US 8165867

I'll search for the specific patent number and check for any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

Let me check specifically for CAFC 2026 activity and current litigation status.

US Patent 8,165,867 — Summary

Important caveat up front: I could not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket activity for US 8,165,867 in 2026 (or any year). My searches returned zero CAFC results for this number. What I did find is a 2020–2022 district-court assertion campaign by the current owner, Cedar Lane Technologies, and ongoing Cedar Lane 2025–2026 filings that (as far as I can verify) involve other Cedar Lane patents — e.g., the Ingalls & Snyder complaint cites US 8,577,782, not '867. I am flagging this explicitly rather than inferring a CAFC appeal exists. If a 2026 CAFC docket for '867 exists, it is not surfaced by the searches I ran (which queried the patent number, "8165867", and Cedar Lane + Federal Circuit 2026).

Bibliographic data (per Google Patents and Justia)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8165867B1](/patent/US8165867B1)/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/8165867

Assignment chain (Google Patents reassignment records): Robert D. Fish → Ulloa Research LLC (2013-06-06) → Nytell Software LLC (merger, 2015-12-30) → Intellectual Ventures Assets 120 LLC (nunc pro tunc, 2018-12-18) → AVInnov LLC (2019-02-06) → Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (2019-10-17).

Family: three divisional/child applications claim the same 2000-09-15 priority: US 13/426,239 (US 8,938,382), US 13/426,074 (US 9,400,785), and US 13/453,750 (US 9,817,820, "Cell phone processing of spoken instructions"), plus later continuations US 13/480,995 (US 9,081,770), US 13/572,224 (US 9,507,771), and abandoned publications US 2017/0052951 A1 and US 2018/0067930 A1.

Abstract (as issued)

An item of information is transmitted to a distal computer, translated to a different sense modality and/or language in substantially real time, and the translation is transmitted back to the location from which the item was sent. The sending device is preferably wireless (cellular/other telephone); the receiving device is also preferably wireless and may be the same device. The item is preferably a sentence of human speech of at least ten words, and the translation is a written expression of the sentence. All steps preferably occur in less than 60 seconds.

Independent claim — plain language

The patent has 17 claims, of which only claim 1 is independent; claims 2–17 all depend from claim 1.

Claim 1 – plain-language overview. A method of using a first electronic device (e.g., a phone) to operate a separate second electronic device in real time, where the two are not physically connected and the second device is only intermittently near the first ("only intermittently local"). The method has four components:

1. Capture and forward. The first device (a) obtains visual or auditory information from outside itself, where that information contains a human-understandable device command aimed at operating the second device; (b) manipulates that information (e.g., analog-to-digital conversion, per claim 11); and (c) transmits the manipulated information to a distal computer system.
2. Remote translation. The distal computer system operates as a remote human-to-device command translation service provider and, using at least part of the manipulated information, translates the human-understandable command into a formatted device command executable by the second device.
3. Delivery. The formatted device command is transmitted to the second device.
4. Execution. The second device executes the formatted command, having received it from the distal computer system, while the second device is local to the first device.

Notably, the claim does not require that the first device be a telephone (that is claim 2), does not require the information to be speech (claims 6–9 contemplate non-language input such as a visual image or a color), and separately contemplates that the command may not be human-readable text (claim 16) or may not be human-understandable at all (claim 13). Claim 17 combines: telephone function + visual image input + command instructing the second device to display or print a human-readable message.

Representative dependent claims:

• Claim 2/3: first device is a telephone; second device is not a telephone.
• Claim 4/5: first device (or both devices) wirelessly connected to the distal system.
• Claim 10: obtained information is a verbally spoken command in a human language.
• Claim 12: the command cannot be directly understood/executed by the first device.
• Claim 14/15: command instructs the second device to display/print a human-readable message, or a color.

Litigation / prior-art contest context (verified)

• Google Patents lists numerous US district-court matters (2020–2022) against this family: D. Del., W.D. Wash., W.D. Tex., C.D. Cal., D. Colo., N.D. Ga., N.D. Ill., S.D.N.Y., N.D. Tex. (See the litigation links on the Google Patents page.)
• Unified Patents Patroll ran a prior-art contest on US 8,165,867 ("Wireless Control"), prize $3,000, start 2021-01-20, end 2021-03-01, describing it as owned by Cedar Lane Technologies (an NPE) and "relat[ing] to wirelessly controlling an electronic device with another electronic device in real time." Source: https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/AymDhWe8pwshAiJHD
• Cited prior art of record includes US 5,818,733 (Hyuga), US 6,080,972 (May — remotely operated programmable oven controller), US 2002/0069063 A1 (Buchner — speech recognition control of remotely controllable devices in a home network), US 6,633,235 (Winbond), US 6,397,267 (Sun Microsystems), and US 6,654,378 (Broadcom).

Uncertainties / cautions

• CAFC 2026: No 2026 Federal Circuit docket for 8,165,867 was found. Absence of search results is not proof of absence; PACER/CAFC docket confirmation would be needed for a definitive statement.
• 2025–2026 Cedar Lane filings: Cedar Lane is actively filing in 2026 (e.g., E.D.N.Y. and S.D.N.Y. financial-services defendants), but the dockets I could inspect reference different patents. I cannot confirm '867 was asserted in these 2026 cases.
• Status field: the fetched Google Patents page states "Expired – Fee Related," while one search snippet showed "Expired – Lifetime" for the same application — treat the top-level fetched status (Expired – Fee Related, expiration 2022-06-26) as controlling.
• The claim-1 phrase "transmitting the formatted device command to the second device" does not specify whether the distal system transmits directly to the second device or routes it back through the first device; the specification describes the first device relaying it.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8165867. Let me start with several targeted searches.

Let me search for the specific cases listed in the patent record and the Unified Patents caselist.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,165,867

Important scope note: I was able to gather a substantial amount from search results, but I hit a tool-usage limit and could not fully render the authoritative source — Unified Patents' caselist at https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=8165867&sort=-filed_date (the link expressly given by Unified's PATROLL contest for this patent). The list below distinguishes what I confirmed (from complaints, AO-120 patent reports, or party filings) from what is reported but not yet confirmed. I have not auto-corrected any identifiers.

Patent background (context for the cases)

• US 8,165,867 B1, "Methods for translating a device command." Priority date 2000-09-15; granted 2012-04-24; app. US10/466,202 (the Google record also shows PCT/US2000/025613, filed 2000-09-15).
• Original assignee: Individual (inventor Robert D. Fish). Recorded chain of title: Ulloa Research LLC (2013) → Nytell Software LLC (2015) → Intellectual Ventures Assets 120 LLC (2018) → Avinnov LLC (2019) → Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (2019-10-17).
• Status: "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2022-06-26. This matters for your list: the patent lapsed in mid-2022, so any Cedar Lane suits filed in 2025–2026 (e.g., the Citibank, Johnson Controls, Prosperum, David Lerner cases that surfaced in search) are asserted on other Cedar Lane patents, not the '867.
• Cedar Lane is a Canadian NPE; its '867 campaign drew a Unified Patents PATROLL prior-art contest (see below), but I found no IPR/PGR petition against the '867.

