US 7249099

I'll start by searching for the patent's official records and any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity and current litigation involving this patent.

US 7,249,099 B2 — Summary

Note on search scope: I searched for the exact identifier 7249099 / 7,249,099 only; I did not substitute similar numbers. I found no CAFC 2026 docket asserting U.S. Patent 7,249,099. The closest 2026 CAFC hit is AML IP, LLC v. Bath & Body Works Direct, Inc., No. 2025-1280 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 28, 2026) — same plaintiff (AML IP), but a different patent: U.S. Patent No. 6,876,979 (the '979 patent), not the '099 patent. I am flagging that explicitly so it is not mis-attributed.

Bibliographic Data

Priority chain (from the printed patent): The application is a continuation of Ser. No. 09/753,784 (filed Jan. 2, 2001), which is a CIP of Ser. No. 09/665,237 (filed Sep. 18, 2000), which is a CIP of Ser. No. 09/553,695 (filed Apr. 21, 2000, now US 7,177,838). Priority is also claimed from provisional 60/178,239 (Jan. 26, 2000). Source: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7249099

Uncertainty flagged: The Unified Patents portal entry for US-7249099-B2 lists a priority date of 2000-01-25, whereas Google Patents and the printed patent indicate 2000-01-26 (the provisional filing date). I am reporting both rather than correcting either. Also, Google Patents lists the current assignee as AML IP LLC with a 2025 nunc pro tunc assignment from Andrew M. Ling, while uspto.report still shows PayByClick Corporation as assignee — the paid/recorded assignment chain (PayByClick → Actus LLC → PayByClick → GTX Corp. → Andrew M. Ling, P.C. → AML IP LLC, with a security interest to Pravati Investment Fund IV, LP) is as listed on the Google Patents page.

Abstract (verbatim)

"Methods and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce using electronic tokens are described. The electronic tokens are issued and maintained by a vendor, who also provides products and services that can be purchased or rented using the electronic tokens. The electronic tokens may be purchased from the vendor either on-line, using a credit card, or off-line, using a check, money order, purchase order, or other payment means. Because the vendor is the issuer of the electronic tokens, there is no need for transactions to be handled by a third party, such as a bank or other organization. This reduces the overhead involved in conducting electronic commerce, and provides the vendor with a greater amount of control. Additionally, the vendor maintains total control over the price of the electronic tokens at any time. For vendors who offer software products for sale or rental, use of electronic tokens makes a variety of rental arrangements practical. Additionally, a user registers and purchases electronic tokens at the vendor. The user may purchase products at any other vendors who conduct electronic commerce using electronic tokens."

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The patent has two independent claims: claim 1 (method) and claim 16 (apparatus/server). All other claims (2–15, 17–32) depend from one of these.

Claim 1 — Method for conducting electronic commerce across multiple vendors via a Mall Service Provider (MSP).
In plain terms, the claim covers a networked e-commerce method where:

1. A first vendor's web server accepts electronic tokens of a first type;
2. A second vendor's web server accepts electronic tokens of a second (different) type;
3. A mall service provider (MSP) server sits between them and facilitates the commerce;
4. The MSP server issues a batch of first-type tokens to the first web server — and those tokens are usable to buy or rent from either the first or the second web server;
5. A subset of those tokens is issued to a user;
6. The MSP server keeps a first database containing account information for the first web server; and
7. When a transaction happens at the second vendor's server using first-type tokens, compensation is transferred from the first web server to the second web server, in an amount equal to the value of the second-type tokens.

Note (reported literally, not corrected): the final limitation of claim 1 ties the compensation amount to "the value of the electronic tokens of the second type," even though the recited transaction is conducted "using electronic tokens of the first type." Dependent claims fill in context — e.g., claim 2 adds a second MSP database recording second-type token transactions; claim 11 adds a database listing which web servers accept the first web server's tokens; claims 6–8 cover manufacturer's tokens and reimbursement; claim 9 covers gift-certificate tokens; claim 10 covers tokens used in competitive bidding (auctions); claim 13 covers tokens issued to a vendor server overseeing point-of-sale terminals; claims 14–15 add a record of available tokens and a royalty transaction record.

Claim 16 — Server operated by a Mall Service Provider (apparatus counterpart to claim 1).
This is the system/servеr version of the same idea, claiming a server comprising:

• A network interface communicating with a first vendor web server (accepts first-type tokens) and a second vendor web server (accepts second-type tokens);
• A database, a memory, and a processor executing software with programmed routines:
  • a routine for issuing first-type tokens from the MSP server to the first web server, usable at either web server;
  • a routine for issuing a subset of those tokens to a user;
  • a first database routine updating records relating to tokens issued to the first web server; and
  • a routine for transferring compensation from the first web server to the second web server equal to the value of the second-type tokens, for transactions conducted at the second web server.

Dependent claims 17–32 mirror the method dependents — adding manufacturer's tokens (22–23), reimbursement (24), gift-certificate tokens (25), auction/competitive-bidding tokens (26), a list of accepting web servers (27), point-of-sale token issuance (29), records of token availability (30), token counts per transaction (31), and royalty recording per transaction (32). Claim 18 specifies the user is registered with an account at the first web server; claim 19 updates the user's account information.

Context Worth Noting

• The Specification's "closed vs. open" framing is the heart of the patent. A single vendor issuing tokens redeemable only at its own site is a "closed system." The MSP converts a group of closed systems into an "open system" by authorizing, tracking, exchanging, and settling tokens across member vendor "malls." The patent describes four open-token types: Universal Tokens, Manufacturer's Tokens (Type 1 and Type 2), Group Tokens, and Gift Certificate Tokens, plus Auction Tokens.
• The asserted claims here are the open-system/MSP claims, not the simpler single-vendor token claims. That is a meaningful distinction: the sibling patent US 7,376,621 (from Ser. No. 09/665,237) claims the closed-system, single-vendor "vendor issues and redeems its own tokens" model.
• Enforcement history. Per the Google Patents litigation links, this family has litigation, including Texas Eastern District cases 2:09-cv-00102, 2:09-cv-00168, 2:10-cv-00177, and 2:11-cv-00180. Press reporting indicates Actus (a Texas holding company) sued roughly 20 defendants — including Bank of America, MasterCard, Visa, Google, JPMorgan Chase, and Wal-Mart — over four electronic-token patents, with gift cards and Google Checkout among the accused products.
• Expiration matters for the "2026 docket" question. With a listed expiration of 2020-09-25, the '099 patent was no longer enforceable by 2026, which is consistent with finding no live 2026 CAFC appeal asserting it.

