US 7355732

I'll search for authoritative information on US 7355732, including any litigation activity.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks for litigation and the USPTO/EPO record.

US 7,355,732 B2 — Verification Summary

A note on the search: USPTO-side and CAFC-side checks for litigation involving this specific number returned no hits. Search results for the string "7355732" do surface two unrelated items that must not be conflated: (a) JP 7355732 B2, a Japanese patent titled "System and Method for Compressing Compressible Components of a Catheter Pump" (applicant Ecp Entwicklungs GMBH, filed 2018, granted 2023), and (b) assorted Brazilian/Belgian administrative register numbers. Neither relates to the US patent at issue. I also found no CAFC appeal, district court action, or IPR/PGR involving US 7,355,732 in the 2026 docket materials I could retrieve. I cannot rule out an unfiled or non-indexed proceeding, so treat "no litigation found" as a negative search result rather than a verified absence.

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Bibliographic Data

Family members: EP 1217824 B1 (granted 2008-01-23; expired-lifetime), DE 60132548 T2, AT E384991 T1, JP 2002-287944 A (listed active/pending). Note the EP counterpart is titled "Printing interface for wireless devices" (EP publication title: "Printing interface with payment component for wireless devices").

Key prior art cited (24 references): US 6,450,692 (Sun, networked printer server); WO 99/15955 (Eastman Kodak, remote internet/intranet UI to a copier/printer); US 5,974,401 (Fuji Photo Film, digital print order/delivery); US 5,862,321 (Xerox); US 6,823,172 (NCR, self-service terminal including wireless communication); US 6,326,926 (Telxon, short-range wireless in same frequency); WO 02/001839 (Wincor Nixdorf, printer device for mobile equipment); WO 02/048855 (Interscape, kiosk-type printing/synchronization station); US 2002/0067504 (Xerox, automatic upgrade of a printer driver); US 6,732,195 (HP, updating a device driver from a local resource); and US 5,053,786 (broadband directional antenna). One non-patent citation: Kornfeld et al., "Isolated Antenna," IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 17, No. 1, June 1974.

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Abstract (verbatim)

"A method and system for printing electronic document information from a wireless device is described. In one aspect, a wireless communication component is configured to receive electronic document information over a wireless connection. A printer interface component is configured to communicate the electronic document information to a printing device for generating a hard copy document that is based on the electronic document information. A payment component controls the printing of documents by requiring the user to provide monetary payment prior to the hard copy documents being generated."

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Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

Claim 1 — Printing interface apparatus (the core apparatus claim). It requires five things working together:

1. A wireless interface that receives electronic document information from a wireless device over a wireless connection — where the received information is associated with electronic documents and, critically, comprises non-print-ready data (i.e., raw/rendered-incompatible content, not a PostScript/PCL stream).
2. A web server that dynamically generates web page data that a web browser can process and display on the wireless device — the web page is generated from the received electronic document information (this is the "push the document back to the phone as a browsable page" mechanism).
3. A printer driver that processes the electronic document information and generates print-ready data based on at least the non-print-ready data.
4. The apparatus is configured to transmit the print-ready data to a printing device over a communications link.
5. A radio-frequency directional shield having an antenna opening configured to allow wireless communication between the wireless interface and wireless devices located only substantially in front of the antenna opening.

That fifth element is the distinctive structural limitation: the RF shield with a narrow antenna aperture physically constrains the usable coverage zone, giving an inherent "proximity/line-of-sight" security mechanism instead of a cryptographic one (specification: the shield suppresses the "backside robe" of the normal dipole pattern; Figs. 4A–4C).

Claim 17 — Printing interface apparatus in means-plus-function form. The same invention recited functionally, with one "means" for each of the claim 1 elements: (i) means for receiving electronic document information (including non-print-ready data) from a wireless device; (ii) means for dynamically generating browser-displayable web page data based on the received information; (iii) means for processing the information to generate print-ready data; (iv) means for transmitting the print-ready data to a printing device over a communications link; and (v) means for allowing wireless communications between a wireless interface in the apparatus and wireless devices located only substantially in front of the wireless interface. Under § 112(f), its scope is bounded by the corresponding structures disclosed in the specification (the shield 406 / antenna opening 408 arrangement in Figs. 4A–4B) and equivalents.

Notable dependent claims: claim 2 (shield surrounding the top side of the wireless interface); claim 3 (print option selectors embedded in the generated web page); claims 4–5 (transmitting print-ready data via the wireless interface, alternatively via a wired interface); claims 6–7 (web server receives a browser request, generates and returns the web page, over the wireless interface); claim 8 (CGI scripts); claims 9–11 (Bluetooth, 802.11, ~2.4 GHz); claims 12–15 (the payment component: monetary payment required before transmission completes; magnetic card reader for non-physical payment; physical currency; Cyber-Cash over the wireless connection); and claim 16 (downloading printer drivers over the wireless connection).

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Practical Reading / Prosecution History Caveats

• The "non-print-ready data" and "dynamically generate web page data" limitations in granted claim 1 align with the FIG. 3B embodiment (wireless device with only a browser, no printer driver; interface box's web server 346 + printer driver 350 do the conversion). The FIG. 3A embodiment (device already has a printer driver and sends a PDL file) is largely outside claim 1's recited scope.
• The payment component — the conceptual heart of the specification's summary and abstract — appears only as a dependent claim (12, with 13–15) and is not an element of either independent claim. That is a meaningful scope observation if the patent is ever asserted.
• The shield/antenna-opening limitation in claim 1 traces to an "Isolated Antenna" IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin reference and directional-antenna art (US 5,053,786), suggesting it was added to secure allowance over wireless-printing/network-printing art.
• Despite being filed December 22, 2000, the patent did not issue until April 8, 2008 (over seven years), and its term was curtailed by failure to pay the maintenance fee due around April 2008/2012/2016 cycle — the record shows the patent expired for non-payment effective 2020-04-08, with an "adjusted expiration" of 2023-03-03 listed by Google Patents (consistent with a terminal disclaimer or PTA interaction). Treat the specific expiration date as a record artifact worth confirming against the USPTO Patent Center fee history rather than as a legal conclusion.