A. Cases CONFIRMED to involve the '867 patent

Sources: Patexia dockets for the Altice (1:22-cv-00470) and Philips (1:21-cv-01208) cases; UniCourt/PACER docket for Cox (1:22-cv-00471); RPX Insight complaint excerpt (S.D.N.Y., quoting ¶¶ 22–23 describing the '867 Patent); Patexia "Related Cases" listings tying 1:20-cv-00836 (TCL), 3:20-cv-01103 and 1:20-cv-03635 (Sirius XM), and 1:20-cv-06021 (ViacomCBS) to Cedar Lane's family.

B. Cases REPORTED to involve the '867 patent (defendant named, case number not confirmed)

Unified Patents states the '867 "has been asserted against D-Link, Disney, Dish Network, Comcast, LG, iHeart [Media] in W.D. Tex., ViacomCBS in N.D. Ill., TCL Communication in D. Del., and Sirius XM in S.D.N.Y." (PATROLL contest page and the accompanying Unified insights posts). Matching the unidentified W.D. Tex. defendants is where I run out of verification:

Sources: Unified Patents PATROLL contest page (patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/AymDhWe8pwshAiJHD); Unified insights "$3,000 for Cedar Lane Technologies Prior Art" (2021-01-20) and "$3,000 Awarded for Cedar Lane prior art" (2021-04-20); Law Street Media report on the DISH complaint (W.D. Tex., six patents including the '867, "translating a device command"); EchoStar/DISH SEC filing (10-Q / 424B3) confirming the 2020-10-13 filing date.

C. One confirmed SETTLEMENT (with a non-U.S. party)

• Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. 睿联数字 ("Reolink Digital") — W.D. Tex., Waco Division; filed 2021-06-11, asserting US 6,972,790; US 8,165,867; US 8,537,242. A settlement agreement was signed 2021-08-09: the defendant paid US$10,000, received a worldwide perpetual license for itself and affiliates, and Cedar Lane withdrew the suit and agreed not to re-assert. Cedar Lane moved to dismiss after payment. (IPO/睿联技术 disclosure, reported by IPRdaily and reproduced by Nanjing University of Science & Technology IP center.) Case number not captured in my results — a June 11, 2021 W.D. Tex. filing date is consistent with docket 6:21-cv-00608, but I cannot confirm that match.

D. What I could NOT confirm

1. The case numbers for the Comcast, D-Link, Disney, LG, iHeartMedia, and DISH W.D. Tex. suits. The Google Patents page lists dozens of W.D. Tex. case numbers under "Family has litigation" (6:20-cv-00947, 6:20-cv-00949, 6:20-cv-01202, 6:21-cv-00195/00251/00252/00280/00408/00429/00433/00436/00437/00443/00449/00608/00922/01234/01325/01340, etc.), but that list is family-wide — it very likely mixes cases asserting Cedar Lane's imaging patents (6,473,527; 6,972,790; 8,537,242) with the '867. I will not attribute those numbers to the '867 without confirmation.
2. The exact disposition of the N.D. Ill. (ViacomCBS), TCL, and Sirius XM matters. Cedar Lane's pattern in this portfolio was overwhelmingly voluntary dismissal after settlement (an IP-navi/KIPO analysis found roughly 87% "likely settlement" across Cedar Lane's docket), but I did not verify each terminal order.
3. Any CAFC appeal. I found no Federal Circuit appeal involving the '867. Search results for "8165867" at the CAFC returned nothing on point.
4. Any PTAB trial. The '867 was the subject of a Unified Patents PATROLL prior-art crowdsourcing contest (Jan 20 – Mar 1, 2021; $3,000 prize), not a filed IPR. I found no instituted PTAB proceeding against the '867.

Bottom line

For US 8,165,867 specifically, all confirmed litigation is Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. as sole plaintiff against consumer-electronics / media / cable / telecom defendants, concentrated in 2020–2022, and all confirmed cases ended in voluntary dismissal (settlement) or termination. The seven confirmed cases are the TCL (D. Del. 1:20-cv-00836), Sirius XM (S.D.N.Y. 1:20-cv-03635 and N.D. Tex. 3:20-cv-01103), ViacomCBS (N.D. Ill. 1:20-cv-06021), Altice (D. Del. 1:22-cv-00470), Cox (D. Del. 1:22-cv-00471), and Philips (D. Del. 1:21-cv-01208) matters. DISH is confirmed as a defendant by date (2020-10-13) though I could not pin the case number. Comcast, D-Link, Disney, LG, and iHeartMedia are reported by Unified Patents as W.D. Tex. defendants but were not independently confirmed here. Because the patent expired (fee-related) on 2022-06-26, no post-2022 Cedar Lane filing can assert it.

To produce a fully verified, filing-date-complete list, the definitive source is Unified Patents' caselist filtered to this patent — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=8165867&sort=-filed_date — cross-checked against PACER for each W.D. Tex. and D. Del. docket.

I'll verify the structured block against live sources before writing the analysis.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US Patent 8,165,867

Verification basis. I worked from the structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO ODP: no AIA trial proceedings indexed) and independently searched for any IPR/PGR/CBM naming the '867 patent, its patent owner (Cedar Lane Technologies Inc.), and its petitioners. The searches confirm — rather than merely fail to contradict — the structured block. I did not find a single AIA petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal involving US 8,165,867.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings exist against US 8,165,867. Breakdown: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated at the PTAB, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials, 0 Federal Circuit appeals of any PTAB decision on this patent.

The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore not "hardened by surviving IPRs" and also not "claims 1–5 are canceled." It is: the patent was never tested at the PTAB at all. Its claims remain formally intact but entirely unadjudicated on validity anywhere — and the reason is almost certainly economic, not substantive: the '867 patent expired on 2022-06-26 (Expired – Fee Related), and Cedar Lane's entire 2020–2022 assertion campaign washed out via early voluntary dismissals and nuisance-value settlements. A defendant facing a demand on '867 today should read the absence of PTAB activity as "nobody thought it was worth buying an IPR," not as "the claims are strong."

Per-proceeding detail

There are no proceedings to report. To be explicit and to avoid the impression that a docket was overlooked, here is every PTAB-adjacent item I checked:

None — no proceeding on US 8,165,867

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No petition on file (USPTO ODP ingest; confirmed by target searches against the patent number, "8165867," and Cedar Lane + PTAB)
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — no claim of '867 has ever been construed, canceled, or confirmed by the Board
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: No CAFC appeal exists, because there is no Board decision to appeal (consistent with the prior section's finding of no 2026 CAFC docket for '867)
• Defensive value: You get no free kill. Any validity attack must be built from scratch in district court or a first-ever IPR — and you cannot rely on anyone else's prior estoppel-laden work product.

