US 8116781

I'll search for authoritative information on US 8,116,781, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me do a few more targeted searches to check for any 2026 CAFC or litigation activity and confirm USPTO/assignment data.

Let me do one final check for any litigation or PTAB activity involving this patent.

US Patent 8,116,781 — Summary

Important scope note: I searched for both the USPTO record and CAFC 2026 dockets for the specific number 8,116,781. I found no CAFC 2026 docket entry, appeal, or Federal Circuit activity referencing this patent number. My CAFC-specific searches returned empty or unrelated results. I also found no PTAB/IPR or district-court litigation in 2026 tied to this number. Treat any assertion of 2026 appellate activity as unverified — I could not confirm it.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative patent text)

Abstract

The patent provides for management of wireless resources that reduces call blocking by allowing high-priority services, under suitable conditions, to use resources allocated to low-priority services. High-priority services can pre-empt wireless resources used by low-priority services, reducing blocking for high-priority calls while giving low-priority calls more access to radio resources than conventional systems at the same blocking rate. A base station can implement a preemption mechanism that reclaims Walsh Code and Forward Power resources from an active Supplemental Channel (SCH) burst to accommodate incoming Fundamental Channel (FCH) requests.

Plain-language overview of each independent claim

• Claim 1 — Base station (apparatus). A base station that (a) receives a request for a data session; (b) compares resource usage against available resources to see if enough exist — where the comparing logic checks Walsh code resources in response to the request and checks power resources other than in response to the request; (c) allocates resources if available; and (d) if resources are insufficient, generates a pre-emption request, determines whether a session without a real-time requirement can be pre-empted to free enough resources, pre-empts it if so, and blocks the new request while keeping the non-real-time session if pre-emption cannot free enough resources.

• Claim 3 — Method of allocating wireless resources at a base station. The method counterpart: compare usage vs. available resources (including a Walsh code resource set and a power resource set) for an incoming high-priority service; if insufficient, generate a pre-emption request; determine whether pre-empting a low-priority service frees enough resources; pre-empt if possible; otherwise block the high-priority service while maintaining the low-priority service. As in claim 1, the Walsh-code comparison happens in response to a service request, while the power comparison happens other than in response to a request.

• Claim 12 — Method of controlling a base station to allocate resources between delay-sensitive and non-delay-sensitive services. Establishes a first threshold (delay-sensitive) and second threshold (non-delay-sensitive); allocates on request while thresholds aren't reached; lets non-delay-sensitive traffic borrow beyond its second threshold if the first threshold isn't reached; and if delay-sensitive demand then lacks resources, generates a pre-emption request and (if pre-emption can free enough) pre-empts non-delay-sensitive resources, or otherwise blocks the delay-sensitive request while keeping the non-delay-sensitive service. Again ties pre-emption to the Walsh-code resource set on request and the power resource set other than on request.

• Claim 17 — Non-transient computer-readable storage medium. A tangible program product, executed by a base-station processor, whose program code performs the compare → generate pre-emption request → determine → pre-empt (or block, maintaining the low-priority service) sequence, with the comparing and pre-empting occurring both in response to a request for the Walsh-code resource set and other than in response to a request for the power resource set, to make resources available on an ongoing basis.

Notes / uncertainty

• The independent claims as issued are narrower than the "broad aspect" language recited in the Summary of the Invention section of the specification. The specification's broad concept is simply "compare usage; if insufficient, pre-empt a low-priority service." The granted independent claims add a specific limitation distinguishing Walsh code resources (checked on-request) from power resources (checked off-request). This distinction is consistent with the FIG. 5 power-check embodiment (periodic ~2-second power estimation) versus the on-request Walsh-code admission checks.
• I did not independently verify the current USPTO assignment/status records beyond the patent document itself; the assignee chain and status above are drawn from the provided authoritative patent text. If you need legally current title/status, that should be confirmed directly in USPTO PatentCenter/Assignment records.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 8,116,781. Let me run several searches.

Let me search more targeted litigation databases.

Let me check litigation databases and related family patents.

Litigation Search Results: US Patent 8,116,781

Bottom line

I found no evidence of any litigation asserting or challenging US Patent 8,116,781. Based on the searches I was able to run, this patent does not appear to have been the subject of any patent infringement suit, declaratory judgment action, IPR/PGR, or ITC proceeding.

What I searched

• Unified Patents / RPX-style litigation angle queries ("US8116781 litigation," "Unified Patents litigation 8116781")
• General infringement suit queries ("patent 8116781 lawsuit defendant," "8116781 patent infringement complaint")
• Prior/current owner queries ("Rockstar Bidco patent 8116781 lawsuit," "Microsoft Technology Licensing patent 8116781 litigation")
• IPR queries ("8116781 IPR inter partes review")

None returned a case captioned against this patent number.

Important caveat about the "Rockstar" results

Several searches surfaced Rockstar Consortium / Rockstar Bidco litigation — the Nortel portfolio enforcement campaign (EDTX "Halloween actions" against Asus, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung, ZTE and Google; the Google DJ action in N.D. Cal., 5:13-cv-05933; the Delaware cable-MSO declaratory actions). None of those cases asserted US 8,116,781. Rockstar's asserted patents in those campaigns were different numbers (e.g., 5,471,474; 5,583,862; 5,761,197; 6,128,649; 6,845,389; 6,901,048 and others). "Rockstar Bidco LP" is the original assignee of the '781 patent per the patent record, but being the assignee is not the same as litigating the patent. I did not find the '781 patent listed in any Rockstar complaint.

A separate PTAB document (petition 1493754) contained "8116781" inside a long table of patent numbers, but that appears to be a bibliographic/exhibit listing, not an assertion of the patent. I could not confirm it as litigation, and I am not treating it as such.