Sources

• Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7249099/en
• USPTO PDF (grant): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/96/66/a0/551541dedec945/US7249099.pdf
• uspto.report (grant 7249099): https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7249099
• Justia (claims, references): https://patents.justia.com/patent/7249099
• Sibling patent US 7,376,621: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[7,376,621](/patent/7376621)
• AML IP, LLC v. Bath & Body Works Direct, Inc., No. 2025-1280 (Fed. Cir. Aug. 28, 2026) — '979 patent, not '099: https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/patent-case-summaries-week-ending-[7790165](/patent/7790165)/

Remaining Uncertainties

• I did not retrieve a raw PTO PatentCenter or CAFC CM/ECF docket query for 7,249,099 directly; my "no 2026 CAFC docket" conclusion rests on targeted searches, not an exhaustive docket pull. If you need a definitive negative, a CM/ECF and PatentCenter Docket lookup should be run directly.
• The 2000-01-25 vs. 2000-01-26 priority-date discrepancy is unresolved and reported as-is.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7249099. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific case numbers listed on Google Patents and the patent owner.

The Google Patents page lists four E.D. Tex. cases for this patent's family. Let me verify each individually and search for AML IP cases asserting '099.

Research Results: Litigation Involving U.S. Patent 7,249,099

I exhausted my search budget on this query. Here is what I was able to verify, and — importantly — what I could not verify. I am flagging the uncertainties explicitly rather than filling gaps.

1. Patent identification (verified)

Assignment chain (from the same source): PayByClick Corp → PayByClick Corporation–Texas → Actus LLC (license, 2009) → PayByClick Corporation → GTX Corporation (2014) → Andrew M. Ling, P.C. (2019–2020) → AML IP LLC (2020-11-25), with a security interest held by Pravati Investment Fund IV, LP (2021-02-11).

2. Direct answer

I could not verify, from live sources, any district-court case in which U.S. Patent 7,249,099 was specifically pleaded as a patent-in-suit. My searches did not return a complaint, docket, or PTAB filing naming the '099 patent specifically. I am not going to assert otherwise.

What I did find is a passive listing on Google Patents, plus an active assertion campaign by the current owner on related but different patents in the same family.

3. Candidate cases listed on Google Patents (listed, but UNVERIFIED)

The Google Patents page for US 7,249,099 carries a "Family has litigation" flag and lists four U.S. cases filed in the Eastern District of Texas:

Google Patents does not supply plaintiff, defendant, filing date, or outcome for these, and the "family has litigation" flag is aggregated at the patent-family level — so these cases may involve a family member (US 7,177,838 or US 7,376,621) rather than the '099 patent itself.

One of these four is affirmatively contradicted by the search results:

• 2:11-cv-00180 resolves to Abridge Technology v. MetroPCS Communications, Inc. — E.D. Tex., filed 03/17/2011, status Closed (sector: Transportation/E-Commerce per the litigation database). Abridge Technology is not the same plaintiff as the PayByClick/GTX/AML IP chain, and I found no basis to link this case to the '099 patent. I therefore regard the Google Patents linkage for this entry as unreliable.

I could not independently resolve 2:09-cv-00102, 2:09-cv-00168, or 2:10-cv-00177 to a plaintiff/defendant within my search budget. Treat all four as unconfirmed.

4. The owner's actual assertion campaign (verified, but on OTHER patents)

AML IP, LLC (Austin, Texas; principal Wm. P. Ramey, III / Ramey LLP) is an active litigant. However, every complaint I located identifies the patent-in-suit as U.S. 6,876,979 ("Electronic Commerce Bridge System") or U.S. 7,177,838 — not the '099 patent:

• AML IP, LLC v. Beauty Brands, LLC, No. 2:24-cv-00006 (E.D. Tex.) — asserts the '979 patent.
• AML IP, LLC v. Regal Cinemas, Inc., No. 7:25-cv-00225 (W.D. Tex., filed 05/12/2025) — asserts the '838 patent.
• AML IP, LLC v. The Cato Corporation, No. 6:22-cv-00178 (W.D. Tex., filed 02/18/2022) — attached US 6,876,979.
• Numerous other AML IP suits (Chipotle, Dunkin' Brands, Barnes & Noble, Academy Ltd., Luxottica, Aveda, Albertsons, RaceTrac, Cinemark, CEC Entertainment, American Airlines, etc.) — asserted patents not confirmed as '099.

The Federal Circuit appeal summarized by Oliff — AML IP, LLC v. Bath & Body Works Direct, Inc., Appeal No. 2025-1280 (Fed. Cir., Aug. 28, 2026), affirmed on venue/§ 101 grounds (E.D. Tex., Judge Jordan) — concerned "e-commerce methods that use a 'bridge computer' to facilitate transactions among service providers," i.e., the '979 patent, not the '099.

No IPR, PGR, reissue, or reexamination specifically directed to the '099 patent surfaced in my searches. (By contrast, I did see unrelated IPR activity for a different " '991 patent" owned by Ozmo Licensing, which is not US 7,249,099 — I flag this because the similar number is an easy source of error.)

5. Bottom line

1. No litigation specifically asserting US 7,249,099 could be confirmed from the sources I reached.
2. Google Patents lists four E.D. Tex. case numbers under the '099 family's litigation flag, but (a) gives no party or outcome data, (b) aggregates at family level, and (c) at least one entry (2:11-cv-00180) is contradicted by search results and appears unrelated.
3. The owner (AML IP LLC) has an extensive, active campaign — but on the '979 and '838 patents.

6. Caveats and recommended verification

• Date discrepancy: The live search results reference filings and decisions dated through September 2026, which post-date the "Current Date: April 26, 2026" supplied in your instructions. I treated the live results as ground truth per your rule, but you should confirm the operative date.
• To close the gaps, the authoritative next steps are PACER for the four E.D. Tex. dockets above; Docket Navigator or RPX Empower for a patent-number-filtered litigation report on 7,249,099; the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation); and USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board / PatentCenter for post-grant proceedings. A patent-number-filtered search on a paid database is the only way to be certain, because Google Patents' litigation linkage is demonstrably imprecise here.
• Because the '099 patent expired 2020-09-25, any assertion campaign on it would necessarily be limited to past damages; this is consistent with the owner's focus on the longer-lived family members.

If you can authorize additional searches, I would run the four case numbers against PACER/Docket Navigator directly and confirm which patent each pleaded.

I'll start by verifying the structured PTAB data against live sources, then dig for any proceedings ODP may have missed.

Let me dig deeper into targeted sources for this patent's post-issuance history.

The '909 hits so far appear to be a different patent (11,968,909). Let me pin down proceedings specifically on 7,249,099.

PTAB Proceedings on US 7,249,099 — Analyst Report

Prepared: 2026-09-27 · Patent: US 7,249,099 B2 ("Method and apparatus for conducting electronic commerce transactions using electronic tokens"), inventor Marvin T. Ling, appl. 11/097,889, filed 2005-03-30, granted 2007-07-24, earliest priority 2000-01-26, current assignee AML IP LLC.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file against US 7,249,099: ZERO (0). Breakdown by status: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied. This matches the structured ODP block ("no AIA trial proceedings…"), and my independent web searches surfaced nothing to contradict it — this is not an instance of the ODP lagging behind recent filings.

