US 7376414

I'll search for the specific patent number and any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Summary — U.S. Patent No. 7,376,414

I searched specifically for 7376414 (no fuzzy/similar-number matching). The authoritative full text of the patent was supplied in this session, and the live searches returned the same Google Patents, Justia, Unified Patents, and CAFC records for that exact number. No other patent number is substituted below.

⚠️ Date caveat (flagged, not auto-corrected): this task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," but the live search results return a Federal Circuit opinion in No. 24-1846 dated April 30, 2026 (cafc.uscourts.gov; Justia; CourtListener; Law360). Per the operating rules, I treat the retrieved record as current ground truth. The CAFC affirmance therefore post-dates the task's stated date by four days. This is the same discrepancy the previously generated "Obviousness" section flagged; it stands unresolved and I do not paper over it.

Bibliographic data

Assignee caveat: Google Patents/Unified Patents list the original assignee as Varia Mobil LLC, but the recorded chain shows the inventor assigned to Wildseed, Ltd. on the 2002-05-10 filing date; Varia Mobil LLC did not become assignee of record until 2008-04-22, just before issuance. The "original assignee" field reflects the assignee at grant, not at filing. (This matches the earlier Assignment History section.)

Abstract (as issued)

The present invention is directed to providing advertisements for playing on a mobile device based on previously provided information regarding the mobile device user. Information regarding the user is provided to a server, which is also in communication with advertisers that supply advertisements for playing on the mobile device. The server employs the user information to determine which advertisements might be suitable for the mobile device user. The determined advertisements may be cached/recorded on the mobile device for later playback or they can be provided in real time at a scheduled time for the playing of advertisements. Also, advertisements associated/included with the currently playing content could be suppressed in favor of the determined advertisements. Additionally, the currently playing content can be recorded while advertisements are playing on the mobile device; and then the playing of the content can be subsequently resumed from the point where the advertisements started playing.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has 14 claims. The independent claims are 1 (method), 9 (apparatus/cellular device), 12 (article of manufacture — client software), and 14 (article of manufacture — server software). Claim 1 is treated as representative of the four independents (the Board and the parties agreed to this in the IPR).

Claim 1 — Method on a cellular device.
Three steps:

• (a) The cellular device autonomously (i.e., without the user having to act) sends a server information about the user. Critically, that information is "taken by the cellular device from a message sent to the cellular device from another user of another cellular device," and the message identifies characteristics of the user. In plain terms: the phone mines an incoming text/message from someone else to infer something about its own user, and forwards that to a network server.
• (b) The phone receives back from the server at least one advertisement, where the server chose that ad based at least in part on the information the phone sent — i.e., server-side, profile-based ad selection.
• (c) When a determined time interval arrives, the phone stops playing content, plays the determined ad, and — during the ad — records the content that was interrupted; then, when the ad finishes, it resumes the stopped content from the exact point where it stopped, using the recording.

Claim 9 — Cellular device (apparatus).
The same three steps as claim 1, but recast as a machine: a memory storing instructions, a wireless interface unit, and a processor that executes the instructions to autonomously send message-derived user info to a server, receive the server-determined ad, and at the determined interval stop content, play the ad while recording the interrupted content, and resume from the stopping point.

Claim 12 — Article of manufacture / client software.
A storage medium with programming instructions that instantiate a client on a cellular device, performing the same (a)–(c) sequence — autonomous message-derived information upload, receipt of the server-determined ad, and the stop/record-ad/resume-content behavior.

Claim 14 — Article of manufacture / server software.
A storage medium with instructions that instantiate a server, which: (a) receives user information from the cellular device "independent of user input," that information having been taken by the device from a message sent from another user's cellular device; (b) uses that information to determine at least one advertisement; and (c) provides the determined ad to the device, whereupon the device performs the same stop/record/resume flow at the determined interval.

Dependent claims in brief: Claims 2–3 add the types of user information (preference, demographic, content played, geographic location; plus game played / radio station / TV station). Claim 4 (and 11) add pre-receiving and recording the ad in advance for playback when the interval occurs. Claims 5–6 recite content received as a stream or a broadcast. Claims 7–8 recite the ad received as a stream or a broadcast. Claim 13 mirrors claim 2 for the article-of-manufacture claim.

Legal status (2026) — brief, since it bears on "authoritative information"

• IPR2023-00248 (Google v. Wildseed Mobile): Final Written Decision 2024-04-09 held claims 1–7 and 9–14 unpatentable as obvious over Frerichs + Kawasaki + Kauffman. Claim 8 was never challenged.
• CAFC No. 24-1846 (Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC): nonprecedential opinion decided 2026-04-30, affirming — "we affirm the Board's conclusion that claims 1-7 and 9-14 of the ′414 patent are unpatentable as obvious" (CAFC opinion PDF; Justia; CourtListener).
• The CAFC rejected Wildseed's narrowing construction of "taken … from a message," holding it includes information generated or derived from the message, not just verbatim extraction.
• Separate case, do not conflate: Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile, LLC, No. 24-2178 (Fed. Cir., decided 2026-02-13) concerns a different patent — U.S. 10,869,169 (IPR2023-00247, "hot link"/SMS-IM claim 15, vacated and remanded). It does not involve the '414 patent.

Uncertainty / limitations on this answer

1. The date conflict above (task states 2026-04-26; the CAFC opinion is 2026-04-30) is unresolved and flagged rather than corrected.
2. Front-page "References Cited" list was not in the supplied full text and was not recovered; I cannot enumerate all face-of-patent citations. The 25-reference count from Unified Patents is unconfirmed by an enumerated list.
3. The claim language, abstract, title, dates, and inventor/assignee fields above are taken directly from the authoritative full patent text supplied in this session and confirmed by the live Google Patents / Justia / Unified Patents records for 7376414 — I have high confidence in those fields. The reel/frame-level assignment details remain unverified (see prior Assignment History section).

I'll research the litigation docket for US 7376414 across patent-litigation trackers and court records.

Let me pull more detail on the remaining cases and their outcomes.

Let me verify the earliest case's details and the district court's final disposition.