Patent identity (for the record)

Recommended next steps to confirm

Because my live-search budget was exhausted before I could query the litigation-specific sources directly, and because absence of search hits is not proof of absence of litigation, I recommend verifying against:

• Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (search the exact number 8116781)
• RPX Insight — district court and PTAB dockets tied to the patent
• Docket Navigator (paid) and PACER for D. Del., E.D. Tex., C.D. Cal., N.D. Cal., W.D. Wash.
• USPTO PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM) and USPTO PatentCenter assignment history for enforcement-related transfers
• ITC EDIS for Section 337 investigations

If any of those confirm a case, the six data points you requested (plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, status/outcome) should be pulled from the complaint and docket entry itself, since I could not ground any of them here.

Disclaimer: This is a research summary, not legal advice, and it reflects only the searches performed. No representation is made that no litigation exists — only that none was found in this search.

I'll verify the ODP's "no proceedings" result with targeted web searches before concluding.

Let me check the continuation family and PTAB dockets for any challenge that could have named this patent or its siblings.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 8,116,781 B2 ("Method and system of managing wireless resources")

Canonical source check. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — the USPTO Open Data Portal list supplied in this prompt — returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 8,116,781 as of the most recent ODP ingest. I then ran independent web searches (PTAB E2E / PTAB petitions portal, Docket Alarm PTAB dockets, CourtListener, general IPR keyword searches pairing the number and the patent title with "IPR," "PGR," "CBM," "petition," and the continuation family numbers). Those searches surfaced no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, no termination, and no appeal naming US 8,116,781. The evidence supports the ODP default rather than contradicting it.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 8,116,781: 0 — zero active, zero claims invalidated, zero claims sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials (there being nothing to deny). The bottom line for a defendant is that this patent is completely untested at the PTAB: every one of claims 1–20 stands exactly as issued on 2012-02-14, no claim has been canceled or amended by certificate, and no petitioner has created § 315(e) estoppel. That cuts both ways — the patent owner cannot point to any PTAB validation of its claims, but a defendant also cannot inherit a ready-made invalidity record, and the full IPR toolbox remains open.

There being no proceedings, the per-proceeding template below is populated with an empty set rather than fabricated entries. See "Checked and excluded" for the near-miss hits the searches produced.

(no proceedings to report)

No IPR####-#####, PGR####-#####, or CBM####-##### number exists for this patent. Any such number asserted against you would be fabricated — there is nothing on file to cite.

Checked and excluded — false positives from the search sweep

These surfaced because they contain the digit string "8116781" or a superficially similar patent, and each is not a PTAB proceeding on this patent:

Also verified and negative: no PTAB activity naming the continuation family — US 8,750,891, US 9,596,692, US 10,667,278, or the PCT sibling WO 2006/102739 A1 — turned up in searching. (That family check is search-based only, not an ODP-confirmed result, so treat it as lower-confidence than the zero-proceeding finding for 8,116,781 itself.)

Strategic summary

Claim status. All 20 claims are UNTESTED. Independent claims 1, 3, 12, and 17, and every dependent claim (2, 4–11, 13–16, 18–20), remain in force as issued. There is no certificate of cancellation, no certificate of correction narrowing scope, and no IPR-imposed amendment. Contrast this with the usual "hardened by surviving IPR" posture: 8,116,781 has not survived anything, because nothing was ever filed. The patent's "Active" status and adjusted expiration of 2028-04-16 (per the patent record) are the only durability signals you have, and neither reflects any adjudicated validity.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a null set — no petitioner, no privy, and no real party in interest is barred from raising any ground against these claims. Any defendant is free to petition on any § 102 or § 103 ground. Two structural notes matter: (1) this is a pre-AIA 2005 patent, so the IPR window under § 311(c) never closes for a challenge to issued claims — but PGR is unavailable (PGR reaches only patents with effective filing dates on or after 2013-03-16), and CBM is unavailable both because it sunset on 2020-09-16 and because this is a radio-resource-management patent, not a "financial product or service" patent. (2) With no prior IPR, there is no § 325(d) "same or substantially the same art" problem and no General Plastic / follow-on-petition baggage — the slate is clean. The practical gating items are § 315(b) (one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement) and the Board's discretionary-denial practice: the USPTO's mid-2025 interim processes, described in the Office's "FAQs for Interim Processes for PTAB Workload Management" (as reproduced in PTAB filings, e.g. Docket Alarm IPR2025-00340, Ex. 1066), have moved discretionary denial toward briefing on settled expectations and challenge strength. A patent in force since 2012-02-14 with a 2005 priority date is a plausible "settled expectations" candidate — so if you petition, front-load a strong merits case, because that is now the coin of the realm.

Pattern signals. None of the classic signals are present. No serial petitioner (there is no petitioner at all). No patent-owner appeal practice at the PTAB in this family — nothing to appeal. No defensive aggregator in the chain: title runs Nortel → Rockstar Bidco, LP (2011-10-28) → Microsoft Corporation (2013-03-12) → Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (2014-12-09), with Rockstar's broader assertion and licensing campaign (see the Rockstar/Constellation/Spockstar and Cable service-provider declaratory-judgment pleadings) never touching this number. The absence of any IPR is itself informative: this patent sits in the Nortel/Rockstar portfolio but was not among the patents Rockstar actually asserted in its 2013–2014 litigation wave, which is typically why well-asserted patents accumulate IPRs.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant facing a demand letter or complaint on this patent:

1. Confirm the number before you budget anything. The single most common error here is conflating US 8,116,781 (this patent, Nortel/Rockstar/Microsoft, wireless resource preemption) with US 7,916,781 (Caltech, asserted against Broadcom/Apple/Cypress and Samsung) or with US 11,634,781 (Lapidus diagnostics). Neither of those is this patent, and neither is a PTAB proceeding on it.
2. There is no FWD to link to and no claim to quote. Do not let anyone hand you an "invalidating IPR decision" for 8,116,781 — it does not exist. If a counterparty or vendor cites one, that is a red flag to verify independently in PTAB E2E and the USPTO Patent Center for US 11/311,260.
3. Treat invalidity as an open field. With zero estoppel and zero prior PTAB treatment, your realistic paths are: (a) an IPR petition against the independent claims 1, 3, 12, and 17 on § 102/§ 103 grounds built on 2005-era CDMA 1xRTT resource-management art — note that the patent's own "prior art" section frames the invention against conventional RRM partitioning (MaxVoiceResources, MaxDataResources, MaxDataFCHResources), which is a roadmap to the pre-2005 state of the art; (b) an § 112 challenge the PTAB cannot hear — the independent claims recite "means for" limitations (claim 1 in full, and "means for" language recurs), and the specification's disclosure is largely functional and flowchart-level. § 112(a)/(b)/(f) is not an IPR ground under § 311(b) (limited to §§ 102 and 103), so indefiniteness/enablement belongs in district court or a § 282 defense, not in your petition.
4. Mind the clock. File within one year of service of the complaint alleging infringement (§ 315(b)) and be prepared for the patents' age to be raised as a discretionary-denial argument; the 2025 interim process gives the patent owner a discretionary-denial brief within two months of the Notice of Filing Date, with your opposition due one month later.
5. No 1-year statutory trial deadline is running — there is no institution, so there is no FWD due date, no oral-hearing milestone, and no POPR deadline in any proceeding. If someone tells you a trial-stage date exists for this patent, it is invented. Any proceeding you file would run on the normal schedule, with the FWD due no later than 12 months from institution under § 316(a)(11).

If you are the patent owner: the absence of PTAB history means you have no reissue-style clean-up and no adjudicated validity to point to. Expect a challenger to attack the "means for" claim format, the on-request/off-request distinction between Walsh-code and power resources that was added at allowance, and the breadth of the preemption concept in view of ordinary admission-control art. Your strongest defensive asset is the February 2012 issue date and 2005 priority — i.e., exactly the "settled expectations" factor the Office's interim discretionary-denial framework now weighs.

Sources consulted: the structured ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block (authoritative for the zero count); Google Patents US8116781B2 (claims, dates, assignee chain); PTAB E2E / PTAB petitions portal and Docket Alarm PTAB dockets (negative results); CourtListener/Justia (negative results, plus the Caltech 7,916,781 false positive). No Federal Circuit disposition exists to cite. I could not find any 2026 PTAB or CAFC activity tying this number to a proceeding, consistent with the prior section's finding — there is no contradiction between the two sections, only reinforcement.

I'll research the assignment record for US 8,116,781 through the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference sources.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 8,116,781 B2

Scope / sourcing note (read first): My live-search budget was exhausted before I could pull the underlying USPTO Assignment Center records for this specific patent number, so I could not independently confirm reel/frame numbers or the correspondent of record for US 8,116,781. Everything below that is stateable is grounded in (a) the authoritative patent document's legal-events list and (b) primary-source court/registry documents surfaced in search. Where I could not ground a data point, I say so explicitly rather than filling it in. No reel/frame or correspondent in this report is invented.

Inventors

Determination basis: All five are named as assignors to Nortel Networks Limited in the assignment recorded 2005-12-20 (the application's filing date), which places them as Nortel employees/contractors at filing. The subject matter — CDMA 1xRTT base-station Walsh-code/power resource management — is squarely a Nortel CDMA product-line invention, consistent with Nortel employment.

Unusual-pattern check — "all inventors departing within 12 months": Unclear / not confirmable. I did not obtain individual departure dates; my search budget ended first. What is documented is that the assignee (Nortel) collapsed into insolvency roughly 3.5 years after filing (see below), so any inventor-departure clustering would have been driven by the corporate wind-down, not a pre-sale talent exodus. I flag this as unfalsified rather than present.

Original assignee

Nortel Networks Limited (Canadian operating entity; the Nortel group's principal IP-holding company).

• Product embodiment: Yes — Nortel shipped CDMA 1xRTT base stations (BTS) and the Radio Resource Manager that this patent's claims describe. The specification's own parameter names (MaxDataResources, MaxDataFCHResources, FCHHeadRoomResources) are Nortel radio-resource-manager attributes, indicating a real product implementation rather than a paper filing.
• Primary line of business: Telecommunications network equipment (CDMA/UMTS switching and radio access, optical, enterprise).
• Current status: Insolvent / dissolved. Nortel Networks Inc. and affiliates filed for Chapter 11 protection in the Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware, Case No. 09-10138 (January 2009). The estate's patent portfolio was sold in 2011 (see timeline). Nortel no longer operates.

⚠ Contradiction to flag against the previously generated sections. The patent page's bibliographic fields show "Original Assignee: Rockstar Bidco LP." That field is populated from the assignee of record at issue (2012), not the inventor-assignment origin. The record shows the inventors assigned to Nortel Networks Limited on 2005-12-20, and Rockstar acquired title only in 2011. The earlier summary's phrasing ("Original assignee: Rockstar Bidco LP (assignment recorded from Nortel Networks Limited, 2005-12-20)") conflates these two distinct facts — the true original assignee is Nortel Networks Limited.

Assignment timeline

Recorded events as reflected in the patent document's legal-events list, with reel/frame and correspondent noted where confirmable.

1. 2005-12-20 (executed) / recorded 2005-12-20 — Reel/Frame: not confirmed

   • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
   • Assignor: Weisert, James; Yuan, Qiang; Budic, Miroslav; Chen, Xixian; Li, Xiao-Dong
   • Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited
   • Correspondent: not confirmed
   • Context: Initial inventor→employer assignment, filed contemporaneously with the application.

2. 2011-07-29 (effective) / recorded 2011-10-28 — Reel/Frame: not confirmed for '781; analog reels 027143/0717 observed for a sibling Nortel patent

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: Nortel Networks Limited
   • Assignee: Rockstar Bidco, LP
   • Correspondent: not confirmed
   • Context: Bankruptcy fire-sale. Nortel's patent portfolio was sold under an Asset Sale Agreement dated 2011-06-30 among the Nortel selling parties and Rockstar Bidco, LP (winning bid ≈ $4.5B, approved by the U.S. and Canadian courts 2011-07-11). Espacenet INPADOC shows the Nortel→Rockstar re-record for an adjacent Nortel patent at REEL/FRAME 027143/0717, effective 2011-07-29 and recorded 2011-10-28 — the same event date/record date as '781's event, so the bulk recording very likely covers '781, but I could not verify the reel/frame for '781 itself.

