US 8630000

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number and any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check for litigation/docket activity and the independent claim set.

US Patent 8,630,000 — Summary

Sourcing note: The patent text supplied in your message is my authoritative source. Where I relied on external pages I say so. My searches did not return any results for a CAFC 2026 docket naming this patent (see "Litigation" below), so I will not speculate about one.

Bibliographic data

Representative classifications: G06F3/12 (and many G06F3/12xx print‑system subclasses), H04W4/80 (short‑range communication / NFC / RFID), H04W12/06 & H04W12/068 (authentication), H04W76/10 & 76/14 (connection setup; direct‑mode), H04W8/005 (network device discovery), H04N1/00 family, G06K15/02, G06Q20/10, G10L15/22.

Abstract (as published)

Next generation pervasive wireless ecosystems and mobile information apparatus are herein disclosed and enabling millions of users to migrate to pervasive digital living and enterprise. Wireless communications may include the mobile information apparatus accessing wireless local area network or by direct wireless communication. The mobile information apparatus may include a wireless unit compatible with Bluetooth and/or IEEE 802.11. Mobile information apparatus may conduct a local area wireless search within short distances for discovering wireless devices in its vicinity, receive an attribute related to the discovered wireless device, establish secure wireless communication with the discovered wireless device, and transfer or synchronize digital content or applications to/from the discovered wireless device. The discovered wireless device may be other mobile apparatus, wireless televisions, wireless audio devices, wireless speakers, wireless printers, among others, in a digital living room or office. Mobile apparatus may be smart phones, information pads, or laptops with touch sensitive screen interface.

Plain‑language overview of the claims

Important uncertainty: the claim set itself was not included in the patent text furnished to me, and my searches for the full claim listing did not return results. I can therefore give you one independent claim verbatim (from Flexiworld's own patent page, which presents it as the sample/claim 1) but I cannot authoritatively enumerate every independent claim or state the total claim count. Treat the description below as covering claim 1 only, with the rest unverified.

Claim 1 — "A method of outputting digital content from a wireless information apparatus to one or more wireless output devices…"

The claim is directed to a wireless information apparatus (e.g., smartphone, tablet, laptop) wirelessly sending digital content to one or more separate wireless output devices (printers, TVs, speakers) over a local wireless medium or WLAN — and it expressly excludes the Internet from the path between the apparatus and the output device. The apparatus has a wireless unit compatible with Bluetooth or an IEEE 802.11 protocol. The method comprises:

• (a) Device searching — the apparatus searches over the local wireless medium for output devices that have broadcast/made themselves available for discovery.
• (b) Device discovering — the apparatus actually discovers those broadcast‑available output devices found in the search.
• (c) Receiving a device attribute — the apparatus receives, over the local medium, at least one attribute relating to a discovered output device.
• (d) Selecting — the apparatus selects one of the discovered output devices based at least in part on that received attribute.
• (e) Obtaining authentication information — the apparatus obtains authentication information for connecting to the selected device, where that information was not previously available to the apparatus before at least part of steps (a)–(d) had been performed.
• (f) Authenticating — the wireless connection to the selected device is authenticated using the information obtained in (e).
• (g) Enabling the connection — the connection is enabled depending on whether authentication succeeded.
• (h) Repeating — any combination or part of steps (a)–(g) is repeated if no output device was discovered in (b), or if no output device was selected in (d).

In short: search → discover → receive attribute → select → acquire fresh credentials → authenticate → connect (with a retry loop) entirely over a local short‑range/WLAN link, without going through the Internet. The "not previously available" language in step (e) is notable — it captures the idea that the credentials needed to reach a newly encountered device are acquired on the fly rather than being pre‑installed.

Litigation / docket information

• Google Patents' litigation block for this patent lists two U.S. case filings:

  • California Central District Court, case 8:21‑cv‑00807; and
  • Texas Eastern District Court, case 2:26‑cv‑00229.

  The E.D. Tex. entry is dated within 2026. I did not independently verify either docket, and Google Patents expressly disclaims that its assignee/status data is a legal conclusion.