Litigation Involving US Patent 7,376,414

Bottom line: All known litigation on US 7,376,414 was brought by Wildseed Mobile LLC against Google LLC and YouTube, LLC. I found no other plaintiffs and no other defendants — no third-party cases, no declaratory-judgment actions by other parties, and no ITC proceedings. Three district-court dockets, one IPR, and one Federal Circuit appeal are associated with this patent (as distinct from the sibling Wildseed patents in the same family).

District court litigation

Asserts covering the '414 patent: The W.D. Tex. complaint (6:22-cv-00357) and its May 9, 2022 First Amended Complaint asserted five patents against Google/YouTube: 7,376,414, 9,141,960, 10,251,021, 10,959,040, and 10,869,169. The '414 patent is listed first on the AO-120 patent-action form for that case. Source: AO-120 form attached as Ex. 1002 to the IPR2023-00245 petition (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2023-00245/), and the Joint Case Management Statement, 3:22-cv-04928-WHO (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2023-00248/.../Exhibit-1026...).

PTAB proceeding (administrative trial)

Source: Docket Alarm docket for patent:7376414 (https://www.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent%3A%287376414%29), which lists IPR2023-00248, including Paper 32 ("Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable," Apr. 9, 2024) and Paper 10 (Institution Decision Grant).

Appellate litigation

Source: CAFC opinion, https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1846.OPINION.4-30-2026_2685384.pdf (nonprecedential; appeal from PTAB No. IPR2023-00248). Also reported at Law360, "Federal Circuit Upholds Google Win In Targeted Ad PTAB Case," April 30, 2026.

Caveats and things I could not verify

1. Filing-date discrepancy for 6:21-cv-01245. Wildseed's own Mandatory Notices in the related IPR state the case was filed December 1, 2021 and "Voluntarily Dismissed April 4, 2022." However, the PTAB's institution decision in IPR2023-00246 (Google's framing) recites 6:21-cv-01245 "filed Oct. 8, 2021." I am reporting both rather than resolving them, per the instruction to interpret identifiers literally and not auto-correct. The docket number itself is consistent across sources.

2. Final disposition of the '414 claims in N.D. Cal. (3:22-cv-04928). I confirmed the June 7, 2023 order granting partial judgment on the pleadings as to three of the five patents (§ 101 dismissed claims II, III, IV — the '960, '021, and '040 patents, with prejudice). I could not confirm in this session how the remaining '414 (and '169) claims were ultimately resolved (trial, summary judgment, dismissal, or settlement). I will not speculate. Note that the parallel IPR2023-00248 invalidated the '414 claims in April 2024, which would independently dispose of that part of the case.

3. No non-Google defendants found. Every source I reviewed (Google Patents litigation links, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents patent portal, Stanford NPE litigation database) ties '414 litigation only to Google/YouTube.

4. Related but distinct Federal Circuit case. Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile, LLC, No. 2024-2178 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 13, 2026) is a different appeal (from IPR2023-00247, on U.S. Patent 10,869,169 — not the '414 patent). I mention it only because it is often co-reported with the '414 appeal; it does not involve this patent.

5. Current-date note. The task recites April 26, 2026, but the retrieved CAFC opinion in No. 24-1846 is dated April 30, 2026. Consistent with the operating rules (prefer retrieved results) and the previously generated sections, I treat the April 30, 2026 affirmance as the operative ground truth — it post-dates the nominal "current date" in the prompt.

6. Sources for the litigation list: Google Patents litigation links for US7376414B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7376414/en); Docket Alarm (https://www.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent%3A%287376414%29); Unified Patents patent portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/7376414); CAFC opinion No. 24-1846 and CourtListener mirror (https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[10851051](/patent/10851051)/wildseed-mobile-llc-v-google-llc/).

Proceedings overview

The USPTO Open Data Portal block on file shows zero AIA trial proceedings for US 7,376,414, but that ingest is stale — web research confirms one Inter Partes Review, IPR2023-00248 (Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile LLC), which has fully concluded: 13 of 14 claims were found unpatentable in a Final Written Decision (2024-04-09), and the Federal Circuit affirmed in full (2026-04-30). There are no active, settled, or institution-denied proceedings on this patent. Bottom line for a defendant: the patent has been gutted — claims 1–7 and 9–14 are dead and affirmed dead on appeal; only claim 8 (never challenged, dependent on canceled claim 1) technically survives, and the patent expired by natural term on 2023-12-18. Any demand letter built on claims 1–7 or 9–14 has no case.

IPR2023-00248 — Google LLC v. Wildseed Mobile LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-11-30
• Status: Structured ODP data: no AIA trial proceedings on file (stale — does not index this case). USPTO/PTAB records via Docket Alarm and Patexia: "Final Written Decision – Appealed" — PTAB trial terminated 2024-04-09; CAFC appeal 24-1846 decided 2026-04-30 (affirmed). Plain English: fully concluded, patent owner lost everywhere.
• Judge panel: Terrence W. McMillin (APJ, opinion author), Karl D. Easthom (APJ), Michael T. Cygan (APJ) — per Patexia/Docket Alarm case summaries.
• Petition grounds: All claims except claim 8 — i.e., claims 1–7 and 9–14 (independent claims 1, 9, 12, 14 and their dependents) — challenged under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as obvious over the combination of Frerichs (US 6,684,249), Kawasaki (US 6,539,375), and Kauffman (US 2007/0083886), with expert testimony from Dr. Henry H. Houh. (Source: CAFC opinion in 24-1846; Houh Declarations, Ex. 1003/1029; Malek Declaration, Ex. 2009.)
• Institution decision: Granted in full, 2023-06-06 (Paper 10; scheduling order Paper 11 same day). The Board agreed with the parties that claim 1 is representative of the four independent claims (per the CAFC opinion's recounting).
• Final Written Decision (2024-04-09, Paper 32): "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable" — every challenged claim, claims 1–7 and 9–14, was held unpatentable as obvious. The pivotal dispute was construction of the "taken … from a message" limitation (added during prosecution to distinguish Owensby, US 6,684,249): the Board construed "taken" to include information generated or derived from the words used in a message, not merely verbatim extraction — a construction the patent owner contested all the way to the CAFC. (Sources: Docket Alarm Paper 32 entry; CAFC opinion.)
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The case ran the full course — patent owner response (with Dr. Sam Malek's expert declaration), reply, oral hearing (transcript 2024-03-20, Paper 31), and FWD. Terminated at the PTAB on 2024-04-09 upon issuance of the FWD.
• Appeal: Yes — Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC, CAFC No. 24-1846 (appeal from the FWD; the same docket family also covers Google's related IPRs on Wildseed's other patents). Decided 2026-04-30, nonprecedential, affirmed. The CAFC rejected Wildseed's claim-construction argument ("we agree with the Board that the correct construction of 'taken … from a message' includes information generated or derived from the words used in a message, and is not limited to verbatim extraction") and held: "we affirm the Board's conclusion that claims 1-7 and 9-14 of the ′414 patent are unpatentable as obvious." (Sources: CAFC opinion PDF; CourtListener.)
• Defensive value: Maximum. Every asserted independent claim (1, 9, 12, 14) and every challenged dependent claim is canceled, and the affirmance is now final. Any infringement theory on claims 1–7 or 9–14 is not merely weak — it is sanction-bait. Claim 8 was never challenged and nominally survives, but it depends on canceled claim 1 and the patent has expired, so it is of marginal, at-best-pre-expiration value.

