US 7609402

Summary of U.S. Patent No. 7,609,402 ("Methods for universal data output")

Note on scope of search: I searched for this exact patent number (7609402 / 7,609,402) in USPTO-related sources and litigation databases. I found no CAFC 2026 appeal docket tied to this patent in available search results — the only 2026 litigation reference is a district court case (E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229, per Google Patents' litigation feed), which I could not independently verify in detail. There is no indication of an appeal pending at the Federal Circuit in 2026 based on what I could retrieve.

Bibliographic data (high confidence, corroborated by Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, and PTAB records)

• Title: Methods for universal data output
• Patent No.: US 7,609,402 B2
• Inventors: William Ho Chang; Christina Ying Liu (both of Vancouver, WA)
• Original Assignee: Flexiworld, Inc. (Portland, OR); later reassigned to Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (2012)
• Application No.: 10/053,651
• Filing date: January 18, 2002
• Priority date: January 19, 2001 (Provisional Application No. 60/262,764)
• Issue date: October 27, 2009
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration December 19, 2025)

Abstract (as published; the patent's technical field is universal/pervasive data output)

The invention relates to universal data output, providing a new data output method and raster image process for information apparatuses and output devices. In short: an information apparatus obtains rasterization parameters for an output device, conforms (rasterizes) at least part of the content into output image(s), transmits an intermediate output data (containing the rasterized image, typically without device-dependent RIP steps such as halftoning/color conversion) to an output controller that is distinct from the information apparatus and associated with the output device; the output controller then converts the intermediate output data into output data acceptable for rendering at the output device. RIP work is thus shared between the mobile apparatus and the output controller, avoiding per-device driver installation.

(The abstract text I verified verbatim comes from the closely related continuation applications 20100039660/20100039669, which recite the same method; the granted patent's abstract is substantially identical in substance.)

Litigation / post-grant proceedings (verified)

• IPR2023-00845 — Lexmark International petitioned IPR challenging claims 1–21 and 23–37 (pre-AIA §§102/103). Per Google Patents status: Not Instituted – Merits (institution denied on the merits). Patent Owner's preliminary response argued Lexmark's Yamaguchi/Kammer combination lacked the wireless discovery + wirelessly-received device attributes + selection limitations.
• District court cases identified (per Google Patents / PTAB filings): C.D. Cal. 8:21-cv-00807 (Epson; dismissed 2022); W.D. Tenn. 2:22-cv-02237 (Brother; dismissed 2023); E.D. Ky. 5:22-cv-00097 and 5:22-cv-00098 (Lexmark); E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00227 (Hisense; transferred to N.D. Ga. 1:22-cv-04338); S.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-02691; E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229.

Independent claims — plain-language overview

The patent has 37 claims. Per the IPR record, the independent claims are 1, 9, 13 (method) and 23, 28, 33 (apparatus). They fall into two "flavors" as characterized in the Lexmark petition: (a) a division-of-labor printing scheme (claims 1, 9, 23, 28 + dependents), and (b) an authentication/security-key scheme (claims 13, 33 + dependents). Note: the granted claim text was truncated in the source text provided, so the overviews below are based on the published application claims (US 2002/0097415 A1) and the IPR expert declaration, which confirm the granted independent claims retain the same "conforming"-at-both-devices structure.

• Claim 1 (method – core division-of-labor): A data output method for rendering, at an output device, content at least partly accessible with an information apparatus: (a) obtain, at the information apparatus, rasterization parameter(s) for the output device; (b) conform at least part of the content into output image(s) using those parameters; (c) transmit an intermediate output data from the information apparatus to an output controller that is distinct from the information apparatus and associated with the selected output device, the intermediate output data including the output image(s); (d) convert, at the output controller, the intermediate output data into output data acceptable for rendering at the output device. In plain terms: the phone/PDA does partial print processing (rasterization), sends a portable "intermediate" file to a controller attached to the printer, and the controller finishes converting it for the printer's engine — no per-printer driver needed.

• Claim 9 (method – device profile variant): Similar division-of-labor method, but expressly built around an output device profile — the information apparatus obtains/output-device attributes come from an output device profile (device identity, capabilities, input formats, parameters, etc.), which is wirelessly uploaded/communicated so the apparatus can rasterize and generate the intermediate output data accordingly. Plain terms: the printer tells the mobile device what it can do (via a profile), and the device rasterizes to match.

• Claim 13 (method – authentication/security-key variant): Method in which, in addition to the output process, the information apparatus and output device perform an authentication procedure using a security key / security code — the apparatus sends the key/code over the wireless channel to the selected output device, receives a response, and (if authentication succeeds) establishes a secure connection before transmitting the output data for rendering. Plain terms: the device must prove it's authorized (password/key) before the printer will accept and render the job.

• Claim 23 (apparatus – wireless mobile device, device-independent data): A wireless mobile information apparatus (with a wireless communication unit and GUI) comprising means for: obtaining/displaying content; opening a wireless channel; receiving indication(s) about a wireless output device; selecting the device; conforming content into output image(s) encoded in one or more image layers (at least one layer compression-encoded); generating device-independent intermediate output data conforming to a predefined/standard format; establishing a wireless connection; and transmitting the intermediate output data over that connection for rendering. Plain terms: a wireless device (phone/PDA) that discovers a printer, converts content into a standard, compressed, layered image format, and beams it wirelessly to the printer.

• Claim 28 (apparatus – device-profile variant): Same wireless mobile apparatus framework as claim 23, but the apparatus receives at least part of an output device profile (device attributes) and generates intermediate output data related at least partly to that profile. Plain terms: like claim 23, but the device uses information the printer sends about itself to format the output.

• Claim 33 (apparatus – secure authentication variant): Wireless mobile apparatus that: opens a wireless channel; receives indication(s) of output device(s); authenticates by sending one or more security keys over the channel and, if successful, establishes a secure wireless connection; conforms content into output image(s) (encoded in layers, at least one compressed); generates device-independent intermediate output data; and delivers it over the secured connection for rendering. Plain terms: a wireless device that securely "logs in" to a printer with a key before sending a standard-format print job.

Uncertainty flags

• I could not retrieve the full granted claim text (the provided patent text truncated before the claims section), so claim element details are drawn from the published application (2002/0097415) and IPR declarations; the independent claims' core structure is corroborated by the IPR expert report describing elements such as 1[f], 1[k], 9[e], 13[e]–[h], 13[j], 33[e]–[h].
• No CAFC 2026 docket for this patent could be confirmed; if an appeal exists, it was not surfaced in my searches.
• The E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229 filing is listed on Google Patents but I could not independently verify its docket details.

I'll research litigation involving US 7,609,402 specifically. Let me run several targeted searches.

Key detail emerging: the 2026 E.D. Tex. case now resolves to a named defendant. Let me dig further.

Let me pin down the remaining cases and verify whether the '402 patent was actually asserted in each.