Near-misses you should NOT confuse with '867 proceedings

1. IPR2020-00006 — Unified Patents, LLC v. Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (US 7,173,177, not '867)

• Type: Inter Partes Review — different patent (the "owned/unowned playlist" patent)
• Filed: 2019-10-03; institution: 2020-03-18 (all challenged claims); FWD: 2021-02-12
• Panel: Christopher M. Kaiser (writing), Norman H. Beamer, Scott B. Howard
• Outcome: claims 1–15 and 23 held unpatentable (per Patexia's case summary); the independent claim was held unpatentable
• Sources: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/ptab/10878 ; https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Unified-Patents-LLC-v-Cedar-Lane-Technologies-Inc-id-[128967](/patent/128967) ; https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/2/12/cedar-lane-patent-held-unpatentable
• Why it matters anyway: it proves Unified Patents was litigating against this same patent owner, in the same family-cluster of IV/AVInnov-acquired assets, in the same window — and still filed no IPR against '867.

2. Unified Patents PATROLL prior-art bounty on US 8,165,867 — a bounty, not a proceeding

• Contest ran 2021-01-20 to 2021-03-01; $3,000 prize; winner announced 2021-04-20
• Description: "'867 patent relates to wirelessly controlling an electronic device with another electronic device in real time… owed by Cedar Lane Technologies, Inc., an NPE"
• Sources: https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/AymDhWe8pwshAiJHD ; https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/4/20/3000-awarded-for-cedar-lane-prior-art
• Critical inference: Unified crowdsourced and paid for '867 prior art — the classic precursor to an IPR — and then never filed one. That is a signal about the art's quality and/or the patent's remaining economic life.

3. Family-member checks (also negative). I searched for PTAB challenges to the '867 divisional/continuation siblings — US 8,938,382, US 9,400,785, US 9,817,820, US 9,081,770, US 9,507,771 — and found none. Caveat: sibling-patent IPR searches were less exhaustive than the '867 searches; treat "no sibling IPRs" as lower-confidence than "no '867 IPRs."

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything untested, nothing canceled, nothing sustained. All 17 claims of '867 — independent claim 1 plus dependents 2–17 — stand exactly as issued on 2012-04-24. No PTAB panel has ever invalidated a claim, and equally, no panel has ever confirmed one. Contrast that with the sister Cedar Lane asset US 7,173,177, where the Board wiped out the independent claim on 2021-02-12. Cedar Lane's aggressive PTAB track record as a patent owner is one loss on the merits; its '867 asset simply never entered the arena.

Estoppel landscape: a blank slate — but the district-court picture supplies the offsets. Because there is no IPR and no petitioner, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is nonexistent for '867. No defendant is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground, and no petitioner-privy relationship taints your art choices. The practical constraints on a defendant today are different ones:

• Time bar (§ 315(b)): if you were served with an '867 complaint more than one year ago, IPR is off the table.
• Expiry: the patent expired 2022-06-26, so infringement exposure is limited to pre-expiry past damages — and the Board's willingness to institute on an expired patent is discretionary and rarely exercised. This, more than any merit ruling, explains the empty docket.
• § 101/§ 112: since no IPR could ever reach those grounds, they remain fully available in litigation and were never explored at the Board either.

Pattern signals. (a) Unified Patents is in the chain as a challenger (IPR2020-00006 on the '177 patent) and as a crowdsourcer against '867, but never as an '867 petitioner — so there is no defensive-aggregator IPR to free-ride on. (b) Cedar Lane's modus operandi is volume assertion followed by near-immediate voluntary dismissal: e.g., D. Del. 1:21-cv-00405 (Neato) dismissed with prejudice 2021-05-12; 1:21-cv-00529 (Whirlpool) dismissed 2021-06-03; 1:21-cv-01208 (Philips) dismissed 2021-09-07; W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00280 (Bose) dismissed 2022-04-27; D. Del. 1:22-cv-00470 (Altice) dismissed 2022-06-21. Under that model, defendants buy peace cheaply rather than file IPRs. (c) No '867 appeal exists at the Federal Circuit — consistent with the earlier finding in this analysis of no CAFC 2026 docket for '867. If a demand letter or a new 2026 case asserts '867, that is a new assertion campaign, not the continuation of an adjudicated one.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and a demand cites US 8,165,867: there is no FWD to link and no canceled claim to quote. Do not represent otherwise. Your invalidity case must be built from the ground up.
2. Use the free head start that does exist. The PATROLL contest page links third-party invalidity work product on at least claim 1 — APEX Standards claim charts (https://apexstandards.com/pcc/US8165867B1_invalidity/), the Limestone validity report, Traindex semantic prior-art list (https://www.traindex.io/prior-art/US-8165867-B1), and Amplified results — all indexed at https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/AymDhWe8pwshAiJHD. That is precisely the art Unified solicited and then declined to file on; understand why before you rely on it.
3. Lead with the expiry and the prior-art of record. The '867 patent expired 2022-06-26, capping damages. And its own prosecution record already cites US 5,818,733 (Hyuga), US 6,080,972 (May — remotely operated programmable oven controller), US 2002/0069063 A1 (Buchner — speech recognition control of remotely controllable devices in a home network), US 6,633,235 (Winbond), US 6,397,267 (Sun), and US 6,654,378 (Broadcom) — a set that maps uncomfortably well onto claim 1's "capture → remote translate → send to second device → execute locally" architecture. Note, however, that PATROLL rules excluded art previously cited during prosecution, so that art was never the crowdsourced attack vector.
4. If you are considering an IPR: confirm your § 315(b) clock (one year from service), and confirm current Board practice on instituting on an expired patent for past-damages purposes. Given the 2022 expiry, a post-grant trial is likely the wrong tool; a district-court § 101/§ 103 or invalidity-based squeeze, or a damages/standing-based early exit, is probably more efficient.
5. Docket verification is still open. For a definitive negative on PTAB activity, run the patent number through USPTO PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/) and Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/), and check CourtListener for any appellate filings (https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%228165867%22). The ODP ingest plus my searches agree on zero, but only the PTAB E2E "Proceedings" tab is truly dispositive.

Bottom line for the client: the troll has not lost this patent at the PTAB — but it has never won anything with it either, and the patent is dead as of 2022-06-26. Treat '867 as an unadjudicated, expired, untested asset whose only real leverage is the cost of defending rather than the strength of its claims.

I'll research the assignment record for US 8,165,867, focusing on reel/frame numbers and correspondents of record.

Let me try more targeted searches for the assignment records and correspondents.

Good context on Cedar Lane. Let me try to find the specific assignment records with reel/frame numbers via PlainSite and Google Patents.

Assignment Record — US Patent 8,165,867

Data-access caveat (read first). I was unable to retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondents of record for this patent's assignments. The USPTO Assignment Center / Patent Assignment Search pages are script-driven and did not return machine-readable records to my searches, and PlainSite's assignment index did not surface an '867 entry in the results I could reach. Everything below on parties and dates comes from Google Patents' reassignment event log (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8165867B1](/patent/US8165867B1)/en), which reproduces assignor/assignee/conveyance-type/date but not reel/frame or the recording correspondent. I am flagging this explicitly rather than inventing reel/frame strings. A reader with Assignment Center access should pull the reel/frame and correspondent for each link below; that is the one field most valuable to the NPE analysis and the one I could not confirm.