Strategic summary

Claim status today — CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED:

• CANCELED (13 of 14): claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 — found unpatentable in the FWD and affirmed by the CAFC (24-1846, 2026-04-30). The Director's cancellation flows from the final, affirmed FWD.
• SUSTAINED: none — every claim that was challenged fell. Google did not win on some claims and lose on others; it swept the board.
• UNTESTED: claim 8 only ("receiving a broadcast of the at least one determined advertisement…"), which was not included in the petition. Note that claim 8 depends on canceled claim 1, so its practical enforceability is highly questionable, and the patent expired by natural term on 2023-12-18 (20 years from the 2002-05-10 filing date plus adjustment). An expired patent supports only pre-expiration damages (6-year lookback, 35 U.S.C. § 286) — no injunction, no ongoing royalties.

Estoppel landscape (§ 315(e)(2)): Estoppel runs against petitioners and their privies — here Google. It is effectively moot because Google won: it does not need estoppel against Wildseed, since the challenged claims are canceled. A new defendant who is not Google or a privy faces no estoppel from this IPR and remains free to run any § 102/§ 103 ground on the surviving claim 8 — including the very same Frerichs/Kawasaki/Kauffman combination Google used, which is now a judicially blessed obviousness theory on this specification. The practical answer for a defendant is even simpler: the claims that get asserted in demand letters (the independent claims and the commonly cited dependents 2–4) are all canceled.

Pattern signals: Google ran a coordinated, multi-patent IPR campaign against Wildseed — the IPR2023-00246 mandatory notices confirm Google filed IPRs on Wildseed's US 9,141,960, 10,251,021, 10,959,040, 10,869,169, and 7,376,414 — all tied to the same district-court litigation. The underlying litigation was originally filed in Judge Albright's W.D. Tex. court (6:21-cv-01245, filed 2021-12-01, voluntarily dismissed 2022-04-04) and refiled in N.D. Cal. (3:22-cv-04928, transferred 2022-08-29). The patent owner appealed the FWD to the CAFC and lost — no reversal, no remand. The ownership chain shows NPE/litigation-finance hallmarks: current assignee Wildseed Mobile LLC, with a 2021-09-20 security interest to LIT-US CHISUM 21-A, LLC (Unified Patents litigation portal lists the family). In short: this is a heavily litigated, asserted-by-NPE patent that has now been defeated once, finally, on the merits.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant facing assertion of claims 1–7 or 9–14: move to dismiss or for judgment on the pleadings, and put the FWD and affirmance in front of the court. Cite IPR2023-00248, Paper 32 (Final Written Decision, 2024-04-09, "Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable") and the CAFC's 2026-04-30 affirmance in No. 24-1846: "we affirm the Board's conclusion that claims 1-7 and 9-14 of the ′414 patent are unpatentable as obvious" (CAFC opinion). Those claims no longer exist; asserting them post-FWD is sanctionable.
2. If a demand cites only claim 8 (the one unchallenged claim): the patent expired 2023-12-18 — demand letters cannot seek prospective relief, only pre-expiration damages within § 286's six-year lookback. And because claim 8 depends on canceled claim 1, it is vulnerable to the same, now-affirmed Frerichs/Kawasaki/Kauffman combination (or any equivalent ground) in a follow-on challenge; you are not estopped.
3. No active PTAB proceedings are pending, so there are no institution-deadline or FWD-date milestones to track. The absence of additional IPRs is unsurprising — with 13 of 14 claims dead and the patent expired, there is little left to challenge.
4. Verify the certificate of cancellation in USPTO systems (Patent Center / PTAB E2E for IPR2023-00248) before filing, and confirm whether any reexamination or reissue proceeding exists that could resurrect the canceled claims — none surfaced in this research, but the ODP block's silence on the IPR itself is a reminder that public docket data can lag.

I attempted live pulls from the USPTO Assignment Center, but the session's search tooling could not return Assignment Center reel/frame or correspondent data for this patent. The analysis below therefore relies on (a) the Google Patents legal-event record for US 7,376,414 (reproduced in the authoritative full text above), which mirrors USPTO assignment data, and (b) reel/frame values I could verify on the Google Patents record of sibling application US20040137884A1, which shares the same Wildseed/Varia portfolio conveyances. Reel/frames flagged "per sibling record" and all correspondent fields must be verified in the Assignment Center before reliance.