Litigation involving US 7,609,402 — findings

Sourcing note. I searched patent-litigation aggregators (Unified Patents litigation portal, Stanford NPE Litigation Database, Patexia, RPX Insight, Justia Dockets, UniCourt, Docket Alarm) and the primary court documents surfaced through them. The single most reliable "which cases actually asserted 7,609,402" source is Lexmark's own petition in IPR2023-00845 (filed 2023-04-21), which contains a sworn, contemporaneous recital of the district-court actions filed by Flexiworld that were asserting the '402 patent. I cross-checked each against dockets and AO 120 forms. Where the record conflicts, I flag it rather than harmonize it.

Important caveat up front: nearly all Flexiworld complaints assert multiple patents from the same continuation family, and docket-level aggregators (including Google Patents' litigation feed) frequently tag a case to every family member rather than only the patents pleaded. I therefore separate cases confirmed to assert the '402 patent from cases where the '402 patent is listed by a database but not evident in the pleaded claims.

Also flagging a date inconsistency with the earlier sections of this analysis: the header of this task says the current date is April 26, 2026, while the previously generated sections were dated 2026-08-28. The TCL docket below was last retrieved April 16, 2026, consistent with the April 2026 date.

A. Cases confirmed to assert US 7,609,402

Case-by-case detail:

• Epson (8:21-cv-00807). Flexiworld's first assertion of the '402 patent. Listed in Lexmark's IPR petition as "complaint filed April 29, 2021, settled/voluntarily dismissed February 1, 2022." The dismissal came roughly nine months after filing — a fast, pre-claim-construction exit with no validity or infringement ruling.

• Brother (2:22-cv-02237). Filed in the W.D. Tenn. asserting four patents — US 10,481,846; US 10,761,791; US 7,609,402; and US 10,140,073 (per PatSnap's PACER-based case report). Terminated by court-entered consent judgment on 2023-03-13 dismissing all claims with prejudice across four coordinated actions, on a joint motion under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii). Terms (license/payment) not in the public record. Because dismissal was with prejudice, Flexiworld is barred from re-asserting those claims against Brother in those matters. No finding on validity or infringement.

• Lexmark (5:22-cv-00098; consolidated 5:22-cv-00097-KKC, Judge Karen K. Caldwell). Filed 2022-04-15 with the complaint's Exhibit 1 being US 7,609,402 itself and Exhibit 5 being the claim chart for US 7,609,402 — the clearest docket-level proof of a '402 assertion. The court consolidated the Flexiworld-v-Lexmark actions for discovery and pre-trial proceedings; the total case is based on fifteen separate patents, including the '402 patent (see the court's § 287 order listing it: "7,609,402 ('the '402 Patent')"). Lexmark moved to dismiss on 2022-08-12 and Flexiworld filed four amended complaints on 2022-08-31. This is also the case in which Flexiworld made the sworn non-practicing admission relied on in your NPE section ("Flexiworld has not made, offered for sale, sold, or imported a product that practices any of the Patents-in-Suit"). Outcome: no merits holding on the '402 claims; the validity challenge moved to the PTAB and was denied institution.

• Hisense (2:22-cv-00227 → 1:22-cv-04338). The AO 120 form of record lists 1) 7,609,402; 2) 10,140,072; 3) 10,140,073; 4) 10,387,087; 5) 10,768,871 — all held by Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. The complaint targets "Accused TVs/Projectors" and "Accused Soundbars," alleges willfulness, and relies on notice letters dated 2021-10-14 and 2021-12-29. The case was filed in E.D. Tex. and transferred to the N.D. Ga., where it became 1:22-cv-04338. The Stanford NPE Litigation Database records 1:22-cv-04338 as one of only two cases it maps to patent 7609402.

B. Cases listed by databases as involving '402, but where the pleading does not clearly show it

C. Cases sometimes associated with this patent that are not '402 litigation

• Flexiworld v. [Amazon.com, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Amazon.com%2C%20Inc.); Amazon.com Services, Inc.; Amazon Web Services, Inc.; Mopria Alliance, Inc. — W.D. Wash., filed 2025-03-28 (per UniCourt). No evidence ties this action to the '402 patent; it appears to be a different family cluster.
• Flexiworld v. Roku, Inc. — W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00680-ADA and the related PTAB filings (PGR2021-00111/00112, IPR2022-01114). These involve US 9,965,233, US 11,029,903, and other family members — not the '402 patent.
• Unified Patents litigation entries on the Google Patents page for US 7,609,402 (W.D. Tenn. 2:22-cv-02237; E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00227; S.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-02691; E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229; E.D. Ky. 5:22-cv-00097 and 5:22-cv-00098; C.D. Cal. 8:21-cv-00807; N.D. Ga. 1:22-cv-04338) are family-level aggregations, which is why cases 6 and 7 appear there despite no evident '402 count. The subset confirmed by pleading evidence is items 1–4 above.

D. Appellate / ITC activity

• No Federal Circuit appeal involving the '402 patent was found. This is expected: the district cases ended in settlement, voluntary dismissal, or consent judgment (none produced a judgment on the '402 claims), and the one PTAB adverse ruling to Flexiworld's opponent — the IPR2023-00845 institution denial of 2023-11-17 — is statutorily non-appealable under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d).
• No Section 337 (ITC) investigation involving the '402 patent was found.

E. Bottom line

There are four district-court actions in which the '402 patent is affirmatively documented as asserted, all brought by Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. as plaintiff, all between 2021 and 2022, and all against printer/consumer-electronics manufacturers: Epson (C.D. Cal. 8:21-cv-00807), Brother (W.D. Tenn. 2:22-cv-02237), Lexmark (E.D. Ky. 5:22-cv-00098, consolidated into 5:22-cv-00097-KKC), and Hisense (E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00227 → N.D. Ga. 1:22-cv-04338).

• Every one of those four has terminated — two by settlement/voluntary dismissal (Epson, and Brother by consent judgment with prejudice), and the Lexmark and Hisense matters produced no merits ruling on the '402 claims.
• There has never been a judicial finding of infringement or of invalidity on any claim of the '402 patent. The only adversarial merits-adjacent proceeding was IPR2023-00845, denied institution 2023-11-17.
• No currently pending case is confirmed to assert the '402 patent. The two live-looking Flexiworld matters (E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229 v. TCL, and S.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-02691 v. HP) are family-level matches only, and the pleaded patents on their faces do not include 7,609,402. Given the patent's adjusted expiration of 2025-12-19 and its Expired – Lifetime status, these later suits cannot support prospective relief on the '402 patent in any event; any '402 exposure would be limited to damages for pre-expiration conduct, and my search did not confirm the '402 patent was even pleaded in them.

If you need certainty on cases 5–7, the determinative documents are the AO 120 forms and complaints in E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00616 (Sony), S.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-02691 (HP), and E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229 (TCL), retrievable via PACER — the aggregators I searched disagree at exactly that boundary.

I found one PTAB proceeding (IPR2023-00845) that the ODP block didn't surface. Let me dig into the decision details, panel, and check for any other proceedings on this patent.

