US 7401731

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent and any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check for litigation/docket activity involving this patent.

Let me look for the actual claim text of US 7,401,731 itself.

US Patent 7,401,731 — Verified Record

Searches run: Google Patents (full text, authoritative source supplied in my brief), RPX Insight patent page (claim text), uspto.report, Justia, plus targeted queries for 2026 litigation/CAFC dockets. Note on method: I can only reach public web sources — I cannot query PACER, the CAFC docket system, or USPTO Patent Center directly, so my litigation findings are limited to what is publicly indexed (see "CAFC/litigation check" below).

Bibliographic data

(Minor internal conflict to flag: your prompt header says today is 2026-10-01 while the task line says 2026-04-26. Under either date the patent is near, but not past, the listed adjusted-expiration date of 2026-10-20.)

Abstract (verbatim)

"According to one embodiment, the present invention relates to a method and a system for implementing a card product or access mechanism with multiple relationships with an issuing entity (e.g., bank, etc.) where each relationship may be defined by one or more sets of rules that are customized for a particular customer. A computer implemented method and system for implementing a mechanism with multiple customized relationships may involve identifying one or more customized rules for an access mechanism associated with a customer; establishing a plurality of accounts for the customer wherein the plurality of accounts comprise different accounts with different account characteristics; and invoking one of the plurality of accounts for a transaction through the access mechanism, based at least in part on the one or more customized rules; wherein the plurality of accounts share at least one funding account."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Computer-implemented method (the core claim). The claim requires, in substance:

1. Identifying customized rules for an "access mechanism" (e.g., a card, card number, RFID token, phone) tied to a customer;
2. Establishing multiple accounts for that customer that are different accounts with different account characteristics;
3. Invoking one of those accounts for a transaction via the access mechanism, based at least in part on the customized rules;
4. Providing a personalized incentive to the customer based at least in part on customer behavior and adjusting at least one account based on customer behavior;
5. The accounts share at least one funding account;
6. The customized rules must include all three of: (1) priority rules defining which account applies to the transaction, (2) payment rules defining how payments are made for at least one account, and (3) funding rules defining funding sources for the funding account;
7. At least two of the accounts share one or more benefits with each other.

The load-bearing limitations versus the specification narrative are the "personalized incentive + behavior-based adjustment" step and the conjunctive "priority + payment + funding rules" requirement. Dependent claims 2–11 (per the RPX claim listing) cover behavior-monitoring/account adjustment, single-card-product identifier, single line of credit as the funding account, transaction factors, and the account-type combination. (I only directly retrieved the full text of claim 1; the exact wording of the dependent claims is inferred from the claim listing and should be confirmed against the patent's claim sheet.)

Claim 12 — Computer-implemented system (apparatus counterpart). Same functional core, recast as three modules: a rules module for identifying the customized rules; an accounts module for establishing the multiple different-characteristic accounts and invoking one for the transaction; and a monitor module for providing the personalized incentive and adjusting an account based on customer behavior. Dependent claims 13–22 mirror the method dependents.

Claim 23 — Computer-implemented method (second, narrower method claim). Adds a single card product identified by an identifier as the access mechanism; monitoring customer behavior where behavior is defined as spending habits, payment habits, assets, liabilities and/or investments, and adjusting an account in view of that monitored behavior; priority rules defined by the customer through an online interface; and priority rules that define conditions for invoking a particular account based on transaction factors. Claim 24 is dependent.

Trailing note on family scope: the continuations escalate the claim counts (e.g., US 8,245,909 has 40 claims; US 8,925,802 has 20), and in the '909 prosecution the original claims 1–30 were cancelled and replaced by renumbered claims 31+ that expressly recite the customer-facing online-interface limitation and the stored-value/debit/credit/loyalty/co-brand account combination.

CAFC 2026 / litigation check

I found no public record of any Federal Circuit 2026 appeal or 2026 district-court docket in which US 7,401,731 is the asserted patent. Specifically:

• No 2026 CAFC opinion, order, or docket entry mentioning 7,401,731 appeared in any indexed search result.
• The JPMorgan Chase patent litigation that did surface for 2026 involves different patents entirely — e.g., Induction Devices LLC v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., No. 2:26-cv-00194 (E.D. Tex., filed 2026-03-10, Judge Gilstrap; consolidated into lead case 2:26-cv-00191), where the exhibit patents are not identified in the docket text I retrieved.
• Other Chase-directed patent suits surfaced (Maxim's '013/'095 patents; BrowserKey v. JPMorgan Chase, 2:25-cv-00445, voluntarily dismissed 2025-05-19; Interface IP's '201 patent), none of which reference '731.

Uncertainty statement: I cannot rule out a pending matter that is not yet indexed by public aggregators, and I did not obtain PACER or CAFC docket confirmation. My litigation conclusion should therefore be treated as "no publicly indexed activity found," not as a verified negative. I also did not retrieve any reexamination, IPR, or PGR record for 7,401,731; if you need that confirmed, a PTAB/Patent Center docket check would be required.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7401731.

Let me search more specifically on litigation databases.

Let me check litigation databases and PTAB more specifically for this patent number.

Litigation Search Results — US Patent No. 7,401,731

Bottom line: I found no known litigation involving US Patent No. 7,401,731.

Patent identification (confirmed from the authoritative text)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7401731/en ; https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=[7401731B1](/patent/7401731B1)

Litigation on the '731 patent specifically

No district court complaints, ITC actions, PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR), or Federal Circuit appeals were located in which US 7,401,731 was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue. Consistent results across Google Patents/Espacenet bibliographic records (which carry no litigation flag for this patent), Justia, and general litigation-database searches.

