US 8073819

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Let me run a couple more targeted searches to check litigation and court dockets.

US Patent 8,073,819 — Summary

Important scope note: My searches of the web surfaced the patent's own bibliographic record and full text (Google Patents, Justia), but I found no CAFC 2026 docket, Federal Circuit appeal, or district-court litigation referencing patent number 8073819. Any statement that this patent is (or was) in 2026 appellate litigation would be unsupported by what I could retrieve. I flag that as an area of uncertainty rather than assert it. (Search queries for "8073819" + CAFC/docket returned zero relevant hits.)

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative Google Patents record for US8073819B2)

Status discrepancy worth flagging: The Google Patents header lists "expires 2025-07-31," but the legal-events log shows maintenance-fee lapse entries: a maintenance-fee reminder (2015-07-17), "Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees" (2015-12-06), and "Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee, effective 2015-12-06." So the patent appears to have actually gone abandoned/expired in December 2015 for non-payment of maintenance fees, well before the nominal 20-year term reflected by "2025-07-31." I cannot reconcile the two dates authoritatively from the records I retrieved.

Abstract

"A system and method are disclosed for storing element information. A method incorporating teachings of the present disclosure may include, for example, creating a structured text object that includes information representing a collection of metrics for a tracked network node. The network node may be, for example, a computing device, a communication link, and/or an interface mechanism. In practice, the text object may be compressed into a binary element, and the binary element may be stored in a data store."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

The patent has 22 claims: two independent (claim 1, method; claim 17, computer-readable storage medium) plus dependent claims 2–16 (on claim 1) and 18–22 (on claim 17).

Claim 1 — Method of storing network element information. In plain terms:

1. Collect metric data for at least two metrics of a network element, sent from the element itself (e.g., via SNMP-style MIB/PDU polling) to a centralized, service-bureau-mode repository that manages many different types of elements across multiple networks, with the metric info exposed through a GUI.
2. Build one structured text object (specifically an XML object) bundling the multiple metrics for that element.
3. Automatically compress that text object into a binary element and store it in memory.
4. Tag it with an identification key that includes a customer identifier (this is how later retrieval is targeted).
5. On a request from an access device that includes only a portion of the customer identifier, determine the access-device type, retrieve the binary element using that identifier portion, translate/format the metric data based on the device type, and send the formatted signal back to the device.

The inventive thrust is the combination of (a) aggregating many per-node metrics into a single compressed XML/binary record rather than many table rows, (b) keying retrieval on a partial customer identifier, and (c) device-type-aware delivery of the retrieved metric.

Claim 17 — Computer-readable storage medium. Largely mirrors claim 1, but with these distinctions:

• The metric information is defined as relating to customer billing cycle, customer account number, and/or customer elected service (i.e., customer/account characteristics rather than pure device telemetry).
• The structured text object has multiple fields populated with metric information for the network element(s).
• It recites producing a compressed form, storing it, associating a customer-identifier-based key, receiving a device request with a portion of the identifier, determining device type, retrieving, translating to a device-specific signal, and sending it.

Claim notes and caveats

• Caution on early-published claims: The pre-grant publication (US 2005/0256886 A1), as reproduced on Justia, shows a much broader claim 1 ("creating a structured text object comprising information representing a collection of metrics for a tracked network node; compressing the structured text object into a binary element; and storing the binary element in a data store"). These are not the granted claims. The issued claims are substantially narrower, having added the service-bureau multi-network repository, XML-object, customer-identifier-key, device-type-determination, and signal-translation limitations. Cite the granted claim set, not the publication, when discussing scope.
• Literal-text flag: In the granted claim 17, the source text reads "translate at least a portion of the metric information from the compressed foil of the structured text object." "foil" is almost certainly an OCR artifact for "form," but per your instruction I am not auto-correcting it; treat it as a reproduction defect, not claim language.
• Dependent-claim highlights (for context): claim 2 (single table location), claims 3–4 (migrating legacy metrics from separate table locations into the object), claim 5 (DSL link number; location-derived search results), claim 8 (VoiceXML field via speech-recognition engine), claim 10 (query MIB / receive PDUs), claims 11–12 (wireless network; public internet), claims 13–15 (one value per metric; haptic- and gesture-based requests), claim 16 (CMIP); and in the medium set, claims 20–22 (PSTN switch, Ethernet switch, router).

Uncertainty disclosure

• I did not obtain independent USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or CAFC docket confirmation of current assignee, legal status, or any 2026 appeal. The assignee and status above come from the Google Patents record for US8073819B2; the assignment history shows SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P. as the original recipient, which does not perfectly match Google's "Original Assignee" field (AT&T Intellectual Property I LP). I would verify ownership and post-issuance status against USPTO Assignment and PatentCenter records before relying on them.
• No reexamination, reissue, PTAB, or litigation record for 8073819 appeared in my searches; absence of results is not proof of absence.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8073819. Let me run several targeted searches.

Initial results are dominated by unrelated "381" patents (e.g., 6,771,381; 8,067,381; reexam 95/001,381). Let me refine to the exact patent.

No litigation hits yet — results are matching other "381" patents. Let me search litigation-specific databases and the patent's owner/context.

Bottom line

I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,073,819.

Based on the searches I was able to run (including queries targeting litigation aggregators, court records, and docket text), nothing surfaced that identifies U.S. Patent No. 8,073,819 as an asserted patent in any district court, ITC, or Federal Circuit proceeding. I cannot supply plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case number/filing date/outcome for any case, because I did not find one.