Inventors

• G. Eric Engstrom — sole named inventor (per Google Patents / Unified Patents: "Engstrom G Eric").
• Employer at filing: Wildseed, Ltd., Seattle, Washington — the entity to which Engstrom assigned his interest on 2002-05-10, the same day the application was filed. Engstrom was a Wildseed co-founder/executive (the company later reorganized as Varia).
• Pattern check: No co-inventor cohort exists, so there is no "all inventors departed within 12 months" signal to evaluate. Sole-inventor assignment to the employer at filing is the standard employment pattern; nothing unusual.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent (assignee of record at grant): Varia Mobil LLC (Washington). Note the apparent inconsistency: the recorded chain shows Engstrom assigned to Wildseed, Ltd. at filing (2002-05-10), and Varia Mobil LLC only became assignee of record on 2008-04-22 — weeks before issuance on 2008-05-20. Google's "Original Assignee: Varia Mobil LLC" reflects the assignee at grant, not at filing. The filing-day assignee/employer was Wildseed, Ltd.
• Line of business: Wildseed/Varia made mobile-device software and personalization technology — best known for "Smart Skins" (interchangeable phone faceplates carrying chips that changed the phone's UI/software) and SMS/IM applications. This is a software/firmware licensor, not a cellular carrier or handset OEM.
• Product embodying the claims: No evidence that any commercial product implemented the claimed ad-insertion-into-broadcast-content flow (pause content → play targeted ad → record interrupted content → resume at the exact stopping point). The CAFC opinion in Wildseed Mobile, LLC v. Google LLC, No. 24-1846, recounts that the invention was described in internal company documents as a "[m]ethod of serving ads to a wireless phone" by interspersing targeted ads during playback of songs recorded from the radio — an internal concept, not a shipped product.
• Current status: Not operating. The residual IP-holding entity, Varia Holdings LLC, transferred the patent to Wildseed Mobile LLC on 2021-08-19; Wildseed Mobile LLC's only apparent activity since then has been litigation (suits against Google/YouTube) and litigation financing. No evidence Varia/Wildseed ever entered bankruptcy; it appears to have wound down privately.

Assignment timeline

Caveat: Correspondents of record could not be retrieved in this session. Reel/frame numbers shown for 2005–2010 conveyances are taken from the Google Patents legal-event record of sibling patent US20040137884A1 (same Wildseed/Varia portfolio transactions); they are marked accordingly and should be confirmed against USPTO Assignment Center (search "7376414"). No reel/frame or correspondent data for the 2002 or 2021 conveyances was retrievable in this session — none is fabricated below.

• 2002-05-10 (executed/recorded same day) — Reel not captured in this session

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: G. Eric Engstrom (inventor)
  • Assignee: Wildseed, Ltd. (Washington)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-employer assignment at filing.

• 2005-01-03 recorded (effective 2004-09-28) — Reel 016097/0489 (per sibling record; verify)

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Wildseed, Ltd.
  • Assignee: Venture Lending Leasing IV, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Venture-debt lender takes a security interest over the Wildseed patent portfolio (VC lending collateral).

• 2005-09-16 recorded — Reel 016987/0878 (per sibling record; verify)

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignor: Wildseed, Ltd.
  • Assignee: Venture Lending & Leasing IV, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Lender releases the security interest (portfolio paid off / refinanced).

• 2008-04-22 recorded (executed 2007-08-30 per sibling) — Reel 021316/0405 (per sibling record; verify)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Wildseed LLC
  • Assignee: Varia Mobil LLC (Washington)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Internal reorganization — Wildseed rebranded to Varia; patent moved to Varia Mobil LLC weeks before issuance, making Varia Mobil the assignee printed on the grant.

• 2008-07-31 recorded (executed 2005-08-08 per sibling) — Reel 021316/0357 (per sibling record; verify)

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: Wildseed Ltd.
  • Assignee: Wildseed LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Retroactive chain-cleaning merger recorded as part of the same 2008 recording batch (same reel as the conveyances below).

• 2008-07-31 recorded (executed 2008-06-24 per sibling) — Reel 021316/0437 (per sibling record; verify)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Varia Mobil LLC
  • Assignee: Varia Holdings LLC (New York)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Name change moving the IP from the Washington operating entity to a New York holding entity — same-day batch at reel 021316.

• 2008-07-31 recorded (executed 2008-07-02 per sibling) — Reel 021316/0442 (per sibling record; verify)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Varia Holdings LLC
  • Assignee: Varia LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Internal holding-company reshuffle, same-day batch at reel 021316.

• 2010-02-15 recorded (executed 2009-12-29 per sibling) — Reel 023928/0756 (per sibling record; verify)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Varia LLC
  • Assignee: Varia Holdings LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Patent consolidated back into Varia Holdings LLC; then an ~11-year quiet period with no recorded conveyances.

• 2021-08-19 recorded — Reel not captured in this session

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Varia Holdings LLC
  • Assignee: Wildseed Mobile LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Transfer of the residual portfolio out of the old holding company to a newly-active LLC — 104 days before the first infringement suit naming this patent.

• 2021-09-20 recorded — Reel not captured in this session

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Wildseed Mobile LLC
  • Assignee: LIT-US CHISUM 21-A, LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Litigation-finance/lending lien granted one month after the transfer and ~10 weeks before suit — the "21-A" numbered-fund naming is consistent with a litigation-funding vehicle (name-based inference only; unverified).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7376414
    2002 : Filed by Wildseed Ltd
         : Inventor assignment recorded
    2005 : Lender security interest
         : Lender release recorded
    2008 : Patent issued
         : Moved to Varia Mobil LLC
         : Reorg to Varia Holdings LLC
    2010 : Returned to Varia Holdings LLC
    2021 : Transferred to Wildseed Mobile LLC
         : Litigation finance lien granted
         : First suit filed vs Google
    2023 : Patent expired
    2024 : IPR invalidates claims
    2026 : CAFC affirms invalidity

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The 2021-08-19 assignment from Varia Holdings LLC (the residual successor of the original operating company) to Wildseed Mobile LLC is a transfer from a defunct operating lineage to an LLC with no known products and no activity other than holding/asserting this portfolio. Concrete behavioral evidence, not just naming: within 32 days the new LLC granted a security interest to LIT-US CHISUM 21-A, LLC (2021-09-20), and within ~3.5 months it filed suit against Google/YouTube (6:21-cv-01245, W.D. Tex., filed 2021-12-01). The registered-agent and single-member details were not retrievable, so the shell finding rests on behavior, not address tells.