• No CAFC 2026 docket entry for US 8,630,000 was found. My searches for Federal Circuit 2026 activity tied to this patent returned no results. I cannot confirm any appeal involving this patent; absence of search hits is not proof that none exists.

• Related but distinct enforcement: Flexiworld's 2020–2025 campaign against Amazon (originally W.D. Tex. 6:20‑cv‑00553‑ADA, later W.D. Wash. 2:21‑cv‑1055‑DGE, with collateral discovery proceedings including a Mopria Alliance subpoena, N.D. Cal. 4:25‑mc‑80055) asserted ten Flexiworld patents — and US 8,630,000 does not appear to be among them. The patents reported as asserted were 8,332,521; 8,989,064; 9,110,622; 10,133,527; 10,140,072; 10,162,596; 10,387,087; 10,481,846; 10,489,096; and 10,642,576. Those ten share claim‑construction terminology with the '000 patent family (e.g., "physical proximity," "physical distance," "authentication procedure" constructions in the Amazon case), which suggests they are related continuations/divisionals of the same 2001 priority family.

Caveats

1. I do not have authoritative confirmation of (i) the total number of claims, (ii) the count and numbering of independent claims, or (iii) the text of any independent claim other than claim 1.
2. The abstract above is from Flexiworld's own site; it matches the characterization in the Google Patents record but I did not diff it character‑for‑character against the printed patent front page.
3. The "expired – fee related" status and 2022‑05‑18 adjusted expiration are Google Patents' machine‑generated legal‑status entries, not a legal determination. Note the tension between a 2001 priority date and an adjusted expiration in 2022, which reflects terminal disclaimer/PTA adjustments I cannot verify from the sources retrieved.
4. If you need the complete claim set, the reliable path is the USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search document for 11/929,501 or the granted‑patent PDF, neither of which I was able to retrieve here.

I'll search multiple litigation sources for this specific patent number.

Let me dig deeper into the specific patent's litigation history.

Bottom line

Searches of patent‑litigation sources (Unified Patents portal, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, Justia Dockets, RPX Empower, PACER Monitor, Patexia, UniCourt, and Google Patents' litigation links) turn up only a small number of cases linked to U.S. Patent No. 8,630,000 ("the '000 patent"), all of them asserting it as part of Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.'s wireless-output patent portfolio. I found no CAFC appeal and no PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM) specifically directed at the '000 patent — the PTAB hits (e.g., PGR2021‑00111, Roku Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies Inc.) involve U.S. 10,846,031, a different patent, and are not about the '000 patent.

Caveat up front: the '000 patent is Expired – Fee Related, adjusted expiration 2022‑05‑18 (per the Google Patents record), which is why any assertion post-dates most of the patent's term.

Cases where U.S. 8,630,000 is linked as a patent-in-suit

1. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Sony Corporation

• Plaintiff: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (Portland, OR; classified in Stanford's NPE database as a "failed startup" asserter)
• Defendant: Sony Corporation (Japan)
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Marshall Division (Judge Rodney Gilstrap)
• Case No.: 2:23‑cv‑00616
• Filing date: December 19, 2023 (summons issued Dec. 20, 2023; Sony served Jan. 17, 2024)
• Status/outcome: Terminated — dismissed with prejudice. The docket shows a joint motion to stay all deadlines and notice of settlement (Mar. 7, 2025), an agreed stay extended twice, then a Joint Stipulation of Dismissal with Prejudice (Dkt. 42, May 27, 2025) and Order Dismissing Case (Dkt. 43, May 29, 2025); Form AO‑120 filed at termination. Flexiworld's own litigation blog summary confirms the joint stipulation dismissed "all pending claims and counterclaims" with prejudice, each side bearing its own costs — no merits ruling on any patent.
• Source: Stanford NPE Litigation Database patent page for 8630000 (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/8630000); PACER Monitor docket (https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/51750256/Flexiworld_Technologies,_Inc_v_Sony_Corporation); RPX Empower (https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txedce-[226846](/patent/226846)-flexiworld-technologies-v-sony).