Important false-positive warning (please read)

Searches for "8073819" and even "'381 patent" returned a large number of results for different patents whose numbers merely end in 381 or contain 381. Do not let these be attributed to US 8,073,819. Specifically, the hits I saw were:

• U.S. Patent No. 6,771,381 — "virtual copier" patent owned by MPHJ Technology Investments; subject of Hewlett-Packard Co. v. MPHJ Technology Investments, LLC, IPR2013-00309 (Final Written Decision, Nov. 19, 2014), and related litigation (Engineering & Inspection Services, LLC v. IntPar, LLC, No. 13-0801 (E.D. La.)).
• U.S. Patent No. 8,067,381 — the "beta-alanine" patent in the Woodbolt / NAI litigation (S.D. Tex.), an entirely unrelated chemical/nutraceutical patent.
• U.S. Patent No. 7,532,537 — associated with inter partes reexamination control Nos. 95/001,381; 95/001,339; 95/000,578; 95/000,579.
• A 1999 Delaware docket excerpt referencing a "381 Patent" in Power Integrations v. Motorola-type litigation (again, not this patent).
• US 8,073,819 is a different patent (network element information storage, AT&T). None of the above cite or relate to it.

Per your instruction to interpret identifiers literally, I am flagging that none of those numbers equals 8,073,819, and I am not treating them as matches.

Context on US 8,073,819 (from the authoritative patent record)

• Title: "System and method for storing element information"
• Patent no.: US 8,073,819 B2; Application no. US 10/842,841
• Filed / priority: 2004-05-11; Granted: 2011-12-06
• Inventors: Frederick Michael Armanino, Peter A. Wong, Mengfeng Tsai, Theresa Jayne Lees
• Original/current assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (originally assigned to SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P.)
• 22 claims (method + computer-readable storage medium)
• Status: Expired – Fee Related; maintenance fee lapse with effective date 2015-12-06; patent discontinued per 37 CFR 1.362.

The fee-related lapse in December 2015 and its expiration could plausibly explain the absence of assertion activity, but that is an inference, not a documented finding.

Limitations on this answer

• I could not complete direct verification against PACER, the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com), or Docket Navigator; my search access was exhausted before I could retrieve and read those specific sources.
• Patent litigation can also appear as counterclaims or declaratory-judgment counts that are not indexed under the patent number in general web search.

Recommended next step for a definitive answer: run the exact string "8,073,819" (with comma) and "8073819" (without) directly in:

• Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
• PACER / CourtListener RECAP search for the patent number
• USPTO Patent Center "Litigation" tab for US 10/842,841

If you'd like, I can draft the exact search strings for those databases. Unless those sources show otherwise, the correct statement is: no litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 8,073,819.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 8,073,819: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding for this patent as of 2026-09-30, and independent web searching turned up no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal naming US 8,073,819 (see verification note below). Breakdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. Bottom-line defensive posture: the patent has never been tested at the PTAB, so there is no invalidation record to lean on — but that is largely moot, because the patent lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees effective 2015-12-06 and has been "Expired – Fee Related" for over a decade. A defendant today is not facing a hardened, IPR-survived patent; it is facing a patent that went abandoned by its own owner eight years before the AIA trial bar's peak, and possibly a demand letter citing the wrong '381 patent (see the confusion warning below).

There are therefore no per-proceeding sections to reproduce — I am not going to manufacture proceeding numbers, panels, or dispositions. What I can do is give you the verification trail, the correct posture, and what to do next.

Verification note — what the searches actually returned (and why you should read them carefully)

Every "819" hit in the PTAB record relates to a different patent. Do not let any of these migrate into your invalidity narrative:

Nothing in the PTAB petitions database, the National Law Review PTO Litigation Center dockets, or district-court PTAB-status exhibits reflects a challenge to US 8,073,819.

The actual status of US 8,073,819 (from the authoritative Google Patents/USPTO record)

• Filed / priority date: 2004-05-11 (pre-AIA); application US 10/842,841.
• Granted / published: 2011-12-06 (US 8,073,819 B2); pre-grant pub US 2005/0256886 A1, 2005-11-17.
• Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.; originally SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (assignment recorded 2004-09-09, Reel/Frame 015115/0452).
• Claim count: 22 (claims 1–16 method; claims 17–22 computer-readable storage medium).
• Contested status in PTAB: none. No IPR, PGR, CBM, or reexamination on this patent number appears in the record.
• Legal status — read this carefully: the record carries both a "Lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees," effective 2015-12-06 (37 C.F.R. § 1.362; maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2015-07-17, lapse noted 2015-12-06, patent discontinuation entries 2015-12-31 and 2016-01-04, and an "FP – Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee" entry dated 2016-01-26), and a Google-computed "Adjusted expiration 2025-07-31" / "Expired – Fee Related" status. Those two data points are in tension. The operative event is the 2015-12-06 fee lapse, which is what the USPTO legal-events trail records; the 2025-07-31 date is an algorithmic term estimate that does not resurrect a lapsed patent. Confirm this in USPTO Patent Center before relying on it (Patent Center) — but if the lapse is real, this patent has been dead since December 2015.

Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. All 22 claims (1–22) are UNTESTED at the PTAB. Zero claims were canceled, zero were upheld, and no panel ever reached the merits. There is no IPR-narrowed surviving claim set to steer around and no FWD to quote. Contrast that with the situation you might think applies if someone handed you an "819" FWD — that would be 6,771,381 (claims 1–12, 14, 15 canceled; claim 13 sustained), an entirely unrelated patent.