2. Known asserter in the chain — unclear. Wildseed Mobile LLC does not match the canonical public NPE lists I can verify (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, Wi-LAN, Conversant, etc.). Unified Patents lists Wildseed Mobile LLC as the parent/current assignee and tracks its litigation, but I could not confirm a formal NPE-list designation. The assertion profile (no products, litigation-finance lien, suit against Google) is NPE-consistent but the public-list match is unverified.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — insufficient data. Correspondents of record for the assignments could not be retrieved in this session, so no recurrence finding is possible. (For completeness: Wildseed Mobile's IPR litigation counsel was Alberti Lim & Tonkovich LLP, with Zack Higgins admitted pro hac vice — but that is litigation counsel, not an assignment correspondent, and appears only in the PTAB phase, not in the recorded chain.)

4. Cascading transfers — not present (as an NPE pattern). The 2008–2010 cluster (merger at reel 021316/0357, assignment to Varia Mobil at 021316/0405, change of name at 021316/0437, assignment to Varia LLC at 021316/0442, and return to Varia Holdings at 023928/0756) is an intra-corporate reorganization of a single operating company (Wildseed → Varia), not shell-to-shell chaining. The 2021 events are only a two-step arrangement (assignment + lien), not a multi-hop cascade through chained LLCs.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — present (strongest signal). Assignment to Wildseed Mobile LLC recorded 2021-08-19; first infringement suit naming the '414 patent filed 2021-12-01 (6:21-cv-01245, W.D. Tex.) — approximately 3.5 months, inside the six-month window. The intervening 2021-09-20 security interest to LIT-US CHISUM 21-A, LLC indicates the chain was arranged to enable funded assertion with clean standing in the asserting entity.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding for Wildseed Ltd., Varia, or their successors surfaced. The portfolio left the old holding lineage by private assignment in 2021, not by bankruptcy sale (contrast Kodak, Nortel, etc.).

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company is using Wildseed Mobile LLC to sue its competitors; Google/YouTube are not competitors of the defunct Wildseed/Varia device-software business, and no SEC filing or EFF/Patent Progress coverage ties this chain to a privateering arrangement.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain terminates at Wildseed Mobile LLC (an asserting entity) with a security interest in favor of LIT-US CHISUM 21-A, LLC — not RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent was neutralized only through IPR (IPR2023-00248, FWD 2024-04-09, affirmed 2026-04-30) and expiration (2023-12-18), not through defensive aggregation.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence

Two strong signals drive the call: (1) the 2021-08-19 shell-entity transfer of the legacy portfolio from the defunct operating company's residual holder (Varia Holdings LLC) to Wildseed Mobile LLC, an LLC with no product activity whose only conduct after the transfer was grant of a litigation-finance lien and suit against Google; and (2) the pre-litigation timing — transfer recorded 2021-08-19, security interest to LIT-US CHISUM 21-A, LLC recorded 2021-09-20, and first infringement suit filed 2021-12-01 (6:21-cv-01245), all within ~3.5 months. The earlier 2005 lender lien (reel 016097/0489) and 2008–2010 reorg conveyances (reel 021316/xxxx, 023928/0756) are ordinary venture-debt and corporate-reorganization events and do not themselves indicate NPE activity; the NPE profile emerges only with the 2021 transfer-and-finance pair.

Verify the 2021 conveyances and all correspondents at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (or the legacy search at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — query patent number 7376414).

I have to be transparent up front about a data limitation I hit during this session before giving you the analysis.

1. USPTO database confirmation — patent 7376414 (literal number, no auto-correction)

Verified target patent: US 7,376,414 B2 — "Method and system for inserting advertisements into broadcast content" — confirmed against USPTO-derived records (Unified Patents patent portal entry for US-7376414-B2, and Google Patents):

• Application No.: 10/143,342; filed 2002-05-10; provisional priority 60/290,592 (2001-05-11)
• Inventor: G. Eric Engstrom; Examiner: Fan Tsang; Primary Examiner: Lisa Hashem
• Granted: 2008-05-20; Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2023-12-18)
• Current assignee per records: Wildseed Mobile LLC (original assignee Varia Mobil LLC)
• I did not return results for similar numbers (e.g., JP7376414B2, which is an unrelated Japanese electrical-connector patent and is not this patent).

2. Status of the "each citation" request — what I could and could not retrieve

The task asks me to analyze each patent citation appearing on the face of the '414 patent. Two things constrain a complete answer:

1. The References Cited section was not present in the Google Patents full-text snapshot provided to me (the fetched text jumps from the claims to Classifications), and my searches did not return the examiner's full citation list before hitting the session step limit.
2. Unified Patents' portal for US-7376414-B2 reports "Patent Art (25)" (25 patent references) and 0 non-patent literature on the face of the patent, but I could not enumerate all 25 documents in this session.

So I cannot honestly give you a reference-by-reference § 102 chart for all 25 face-of-patent citations. What I can do with high confidence is analyze the prior art that actually mattered on the merits — the references from IPR2023-00248 (which were the basis for the Final Written Decision, affirmed by the Federal Circuit on 2026-04-30 in No. 24-1846) — and flag where the identifier mapping in the earlier-generated sections is internally inconsistent.

3. The prior art that actually invalidated the claims (most relevant art on the record)

All challenged claims (1–7 and 9–14) were held unpatentable as obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103 over the combination of Frerichs, Kawasaki, and Kauffman — per the earlier sections, cited as Frerichs (US 6,684,249), Kawasaki (US 6,539,375), and Kauffman (US 2007/0083886), with expert testimony (Houh Declarations).

⚠️ Identifier-mapping conflict I must flag explicitly: the previously generated sections are internally inconsistent on which number belongs to which inventor:

• One passage lists "Frerichs (US 6,684,249)"; another passage says the "taken … from a message" limitation was added during prosecution to distinguish Owensby, US 6,684,249 — i.e., the same number is attributed to two different inventors (Frerichs and Owensby).
• Another passage lists "Frerichs (U.S. Patent No. 6,539,375)" while a different passage assigns US 6,539,375 to Kawasaki.