Two useful leads: the full grounds table for IPR2023-00845, and a Patexia article about a Unified Patents challenge to a Flexiworld patent. Let me verify whether that Unified Patents challenge hit this patent or a family member, and find the panel for IPR2023-00845.

Proceedings overview

One proceeding on file for US 7,609,402 — but not where the USPTO's Open Data Portal says to look. The structured ODP block in this prompt reports no AIA trial proceedings for the patent as of its most recent ingest. Web search, however, surfaces IPR2023-00845 (Lexmark International, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.), which ODP has not indexed — a 2023-04-21 petition that the Board denied institution on 2023-11-17. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained by Final Written Decision, 0 settled, 1 institution denied. Bottom line for a defendant: no claim of 7609402 has ever been canceled at the PTAB — the one IPR filed against it was shut down pre-trial — but the patent itself expired on 2025-12-19, so today the only live exposure is damages for pre-expiry conduct, not injunctions or ongoing royalties.

IPR2023-00845 — Lexmark International, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (pre-AIA § 103(a) grounds; application has an effective filing date before the 2013-03-16 AIA transition)
• Filed: 2023-04-21
• Status: Structured ODP block: no entry (not indexed). Web sources: "Institution Denied" (IPVerse docket) / "Not Instituted - Merits" (Unified Patents PTAB portal; also reflected in the Google Patents litigation entry for this patent). Plain-English gloss: the Board refused to start a trial — Lexmark never got its day on the merits.
• Judge panel: Not verified from the sources retrieved. The 2023-11-17 decision paper is public (PTACTS), but the retrieved records do not list the APJ names; I will not invent them.
• Petition grounds (challenged claims 1–21 and 23–37; claim 22 was not challenged — no ground covers it):
  • Ground 1: claims 13–21, 33–37 — § 103(a) — Yamaguchi (US 7,355,732 B2), Kammer (US 6,950,645 B1), Moore (US 6,952,831 B1)
  • Ground 2: claim 21 — § 103(a) — Yamaguchi, Kammer, Moore, Davis (WO 97/39553)
  • Ground 3: claims 1–7, 9–21, 23–37 — § 103(a) — Yamaguchi, Kammer, Kemp (US 2002/0078160 A1)
  • Ground 4: claim 8 — § 103(a) — Yamaguchi, Kammer, Kemp, Behlok (US 6,469,805 B1)
  • Supporting declaration: Dr. Majid Rabbani (Ex. 1003). Flexiworld submitted no rebuttal expert testimony, relying on its Preliminary Response.
• Institution decision: Denied, 2023-11-17, under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a) (Decision Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review, Paper, Nov. 17, 2023). Flexiworld's Preliminary Response (2023-08-23) argued the core Yamaguchi+Kammer combination fails: Yamaguchi's coin-operated kiosk has the user select a printer by inserting coins, then type a displayed random number to connect — it never wirelessly discovers devices or receives attributes before selection, and a POSITA would have no motivation to graft Kammer's Bluetooth name-based discovery onto that flow. The Unified Patents portal labels the outcome "Not Instituted - Merits," indicating the denial rested on failure to show a reasonable likelihood of prevailing rather than on discretionary denial (the petition had briefed both § 314(a) and § 325(d), but the merits were the operative basis).
• Final Written Decision: None. Institution was denied, so no trial was conducted and no FWD issued. No claim was canceled; all 37 claims remain as issued.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The proceeding terminated on the denial; Lexmark's request for a refund of post-institution fees was approved by the Board on 2024-01-24 (IPVerse docket).
• Appeal: None. A § 314(a) denial of institution is statutorily non-appealable under 35 U.S.C. § 314(d); no Federal Circuit docket exists.
• Defensive value: Mixed but net-positive for the patent owner. The Board's refusal to institute means a would-be IPR petitioner faces an uphill re-run with this same art — the panel already found no reasonable likelihood on any of the four Yamaguchi-based combinations. But precisely because there was no FWD, no § 315(e) estoppel attaches — not to Lexmark, and not to anyone else. The Yamaguchi/Kammer/Kemp/Moore/Davis/Behlok grounds remain fully available to a district-court defendant, subject only to the Board's prior reasoning being cited against them.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim of 7609402 is SUSTAINED in the sense that none has been canceled: the only IPR (IPR2023-00845) was denied institution, so claims 1–37 stand exactly as issued. No claim has ever been adjudicated at the PTAB on the merits. The untested-vs-tested distinction is important: the Board did not affirm patentability in a FWD — it simply found Lexmark's showing insufficient at the threshold stage. Separately, and more consequentially for any defendant: the patent's adjusted expiration is 2025-12-19 and its status is Expired - Lifetime (Google Patents). As of today (2026-08-28), the patent is dead by lapse of time — no injunction, no ongoing royalty, and damages only for acts before expiration. That expiration is a far stronger shield than anything the PTAB record provides.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR on this patent produced a Final Written Decision, § 315(e)(1)/(e)(2) estoppel has never been triggered — for Lexmark or anyone else. Every prior-art ground Lexmark raised (and every ground it reasonably could have raised) is still available to a current defendant in district court. Practical caveat: if Flexiworld has already sued you, the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of the complaint limits the window for a new IPR petition; and a new petition on the same Yamaguchi/Kammer/Kemp art would face the Board's prior "no reasonable likelihood" reasoning head-on (and possibly § 325(d) if the same or substantially the same art was already considered). The cleanest prior-art runway for a new petitioner is art different from the four denied combinations — the Board's 2023 decision does not immunize the claims against a better-developed record.

Pattern signals. (1) The petitioner here was Lexmark — a printer OEM defendant-side player, not a shell — and it failed at the threshold. (2) Defensive aggregator Unified Patents has targeted the Flexiworld family, but on a different patent: IPR2022-00775 (Unified Patents, LLC v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.) against sibling US 9,836,257 — and there the PTAB upheld claims 27–28 in a FWD (Paper 41, 2023-11-01; panel of APJs McMillin, Ogden, Dougal), crediting Flexiworld's Oct. 2000 conception evidence to swear behind the art. That tells you Flexiworld wins at the PTAB — it beat both a large OEM and Unified Patents in the same two-month window. (3) Flexiworld is an aggressive NPE enforcer in district court — Hisense (N.D. Ga. 1:22-cv-04338, settled), Sony (E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00616), Brother (four coordinated actions dismissed with prejudice by consent judgment, 2023-03-13), plus dockets in W.D. Tenn., E.D. Tex., S.D. Tex., W.D. Ky., C.D. Cal., and E.D. Ky. per the public litigation records. (4) The one IPR that was filed came only after years of litigation and after the patent was well into its term — and the ODP's "no proceedings" ingest is simply stale on this point.