The bottom line for a defendant is uncomfortable and unusual: there is no PTAB record to lean on. No claim has been canceled, but equally, no claim has been tested. The patent has been asserted for over 15 years without anyone taking it to the Board. That means: (1) no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone, so the entire invalidity arsenal — §§ 101, 102, 103, 112 — remains fully available in district court; but (2) the patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2020-09-25 per Google Patents bibliographic data) and the AML IP LLC campaign continues into 2026, so IPR is both largely time-barred and of limited practical value. The fight is a past-damages fight in W.D. Tex. / N.D. Tex., not a PTAB fight.

Proceedings on US 7,249,099

None. There is no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding to report. Accordingly, the per-proceeding template (petitioner, panel, grounds, institution decision, FWD, settlement, appeal) has no entries to populate, and I will not manufacture proceeding numbers, dockets, or outcomes to fill it.

Important false positives — do not cite these as '099 proceedings

Two search hits are near-misses that a careless analyst would wrongly attribute to this patent:

1. IPR2024-01494 — the Board instituted trial on "claims 5, 6, and 9-20 of the '909 patent" on § 103 grounds. That record expressly captions the patent as U.S. Patent 11,968,909 B2, a completely different, recent patent. Source snippet: ptacts.uspto.gov petition document. Do not conflate "the '909 patent" here with 7,249,099.
2. IPR2013-00224 — an exhibit filed in that case is titled "Detailed Claim Charts for the '099 Patent," but the chart maps to U.S. Patent No. 7,249,322. Source: Docket Alarm IPR2013-00224 exhibit. Again, a different '099.

Why zero is plausible (not just an indexing gap)

• The 2009–2011 assertion campaign predated the AIA. The structured record shows four E.D. Tex. cases — 2:09-cv-00102, 2:09-cv-00168, 2:10-cv-00177, 2:11-cv-00180 (Unified Patents litigation portal) — all filed before 2012-09-16, the date IPR became available. No IPR was possible then; inter partes reexamination was the only PTAB-adjacent route, and the ODP data shows none.
• The current campaign is a past-damages campaign against an expired patent. AML IP LLC has been filing steadily through 2024–2026: Sephora USA (6:24-cv-00382, filed 2024-07-18), Petco (7:24-cv-00253, filed 2024-10-07), Aveda (6:24-cv-00572, filed 2024-10-31), Whatabrands (7:24-cv-00295, filed 2024-11-19), Regal Cinemas (7:25-cv-00225, filed 2025-05-12), MOD Super Fast Pizza (7:25-cv-00329, filed 2025-07-29), Fetch Rewards (3:25-cv-00806, filed 2025-09-26), American Airlines (3:26-cv-00328, filed 2026), CEC Entertainment (3:26-cv-01249, filed 2026-04-17). See CourtListener AML IP dockets and RPX Empower.
• CBM is off the table by statute: the transitional CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16. PGR is off the table by statute: 7,249,099 has an effective filing date well before 2013-03-16.
• IPR is the only remaining AIA vehicle — and it is time-barred for most targets under 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) (one year from service of the infringement complaint). A defendant served in mid-2024 or 2025 blew its § 315(b) window in 2025 or earlier.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. Because no AIA trial ever reached a Final Written Decision, no claim of 7,249,099 is canceled and no claim has been adjudicated patentable by the Board. There are no surviving claims to list and no dead claims to exploit. Any representation to the contrary — in a demand letter, an IPR petition, or opposing counsel's brief — is wrong. The only substantive validity adjudications, if any, would be in the E.D. Tex. cases from 2009–2011 and whatever has happened in the current W.D. Tex. / N.D. Tex. campaign; those are court records, not PTAB records, and I did not verify their dispositions in this pass.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate — and that cuts both ways. With no IPR petition ever filed, there is no § 315(e)(1) or § 315(e)(2) estoppel, no § 325(e) estoppel, and no "grounds raised or reasonably could have been raised" bar on any party. A defendant today can run any invalidity theory it wants in district court: §§ 102/103 on patents and printed publications, § 112 written description/enablement/indefiniteness, and — most importantly, because IPRs cannot hear it — § 101 patent eligibility under Alice. A 2000-priority electronic-token/micropayment patent is a strong § 101 target, and the Board has never been able to touch that question for this patent. There is likewise no adverse PTAB claim construction, no Board-issued claim-construction gloss, and no IPR record to be used against the patent owner.

Pattern signals. (a) No serial petitioner — nobody has filed even once, so there is no General Plastic / follow-on-petition problem for a would-be challenger. (b) Every AIA avenue has now closed or is closing: PGR never existed for this patent; CBM sunset 2020-09-16; the patent expired 2020-09-25; and for defendants served in 2024–2025 the § 315(b) bar has run. (c) No defensive aggregator appears in the chain for this patent — I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or other aggregator proceeding naming 7,249,099 (the Unified and RPX hits I encountered were unrelated patents). (d) The patent owner (AML IP LLC, via Andrew M. Ling, P.C., with a security interest held by Pravati Investment Fund IV, LP) has not needed to defend a Board appeal — there has never been anything to appeal. The structured record does flag global family litigation via Darts-IP (family 27497276), confirming this is a well-litigated family.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify once, directly, before you rely on this. Re-run PTAB E2E / PTAB Center for application number 11/097,889 and patent number 7,249,099 at PTAB E2E and the PTAB Decisions search, and check the sibling patents in the family (7,177,838; 7,376,621; 7,249,060; 7,328,189; 6,876,979; 7,676,432) — a proceeding on a sibling would be worth knowing about even though it would not bind '099.
2. Do not build a defense on PTAB outcomes — there aren't any. If you are drafting an IPR, you would be filing a first petition against an expired patent, which invites discretionary denial and yields limited injunctive value; and if you were served more than one year ago, § 315(b) bars the petition outright. Confirm your service date first.
3. Center the defense in district court on § 101 and § 112. No IPR means the eligibility and disclosure attacks have never been adjudicated by the Board or narrowed by a Board claim construction, and there is no estoppel against you.
4. Check your damages exposure date. With an adjusted expiration of 2020-09-25 and the § 286 six-year look-back, the recoverable past-damages window is bounded — this materially caps settlement value even if liability is found.
5. Treat the absence of PTAB activity as a signal, not a gap in the data. A patent asserted since 2009 with zero IPRs usually means pre-AIA timing for the early suits, and for the current suits a combination of expiration, § 315(b) bars, and low per-defendant stakes that make $30k+ IPR petitions uneconomic against a past-damages-only claim.

Confidence statement: I am highly confident the ODP null result is accurate for 7,249,099, and my searches (Google Patents, PTACTS document hits, Docket Alarm, CourtListener, RPX Empower, Unified Patents portal) produced only the two identified false positives. I am not asserting an exhaustive negative — I could not run a full-text PACER/PTAB E2E query, so items 1 and 2 above should be executed before any of this is filed or relied on in a brief.

I'll research the assignment chain, reel/frame records, and correspondents for the '099 patent.

Let me dig into specific assignment records and correspondents.

Let me try to pin down reel/frame numbers and the recording correspondents.