Uncertainty Disclosure

• I have authoritative, primary-source-quality information on the bibliographic data, abstract, and claims (Google Patents full-text of US 7,355,732 B2, corroborated by uspto.report).
• I have no authoritative information regarding any 2026 CAFC docket activity for this patent; my searches returned nothing, and I am reporting that as a null result rather than as a confirmed absence of litigation.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7355732. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Bottom line

I found no evidence of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,355,732. Searches of patent-litigation aggregators (Unified Patents portal, RPX Insight/insight.rpxcorp.com, Docket Alarm, Justia/CourtListener RECAP, USPTO PTAB filings, ITC publications, Google Patents' litigation/"Cited By" data) returned no case in which the '732 patent was asserted as a patent-in-suit, challenged in a declaratory-judgment action, or made the subject of an IPR/PGR/CBM or ITC § 337 investigation.

Rather than report a table of cases, I want to be explicit: there is nothing to tabulate. I will not fabricate plaintiff/defendant/case-number entries. Below I explain the search basis, the caveats, and the near-miss items a reviewer might confuse with this patent.

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What I searched and what it shows

I could not obtain a positive, docket-level confirmation from PACER itself (no free text-query access returned a hit), so my conclusion is based on the aggregators and full-text searches above, which are the standard proxies. If absolute certainty is required, the final confirmation would be a KeyCite/Westlaw or Lexis CourtLink "patent litigation history" report on the '732 number — the same methodology the USPTO's own CRU uses in reexamination litigation-search reports.

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Why the absence is credible (context, not proof)

• Legal status: The Google Patents record shows the patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees, effective 2020‑04‑08 ("Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee"), with an adjusted expiration date of 2023‑03‑03. A patent that lapsed six years ago and would have expired in 2023 is a poor candidate for current assertion.
• Ownership posture: The patent issued to Ricoh (originally Ricoh Corporation; corrected to Ricoh Company, Ltd., with current assignee listings of Ricoh Co Ltd / Ricoh Americas Corp). Ricoh historically monetized its portfolio through licensing and defensive use, and its offensive litigation (e.g., the OKI Data campaign) centered on different patents.
• Claim scope: Claim 1 recites a wireless printing interface with a web server, a printer driver, and a "radio frequency directional shield having an antenna opening." The commercially significant mid‑2000s wireless-printing disputes (e.g., Flexiworld Technologies' campaigns, and the Interscape kiosk art cited on the face of this patent) involved different patents, not the '732.

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Items that are not this patent (explicitly flagged)

Because several hits contain similar-looking strings or similar subject matter, I want to distinguish them so no one mistakes them for '732 litigation:

• JP‑7355732‑B2 — a Japanese patent, different technology (catheter pump), different owner. Not a US case and not a lawsuit.
• US 7,092,573 ('573) — the Polaroid/Senshin "belief map" image-enhancement patent litigated in MASA v. Ricoh and related IPRs. Different number, different patent.
• Ricoh v. Oki Data (ITC 337‑TA‑651 / E.D. Va.) — real Ricoh litigation, but on the web-printer '048 family and fuser patents, not the '732.
• Flexiworld Technologies' suits (2020s) — wireless-printing-adjacent patents with 2000–2002 priority dates; these are separate patents and separate parties. The '732 patent appears only as cited family art in that space, not as an asserted patent.

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Caveats on my confidence

• High confidence that no well-indexed federal district court or ITC case and no PTAB trial asserted or challenged the '732 patent.
• Moderate confidence that there is no "hidden" litigation — e.g., a quickly-settled or sealed case, or an arbitration. Aggregator coverage of very short-lived or sealed matters can be incomplete.
• I did not verify against a paid docket service, so I cannot give you a case number or filing date — because I could not find a case to attach them to, and I will not invent them.

If you want, I can next attempt a targeted PACER/docket-query approach or a Lexis/Westlaw-style litigation-history reconstruction for the '732 number to push this from "no evidence found" to "negative confirmation."

I'll verify the ODP-derived "no proceedings" finding against public sources before finalizing.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks before concluding.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 7,355,732 — the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent (0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied), and my independent web checks surfaced no unindexed or recently-filed petition either, so there is no per-proceeding section to write and no IPR-based invalidity record a defendant can borrow; the real defensive story here is not PTAB history but the fact that the patent lapsed for non-payment of the 12-year maintenance fee in 2020-04-08 (effective lapse date), is now "Expired – Fee Related," and lists an adjusted expiration of 2023-03-03.

One caveat on the usual default: the canonical ODP block supplied with this assignment controls, and it says no proceedings. I re-verified via Google Patents family/litigation data (US7355732B2), targeted queries for IPR/PGR filings naming the patent, and a search of the Ricoh wireless-printing assertion space. Nothing was found to flag. I did not have direct query access to PTAB E2E / P-TACTS, so treat this as "no record surfaced," not "certified empty docket."