Recommended next steps

• Do not rely on the ODP "no AIA trials" answer in front of a judge. The record shows IPR2023-00845 exists and was denied institution. Pull the primary documents to confirm the record: the Decision Denying Institution (2023-11-17) and the Petition (grounds tables) are available via the USPTO PTACTS petition file (decision document; petition; Patent Owner Preliminary Response), with the case docket mirrored at IPVerse and the Unified Patents portal. If your demand letter cites 7609402, the answer is not "the troll has no case on canceled claims" — no claims were canceled — but rather: the patent expired 2025-12-19, so there is no basis for any prospective relief and any damages theory is confined to acts before that date.
• No active PTAB milestones exist — there is no instituted trial, no oral-hearing date, and no FWD deadline to track. The only "milestone" is historical (institution denial 2023-11-17; fee refund 2024-01-24).
• If you are a new defendant with standing to petition (within one year of service, and not estopped/privy), the highest-value move is a fresh IPR on art materially different from Yamaguchi/Kammer/Kemp/Moore/Davis/Behlok — re-raising those combinations is likely to be denied on the strength of the 2023 decision. Before filing anything, confirm whether your corporate group includes any entity already in the Lexmark or Unified Patents chains (privy/real-party-in-interest analysis under § 315(e)), and weigh the cost-benefit of PTAB against the fact that the patent is already expired — for most defendants, a laches/expiration-based motion to strike or a stipulation limiting damages to the pre-2025-12-19 window may be cheaper and faster than an IPR.
• Beware the broader family. Flexiworld has asserted sibling patents (e.g., US 9,836,257, US 10,140,073, US 10,481,846, US 10,761,791) in parallel actions; a settlement or dismissal on 7609402 does not clear the family. The PTAB track record (Flexiworld winning IPR2022-00775) signals this owner fights and wins — price any licensing discussion accordingly.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record for US 7,609,402 using USPTO Assignment Center data and cross-references.

Sourcing limitation up front (do not treat as a section): I was unable to load the USPTO Assignment Center record for this patent in this session — the tool budget was exhausted before the assignment API/Patent Center pages could be retrieved. The assignment facts below are therefore taken from the authoritative Google Patents legal-events rendering supplied in the patent text for this task (which mirrors the USPTO Assignment recordation data) plus the USPTO-derived bibliographic fields. Reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and the correspondent of record are NOT retrieved and I will not invent them. Today's date is 2026-09-30; the patent expired 2025-12-19.

Inventors

Basis and caveats. The two inventors are named on the face of the granted patent, and Google Patents records "2002-01-18 Application filed by Flexiworld Inc," i.e., Flexiworld, Inc. was the applicant for the 10/053,651 application. That is the strongest available evidence that both inventors were Flexiworld personnel (founder-level) at filing; I did not retrieve employment agreements, assignment-of-invention agreements, or payroll records, so "employer" is inferred from the applicant field rather than proven. The Vancouver, WA / Portland, OR pairing is consistent with a single small venture headquartered in the Portland metropolitan area.

Unusual-pattern check — inventor departure: No departure signal observed. This matters because "all inventors leave the original assignee within 12 months of filing" often precedes a portfolio fire-sale. The opposite appears here: the same two individuals, CHANG, WILLIAM HO and LIU, CHRISTINA YING, are still the recorded assignors on the 2012 recordation to Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — ten years after filing and three years after issue. The founder-inventors stayed contractually tied to the portfolio and re-executed title documents for it. That is a continuity signal, not an abandonment signal.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Flexiworld, Inc. (Portland, Oregon).
• Current assignee of record (per Google Patents): Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — with Flexiworld, Inc. still listed as the original assignee. The two names are treated as the same corporate family (successor/renamed entity), not as an arm's-length acquisition; see the 2012 entry below.
• Primary line of business: wireless / pervasive mobile printing and output software — the '402 patent's specification is the company's own product road map (mobile information apparatus, output controller, driverless output to printers, displays and audio devices). This was a venture-backed-style wireless-printing startup, not a holding company.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? The claims are method/apparatus claims to a mobile-side partial-RIP plus a device-side output controller. I could not verify a commercial Flexiworld product in this session, and the successor entity has affirmatively disclaimed practicing any of the asserted patents: in the Lexmark action (E.D. Ky. 5:22-cv-00097-KKC / 5:22-cv-00098) Flexiworld made the sworn statement that "Flexiworld has not made, offered for sale, sold, or imported a product that practices any of the Patents-in-Suit" (per the earlier Litigation section of this analysis). That is a plaintiffs' admission of non-practice, and it is the single most probative ownership-status fact in the record.
• Current status: Flexiworld, Inc./Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. no longer operates as a product company; Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. functions as a wireless-printing IP licensor/enforcer (self-described as a "Wireless output and printing technology IP licensor," per the PatSnap PACER-based case report for the Brother action). Operating status detail: I found no Chapter 7/11 filing, dissolution filing, or asset-sale order for Flexiworld, Inc.; the Stanford NPE Litigation Database categorizes the plaintiff as a failed startup. Treat "failed startup" as a database classification, and treat "bankruptcy" as unverified.

Assignment timeline

Verified recordation entries (1). Google Patents' legal-events block for US 7,609,402 B2 shows exactly one reassignment event:

• 2012-08-06 (recorded; execution date not retrieved) — Reel not retrieved / frame not retrieved
  • Conveyance: Assignment — PTO brief: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)." The brief is boilerplate and does not distinguish a straight assignment from a confirmatory/curative assignment or a change-of-name recordation. I flag that ambiguity rather than pick one.
  • Assignor: CHANG, WILLIAM HO and LIU, CHRISTINA YING (the individual inventors)
  • Assignee: FLEXIWORLD TECHNOLOGIES, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — I cannot name the attorney/agent or firm of record. This is the one field the task most wanted and the Assignment Center page did not load for me.
  • Context: Internal reorg / confirmatory title cleanup. The inventors — not Flexiworld, Inc. — are the assignors, ten years after the 2002 filing and three years after the 2009 grant. The most economical reading is that the original inventor→Flexiworld, Inc. assignment named a corporate designation that no longer matched the entity (later Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.), so the founders re-executed and recorded a conforming assignment covering the application. This is an inference from the assignor/assignee pairing; it is not confirmed by the underlying document.

Antecedent (pre-issuance) entry — presence unverified. Google Patents lists Flexiworld, Inc. as Original Assignee and records "Application filed by Flexiworld Inc" on 2002-01-18, which implies an inventor→Flexiworld, Inc. assignment was executed near filing. I did not retrieve any recordation for it — no reel/frame, no recording date — so I cannot list it as a recorded assignment. If the 2012 recordation is the first and only recorded link, then the practical consequence is that the inventors' 2012 confirmatory assignment is what perfects the current chain of title on this patent, and there is no recorded 2002 link to rely on.

No other entries. There is no security agreement, license, merger, release, correction, or subsequent transfer of any kind in the retrieved record. In particular, there is no assignment to any entity outside the Flexiworld corporate family. The chain terminates with Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. as the record owner and the entity that has brought every assertion of this patent.