Estoppel landscape — § 315(e)(2) is a non-issue here. Statutory estoppel only attaches to a petitioner whose IPR/PGR was instituted and resulted in a final written decision. No proceeding was instituted against 8,073,819, so no person is statutorily estopped from raising any ground against it. Every § 102/§ 103/§ 112 ground that exists is nominally still available to anyone — including grounds a petitioner could have raised. That is the only upside of the empty docket. (Corollary trap: do not cite estoppel from the MPHJ 6,771,381 case, and do not assume AT&T's other IPR experience — e.g., Cox v. AT&T on the '714 patent — creates any estoppel or privity chain touching this patent.)

Pattern signals. There is no pattern because there is no data: no repeat petitioner, no defensive aggregator (no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar filing is on record for this patent), no PTAB appeal by the patent owner, and no Federal Circuit docket entry. The most plausible explanation for the total absence of challenges is that the patent was allowed to lapse in 2015 and never became a meaningful monetization or assertion target — which is itself informative. Well-asserted software/network-management patents of this vintage (filed 2004, granted 2011) almost invariably attract at least one IPR between 2012 and 2020; this one attracted none.

One live caveat on CBM. Because this is a pre-AIA patent with a financial/business-method flavor (customer billing cycles, account numbers, elected services — see claim 17), a CBM review would once have been the natural vehicle. The CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16, so that pathway is closed permanently. IPR remains available against an expired patent for past-infringement purposes, but see the cost/benefit point below.

Recommended next steps

1. If you have received a demand letter or complaint citing "US 8,073,819": the first response is the maintenance-fee lapse. Pull the Patent Center maintenance-fee history and the 2015/2016 legal-events entries, and read the entity's standing. An expired patent can still support a suit for past damages within the § 286 six-year lookback, so expiry is not automatically a complete defense — but for a patent that lapsed in 2015, the recoverable past-damages window is closed as of 2021-12-06, and the § 286 bar now knocks out effectively everything. Verify the exact lapse date, because that date is your damages cutoff.

2. If the demand letter quotes a PTAB outcome, check the patent number. The most likely error is a citation to the Hewlett-Packard v. MPHJ FWD on 6,771,381, where "claims 1–12, 14, and 15 … are unpatentable" and "claim 13 … is [not] unpatentable" (FWD 2014-11-19, panel Tierney, Easthom (author), Anderson). That decision has no legal or evidentiary force against 8,073,819. If opposing counsel is using it to threaten or to bolster validity arguments about this patent, that is a sanctionable misrepresentation risk and worth a letter.

3. If a demand is actually directed at an IPR-hardened sibling, disambiguate now. Establish which patent family the assertion concerns by checking the asserted claim text against claim 1 of 8,073,819 (structured XML object → automatic compression into a binary element → identification key including a customer identifier → device-type detection → format translation) and claim 17 (metrics limited to billing cycle / account number / elected service). If the asserted claims do not recite that combination, you are looking at a different patent.

4. Do not budget for an IPR as your primary defense. A petition is technically permissible (no § 315(b) service bar if unserved; § 325(d) is irrelevant with no prior PTAB art), but paying $100k–$300k to invalidate an expired, lapsed patent is poor economics. If you do need a PTAB record — for example to defeat an ongoing royalty theory or to support a § 285 fee motion — the cost-benefit flips, and you would file IPR rather than CBM (program sunset 2020-09-16).

5. Monitor, then close the file. Set a periodic check against PTAB E2E and the USPTO ODP API for any newly indexed proceeding on 8,073,819, and a CourtListener docket alert for the patent number. Given the 2015 lapse, the expected steady state is zero new activity.

Bottom line: No AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed against US 8,073,819. There is no FWD, no institution decision, no panel, no settlement, and no appeal to link to — because none exists, and I will not construct one. The patent's own maintenance-fee lapse effective 2015-12-06 is far more significant to a modern defendant than any IPR would have been, and the only material risk in this file is that someone is asserting a different '381/'819 patent under a confusingly similar number.

I'll research the assignment record for US 8073819 using the sources specified. Let me start with parallel searches.

Let me dig deeper into the assignment record details and any litigation or transfer activity.

I have enough to reconstruct the record. Note one important limitation up front: the fetched authoritative Google Patents legal-events data is my primary source here; the USPTO Assignment Center's per-record correspondent field could not be retrieved in this session (the search backend returned unrelated content and then rate-limited), so I flag below exactly where the correspondent is not determinable rather than guessing.

Inventors

Pattern note: The four inventors are split between a Texas address and three distinct San Francisco Bay Area addresses — consistent with a cross-regional SBC engineering team rather than a startup. Recurrence of Armanino, Tsai, and Lees on a second, later SBC Knowledge Ventures application (filed 2005-05-17) shows the team stayed with the assignee after this filing. There is no evidence of inventors departing the assignee within 12 months of filing, and no portfolio fire-sale followed. This is the opposite of the "inventors scatter, portfolio gets dumped" tell.

Original assignee

SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (a Nevada limited partnership), the IP-holding subsidiary of SBC Communications Inc. The inventors executed the assignment to SBC Knowledge Ventures in July 2004 (signing dates 2004-07-19 to 2004-07-21), recorded 2004-09-09.

• Product embodying the claims: The claimed subject matter is an internal network-management/telemetry system (storing per-element metrics as compressed structured XML objects, keyed by customer identifier, served via a GUI). SBC/AT&T operated exactly this kind of network operations infrastructure, but the patent describes an internal management platform rather than a separately sold product.
• Primary line of business: Telecommunications — ILEC/local exchange, long distance, DSL, wireless, later IPTV.
• Current status: Operating. SBC Communications acquired AT&T Corp. in 2005 and renamed itself AT&T Inc.; the IP subsidiaries were renamed accordingly. The current assignee of record shown by Google Patents is AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. (formerly known as SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P.) — i.e., a change of name, not an assignment. AT&T remains a going concern.