3. recorded 2013-03-12 — Reel/Frame: not confirmed

   • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignor's Interest)
   • Assignor: Rockstar Bidco, LP
   • Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
   • Correspondent: not confirmed
   • Context: Carve-out / consortium asset division. Microsoft (a Rockstar consortium member) obtained this patent out of the Rockstar holding vehicle. (Low-confidence context: the remainder of the Rockstar portfolio was later reported to move to RPX/defensive hands; I could not confirm that here, and '781 was already out of Rockstar by then.)

4. recorded 2014-12-09 — Reel/Frame: not confirmed

   • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignor's Interest)
   • Assignor: Microsoft Corporation
   • Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
   • Correspondent: not confirmed
   • Context: Internal corporate reorganization. Microsoft created Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC in 2014 and centralized patent title in it — a pure change-of-title-house event, not a third-party sale.

Net chain: Nortel Networks Limited → Rockstar Bidco, LP → Microsoft Corporation → Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (current).

Verification link: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy interface: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html); search the number 8116781. Reel/frame and correspondent should be read from those records directly, since I could not retrieve them.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8116781
    2005 : Inventors assign to Nortel Networks Limited
         : Application filed 2005-12-20
    2009 : Nortel Chapter 11 Case 09-10138
    2011 : Nortel portfolio sold to Rockstar Bidco LP
         : Recorded 2011-10-28
    2012 : Patent issues 2012-02-14
    2013 : Rockstar Bidco LP to Microsoft Corporation
    2014 : Microsoft Corporation to Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present (as classically defined). Rockstar Bidco, LP was not an anonymous single-member LLC: it was a purpose-formed consortium acquisition vehicle with publicly identifiable, deep-pocketed backers (Apple, Microsoft, Research In Motion, Ericsson, Sony, EMC) that funded a ~$4.5B purchase, and its Certificate of Limited Partnership was filed as an exhibit in the Google declaratory-judgment action (N.D. Cal. 5:13-cv-05933). That is the opposite of a low-footprint shell. The transfer to Microsoft (2013) and then to MTL (2014) moved title into a large operating company's family, not into an anonymous LLC. → not present.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present (partial). Rockstar Bidco, LP is a well-documented patent-assertion vehicle: it was the plaintiff in the October 2013 "Halloween" infringement actions against Google and Android OEMs (Samsung, HTC, Huawei, ZTE, LG, Pantech, Asus). It was a prior assignee of '781 (recorded 2011-10-28). Caveat: the prior litigation review found '781 was not among the patents Rockstar asserted, so the asserter link is provenance, not an actual assertion of this patent.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / no data. I was unable to retrieve the correspondent of record for any of the four records, so this signal cannot be assessed. I am not inferring a firm or attorney in the absence of the actual recording data.

4. Cascading transfers (<24 months through chained LLCs) — not present. The four links span 2005 → 2011 → 2013 → 2014 and each is tied to a discrete, publicly documented corporate event (employment, bankruptcy sale, consortium division, internal reorg), not a rapid shell-stacking sequence.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present / inapplicable. No infringement action, IPR/PGR, or ITC proceeding naming US 8,116,781 was found in the prior litigation review, so there is no suit to date a pre-litigation assignment against.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — present. Nortel Networks Inc., Bankr. D. Del. Case No. 09-10138. The patent passed to Rockstar Bidco, LP under the Asset Sale Agreement dated 2011-06-30, court-approved 2011-07-11, recorded 2011-10-28 (event date comparable to sibling Nortel reassignments at reel 027143/0717). This is the textbook Nortel fire-sale fact pattern.

7. Privateering — present (historical). The Nortel sale to Rockstar Bidco is a canonical privateering arrangement: an operating-company-funded consortium acquired a large operating company's patents and the vehicle then asserted them against rivals (the 2013 actions). '781's title passed through that vehicle before being taken into Microsoft. Note the direction reversed afterward: the patent ended up inside an operating company, which blunts a current privateering characterization.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain terminates at Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (an operating company's licensing arm), not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence (historical passage through an NPE/privateer; not currently NPE-held).

The chain includes Rockstar Bidco, LP — a documented patent-assertion vehicle — as assignee of record from the Nortel bankruptcy fire-sale recorded 2011-10-28 (Asset Sale Agreement 2011-06-30; event comparable to reel 027143/0717), which supplies one strong NPE/privateering signal. However, the chain does not terminate at an NPE: it ends at Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (recorded 2014-12-09), the licensing subsidiary of an operating company, and no assertion or challenge of US 8,116,781 was found — so this is best characterized as an NPE transit rather than a currently asserted NPE asset. Confidence is capped at moderate because I could not confirm reel/frame or correspondent, which is exactly the evidence that would upgrade or downgrade this call.

Verification: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search 8116781.

Caveats: This is research analysis, not legal advice. Reel/frame numbers, execution dates for the 2013 and 2014 links, and all correspondents of record remain unverified for this patent and must be read directly from USPTO Assignment Center. Absence of a found litigation is not proof that none exists.

I'll research the USPTO record for US 8,116,781 and its cited prior art references.

Let me gather details on the remaining examiner-cited references and the family-cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent No. 8,116,781

Step 1 — USPTO record for the exact number 8,116,781

I searched for the literal number 8116781 (not similar numbers). The USPTO/Google Patents record confirms a single patent matching that number:

Do not confuse with nearby numbers: US 8,750,891; US 9,596,692; US 10,667,278 are the separate continuation-family patents sharing the 2005-03-28 priority — they are not US 8,116,781 and are excluded from this analysis.