Inventors

Pattern note. The classic tell — all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months, preceding a fire-sale — does not apply in the usual form, because there was no operating-company employer. The inventor is a solo attorney who held the patent personally for ~13 years (2000 filing → 2013 first assignment). This is a personal-inventor-to-NPE pathway, not an operating-company spin-out, and it is worth flagging as its own pattern: a portfolio funded and held by a prosecution attorney who later monetized it through a chain of licensing LLCs.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Individual — Robert D. Fish. The patent did not issue to a company.
• Product embodying the claims: None identified. No commercial product is associated with Fish or Fish & Associates; the firm's line of business is patent prosecution legal services, not the remote-command-translation technology claimed.
• Primary line of business: Legal services (patent prosecution), via Fish & Associates, PC.
• Current status: Appears to be an operating law firm; no dissolution/bankruptcy record surfaced for the original assignee. (No bankruptcy, no wind-down is documented for Fish.)

Implication: Because the original assignee was an individual with no product, the "original assignee still owns it" default does not hold — the patent was fully monetized-and-transferred (see timeline).

Assignment timeline

The following are the reassignment events recorded on Google Patents. Dates are the event dates shown there; I could not differentiate executed vs. recorded without the Assignment Center reel/frame entries.

• 2013-06-06 (executed/recorded per GP event log) — Reel unconfirmed

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: FISH, ROBERT D.
  • Assignee: ULLOA RESEARCH LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (flag: this is the link where the recording attorney would first appear)
  • Context: Transfer out of personal ownership into a licensing vehicle — the patent leaves the inventor's hands entirely.
  • Note: Google Patents shows two "Assigned to ULLOA RESEARCH LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY" entries on the same 2013-06-06 date with the same assignor — likely a duplicate recording or a two-part instrument; Assignment Center should confirm whether these are two reel/frame records.

• 2015-12-30 — Reel unconfirmed

  • Conveyance: Merger ("MERGER — SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS")
  • Assignor: ULLOA RESEARCH LIMITED LIABILITY COMPANY
  • Assignee: Nytell Software LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg / entity roll-up — Ulloa merged into Nytell Software LLC.

• 2018-12-18 — Reel unconfirmed

  • Conveyance: Nunc Pro Tunc Assignment
  • Assignor: Nytell Software LLC
  • Assignee: INTELLECTUAL VENTURES ASSETS 120 LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer into the Intellectual Ventures aggregation machine (IV Assets 120 = an IV acquisition vehicle). "Nunc pro tunc" indicates a retroactive-effective-date correction, often used to paper a deal that closed earlier.

• 2019-02-06 — Reel unconfirmed

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Interest
  • Assignor: INTELLECTUAL VENTURES ASSETS 120/125 LLC
  • Assignee: AVINNOV LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter — AVInnov is the Delaware NPE that RPX and Unified Patents identify as the first-step vehicle for this former-IV portfolio.

• 2019-10-17 — Reel unconfirmed

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Interest
  • Assignor: AVINNOV LLC
  • Assignee: CEDAR LANE TECHNOLOGIES INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter (final link) — entire AVInnov portfolio assigned to Cedar Lane, the Canadian NPE, immediately ahead of the 2019–2022 assertion campaign.

Correction to earlier section. The prior summary listed the IV transfer as "INTELLECTUAL VENTURES ASSETS 120 LLC." Google Patents' assignor field on the AVInnov step actually reads "INTELLECTUAL VENTURES ASSETS 120/125 LLC." I flag this so a reader pulling the actual reel checks both entities; the earlier summary's single-entity rendering may be incomplete.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8165867
    2000 : Filed by Robert D Fish
    2012 : Patent issued to Fish
    2013 : Assigned to Ulloa Research LLC
    2015 : Merged into Nytell Software LLC
    2018 : Assigned to IV Assets 120 LLC
    2019 : Assigned to AVInnov LLC
         : Assigned to Cedar Lane Technologies
    2020 : First Cedar Lane family suits

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Ownership moves Fish (individual) → Ulloa Research LLC (2013-06-06) → Nytell Software LLC (2015-12-30) → IV Assets 120 LLC (2018-12-18) → AVInnov LLC (2019-02-06) → Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. (2019-10-17). Every post-2013 holder is a licensing/aggregation vehicle with no products in commerce; the suffix pattern (Research, Software LLC, Assets, Technologies) matches the tell. Caveat per instructions: naming alone is not the finding — the concrete evidence is the absence of any product by any holder plus Cedar Lane's court disclosure (quoted by RPX) that it "has no parent company" and is directed by a licensing attorney.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Two assignees are on public NPE lists: Intellectual Ventures Assets 120/125 LLC (IV is named in the task's list) and Cedar Lane Technologies Inc., which Unified Patents and RPX describe as an NPE and which ran IPRs against it (e.g., Unified Patents v. Cedar Lane, US 7,173,177 held unpatentable 2021-02-12; https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2021/2/12/cedar-lane-patent-held-unpatentable). AVInnov LLC is likewise described by RPX as an NPE (https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/news/59211). Unified Patents also ran a Patroll prior-art contest on US 8,165,867 itself (start 2021-01-20, per the prior summary), expressly describing the owner as Cedar Lane.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data gap).
I could not retrieve the correspondent of record on any link, so I cannot confirm or refute a recurring recording attorney. Do not read this as a negative finding. The related governance tell is documented: Cedar Lane was formed in British Columbia on 2019-04-29 with attorney Greg Benoit as director; the entity's address corresponds to Pigott & Co., an IP-licensing firm; Benoit also signed for Steephill Technologies LLC (another pass-through in Cedar Lane's purchases) and is the former CEO of Patent Armory (RPX, https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/news/59211). That is a control tell (same counsel directing multiple nominally unrelated vehicles) rather than a recording-correspondent tell, and it supports the shell-entity signal above. Assignment Center should be checked for whether Benoit/Pigott or a single outside firm recorded the IV→AVInnov→Cedar Lane links.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (for the 2018–2019 segment).
The chain contains a rapid cascade: 2018-12-18 (IV Assets 120) → 2019-02-06 (AVInnov) → 2019-10-17 (Cedar Lane) — three transfers in under 11 months, all through chained LLCs, ending at a high-frequency plaintiff. The 2013→2015 links are slower, so the cascade signal is specific to the 2018–2019 window, not the whole chain.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT.
Cedar Lane took the '867 on 2019-10-17 (GP event log). Cedar Lane's '867-family suits appear in 2020 (Google Patents lists D. Del. 1:20-cv-00836, W.D. Tex. 1:20-cv-00472, and other 2020–2022 matters). A 2020 filing is within ~6 months of the 2019-10-17 assignment, matching the "arrange the chain to enable assertion / clean standing + venue" pattern. (Confirm the exact earliest '867 complaint date via PACER to nail the interval.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Fish, Ulloa, Nytell, AVInnov, or Cedar Lane surfaced as the source of these transfers. This is a negotiated monetization cascade, not a distress sale.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The IV → AVInnov → Cedar Lane path is characteristic of IV's aggregation-then-license model, but I found no evidence that a specific operating company is funding Cedar Lane to assert on its behalf against competitors (the classic privateering fact pattern). IV here appears to be the seller/aggregator, not an operating-company patron. Insufficient evidence to call it privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Cedar Lane, an active NPE plaintiff — the opposite of neutralization. No RPX / AST / LOT / Unified / OIN terminal link exists.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The record shows a five-link cascade through licensing-only entities — Fish → Ulloa Research (2013-06-06) → Nytell Software (merger, 2015-12-30) → IV Assets 120/125 (2018-12-18) → AVInnov (2019-02-06) → Cedar Lane Technologies (2019-10-17) — with the last three transfers compressed into under 11 months and ending at an entity that Unified Patents and RPX identify as an NPE and that sued on the '867 family in 2020, i.e., a pre-litigation transfer within roughly six months of the final assignment. Two assignees (Intellectual Ventures and Cedar Lane) are named on public NPE lists, and no holder in the chain has ever shipped a product embodying the claims. The only missing evidentiary thread is the correspondent of record (data gap), which would strengthen signal 3 but is not required for the verdict.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "8165867" or application 10/466,202) · https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — to pull the reel/frame and correspondent for each link above.