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of every recorded assignment surfaced by the authoritative source (Google Patents legal events, which mirrors USPTO Assignment Center):

• 2004-07-19 / 2004-07-21 (executed) / recorded 2004-09-09 — Reel 015115/0452

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Armanino, Frederick Michael; Wong, Peter A.; Tsai, Mengfeng; Lees, Theresa Jayne
  • Assignee: SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P. (Nevada)
  • Correspondent: Not determinable from the data retrieved in this session. The Assignment Center per-record correspondent field could not be pulled (search backend returned unrelated content, then rate-limited). The reel/frame is confirmed in the legal-events record; the filing attorney/agent of record is not.
  • Context: Original inventor-to-employer assignment (standard corporate patent capture at filing). Not an acquisition, fire-sale, or transfer-to-asserter.

• (No further recorded assignments. The 2010-11-01 entry is a fee-payment/entity-status event, not an assignment. The AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P. name is a corporate change of name from SBC Knowledge Ventures and generated no separate assignment record.)

Important finding: The Assignment Center / legal-events record for US 8073819 contains only the single original assignment. There is no post-issuance transfer of any kind — no sale to an IP-holding LLC, no security agreement, no merger, no license, no release. Under the prompt's own guidance, "only the original assignment" is itself the finding: the original assignee (AT&T) retained ownership for the life of the patent.

Post-issuance lifecycle (for completeness):

• 2011-12-06 — patent granted.
• 2015-07-17 — maintenance-fee reminder mailed.
• 2015-12-06 — patent lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees (37 CFR 1.362); status "Expired – Fee Related."
• 2025-07-31 — adjusted-expiration date carried on the record (moot, given the 2015 lapse).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8073819
    2004 : Filed by SBC Knowledge Ventures
         : Inventors assign to SBC Knowledge Ventures
    2005 : Published as US20050256886A1
    2011 : Patent granted as US8073819
    2015 : Lapsed for unpaid maintenance fees

(No assignment events after 2004 exist to plot; the AT&T name change is a corporate renaming, not a recorded transfer.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Because there is only one recorded assignment and it is the original inventor-to-employer capture, most signals are absent by construction. Findings, each with a grounding citation:

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only assignee of record is SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P., an operating telecom's IP subsidiary, not a licensing-only LLC. No "IP/Holdings/Ventures" NPE shell appears post-issuance. No reel/frame transfer to any such entity exists.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither the original assignee nor the current name (AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P.) matches any public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, Round Rock, etc.). Note: AT&T's "IP Ventures"/"Knowledge Ventures" naming superficially resembles NPE-style entities, but that is exactly the kind of name-only inference the prompt forbids — there is no transfer to an asserting entity on record, and the patent never left AT&T.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not determinable. With only one assignment and no retrievable correspondent field, there is no chain to check for recurrence. This signal cannot be assessed on the data available.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. There are zero consecutive assignments; the chain has a single link. No chained LLCs, no shared correspondent addresses, no common principals on record.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No assignment (and no litigation located) post-dates issuance; there is no transfer within 6 months before any suit. Searches for infringement litigation naming 8,073,819 returned nothing responsive.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. SBC/AT&T never filed Chapter 7/11; there was no patent auction. The patent simply lapsed.

7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer from AT&T to a third-party NPE asserting on AT&T's behalf. Ownership stayed inside AT&T.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at the original operating assignee, then the patent expired.

Verdict

Insufficient data — the record contains only the original assignment (Reel 015115/0452, executed 2004-07-19/21, recorded 2004-09-09), from the four inventors to SBC Knowledge Ventures, L.P., with no post-issuance transfers of any kind. The current holder name, AT&T Intellectual Property I, L.P., reflects a corporate change of name from SBC Knowledge Ventures rather than a recorded assignment, and the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2015-12-06 — so no assignee in the chain ever had an opportunity to assert it. This is a clean operating-company capture with no NPE activity, and with no NPE/non-NPE history to weigh, it maps to "Insufficient data" rather than any assertion category.

Caveat on completeness: I could not retrieve the Assignment Center's per-record correspondent field (the attorney/agent of record) for Reel 015115/0452 in this session, so signals 3 hinges on data I do not have. Verify at the USPTO Assignment Center by searching patent number 8073819:
https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

(Verification link: search "8073819" under Patent Assignment Search; the underlying record also appears in the Google Patents legal-events table at https://patents.google.com/patent/US8073819/en.)

I'll start by verifying the USPTO record and then examine each cited reference.

Let me gather details on the remaining cited references.

Prior Art Analysis — US 8,073,819 B2

Building on the prior section: I do not repeat the bibliographic table, abstract, or claim summary already generated. This section adds the reference-by-reference prior-art analysis requested, and cross-references the earlier findings (granted vs. published claim scope; the 2015 maintenance-fee lapse).

0. Verification and scope caveats

• Source of the citation list. The 17 references below are the patent citations appearing in the authoritative Google Patents record for US8073819B2 (the same record supplied in the task). I independently searched for several of them; where a search returned, it confirmed the citation. I was cut off by a research-step limit before individually re-verifying every one of the 17 against USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR, so treat the citation metadata as sourced from the patent's own record and not yet double-confirmed in PatentCenter. I found no reexamination, reissue, PTAB, or litigation record, consistent with the earlier section's uncertainty disclosure.
• Governing law. Because US 10/842,841 was filed 2004-05-11, the pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 regime applies (§ 102(a), (b), (e)). The AIA first-inventor-to-file provisions do not apply.
• Anticipation standard. A reference anticipates a claim under § 102 only if a single reference discloses every limitation, arranged as in the claim (MPEP § 2131). A dependent claim incorporates all limitations of the claim(s) from which it depends, so a reference that does not meet the parent independent claim cannot anticipate the dependent claim standing alone.
• Bottom line up front: None of the 17 cited references anticipates independent claim 1 or independent claim 17 in full. The references are relevant at the limitation level (and as § 103 combination art), not as complete § 102 anticipations of the granted claims. The granted claims are narrow — see the earlier section's caution that the broad pre-grant publication claims (US 2005/0256886 A1) are not the granted claims.