Important scope caveat. I was able to retrieve the patent's own citation lists (the "Patent Citations (11)" and "Family Cites Families (11)" tables) and verify several references. I could not retrieve the full prosecution history (file wrapper) for application 11/311,260, so I cannot state which reference the examiner actually applied against which claim. The § 102 mappings below are my analytical assessment of each reference's face disclosure against the issued claims — not the examiner's actual rejections. To confirm the real grounds of allowance/rejection, pull the file wrapper via USPTO PatentCenter for application 11/311,260.

Step 2 — The 11 references in the "Patent Citations" list of US 8,116,781

These are the citations appearing in the patent itself. References marked * are flagged by Google Patents as examiner citations; the two unmarked ones (US5687167A, US6738637B1) are shown as third-party/other citations.

1. US 5,687,167 A — not marked (third-party)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 5,687,167, "Method for preempting connections in high speed packet switching networks," International Business Machines Corp.
• Dates: priority 1994-11-24; published/granted 1997-11-11.
• Brief description: Preemption of lower-priority connections in a high-speed packet-switching network to admit higher-priority traffic.
• Potential § 102 target: The generic "pre-empt a lower-priority connection when resources are insufficient" concept. It does not disclose a wireless base station, Walsh-code resources, or the on-request/off-request split. At most it is general preemption art supporting claim 12's broad framing; on a single-reference basis it does not anticipate any of claims 1, 3, 12, or 17 as issued. More properly § 103 art.

2. US 5,881,050 A — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 5,881,050, "Method and system for non-disruptively assigning link bandwidth to a user in a high speed digital network," International Business Machines Corp.
• Dates: priority 1996-07-23; published/granted 1999-03-09.
• Brief description: Non-disruptively assigning/reassigning link bandwidth in a high-speed digital network.
• Potential § 102 target: Conceptually closest to the bandwidth-reduction alternative in the specification (decreasing an SCH's bandwidth rather than dropping it) and hence to claims 2 and 7 ("decreasing sufficient resources allocated to the session…"). It discloses no wireless/Walsh/power content and would not anticipate the independent claims. § 103 art.

3. US 6,125,396 A — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 6,125,396, "Method and apparatus for implementing bandwidth allocation with a reserve feature," Oracle Corp.
• Dates: priority 1997-03-27; published/granted 2000-09-26.
• Brief description: Bandwidth allocation with a reserved capacity feature.
• Potential § 102 target: The concept of a "reserve" maps to the patent's "head room" reservation for high-priority calls — relevant to claims 11, 16, and 20 (maintaining a headroom of resources). It discloses nothing about wireless channels, SCH/FCH, or pre-emption of SCH. Broad § 103 art; not an anticipating reference for any independent claim.

4. US 6,487,289 B1 — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 6,487,289 B1, "Managing priorities for routing calls in a telecommunication network," Alcatel.
• Dates: priority 1998-11-26; published/granted 2002-11-26.
• Brief description: Priority management for call routing/queuing in a telecommunication network.
• Potential § 102 target: Priority handling/threshold logic relevant to the claim 12 threshold framework. Not directed to wireless resource pre-emption; § 103 art.

5. US 6,571,102 B1 — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 6,571,102 B1, "Channel management technique for asymmetric data services," Motorola, Inc.
• Dates: priority 2000-08-08; published/granted 2003-05-27.
• Brief description: Satellite narrowband/wideband channel management; includes a preemption routine using special acquisition-class designations to give higher-priority high-speed data terminals priority access, and a handoff protocol that rate-negotiates channel bandwidth in a handoff cell.
• Potential § 102 target: This is one of the closer references. Its priority-preemption routine and its handoff/rate-negotiation feature touch the "pre-empt lower-priority subscriber" concept and the hand-off scenario of claim 5. Still, it does not disclose FCH/SCH, a Walsh-code-vs-power split, or the "block the new request while maintaining the pre-empted session" step of claims 1/3/12/17. Best characterized as strong § 103 art; not a clean § 102 reference.

6. US 6,584,315 B1 — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 6,584,315 B1, "Method of allocating frame offset and link in base station," Hyundai Electronics Industries Co., Ltd.
• Dates: priority 1999-04-28; published/granted 2003-06-24.
• Brief description: Base-station resource (frame offset / link) allocation.
• Potential § 102 target: Background on base-station resource allocation. Does not disclose pre-emption between services. § 103 art only.

7. US 6,738,637 B1 — not marked (third-party)

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 6,738,637 B1, "Dynamic variation of class of service in a communication network based on network resources," Lucent Technologies Inc.
• Dates: priority 1998-12-16; published/granted 2004-05-18.
• Brief description: Dynamically varying a connection's class of service based on available network resources.
• Potential § 102 target: The notion of adjusting service treatment to current resources. Not wireless-specific; no Walsh/power split. § 103 art.

8. US 2004/0116141 A1 — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication 2004/0116141 A1, "Resource management on a personal area network," Erick Loven.
• Dates: priority 2002-12-11; published 2004-06-17.
• Brief description: Resource management in a personal area network.
• Potential § 102 target: General resource-management background. No bearing on the FCH/SCH pre-emption claims. § 103 art (weak).

9. US 2006/0039381 A1 — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0039381 A1, "Methods, systems, and computer program products for modifying bandwidth and/or quality of service in a core network," Thomas Arnold Anschutz.
• Dates: priority 2004-08-20; published 2006-02-23.
• Brief description: Modifying bandwidth and/or QoS in a core network.
• Potential § 102 target: Bandwidth/QoS modification; note its publication date (2006-02-23) is after the '781 priority date (2005-03-28) only by a few weeks and its filing (2004-08-20) predates it — so it could qualify as § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2) prior art only for subject matter it actually discloses. It does not disclose FCH/SCH pre-emption. § 103 art.

10. US 2006/0135172 A1 — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0135172 A1, "Method for quality of service differentiation in packet-mode mobile communication networks," Francois Dronne.
• Dates: priority 2003-09-11; published 2006-06-22.
• Brief description: QoS differentiation in packet-mode mobile networks.
• Potential § 102 target: Priority/QoS differentiation in mobile networks — background for the "high vs. low priority service" framing of claims 3 and 12. Not anticipatory of the Walsh-code/power-limitation. § 103 art.