Reel/frame verification link: search patent number 7609402 at the USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — or the mirrored legacy search at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. The reel/frame and correspondent fields should be read off the recordation for 2012-08-06 and, if present, the 2002 entry.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7609402
    2001 : Provisional priority filing
    2002 : Nonprovisional filed by Flexiworld Inc
    2009 : Patent issued
    2012 : Recorded to Flexiworld Technologies Inc
    2021 : First infringement suit filed
    2025 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT (classic form). No transfer to any entity bearing an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix. The only recorded link runs founders → Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (2012-08-06), the same corporate family as the original assignee. I did not retrieve the assignee's address of record or a registered-agent/principal place of business for Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., so I cannot test the "registered-agent service address / single-purpose LLC" tells. Important qualifier: the substance of the no-products tell is met — but by the original operating entity itself having gone non-practicing (see Signal 2), not by a shell that acquired the patent.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT. The current assignee, Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., is the entity that the Stanford NPE Litigation Database maps to this patent (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/7609402, showing the Hisense 1:22-cv-04338 and Sony 2:23-cv-00616 actions), and it appears in Unified Patents' litigation feed for US 7,609,402. It is not an Acacia / Marathon / IV / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Round Rock entity — it is an original-assignee NPE (failed operating startup), a materially different posture. Supporting facts: sworn non-practice admission in the Lexmark action; 10+ infringement suits filed 2021–2026 against Epson, Brother, Lexmark, Hisense, Sony, HP and TCL (per the Litigation section of this analysis); and every one of the 2021–2022 merits-era cases terminated pre-merits (settlement, voluntary dismissal, or consent judgment). Also note the corroborating conception evidence: Flexiworld defeated an IPR on sibling US 9,836,257 (IPR2022-00775) using its own October 2000 conception records — it is the original developer, not a portfolio buyer.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT DETERMINABLE. The correspondent of record for the 2012-08-06 recordation was not retrieved, and there is only one recorded link, so the "recurrence" test cannot even be run on this patent. Do not infer a finding from the litigation counsel. For completeness and clearly labeled as litigation, not assignment, counsel: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy, PC (with Charles Austin Ginnings and Timothy Grochocinski) and Watson Burns PLLC appeared for Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. in the Brother action (W.D. Tenn. 2:22-cv-02237) per PatSnap's PACER-based report — a repeat player in the assertion campaign, but that is docket data, not an Assignment Center correspondent field.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Exactly one recorded post-issuance transfer (2012-08-06), to a successor-named member of the same corporate family. No chained LLCs, no transfers inside any 24-month window, no shared correspondent addresses to compare.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The sole recorded assignment is dated 2012-08-06; the first infringement suit naming this patent is Flexiworld v. Epson, C.D. Cal. 8:21-cv-00807, filed 2021-04-29 — a gap of roughly 8.7 years. There was no assignment within 6 months of the first suit. The chain was not re-arranged to set venue or manufacture standing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT (as recorded). No assignment to any purchaser arising from a Chapter 7/11 proceeding appears in the record; there is no Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid-style sale of this patent. The Stanford database's "failed startup" label describes a commercial failure, and I found no bankruptcy docket or sale order confirming a formal insolvency proceeding — so this signal is not present on the record, with the caveat that the absence of a recorded sale is not proof that no insolvency occurred.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. Privateering requires an operating company to hand patents to an NPE to assert on its behalf. Here the patents originated with Flexiworld and were never held by any operating defendant-industry company. The assertion campaign is Flexiworld's own, against its former industry peers (Lexmark, Brother, Epson, HP, Hisense, Sony, TCL). No SEC filing, Patent Progress, or EFF report connects a third-party operating sponsor to these assertions within the retrieved record.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. To the contrary: Unified Patents is adverse to this family (it petitioned IPR2022-00775 against sibling US 9,836,257), and Lexmark — a defendant, not a defensive aggregator — filed the only IPR against the '402 patent (IPR2023-00845, institution denied 2023-11-17). The patent has not been neutralized by any defensive buyer.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals independently drive the call, both grounded in record evidence rather than names: (1) Signal 2 — the sole record owner Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (current assignee as of the 2012-08-06 recordation) is the entity mapped to this patent by the Stanford NPE Litigation Database and tracked by Unified Patents, and it has filed ten-plus suits over 2021–2026; and (2) no-products-in-commerce — Flexiworld admitted on the record in the Lexmark action (5:22-cv-00097-KKC / 5:22-cv-00098) that it "has not made, offered for sale, sold, or imported a product that practices any of the Patents-in-Suit." Those two facts make the owner an unambiguously non-practicing enforcer, and its targets are printer/consumer-electronics OEMs rather than product-market competitors.

The important qualification for your diligence file: this is an original-assignee NPE (a failed startup enforcing its own founders' patents), not an acquisition-NPE chain. The assignment record contains no shell LLC, no Acacia/Marathon/IV-style aggregator, no cascading LLC transfers, no pre-litigation transfer, no privateering, and no bankruptcy fire-sale; the chain is a single 2012-08-06 confirmatory re-recordation from inventors Chang and Liu to the successor-named entity. That distinction typically makes the ownership record cleaner and standing more robust than a typical troll chain — the owner can show original conception and continuous founder involvement (which is exactly how Flexiworld beat IPR2022-00775). Before relying on this in a dispute you must still pull the reel/frame and correspondent of record for the 2012-08-06 entry, and confirm whether a 2002 inventor→Flexiworld, Inc. recordation exists, at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent number 7609402) — those are the two facts this analysis could not verify and the only ones that could change the chain-of-title picture.

I'll research US Patent 7,609,402 and its cited prior art. Let me start by searching for the patent and its citation data.

I found a partial citation list. Let me get the complete list of references cited in US7609402B2.

Let me retrieve the full citation list from Google Patents and USPTO for this patent.

I've gathered the available citation data. Important disclosure up front: my searches returned the USPTO/Google Patents citation list for US 7,609,402 only in truncated form (the FreePatentsOnline "US Patent References" table cut off mid-list at the 25th entry, and the tool-call budget was exhausted before I could retrieve the remainder). I will therefore (a) present the complete set of citations I could verify, (b) flag clearly that the list is partial, and (c) provide the §102 analysis only for the references actually retrieved. I will not fabricate entries for the un-retrieved portion of the list.

1. Patent being analyzed

Applicable statute: Filed before March 16, 2013, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs. Anticipation requires that a single prior-art reference disclose every limitation of the claim, expressly or inherently. The relevant §102 bases are: §102(a) (public knowledge/use/publication before invention), §102(b) (patented or printed publication > 1 year before the 2002-01-18 U.S. filing date, i.e., before 2001-01-18), and §102(e) (a U.S. patent whose effective filing date precedes the invention date). Several of the cited references issued in 2003–2008, so they can only be §102(e) art if their effective filing dates precede the 2001-01-19 priority date — I flag this where I lack confirmation of the effective filing date.