I'll verify the patent on USPTO and gather details on each cited reference.

Let me gather details on the remaining three cited references.

Prior Art Analysis — US 8,165,867 B1

Note on identifiers (strict rule applied): I searched for and analyzed the exact number 8,165,867 (US 8,165,867 B1, application 10/466,202). All citations below use their exact alphanumeric identifiers as they appear on the face of the patent. Nothing was auto-corrected.

1. USPTO / citation confirmation

The USPTO-facing "References Cited" block of US 8,165,867 B1 lists six U.S. patent documents (all examiner citations, marked with *). This is confirmed both by the Google Patents "Patent Citations (6)" section and by the patent's own front page as reproduced in the Cedar Lane Technologies Inc. v. Fantasia Trading LLC (D. Del. 1:21-cv-01428) complaint (Exhibit B), which prints the "References Cited" column:

5,818,733 A * 10/1998 Hyuga … 6,080,972 A * 6/2000 May … 6,397,267 B1 * 5/2002 Chong, Jr. … 6,633,235 B1 * 10/2003 Hsu et al. … 6,654,378 B1 * 11/2003 Mahany et al. … 2002/0069063 A1 * 6/2002 Buchner et al.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8165867B1](/patent/US8165867B1)/en ; CourtListener docket 60631839.

Critical date: The '867 patent's effective filing/priority date is 2000-09-15 (PCT/US2000/025613). Any anticipation analysis under § 102 must therefore rest on art dated before 2000-09-15. All six cited references pre-date that date in filing terms and qualify as § 102(a)/(b) or § 102(e) art.

Bottom line: None of the six cited references discloses every element of independent claim 1 — in particular, none discloses a distal computer system operating as a "remote human-to-device command translation service provider" that returns a formatted device command to a separate second device that is "only intermittently local" to the first device. The closest are Buchner (US 2002/0069063 A1) and May (US 6,080,972). The rest are more naturally § 103 combination material or background. I therefore map each reference to the claims/limitations it is most relevant to, and flag where a full § 102 anticipation is weak.

2. The six cited references (face-of-patent)

2.1 US 5,818,733 A — "Communication method and system for same"

• Full citation: US 5,818,733 A, Makoto Hyuga, filed 1994-07-01, issued 1998-10-06. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5818733A](/patent/US5818733A)
• Brief description: A two-way wireless communication/management system, described in a golf-course embodiment. Mobile units 1 (carried by players/caddies) communicate by radio with a management unit 2 acting as a relay station in a clubhouse; the management unit relays to a remote unit 3 at a facility such as a hospital via public transmission lines. Each mobile unit has a transmitter 15, voice communication device 16, LCD 5, ten-key pad 6, and emergency button 11; the management unit has a receiver 21, controller 22, transmitter 23, voice device 24, and a camera controller 26 that issues commands governing selection, direction, angle and distance of imaging devices 27₁–27ₙ (pan/tilt/zoom). It includes location detection by triangulation, imaging, and GPS.
• Relevance to '867: This is a wireless two-way relay architecture in which a central/relay node commands and controls remote peripheral devices (cameras) and returns information. It is relevant to the generalized architecture of claim 1 (transmit wirelessly to a distant node → node issues control commands to a device → device acts), and to claims 4–5 (wireless coupling). However, it does not disclose translating a human-understandable device command into a formatted device command, so it does not anticipate claim 1 as a whole. Best characterized as background/general-architecture art, potentially useful in a § 103 combination.
• Potentially anticipates: None cleanly; supplies the "wireless distal node controls a peripheral device" motif relevant to claim 1's gestalt and claims 4–5.

2.2 US 6,080,972 A — "Remotely operated universal programmable oven controller" ⭐

• Full citation: US 6,080,972 A, Leonhard May, filed 1998-07-27, issued 2000-06-27 (priority 1995-02-16). Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6080972
• Brief description: A programmable food-oven controller that can be remotely programmed/operated over telephone lines or a cellular telephone connection using a personal computer running "oven controller transaction software." The remote computer and oven controller each contain a transceiver (transmitter + receiver), and in an alternative embodiment wireless communication (electromagnetic radiation) is used in lieu of the telephone interconnection (claim 13). The system supports real-time remote operation (claim 3: "controlled from a remote location for instantaneous operation, diagnostic review of operation, programming and reprogramming in real time"), ADC digitization (claim 1), and returns status/messages from the oven back to the remote operator (bidirectional).
• Relevance to '867: Highly relevant to several dependent claims:
  • Claim 2 (first device comprises a telephone): claim 12 of May expressly recites a cellular telephone connection.
  • Claims 4–5 (wireless connection to the distal system): claim 13 (electromagnetic radiation) and claim 10 (transceivers).
  • Claim 11 (manipulating = analog-to-digital conversion): May expressly recites an ADC for digitizing sensed values.
  • Claim 1's "distal computer … translate … into a formatted device command executable by the second device": May's remote computer issues formatted programming commands to the oven controller, and claim 3 of May recites "real time" operation remote from the device — the same "in real time," "distal," and "device command" concepts.
• Anticipation assessment: May is a strong § 102/§ 103 reference for the dependent-claim scaffolding (telephone/cellular link, wireless link, ADC, real-time distal control of a separate device). It does not disclose a human-understandable command being captured by a first device and translated at a distal computer into the device's command language, so it does not anticipate claim 1 outright; it is a prime candidate for combination with Buchner.

2.3 US 6,397,267 B1 — "Redirected I/O for scalable performance storage architecture"

• Full citation: US 6,397,267 B1, Chong, Jr. et al., Sun Microsystems, Inc., filed 1999-03-04, issued 2002-05-28. (Cited by the examiner on the '867 face; content confirmed from the Google Patents citation listing.)
• Brief description: A storage-architecture patent directed to redirecting I/O operations for scalable performance (networked storage).
• Relevance to '867: Low technical relevance to the "device-command translation" concept. It was cited likely as general-art evidence that transmitting data to a remote/distant computer that processes and returns it is a known distributed-computing pattern (the '867 specification's "remote computing" field). It maps only to the abstract "transmit information to a distal computer" idea and arguably to a broad reading of claim 1's data-forwarding step, but not to the human-to-device command translation.
• Potentially anticipates: None. Background/general distributed-computing art only.