Assignment Reconstruction — US 7,249,099 B2

Data limitation, stated up front (do not skip): I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers or the recorded correspondent-of-record for the assignments in this chain from the sources reachable in this research session. USPTO Assignment Center's per-record detail pages are not crawlable by the search tools available here, and the Google Patents legal-events table records conveyance type, assignor, and assignee but not reel/frame or correspondent. Everything below other than reel/frame and correspondent is drawn from the Google Patents legal-events list for US 7249099 (authoritative copy in the full patent text provided) plus the corroborating public records cited inline. I have not fabricated any reel/frame number or attorney name where the record did not surface it. To close the gap, run the number directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search property 7,249,099) and pull the "Correspondent" and "Reel/Frame" fields from each hit.

Inventors

• The '099 patent names only one inventor — Marvin T. Ling. There are no co-inventors to track for attrition, so the "all inventors leave within 12 months" pattern is not applicable / not assessable here.
• Ling is the common inventor across the wider PayByClick family (US 7,177,838; 7,249,060; 7,249,099; 7,328,189; 7,376,621; 7,676,432; and 6,876,979). The single-inventor, single-family structure means the entire portfolio's inventorship risk sits with one person — an important feature for portfolio buyers.
• Ling assigned his rights to PayByClick Corporation (assignment recorded 2005-05-20, assignor "LING, MARVIN T."), consistent with him being a founder/principal of the assignee rather than an arms-length employee.
• Relationship note (relevant to the chain, not to inventorship): Andrew M. Ling — the "AML" in AML IP LLC and the principal of Andrew M. Ling, P.C. — is reported to be Marvin T. Ling's son and a co-founder of PayByClick. Source: Ars Technica, "Clicker Heroes maker compares new lawsuit from 'patent troll' to extortion" (Mar. 2018), https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/03/clicker-heroes-maker-compares-new-lawsuit-from-patent-troll-to-extortion/. This makes the 2019–2020 transfer to "Andrew M. Ling, P.C." and then "AML IP LLC" an insider transfer to a family-controlled assertion vehicle, not a third-party sale.

Original assignee

PayByClick Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ (per the face of the printed patent: "(73) Assignee: PayByClick Corporation, Scottsdale, AZ (US)").

• Line of business: Internet payments / e-commerce and application-service-provider (ASP) infrastructure. The specification is written around a vendor-operated ASP that sells and rents software and other goods using vendor-issued electronic tokens — i.e., the assignee's own contemplated product. Andrew Ling is reported as a co-founder of PayByClick (Ars Technica, above).
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear / not verifiable. I found no evidence of a commercially deployed PayByClick token platform in the record. The patent's commercial biography begins with assertion, not with a product: the earliest use of the family in litigation was by an exclusive licensee, not by PayByClick selling anything.
• Current status: No evidence of ongoing operation. PayByClick appears to have ceased as an operating concern and persists in these records only as a title-holding entity: it re-surfaces in 2008–2014 as an assignor/assignee of the family (including the 2014-01-15 assignment to GTX Corporation). I did not find a dissolution, bankruptcy, or wind-up record; treat "inactive/defunct" as an inference flagged as such, not a documented fact.
• De facto enforcement role: PayByClick was the named plaintiff-adjacent owner while a separate entity (Actus LLC) asserted as exclusive licensee — the Vivendi defendants argued in the 2009 E.D. Tex. case that "the patents are owned by either Paybyclick Corporation or 'Paybyclick Corporation -- Texas,'" with Actus merely "the exclusive licensee." Source: Actus, LLC v. Vivendi Universal, No. 2:09-cv-00102 (E.D. Tex.), motion to dismiss, https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2009cv00102/[115490/104](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=115490-0104)/0.pdf.

Assignment timeline

Recorded assignment events (dates as recorded; execution dates and reel/frame not exposed by the sources retrieved):

• 2005-05-20 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Ling, Marvin T.
  • Assignee: PayByClick Corporation (rendered "PAYBYCLICK CORPROATION" in the record)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — likely the prosecution firm of record (Luce, Forward, Hamilton & Scripps LLP appears as attorney/agent on the face of the patent), but I cannot confirm the recording correspondent.
  • Context: Founder-to-company assignment perfecting title in the assignee named on the issued patent; executed/recorded within ~7 weeks of the 2005-03-30 filing of application 11/097,889.

• 2009-03-27 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: PayByClick Corporation
  • Assignee: PayByClick Corporation--Texas (also rendered "Gtx Corporation--texas"/"Paybyclick Corporation--texas" as assignee on the related application in the Plainsite GTX profile, dated 3/27/2009)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal re-organization into a Texas entity — and, critically, a pre-litigation housekeeping transfer: it lands 8 days before Actus filed the April 4, 2009 E.D. Tex. case asserting the '099.

• 2009-07-23 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: License (recorded as "LICENSE (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: PayByClick Corporation--Texas
  • Assignee/Licensee: Actus LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Exclusive-license grant to an assertion vehicle. Actus sued ~20 defendants in E.D. Tex. on April 4, 2009 (case 2:09-cv-00102) naming the '099 among four patents-in-suit — meaning the license was recorded after the suit was filed. Vivendi's motion attacked Actus's standing precisely because Actus was "merely the exclusive licensee," not the owner.

• 2013-11-04 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Actus, L.L.C.
  • Assignee: PayByClick Corporation
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: License unwind / reversion. Actus's interest is returned to the PayByClick side after the first assertion campaign wound down — consistent with a leased-assertion-vehicle structure (license out, sue, hand back).

• 2014-01-15 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: PayByClick Corporation
  • Assignee: GTX Corporation
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Fire-sale / monetization transfer to an asserting holder. GTX later demanded licensing payments and sued over the sibling '838 patent (Ars Technica, Mar. 2018; App2Top, Feb. 2018). Ars: "The precise relationship between GTX, Actus, and another company, PayByClick, is unclear. … the assignee has bounced between those three entities."

• 2019-09-13 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: GTX Corporation
  • Assignee: Andrew M. Ling, P.C.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer into a professional corporation controlled by the inventor's family (Andrew Ling is reported to have been GTX's CEO). Title moves out of the operating-company name and into a legal-entity name.

• 2020-03-02 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest (a second, separate GTX Corporation → Andrew M. Ling, P.C. recording)
  • Assignor: GTX Corporation
  • Assignee: Andrew M. Ling, P.C.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Corrective/second-pass recording of the same-looking conveyance — the duplicate grantor→grantee pair on two dates (2019-09-13 and 2020-03-02) points to a cure or supplement (e.g., late-executed, additional-family-member, or entity-identification correction) rather than a new economic event. Confirm conveyance text on the Assignment Center record; if the second filing is styled a "Corrective Assignment," that materially changes how it should be read.

• 2020-11-25 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Andrew M. Ling, P.C.
  • Assignee: AML IP LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter / entity creation. Nine days after this recording, AML IP LLC began its filing wave (e.g., AML IP, LLC v. Macy's, Inc., 6:20-cv-01104, W.D. Tex., filed 2020-12-02/03). Caveat: the Unified Patents docket page tying AML IP's Dec. 2020 cases to this family lists them under US 7,177,838 ('838), so I cannot confirm from the retrieved sources that the '099 was among the patents asserted in that specific wave. The timing coincidence is real; the patent-level attribution is not verified.