11. US 7,218,630 B1 — * examiner

• Full citation: U.S. Patent 7,218,630 B1, "Data session setup system for wireless network," Lucent Technologies Inc.
• Dates: priority 1999-04-30; published/granted 2007-05-15.
• Brief description: Setting up data sessions in a wireless network.
• Potential § 102 target: Relevant to the claim 1/3 preamble — a base station that receives a request for a data session and sets up the session. It does not disclose the pre-emption / resource-comparison logic distinguishing Walsh code from power. § 102 target only at the preamble level; otherwise § 103 art.

Step 3 — The "Family Cites Families" list (11) — highly material supplementary references

These appear in the family citation table (i.e., citations associated with the WO/family prosecution). Several are more material to the inventive concept than the U.S. citations above.

Step 4 — Bottom-line assessment

1. No single cited reference anticipates the independent claims (1, 3, 12, 17) as issued. Every independent claim contains the distinctive limitation that the Walsh-code resource set is compared in response to a service request, while the power resource set is compared other than in response to a request (claims 1, 3, 12, 17), plus the "pre-empt if possible, otherwise block the new request while maintaining the low-priority session" logic. None of the references retrieved discloses that specific on-request/off-request split.

2. The closest § 102 candidates are the reclamation/pre-emption references, not the wireless-allocation references: US 7,477,618 (Qualcomm) for the Walsh-code-and-power reclamation mechanic, and US 6,141,322 / US 5,687,167 (ATM/CAC pre-emption) for the generic pre-empt-lower-priority concept. Even these fall short of the full issued claim scope.

3. The remaining references are § 103 (obviousness) art at best — they supply background elements (headroom/reservation via US 6,125,396; bandwidth reduction via US 5,881,050; priority management via US 6,487,289 / US 2006/0135172; data-session setup via US 7,218,630) but do not alone disclose all elements of any claim.

4. Verification recommended. Because I could not retrieve the prosecution history, confirm the actual grounds of allowance/rejection in the file wrapper for application 11/311,260 via USPTO PatentCenter, and cross-check each reference's exact passages against claim elements. The § 102 mappings above are analytical, not the examiner's record.

Disclaimer: This is technical prior-art analysis, not legal advice. Anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102 requires a single reference to disclose every claim element; most references here are more properly § 103 art, and that distinction should be confirmed against the file wrapper.

I'll analyze obviousness using the prior art cited on the patent page. Let me ground my understanding of the key references first.

Let me ground a few more of the cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,116,781 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on provenance. This analysis uses only the references listed in the "Prior Art" / citation sections of the patent page you supplied: the 11 examiner-cited "Patent Citations," the 11 "Family Cites Families" references, and the 64 "Cited By" entries (which are later art and largely irrelevant to § 103 for a 2005 priority date). I verified the substance of four key references by search (US 7,477,618; US 6,141,322; US 6,125,396; US 7,218,630). For the remaining references I rely on title, assignee, and dates, and I explicitly flag where I have not verified full text. Nothing here should be treated as a legal conclusion; it is an evidentiary sketch of invalidity theories a challenger could run and a patentee could rebut.

This builds on the earlier-generated sections (summary, claim overviews, litigation). No contradiction was found with those sections; the earlier note that the granted independent claims (1, 3, 12, 17) are materially narrower than the specification's "broad aspect" is the central fact driving the analysis below.

1. Claim scope — the four limitations that matter

Stripping the independent claims (1, 3, 12, 17) to their load-bearing elements:

Element (B) is the most distinctive and appears purpose-built to capture the FIG. 5 periodic ~2-second power estimation embodiment, as distinct from the FIG. 3/4 on-request Walsh-code admission checks. This is the limitation a challenger must crack; everything else is squarely old.

2. Person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A POSITA here would be an engineer with a B.S. in EE/CS and ~2–3 years' experience in CDMA (specifically 1xRTT) radio-resource management, familiar with Walsh-code and forward-power budgeting, FCH/SCH channel structure, and standard admission-control/preemption theory from packet and ATM networks. That breadth matters: the prior art below spans both the wireless-CDMA and the packet/ATM admission-control arts, and a POSITA would read both.

3. What the cited references teach (digest)

Wireless / CDMA-specific (verified or highly reliable):

• US 7,218,630 — Lucent, "Data session setup system for wireless network" (filed 1999-04-30; cited by examiner). Explicitly addresses fundamental channel and supplemental channels; teaches that "the fundamental channel … is maintained throughout the duration of the call," that one or more supplemental channels are "temporarily assigned" to packet connections, and that a "burst management system" collates burst requests and "takes advantage of the delay-tolerant nature of data to more efficiently use the wireless resources and/or to ensure that sufficient wireless resources remain to handle the higher priority voice traffic." [Verified] — this is the closest wireless teaching of the low-priority (SCH/bursty/delay-tolerant) vs. high-priority (FCH/real-time) dichotomy in claims 4 and 18.

• US 7,477,618 — Qualcomm, "Method and apparatus for stealing power or code for data channel operations" (filed 2002-10-25; §102(e) art). The key reference for element (B). It separately claims: (i) power — "determining an amount of power allocated to a data channel, determining a total amount of power the data channel requires … selecting an active channel for power stealing based on a selection algorithm … and stealing power from the selected active channel"; and (ii) Walsh code — "determining that the data channel requires a Walsh code … selecting an active channel for stealing its Walsh code … and stealing the Walsh code." Its selection algorithm "may use a priority method … based on power usage," and stealing may proceed "only if … [it] does not degrade the performance of the selected active channel below a threshold." A fractional method lets multiple active channels each "provid[e] a fraction of the base station power," which maps to claim 2/7 ("decreasing … resources"). [Verified] US 7,477,618 treats WC and power as two distinct quantities, separately determined and separately reallocated from an active channel — exactly the two-resource-set structure of claim 1(b).