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No proceedings to enumerate

Because the count is zero, the format's per-proceeding template (type / filed / status / panel / grounds / institution / FWD / settlement / appeal / defensive value) has no rows. Rather than fabricate numbers — which the constraints forbid — here is what I affirmatively checked and ruled out:

Two artifacts that look like PTAB hits but are not: the Flexiworld Technologies patents in the "Cited By" table (US 11,029,903; US 11,096,056; US 11,204,729; US 11,467,856; US 11,662,918; US 11,829,776) are later patents that cite 7,355,732 as prior art — they are not challenges to it. Likewise, the "Shingo I / Shingo II" references in the IPR2014-00304 excerpt I retrieved belong to a different patent (6,763,573, a seat-assembly case) and are coincidental name matches, not a proceeding on this patent.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: no claim of US 7,355,732 has ever been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed by the PTAB. All 17 claims are UNTESTED in an AIA trial. Nor have they been tested in a published Federal Circuit validity opinion. The estate as issued — independent claim 1 (wireless receive of non-print-ready electronic document information + web server generating browser-displayable web page data + printer driver generating print-ready data + RF directional shield with an antenna opening confining comms to devices substantially in front of it) and independent claim 17 (the means-plus-function counterpart) — stands unadjudicated. That matters for how a defendant frames things: there is no "claims 1–5 are dead" silver bullet, and equally no PTAB-driven narrowing that a patent owner can use to argue the claims are hardened and carefully bounded.

The decisive fact is not IPR estoppel but expiry. Per the patent's own legal-events record: the 4-year fee was paid 2011-09-22 and the 8-year fee 2015-09-21, but the next maintenance fee went unpaid — "2019-11-25 MAINTENANCE FEE REMINDER MAILED," then "2020-05-11 LAPSE FOR FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES … PATENT EXPIRED FOR FAILURE TO PAY MAINTENANCE FEES," with the lapse effective 2020-04-08 (37 C.F.R. § 1.362 discontinuation) and a listed adjusted expiration of 2023-03-03 (consistent with ~2.2 years of PTA over the 2020-12-22 twenty-year date). A patent that has lapsed for fee non-payment cannot be infringed prospectively; any actionable exposure is limited to past conduct before the lapse date. Before relying on that, confirm the fee status and any intervening petition to accept an unintentionally delayed payment under 37 C.F.R. §§ 1.362–1.378 directly in USPTO Patent Center — reinstatement is the one event that would revive the tail of the term.

Estoppel landscape (§ 315(e)(2)) is a non-issue — and that cuts both ways. Because no IPR, PGR, or CBM was ever instituted, no petitioner or privy is statutorily estopped from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground in district court, and no defendant gets the benefit of a prior petitioner's work product. Every ground is fresh, but every ground is also unwon. The prior art already on the face of the patent is the natural starting set for a § 282 invalidity case or a late-filed IPR petition (if the expired/revived status permits), and it is notably on-point: WO 2002/048855 A1 (Interscape, "Kiosk-type printing/synchronization station for handheld and other computer systems," filed 2000-12-14), WO 2002/001839 A2 (Wincor Nixdorf, "Printer device for mobile equipment," filed 2000-06-29), US 6,823,172 B1 (NCR, self-service terminal with wireless communication, 1999-11-20), US 6,326,926 B1 (Telxon, short-range wireless in the same frequency as wireless), WO 1999/015955 A1 (Kodak, remote internet/intranet user interface to a copier/printer), US 6,452,692 B1 (Sun, networked printer server), US 5,862,321 A (Xerox, accessing and distributing electronic documents), and Ricoh's own JP H11-296325 A ("Printer system"). The Interscape and Wincor references in particular read directly on the kiosk-plus-short-range-wireless-print architecture of claim 1.

Pattern signals are flat. There is no repeat petitioner, no PTAB appeal activity by the patent owner (there is no FWD to appeal), no defensive aggregator involvement, and no evidence the patent is being actively asserted today. The absence of IPRs is itself informative and consistent with the rest of the record: this is a 2000-priority Ricoh document that lapsed on fees in 2020 and whose family members simply expired abroad. It does not present as a well-asserted patent that attracted challengers — it presents as a dormant, fee-lapsed asset.

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Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiry, not validity. Before drafting anything, pull the current fee/status record from USPTO Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/) and confirm (a) lapse effective 2020-04-08 persisted with no accepted late payment under 37 C.F.R. § 1.362, and (b) the adjusted expiration date. If the patent is and remains lapsed, the affirmative defense is straightforward: no prospective infringement, and damages cabined to pre-lapse conduct. There is no FWD to link to and quote — I will not invent one. The dispositive documents here are the USPTO legal-events entries (LAPS/STCH, 2020-05-11) and the "Expired – Fee Related" status field.
2. If the patent is somehow revived, the art is already teed up. Absent any institution, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds anyone, so a fresh § 102/§ 103 challenge built on Interscape (WO 2002/048855 A1), Wincor Nixdorf (WO 2002/001839 A2), NCR US 6,823,172, and the directional-antenna art (US 5,053,786 A, "Broadband directional antenna"; the IBM TDB "Isolated Antenna" note at the patent's own Non-Patent Citations) is unencumbered. Any IPR petition would have to clear § 315(b)'s one-year bar and the § 325(d)/§ 314(a) discretion factors, and would be time-boxed by the patent's remaining term — likely making a district-court § 282 invalidity case the better vehicle if litigation ever materializes.
3. Do not expect a PTAB record to appear. Because the patent lapsed for fees and expired during the AIA era, new IPRs are commercially implausible. Monitor PTAB E2E / P-TACTS (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) and CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%227355732%22) quarterly for a reevaluation only if the patent is reinstated or transferred into an assertion campaign — until then, the correct answer is the one stated in the overview: no PTAB activity on file.

I'll start by verifying the assignment record and checking for any litigation or NPE activity tied to this patent.

Ownership analysis — US 7,355,732 B2 ("Printing mechanism for wireless devices")

Data caveat up front: I could retrieve Google Patents legal events, claim text, and family data for this patent (authoritative text supplied), and corroborating third-party indexes (uspto.report). I could not retrieve the underlying reel/frame images from USPTO Assignment Center, so I do not have the correspondent of record (recording attorney/agent) for either recording. I am reporting only what is documented and explicitly flagging that gap rather than guessing at attorney names.

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Inventors

Unusual patterns: None detectable. There is a single inventor, no evidence of inventor departure within 12 months of filing, and no separate inventor-held assignments or inventor-to-third-party conveyances. The only inventor-side paper is the standard pre-filing employment assignment (Reel 011430/0354), which was corrected 4.5 months later to name the correct corporate receiving party (Reel 012088/0996). Nothing here resembles a portfolio fire-sale precursor.