• 2021-02-11 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Security Interest ("SECURITY INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor / Debtor: AML IP LLC
  • Secured Party: Pravati Investment Fund IV, LP
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Securitization / litigation funding. A monetization fund takes a security interest in the AML IP portfolio — the classic capital-stack signature of a funded assertion campaign rather than an operating business.

• 2025-10-22 (recorded) — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Nunc Pro Tunc Assignment
  • Assignor: Ling, Andrew M. (individually)
  • Assignee: AML IP LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Retroactive title repair. A nunc pro tunc recording assigns as of an earlier effective date. Its existence implies a chain-of-title defect somewhere in the 2019→2020 Andrew M. Ling, P.C. → AML IP steps that had to be cured — and note the assignor here is an individual, not the professional corporation, which is inconsistent on its face with the 2020-11-25 corporate-to-LLC grant. This is a standing/ownership-record fix, and it is worth examining whether defense counsel in the 2021–2024 suits raised it.

Chain summary (who held what, when):
PayByClick Corp → PayByClick Corp–Texas (2009-03-27) → Actus LLC as exclusive licensee (2009-07-23) → back to PayByClick Corp (2013-11-04) → GTX Corp (2014-01-15) → Andrew M. Ling, P.C. (2019-09-13, again 2020-03-02) → AML IP LLC (2020-11-25, current owner) with a Pravati Investment Fund IV, LP security interest (2021-02-11) and a nunc pro tunc cure (2025-10-22).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7249099
    2000 : Ling rights flow to PayByClick
    2005 : Application filed and inventor assignment recorded
    2007 : Patent issues to PayByClick Corporation
    2009 : Reorg to PayByClick Corporation Texas
         : Exclusive license recorded to Actus LLC
         : Actus sues 20 defendants in EDTX
    2013 : Actus interest reverts to PayByClick
    2014 : Assigned to GTX Corporation
    2019 : Assigned to Andrew M Ling PC
    2020 : Second assignment to Andrew M Ling PC
         : Assigned to AML IP LLC
         : Security interest to Pravati Investment Fund IV
    2021 : AML IP assertion campaign expands
    2025 : Nunc pro tunc fix to AML IP LLC

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain shows (1) a staged transfer to an assertion vehicle 8 days before the first suit — the 2009-03-27 re-organization to PayByClick Corporation--Texas immediately preceding Actus's 2009-04-04 E.D. Tex. complaint naming the '099; (2) a leased-assertion structure in which Actus took an exclusive license (recorded 2009-07-23, after filing) and then reassigned its interest back to the PayByClick side (2013-11-04), with the Vivendi defendants contesting Actus's standing as a mere licensee; and (3) a cascading insider spin-out into a purpose-built PAE — GTX Corporation → Andrew M. Ling, P.C. (2019-09-13, repeated 2020-03-02) → AML IP LLC (2020-11-25), followed by a Pravati Investment Fund IV, LP security interest (2021-02-11) and a nunc pro tunc title cure (2025-10-22), with AML IP LLC independently classified as a patent assertion entity by both Unified Patents and the Stanford NPE Litigation Database and its litigation conduct found "exceptional" and "frivolous" with fees awarded in AML IP, LLC v. Aero Global (S.D.N.Y.). Two of your listed signals are strong (pre-litigation transfer, cascading transfers) and two more are independently documented (known asserter, shell-entity transfer), which exceeds the "2+ strong signals" bar.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search 7,249,099 (or US 11/097,889) and capture the Reel/Frame and Correspondent fields per record; also https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html for the legacy index view.

Contradiction / gap flagged for the record: (a) I could not obtain reel/frame numbers or recording correspondents, so signals #3 is reported as not assessed rather than negative — please do not read "unclear" as "absent." (b) The 2020-12-02/03 AML IP filing wave is docketed against the sibling '838 on Unified Patents, so the second pre-litigation-transfer instance is not verified for the '099. (c) The prior section's note that the '099 expired 2020-09-25 is consistent with — and does not contradict — the post-expiration AML IP activity, which can only reach pre-expiration damages; the S.D.N.Y. sanctions decision turned in part on AML asserting "continued infringement of an expired patent," so the same vulnerability may exist on any post-2020 '099 count.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 7,249,099 directly. Let me pull the cited references from multiple authoritative sources.

Let me pull the specific cited-reference lists from the patent's front page and the related sibling patents.

Good — I've located the cited-reference list. Let me retrieve the remainder of the list (U.S. patents above 6,449,601, foreign documents, and non-patent literature).

Prior Art Analysis — US 7,249,099 B2 (Ling; "electronic tokens")

Scope note on literal identifiers: I searched only the exact number 7249099. Two decoys surfaced and are not this patent: JP 7249099 B2 (Johnson Matthey, an SCR/NOx catalyst — unrelated), and the Japanese publication JP 7-249099 cited in CN 1383094 A (bill-discrimination — unrelated). Neither is treated as this patent's prior art or as this patent itself.

Source caveat up front: What follows is built from the "Referenced Cited" list on the patent's Justia page, which I was able to retrieve only in part before my tool budget ran out. I retrieved the U.S.-patent portion down to US 6,449,601 and did not retrieve (a) the remainder of the U.S. list past 6,449,601, (b) the Foreign Patent Documents block, or (c) the Other References / non-patent-literature block. I also did not pull the examiner's actual office actions or the file wrapper, so I cannot tell you which references the examiner applied versus which the applicant merely listed. I flag all of this rather than fill the gaps by assumption.

1. The "Referenced Cited" list (as retrieved, verbatim identifiers)

These are the references cited on/against US 7,249,099 during prosecution (backward citations) — not the 104 forward citations.

Descriptions marked "(high)" are ones I am confident about; "(med.)" and "(low)" are my best reconstruction and should be verified against the printed documents before being relied on. The numbers, issue dates, and inventor surnames are as retrieved.

2. Which claims each reference could bear on under §102

Baseline for the analysis: independent claim 1 (method) and claim 16 (server) both require the Mall Service Provider architecture — a first vendor server accepting first-type tokens, a second vendor server accepting second-type tokens, the MSP issuing first-type tokens usable at both servers, a first database holding the first web server's account info and the cross-vendor transaction record, and compensation flowing from the first vendor to the second vendor equal to the value of the second-type tokens. (This tracks the claim language and the Chinese-language claim-1 summary I retrieved, which frames the first database as containing the first web server's account information plus the second vendor's transaction information.)

2a. Electronic-cash / digital-token fundamentals

• US 4,977,595 (Ohta) and US 5,224,162 (Okamoto) — electronic-cash issuance/redemption.
• US 5,832,089 (Kravitz) — off-line-compatible electronic cash.
• US 5,839,119 (Krsul) — anti-double-spending electronic payments.
• US 5,943,423 / 5,850,442 (Muftic) — tokenized secure payment/commerce.
• US 5,999,919 (Jarecki), US 5,983,207 (Turk) — electronic currency schemes.

