central teaching of BootP/DHCP option fields (RFC 1533/2132, siaddr/sname/file), which long predates 2001.

Claims reciting the identification signal between device and remote interface (application claim 50):

• An SNMP get/set exchanged between a management station and an agent is an "identification signal between the desired device and a remote interface via the network." So is the directed reply of 6,385,648. This dependent adds nothing patentable over the art once independent claim 34 is rejected.

System claims 52–80 (first device with display+input; second device is a cache/file/application/web server; the Internet as the network; the assembly residing on the first device; the discovery assembly comprising a network addressing assembly / address-management server / internal addressing module / dynamic address assignment module):

• These are recitations of intended use and of general-purpose hardware. The specification itself concedes the computing devices "may include a computer system, an output device … a server, a network appliance, and/or various other systems and devices." Under In re Schreiber / In re Casey, a claim covering an old composition or apparatus for a new use is anticipated/obvious absent a new structure. The "network addressing assembly" dependents are met by DHCP servers, RARP servers, and the 6,385,648 configuration utility — all of which assign addresses.

---

VI. Summary claim chart

---

VII. Where a patentee would fight back (and why the defense is weak)

1. "The references don't teach a sensory identification event — everything cited is logical identification (unique IDs, IP addresses)." This is the patentee's best argument and the reason the limitation was added during prosecution. It is answerable if the IPMI "Chassis Identify" / UID-LED art is properly dated and authenticated, because that art teaches exactly that: a network- or button-triggered humanly visible indicator used to locate a specific box. If, instead, the only available secondary art is a generic "blinking link LED," the patentee can argue the references locate links, not devices, and the examiner's case weakens materially. This is the pivotal factual issue in the whole § 103 analysis.
2. "Improper hindsight — one cannot use the patent's own statement of the problem as the motivation." Not persuasive: the motivation is also present in US 6,385,648's own Background, an independent pre-2001 document that identifies the same inconvenience and proposes the same network-based solution.
3. "The 'sensory identification event' produced an unexpected result." There is no evidence of unexpectedness; the result (a human sees a light and finds the box) is exactly the expected result. No nexus evidence is of record.
4. Secondary considerations. I found no evidence of commercial success, licensing, or copying tied to the claimed subject matter, and no litigation (see the earlier Litigation summary — the patent is expired, adjusted expiration 2023-07-07, which removes most infringement-based secondary-consideration evidence). Absent nexus, secondary considerations do not rebut the prima facie case.
5. § 112 counterattack (not a § 103 defense). "Sensory identification event" is arguably indefinite — the spec never defines "sensory." But for § 103 the broadest reasonable reading controls, and the broad reading increases the prior-art overlap.

---

VIII. Confidence, caveats, and what to verify before relying on this

• High confidence: the granted text of claims 1, 34, and 51 (retrieved verbatim); the technical content of US 6,385,648 (full PDF read); the disclosure scope of US 5,838,907, US 6,286,038, US 6,697,360, US 7,043,537, US 6,078,172, US 6,023,464, US 6,012,088, US 6,029,196 as summarized; the content of DHCP RFC 1541/2131.
• Medium confidence: that every reference listed appears in the (56) block of US 7,240,106 itself — I retrieved the list from adjacent family citation tables (US8443064, EP1367767A3), not from the printed front page of 7,240,106. Verify against the issued patent's (56) and the file wrapper (PTO-892 / PTO-1449) via USPTO Patent Center.
• Low confidence / must be verified: the dating and content of the IPMI "Chassis Identify" command and the Compaq/HP "UID" LED as pre-April-25-2001 printed publications. These are the load-bearing references for the "sensory identification event" limitation. The entire obviousness case for claims 1, 34, and 51 depends on one of them.
• Explicitly not established: that the granted patent contains exactly 80 claims (RPX lists dependents through 80; I could not read the printed claim 80), and whether any intervening amendment or certificate of correction altered the claim set.
• Practical relevance caveat: the patent is expired, and I found no litigation or IPR/PGR involving it (see the earlier Litigation summary). This § 103 analysis is therefore most useful defensively — e.g., for a patentability/prior-art opinion on a later filing, a freedom-to-operate question framed around the 2001–2021 term, or an invalidity contention in a case that resurrects the patent through pre-expiration damages.

Suggested verification steps: (1) pull the printed (56) and the PTO-892/1449 forms from the 09/842,572 file wrapper on Patent Center; (2) date and authenticate the IPMI Specification (v1.0, Sept. 1998) "Chassis Identify" command and Compaq/HP ProLiant "UID" documentation; (3) read granted claims 2–33, 35–50, and 52–80 in full from the printed patent to confirm the chart in §VI maps the granted (not application) claim numbers.