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Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) — the corrected assignee from Reel 012088/0996. Google Patents' "current assignee" field also lists Ricoh Americas Corp; no recorded assignment in the file supports that entity as an assignee, and it most likely reflects Google's mapping of a Ricoh US affiliate/correspondence address rather than a recorded conveyance. Treat as unclear / data artifact.
• Product embodying the claims: Ricoh is a genuine operating company. The specification itself names its own commercial product — the Aficio series multi-functional peripheral — as the printing device 106 and describes a kiosk-style "interface box" 102 with a coin rack payment mechanism. Ricoh's IP page confirms an active operating patent estate (≈30,667 maintained patents as of March 2025) with a monetization/review program, i.e. a self-practicing OEM, not a licensing shell — https://www.ricoh.com/technology/rd/ip
• Primary line of business: Imaging and electronics — MFPs, printers, office solutions, plus industrial/optical products.
• Current status: Operating, solvent, publicly listed (Tokyo). No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no assignment of this patent to a monetization vehicle.

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Assignment timeline

Only two recorded assignments exist in the US file, both pre-issuance, both from the same assignor (the inventor), and both effectively constituting one act of assignment plus one correction. There are no post-issuance assignments.

• 2000-12-20 (executed) / recorded 2000-12-22 — Reel 011430/0354

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Shingo Yamaguchi
  • Assignee: Ricoh Corporation, California
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable from the sources available to me (reel image not exposed via Google Patents / uspto.report). Cannot flag recurrence without fabricating — explicitly declined.
  • Context: Original assignment — inventor-to-employer transfer of rights executed two days before the 2000-12-22 filing date.

• 2000-12-20 (executed) / recorded 2001-05-07 — Reel 012088/0996

  • Conveyance: Assignment (corrective) — "CORRECT NAME AND ADDRESS OF RECEIVING PARTY ON RECORDATION FORM COVER SHEET. ORIGINALLY RECORDED AT REEL 011430, FRAME 0354."
  • Assignor: Shingo Yamaguchi
  • Assignee: Ricoh Company, Ltd. (Japan)
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable (same limitation as above).
  • Context: Internal correction / change of name of the receiving party only — no change in beneficial ownership; the same corporate family simply corrected the US entity to the Japanese parent. This is a housekeeping recording, not an acquisition.

Post-issuance: none. The chain terminates at Ricoh Company, Ltd. Consistent with that, Google Patents records the patent as Expired – Fee Related, with lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2020-04-08 (event recorded 2020-05-11) — the patentee let the asset go roughly three years before its adjusted expiration of 2023-03-03. Family members (EP1217824B1, DE60132548T2, ATE384991T1, JP2002287944A / JP priority JP2001388228A) likewise show no NPE-side owner.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7355732
    2000 : Filed 22 Dec by Ricoh Corporation
         : Inventor Yamaguchi assigns rights
    2001 : Corrective assignment to Ricoh Company Ltd
    2008 : Patent issued 8 Apr
    2020 : Lapsed for unpaid maintenance fee

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only assignee is Ricoh Company, Ltd., an operating OEM. No "IP / Holdings / Ventures / Licensing" successor appears in Reel 011430/0354 or Reel 012088/0996, and no assignment exists after 2001-05-07.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Ricoh, Ricoh Corporation, and Ricoh Company, Ltd. do not appear on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Round Rock / MPHJ lists. Note the inverse relationship: Ricoh appears in public records as a defendant in NPE campaigns — including MPHJ Technology v. Ricoh (patent 8,488,173, PTAB) and Encryptawave Technologies LLC v. Ricoh USA (filed 2024-05-09, https://www.action-intell.com/tag/encryptawave-technologies-v-sharp-corporation-2024/), and VStream Technologies LLC v. Ricoh Americas (E.D. Tex. 6:15-cv-00977, https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[8179971](/patent/8179971)). None of those assert this patent; they are evidence Ricoh is an NPE target, not an NPE.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. Cannot be assessed: the correspondent of record for Reels 011430/0354 and 012088/0996 was not exposed in any source I could access. I am not supplying an attorney name without the recorded data.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Two recordings, one assignor, 136 days apart, same corporate family. No chained LLCs, no shared correspondent addresses observable, no common-principal structure.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. I found no infringement litigation naming US 7,355,732 in Google Patents, uspto.report, or the Stanford NPE Litigation Database results reviewed. With no suit, there is no pre-suit transfer window to test.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Ricoh has not filed Chapter 7/11; no reorganized-seller economics appear in any reel/frame in this file.

7. Privateering — not present. No transfer, license, or shell assignment out of Ricoh is recorded. The patent was retained by the OEM through issuance.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. No RPX / AST / LOT / Unified / OIN assignment appears in either reel/frame. The chain does not terminate at a defensive buyer; it terminates at the original operating assignee. The closest thing to "neutralization" here is abandonment: the patent lapsed for non-payment effective 2020-04-08 while still owned by Ricoh.

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Verdict

Insufficient data (records exist, but they are only the original inventor-to-employer assignment plus a same-family corrective recording).

Justification: the entire recorded chain consists of (a) Shingo Yamaguchi → Ricoh Corporation, executed 2000-12-20, recorded 2000-12-22 at Reel 011430/0354, and (b) the corrective re-recording to Ricoh Company, Ltd., recorded 2001-05-07 at Reel 012088/0996 — a name/address correction of the same receiving party, not a transfer. There are no post-issuance assignments, no licensing-only LLC, no known asserter, and no litigation naming this patent; the asset was instead allowed to lapse for unpaid maintenance fees effective 2020-04-08. On these facts no NPE or troll-pattern signal is supported — but because the chain is essentially a single original assignment, the correct classification under the rubric is "Insufficient data" rather than an affirmative non-NPE finding.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "7355732"; legacy mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html), and see https://patents.google.com/patent/US7355732/en and https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7355732 for legal events and family status.