⚠️ Conflict I must flag rather than paper over: the Stanford NPE database lists 8630000 among the patents in this Sony case, but the First Amended Complaint (Dkt. 16, June 6, 2024) and the docket's exhibit list assert only: U.S. 9,798,516; 9,042,811; 9,836,259; 10,768,871; 10,162,596; 11,029,903; and 11,096,056 — the '000 patent does not appear in the amended pleading, and a third-party patent list for 2:23‑cv‑00616 likewise omits 8,630,000. The plausible explanations are (a) the Stanford database over-includes family members, or (b) the '000 patent was in the original complaint and was dropped by amendment. I could not retrieve the original complaint's patent list to resolve this within my search budget, so treat the '000 patent's participation in the Sony case as unconfirmed.

Cases linked to the '000 patent on the Google Patents litigation record, assertion unverified

2. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Epson America, Inc.

• Plaintiff: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
• Defendant: Epson America, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Central District of California (Judge Andre Birotte Jr.; Magistrate Judge Douglas F. McCormick)
• Case No.: 8:21‑cv‑00807 (originally assigned to Judge Christina A. Snyder, reassigned May 18, 2021)
• Filing date: April 29, 2021
• Status/outcome: Closed. Docket shows pro hac vice admissions, stipulated extensions of time to respond (answer filed Aug. 23, 2021), a telephonic discovery hearing (Sept. 3, 2021) over license/assignment agreements and a protective order, a Rule 26(f) joint report (Nov. 1, 2021), and then a "Report on the Determination of an Action Regarding a Patent or Trademark (Closing)" with an attached Order Dismissing Civil Action, entered February 2, 2022. No merits ruling identified; the dismissal followed settlement-type activity.
• Source: Google Patents litigation link for US8630000; Justia docket (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/california/cacdce/8:2021cv00807/[819111](/patent/819111)); Unified Patents case page (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/California%20Central%20District%20Court/case/8:21-cv-00807); UniCourt case summary.
• Note: The complaint carried 28 exhibits, consistent with a multi-patent portfolio assertion. I could not confirm from the retrieved docket text that the '000 patent itself was named in the complaint.

3. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. TCL Electronics Holdings Ltd., et al.

• Plaintiff: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
• Defendants: TCL Electronics Holdings Ltd.; TCL Industries Holdings Co., Ltd.; TCL Technology Group Corp.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Tyler Division)
• Case No.: 2:26‑cv‑00229
• Filing date: March 20, 2026
• Status: Pending/active. Docket retrieved April 16, 2026 shows appearances of counsel for both sides in April 2026 (e.g., T. Grochocinski, C. Ginnings, T. Trusty for Flexiworld; S. Geiszler for defendants). Accused products are TCL smart TVs, soundbars/speakers, headphones, and mobile phones. The complaint reportedly asserts twelve patents; the public complaint analysis discusses U.S. 10,768,871 ("the '871 patent") and another patent referred to as the "'798 patent" (most likely 10,791,798 or a similarly numbered family member — I did not verify that number). I could not confirm that 8,630,000 is among the twelve asserted patents.
• Source: Google Patents litigation link for US8630000; Justia docket (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2026cv00229/[244557](/patent/244557)); Ex Parte complaint analysis (https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/2:26-cv-00229/doc/analysis/1).

Other Flexiworld litigation in the same portfolio (no confirmation the '000 patent was asserted)

These cases exist and are relevant context for the '000 patent's family, but my searches did not verify 8,630,000 in any of them:

(Sources: litigati

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" default against live sources before finalizing.

The structured block says none — let me probe specifically for any recently-filed 2026 challenge tied to this patent or its current assertion campaign.