→ Potentially relevant to the token-issuance, token-balance, and anti-double-spend aspects underlying claims 1, 4–5, 14, 16, 19–21, 30–31. None of these, on its face, discloses the multi-vendor open-token with inter-vendor compensation mechanism, so at most they would bear on dependent-claim scope, and even then more as §103 fodder than as clean §102 anticipation.

2b. Networked payment architecture / "authorization instrument" references

• US 5,815,657 and 5,963,924 (Williams et al.), US 5,943,424 (Berger et al.) — the "extensible, flexible architecture" family (virtual POS, payment instrument holders, network authorization).
• US 5,982,891 (Ginter et al.) — secure transaction management / rights protection.

→ These are the most structurally analogous to a server-mediated, network-wide payment framework and are the references I would expect to have been used against the server/apparatus framing of claim 16 and its dependents (17–32). They do not, from the retrieved metadata, disclose two differently-typed vendor tokens plus MSP-issued first-type tokens usable at both vendors with compensation measured in second-type value — the core of claim 1.

2c. Billing / content-delivery / incentives

• US 6,047,268 (Bartoli) — billing for Internet transactions → relevant to the on-line/off-line payment and account-settlement aspects (claims 1–5, 16–21, 30–32).
• US 6,385,596 (Wiser) — secure online music distribution → relevant to the "media/micropayment, content-rental" aspects and the rental/term-limited use thread (claims 3–5, 11–12, 14–15, 30–31).
• US 6,185,541 (Scroggie) — networked shopping incentives → relevant to the loyalty/free-token/incentive and discount-token aspects (claims 6–8, 13, 22–24, 29).
• US 5,930,777 (Barber) — pay-per-access charging → relevant to per-use/per-processing rental pricing (claims 4–5, 12, 20–21).

References the retrieved list does not appear to reach

The patent's distinctive dependent subject matter is not obviously covered by any retrieved reference:

• Manufacturer's Tokens (Type 1/Type 2) and reimbursement to accepting vendors — claims 6–8, 22–24.
• Gift-certificate tokens with change-making — claims 9, 25.
• Auction / competitive-bidding tokens — claims 10, 26.
• Point-of-sale-terminal token issuance — claims 13, 29.
• Royalty recording per transaction — claims 15, 32.
• The MSP "list of which web servers accept the first vendor's tokens" — claims 11, 27.

That distribution is consistent with the patent having issued over the cited art: the claims that survived are the ones whose limitations the cited art did not show.

3. Admitted prior art inside the specification (often the strongest §102 material)

Independently of the citation list, the Background admits several pre-priority systems as known art. These are admissions usable as §102(a)/(b) prior-art and are frequently the most useful references for a validity challenge to the closed-system claims:

• eCash (eCash Technologies Inc.) — bank-issued electronic currency, digital signatures; micropayment-capable.
• RocketCash (Mountain View, CA) — centrally-funded Web accounts for teens.
• InternetCash™ — pre-paid cards in fixed denominations, redeemable at selected on-line merchants.
• Beenz (Beenz.com, Inc., NY) — earned, not purchasable, currency spendable at selected vendors.
• Micro-payment protocols named in the family literature: Rivest & Shamir, "PayWord and MicroMint" (May 7, 1996); MPTP v0.1 (Nov. 22, 1995); Common Markup for Web Micropayment Systems (Jun. 9, 1999).

→ These bear principally on the single-issuer / closed-system limitations and on the micropayment rationale (claims 1–5, 16–21). They are the references most likely to have been used to police the broader sibling claims (e.g., the closed-system claims that went to US 7,376,621), rather than the MSP/open-system claims at issue here.

4. How I would frame the §102 vs. §103 question

• Clean §102 anticipation of claim 1 or 16 is unlikely from the retrieved set. The retrieved references disclose electronic cash, network payment architectures, billing, incentives, and content rental, but I did not identify one that discloses the combined MSP limitation set (two vendor-specific token types + MSP issuance of first-type tokens usable at both + inter-vendor compensation calibrated to second-type-token value).
• §103 is the more promising route for the independent claims (e.g., electronic-cash token issuance + a multi-merchant network-payment architecture + incentives), and for dependents such as 6–9, 11, 13, 22–27, 29, 32 where the individual mechanisms were separately known.
• Dependent claims 1–3, 5, 11–20 are where a §102 challenge on the closed-system subset (single vendor issuing/redeeming its own tokens) is strongest, given the admitted eCash / RocketCash / InternetCash / Beenz art and such references as Ohta, Okamoto, Kravitz, and Bartoli.

5. What I could not verify (explicit gaps)

1. The tail of the U.S. citation list (everything after US 6,449,601, 2002-09-10).
2. The Foreign Patent Documents block — unretrieved.
3. The "Other References"/NPL block on the patent face — unretrieved, so any examiner-cited journal/standards references (e.g., the micropayment protocol papers) are not confirmed on the face.
4. Filing dates / §102(e) dates for each reference — I have issue dates only; several references (e.g., 6,185,541; 6,236,972; 6,236,981; 6,341,273; 6,385,596; 6,449,601) issued after the 2000-01-26 priority date, so their §102 status depends on pre-2000-01-26 filing dates that I did not retrieve. This is a material gap: a post-priority issue date does not defeat §102(e) if the reference's effective filing date precedes the priority date.
5. The examiner's actual rejections and any applicant traversals — not retrieved; without the file wrapper, any statement about which reference was applied to which claim is inference, not record.

Recommendation: to firm this up, pull (i) the granted patent's printed front page (References Cited — U.S., Foreign, and Other), (ii) the PatentCenter IFW "References Cited" and office actions for application 11/097,889, and (iii) the filing dates for the six post-2000-issued references above, so their §102(e) status can be resolved.

Cross-reference / consistency check with the prior section: The prior summary stated claim 1's final limitation ties compensation to "the value of the electronic tokens of the second type" while the recited transaction uses first-type tokens — I flagged this as an apparent anomaly. The Chinese-language claim-1 summary retrieved in this pass is consistent with that reading and additionally supports that the first database stores both the first web server's account information and the second vendor's cross-vendor transaction record — which makes the claim internally coherent (the second-type value is the settlement yardstick). No contradiction found; this refines rather than corrects the earlier note.

I'll research the prior-art references associated with this patent before building the obviousness analysis.

The searches didn't surface the patent's own front-page reference list. Let me target it directly.

Let me try to pull the patent's actual front-page reference list from secondary sources.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,249,099 B2

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA)

Analyst note on inputs. The instruction was to work from the prior-art results on the patent page. The Google Patents full text provided to me reproduces the specification and claims but does not reproduce the front-page "(56) References Cited" list. I therefore retrieved the "Referenced Cited — U.S. Patent Documents" list from the Justia record for this patent, which is the same data set. That list is truncated in my retrieval (it runs from US 4,802,218 through US 6,449,601 and cuts off there). Anything below drawn from that list is sourced; anything drawn from general art knowledge is flagged as external art and should be verified before being relied on in a filing. I have also flagged which claim texts I could not retrieve.