I'll verify the patent record and then work through each cited reference. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me verify several more key references.

Verification of the Target Patent

My searches confirm the record for US 7,355,732 B2 ("Printing mechanism for wireless devices," Ricoh, Shingo Yamaguchi, application 09/747,650, filed 2000-12-22, granted 2008-04-08). Confirmed via Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7355732B2](/patent/US7355732B2)/en) and uspto.report (https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[7355732](/patent/7355732)). No other patent shares this number in the US register; the JP 7355732 B2 hit that surfaces on a bare-number search is an unrelated Japanese patent (catheter-pump compression) and is excluded. All 24 US/foreign patent citations and the single non-patent citation below are drawn from the patent's own front-page citation list (authoritative), supplemented by searches where the reference text was retrievable.

Note on what "anticipates under § 102" means here: § 102 anticipation requires a single reference to disclose every limitation of a claim, arranged as claimed. Because claim 1 is an unusual combination of (a) a wireless document-receiving front end, (b) a web server that regenerates the document as browsable page data, (c) a printer driver that converts non-print-ready data to print-ready data, and (d) an RF directional shield with an antenna opening, I flag for each reference whether it is a true standalone-anticipation candidate or only single-element/§ 103 art. My honest conclusion up front: no single cited reference anticipates independent claim 1 or claim 17 as a whole; the strongest references cover the printing/browsing half, and the shield references cover the structural half, but the two halves are never combined in one reference. I state confidence levels per row.

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A. The Shield / Directional-Antenna Group (relevant to claims 1, 2, 17)

1. US 5,053,786 A — "Broadband directional antenna"

• Assignee/inventors: General Instrument Corp.; Silverman & Siddiqi. Filing: 1988-02-05 (continuation of Ser. No. 343,525, filed 1982-01-28). Publication: 1991-10-01.
• Disclosure (verified via FreePatentsOnline/Justia): A center-fed spiral antenna secured to a cavity loaded with wave-absorbing lossy material so the antenna "is operative only in its front lobe direction opposite the loaded cavity"; the cavity wall suppresses the rearward lobe and yields a "relatively narrow beam pattern." Verified.
• § 102 relevance: Relevant to the "radio frequency directional shield having an antenna opening" element of claim 1 and to claim 2 (shield limiting reception to devices substantially in front). This is the closest prior art to the shield limitation — but it is an antenna, not a printing apparatus, so it cannot anticipate claims 1/17 as a whole. It is a § 103-type reference against the shield sub-element. High confidence on content.

2. US 5,577,268 A — "Radio frequency shield clip suitable for use in a communication device"

• Assignee: Motorola. Filing: 1993-02-26. Publication: 1996-11-19.
• Disclosure: An RF shielding clip for communication devices (structural shielding).
• § 102 relevance: Secondary structural art for the "shield" wording in claims 1–2. Does not anticipate any independent claim. Moderate confidence (title/date verified; full text not retrieved).

3. US 5,614,694 A — "One piece open and closable metal RF shield"

• Assignee: Motorola. Filing: 1995-03-31. Publication: 1997-03-25.
• Disclosure: A one-piece closable metal RF shield enclosure.
• § 102 relevance: Same as above — generic shielding art for claims 1–2; not anticipating. Moderate confidence.

Non-Patent Citation — Kornfeld et al., "Isolated Antenna," IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, Vol. 17, No. 1, June 1974, p. 13.

• § 102(b) NPL prior art (published ~23 years before filing).
• Relevance: This is the reference that most directly maps to the purpose of claim 1's shield — an antenna "isolated" so it communicates only in a confined direction. Highly relevant to the shield/antenna-opening element (claims 1, 2, 17). Cannot anticipate the claims as a whole (it discloses only the antenna concept). Moderate confidence (citation verified from the patent; I could not retrieve the 1974 TDB page itself).

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B. The Remote / Network Printing & Web-Server Interface Group (relevant to claims 1, 5, 6, 7, 17)

4. WO 1999/015955 A1 — "Establishment at a remote location of an internet/intranet user interface to a copier/printer"

• Applicant: Eastman Kodak (Wood et al.); US counterpart US 6,453,127 B2 (Nexpress Solutions). Filing: 1997-09-26. Publication: 1999-04-01.
• Disclosure (verified): A copier/printer with a network web server that downloads software/HTML/applets to a remote workstation to present a user interface screen page for setting up and querying a print job; web server downloads documents; browser establishes HTTP/socket connection.
• § 102 relevance: This is the strongest cited art on the "web server configured to dynamically generate web page data processable by a web browser" and remote-print-setup limitations — relevant to claims 1, 6, 7, 17 (and claim 5 wired interface). It does not disclose a wireless device, non-print-ready data conversion, or the shield, so it cannot anticipate claims 1/17 alone. It is § 102(b) art (published >1 yr before filing). High confidence on content.

5. US 6,452,692 B1 — "Networked printer server"

• Assignee: Sun Microsystems. Filing: 1996-12-02. Publication: 2002-09-17 (but filed well before priority; § 102(e) / § 102(b)-equivalent art).
• Disclosure (verified): A networked print server that receives print jobs plus preferences, spools the job, automatically selects a suitable printer, and can distribute/update printer drivers to clients automatically.
• § 102 relevance: Relevant to claims 1, 5, 16, 17 (spooling to a printer; automatic driver distribution). Does not anticipate (no wireless, no browser-generated page, no shield). High confidence on content.

6. US 5,862,321 A — "System and method for accessing and distributing electronic documents"

• Assignee: Xerox. Filing: 1994-06-27. Publication: 1999-01-19.
• Disclosure: Accessing and distributing electronic documents over a network.
• § 102 relevance: Background art on "electronic document information" (claims 1, 17). Not anticipating. Moderate confidence.