No case entry can be provided because there is no case to report. I am not going to fabricate plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case number fields for this patent.

Important warning on confusable numbers — these are NOT this patent

My searches repeatedly surfaced unrelated patents that happen to end in "731." Per your instruction to interpret identifiers literally, none of these involve US 7,401,731:

Related (but distinct) matters worth noting for context

• JPMorgan Chase patent posture: JPMC joined Unified Patents' Electronic Payments Zone in 2015 to deter NPE assertions against payments technology. Separately, JPMorgan is a party in other patent suits — e.g., Identitii Limited v. JPMorgan Chase & Co., No. 1:23-cv-01095-GBW (D. Del.), which involves a different JPMC-related patent (the '413 patent), not the '731 patent. See PTAB petition papers referencing that case.
• Patent family: Continuations/related grants in this family — US 8,245,909; US 8,469,265; US 8,752,759; US 8,925,802 — likewise showed no litigation in the records reviewed.

Limitations / caveats

• I could not run a direct PACER or Docket Alarm docket query by patent number within this session; my conclusion rests on web-indexed litigation sources (Google Patents, Espacenet, Justia, Unified Patents-related materials, RPX/insight snippets, courtlistener, docketalarm).
• Absence of indexed results is not proof that no case exists. Large bank-held patents are frequently the subject of declaratory-judgment or IPR challenges that may not be well indexed by patent number. A definitive negative requires a paid docket search (e.g., Docket Alarm, Lex Machina, PACER) keyed to "7,401,731."
• This is not legal advice or a legal conclusion; it is a report of what publicly indexed sources do and do not show as of the search date.

I'll verify the ODP's "no proceedings" result against public sources before finalizing.

Let me dig deeper for any CBM/IPR tied to this specific patent number.

Let me check the patent family and PTAB dockets directly, plus whether any continuation was challenged.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,401,731: zero. Per the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal, most recent ingest), there are no IPR, PGR, or CBM entries for this patent — no active trials, no claims invalidated, no claims sustained, no settlements, no institution denials, and no Federal Circuit appeals — so the bottom-line defensive posture is not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened," but rather "the patent has never been tested at the PTAB at all," which cuts both ways: there is no estoppel wall against you (§ 315(e)(2) estoppel requires a petitioner), and there is also no claim-level roadmap showing which claims are weak.

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Verification trail (why there are no per-proceeding sections below)

There is no entry to populate the ### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} template with. Per the operating rules — do not invent proceeding numbers — I am reporting the null result rather than constructing placeholder cases. What I checked:

Confidence and caveats — read these before relying on the null result:

• The empty ODP record is canonical per the instructions; my web searches are corroborating, not primary. I could not query PTAB E2E (ptacts.uspto.gov) or Docket Alarm programmatically in this session, so I cannot exclude a very recently filed, not-yet-indexed petition.
• I also found no evidence of a reexamination (ex parte or inter partes) of 7,401,731. Reexaminations are not AIA trials and would not appear in the ODP AIA-trial field anyway; I flag this as a separate gap in my coverage, not as a confirmed negative.
• "No results found" from a search engine is weaker evidence than an empty structured ODP field. Treat the count as zero known proceedings, not as a certified zero.

Why the null result is not surprising for this patent (structural, not a comment on its strength):

• Priority date 2005-05-27; filed 2005-08-12. It is a pre-AIA patent, so PGR is categorically unavailable (PGR reaches only patents with effective filing dates on or after 2016-03-16... i.e., post-AIA filings).
• CBM is closed. The AIA § 18 transitional CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16. A financial-services rules-engine patent of this vintage was the archetypal CBM candidate, but that door is now shut regardless of how the claims would fare.
• IPR remains available in theory (any patent, any issue date), but the practical window has effectively closed: the ODP record lists an adjusted expiration of 2026-10-20. Against a patent expiring within weeks of today (2026-10-01), a petition filed now would not reach institution until roughly H1 2027 — after expiration — leaving an FWD of little commercial value. Note the separate point that an expired patent is still assertable for back damages within the § 286 six-year lookback, so expiration does not extinguish a pending suit.
• Pre-AIA claims of this type are attacked in district court under § 101 (Alice), a ground the PTAB cannot hear in an IPR — which is a structural reason a challenger would never have gone to the Board on this patent in the first place.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: every claim is UNTESTED. Because no AIA trial was ever instituted, there is no FWD, no certificate canceling claims, and no claim-level holding of patentability. The claims recited in the specification and summary — the computer-implemented method of identifying customized rules for an access mechanism, establishing a plurality of accounts with different account characteristics, invoking one account based on those rules, with the accounts sharing at least one funding account, plus the dependent limitations (priority/payment/funding rules; transaction type, merchant identity, merchant type, amount, time period; stored value/debit/credit/loyalty/co-brand combinations; multiple affiliated customers; shared benefits) — all stand exactly as issued on 2008-07-22. Nothing has been canceled; nothing has been confirmed. Stated plainly: "claims 1-5 have been canceled" is false for this patent, and any defendant who assumes otherwise is misreading the docket.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate. With no petitioner, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel, no § 325(e)(2) estoppel, and no IPR-serial-estoppel problem attaches to anyone. A defendant today may raise any invalidity theory in district court — including the grounds an IPR could never reach: § 101 (the natural attack on these multi-account rules-engine claims), § 112 indefiniteness and written description, and non-printed-publication prior art (on-sale, public use, prior public disclosures of multi-account card programs). Because the patent is pre-AIA and IPR is limited to patents and printed publications under §§ 102/103, the district-court invalidity toolkit is materially broader here than it would be for a patent that had already absorbed an IPR.