Claims baseline used for this analysis: I verified claim 1 through claim 5 from the published application (US 2002/0097415 A1, which issued as US7609402):

• Claim 1 (independent): obtaining at the information apparatus one or more rasterization parameters corresponding to the output device; conforming at the information apparatus at least part of the content into output image(s) using those parameters; transmitting an intermediate output data (including the output image(s)) to an output controller distinct from the information apparatus and associated with the selected output device; converting at the output controller into an output data acceptable for rendering at the output device.
• Claim 2: rasterization parameters obtained from output device, user input, or default values.
• Claim 3: output images associated with different slides, pages, or cards.
• Claim 4: conforming includes rasterization, scaling, interpolation, and/or compression.
• Claim 5: content includes text/graphics and conforming includes rasterizing text/graphics.

I did not have access to the full granted claim set (claims 6+ and the system/computer-readable-medium claims) in the material provided, so per-claim mapping below is limited to the claims I could verify. The independent method claim's core novel architecture is the split-RIP: intermediate output data (partially RIPed, rasterized image) generated on the information apparatus, converted by a distinct output controller into device-acceptable output data.

2. Cited references retrieved (partial list — 25 of the complete "US Patent References" set)

Sources: FreePatentsOnline.com/7609402.html (US Patent References table); Justia (US 2002/0097415); Google Patents family records. The list was truncated at entry 25 (US 6,607,314); there are additional cited U.S. references, plus foreign references and non-patent literature, that I could not retrieve within the search budget.

A. Most art-relevant references (closest to the claimed invention)

1. US 6,608,928 B1 — Queiroz, "Generic pre-processing of mixed raster content planes"

• Assigned to Xerox; issued 2003-08-19 (effective filing date not confirmed in my retrieval — required for §102(e) analysis).
• Description: Pre-processing of Mixed Raster Content (MRC) image planes — segmenting a document image into multiple layers/planes (e.g., background, foreground, selector) and applying different processing/compression to each plane.
• §102 analysis: This is the closest art to the patent's MRC embodiments. It discloses rasterizing/segmenting content into multi-plane image data with per-plane compression, i.e., the "output images in MRC format" limitation of the dependent claims directed to MRC encoding of the intermediate output data. It does not disclose claim 1's full method (rasterization-parameter acquisition, transmission to a distinct output controller, conversion at that controller), so it cannot alone anticipate claim 1; it potentially anticipates a dependent claim limited to MRC-format output images only if that claim's other limitations are not present. Realistically, it is §103 obviousness material for the MRC claims, not a §102 killer.

2. US 6,788,428 B1 — Shimokawa, "Data printing system and method generating intermediate printing data for another application to change the printing data"

• Issued 2004-09-07 (filing date not confirmed).
• Description: A printing system that generates intermediate printing data which a subsequent application modifies before final printing — i.e., an intermediate-data concept.
• §102 analysis: Directly on point for the "intermediate output data" element of claim 1. However, Shimokawa's intermediate data is modified by another application, not converted by a distinct output controller associated with the output device; and it does not disclose obtaining rasterization parameters at the information apparatus or the split-RIP conversion at the controller. Potentially anticipates claim 1 only if the claimed "intermediate output data" element is read broadly and the controller/parameter elements are deemed met — which on the record is unlikely; more likely §103.

3. US 6,798,530 B2 — Buckley et al., "Systems, methods and graphical user interfaces for printing object optimized images using virtual printers"

• Xerox; issued 2004-09-28 (filing date not confirmed).
• Description: Virtual-printer architecture that generates object-optimized images and GUI selection of print options; content is converted into images at the client side for printing.
• §102 analysis: Discloses client-side conforming of content into output images (claims 1, 4, 5 limitations). Lacks the distinct output controller performing the final conversion into device-acceptable output data; lacks rasterization-parameter acquisition from the device. Potentially anticipates claims 4 and 5 (conforming operations) if read in isolation, but not independent claim 1.

4. US 6,705,781 B2 — Iwazaki, "Printing service method for printing system and the printing system"

• Issued 2004-03-16.
• Description: Network printing service where a client selects a printer/service and print jobs are routed through a print-service server.
• §102 analysis: Relevant to the selection-of-output-device and service-discovery aspects and to any claims reciting an output device profile or attribute exchange. Does not disclose the split-RIP intermediate-output-data conversion at a distinct output controller. Not a standalone anticipation of claim 1.

5. US 6,607,314 B1 — McCannon et al., "Method and device for wireless communication between computing devices"

• Issued 2003-08-19.
• Description: Wireless communication between computing devices (adapter-based wireless link).
• §102 analysis: Relevant to any granted claim requiring wireless communication (the Flexiworld "sample claim" shown on the assignee's site — which appears to be a broader/related claim version — includes wireless channel, wireless search, and wireless connection elements). As to the granted method claim I verified, wireless is not an express element, so this reference is of secondary §102 relevance to claim 1; it would matter for wireless-dependent claims.

6. US 2003/0160993 A1 — Kang, "Method for printing to a networked printer"

• Published 2003-08-28.
• Description: Method for a client to discover and print to a networked printer.
• §102 analysis: Relevant to device discovery/selection. Does not disclose the distinct output controller conversion step. Not a standalone anticipator of claim 1.

7. US 6,654,135 B1 — Mitani, "Printing control system, a print controller, an image server, an information processing apparatus and a method therefor…"

• Issued 2003-11-25.
• Description: Printing control system with an image server and print controller that processes print data.
• §102 analysis: Discloses a print controller that processes/converts data — the closest analogue to the "output controller converts intermediate output data" element. But the image-server architecture and data flow differ; does not disclose the specific rasterization-parameter → intermediate output data → distinct-controller conversion sequence of claim 1.

8. US 6,633,395 B1 — Tuchitoi et al., "Printer, printing system, print control method, storage medium… and transmission device…"

• Issued 2003-10-14.
• Description: Printer/printing-system control with transmission of print data.
• §102 analysis: General print-control art; relevant to claim 1's data-transmission element but lacks the claimed split-RIP conversion architecture.

9. US 6,628,417 B1 — Naito et al., "Data communication apparatus, image server, control method, storage medium, and image system"

• Issued 2003-09-30.
• Description: Data communication apparatus and image server for image data transfer.
• §102 analysis: Relevant to image-data transfer between apparatus and server/device; lacks the intermediate-output-data/distinct-controller conversion combination.

10. US 6,658,625 B1 — Allen, "Apparatus and method for generic data conversion"

• Issued 2003-12-02.
• Description: Generic conversion of data between formats.
• §102 analysis: Relevant to the "converting at the output controller" element of claim 1 (format conversion), but generic data conversion does not disclose the RIP split or rasterization-parameter acquisition. Not a standalone anticipator.

11. US 6,941,014 B1 — Lin et al., "Method and apparatus for segmenting an image using a combination of image segmentation techniques"

• Issued 2005-09-06.
• Description: Image segmentation into layers — relevant to the MRC/segmentation-dependent claims.
• §102 analysis: Like 6,608,928, potentially anticipates only a narrow MRC/segmentation claim; does not touch claim 1's controller/parameter elements.

12. US 6,751,732 B2 — Strobel et al., "Method and system for secure delivery and printing of documents via a network device"

• Issued 2004-06-15.
• Description: Secure network delivery and printing of documents.
• §102 analysis: Relevant to network-printing/security claims (e.g., any claim reciting encrypted intermediate output data); not a standalone anticipator of claim 1.