1. The 17 patent citations (full citation, dates, description)

All dates are as listed in the US8073819B2 citation record. "Pub." = publication/grant date; "Filed/Priority" = the earlier date shown in the record.

§ 102 subsection note (pre-AIA): References 1–9, 11, and 12 (and, arguably, 13 onward) have publication dates more than one year before 2004-05-11 as to some entries — i.e., dates on or before 2003-05-11 qualify under § 102(b) (e.g., #1–8, #11, and #9 published 2003-03-27). References whose publication postdated 2003-05-11 but whose filing predates the 2004-05-11 filing (e.g., #10, #12, #13, #14, #15, #16, #17) qualify as prior art under § 102(e) as of their U.S. filing dates. Either way, all 17 predate the 2004-05-11 priority date and are § 102-eligible.

2. Reference-by-reference § 102 mapping

The most efficient way to present this is by the limitation each reference touches, then state the anticipation conclusion. Claim 1 limitations are labeled (a)–(m) per the prior section; claim 17 largely mirrors them with the added "billing cycle / account number / elected service" metric definition (call it (17-metric)).

(1) US 4,879,558 A — Sangamo Weston

• Discloses: compression of recorded data + display.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches only the generic "compress data" concept underlying (f). Relevant at most as evidence that data compression was old and well known.

(2) US 5,247,638 A — Storage Technology

• Discloses: transparent compression within a virtual data-storage subsystem.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (f) compress and (g) store generically. No network element, no XML object, no customer key, no device-type delivery.

(3) US 5,546,575 A — Potter (Basil E. Potter & Associates) ← most on-point on the storage/compression side

• Discloses: selectively compressing fields of a tabular database; substituting codes/patterns; creating compacted records grouped into equal-length partitions forming a "database image"; translation/auxiliary tables let the compacted data be retranslated into a user-readable format; database image in mass storage, tables in fast-access memory; an accessing subsystem retrieves data.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim, but it is the closest cited art to the idea of collapsing many per-field/per-metric values into a single compacted stored record with a retrieval mechanism. Touches (e) (structured record with multiple fields, though not an XML object), (f), (g), and the retrieval mechanism behind (k). Directly relevant as § 103 combination art for the "one compressed record instead of many rows" concept, and to the concept behind claim 2 (single table location). It does not disclose a network element, XML, a customer-identifier key, device-type determination, or signal translation.

(4) US 6,002,694 A — Hitachi

• Discloses: interactive chargeable (PPV/VOD) system; compressed video/audio; identification code identifying the data reproduction system or user; billing based on program code + ID; conditional descrambling permission.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (h) (an ID associated with a user/customer used to gate retrieval) and, weakly, (17-metric) (billing-related information) and (f) (compressed content). No network-element metrics, no XML object, no device-type-determined translation.

(5) US 2001/0039537 A1 — Carpenter

• Discloses: a network-enabled, extensible metering system — collecting metering data across a network.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (a) (receiving metric/metering information over a network) and the "extensible structured data" idea. No compression-to-binary, no customer-identifier key, no device-type translation.

(6) US 6,317,747 B1 — IBM

• Discloses: dedicated I/O processor for access and storage of compressed data.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (f)/(g)/(k) generically (compress, store, access).

(7) US 6,334,126 B1 — Casio

• Discloses: data output system and communication terminal for outputting data to a connected terminal.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (m) (send data to a terminal) and loosely the notion of outputting to a device. No metric aggregation/compression/keying.

(8) US 6,502,131 B1 — Novell

• Discloses: directory-enabled policy management for intelligent traffic management — storing network policy/element information in a directory and applying it to network devices.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (b) (centralized/managed repository of network element information) and (h) (directory-keyed lookup of records). Not metrics-in-a-compressed-object.

(9) US 2003/0061195 A1 — Laborde

• Discloses: a Technical Data Management (TDM) framework for managing technical data.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches the general concept of a structured framework for technical/network data (e), without the claimed compression/keying/delivery combination.

(10) US 6,570,511 B1 — Unisys

• Discloses: a specific data-compression algorithm (limited-length character tables; compact string codes).
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (f) only.

(11) US 6,714,979 B1 — WorldCom ← relevant to GUI presentation

• Discloses: data-warehousing infrastructure for a web-based reporting tool — storing collections of operational data and presenting reports via a web/GUI interface.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (d) (metric info accessible via a GUI) and (g) (storing data in a data store). Very relevant as § 103 art for the "accessible via a graphical user interface" limitation, but it does not compress an XML object and key it by customer identifier.

(12) US 6,748,426 B1 — Murex Securities

• Discloses: linking information in a global computer network (e.g., linking address/telephone/location records).
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches the location-of-customer search idea behind claim 5 ("data representing a location of the particular customer") and the general notion of linking multiple pieces of information. Not anticipatory.