Pattern signals: none. There is no repeat petitioner, no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain, and no patent-owner PTAB-appeal practice to read as a signal of aggressiveness or confidence — because there is no PTAB thread at all. The only family-level fact worth noting is that four continuations (US 8,245,909; 8,469,265; 8,752,759; 8,925,802) share this specification. They were not challenged either, but they matter to your clearance analysis: they expire on roughly the same 2026 horizon and carry largely the same disclosure, so a § 101 or prior-art argument you develop against 7,401,731 should be evaluated across the family before settlement.

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Recommended next steps

1. Do not build an IPR strategy around this patent. There is no FWD to cite and no petitioner estoppel to exploit, but there is also nothing for an IPR to buy. With the ODP-listed adjusted expiration at 2026-10-20, an IPR filed today produces an institution decision after the patent's term ends. Confirm the expiration and any PTA/terminal-disclaimer arithmetic directly against the file wrapper in USPTO PatentCenter before finalizing.
2. If you are a defendant being asserted today, litigate invalidity in district court, not at the PTAB. Priorities: (a) § 101 / Alice — these claims are directed to coordinating multiple financial accounts under customer-defined rules, and the specification's own examples (private label, co-brand VISA, stored value, loyalty) are conventional payment-card machinery; (b) § 112; (c) prior art of the on-sale/public-use variety — pre-2005 multi-account card programs, which IPR could not have considered. None of these is barred by estoppel, and no IPR ground has been "reasonably could have raised" away.
3. Tax the damages case on the expiration date. For any assertion filed now, the recoverable window runs backward only to the § 286 six-year lookback, and forward only to 2026-10-20. Run the numbers on pre-suit notice, marking (§ 287), and the practical effect of a term that ends within weeks — this is often the cheapest leverage in the case.
4. Verify the null result yourself before it goes in a brief. Run PTAB E2E on 7,401,731 and separately on the four continuations, and check the file wrappers for any ex parte or inter partes reexamination, which the AIA-trial field would not capture. If a recently-filed, not-yet-indexed petition surfaces, the analysis above does not change materially — it would still be un-instituted, and estoppel would not yet attach.
5. Set a monitor. Given the family's size and the volume of patent assertion aimed at large banks (Chase is a frequent defendant), a fresh IPR or an ex parte reexam request on this family is cheap to watch for and would immediately alter the estoppel and claim-status picture above. Until something appears on the docket, the correct characterization remains: no PTAB activity on file.

I'll build on the prior litigation findings and now reconstruct the assignment chain. Let me search for the recorded assignment records and any post-issuance transfers.

Let me check the Google Patents legal events and Unified Patents portal for this patent, plus any continuation-family transfers.

Let me search for the specific recorded assignment reel/frame and any later transfer, plus check the family's continuations for ownership changes.

I hit the session's search-call limit before I could pull an individual reel/frame image from Assignment Center. Everything below is grounded in the authoritative patent text plus the indexed records I did retrieve, and I flag explicitly where a data point is unavailable rather than inventing it.

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Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 7,401,731

Verification entry point: USPTO Patent Assignment Search and the legacy index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — search by patent number 7401731. Also cross-checked against the Google Patents legal-events block at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7401731/en.

Data-integrity caveat up front: The only assignment event visible in the indexed record is the original inventor-to-assignee transfer (Google Patents legal events, 2005-08-12). I could not retrieve the specific reel/frame number or the named correspondent of record for that entry from the Assignment Center within this session (search-call limit reached before the reel/frame image could be opened). I am therefore not supplying a reel/frame number — inventing one would be fabrication. Any field below marked not retrieved must be confirmed manually in Assignment Center.

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Inventors

• Employer determination: All three are listed as assignors to JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA on the recorded original assignment (Google Patents legal events, entry dated 2005-08-12). That co-execution of an assignment-in-interest to the bank is the concrete evidence that all three were JPMorgan Chase-affiliated at filing — it is not inferred from the assignee name alone.
• Unusual patterns: None detected. There is no evidence of all (or any) inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing. The same three inventors remain named on every continuation in the family — US 8,245,909 (filed 2008-07-21), US 8,469,265, US 8,752,759, and US 8,925,802 — which is the opposite of a pre-fire-sale decoupling. Note as a mild caveat: inventor listing on later continuations does not prove continued employment; no separate employment-termination data was located.

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Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. (recorded in the pre-grant assignment as "JPMORGAN CHASE BANK, NA"; the family members US 8,245,909 / US 8,925,802 print the assignee as "JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., New York, NY"). The "N.A." form reflects the national banking association designation.
• Primary line of business: Global banking and financial services — consumer and commercial credit, card issuance, merchant acquiring, payments. The patent sits squarely in its core card-issuer business (co-brand, private-label, loyalty, and stored-value card programs).
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — this is an operating-company patent, not a paper asset. The specification is written from the issuer's operational vantage point (Chase-coordinated co-brand/private-label/stored-value programs; "Core card processing 418" servicing platform; POS-driven instant credit). The families described (a single card keying multiple customized accounts sharing a funding account) map directly onto JPMorgan Chase's card products. This is corroborated by the assignee's trademark/card-services filings catalogued by third-party IP trackers (e.g., OnScope profile: "issuing of credit cards," "cash rebates for credit card use as part of a customer loyalty program"). https://onscope.com/ipowner/en/owner/profile/2001-jpmorgan-chase-bank-national-association.html
• Current status: Operating. One of the largest U.S. bank holding companies (parent: JPMorgan Chase & Co.). No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no restructuring event affecting this patent.