7. US 6,671,063 B1 — "Network facsimile apparatus"

• Assignee: Panasonic Communications. Filing: 1999-01-27. Publication: 2003-12-30.
• Disclosure: A network-connected facsimile/document apparatus.
• § 102 relevance: Peripheral network-document-handling art (claims 1, 5, 17). Not anticipating. Low–moderate confidence on specifics.

8. US 5,974,401 A — "Digital print order and delivery method and system"

• Assignee: Fuji Photo Film. Filing: 1996-09-04. Publication: 1999-10-26.
• Disclosure: Order-and-delivery of digital prints.
• § 102 relevance: Potentially relevant to the paid-print-ordering concept behind claims 12–15 (payment for printing) and to claim 1. Not anticipating. Moderate confidence.

9. JPH 11-296325 A — "Printer system"

• Assignee: Ricoh Co. Ltd. Filing: 1998-04-14. Publication: 1999-10-29.
• § 102 relevance: Ricoh's own printer-system art; general network printer architecture (claims 1, 17). Low confidence (Japanese text not retrieved).

10. US 5,983,200 A — "Intelligent agent for executing delegated tasks" (Slotznick; filed 1996-10-09, pub. 1999-11-09). Delegated-task agent; marginal background. Low relevance. Low confidence.

11. EP 0 860 980 A2 — "Electronic camera with 'utilization' selection capability" (Eastman Kodak; filed 1997-02-20, pub. 1998-08-26). Camera output-selection art; marginal. Low relevance. Low confidence.

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C. The Wireless-Device / Short-Range / Pairing & Authentication Group (relevant to claims 1, 9, 10, 11, 17)

12. US 6,326,926 B1 — "Method of operating a wireless and a short-range wireless connection in the same frequency"

• Assignee: Telxon Corp. Filing: 2000-05-18. Publication: 2001-12-04.
• Disclosure (verified in part via uspto.report): A hand-held portable device with a second RF section operating under the Bluetooth standard; coordinating a wireless WAN link and a short-range (Bluetooth) link.
• § 102 relevance: Directly relevant to claims 9, 10, 11 (Bluetooth, 802.11, ~2.4 GHz short-range wireless) and to the wireless interface of claims 1, 17. Does not anticipate claims 1/17 (no printing/browser/shield). § 102(e)-type art (filed before priority). Moderate–high confidence.

13. US 6,772,331 B1 — "Method and apparatus for exclusively pairing wireless devices"

• Assignee: IBM. Filing: 1999-05-21. Publication: 2004-08-03.
• Disclosure: Exclusively pairing/authenticating two wireless devices.
• § 102 relevance: Relevant to the authentication/pairing aspect of the wireless connection (specification's FIG. 5 random-number authentication) and claims 1, 9–11, 17. Not anticipating. § 102(e)-type art. Moderate confidence.

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D. The "Kiosk / Mobile-Equipment Printing with Payment" Group — the Highest-Relevance Cluster (claims 1, 12–15, 17)

14. WO 2002/001839 A2 — "Printer device for mobile equipment"

• Applicant: Wincor Nixdorf International GmbH (a self-service-terminal/kiosk maker). Filing: 2000-06-29. Publication: 2002-01-03.
• § 102 relevance: Filed before the patent's 2000-12-22 priority date, so it is § 102(e)/PCT-type prior art. A dedicated printer for mobile equipment from a kiosk/self-service-terminal vendor is squarely on the "print hard copy from a mobile device at a public station" concept of claim 1 and, given the applicant's field, potentially the payment/self-service aspect of claims 12–15. This and WO 02/048855 are the two references I regard as most conceptually on-point to the invention as a whole. I could not retrieve the full text (search budget exhausted), so I assign moderate confidence to the description and cannot confirm whether it discloses the web-server/non-print-ready/shield limitations. Not a confirmed anticipation candidate.

15. WO 2002/048855 A1 — "Kiosk-type printing/synchronization station for handheld and other computer systems"

• Applicant: Interscape Corp. Filing: 2000-12-14. Publication: 2002-06-20.
• § 102 relevance: Filed 8 days before the patent's priority date (§ 102(e)-type art). A kiosk printing station for handhelds is the closest thematic match to the claimed "printing interface apparatus" for wireless devices, relevant to claims 1, 4, 5, 12–15, 17. Whether it discloses the directional shield element (the likely allowability hook) is unverified. Moderate confidence; not a confirmed anticipation candidate.

16. US 6,823,172 B1 — "Self-service terminal including wireless communication"

• Assignee: NCR Corporation. Filing: 1999-11-20. Publication: 2004-11-23.
• Disclosure: A self-service (kiosk/ATM-type) terminal with wireless communication capability.
• § 102 relevance: Relevant to claims 1, 12–15, 17 — it ties wireless communication to a self-service terminal, which is precisely the "pay-then-print" station concept. Not anticipating the full claim (no browser-regenerated page, no directional shield). § 102(e)-type art. Moderate confidence.

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E. The Printer-Driver Download/Upgrade Group (relevant to claim 16)

17. US 2002/0067504 A1 — "Method and apparatus for automatic upgrade of a product's printer driver"

• Assignee: Xerox. Filing: 2000-12-06. Publication: 2002-06-06.
• § 102 relevance: Directly relevant to claim 16 ("means for downloading one or more printer drivers over the wireless connection"). § 102(e)-type art (filed before priority). Moderate confidence.

18. US 6,732,195 B1 — "Apparatus for and method of updating a device driver from a local resource"

• Assignee: Hewlett-Packard. Filing: 2000-10-03. Publication: 2004-05-04.
• § 102 relevance: Same target — claim 16. § 102(e)-type art. Moderate confidence.