1. Governing framework and threshold timing issue

Statute. Application 11/097,889 was filed March 30, 2005. Because it was filed before March 16, 2013, pre-AIA § 103(a) and pre-AIA § 102 govern. The AIA's first-inventor-to-file § 102/§ 103 do not apply.

Graham factors. The analysis follows Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): (1) scope and content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) level of ordinary skill; (4) secondary considerations. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) supplies the rationales and confirms that a POSITA "is also a person of ordinary creativity, not an automaton."

Level of ordinary skill. A POSITA here would be a software/network engineer or e-commerce systems designer with ~2–4 years of experience building client-server commerce systems in 1999–2000, familiar with HTML/Web servers, relational databases, and electronic-payment schemes (DigiCash/eCash, CyberCash, SET, stored-value cards, frequent-flyer/loyalty point programs). This is a low-to-moderate skill level, which increases the likelihood of obviousness.

1.1 Effective filing date — the pivotal, unresolved point

The specification describes the MSP / "open token" / Universal–Manufacturer's–Group–Gift-Certificate token architecture in detail (FIGS. 13–20B). I could not verify which of those paragraphs were added at which CIP step. Two consequences:

1. If the MSP/open-system subject matter of claims 1 and 16 is supported only as far back as 09/753,784 (Jan. 2, 2001) — i.e., it is new matter relative to the 2000-01-26 provisional and the two 2000 applications — then the critical date shifts to Jan. 2, 2001, and a wide band of 2000–2001 art (including published e-mall, stored-value and loyalty-currency systems) becomes available as § 102(a)/(e) art. This materially strengthens every ground below.
2. Conversely, if the MSP subject matter is supported in the provisional, the critical date is 2000-01-26 and later-2000 art is unavailable.

Recommendation: a priority/§ 112 written-description chart tracing each claim-1 and claim-16 limitation to a specific paragraph of each parent application should be prepared before relying on any § 103 theory in litigation. This is the single highest-leverage issue in the case, and it is not resolvable from the face of the '099 patent alone.

2. The prior-art universe relied on

2.1 References cited on the face of the '099 patent (from the Justia (56) list)

2.2 Applicant-admitted prior art (usable as prior art — MPEP § 2129; In re Nomiya)

The specification's own Background admits the following systems and their details. These admissions are prior art for § 103 and, critically, they supply much of the motivation to combine:

• eCash (eCash Technologies) — "selected 'eCash' banks issue 'eCash' currency to users, which may be spent on the Web sites of vendors … These vendors may then exchange the 'ecash' for traditional money through an 'eCash' bank." → Token issuance by an issuing institution, distribution to users, spending at third-party vendors, and redemption/settlement back through the issuer.
• RocketCash — prepaid accounts funded on-line (credit card) or off-line (check, money order), billed to a central account.
• InternetCash / prepaid card — tokens "purchased in pre-determined denominations from a store," usable "at selected on-line merchants."
• Beenz.com — an incentive currency earned for activity and spent at selected Web vendors — i.e., a multi-vendor promotional token.
• Internet "malls," ASP storefronts, software rental by time/use/processing with authorization codes — all admitted as conventional.

The specification's entire stated problem is the admitted drawback of these systems: they "impose overhead, in that both the vendors who accept these various forms of electronic currency, and the users who buy items in exchange for electronic currency must deal with a central organization," and the central organization "controls the issuance … the users … have no control over the value of the electronic currency, its sale price, the terms on which it may be bought, or to whom the electronic currency is sold."

2.3 External art (not on the face of the patent; verify before use)

• US 5,835,896 — Fisher & Kaplan, "Method and system for processing and transmitting electronic auction information" (Onsale) — competitive bidding over a network. (Verify.)
• US 5,794,207 — Walker et al., buyer-driven conditional purchase offers (Priceline). (Verify.)
• Credit-card interchange/acquiring settlement (Visa/MasterCard member-bank clearing), ACH, correspondent banking, and franchisor-to-franchisee royalty clearing — long-established, well-documented centralized settlement models.

3. Claim 1 and Claim 16 — element-by-element mapping

Claim 1 and claim 16 are the same invention in method and apparatus form. The mapping below applies to both (claim 16 adds "network interface / database / memory / processor executing … routine," which is the ordinary structural recitation of a server and adds nothing patentable under In re Bond / KSR).

The "differences" (Graham factor 2) are thin. The only genuine departure from the admitted art is who is at the center of the token system (a vendor/MSP consortium instead of a bank) and the multi-issuer, multi-acceptor settlement bookkeeping. Neither is a technical advance; both are business-arrangement changes implemented with conventional servers, databases, and account-ledger code.

4. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 (primary): Turk '364 and/or Turk '207, in view of Blinn '622; further in view of Ohta '595

Claim 1. Turk teaches a central issuer that holds value/reserves and issues electronic currency to participants, maintains participant accounts, and redeems/settles that currency. Blinn '622 teaches a networked sales system in which a buyer interacts with multiple merchant servers and with administration/payment computers, and in which the buyer need not re-register or re-enter data at each merchant. Ohta '595 teaches issuer-side account debiting and authorization for electronic cash.

Motivation to combine (articulated, per KSR / MPEP § 2143):

1. Same field, same problem. All three address non-cash payment over networks; the admitted prior art in the '099 Background expressly identifies the problem of a single central institution controlling issuance and terms. The asserted combination (permitting vendor-issued and multi-vendor-accepted tokens, with an MSP clearing layer) is the direct, predictable response to that admitted drawback.
2. Known technique applied to a known structure. Blinn's multi-merchant network plus Turk/Ohta's issuer-and-ledger model yields Turk/Ohta's ledger applied to Blinn's plural merchants with no change in the operation of either — KSR rationale (A) (predictable use of prior-art elements).
3. Market forces / industry trend. By the 2000 critical date, electronic "malls," affinity/loyalty currencies (Beenz, frequent-flyer miles), private-label stored-value, and gift-card networks were all commercial realities that the specification itself recites. A POSITA facing the admitted overhead problem had strong market motivation to build exactly the multi-vendor token-and-clearing layer claimed.
4. Reasonable expectation of success. Each element (issuer ledger, multi-merchant storefront, clearing between institutions, database of accounts) was individually known and in commercial use; the combination required no unproven technology.

Claim 16. Turk/Ohta/Blinn also render the server claim obvious: a network interface, a database, a memory, and a processor executing token-issuing, token-crediting, database-updating, and compensation-transferring routines is the conventional software architecture for the Ground-1 method, and the claim adds no structural feature beyond the method steps.

Ground 2: Ohta '595 in view of Blinn '622, further in view of the admitted eCash bank architecture

Mirror image of Ground 1, useful because Ohta is expressly cited and expressly characterized in the specification. Ohta supplies bank-issued electronic cash with user accounts and issuer debiting; Blinn supplies the multi-vendor Web ordering architecture; the admitted eCash system supplies the "vendors accept the currency of a central issuer and later settle through that issuer" step. The MSP's compensation-transfer limitation reads on the admitted eCash redemption path ("These vendors may then exchange the 'ecash' for traditional money through an 'eCash' bank"). The only substitution required is the identity of the issuer (vendor/MSP consortium for the bank), which the specification itself frames as a mere business choice ("because the vendor is the issuer … there is no need for transactions to be handled by a third party, such as a bank"). An applicant's own characterization of a difference as a business-design choice is powerful § 103 evidence.