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Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments found: ONE — the original inventor-to-assignee transfer. There are no post-issuance assignments of US 7,401,731 in the indexed record.

1. 2005-08-12 (executed) / recorded 2005-08-12 — Reel NNNNNN / NNNN — not retrieved; confirm in Assignment Center
   • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
   • Assignor: Tracy M. Pletz; Joseph Rochford; Howard C. Seidel
   • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA (JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.)
   • Correspondent: not retrieved — the indexed Google Patents legal-events entry does not surface a named correspondent, and I did not reach the reel/frame image. No recurrence flag can be made.
   • Context: Original filing-date assignment — inventors to employer/operating company. No reorg, securitization, or third-party transfer.

No later-recorded events. There is no assignment to any IP holding LLC, no security-interest recording in which this patent is the collateral, no merger/change-of-name entry, and no transfer to an asserter, on US 7,401,731. The same absence holds for the family members US 8,245,909, US 8,469,265, US 8,752,759, and US 8,925,802, all of which continue to name JPMorgan Chase as assignee/applicant.

Why this matters: For this patent, "no post-issuance assignment" is the finding — it means the original operating-company assignee still owns the patent.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7401731
    2005 : Provisional filed
         : Application filed
         : Inventors assign to JPMorgan Chase
    2008 : Patent granted
         : Continuation family filed
    2012 : Related continuation filed
    2013 : Related continuation filed
    2014 : Related continuation filed

Every event above terminates in the same owner. No event in this chain leaves JPMorgan Chase.

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — only the original assignment is of record; no ownership change beyond the inventors-to-bank transfer.

Justification (2–3 sentences): The entire recorded chain consists of a single event — the 2005-08-12 assignment of Pletz, Rochford, and Seidel's rights to JPMorgan Chase Bank, NA — with no subsequent reel/frame entry, no shell-LLC hop, no security-interest recording encumbering this patent, and no transfer to any entity on the public NPE lists. Because the only assignment is the original inventor-to-employer transfer and the current assignee remains an operating bank, the NPE signals are all affirmatively not present; the correct call under the rubric is Insufficient data, not an NPE or assertion finding. This is not a troll-chain patent; it is a captive operating-company portfolio asset. Note that the reel/frame and correspondent for the single recorded assignment were not retrievable in this session and should be confirmed directly.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search patent number 7401731; scroll to the single recorded "Assignment of Assignors' Interest" entry and read off reel/frame + correspondent.

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Cross-reference to the prior litigation section (no contradiction)

The earlier litigation section found no litigation, ITC action, IPR/PGR, or Federal Circuit appeal involving US 7,401,731. This assignment analysis is consistent with that: a patent that stays with its original operating-company owner and is never asserted against a competitor or capitalized into an asserter vehicle simply does not generate the assignment-chain footprints (cascading LLC transfers, pre-litigation assignments, repeat NPE correspondents) tracked here. No contradiction to flag.

Limitations

• Reel/frame and correspondent for the single recorded assignment: not retrieved this session; confirm manually.
• I could not run a paid docket/Lex Machina query; absence of NPE transfers rests on publicly indexed assignment and litigation sources.
• This is a factual report of recorded/issued data — not legal advice or a legal conclusion.

I'll search for the patent's cited references and prior art. Let me run several targeted queries.

Let me pull the front-page "References Cited" list from the patent PDF itself.

Prior Art Analysis — US 7,401,731 B1

"Method and system for implementing a card product with multiple customized relationships"

Building on the bibliographic and claims scaffolding already produced (assignee JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.; App. 11/202,270 filed 2005‑08‑12; provisional 60/684,985 priority 2005‑05‑27; granted 2008‑07‑22; examiner Ali Sharifzada). This section adds the prior‑art layer only and does not repeat that material.

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1. Search executed, and a material limitation on my result

Queries run this session (Google Patents / Espacenet / patentimages-hosted USPTO PDFs / Justia / Unified Patents / patents-review.com):

• US7401731B1 cited references prior art patent citations
• US 7401731 "References Cited" U.S. Patent Documents Google Patents
• patents.google.com/patent/US7401731/en similar documents
• US7401731 card product multiple customized relationships prior art
• patentimages…US7401731.pdf "References Cited" (returned a step-cap error)
• "US 7,401,731" "References Cited" "U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS" front page (step-cap error)
• US7401731 patent citations 73 cited patents list (step-cap error)
• "7401731" patent "cited by" examiner cited references (step-cap error)

Disclosure of a gap — read this before using the tables below. I was not able to pull the printed front-page "References Cited" block of US 7,401,731 itself (the patentimages PDF of the '731). Three of my four retrieval attempts for that specific block were cut off by the tool's step limit. What I did retrieve are the "References Cited" blocks of the same-specification continuation family — US 8,245,909 B2 (App. 12/176,658) and US 8,925,802 B1 (App. 14/152,196) — plus the aggregated "Patent Art (609)" citation list that Unified Patents publishes for US‑8245909‑B2.

That distinction matters and I am flagging it explicitly: US 8,245,909 is a straight § 120 continuation of App. 11/202,270 (the '731 application), shares the identical specification, and was examined by the same primary examiner (Ali Sharifzada). The art of record on the '731 is therefore expected to be substantially a subset or variant of the '909 list — but I have not verified the exact '731 front-page list, and I will not represent the references below as "the references cited on the '731 face" when I cannot see that face.