(13) US 6,886,020 B1 — EMC ← most on-point on the metrics-collection side

• Discloses: an automated system to monitor and manage status, performance, and configuration data for a plurality of networked storage components; a collection manager coordinates collection agents on hosts; data can be analyzed and cross-correlated individually/collectively; archive management.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (a) (collecting metrics from networked elements), (b)/(c) (centralized management of metrics from multiple networked components), and (e)-adjacent "collection of metrics." It is the strongest cited art for the "receiving/maintaining metric information from network elements" limitations, and is a natural § 103 primary reference. Critically, it does not disclose generating an XML structured text object, compressing it into a binary element, keying by a customer identifier, or access-device-type-based translation.

(14) US 6,985,901 B1 — Accenture

• Discloses: controlling data collection, manipulation and storage on a network with service-assurance capabilities.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (b)/(c) (centralized, ongoing collection/maintenance of network data — arguably the closest cited art to the "service bureau mode … obtaining and maintaining metric information" limitation) and (g) (storage). Does not disclose XML-object compression, customer-identifier keying, or device-type-aware delivery.

(15) US 7,100,199 B2 — Intertrust

• Discloses: secure transaction management and electronic rights protection; distributing content subject to usage rights and rendering constraints.
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (l) weakly (formatting/conditioning content for a receiving device/consumer) and the general "secure repository" concept. Different technical field; not anticipatory.

(16) US 7,373,330 B1 — Copyright Clearance Center

• Discloses: tracking and controlling e-mail forwarding of encrypted documents (persistent document protection; tracking information associated with a document).
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches only the general notion of tracking information associated with a stored/protected object. Off-point; included here because the patent cites it.

(17) US 7,870,244 B2 — IBM ← relevant to distributed monitoring + access control

• Discloses: monitoring performance of applications in a distributed environment; user selects information to monitor; monitored/waiting parameter compared against thresholds; notifications; real-time configuration/relationship views; and role-based access control (access to functions mapped to each user role via an access-control list).
• Potentially anticipates: No full claim. Touches (a)/(c) (collecting performance/metric data from elements in a distributed environment), (d) (presenting monitored information to a user), and, loosely, (j) access device/user type via its role/ACL mechanism. No XML-object compression, no customer-identifier key, no signal translation.

3. Which references are "most relevant," and to which claims

Because no citation anticipates the independent claims, "most relevant" here means best § 103 art / closest disclosure of the claimed combination's individual parts:

References with the least bearing on the granted claims (cited mainly to show the age of compression, storage, encryption, or clustering techniques): US 4,879,558; US 5,247,638; US 6,317,747; US 6,570,511; US 7,100,199; US 7,373,330. Their value is as background/§ 103 secondary art, not § 102 anticipation.

4. Element-level § 102 conclusion

5. Flags and uncertainty (building on the prior section)

1. No § 102 anticipator found among the 17 citations. The strongest references (EMC '020; Potter '575; Accenture '901; IBM '244) each cover parts of claim 1 but none covers the full granted combination. A validity challenge would most plausibly be framed as § 103 using EMC '020 or Accenture '901 as a primary reference (metric collection/management) combined with Potter '575 (compress a multi-field record into a stored image for retrieval) and WorldCom '979 (GUI reporting), with Hitachi '694 supplying the customer-identifier/billing aspect.
2. Cite the granted claims, not the publication. As the earlier section flagged, the pre-grant publication US 2005/0256886 A1 shows much broader claims; the narrowed granted claim 1 is what defeats these anticipations.
3. Source limitation. I confirmed the patent's bibliographic record and several of the cited references via search, but hit a research-step limit before individually re-verifying all 17 references in USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR. Treat the citation dates and descriptions as originating from the US8073819B2 record (Google Patents), to be double-checked against PatentCenter before being relied on.
4. Literal-identifier handling. I have carried the identifiers exactly as they appear in the record (e.g., US 6,317,747 B1, US 7,373,330 B1, US 7,870,244 B2) without alteration. No renumbering or "correction" has been applied.
5. No litigation/PTAB/appeal found — consistent with the prior section's disclosure; absence of results is not proof of absence.

I'll ground this analysis by researching the specific prior-art references cited on the patent page.

Now let me research the remaining key prior-art references.

Let me research the remaining prior-art references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,073,819 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on task framing: This builds on the earlier bibliographic/claim summary. The earlier summary flagged that no litigation or appellate record was found; that remains unchanged. Because US 8,073,819 has a filing/priority date of 2004‑05‑11, pre‑AIA law governs (AIA §§ 102/103 apply only to applications filed on/after 2013‑03‑16). All citations below are to the granted claims (1–22), not the broader US 2005/0256886 A1 publication claims.

1. Which references on this page actually qualify as prior art

A threshold point that materially changes the analysis: Google Patents' "Citations" list mixes true prior art with post‑filing references, and the "Families Citing this family" list is not prior art at all.

Qualifying prior art (all are US patents/patent publications filed before 2004‑05‑11):

Disqualified / irrelevant to § 103: Every member of "Families Citing this family" has a priority date after 2004‑05‑11 — US 9,295,105 B2 (2004‑06‑30), US 8,917,598 B2 (2007‑12‑21), US 8,699,487 B2 (2008‑02‑04), US 8,656,239 B2 (2008‑02‑12), EP 2,359,276 A4 (2008‑12‑01), US 11,113,299 B2 (2009‑12‑01), US 8,984,028 B2 (2012‑05‑29). They cannot support an obviousness rejection (nothing under § 102(a)/(b)/(e)/(g)). Likewise, the "Similar Documents" list is a similarity heuristic, not an art-of-record list.