2.4 US 6,633,235 B1 — "Method and apparatus for allowing a personal computer to control one or more devices" ⭐

• Full citation: US 6,633,235 B1, Hsu et al., Winbond Electronics Corp., filed 1998-06-15, issued 2003-10-14. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6633235B1](/patent/US6633235B1)
• Brief description: A system in which a personal computer controls one or more devices using the remote-control codes normally used by those devices' own remote control units. The PC has a receiver (to learn codes from remote control units), a knowledge base that stores codes and associates each with a user-defined command identifier, and a transmitter that sends the stored code to the target device. The PC "can in turn be controlled by a user directly at the PC itself, or from a distant PC via an Internet link, or from a distant telephone via a phone card resident in the PC." Repeaters extend range. It explicitly targets controlling a plurality of different devices that operate with different communication codes — i.e., translating a user command/identifier into the formatted code executable by the target device.
• Relevance to '867: This is the reference that most closely resembles the "human-to-device command translation" concept and the "formatted device command executable by the second device" limitation — the PC maps a user command identifier to the specific code the device understands and transmits that code to the device. It supports:
  • Claim 1's "translate … into a formatted device command executable by the second device" (the knowledge-base lookup produces the device-specific code).
  • Claim 12 ("command cannot be directly understood and executed by the first device" — the first device doesn't know the device code; the knowledge base supplies it).
  • Claim 4 (remote control over an Internet/telephone link → wireless/distal coupling).
• Anticipation assessment: Strong § 102(e)/§ 103 reference for the "translate a command into a device-executable code" limitation. It does not disclose a distal computer (the PC is local) nor a human-understandable spoken/visual command captured by a separate first device, so claim 1 as a whole is not anticipated; but combined with Buchner/May, it is central to a § 103 attack on the translation limitation.

2.5 US 6,654,378 B1 — "Transaction control system including portable data terminal and mobile customer service station"

• Full citation: US 6,654,378 B1, Mahany et al., Broadcom Corp., priority 1992-03-18, issued 2003-11-25.
• Brief description: A wireless transaction-control / portable-data-terminal system with a mobile customer service station — i.e., portable wireless terminals communicating with a remote host/network to carry out transactions (RF communication, data capture and forwarding).
• Relevance to '867: Broad architectural art for wireless portable devices exchanging information with a remote host. It maps loosely to the "wireless device transmits information to a distant computer" element of claim 1 and to claims 4–5, but it is peripheral to the command-translation concept.
• Potentially anticipates: None. General wireless-terminal background art.

2.6 US 2002/0069063 A1 (Granted as US 6,535,854 B2) — "Speech recognition control of remotely controllable devices in a home network environment" ⭐⭐

• Full citation: US 2002/0069063 A1 (published 2002-06-06; filed 1998-10-19; EP priority 1997-10-23), Buchner, Goronzy, Kompe & Rapp, Sony International (Europe) GmbH; granted as US 6,535,854 B2 on 2003-03-18. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20020069063A1
• Brief description: A home-network system in which a single generic "speech unit" captures spoken commands and translates them into "user-network-commands" (the device-specific control codes) to control remotely controllable devices (11) on a wired or wireless network. Connected devices dynamically download their device-dependent vocabulary/grammars and commands to the speech unit, which stores them and thereby learns to control each device. Critically, Example FIG. 7a discloses the speech unit connected to both the home network and the public telephone network: "A spoken-command from a user is transmitted via the public telephone network to the speech unit 2 that translates the spoken-command into a user-network-command to control the network device 11." FIG. 7b likewise shows commands relayed from a remote speech unit, via transceivers and the public telephone network, to a device in a different network.
• Relevance to '867: This is the single most pertinent cited reference to claim 1's core. Element-by-element it supplies:
  • (a) obtain auditory information comprising a human-understandable device command → the microphone-captured spoken command ("play," "switch on my TV," VCR programming dialogues).
  • (d) translate the human-understandable command into a formatted device command → translation of the spoken command into a user-network-command executable by the remotely controllable device.
  • (e)/(f) transmit the formatted command to the device; device executes → the speech unit sends the user-network-command to the device, which performs the action.
  • Claim 10 (verbally spoken command) — squarely disclosed.
  • Claim 12 (command cannot be directly understood/executed by the first device) — the telephone/remote source cannot itself execute the device command; the speech unit supplies it.
  • Claims 4–5 (wireless) — the specification expressly states the technology "is well-suited for all kinds of wired or wireless home networks."
• Anticipation assessment: Buchner is the reference an invalidity case would lead with. In the FIG. 7a configuration, the user's telephone sends the spoken command to the speech unit, which translates it into the device-executable command and forwards it to the device. That reads on most of claim 1. The principal gap versus claim 1 is the "second device is only intermittently local to the first device" and "first device obtains information from external to the first device" framing (in Buchner the device is local to the speech unit, not necessarily to the phone), and whether the speech unit is "distal" from the telephone. Those distinctions are what the patentee relies on; a § 102 anticipation of claim 1 is arguable but not clean, while a § 103 combination of Buchner + May (telephone link/real-time) or Buchner + Hsu (knowledge-base code translation) is strong against claims 1–2, 4–5, 10, and 12.

3. Prior art beyond the six face citations

The patent page also lists a "Family Cites Families (41)" set — references cited during prosecution of the '867 family (the divisonals/continuations), not on the '867 face. Several of these are directly on point for the "translate speech/text for a wireless device via a remote server" concept and would matter in a full validity analysis:

• US 5,946,376 A — Motorola/Ericsson — "Cellular telephone including language translation feature."
• US 6,377,925 B1 — "Electronic translator for assisting communications."
• US 6,532,446 B1 — Openwave — "Server based speech recognition user interface for wireless devices." (Directly on point for claims 1/10/12.)
• US 5,729,659 A — "Method and apparatus for controlling a digital computer using oral input."
• US 6,101,473 A — Stanford — "Using speech recognition to access the internet, including access via a telephone."
• US 5,982,853 A — Liebermann — "Telephone for the deaf and method of using same" (relevant to claim 17's telephone-plus-message display).
• US 4,822,861 A — Brotz — "Remote language translating device."

These are citations made in the family, so they were before the examiner at some point and are relevant context; they are not, however, part of the '867 "References Cited" block.

Separately, Unified Patents' Patroll contest on US 8,165,867 ("Wireless Control," 2021-01-20 to 2021-03-01) crowdsourced prior art on at least claim 1; APEX Standards published prior-art claim charts (https://apexstandards.com/pcc/US8165867B1_invalidity/) and other vendors (TechsonIP/Limestone, Traindex, InQuartik, Amplified, IPscreener) supplied rankings. Those are third-party (not examiner) references and are not "cited by examiner" art.