Because I could not re-run live searches to resolve this mapping before the step limit, I will not guess which inventor name pairs with which number. Below I reference each document by its patent number, which is the literal identifier I can stand behind.

(a) US 6,684,249 — primary reference (inventor attribution disputed: "Frerichs" vs. "Owensby" per conflicting source sections)

• Publication/filing dates: Granted patent (B1/B2-era); effective prior art predating the '414's May 11, 2001 priority date. I could not verify the exact issue date this session.
• Role on the record: The CAFC's 2026-04-30 opinion (24-1846) describes the pivotal dispute as the construction of the "taken … by the cellular device from a message" limitation of claim 1 — the limitation added during prosecution to distinguish this reference. The Board (and CAFC) construed "taken … from a message" to include information generated or derived from the words used in a message, not merely verbatim extraction, which is what allowed this reference to map onto claim element 1(a) (message-derived user information autonomously sent to a server).
• Potential § 102/claim coverage: As the primary reference in the combination, it was mapped to the user-information-from-message and server-selected-advertising framework of claims 1, 9, 12, and 14 (elements (a)–(b) of each independent claim) and their dependents (2–4, 10–11, 13). Note: the Board did not find anticipation by this reference alone; the holding was obviousness over the three-reference combination.

(b) US 6,539,375 (inventor attribution disputed: "Kawasaki" vs. "Frerichs")

• Publication/filing dates: Pre-2001-05-11 effective date required for § 102 status; exact dates not verified this session.
• Role on the record: The secondary reference supplying the pause/record/resume and scheduled-interval ad-insertion mechanics for element (c) of claims 1, 9, 12, and 14 (stopping content playback at a determined time interval, playing the ad, recording the interrupted content, and resuming from the interruption point) — the features that the primary reference alone did not fully teach.
• Potential § 102/claim coverage: Dependent claims 4 (pre-recording of the ad for later playback) and 11, and the content-recording/resume language of independent claims 1, 9, 12, 14.

(c) US 2007/0083886 A1 — Kauffman (publication date listed as 2007-04-19 per earlier source material)

• Important § 102 timing flag: A 2007 publication is after the '414's 2002-05-10 filing and 2001-05-11 priority date. For it to qualify as prior art at all (in the IPR it was used only in the § 103 combination), it must have an earlier effective filing date than its publication date; the earlier sections do not resolve this. I flag it rather than assert a § 102 date I cannot verify.
• Role on the record: Cited as supplying the targeted-advertisement-selection-by-server and/or ad-insertion-scheduling aspects completing the obviousness combination.
• Potential claim coverage: Supplemented the server-side determination/selection elements of claims 1(b), 9, 12, 14 and dependent 2–3, 10, 13 (preference/demographic/content/location-based selection).

Analytical bottom line on § 102 vs. § 103

The Final Written Decision (IPR2023-00248, Paper 32, 2024-04-09) and the CAFC affirmance held the claims unpatentable as obvious (§ 103) over the combination — not anticipated by any single reference. That means that on this record, no single one of these references was shown to disclose every element of any claim in a single prior-art document as required for § 102 anticipation. The most defensible statement is: Frerichs-type teachings map to the message-derived user profile + server ad selection (claim elements (a)–(b)); Kawasaki-type teachings map to the pause/record/resume ad insertion (element (c)); and the combination — with Kauffman filling the targeting/scheduling gaps — was held to render claims 1–7 and 9–14 obvious. Claim 8 (dependent, "receiving a broadcast of the at least one determined advertisement") was never challenged and was not part of any § 102/§ 103 ground.

4. What I recommend to close the gap on the remaining citations

• Pull the front-page "References Cited" from USPTO Patent Center (PatFT image of US 7,376,414, or the published application US 2002/0169540 A1, whose front page carries the same art) — the full 25-document list, including any non-US and non-patent art, appears there. The Google Patents text snapshot I was given omits that section, and I could not re-fetch it within the session's search budget.
• If you need a complete claim-by-claim § 102 anticipation chart for all 25 face-of-patent citations, that requires the full citation list — I can produce it in a follow-up session once the front-page reference list is available, rather than risk fabricating citations I could not verify.

Note on sourcing and an internal inconsistency to flag

The task directs me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page," but no dedicated Prior Art section was included in the material provided. I am therefore building the § 103 analysis on the closest available equivalent — the prior-art record from the IPR and its appellate history (IPR2023-00248; CAFC No. 24-1846), which is the authoritative, adjudicated obviousness record for this patent — supplemented by bibliographic verification of the references from live searches.

I must also flag two internal inconsistencies in the previously generated sections, per the operating rules:

1. The earlier "PTAB challenges" section states the "taken … from a message" limitation was "added during prosecution to distinguish Owensby, US 6,684,249." That is wrong: US 6,684,249 is Frerichs (verified against the USPTO patent PDF: "Frerichs et al., US 6,684,249 B1, METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR ADDING ADVERTISEMENTS OVER STREAMING AUDIO BASED UPON A USER PROFILE OVER A WORLD WIDE AREA NETWORK OF COMPUTERS"). The CAFC opinion confirms Owensby was the examiner's § 103 rejection reference during prosecution of the original claim 1, but I could not verify Owensby's patent number in this session; treat the "Owensby = 6,684,249" attribution as an error.
2. The CourtListener OCR of the CAFC opinion appears to garble the Frerichs/Kawasaki patent numbers (it renders footnote 2 as "Frerichs … U.S. Patent No. 6,539,375"). Independent verification settles the correct mapping, which the strategic summary had right: Frerichs = US 6,684,249 B1; Kawasaki = US 6,539,375 B2 ("Method and System for Generating and Using a Computer User's Personal Interest Profile," Charles Kawasaki, filed Aug. 4, 1999, issued Mar. 25, 2003); Kauffman = US 2007/0083886 A1 ("Seamless Arbitrary Data Insertion for Streaming Media").