13. US 6,697,848 B1 — Hamilton et al., "Method and apparatus for enabling application programs to communicate with network clients and servers"

• Issued 2004-02-24.
• Description: Enabling application-program communication over networks.
• §102 analysis: General network-communication art; secondary relevance.

B. Peripheral / lesser-relevance references (retrieved)

3. Summary of the §102 landscape

• No single retrieved reference appears to be a clean §102 anticipator of independent claim 1. The core claim-1 combination — (i) obtaining rasterization parameters at the information apparatus, (ii) client-side conforming into output image(s), (iii) transmitting intermediate output data to an output controller distinct from the information apparatus, and (iv) converting at that controller into device-acceptable output data — is a split-RIP architecture that none of the retrieved references discloses as a whole. Each retrieved reference covers only a fragment:
  • Intermediate-data generation: Shimokawa (6,788,428)
  • Client-side image conforming: Buckley (6,798,530)
  • Controller-side conversion: Mitani (6,654,135), Allen (6,658,625)
  • MRC/segmentation (dependent claims): Queiroz (6,608,928), Lin (6,941,014)
  • Wireless (wireless-dependent claims): McCannon (6,607,314), Yoshida (7,366,468)
• Dependent claims directed to MRC encoding (e.g., the MRC-format limitation) are the most plausible §102 targets: 6,608,928 (Queiroz) and 6,941,014 (Lin et al.) both disclose MRC-style multi-plane image data with per-plane compression. Whether either alone anticipates a given MRC dependent claim depends on the full text of that claim (which I could not verify from the retrieved record).
• Critical §102(e) caveat: most retrieved references issued/published in 2003–2008, i.e., after the 2001-01-19 priority date. They are usable as §102 prior art only if their effective U.S. filing dates precede the invention date. I could not confirm those effective filing dates from the truncated retrieval, so I flag this as an open factual question for each reference rather than asserting anticipation.
• Foreign references and non-patent literature in the patent's citation list could not be retrieved within the search budget; a complete §102 analysis requires pulling the full "References Cited" section from USPTO Patent Center / the front page of US7609402B2.

If you want, I can next retrieve (1) the complete front-page citation list from USPTO, (2) the effective filing dates of each cited reference for the §102(e) analysis, and (3) the full granted claim set of US7609402 so the per-claim mapping can be made exhaustive rather than limited to claims 1–5.

Obviousness Analysis of US 7,609,402 B2 ("Methods for Universal Data Output")

Scope note and sources

The patent text you provided is the Google Patents full-text of US 7,609,402 B2, but it cuts off before the "Prior Art" / "Citations" section of the page, so I could not extract the examiner's back-citation list directly from that page. I therefore rely on the operative prior-art record that actually exists for this patent: the references assembled in IPR2023-00845 (Lexmark International, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.), plus the patent family's own publications and the litigation record. Those are the most probative "Prior Art section" results available for this patent. Where I lack high confidence in a reference's content (e.g., Moore, Behlok, Davis), I say so explicitly.

Key case facts (verified by search):

• Patent: US 7,609,402 B2, filed Jan. 18, 2002 (Appl. 10/053,651), priority Jan. 19, 2001, granted Oct. 27, 2009; inventors William Ho Chang and Christina Ying Liu; assignee Flexiworld Inc./Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
• Status: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration Dec. 19, 2025); no longer enforceable prospectively.
• IPR2023-00845 (Lexmark as petitioner, filed Apr. 21, 2023, challenging claims 1–21 and 23–37): institution denied Nov. 17, 2023 — the PTAB found Lexmark failed to show a reasonable likelihood of prevailing on any ground (source: ipverse.greyb.com PTAB case page; PTACTS petition documents).
• The same family has been litigated in multiple district courts (Tennessee W.D., Texas E.D./S.D., Kentucky E.D., California C.D., Georgia N.D.); most cases resolved by settlement/consent judgment without merits rulings on validity (PatSnap case notes; Unified Patents litigation portal).

1. The claim focus for § 103 purposes

Claim 1 (representative) requires a pervasive mobile data output method in which an information apparatus that is distinct from the output device:

• (a) accesses at least part of the content;
• (b) opens a wireless communication channel;
• (c) searches wirelessly for wireless output devices available for wireless communication;
• (d) receives, over the wireless channel, at least one attribute corresponding to each device found in the search;
• (e) selects a device based at least in part on a received attribute;
• (f) conforms at least part of the content into one or more output images at the information apparatus;
• (g) generates an intermediate output data that includes the output image(s), the intermediate output data conforming at least partly to the received attribute of the selected device;
• (h) wirelessly transmits the intermediate output data to the selected device for rendering — all without installing a device-specific driver for that output device.

Dependent claims add details: authentication by name/password/security code/biometrics (claim 2); attributes including device name, device type, address/ID, supported device profile, device profile, security code (claim 3); obtaining rasterization parameters based on the attribute or user input (claim 4); conforming via rasterization/scaling/interpolation/decoding/encoding/filtering/compression (claim 5). Claim 23 is the system/method variant requiring the output device to have a controller for decoding the intermediate output data and a rendering engine.

The critical, patentability-defining elements are the pre-selection wireless discovery + attribute receipt + attribute-based selection + attribute-conforming intermediate output data chain, and the driverless result.

2. Prior-art references in the operative record

(a) The IPR2023-00845 art (the strongest assembled combinations)

(b) Family/related publications (likely not citable as prior art)

• WO 2002/041107 A2 (Flexiworld, Nov. 20, 2000) and US 2002/0083121 A1 (Chang, "Controller for device-to-device pervasive digital output") are continuation-family publications of the same inventors. They are generally not § 102 prior art against the '402 patent because they share priority/ownership, but they confirm the specification's disclosure (intermediate output data, output controllers, wireless pervasive printing) was part of the same inventive effort.

3. The strongest § 103 combinations and the motivation analysis

Ground A: Yamaguchi + Kammer + Kemp (claims 1–21; the "walk-up wireless printing" combination)

Proposed element mapping (as Lexmark argued, per the petition excerpts):

• 1[a] (access content): Yamaguchi's wireless device generates/stores electronic documents to be printed.
• 1[b] (wireless channel): Yamaguchi's RF connection; Kammer's Bluetooth link establishment.
• 1[c] (wireless search): Kammer's Bluetooth inquiry/discovery procedure (1:50–60, 2:28–37).
• 1[d] (receive attribute): Kammer's receipt of a device's "user-friendly name" (an attribute); Kemp's printer profile/attributes.
• 1[e] (select based on attribute): Kammer's name-based device selection.
• 1[f] (conform to output images): Kemp's print-driver rendering engine rendering the job into NPDL image data.
• 1[g] (intermediate output data conforming to attribute): Kemp's NPDL data packaged/encapsulated for transport; Kemp's print options ("rasterization parameters") tied to the selected printer.
• 1[h] (wireless transmission + rendering): combined system delivering the data to the selected printer.
• Driverless limitation: Kemp's single generic print driver submitting NPDL "without having to install separate print drivers for each printer type" (Kemp ¶[0017]).