No hits for the '000 patent itself. Let me run two final confirmatory probes — one against PTAB docket aggregators, one against the 2026 E.D. Tex. campaign.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US Patent 8,630,000. The USPTO Open Data Portal block supplied in this prompt returns an empty proceeding list, and my live searches corroborate it — no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition naming the '000 patent surfaced in PTAB docket aggregators, USPTO PTACTS, or Unified Patents' own litigation trackers. Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to lean on — no claim has been canceled, no FWD exists, and you cannot point to an agency determination that any claim of the '000 patent is invalid. The defensive posture is "untested," not "hardened." The only favorable signal is third-party (non-estoppel) evidence that the Flexiworld family's October 2000 conception story defeated two obviousness grounds on a sibling patent — useful as a roadmap, not as a binding judgment.

Because the per-proceeding template is inapplicable when the count is zero, I state the null result plainly and then give the related-but-distinct activity that a practitioner actually needs.

No proceedings — verification trail

Caveat, stated honestly: an empty keyword result is not affirmative proof of absence. If a petition was filed in the last few months, a reexamination- or IPR-registry lag is possible. The reliable confirmation path is PTAB E2E / PTACTS (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/), searched by Application 11/929,501 or Patent 8,630,000 — note that PTAB proceedings are keyed to patent number, not to the application, so search the patent number.

What is on file is not a proceeding on this patent — related Flexiworld activity (do not conflate)

These matter because they tell you how Flexiworld defends, and because a defendant will inevitably be told "Flexiworld has been hit with IPRs." That is true — of other patents.

IPR2022-00775 — Unified Patents, LLC v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-04-08 (Petition, Paper 1; Exhibits 1001–1014)
• Patent challenged: US 9,836,257 — not the '000 patent. Claims 27 and 28 only.
• Status: Final Written Decision issued 2023-11-01 (Paper 41) — "Determining No Challenged Claims Unpatentable Dismissing Patent Owner's Revised Motion to Amend."
• Judge panel: Brent Dougal, Christopher Ogden, Terrence McMillin (per Docket Alarm panel listing).
• Petition grounds: Pre-AIA § 103(a) obviousness, two grounds — (1) Olgaard (US 7,849,198; § 102(e) date 2000-10-24) in view of Moghadam (US 5,917,542); and (2) Acharya (US 2002/0080091; § 102(e) date 2000-12-22) in view of Griffiths (US 7,136,999).
• Institution decision: Instituted on all challenged claims, 2022-11-08 (Paper 10).
• FWD outcome: Claims 27 and 28 SUSTAINED — not unpatentable. The panel held Unified failed to prove Olgaard or Acharya qualified as § 102(e) prior art because Flexiworld antedated both by corroborated conception no later than 2000-10-22, with reasonable continuous diligence through the 2001-01-19 provisional filing. The panel credited draft-provisional file metadata as independent corroboration of inventor testimony and excused 14–21 day gaps as falling in a holiday-filled period. See the panel's framing quoted in the Jones Day PTAB Litigation Blog writeup (www.ptablitigationblog.com) and the JD Supra summary of Unified Patents, LLC v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., IPR2022-00775, Paper 41.
• Settlement / termination: None. Case ran to FWD; Patent Owner's Contingent Motion to Amend was filed 2023-01-31 and the Revised Motion was dismissed in the FWD (mooted by the win).
• Appeal: I found no Federal Circuit appeal of Paper 41. Absence of a search hit is not proof; verify on CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/) if this matters.
• Defensive value for the '000 patent: Indirect but real. The panel's priority holding confirms that Flexiworld can marshal Oct-2000 conception + diligence evidence that swears behind art with § 102(e) dates between 2000-10-22 and 2001-01-19 — the exact window that matters for the '000 patent's 2001-01-19 priority date. Any petitioner targeting the '000 should assume the same antedating defense will be raised and should not build grounds on references in that window.

IPR2022-01267 — Roku, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review; Filed: 2022-07-29; Patent challenged: US 9,836,257 (co-pending with Unified's petition).
• Panel listed: Brent Dougal, Christopher Ogden, Terrence McMillin.
• Not a proceeding on 8,630,000. I did not retrieve the institution/termination papers — treat the outcome as unverified.