19. US 6,606,669 B1 — "Information processing apparatus having automatic OS selecting function" (Canon; filed 1994-12-06, pub. 2003-08-12). Automatic platform/OS/driver selection background; marginal to claim 16. § 102(e)-type art. Low–moderate confidence.

20. US 6,113,208 A — "Replaceable cartridge for a printer including resident memory with stored message triggering data" (Hewlett-Packard; filed 1996-05-22, pub. 2000-09-05). Cartridge-resident memory/message art; marginal. Low relevance. Low–moderate confidence.

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F. References Appearing Only Marginally Relevant (likely search-art / mechanical art)

These appear in the citation list but their subjects (per title/assignee/date) do not map cleanly onto any claim element, and I flag them as such rather than inventing a mapping:

I am calling these out explicitly rather than forcing a § 102 theory onto them, consistent with the operating rule not to fabricate.

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Bottom-Line Assessment

Practical takeaways and caveats:

1. The examiner's combination that evidently secured allowance is the shield/antenna-opening limitation — which traces to the Kornfeld "Isolated Antenna" TDB note and directional-antenna art (US 5,053,786). That is why every substantive printing reference lacks the element that distinguishes the granted claim. This is consistent with the earlier section's observation that the shield limitation appears to be the allowability hook.
2. Several of the most on-point references (WO 02/001839, WO 02/048855, US 2002/0067504, US 6,732,195) were filed before the 2000-12-22 priority date but published after it, so they operate only as § 102(e) (or PCT-equivalent) art, not § 102(a)/(b) printed-publication art — a distinction that matters if any of these were used to reject claims.
3. I was unable to retrieve the full text of several references (search budget was exhausted mid-task; the Wincor Nixdorf, Interscape, and most Japanese references did not return retrievable specifications). For those rows my description is derived from the title/assignee/date in the patent's own citation list, and I have labeled confidence accordingly rather than asserting content I did not see.
4. Per the operating rules, I am interpreting every patent number literally and reporting the four Japanese references that appear unrelated (JPH 11-94206, JPH 11-150943) as such, without auto-correcting or reattributing them.

I'll verify the key prior-art references from this patent's citation record before building the combination analysis.

Excellent — I now have substantive text for several key references. Let me verify the remaining core references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,355,732 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Basis: the 24 U.S./foreign patent citations and 1 non-patent citation listed in the Patent Citations / Non-Patent Citations sections of the Google Patents record for US 7,355,732 B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7355732/en). I fetched full text where possible; items I could not reach are flagged in the Caveats section.

Refinement to the earlier section: the prior summary noted that claim 1's shield limitation "traces to an 'Isolated Antenna' IBM TDB reference and directional-antenna art (US 5,053,786)." That framing undersells the record. There is a third, much closer reference in the same citation list — US 6,823,172 (NCR) — a self-service terminal whose claim 1 expressly recites "a communication absorbing shield for reducing magnitude of encrypted wireless signals transmitted from inside the ATM housing to outside the ATM housing." That is a self-service terminal + wireless + containment shield, i.e., an architectural analogue to the interface box of claim 1, not merely an antenna-design analogue. This materially strengthens the § 103 case on element (E) and I build on it below.

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1. Governing standard

Under Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007):

• Scope/content of prior art — see §2 below.
• Differences between prior art and claims — see §3.
• PHOSITA level — a person with a bachelor's in EE/CS and ~2–4 years in networked printing and short-range wireless; by Dec. 2000 this art was mature (postScript/PCL drivers, print servers, Bluetooth v1.0 spec released July 1999, IEEE 802.11b products shipping).
• Motivation — under KSR, a motivation may be "found in the nature of the problem to be solved" and in "the interrelated teachings of multiple patents," and where a technique is known and used to improve a similar device, "the combination ... is likely to be obvious."

The claim is, structurally, a combination of five known elements each performing its known function — the classic KSR fact pattern. The strongest patentee argument is the "specific arrangement" argument; I address it in §5.

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2. Critical threshold issue: which cited references actually qualify as prior art

The critical date is December 22, 2000 (filing = no earlier priority claimed). Two cited PCT references sit on opposite sides of the line, and this must be checked before any combination is asserted:

Consequence: WO 02/001839 is a technically excellent teaching on the merits (see §3) but is a Hilmer/language problem reference — its citation by the examiner was likely improper if relied on under §102(e). The combination analysis below therefore leads with WO 02/048855, which is clean §102(e) art, and treats WO 02/001839 as corroborating "background/state of the art" evidence only.

All remaining cited references (US 5,053,786; 5,577,268; 5,614,694; 5,862,321; 5,974,401; 5,983,200; 6,113,208; 6,326,926; 6,452,692; 6,606,669; 6,671,063; 6,732,195; 6,772,331; 6,823,172; and US 2002/0067504 A1) have filing dates comfortably before December 22, 2000 and qualify.

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3. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

The single hardest element to meet on the merits is (E), and the record happens to supply it four times over. Kornfeld's "Isolated Antenna" is the genus (antenna enclosed by a shield with an aperture); US 5,053,786 is the directional-antenna species; US 6,823,172 supplies the system-level motivation (an SST housing wireless modules where you want to keep RF inside/outside a defined zone); Telxon supplies the short-range-footprint-shaping motivation.

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4. The two principal § 103 combinations and their motivations

Combination I (primary — clean art)

WO 02/048855 (Interscape) in view of US 6,453,127 / WO 99/15955 (Kodak), further in view of US 6,452,692 (Sun) and Kornfeld/"Isolated Antenna" (optionally with US 5,053,786 and US 6,823,172).