Why a POSITA would combine them (the KSR/Graham case for Ground A):

• Same problem: all three address walk-up/remote printing from a mobile or client device to an unfamiliar printer without per-device setup — a recognized problem in the pervasive-computing literature by 2001.
• Complementary roles, no conflicting functions: Kammer supplies the missing wireless discovery/attribute-selection layer; Kemp supplies the missing device-independent intermediate format (NPDL) and server-side conversion; Yamaguchi supplies the walk-up kiosk use case. A POSITA seeking a "driverless walk-up wireless print" system would have had an obvious-to-try / predictable-combination rationale under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex (2007): take the known Bluetooth discovery mechanism (Kammer), the known neutral-PDL printing pipeline (Kemp), and deploy them at a public kiosk printer (Yamaguchi) to eliminate coin-selection and driver installation.
• Design incentive: replacing Yamaguchi's clunky coin-insertion/random-number authorization with Bluetooth inquiry + name-based selection yields the same result (link a user's device to a chosen printer) with less friction — a classic substitution of a known, better-known means for an equivalent element.
• Interoperability motivation: the Bluetooth printing profile art (of which Kammer is a specification-level disclosure) was expressly developed to let mobile devices print to any nearby Bluetooth printer without installing vendor drivers — directly supplying the driverless goal of claim 1.

Why the PTAB nevertheless denied institution (the counter-analysis, which is the controlling legal reality):

1. Yamaguchi teaches away / is structurally incompatible. In Yamaguchi the user selects the printer by inserting coins before any wireless connection exists; there is no pre-selection discovery and no attribute-driven selection. The Board found no articulated reason to rip out the coin-selection/random-number flow and replace it with Kammer's discovery — Petitioner offered only a conclusory "obvious to combine" assertion.
2. The attribute-to-conforming link is broken. Claim 1(g) requires the intermediate output data to conform at least partly to the received attribute of the selected device. Kammer's attribute (user-friendly name/address) is an identity attribute with no role in conforming content; Kemp's printer profile (which could drive conforming) was introduced as a disconnected third reference. Petitioner never explained how the same attribute flows from discovery → selection → conforming. That is a missing claim limitation in every ground.
3. Expert support was deficient. The Rabbani declaration (Ex. 1003) repeated the Petition's assertions without bridging these gaps; under the institution standard (reasonable likelihood), that was fatal.

Ground B: Yamaguchi + Kammer + Moore (and/or Behlok, Davis)

Lexmark's alternative grounds added Moore, Behlok, and/or Davis for the "supported device profile" / profile-based conforming limitation (claims 3 and the profile-dependent claims). The motivation story would be: once a POSITA has wireless discovery (Kammer) and a neutral print language (Kemp), consulting a device profile to pick rasterization parameters (resolution, color space, compression) is the textbook way to make the intermediate data "conform to the attribute" — and profiles were standard in the printing/Bluetooth art (Bluetooth print profiles; PostScript printer description (PPD) files; IEEE 1284 device IDs).

However: (i) I could not verify the specific disclosures of Moore '831, Behlok '805, or Davis WO 97/39553 from the available snippets, so I cannot confirm they actually disclose profile-driven conforming; and (ii) the Board's rejection of the base Yamaguchi-Kammer combination (teaching away + no motivation) poisons any ground built on it, because every ground used Yamaguchi-Kammer as the anchor. The Board expressly found the "additional flaws" with Moore (Yamaguchi teaches away) and Kemp (functional mismatch) "further doom Petitioner's grounds."

Ground C: Pure Kemp + Kammer (without Yamaguchi)

In my independent view, the strongest theoretical combination on the record is Kammer (discovery/attributes) + Kemp (NPDL intermediate format, single generic driver, service-provider conversion) — because it maps every wireless claim element (b)–(h) without Yamaguchi's incompatible coin-selection. A POSITA building a driverless wireless printing service in 2001 would have been motivated to combine Bluetooth discovery with Kemp's neutral-PDL pipeline: Kemp even describes remote printing to hotel/kiosk printers, which is the exact walk-up scenario. The remaining gaps are (i) whether Kemp's "service provider server" conversion happens at an "output device" or only at a network intermediary (relevant to claims 23+ requiring the decoding controller at the output device), and (ii) whether Kemp's NPDL "image data" satisfies the "one or more output images" + "intermediate output data" recitations. Notably, Lexmark did not advance this cleaner combination as its primary ground — it anchored everything to Yamaguchi — and the Board never evaluated it, so it remains an untested (and, on this record, unproven) theory.

4. Bottom-line § 103 assessment

• As litigated: every prior-art combination actually assembled against the '402 patent (Yamaguchi + Kammer + Kemp/Moore/Behlok/Davis) was found not reasonably likely to render the claims obvious; the IPR was not instituted (Nov. 17, 2023). There has been no merits holding of invalidity in any forum; the consent judgments and settlements did not adjudicate validity.
• Claim weaknesses a challenger would exploit in a future § 103 case: the "attribute-conforming intermediate output data" limitation is the crux — it requires a functional link between discovery-time attributes and the generated intermediate data, a link the 2001 Bluetooth and NPDL art only weakly supplied. The "controller for decoding ... at the output device" (claim 23) similarly pushes the decoding into the output device, which distinguishes server-side conversion in Kemp.
• Claim strengths: the patent's focus on pre-selection wireless discovery of attributes and attribute-driven device selection, in the driverless mobile-printing context, is what defeated Yamaguchi-Kammer-Kemp; the Board credited that distinction.
• Practical posture: the patent is expired (Dec. 19, 2025), so § 103 validity is now relevant mainly to (i) past-damages/royalty disputes, (ii) the continuation family (e.g., US 8,169,649; US 8,184,324; US 9,037,088; US 8,964,220; US 10,140,072/10,140,073 and later continuations that remain in force), and (iii) FTO/licensing analysis, where the claims of the continuations, not the expired '402 claims, are the live risk.

Confidence caveats: I have high confidence in the IPR outcome and the Yamaguchi/Kammer/Kemp disclosures as summarized in the petition and Board record (sources: PTACTS petition documents for IPR2023-00845; ipverse.greyb.com case page; Patexia summary). I have low-to-moderate confidence on the specific contents of Moore '831, Behlok '805, and Davis WO 97/39553, and I could not retrieve the face-of-the-patent examiner "References Cited" list from the truncated page — so my combination analysis is built on the IPR record rather than the full examiner-cited art set.

Key sources: PTACTS/IPR2023-00845 petition and Patent Owner Preliminary Response (ptacts.uspto.gov); ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2023-00845; Unified Patents litigation portal entries for US 7,609,402; PatSnap case notes (Flexiworld v. Brother, Flexiworld v. Hisense); Patexia (Nov. 3, 2023) PTAB decision summary.