Also flagged: the previously generated "Patent summary" section notes that the exact wording of the '731 dependent claims was inferred from a claim listing, and that only claim 1 was directly retrieved. My § 102 mapping below inherits that same limitation.

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2. Candidates on the front face of the '731 — the art I did capture

These are verbatim items from the continuation-family front pages (OCR as retrieved; month digits in the OCR are visibly corrupted — e.g. "21/1999", "31/1999", "42/2000", "52/2000" are misreads, since no month exceeds 12. I reproduce the OCR but do not treat it as authoritative for dates):

Citation source: US 8,245,909 B2 front page (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3a/86/61/c927c9c8b8c752/US8245909.pdf) and US 8,925,802 B1 front page (…/80/a8/2c/34fe27dc9d06e8/US8925802.pdf). These are pre‑2005 references and are therefore available as § 102(a)/(b) art against the '731's 2005‑05‑27 priority date.

The remainder of both continuations' front-page U.S. lists runs to the many hundreds of references (5,7xx,xxx and 6,0xx,xxx series — Audebert, Atkins, Rosen, Walker, Taskett, Freeman, Reeder, Chapin, Norris, etc.), most of which are peripheral. The selective analysis below pulls only the references that actually touch the claim limitations.

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3. Most relevant prior art — ranked and mapped

The load‑bearing limitations of the '731's independent claims (per the claim scaffolding already generated) are:
(i) one access mechanism linking a plurality of different‑characteristic accounts; (ii) invoking one account per transaction per customized rules; (iii) rules comprising priority + payment + funding rules; (iv) the accounts share at least one funding account; (v) a personalized incentive based on customer behavior with behavior‑based adjustment of an account; (vi) at least two accounts share benefits.

Tier 1 — closest art (goes to the structural core)

A. US 5,911,135 A — "System for Managing Financial Accounts by a Priority Allocation of Funds Among Accounts"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 5,911,135; Atkins; assignee Home Account Network, Inc.; priority 1987‑04‑14; issued 1999.
• Description: Data‑processing system that manages a plurality of a customer's financial accounts and allocates funds among them by a stored priority scheme.
• § 102 relevance: This is the single most on‑point structural reference for limitation (iii)/(iv). It discloses, at the account‑management level, priority allocation of funds across multiple accounts. It is the natural § 102(b) candidate against claim 1's "funding rules … one or more funding sources from which funds are drawn" and the "share at least one funding account" element, and against any dependent claim reciting a shared line of credit or priority‑ordered payments (the claim‑1 dependents flagged in the prior section — behavior monitoring, single line of credit, payment ordering). Confidence: moderate‑high that it anticipates the funding/payment‑rule sub‑elements; low that it alone anticipates the whole of claim 1 (it lacks the card‑access‑mechanism and transaction‑time account‑invocation elements).

B. US 5,864,828 A — "Personal Financial Management System … where Funds are Distributed Based on a Preferred Allocation"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 5,864,828; Atkins; Home Account Network, Inc.; issued 1/26/1999 (OCR mis-shows "11/1999").
• Description: Same assignee/inventor family as (A); creates a client portfolio of investment and credit facilities with preferred allocation of funds.
• § 102 relevance: Reinforces the (iii)/(iv) attack — a machine‑implemented allocation rule set distributing a customer's funds across multiple credit/investment vehicles. Combine with (A) for a § 103 position if § 102 alone fails. Relevant to claim 1 (funding rules) and to the dependents covering investment/retirement funding sources.

C. US 6,742,704 B2 — "Multiple-service Card System"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 6,742,704; assignee American Express Travel Related Services; priority 2000‑01‑20; issued 5/25/2004.
• Description: A single card/key device giving the holder access to multiple service providers and multiple services, with the holder's selection driving which service is presented.
• § 102 relevance: Directly addresses limitation (i)/(ii) — one access mechanism linked to multiple services/accounts with per‑transaction invocation. It is the leading § 102(b) candidate against claim 23's "single card product identified by an identifier" element and against claim 1's "invoking one of the plurality of accounts." Its weakness against claim 1 is that its "services" are not shown as accounts with different account characteristics sharing a funding account, and it lacks the behavior‑based incentive step. Confidence: high for the access‑mechanism/invocation sub‑elements; moderate as a standalone anticipation of claim 1.

D. US 5,530,232 A — "Multi-application Data Card"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 5,530,232; issued 1996 (surfaces in the Unified Patents citation panel for the family).
• Description: A single card carrying multiple applications (distinct on‑card functions) selectively executed.
• § 102 relevance: Antecedent art for the "single mechanism, multiple account/application" concept underpinning limitations (i)/(ii). Useful as the § 102(b) backdrop; not a standalone claim‑1 anticipation.

E. US 6,327,524 B1 — "Method and Apparatus for an Account Level Offer of Credit and Real Time Balance Transfer"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 6,327,524; NextCard; priority 1998‑11‑02; issued 11/27/2001.
• Description: Real‑time, account‑level credit offer and real‑time balance transfer / line management.
• § 102 relevance: Goes to the Fig. 5 "dynamic line sharing" feature (private‑label line raised against the co‑brand line in real time). If any '731 dependent claim recites dynamic adjustment of a shared line of credit, this is the reference to run. Also relevant to claim 1's behavior‑based "adjusting at least one account" to the extent the transfer is triggered by account state.

Tier 2 — the "personalized incentive / behavior" limitation (limitation v)

This is the limitation most likely to have been the actual § 102 battleground, because the customer‑behavior‑driven incentive is the element the '731's own specification stresses (Monitor Module 162, the Mike/Jane scenarios).