Reason to combine, per element:

1. Interscape + Kodak — both address the identical problem stated in the '732 background: a mobile user with no printer wants a hard copy; both solve it by putting a web server/browser-accessible interface between the user and a print engine. Interscape expressly contemplates documents "accessed from external sources such as corporate networks or the Internet." Kodak supplies the specific "web server generates the user interface page" mechanism that Interscape leaves generic. Combining a known kiosk printing station with a known web-server-UI printing architecture is the combination of prior art elements according to known methods to yield a predictable result (KSR, slip op. at 17).
2. + Sun 6,452,692 — supplies the conventional print-server/driver conversion layer required by element (C); print servers and driver-based PDL generation were the standard of the art. No change in the principle of operation.
3. + Kornfeld / US 5,053,786 / NCR 6,823,172 — supplies element (E). The motivation is supplied by the applicant's own specification, which concedes the purpose: "By limiting the signal to an area directly in front of the interface box an inherent security mechanism is provided that reduces the chance that the signal is received by an unauthorized user" and "minimizing the transmit power and direction of the wireless connection signal ... can prevent unwanted connections without requiring the user to interface with a complex security system." Where the inventor admits the problem and the prior art discloses the solution (shield an antenna to constrain its radiation pattern), the combination is obvious as a matter of law under KSR's "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way."

Combination II (corroborative — Wincor Nixdorf on the merits)

WO 02/001839 (Wincor Nixdorf) in view of US 6,453,127 (Kodak) and Kornfeld/"Isolated Antenna." (Only if WO 02/001839's prior-art date is established — see §2.)

WO 02/001839 is on point nearly verbatim: it discloses a self-service station containing a printer and a wireless interface for data communication to a portable device (specifically naming Bluetooth and IrDA), where the portable device sends data to the station's printer — and it expressly contemplates printing SMS, WAP/WML pages, WAP information-service queries, e-mail, and stored phone directories, i.e., precisely the "non-print-ready data" of claim 1. Its stated object is "eine allgemein verfügbare Einrichtung zum Drucken" (a generally available printing facility for portable devices). If it were properly prior art, claim 1 would fall to this single reference plus Kornfeld for element (E).

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5. Dependent claims

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6. Rebutting the likely nonobviousness arguments

1. "The references are from different fields (antennas vs. printing)." Under KSR, the test is whether the references are "reasonably pertinent to the particular problem" — here, constraining short-range wireless coverage in a kiosk. NCR 6,823,172 is squarely in the same field (an SST housing wireless modules + a containing shield), so no field-of-invention leap is required. Kornfeld's "Isolated Antenna" is cited by the examiner in this very file, which is record evidence of pertinence.
2. "The prior art taught away." Nothing in the cited art disparages shielding or directional antennas; if anything, the cited art pushes toward controlling the radiation footprint (Telxon's shaped patterns; NCR's absorbing shield).
3. "Unexpected results." None disclosed. The asserted benefit — limiting unauthorized reception — is the ordinary, expected function of an RF shield plus directional aperture. No data in the specification quantifies any synergistic effect.
4. "Long pendency (2000 → 2008) suggests nonobviousness." Prosecution delay is not a Graham secondary consideration and is at least equally explained by the addition of the shield limitation to secure allowance (per the earlier section's observation) and by normal examiner/continuation churn.
5. Secondary considerations generally: no evidence of commercial success, copying, licensing, or industry praise is in the record; the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2020-04-08, so no nexus evidence exists to rebut the prima facie case.

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7. Also worth checking (not § 103, but flagged)

WO 02/048855 alone may anticipate rather than merely render obvious. Its independent claims 1, 11, and 19 and dependent claims 6/15 (payment authorization unit) + claim 1 (interface adapted to communicate with a PDA) cover most of claims 1 and 12–14 of the '732 individually, if the "interface adapted to communicate with a personal digital assistant" is read to include a wireless (IR/RF) interface — the specification lists "an infra-red port" and the kiosk is expressly for "mobile professionals." That is a § 102 question worth a full-text comparison against the '732's claim 1 elements (B)–(E), which Interscape does not appear to disclose (it has no web-server-generates-a-page-from-the-document teaching and no directional shield). Net: Interscape is a strong § 103 partner, not a clean § 102 anticipation for claim 1, but it is close on claims 12–14.

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Caveats and confidence

A. Full text verified in this pass: WO 02/048855 A1 (Interscape, claims and description); WO 02/001839 A2 (Wincor Nixdorf, description — German); US 6,823,172 (NCR, claim 1 and description); US 6,326,926 (Telxon, summary of invention/abstract-level); WO 99/15955 / US 6,453,127 / EP 0 941 511 B1 (Kodak, claims and description). Not retrieved (tool steps exhausted): US 5,053,786, US 6,452,692, US 5,974,401, US 5,862,321, US 2002/0067504, US 6,732,195, US 5,983,200, US 5,577,268, US 5,614,694, US 6,113,208 — mappings for these are based on their titles plus general knowledge of the art and must be verified against full text before being relied on in any filing.

B. Contradiction to flag against the earlier section: the earlier section listed WO 02/001839 (Wincor Nixdorf) as a "key prior art" reference with a "priority date 2000-06-29." A priority date is not an effective § 102(e) date. On the record I retrieved (PCT/DE01/02312, filed 2001, published in German), WO 02/001839 likely does not qualify as prior art at all under pre-AIA law. It should be treated as corroborating background, and any § 103 rejection resting on it alone is vulnerable. Conversely, WO 02/048855 is stronger art than its position in the citation list suggests and should be the lead reference.

C. Weakest link: element (B) — "web page data ... generated by the web server based on the received electronic document information." Kodak's web server generates a job-setup interface rather than a page derived from the user's document. Expect the patentee to argue this is a material difference. The counter is that dynamically generating browser content server-side from a submitted document was a routine web-server capability by 2000, and US 5,862,321 (Xerox, accessing/distributing electronic documents) is directed at exactly that; I could not verify 5,862,321's disclosure here.

D. This analysis is academic for enforcement purposes: US 7,355,732 is expired for failure to pay maintenance fees (effective 2020-04-08). It remains relevant to the EP 1217824 B1 / JP 2002-287944 A family and for defensive-use purposes, but there is no live U.S. monopoly to invalidate.