Invalidity dossier

US 7911979

Added 9/8/2026, 12:00:16 PM

IndustryWireless Technologies
At a glanceNo PTAB challengesNo litigation on fileWireless Technologies

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Patent summary

Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.

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Summary — U.S. Patent No. 7,911,979 (US7911979B2)

Note on scope: I searched USPTO/Google Patents records and CAFC 2026 dockets for the literal number 7911979 / 7,911,979. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry specific to this patent. One search returned a March 9, 2026 Federal Circuit opinion, Implicit, LLC v. Sonos, Inc., but that case concerns U.S. Patent No. 7,391,791 — a different patent number — and is not this patent. I am not conflating the two.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative patent record)

  • Title: Time based access provisioning system and process
  • Patent / publication: US7911979B2 (application US12/323,399; pre-grant publication US20090168667A1)
  • Inventors: James A. Roskind; John D. Robinson
  • Filing date: November 25, 2008 (this application; continuation)
  • Priority date: January 13, 2003
  • Issue date: March 22, 2011
  • Status: Expired — Fee Related; lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective March 22, 2023 (recorded April 24, 2023)
  • Continuity: Continuation of US11/673,513 (issued as US7463596B2), which is a continuation of US10/961,959 (issued as US7177285B2), which is a continuation of US10/341,847 (issued as US6891807B2). Related PCT/US2004/000860 (WO2004064305A2).
  • Assignee chain (chronological): Inventors → AOL LLC (2009) → Tarquin Consulting Co., LLC (2009, original assignee of record at filing) → Callahan Cellular L.L.C. (2015 merger) → Intellectual Ventures Assets 130 LLC (2019) → CommWorks Solutions, LLC (2020) → Unwired Solutions, Inc./Unwired Broadband, Inc. (2020–2022 corrective assignments/license).
  • Current listed assignee (Google Patents, with its standard disclaimer): Unwired Broadband Inc. Caveat: The assignment history is complex and includes a recorded "license" later corrected to an "assignment"; I cannot verify the current owner with high confidence from the search results alone.

Abstract

"A method and apparatus is provided for the time-based provisioning of wireless devices. A network access point monitors operation of wireless devices within a service region. When provisioning logic is activated at the network access point, the access point determines if the tracked parameter (such as power on or the onset of signal transmission) of the wireless device occurs within a designated time interval from the time of the provisioning activation. If the tracked device qualifies, the network access point proceeds with provisioning the device. In one system embodiment, the network access point tracks the power on time of wireless devices. When a wireless device to be authorized is powered on, the provisioning logic at the network access point notes the power on time. The user then activates the provisioning access at the network access point, and the network access point provisions the wireless device if it is recently powered on."

Independent claims — plain-language overview (32 claims total; 4 independent)

  • Claim 1 (process): A provisioning process in which provisioning logic tracks an operating parameter of a first device — specifically the device's power-on or the onset of its signal transmission — and, if that tracked event happened within a designated time interval, sends a signal to initiate provisioning of the device onto a network. In short: "qualify the device for network onboarding based on when it powered on or started transmitting."
  • Claim 14 (system): The same core concept expressed as a means-plus-function system: means for tracking the power-on or transmission-onset parameter of a first device, and means for sending a signal to initiate network provisioning if the tracked parameter occurs within a selected time interval.
  • Claim 19 (network access device): An access point/network access device whose access control logic tracks the first device's power-on indication or onset of signal transmission and sends a signal to initiate network provisioning if the event falls within a designated time interval, together with a transceiver configured to wirelessly communicate with the device.
  • Claim 27 (computer-readable medium): A non-transitory processor-readable storage medium storing instructions that cause a network access device to perform the tracking step and the conditional provisioning-initiation step described above.

The dependent claims add typical limitations: IEEE 802.11 or Bluetooth™ device types; denial/repeated power-cycle handling; network types (intranet, LAN, WLAN, WPAN); provisioning content (setup/handshaking/encryption info); MAC-address/device-identifier collection into an access control list; user-input-activated time interval; and reverse-link transmission onset as the tracked parameter.

Patent family / litigation context (from search results)

  • The patent family (ID 32711602) has been heavily litigated in district courts, largely by CommWorks Solutions, LLC / its licensee, asserting the family patents (US6891807, US7027465, US7177285, US7463596, US7911979, USRE44904) against wireless chip/device makers (e.g., MediaTek, AsusTek, D-Link, u-blox, Axon) in Texas Eastern/Western, Delaware, California Central, New York Southern, and Virginia Eastern district courts (Unified Patents litigation data via Google Patents).
  • One 2025–2026 case (CommWorks Solutions v. U-blox, E.D. Va. 1:25-cv-02504) was intradistrict-transferred to the Norfolk Division on December 31, 2025, with US7911979B2 among seven asserted patents. Per the PatSnap summary, that action describes US7911979 as covering "Wi-Fi Mesh networking multi-hop relay functionality" — though I flag that characterization as a litigant-side description that does not appear verbatim in the patent's own text.

Sources

Uncertainty disclosures: (1) I found no 2026 CAFC docket entry for this specific patent; absence in my search is not proof none exists — check the CAFC docket directly if needed. (2) Current ownership is inferred from assignment records and Google's assignee listing, which it flags as potentially inaccurate. (3) A certificate of correction was issued July 19, 2011, but its content was not reviewed.

Generated 9/8/2026, 12:02:12 PM

Cases on file (0)

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Litigation summary

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Proceedings on file (0)

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AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.

No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.

PTAB challenges

AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.

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Assignment history

Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.

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Prior art

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Obviousness

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Extensions

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Derivative works

Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.

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