Finally, a date note: the task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," yet the retrieved CAFC opinion in No. 24-1846 is dated April 30, 2026. Per the operating rules, the later, retrieved record controls; the previously generated sections already treat the April 30, 2026 affirmance as current ground truth, and I do the same.

Obviousness Analysis of US 7,376,414 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

1. The legal framework

Obviousness under § 103 is assessed through the Graham factors: (1) the scope and content of the prior art; (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) the level of ordinary skill in the art; and (4) objective indicia of non-obviousness. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a combination of known elements is obvious when a skilled artisan would have had reason to combine them with a reasonable expectation of success, including where the combination is no more than a "simple substitution" or "obvious-to-try" design choice, and where known prior-art elements "perform the same function" in the combination that they perform individually.

Here the question is not hypothetical: this exact obviousness analysis was litigated and decided. In IPR2023-00248 (Final Written Decision, April 9, 2024), the PTAB held all challenged claims (1–7 and 9–14) unpatentable as obvious over the combination of Frerichs (US 6,684,249) + Kawasaki (US 6,539,375) + Kauffman (US 2007/0083886), and the Federal Circuit affirmed on April 30, 2026 (No. 24-1846). The analysis below reconstructs and explains that combination, and also identifies secondary combinations.

2. The person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

Based on the IPR record (expert declarations of Dr. Henry H. Houh for Google and Dr. Sam Malek for Wildseed), the POSITA is someone with a working knowledge of wireless/mobile communications (cellular handsets and networks), streaming-media delivery, and targeted/online advertising systems — typically a few years' experience or equivalent education, able to integrate a client-server ad-selection system with a mobile media playback device. The CAFC noted this POSITA "would understand that cell phones of that era were capable of effectively deducing or deriving information that is not expressly stated, for instance through database retrieval (e.g., an entry associating 'Pebble Beach' with golf courses)" (24-1846, slip op. at 13–14). This matters directly: the claims' pivotal limitation — information "taken by the cellular device from a message" — was construed to include information generated or derived from the words of a message, not merely verbatim extraction, and a 2001-era POSITA would understand phones could do that derivation with lookup tables and rules.

3. The claims in issue

Claim 1 (representative of independent claims 1, 9, 12, and 14) requires, in substance:

• (a) the cellular device autonomously provides to a server user-related information that the device "took" from a message sent to it by another user of another cellular device, the message identifying characteristics of the user;
• (b) the device receives from the server an ad determined by the server based at least in part on the provided information;
• (c) at a determined time interval, the device stops playing content, plays the determined ad, and while the ad plays, records the interrupted content, then resumes the content from the exact stopping point using the recorded content.

Dependent claims add: additional information types — preference, demographic, content played, geographic location (claim 2); game played / radio station / TV station (claim 3); advance receipt and recording of the ad for later playback (claims 4, 11); content received as a stream (claim 5) or broadcast (claim 6); and the ad received as a stream (claim 7) or broadcast (claim 8). Claim 8 was not challenged in the IPR but depends from canceled claim 1.

4. The primary combination: Frerichs + Kawasaki + Kauffman

4.1 What each reference teaches

Frerichs — US 6,684,249 B1 ("Method and system for adding advertisements over streaming audio based upon a user profile over a world wide area network of computers"; Frerichs, McDowall & Bolas; Sonicbox; filed May 26, 2000; issued Jan. 27, 2004). This is the backbone reference. It discloses a method for inserting advertisements into streaming audio transmitted over a network: audio data is transmitted from a server to a client, the audio data includes flags at ad-insertion points, the client monitors the stream and identifies the flags, and an advertisement selected based on a user profile is inserted at the flagged location. Critically for this patent, Frerichs expressly states the invention "can be applied to other computing devices, such as cellular phones, internet appliances, personal digital assistants, laptop computers, set top boxes, television, and the like." So Frerichs alone supplies: streaming content to a client, user-profile-based server-side ad determination, scheduled/flagged ad-insertion intervals, and the cellular-device context.

Kawasaki — US 6,539,375 B2 ("Method and system for generating and using a computer user's personal interest profile"; Charles Kawasaki; filed Aug. 4, 1999; issued Mar. 25, 2003). This reference supplies the user-information generation and ad-targeting engine. It discloses automatically and "transparently" profiling a user by scanning content information the user encounters to generate unknown data, processing that data with category-based recognizers built from "algorithms and weighted rules", and producing a personal interest profile (e.g., detecting interests in "golf, luxury cars, medical information, sports equipment, music") that is then used to direct targeted offers/ads, yielding a "higher response rate per CPM." Kawasaki expressly contemplates the profiling occurring at the client or remotely at a server, and using the profile to dispense offers. Under the Board's (affirmed) construction, Kawasaki's derivation of interest data from user-facing content — including messages — squarely reads on "information taken by the cellular device from a message … identifying characteristics of the user," because "taken" includes information generated or derived from the message's words.

Kauffman — US 2007/0083886 A1 ("Seamless Arbitrary Data Insertion for Streaming Media"). This reference supplies the seamless insertion mechanics — the pause/record/resume behavior of element (c). Kauffman discloses inserting arbitrary data (such as advertisements) into a streaming-media presentation without disrupting playback, using buffering/caching of the underlying stream so that the inserted data can be played at the insertion point and the original content continues seamlessly afterward. That is precisely the "stop content → play ad while recording the interrupted content → resume from the exact stopping point using the recorded content" limitation, implemented at the playback device.

4.2 Element-by-element mapping (claim 1)

4.3 Why a POSITA would have been motivated to combine

The Board's and CAFC's reasoning, supported by Dr. Houh's testimony, supplies the motivation analysis:

1. Same field, complementary disclosures. All three references operate in the same field — inserting targeted advertising into streaming media. Frerichs provides the streaming-audio ad-insertion framework and names the cellular phone as an intended client, but it is largely agnostic about how the user profile is generated. Kawasaki is specifically about generating and using a personal interest profile for ad targeting. A POSITA seeking to make Frerichs's "user profile" real, or to improve ad relevance (a goal both references state — higher response rates per CPM), would look directly to Kawasaki's profiling engine. This is the classic "known technique in one field prompting application in another" under KSR.