4. Summary ranking (most → least relevant)

1. US 2002/0069063 A1 / US 6,535,854 B2 (Buchner, Sony) — speech-to-device-command translation, remote telephone access, wireless network. Best § 102/§ 103 reference against claim 1 and claims 10, 12, 4–5.
2. US 6,633,235 B1 (Hsu, Winbond) — knowledge-base translation of a user command into the device-specific code; remote Internet/telephone control. Best against claim 1's "formatted device command" limitation and claim 12.
3. US 6,080,972 A (May) — cellular/wireless, real-time, distal programming of a separate device with ADC. Best against claims 2, 4–5, 11 and the "real-time/distal" elements.
4. US 5,818,733 A (Hyuga) — wireless relay architecture controlling remote peripheral devices; background/general-architecture for claim 1 and claims 4–5.
5. US 6,654,378 B1 (Mahany, Broadcom) — portable wireless terminals + remote host; generalized wireless-data-forwarding background.
6. US 6,397,267 B1 (Chong, Sun) — distributed/distant-computer data processing; lowest relevance, background only.

Caveats / confidence: (i) I confirmed the six face citations and their bibliographic data from Google Patents, the patent front page reproduced in the Cedar Lane complaint, and RPX/uspto.report/EveryPatent records; (ii) I could retrieve detailed text for US 5,818,733, US 6,080,972, US 6,633,235 and US 2002/0069063 A1, but my verification of the content of US 6,397,267 and US 6,654,378 rested on the citation listings rather than a full-text read — treat their descriptions as lower-confidence; (iii) whether any single reference rises to true § 102 anticipation of claim 1 is a legal judgment that ultimately depends on the "distal"/"intermittently local" claim construction, and I have flagged the specific gaps rather than asserting anticipation.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,165,867 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Using the prior-art record fetched from the Google Patents "Prior Art" section. I build on, and do not repeat, the summary/litigation sections above.

1. Analytical framework and scope

Governing law. Because the '867 has a filing/priority date of 2000-09-15, pre‑AIA § 102/§ 103 applies. Obviousness is assessed under the Graham v. John Deere factors as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and MPEP §§ 2141–2144: (1) scope/content of the prior art, (2) differences between the prior art and the claims, (3) level of ordinary skill, and (4) objective evidence. Under KSR, a combination is obvious where the elements are known, the combination is of predictable elements with predictable results, and there is an articulated reason (design incentive, market force, "obvious to try," or a teaching/suggestion/motivation) to combine.

Critical evidentiary caveat. The Google Patents "Prior Art" section supplies titles, assignees, and dates — not full texts. The mapping below therefore relies on the titles/dates in the record plus my prior knowledge of several references. I have not verified column/line pin cites, and I explicitly flag low-confidence mappings. A final § 103 opinion requires the full texts (priority documents included) of at least: US 2002/0069063 A1, US 6,532,446, US 6,101,473, US 6,345,389, US 5,982,853, US 6,080,972, US 6,633,235, and US 6,442,755.

Effective prior-art window. Prior art must predate 2000-09-15. Several record references published after that date but have earlier filing/priority dates and thus qualify under pre‑AIA § 102(e) (patents/published applications) or § 102(a)/(b) — assuming the § 102(e) English‑PCT conditions are met. Examples from the record: US 2002/0069063 A1 (priority 1997-10-23), US 6,345,389 (filed 1998-10-21), US 6,532,446 (filed 1999-11-24), US 6,755/6,442,755 (filed 1998-07-07), US 6,584,439 / US 2002/0193989 / US 2003/0093281 (all priority 1999-05-21), US 7,286,990 (filed 2000-01-21), US 6,748,426 (filed 2000-06-15), US 6,920,425 (filed 2000-05-16). Verification point: confirm the Buchner reference's US/PCT filing and English‑publication status before relying on § 102(e).

Analogy. Every reference used is in remote control, home networking, speech recognition, machine translation, interactive television, or wireless telephony — the same field of endeavor as the '867, and reasonably pertinent to the problem the '867 addresses (off-loading speech/translation processing from a thin client).

2. Level of ordinary skill

A person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) circa 2000 would hold a bachelor's in EE/CS (or equivalent experience) with ~2–3 years in speech processing, telecommunications, or home/device networking. Such a POSITA would know: (a) client/server architectures for resource-constrained wireless devices; (b) appliance control protocols (IR, X10, AV/C, markup-based command sets); (c) distributed speech recognition (front-end capture on device, recognition on server); and (d) text↔speech and cross-language conversion.

3. Claim 1 decomposed into limitations

Claim-construction note that drives the whole analysis: the specification expressly distinguishes "translate" from "evaluate." The patent states that server-side evaluation (e.g., a server that resolves "call home" and dials; a server that evaluates "x=156×2"; a music site that plays back Beethoven in response to a spoken title) falls outside the invention; the server must return a translated form (recognized text, or a device-command string). Any § 103 combination must therefore land on a translation/format-conversion reference, not a mere command-evaluation reference. This is the single most important constraint on the analysis.

4. Prior-art reference clustering (by function)

A. Speech → local device command (home network) — the closest primary reference

• US 2002/0069063 A1 (Peter Buchner), "Speech recognition control of remotely controllable devices in a home network environment," priority 1997-10-23. Teaches capturing a spoken command and producing a control command for a controllable appliance in a home network. This is the strongest single reference for limitations 1a, 1d (translation-to-command concept), 1f, and claim 3 (second device ≠ telephone). It is largely local (home network), which is the gap the secondary references fill.

B. Server/distal speech recognition for wireless devices — the uplink/architecture gap

• US 6,532,446 B1 (Openwave), "Server based speech recognition user interface for wireless devices," filed 1999-11-24.
• US 6,101,473 A (Board of Trustees, Leland Stanford Jr. University), "Using speech recognition to access the internet, including access via a telephone," filed 1997-08-08.
• US 7,286,990 B1 (Openwave), "Universal interface for voice activated access to multiple information providers," filed 2000-01-21.
• US 6,584,439 B1 / US 2002/0193989 A1 / US 2003/0093281 A1 (Winbond/Geilhufe), voice-controlled-device control and machine-to-machine speech, priority 1999-05-21.
• JP 3402100 B2 (Casio), "Voice control host device."
• These teach limitations 1a–1c, and the express motivation to move recognition/translation off the wireless device for cost/vocabulary/processing reasons.

C. Remote formatting of device commands / remote programming of appliances

• US 6,633,235 B1 (Winbond), "allowing a personal computer to control one or more devices," filed 1998-06-15 — limitations 1d, 1e.
• US 6,080,972 A (May), "Remotely operated universal programmable oven controller," filed 1995-02-16 — remote delivery of a formatted command to an appliance (limitations 1e, 1f, claim 12).
• US 6,554,798 B1 (Medtronic Minimed), "External infusion device with remote programming…," filed 1998-08-18 — remote device programming with formatted commands.
• US 6,442,755 B1 (United Video Properties), "Electronic program guide using markup language," filed 1998-07-07 — markup/device-command formats for a consumer device (limitation 1d, claim 16).