• US 6,571,102 — Motorola, "Channel management technique for asymmetric data services" (2000-08-08; examiner-cited). Channel management for asymmetric (bulk-data) services; wireless resource partitioning/allocation. Not fully verified.

• US 6,738,637 — Lucent, "Dynamic variation of class of service … based on network resources" (1998-12-16; examiner-cited). Dynamically re-classifying service based on available network resources — supports the "soft"/adaptive partition and the re-prioritization concepts. Not fully verified.

• US 6,584,315 — Hyundai (1999-04-28); US 6,477,373 — SUNY (1999-08-10); JP 3848145 B2 — NTT DoCoMo (2001-12-10); KR 100518446 B1 — LG (2002-12-11); DE 60335298 D1 — Ericsson (2003-01-14). Wireless base-station channel/frame-offset allocation, connectivity maintenance for mobile terminals (handoffs), and call-admission/resource-allocation management. Collectively supply the wireless hand-off and call-admission context for claims 5 and 9. Not fully verified.

Generic preemption / reservation / QoS art (multi-service networks):

• US 6,141,322 — General DataComm, "Method and apparatus for precedence and preemption in ATM connection admission control" (filed 1997-05-09; family-cited). The single best element (A) reference. Teaches: assign a precedence level to a call request; compare it against active calls; preempt the "active call having a relatively lower precedence"; accept the new call only "when preempting provides sufficient resources"; refuse the request "if accepting … requires preempting more than a predetermined number of active calls" (i.e., block the high-priority request while leaving the lower-priority calls in place); and "restore link parameters and send RELEASE message." [Verified] This is a near-verbatim functional template for claim 1(d)/3/17's "generate pre-emption request → determine → preempt-or-block" logic.

• US 6,212,562 — Honeywell, "Criticality and quality of service (QoS) based resource management" (filed 1997-03-28; family-cited). Preemption/allocation keyed to criticality and QoS — an alternative or supplement to US 6,141,322. Not fully verified.

• US 5,687,167 — IBM, "Method for preempting connections in high speed packet switching networks" (1994-11-24); US 5,881,050 — IBM, "non-disruptively assigning link bandwidth" (1996-07-23); US 6,487,289 — Alcatel, "Managing priorities for routing calls" (1998-11-26). Establish that priority-based connection preemption and non-disruptive bandwidth reassignment were long-established in the telephony/packet-switching arts well before 2005. Not fully verified.

• US 6,125,396 — Oracle, "Method and apparatus for implementing bandwidth allocation with a reserve feature" (filed 1997-03-27; examiner-cited). Explicitly frames the real-time vs. non-real-time client split; assigns each client a usage rate; lets a non-real-time client exceed its assigned rate ("enhanced usage rate") using an accumulated reserve, capped at a "reserve maximum." [Verified] This maps directly to element (C) (borrowing beyond the second threshold) and to headroom/reserve (claims 11/16/20).

• US 6,970,422 and US 7,151,762 — AT&T (2000-07-14); US 2004/0116141 — Loven (2002-12-11); US 2006/0039381 — Anschutz (filed 2004-08-20; §102(e) art); US 2006/0135172 — Dronne (filed 2003-09-11; §102(e) art); GB 0001804 D0 — King's College London (2000-01-26). Admission control for QoS-driven networks, "pre-emptive bandwidth allocation," and QoS differentiation in packet-mode mobile networks — cumulatively show the preempt/borrow-to-serve-higher-QoS principle applied to wireless and QoS-differentiated environments. Not fully verified.

Timing note: US 2006/0039381 (filed 2004-08-20) and US 2006/0135172 (filed 2003-09-11) published after the '781 priority date but were filed before it, so they qualify as §102(e) prior art. US 7,477,618 (2002) and US 7,218,630 (1999) likewise predate the 2005-03-28 priority date.

4. Claim-element mapping — independent claims

5. Combinations that would render the claims obvious

Combination A — the core preemption claims (1, 3, 17, and dependents 2, 4–10)

US 7,218,630 (Lucent) + US 6,141,322 (General DataComm) + US 7,477,618 (Qualcomm).

• US 7,218,630 supplies the wireless stage: FCH (maintained for the call) vs. SCH (temporarily-assigned, delay-tolerant bursts), and the express policy of preserving resources for higher-priority traffic.
• US 6,141,322 supplies the decision machinery: precedence comparison, preemption of the lower-precedence active connection, acceptance only if preemption frees enough, refusal (blocking the new request) when it does not or when the preemption count exceeds a cap, and post-preemption resource restoration. This maps §1 element (A) essentially 1:1.
• US 7,477,618 supplies element (B) and the WC/power split: it already provides separate determinations for Walsh-code requirements and for power requirements, separate stealing/reallocation of each from an active channel, a priority-based selection algorithm, a degrade-below-threshold guard, and a fractional (partial) stealing mode that corresponds to claim 2/7's "decreasing … resources allocated."

Chewed together, the three references yield the whole of claims 1, 3, and 17 (subject to the §8 caveat on the periodicity of the power check). Claim 4 (FCH/SCH) comes from US 7,218,630. Claim 6/10/14/15/19 (service metric → pick lowest; QoSPI) come from US 6,141,322's per-connection precedence value carried in a signaling element and US 7,477,618's priority-based selection; a POSITA would recognize a "Quality of Service Priority Indicator" as the wireless analogue of the ATM precedence IE. Claim 8 (drop the SCH) is US 6,141,322's RELEASE-on-preemption. Claim 5 (hand-off) is routine in CDMA and is taught as a connectivity concern by US 6,477,373. Claim 9 (check high-priority usage vs. an upper limit before preempting) is the threshold/upper-limit construct common to US 6,141,322 (max-preemptions cap) and US 6,125,396 (assigned-rate cap).

Combination B — claim 12 (thresholds + borrowing)

US 6,125,396 (Oracle) + US 7,218,630 (Lucent) + US 6,141,322 (General DataComm).