2. Filling a known gap with a known solution. Frerichs inserts ads at flagged points but does not address preserving the underlying content around the insertion. Interrupting a live stream to play an ad creates the well-known problem of lost content. Kauffman's entire purpose is seamless insertion — buffer/cache the stream and resume cleanly. Applying Kauffman's buffering-and-resume technique to Frerichs's flagged-insertion stream, on the device Frerichs itself names (the cell phone), is a simple substitution of a known element performing its known function — the paradigm KSR combination.

3. No technical incompatibility; reasonable expectation of success. The most contested point was Kawasaki's use of "recognizers." Wildseed argued Kawasaki required neural networks that 2001 cell phones could not run. The Board and CAFC rejected this: Kawasaki's recognizers are built from "algorithms and weighted rules," not necessarily neural networks, and Dr. Houh testified a skilled artisan "would be motivated to combine Frerichs's 2001-era cellphone with Kawasaki's ability to apply 'algorithms and rules,' without needing modern artificial intelligence or neural networks." The CAFC added that 2001-era phones could derive information from messages through simple database retrieval (e.g., "Pebble Beach" → golf). The record thus established both a motivation and a reasonable expectation of success.

4. Obvious-to-try / predictable result. Combining (i) a profile-based ad selector, (ii) a streaming client on a cellular device, and (iii) buffered seamless insertion yields a predictable result: targeted ads inserted into a mobile stream without content loss. Each element performs the function it was designed to perform, and the combination was the straightforward product of known design choices.

5. The prosecution history confirms the combination. The examiner rejected original claim 1 as obvious over Owensby; the applicant's only meaningful amendment was to add the "taken … from a message" limitation. The Board and CAFC found that limitation does not differentiate the claims because, under the proper construction (including derived/generated information), the Frerichs/Kawasaki/Kauffman combination teaches it. The fact that the sole added limitation was the one the combination most directly meets is strong evidence the claims as a whole were obvious.

4.4 Dependent claims

• Claim 2 (provided information "additionally includes" preference, demographic, content played, or geographic location): Kawasaki discloses preferences and demographic-style profiling; Frerichs discloses the content being played (the streamed audio); and location-based mobile advertising was well-known in the art. Under the Board's construction of "additionally include[d]" — the added information need not itself drive ad selection — each alternative is disclosed in the combination.
• Claim 3 (game played, radio station, TV station): These are forms of user behavior/content consumed on the device — exactly the "behavior" data Frerichs (radio-style streaming) and Kawasaki (scanning content the user consumes) teach, and the patent's own Figure 6 "behavior module" describes as conventional.
• Claims 4 and 11 (ad received and recorded in advance for later playback at the interval): Kauffman's caching/buffering of inserted data, combined with Frerichs's scheduled flagged intervals, directly teaches pre-delivering and caching the ad for playback at the scheduled break.
• Claims 5–6 (content as a stream / as a broadcast): Frerichs teaches streamed audio; radio/TV broadcast reception on a tuner-equipped mobile device was conceded, conventional prior art (the '414 specification itself describes tuners as standard components).
• Claims 7–8 (ad received as a stream / broadcast): Frerichs streams the ad to the client; broadcasting ads over radio/TV is the paradigm prior-art model the patent itself describes as generic.

5. Alternative combinations that would also render the claims obvious

Although the Frerichs/Kawasaki/Kauffman combination is the adjudicated ground, a POSITA analyzing this specification would find several other viable § 103 combinations:

• Owensby + Frerichs (or Owensby + Kawasaki): The examiner already rejected the original, broad claim 1 over Owensby as obvious. Owensby's teaching (providing user-related information to a server for targeted services), when combined with Frerichs's profile-based streaming-audio ad insertion, would cover claim 1's structure apart from the "taken from a message" limitation — and that limitation is taught by Kawasaki's derivation from messages. (Note: I could not verify Owensby's patent number in this session; the number US 6,684,249 attributed to Owensby in an earlier section is incorrect — that number is Frerichs.)
• Frerichs + Kauffman alone: For claims not requiring the specific message-derived information (e.g., claims as to streamed content, scheduled intervals, and pause-record-resume), Frerichs plus Kauffman supplies every structural element; the user-information sourcing would be supplied by the conventional profile techniques Frerichs itself assumes.
• Kawasaki + any streaming-media ad inserter: Given Kawasaki's profile-based targeting and Frerichs's (or any analogous) flagged streaming-insertion system, the combination is the same straightforward aggregation.

6. Secondary considerations and why they did not overcome the showing

Wildseed advanced no objective indicia (commercial success, long-felt need, copying, unexpected results) that the Board credited. Its arguments were technical/claim-construction based — verbatim-only "taken," neural-network infeasibility, and Kauffman's video focus — and each failed. The CAFC held that Kauffman's video-oriented disclosure is still analogous art (seamless insertion into streaming media is the same problem), that the "taken" construction does not import Wildseed's narrowing, and that the combination was within the POSITA's reach in 2001. With no secondary considerations in the record, the Graham balance tipped decisively to obviousness.

7. Bottom line

The Frerichs/Kawasaki/Kauffman combination renders claims 1–7 and 9–14 of US 7,376,414 obvious under § 103: Frerichs supplies the profile-targeted, flag-scheduled ad insertion into streamed audio on a cellular device; Kawasaki supplies the automatic generation and server-side use of user-interest information (including information derived from received messages); and Kauffman supplies the seamless buffered insertion that stops, records, and resumes the underlying content. Each reference performs its known function in a combination a POSITA would have been motivated to make with a reasonable expectation of success — exactly the conclusion the PTAB reached in IPR2023-00248 (Final Written Decision, April 9, 2024) and the Federal Circuit affirmed on April 30, 2026 (No. 24-1846): "we affirm the Board's conclusion that claims 1-7 and 9-14 of the '414 patent are unpatentable as obvious." Claim 8, the only claim not challenged, depends from canceled claim 1 and the patent expired December 18, 2023, leaving no enforceable claim of practical substance.