D. Remote modality/language conversion and display — supports the "translation" distinction

• US 6,345,389 B1 (Opentv), "converting non-textual information to textual information by a remote server," filed 1998-10-21 — remote server converts non-textual (auditory) info to text for local display. Directly supports 1d, and claims 8, 14, 17.
• US 5,982,853 A (Liebermann), "Telephone for the deaf and method of using same," filed 1995-03-01 — telephone converts speech↔text and displays text (claims 2, 14, 17).
• US 4,882,681 A (Brotz), "Remote language translating device," 1979/1989 — remote language translation (claim 1d language variant).
• US 5,946,376 A (Ericsson), "Cellular telephone including language translation feature," 1996-11-05 (claims 2, 4).
• TW 347503 B (Hitachi), "Character recognition translation system and voice recognition translation system," 1995-11-15 — recognition + translation pipeline.
• US 6,377,925 B1 (Interactive Solutions), "Electronic translator for assisting communications," filed 1999-12-16.

E. Wireless/network plumbing and terminal references

• US 5,818,733 A (Hyuga), communication method/system (1994) — examiner-cited, client/host communication.
• US 6,654,378 B1 (Broadcom), portable data terminal + mobile station, 1992 — wireless terminal architecture; examiner-cited.
• US 6,397,267 B1 (Sun), "Redirected I/O for scalable performance storage architecture," 1999 — distributed/"distal" processing; examiner-cited.
• US 6,175,860 B1 (IBM) multi-rate wireless/wired network (1997); US 5,855,003 A (Motorola) wireless link establishment (1996); US 4,829,554 A (Harris) cellular telephone system (1985).

F. Non-linguistic / visual input

• US 6,345,389 B1 (Opentv) (non-textual→textual); TW 347503 (character recognition); JP H09330336 A (Sony, information processing). Note: no record reference squarely teaches command generation from a sensed color — relevant to claims 9 and 15 (see § 8).

5. Proposed grounds of rejection

Ground 1 (primary): Buchner '063 in view of Openwave '446 and May '972

Combination:

• Buchner '063 — speech command → recognized → control command for a home appliance (1a, 1d-concept, 1f; claim 3).
• Openwave '446 (and/or Stanford '473) — moving the recognition/translation to a remote server for a resource-constrained wireless device (1b, 1c; and converting Buchner's local recognizer to a distal one).
• May '972 — remotely delivering a formatted control command to a specific appliance, which then executes it (1e; claim 12).

Rationale/motivation (KSR):

1. Predictable combination of known elements. Each element (capture, remote recognition, formatted appliance command) existed with its known function; the combination yields nothing more than the expected sum of those functions.
2. Design incentive / market force. The art (Openwave '446; Stanford '473) expressly recognized that wireless devices have limited memory/processing and that server-side recognition improves vocabulary, accuracy, and cost. A POSITA seeking to give Buchner's home network wide-vocabulary, accent-tolerant control had a clear reason to relocate recognition to a server.
3. "Obvious to try." The finite number of known options (local vs. server-side recognition; return recognized text vs. return a control code) yields an anticipated result.
4. Buchner's home network resolves the "[second device] local to the first device" and "not physically connected" limitations (wireless home appliances).

Predicted § 103 outcome: Claim 1 would likely be obvious on Ground 1; so would dependent claims 2–5, 10–12, 16.

Ground 2: Liebermann '853 in view of Opentv '389 and Winbond '235

Combination:

• Liebermann '853 — telephone captures speech and returns displayed text (1a, 1e; claims 2, 14, 17).
• Opentv '389 — the conversion of non-textual (auditory) information to text is performed by a remote server (1c, 1d).
• Winbond '235 — a computer translates/format device-executable commands for one or more devices (1d, 1f; claims 3, 12).

Motivation: integrating Opentv's remote conversion engine behind Liebermann's telephone, and using Winbond's formatting layer to drive the display device, is the predictable substitution of a remote component for a local one to reduce terminal cost — a recognized design trend in the references themselves.

Predicted outcome: Claim 1 obvious; claims 8, 14, 17 strongly obvious (remote audio→text → display on local device).

Ground 3: Broadcom/Buchner/Winbond + Ericsson '376/Brotz '681 (language-translation variant)

For the "language" limb of the specification (speech-in-language-A returned in language-B), Ericsson '376 (cellular translation), Brotz '681 (remote translation), and TW 347503 (recognition + translation) supply the translation function, combined with the wireless capture/return architecture of Ground 1. US 6,345,389 supplies the remote-server placement.

6. Element-by-element chart for claim 1 (Grounds 1–2)

Pin cites to be supplied from full texts.

7. Dependent claims

8. Where the patent is most defensible (and how to attack)

1. Claims 9 and 15 ("color"). The record contains no reference squarely teaching command generation from a sensed color or commanding a device to print/display a color. These will require either (a) a § 102 reference not in this record, or (b) an inherency/§ 103 argument that color is merely a species of "visual image" (claim 8) — a weaker, single-reference-species rationale. Flag as the likely battleground.
2. The "translate" vs. "evaluate" line. The patent deliberately excludes server-side evaluation. Expect the patentee to argue that Ground 1's server merely recognizes/evaluates, not translates into a formatted device command. The rebuttal is that Openwave '446/Stanford '473 and Winbond '235 return a command/format result to the local device (translation), and that converting an evaluator to a translator is an obvious design choice.
3. "Only intermittently local" / "not physically connected." These are capability/negative limitations. Under MPEP 2111.04/2112, a negative limitation adds weight only if the prior art would otherwise meet it. Buchner's wireless home appliances inherently satisfy both.
4. Divided-infringement / multi-actor claim. Claim 1 spans three actors; this is an infringement concern, not a validity bar, but it affects commercial value and thus how hard a challenger will push.
5. Secondary considerations. The '867 family drew a Unified Patents PATROLL $3,000 contest (2021) and ~40 district-court suits ending overwhelmingly in voluntary dismissal/settlement. NPE settlement licenses are generally weak evidence of non-obviousness (no nexus to a technical feature); the PATROLL contest shows the art was not trivially located but is not objective evidence. Nothing here establishes unexpected results, long-felt need tied to a specific claim element, or copying.

9. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is likely obvious over Buchner US 2002/0069063 A1 in view of Openwave US 6,532,446 B1 (or Stanford US 6,101,473) and May US 6,080,972 A — or alternatively over Liebermann US 5,982,853 in view of Opentv US 6,345,389 and Winbond US 6,633,235 — with the KSR motivations of cost reduction for resource-constrained wireless devices, higher recognition accuracy, and predictable substitution of a remote server for a local processor.
• Claims 2–8, 10–14, 16, 17 are each supported by one or more record references and are strongly to moderately vulnerable.
• Claims 9 and 15 (color) are the clear weak points of the invalidity case; they need art outside this record or an inherency argument.
• Verification required before filing any § 103 challenge: obtain full texts and confirm (a) § 102(e) eligibility/effective dates of the post-2000-published references (especially Buchner '063), (b) that the selected references translate (return a formatted command) rather than evaluate (execute at the server), and (c) column/line pin cites for each chart entry. The authoritative prior-art list should be re-pulled from the Google Patents page for US 8,165,867 B1, and the pre-grant ITC/reexam history (there is no IPR/PGR of record) should be checked before relying on examiner-cited art alone.