Ground 3: Admitted prior art (eCash + InternetCash + Beenz) in view of Blinn '622

This is the cleanest ground because it uses only admissions. InternetCash supplies pre-paid, denominated tokens purchased offline and spent at selected on-line merchants (multi-acceptor). Beenz supplies a multi-vendor promotional token. eCash supplies issuer-based issuance and post-spend settlement. Blinn supplies the networked multi-merchant infrastructure. The '099's asserted contribution — an MSP that (i) authorizes each vendor to issue tokens, (ii) tracks balances across vendors, (iii) clears value between accepting web servers, and (iv) takes a service charge/royalty — is the routine administrative and accounting layer that a POSITA would add to make a multi-acceptor token scheme work. Cf. KSR ("the combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results").

Ground 4 (dependent-claim-specific): Scroggie '541 for manufacturer's tokens

For claims 6–8 (and mirrored apparatus claims 22–24), Scroggie et al. teaches a POS/network incentive system in which a manufacturer participates in and reimburses the promotion at the point of redemption. Substituting a manufacturer for a store or a vendor, and a "manufacturer's token" for a manufacturer coupon, is the predictable application of a known consumer-promotion technique, motivated by the same incentive-alignment problem the specification identifies: allowing a manufacturer to discount to end users "without undercutting the integrity of published list prices."

Ground 5 (dependent-claim-specific): auction tokens

For claim 10 (and mirrored apparatus claim 26), the art of networked auctions with competitive bidding (e.g., US 5,835,896 Fisher & Kaplan — verify) in view of any of Grounds 1–3 renders the "tokens used in a process of competitive bidding" limitation obvious. The '099 adds no auction-specific technology; it merely designates the token as the bidding currency. Payment in a platform-issued scrip for an auction platform is a predictable application of the Ground 1–3 teachings, and the specification admits the auction venue (Vendor 1201) is a conventional intermediary.

Ground 6 (dependent-claim-specific): gift-certificate tokens and POS terminals

• Claim 9 / claim 25 (gift-certificate tokens): gift certificates are ancient commercial instruments. Giving them an electronic ledger entry, honoring the full face value, and giving change (converting residual value to Universal Tokens) is the predictable computerization of a known paper instrument. The specification concedes the point: "This is a token similar to a gift certificate which has a pre-set cash value." An applicant's admission that the claimed token "is similar to a gift certificate" is close to dispositive on obviousness.
• Claim 13 / claim 29 (tokens issued to a vendor server overseeing point-of-sale terminals): prepaid/stored-value cards and POS terminals were ubiquitous by 2000 (and admitted here as InternetCash "pre-paid card … purchased in pre-determined denominations from a store"). Adding a token-issuing server in front of POS terminals is a predictable extension of the same system to a new but obvious channel.

Ground 7 (dependent-claim-specific): accounting records

Claims 14–15 / 30 / 32 (a record of available tokens; a royalty transaction record) and claim 2 (a second MSP database recording second-type-token transactions) recite bookkeeping. Ledger-keeping of balances and of fees/royalties charged per transaction is the ordinary and expected accompaniment of any multi-party payment clearing system, and is expressly disclosed as conventional in the specification ("the MSP … can easily determine the amount of royalty payments and service charges"). These limitations cannot supply patentability under KSR.

5. Dependent-claim summary

Caveat: claims 3–5 and 12 were not retrieved; I do not opine on them. Several mirrored dependent claims (17, 20, 21, 28, 31) were likewise not retrieved in full.

6. Anticipated counterarguments and how they fare

7. Conclusion

Claims 1 and 16 are prima facie obvious under pre-AIA § 103(a) over:

• Ground 1: Turk '364 and/or Turk '207 in view of Blinn '622, further in view of Ohta '595; and
• Ground 2/3: Ohta '595 or the applicant-admitted eCash/InternetCash/Beenz systems in view of Blinn '622.

Each claimed element is disclosed or taught by the art; the motivation to combine is supplied by the patent's own admission of the problem (overhead and third-party control of token issuance) and by market forces acknowledged in the specification; and the combination yields nothing more than the predictable result of adding a clearing/accounting layer to known token and multi-merchant sales systems.

Dependent claims 2, 6–11, 13–15 and their apparatus counterparts are likewise obvious for the reasons tabulated above, with Scroggie '541 (manufacturer incentives/reimbursement) and networked-auction art supplying the additional limitations. A final determination requires the priority-date issue in § 1.1 to be resolved and the full (56) list and full claim texts (including claims 3–5 and 12) to be obtained.

This is a technical/analyst opinion, not legal advice or a validity determination. Validity is for the courts or the PTAB. Note also that with a listed expiration of 2020-09-25, the '099 is expired, so the practical significance of this analysis is retrospective — the 2009–2011 Eastern District of Texas campaign (2:09-cv-00102, 2:09-cv-00168, 2:10-cv-00177, 2:11-cv-00180; e.g., https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A11-cv-00180) — and the still-live posture of the related patents.

8. Sources and open items

Sourced and used

• Google Patents, US 7,249,099 B2: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7249099/en (specification, abstract, priority chain, litigation links, expiration 2020-09-25)
• Justia, US 7,249,099 (Referenced Cited — U.S. Patent Documents; list truncated in retrieval at US 6,449,601): https://patents.justia.com/patent/7249099
• uspto.report, grant 7249099: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7249099
• FreePatentsOnline pre-grant publication US 2005/0171847 A1: https://FreePatentsOnline.com/y2005/0171847.html
• Unified Patents portal (priority date listed as 2000-01-25 — conflicts with Google Patents' 2000-01-26): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[10970707](/patent/10970707)-B1
• Actus enforcement reporting: https://www.finextra.com/news/fullstory.aspx?newsitemid=19929; https://www.globalcustodian.com/bank-of-america-accused-of-patent-infringement/; https://www.ilounge.com/index.php/news/comments/apple-others-sued-over-e-commerce-patents

Open items to verify before relying on this analysis

1. Full, un-truncated “(56) References Cited” list for the '099 (patentimages/PatentCenter PDF, page 1–2).
2. Full text of claims 3–5, 12, 17–32 as granted.
3. Priority support chart (which MSP/open-token paragraphs exist in 60/178,239, 09/553,695, 09/665,237 and 09/753,784) — determines the critical date.
4. Independent verification of titles/assignees/dates for US 5,897,622 (Blinn), US 6,185,541 (Scroggie), US 5,835,896 (Fisher & Kaplan) and US 5,794,207 (Walker) before using them in a written opinion.
5. Whether any of the 2009–2011 Actus patents were subject to reexamination or post-grant challenge; I did not retrieve PTAB records and make no representation either way.