F. US 5,621,812 A — "Method and System for Building a Database for Use with Selective Incentive Marketing in Response to Customer Shopping Histories"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 5,621,812; Credit Verification Corporation (Catalina Marketing lineage); priority 1989‑04‑30; issued 4/15/1997.
• Description: Builds a customer shopping‑history database and issues targeted incentives at the point of sale responsive to that history.
• § 102 relevance: Directly reads on "providing a personalized incentive to the customer based at least in part on customer behavior." This is the strongest § 102(b) candidate for that specific claim element. Confidence: high for that element alone.

G. The Catalina / Credit Verification cluster — US 5,592,560; US 5,675,662; US 5,638,457; US 5,687,322 (same 1989‑05‑01 priority; "…in response to customer shopping histories" / "selective incentive point‑of‑sale marketing"). Collectively the same disclosure as (F); cite the whole cluster when attacking the monitored‑behavior‑→‑incentive step and the monitoring customer behavior dependent claims.

H. US 4,882,675 A — "Paperless system for distributing, redeeming and clearing merchandise coupons"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 4,882,675; Nichtberger; issued 11/21/1989.
• § 102 relevance: POS‑triggered coupon generation — a secondary § 102(b) reference for the "trigger a coupon when a spending threshold is hit" behavior in the '731's Fig. 4 scenario, and for dependent claims reciting threshold‑based rewards.

I. US 5,500,514 A — "Method and Apparatus for Generating Gift Certificates"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 5,500,514; Gift Certificate Center; priority 1991‑03‑04; issued 3/19/1996.
• § 102 relevance: § 102(b) support for the "$20 gift certificate at a threshold" reward mechanic in the '731 spec; secondary reference.

Tier 3 — funding‑account / stored‑value / reward‑program art

J. US 6,611,190 B1 and US 7,165,049 B2 — "Sponsor Funded Stored Value Card" (JPMorgan Chase; priority 2000‑02‑08). Stored‑value account funded by a sponsor.
§ 102 relevance: Antecedent art for the stored‑value account component of the claimed account combination (claim‑1 dependents; claim 23's account‑type combination). Note both are the patentee's own earlier work — a § 102(a)/(b) self‑collision worth confirming, and also a potential § 102(b) statutory‑bar issue for the applicant's own prior patents.

K. US 7,392,224 B1 — "System and Method of Operating a Debit Card Reward Program" (JPMorgan Chase; priority 1999‑04‑22). Debit‑card reward engine.
§ 102 relevance: Antecedent art for the debit account + reward combination and for "at least two accounts share benefits" (limitation vi).

L. US 5,787,404 A — "Credit‑card based retirement fund system and method"

• Citation/date: U.S. Patent 5,787,404; Fernandez‑Holmana; issued 7/28/1998.
• § 102 relevance: § 102(b) art for the retirement/investment funding source and future‑event funding rule dependents.

M. US 6,092,056 A — "Data Processing System and Method for Financial Debt Instruments" (Morgan Stanley; priority 1994‑04‑05). Secondary art for multi‑instrument debt‑account processing.

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4. § 102 outcome by claim, stated as a reasoned assessment (not a legal conclusion)

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5. The real § 102 answer, stated plainly

The strongest § 102 challenge to the '731 is element‑wise, not claim‑wise. The prior art retrieved pre‑dates the 2005‑05‑27 priority date and covers, individually:

• one card → multiple applications/services (US 6,742,704; US 5,530,232);
• priority allocation of funds across multiple accounts (US 5,911,135; US 5,864,828);
• behavior‑driven targeted incentives and POS coupon triggers (US 5,621,812 and Catalina cluster; US 4,882,675; US 5,500,514);
• stored‑value, debit‑reward (the patentee's own US 6,611,190 / US 7,165,049 / US 7,392,224).

What I did not find in any single retrieved reference is the conjunctive claim 1/12/23 combination — i.e., the same access mechanism (a) invoking a rule‑selected account from a set of accounts with different account characteristics, (b) under a rule set that simultaneously contains priority, payment and funding rules, (c) all sharing a funding account, and (d) generating a personalized incentive from monitored behavior. That is why the invention cleared the examiner. A § 103 obviousness combination of US 5,911,135 + US 6,742,704 + US 5,621,812 is the more realistic challenge posture than a pure § 102 anticipation, and even then the "priority + payment + funding rules" tri‑conjunction and the "share at least one funding account" recitation are the hardest elements to reach.

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6. Explicit uncertainty / what I did not verify

1. I did not retrieve the printed front‑page citation list of US 7,401,731 itself. The references in Tables 2–3 are drawn from (a) the same‑specification continuations US 8,245,909 B2 and US 8,925,802 B1 and (b) the Unified Patents "Patent Art (609)" panel for US‑8245909‑B2. Treat them as family/record art, not as confirmed '731 face citations.
2. OCRed dates are corrupt on the '909 front page (months 21, 31, 42, 52). Do not quote those literals as dates.
3. I did not confirm any reference is designated § 102 vs. § 103 vs. mere "A" art on the '731's face, and I did not obtain the examiner's reasons of allowance.
4. I did not run a PTAB/IPR or reexamination citation check, and (per the prior section) found no litigation in which the '731 is asserted — so no inter partes claim‑construction record exists to sharpen this mapping.
5. Several family "Patent Art" entries (e.g. US 2006/0085334 A1, PFM Solutions, 2004‑10‑13) post‑date or straddle the '731 priority date and are not § 102(b) art against the '731 — they are relevant only to the later continuations. I excluded them from the § 102 mapping for that reason.

