Invalidity dossier
US 7251621
Method and apparatus for the home delivery of local retail e-commerce orders
Current assignee: Individual
Added 9/23/2026, 7:58:48 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US7251621B1
Title: Method and apparatus for the home delivery of local retail e-commerce orders
Assignee/Inventor: Individual (original assignee listed as Individual); inventor Weiwen Weng.
Key dates (as listed): Priority date 2006-02-03; application US11/617,989 filed 2006-12-29; granted and published 2007-07-31; anticipated expiration 2026-02-03. Legal status: Expired – Fee Related.
Purpose: The patent addresses high consumer delivery costs in e-commerce. It empowers members of the general population ("patrons") to deliver retail-store orders to buyers more cost-effectively than conventional home-delivery services, using deviations from a route the patron would already travel. The description frames "local" as a network of sellers, buyers, and patrons within about 50 miles of a population or commerce center (potentially far smaller in dense cities), and states the approach applies to any category of e-commerce goods (electronics, groceries, clothing, appliances, and others).
Plain-language scope (from the excerpted text): The disclosed methods, systems, and computer data signals match pending e-commerce orders with a patron whose acceptable delivery criteria are satisfied. These criteria include acceptable deviation criteria (e.g., added distance under 1 mile or added time under 5 minutes) and acceptable order criteria (e.g., weight under about 20 pounds or fewer than 3 bags). Separately, buyers impose acceptable patron criteria—such as a minimum number of prior deliveries, positive feedback, or proximity within degrees of connection in a trust network (the text references third-party ratings and networking sites). The excerpt also describes cost concepts (cost of travel, total travel cost, true travel cost), and systems with data-storage media and client/server matching calculations executed substantially on the internet. Figures 2 and 3 concern a component diagram and travel/delivery efficiency.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not supply the full claims, complete specification, drawings, or prosecution history; nor does it provide claim-by-claim scope, exact step ordering, or all limitations.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7251621](/patent/US7251621)/en
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:41:40 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.