US 6,125,396 supplies the exact two-tier logic of claim 12: an assigned rate per client (the "second threshold"), a reserve, and permission to run beyond the assigned rate ("enhanced usage rate") when reserve is available — i.e., borrowing while the protected class is not starved. US 7,218,630 supplies the wireless translation ("ensure sufficient resources remain to handle the higher-priority voice [traffic]"), and US 6,141,322 supplies the later preemption of the borrower when the protected class demands resources. Claims 13–16 (reduce resources per a criterion; lowest service metric; QoSPI; headroom) follow from the same three references as in Combination A/B.

Combination C — headroom claims (11, 16, 20)

US 6,125,396 (reserve / reserve-maximum) + US 7,477,618 (steal-to-threshold) + US 6,141,322 (trigger preemption on resource shortfall). The "maintain headroom → preempt when an event drops headroom below a threshold" limitation is a straightforward application of the reserve-maximum/leaky-bucket construct combined with preemption-on-shortfall.

6. Motivation to combine (the § 103 lynchpin)

A POSITA would have had strong, articulated reasons to combine, satisfying KSR:

1. Same problem, same field of endeavor. All three references address the identical problem statement the '781 specification itself recites: avoiding blocked calls/connections when a bursty class consumes resources needed by a delay-sensitive class, without a hard partition that wastes capacity. The '781 Background frames this as the very problem to be solved.
2. The references expressly invite the combination. US 7,218,630 explicitly wants to "ensure that sufficient wireless resources remain to handle the higher priority voice traffic" while exploiting data's "delay-tolerant nature" — the exact policy the '781 claims implement by preempting SCH. US 6,141,322 provides the mechanism "to accept … when preempting provides sufficient resources."
3. Complementary, non-overlapping teachings. US 7,218,630 is a wireless/architecture reference; US 6,141,322 is an admission-control algorithm reference; US 7,477,618 is the CDMA Walsh-code/power mechanics reference. Combining a system architecture with a known admission-control policy and known resource-stealing mechanics is a classic predictable combination of familiar elements (KSR).
4. Reasonable expectation of success. Priority-based preemption was a mature, well-understood technique (US 5,687,167, US 5,881,050, US 6,141,322) by the 2005 priority date; porting it to CDMA FCH/SCH allocation would have been routine, particularly because US 7,477,618 already demonstrated WC/power reallocation within the same CDMA forward link.
5. "Borrow-then-reclaim" was expressly known. US 6,125,396 teaches letting a lower-priority class exceed its allocation only until the protected class needs it back — the essence of claim 12.

7. Where the patent's strongest non-obviousness arguments lie

An honest § 103 assessment must flag the vulnerabilities in the invalidity case:

1. The "on-request vs. off-request" asymmetry (element B) is the real battleground. Claims 1, 3, 12, and 17 require the power determination to occur "other than in response to" the request — i.e., on a periodic/ongoing basis (FIG. 5's ~2-second power estimate) — while the Walsh-code determination is prompt-triggered. US 7,477,618 distinguishes WC from power but does not, on its face, require the power determination to be periodic rather than request-triggered. A challenger would need a reference (or the ordinary skill of a network engineer estimating sector power on a polling interval) to supply the periodicity. A patentee can argue this specific temporal asymmetry, as a claimed combination, was not taught or suggested. This is the limitation most likely to survive a § 103 attack absent a strong periodic-monitoring reference. (Because I could not verify the full text of US 6,738,637 and the other monitoring-oriented references within the search budget, I flag this as the key evidentiary gap in the invalidity theory — not as a conclusion that the limitation is valid.)
2. The "block the high-priority request while maintaining the low-priority service" negative limitation (§1(A)). US 6,141,322 blocks the requester when preemption can't free enough, which reads on this; but a patentee may argue the reference's fallback is a rejection message rather than an affirmative "maintain the low-priority session" step. This is a thin distinction.
3. Claim 12's specific ordering (borrow first, preempt later, gated on "the first threshold is not reached") is a closer call than claims 1/3/17, but US 6,125,396's reserve mechanism plus US 7,218,630's "leave enough for higher-priority traffic" policy supplies each step.
4. Secondary considerations are unknown. I found no evidence (consistent with the earlier litigation section) of commercial success, long-felt need, industry praise, or copying tied to the '781 claims. The '781 does recite a genuine industry need (PTT/VoIP on FCH), but needs like this are generally framed in the prior art too (US 7,218,630; US 7,477,618), which undercuts a "long-felt need" narrative. Any Nexus argument would have to be built on evidence not present in the patent record.

8. Conclusion

• Claims 1, 3, and 17 (and most dependents) are, on these references, vulnerable to a § 103 challenge built on US 7,218,630 + US 6,141,322 + US 7,477,618, with the "preempt-or-block-while-maintaining" logic coming from US 6,141,322 and the two-resource-set (WC/power) structure from US 7,477,618.
• Claim 12 (and 13–16) is vulnerable via US 6,125,396 + US 7,218,630 + US 6,141,322, which together teach the two-threshold + borrow + later-preempt sequence.
• Claims 11, 16, and 20 (headroom) are vulnerable via US 6,125,396 + US 7,477,618.
• The single most defensible limitation is element (B)'s requirement that power be evaluated off-request (periodically) while Walsh code is evaluated on-request (claims 1, 3, 12, 17). An invalidity contention turns on locating art that pairs separate WC/power evaluations with a periodic power check. US 7,477,618 supplies the former but (as far as I verified) not the periodicity; a primary-reference-plus-ordinary-skill theory, or an additional periodic-monitoring reference, would be needed.

Confidence and limits. High confidence on US 7,477,618, US 6,141,322, US 6,125,396, and US 7,218,630 (text verified). Lower confidence on the precise teachings of the remaining cited references, which I mapped from title/assignee/date/field only. I did not have time to verify the full text of every reference, and I found no litigation or CAFC activity on this patent (consistent with the earlier litigation section). This is a technical invalidity sketch, not legal advice or a validity opinion.