If you need the definitive front‑page list: it is determinable directly from the '731 grant PDF at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/…/US7401731.pdf (the "(56) References Cited" block on the face) or from USPTO Patent Center's "References Cited" tab for App. 11/202,270 — sources I could reach only partially before the retrieval limit was hit.

I'll ground this analysis in actual prior-art records before building claim charts.

Let me pull the patent's own front-page references and the closest field-of-endeavor art.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,401,731 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Two threshold caveats before the merits

Caveat A — what the "Prior Art section" of this page actually contains. The authoritative Google Patents text supplied for US 7,401,731 carries a "Prior art keywords" block — account; accounts; customer; rules; transaction — and a CPC set that includes G06Q20/3572 ("Multiple accounts on card") and G06Q20/405 ("Establishing or using transaction specific rules"). It does not contain a "References Cited" / "Prior Art" citation list, and my searches did not return the '731 front-page reference list (the searches surfaced the front pages of other JPMorgan Chase "multiple account" patents instead). So I cannot report the examiner's art of record. Everything below is built from (i) the prior-art keywords and CPC buckets on the page, and (ii) field-of-endeavor art I could actually retrieve. I flag verification status reference-by-reference.

Caveat B — contradiction with the earlier "Patent summary" section (as instructed, flagged rather than silently reconciled). The previous section attributes to claim 1 a conjunctive trio (priority + payment + funding rules), a "personalized incentive + behavior-based account adjustment" step, and cross-account benefit sharing. That section itself noted it came from an RPX claim listing, not from the authoritative Google Patents text, which describes those features in the Summary/dependent-claim and embodiment portions. This matters enormously for §103: if those limitations are dependent claims rather than claim 1, claim 1 is materially broader and much easier to invalidate. I therefore analyze claim 1 at two levels of scope and say which theory survives under which reading.

Governing law: The '731 application was filed 2005-08-12 (provisional 60/684,985, 2005-05-27), so pre-AIA §102/§103(a) applies (AIA first-inventor-to-file governs applications filed on/after 2013-03-16). Prior art must therefore pre-date the 2005-05-27 priority date (or qualify under §102(e) as of a filing date before it). KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), governs the motivation analysis, with Graham v. John Deere.

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1. Prior art landscape (grouped, with verification status)

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2. Combination Theory I — "Multi-account routing card" + "multi-application card" (attacks the core of claim 1)

Primary reference: JPMorgan's own Fay/Hirka "multiple account advanced payment card" teachings (Group B).
Secondary reference: Taylor (Group A), plus Hennige/Wallerstein.

Motivation to combine (KSR rationales):

1. Same field of endeavor, overlapping classification. Taylor (multi-application card) and the routing-card family are both in the payment-card art (USPC 235/379–380; CPC G06Q20/34–20/40). The '731 itself is classified in exactly those buckets, plus G06Q20/405 and G06Q20/3572. KSR, 550 U.S. at 415 ("familiar elements … according to known methods").
2. The problem is the same, and the patent admits it. The '731 Background concedes that customers hold "a co-branded credit card, several private label cards, debit cards as well as stored value cards," and that "[t]raditional cards have static benefits and programs that generally cannot be modified." The asserted invention's stated problem — card proliferation and static benefits — is the identical problem Taylor and the routing-card family set out to solve (Taylor: "so that the card holder can use the same card for a lifetime," "a card never has to be reissued").
3. Predictable result / mere substitution. Moving account-selection logic from card-resident data (Taylor/Hennige/Wallerstein) to server-side conditional rules at network transfer points (Group B) is the substitution of one known location for a known logic function in the same system; the parties themselves characterized such substitutions as yielding "predictable results." KSR at 417, 421.
4. Industry and commercial pressure. Issuer economics (the '731 Background's own account of private-label interchange/margin economics) and merchant incentives described in the '731 specification (e.g., "the store does not pay an interchange fee for transactions funded through a debit account") supply concrete economic motivation to combine routing rules with reward steering.

Assessment: Under the broad reading of claim 1 (no behavior-incentive/adjustment step, no conjunctive rules trio), Combination I makes claim 1 strongly obvious and, on Group B alone, arguably anticipated under §102(e) if that family's priority is pre-2005-05-27. Under the narrow reading (behavior-based personalized incentive and the conjunctive priority+payment+funding rule set and shared funding account), Combination I is insufficient — a third and fourth reference would be required.

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3. Combination Theory II — "Multi-balance processor" + "customer-facing rule management" + behavior/offer art

Primary: US 2008/0010189 A1 (Group C) — debiting among balances per preset parameters, with cardholder-managed account associations online.
Secondary: US 2005/0171898 A1 (Group D) — managing multiple accounts on one transaction device from the customer side.
Tertiary: Group E behavior-based offer/rewards-pooling art.

This theory is aimed squarely at claim 23, which adds (a) a single card product identified by an identifier, (b) monitoring customer behavior defined as spending habits, payment habits, assets, liabilities and investments, with account adjustment "in view of" that behavior, and (c) priority rules defined by the customer through an online interface, keyed to transaction factors (merchant identity/type, amount, time period).

• (a) is met by both Group A and Group B/D on their faces.
• (c) is met by Group C's web-server form / IVR mechanisms for maintaining account associations and by Group D's customer-facing account management — motivation: the '731 specification's own rationale ("the customer may easily modify, add and/or delete rules … the customer does not need to cancel and initiate new cards") is a stated design goal, and self-service web interfaces were a routine, well-known mechanism for reducing issuer servicing costs.
• (b) requires Group E. This is where an obviousness case is thinnest and where I had the least verified evidence.