Disclosure caveat (important): I retrieved full or substantial text for US 6,886,020, US 6,985,901, US 6,714,979, US 6,502,131, US 2001/0039537, and the related EMC patent US 7,082,441 (same family/terminal disclaimer as US 6,886,020). For US 6,002,694, US 6,317,747, US 5,546,575, US 5,247,638, US 4,879,558, US 6,570,511, US 6,334,126, US 6,748,426, US 2003/0061195, US 7,100,199, US 7,373,330, US 7,870,244 I was not able to pull full text before my tool budget was exhausted. My use of those twelve is therefore at title/abstract/field level and must be verified paragraph‑by‑paragraph before being relied on in a validity opinion, IPR petition, or office action response.

2. Level of ordinary skill in the art (Graham factor 3)

A PHOSITA at the May 2004 critical date would hold a bachelor's degree in CS/EE (or equivalent) and ~2–4 years' experience in network management systems — specifically SNMP/CMIP element monitoring, MIB polling, relational database administration for large metrics tables, and web/GUI reporting. This is a routine-engineering, integration-heavy art, not a research art. That matters under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): predictable combinations of known elements, and use of known techniques to improve a similar device, are obvious.

3. Claim 1 — element-by-element mapping

Claim 1 breaks into ten limitations. Mapping against the strongest reference cluster:

4. Primary proposed combinations and the motivation to combine

Combination A (core): US 6,886,020 (EMC) + US 6,985,901 (Accenture)

Why these two. Both sit in the same art and address the same problem the '819 patent itself frames: conventional element/network management "rel[ies] heavily on the availability of trained people and the scalability of deployed storage and computing resources," and "the cost and complexity of simply growing the network management system may become too high."

• US 6,886,020 supplies: central collection of multiple metrics per element; ASCII→binary conversion; compression on archival; a self‑describing structured text format holding multiple metrics per object; keyed archival records; and a GUI performance‑view retrieval layer. It also inherently handles different types of elements (systems, Directors, logical volumes, disks) from a plurality of networked components.
• US 6,985,901 supplies: a service‑provider / service‑assurance architecture that centrally retrieves, manipulates, standardizes and stores network performance and event data from network monitors into a database, assigns key codes, sorts, concatenates to a master file, and serves reports via a GUI — i.e., the multi‑network, provider‑operated repository and the keyed‑record pipeline.

Motivation (KSR‑sufficient):

1. Same field, same problem — both are automated network/asset telemetry collection‑and‑archive systems. Combining an archive format (EMC) with a provider‑grade normalized collection/keying pipeline (Accenture) is "a combination of known elements according to known methods … to yield predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S. at 416.
2. Predictable result of reduced storage — the '819 patent's touted benefit ("up to 80% in tablespace", reduced disk I/O) is the ordinary, expected consequence of converting verbose ASCII metric records to compressed binary records and consolidating many rows into one object — exactly what EMC teaches. A benefit that is the inherent result of a known technique is not a non‑obviousness anchor.
3. Design incentive exists in the references themselves — both EMC and Accenture explicitly criticize prior systems for inflexible collection, poor data organization, and lack of central cross‑correlation; each is solving the "too much data, badly organized" problem. Combining them is the natural engineering step.

Combination B (compression sub‑limitation): US 6,886,020 + US 5,546,575 (Potter)

EMC's "compression" is time‑density aggregation (averaging 4 interval records → 1 hourly record, etc.), which is temporal roll‑up, not necessarily byte‑level data compression. If the patent owner argues "compress into a binary element" requires true data compression, US 5,546,575 supplies it directly: an encoding method that compresses a tabular database by selecting effective compression routines for each field and the structure of partitions of equal‑sized records. Motivation: identical problem statement ("relieve the over utilization of tablespace in conventional databases that store vast amounts of detail metrics over long periods"), and the patent's own Figures/claims (claim 2: "stored in a single table location") map to Potter's record‑partition structure. US 5,247,638, US 6,317,747, US 6,570,511, and US 4,879,558 are cumulative corroboration that compressing records for storage was a mature, obvious option.

Combination C (customer‑identifier key + customer‑data content): + US 6,714,979 (WorldCom) and/or US 6,002,694 (Hitachi)

• US 6,714,979 teaches a data‑warehousing infrastructure for telecommunications priced call detail data integrated with a Web/Internet reporting GUI, performing "an extraction process to obtain only those billing detail records of entitled customers," transforming records "into a star schema format for storage" and enabling report generation per customer. That is: customer‑scoped, keyed, report‑oriented retrieval of stored telecommunications records — directly supplying claim 1's "customer identifier" key and, for claim 17, the "customer billing cycle / account number / elected service" metric content.
• US 6,002,694 (Hitachi) teaches an interactive chargeable communication system with a billing system, reinforcing subscriber‑identifier‑keyed records.

Motivation: the '819 specification itself states the maintained metrics "include additional metrics that relate to customer characteristics like billing cycles, account numbers, elected services" and "DSL or cable‑related circuit identifiers," and its Fig. 3 example keys retrieval off the "A61" customer number (Austin, TX). A POSITA integrating an element‑metrics archive with a carrier's existing customer/billing data warehouse (WorldCom) would, as a matter of ordinary design, key element records by customer to answer the customer‑oriented queries the patent describes. KSR permits motivation drawn from "the nature of the problem to be solved."

Combination D (device‑type adaptation): US 6,985,901 / US 6,334,126 / US 2001/0039537

For "determin[ing] an access device type" and "translat[ing] … based on the access device type," the best resort is US 6,334,126 (Casio — output system/communication terminal) combined with US 6,985,901's multi‑channel notification dispatch (page vs. e‑mail vs. log) and US 2001/0039537's heterogeneous networked applications/meter clients served via Open APIs. Motivation: serving the same stored data to heterogeneous clients in client‑appropriate formats was a recognized goal by 2004; the '819 specification itself frames the "access device engine" as an ordinary format converter. This is nonetheless the least well‑supported limitation (see § 6).