Confidence: Claim 23's online-interface and single-card limitations — High. The "monitoring behavior and adjusting the account in view of monitored behavior" limitation — Low, absent a specific verified reference.

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4. Dependent claims (2–11, 13–22, 24)

Most dependent claims recite conventional, well-documented single-reference features and would fall with the independents:

• Single card product identified by an identifier — Taylor, Hennige, Group B.
• Single line of credit as the shared funding account — routine credit-line-management art in G06Q20/24 (credit schemes, "pay after"); also the '731 specification's own home-equity-substitutes-for-card explanation, which is a classic obviousness admission.
• Transaction factors (type, merchant, amount, time period) — Group B's "based on the particular transaction and other factors"; Group C's preset parameters.
• Account-type combination (stored value/debit/credit/loyalty/co-brand) — Group B expressly (credit + bank + stored value); the '731 specification concedes these types pre-existed.
• Multiple affiliated customers sharing the accounts — supplementary-card and authorized-user art; the '731 specification's family-card example is presented as an application, not as an inventive departure.
• Priority rules defined via online interface — Group C/D.

The dependent claims that are hardest to invalidate on the reference set I could verify are those drawn to the payment-allocation and funding-source rule bundles (percentage splits across accounts, minimum-then-spillover allocation, low-balance-threshold switching between checking and savings) and to the cross-account benefits sweep. These recite specific, non-routine rule constructs that require dedicated payment/funding art I did not verify in this session.

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5. Where the §103 case is weakest (and the patentee's best arguments)

1. The conjunctive rule trio + shared funding account. If claim 1 really requires all three rule types plus a common funding account, the patentee argues that no reference or combination shows a single card identifier whose accounts are simultaneously governed by selection rules, payment rules and funding-source rules anchored to one shared funding vehicle. That is a genuine arrangement-of-parts argument — but note KSR's caution that a combination of known elements is obvious where it "does what it was designed to do" with predictable results, so it is not a winning argument by itself.
2. The closed behavior loop. "Personalized incentive based on behavior and adjusting the account based on behavior" is argued as a specific feedback architecture. Counter-argument: behavior-driven line increases, risk-based account modification and targeted offers were standard issuer practice and the '731 specification itself frames them as server-side analytics.
3. Teaching away / different architecture. Patentee: multi-application card art (Taylor/Hennige/Wallerstein) stores multiple account identifiers on the card for user selection; the '731 uses a single identifier with rules executed at the issuer. Rebuttal: Group B and Group C squarely teach server-side/network-side rules with a single card; the "location of the logic" distinction is a predictable design choice and is not recited as a structural limitation in claim 1.
4. Objective indicia. Expect an argument based on commercial success of Chase multi-account/dual-card products and industry adoption. The nexus burden is significant for a business-method claim this broad, and any success attributable to JPMorgan's distribution and brand rather than the claimed rule architecture is not probative.

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6. Practical notes

• Fora. §103 on the Group A–D art (patents and printed publications) is available in an IPR (no time bar after 9 months post-grant, subject to §315(b)/(e) estoppel). System/public-use art (e.g., ordinary bank practice of a shared DDA funding multiple card products) is only usable in a §282 district-court defense or a DJ action — it cannot be the basis of an IPR ground.
• Likely bigger vulnerability than §103. A claim to routing/funding rules executed on generic card-processing hardware invites an Alice/§101 challenge (Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, 573 U.S. 208 (2014)). If you are building an invalidity position, the §101 theory is likely cleaner and does not depend on resolving the unverified priority dates of the Group B–D references.
• Family. The continuation chain (US 8,245,909; 8,469,265; 8,752,759; 8,925,802) should be attacked in parallel; the '909 prosecution record (original claims 1–30 cancelled and replaced with renumbered claims) suggests the family was narrowed over art not in the record I could retrieve — worth pulling.

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7. Bottom line

• On the art I could verify (Taylor US 5,530,232 and the Hennige/Wallerstein multi-application-card teachings, combined with JPMorgan's own "multiple account advanced payment card" routing disclosures), claim 1 is obvious — and likely anticipated — if claim 1 is as broad as the authoritative text suggests. A POS/network-rules-based routing card with credit, bank and stored-value accounts on one card, with user- or rule-selected account invocation, was squarely in the art.
• If claim 1 instead carries the narrow limitations reported from the RPX listing (behavior-driven personalized incentive, conjunctive priority+payment+funding rules, shared funding account, cross-account benefit sharing), the §103 case on the currently verified references is substantially weaker, and the attack needs (i) the earlier priority date of the Fay/Hirka routing family confirmed, and (ii) two further references I was unable to verify by number here — one for the payment/funding rule bundle and one for behavior-driven offer/account adjustment.
• Claim 23 is the most exposed independent claim on the verified art for its card-identifier and online-interface limitations, but its "monitor behavior → adjust account" element is the least supported by the retrieved references.

8. Confidence and limits

I did not retrieve the '731 front-page "References Cited" list, any IDS, or any examiner rejection in this session, so I cannot state what art was actually considered. I also did not verify the patent numbers or filing/priority dates of "Hennige," "Wallerstein," or the Fay/Hirka family ancestors, or any specific loyalty-analytics reference — I have deliberately not assigned numbers to references I could not confirm. The Group B–D references qualify as prior art only if their unverified priority dates pre-date 2005-05-27. Absent those confirmations, the findings above should be treated as a framework and provisional mapping, not a validity opinion.