5. Dependent claims — obviousness notes

6. Claim 17 (computer‑readable medium) and dependents

Claim 17 mirrors claim 1 but (a) defines the metrics as billing cycle / account number / elected service and (b) requires multiple populated fields. Same combinations apply:

• US 6,714,979 is the most on‑point reference: it is literally a telecommunication customer‑billing/account data warehouse with a GUI reporting front end, customer‑entitlement extraction, and star‑schema record structure — i.e., customer‑characteristic metrics (billing/account/service) stored as structured, keyed records retrieved per customer.
• US 6,985,901 supplies the network‑element performance/event metric side, so the combination covers both halves of claim 17's metric definition.
• US 6,002,694 (Hitachi) bridges charging/billing records to a communication network element.

Dependents: 18 (second request → uncompress → GUI → drill‑down on additional info) = US 6,714,979's GUI reporting/drill‑down + EMC's archive retrieval. 19 (voice/visual/text signal) = US 6,985,901 notification channels/rendering. 20–22 (PSTN switch, Ethernet switch, router as network elements) = pure identification of conventional elements; the patent's own spec names PSTN switches, Ethernet switches, routers as example platforms, and US 6,985,901 / US 6,502,131 monitor network elements generally.

Note the phrase "compressed foil of the structured text object" in granted claim 17 — as flagged in the earlier summary, this reads as a reproduction defect for "form." I am not treating it as claim language; if it is genuinely the issued text, it introduces a § 112 indefiniteness issue worth raising separately.

7. Where the patent has its best (though fragile) non‑obviousness arguments

An honest § 103 analysis must state the counter‑case:

1. "Determine an access device type" + "translate … based on the access device type" (claim 1). This is the limitation least clearly met by the cited art. US 6,985,901's notification actions are content/channel choices (page, e‑mail, log), not an inference of device type, and Casio US 6,334,126 is unverified at paragraph level. Expect the patent owner to argue this is the "inventive" kernel. Rebuttal: client‑capability detection and format conversion were well‑known in 2004 web/mobile serving (and the '819 spec treats it as a routine format converter); an examiner would likely find a dedicated device‑adaptation reference. But on the art of record alone, this is a gap.
2. "Service bureau mode … different types of communication network elements of a plurality of communication networks." Largely a business‑model framing of a multi‑tenant central repository. US 6,985,901 and US 6,886,020 teach the technical substance; but if "service bureau mode" were construed to require outsourcing‑specific features (billing/multi‑customer tenancy/SLAs), the record is thinner.
3. "Automatically compressing" — temporal vs. data compression. EMC's "compression" is time‑density roll‑up; the patent owner could argue the claim requires byte‑level compression, which EMC does not squarely show. This is why Combination B (Potter/IBM/StorageTek/Unisys) is necessary, not optional.
4. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4). The only asserted benefit is ~80% tablespace savings and reduced I/O. That is the inherent result of compression + record consolidation, and there is no evidence of unexpected results, long‑felt need, failure of others, or licensing. No nexus to any narrow limitation is shown. Weak.

8. Bottom line

• Broadest published claim (US 2005/0256886 A1: structured text object → compress → store) would be plainly obvious over US 6,886,020 alone — EMC expressly converts metrics from ASCII to binary and compresses them into keyed archives while holding multiple metrics per object.
• Granted claim 1 is substantially narrower, but is still rendered obvious by US 6,886,020 + US 6,985,901, further in view of US 5,546,575 (and, for the customer‑identifier key, US 6,714,979 / US 6,002,694), with US 6,985,901 / US 6,334,126 supplying device/channel‑adaptive output. The strongest complete prima facie case needs an additional device‑type‑adaptation reference not on this page.
• Claim 17 is well covered: US 6,714,979 + US 6,985,901 (+ US 6,002,694).
• Claims 8, 10, 16, and 20–22 rely largely on applicant's own specification admissions that XML/VoiceXML markup, SNMP/MIB/PDU polling, CMIP, and PSTN/Ethernet/router elements were conventional.
• Dependent claims 14 and 15 (haptic‑ and gesture‑based requests) are the least well supported by the art of record.

9. Explicit uncertainties / verification still required

• Full‑text verification outstanding for twelve cited references (listed in § 1) — my paragraph‑level grounding exists only for US 6,886,020 / US 7,082,441, US 6,985,901, US 6,714,979, US 6,502,131, and US 2001/0039537. Before asserting any of these as § 103 art in a filing, confirm the specific column/paragraph cites, the § 102(e) filing dates, and that no reference is disqualified as applicant's own work or under § 103(c).
• US 6,748,426 granted 2004‑06‑08, after the 2004‑05‑11 filing date — it is prior art only under § 102(e) by virtue of its 2000‑06‑15 filing date; verify.
• The "expires 2025‑07‑31" vs. the 2015‑12‑06 fee‑lapse entries discrepancy noted in the earlier summary remains unresolved; it affects remedy/standing, not the § 103 merits.
• The "compressed foil" text in claim 17 (if verbatim) should be flagged for a separate indefiniteness analysis; I have not auto‑corrected it.
• No reexamination, reissue, PTAB, or litigation record for US 8,073,819 surfaced in my searches; absence of results is not proof of absence.

If you want, I can turn Combination A into a formal claim‑chart with per‑element paragraph citations once full text for the remaining references is retrieved.