IPR2021-00713 — Roku, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review; Patent challenged: US 10,740,066 (claims 7, 8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 19 per Roku's Petition).
• Institution was granted (Reply Declaration of Dr. Bhattacharjee refers to "the Board's Institution Decision (Paper 21)"). Not a proceeding on 8,630,000.

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

• Type: Inter Partes Review; Patent challenged: US 7,609,402; petition sought cancellation of claims 1–21 and 23–37 under pre-AIA §§ 102/103 (Yamaguchi, Kammer, Moore, Kemp, Behlok, Davis).
• Notable for defendants: Lexmark's Mandatory Notices list the C.D. Cal. 8:21-cv-00807 Epson suit and state it was "settled/voluntarily dismissed February 1, 2022." They also flag that Lexmark intended a second petition against US 9,965,233. Not a proceeding on 8,630,000.
• Petition document: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1553925](/patent/1553925)/download-documents

Ex parte reexamination of RE48,066 (Unified Patents, filed 2025-05-23)

• Not an AIA trial (ex parte reexam is a separate statutory vehicle) and not this patent. Recorded at https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights?category=Reexamination. It shows Unified's 2025 posture toward the Flexiworld portfolio had shifted to reexam on a different patent.

Strategic summary

Claim-by-claim status of 8,630,000: entirely UNTESTED. No claim — independent or dependent — has been canceled, confirmed, or even subjected to an institution decision. There is nothing to link to a Final Written Decision, because no FWD exists for this patent. Any demand letter asserting the '000 patent can be met with the accurate statement that the patent has never been tested at the Board; that cuts both ways, and it means you get no free invalid-claim argument. I could not enumerate the claim set in the earlier section either (the claim listing was not in the supplied patent text), so do not assume claim 1's scope is representative of the whole — read the granted claims from USPTO PatentCenter (App. 11/929,501) before forming a theory.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate for this patent, but a caution flag on art selection. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted on the '000 patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not bar any petitioner or privy on any ground as to this patent — you are free to raise § 102 and § 103 art, printed publications, patents, and (in district court) system/on-sale/public-use art that IPR could not reach. However, the IPR2022-00775 record maps the priority minefield: Flexiworld has already won on a corroborated 2000-10-22 conception date with file-metadata corroboration and a diligence showing covering the 2000-10-19 → 2001-01-19 window. The '000 patent claims priority to 2001-01-19 (Prov. 60/262,764). If your best art has a § 102(e) date in the Oct-2000-to-Jan-2001 window, expect an antedating fight you are likelier than not to lose on the current record — prioritize art dated before 2000-10-22, or non-§102(e) art (e.g., § 102(b) publications or public-use evidence), or attack the claims on § 112 (written description / enablement) and claim-construction grounds rather than on the crowded priority battlefield. Note that IPR is unavailable for § 112 grounds except as to new matter in a motion to amend — an important procedural constraint if you believe the specification is thin.

Pattern signals. Unified Patents (a defensive aggregator) has repeatedly targeted the Flexiworld portfolio — IPR2022-00775 on the '257 patent, a 2025 ex parte reexam on RE48,066 — and lost the one it took to FWD. Roku filed IPRs on the '257 and '740,066 patents. Lexmark filed on the '402 patent. None chose the '000 patent, which may reflect its expiry status rather than its strength. There is no Unified-initiated proceeding on the '000 patent, and no evidence of a serial-IPR campaign against it. Flexiworld defends aggressively and effectively: it produced a deep priority-evidence record (Exhibits 2012–2041, including twenty-plus dated provisional drafts and metadata exhibits) and used it to defeat institution-worthy grounds outright.

One tension worth flagging explicitly. The Google Patents record states the '000 patent is "Expired – Fee Related," with an adjusted expiration listed as 2022-05-18 — i.e., an apparent failure to pay maintenance fees roughly nine months after the 2021 C.D. Cal. Epson filing. That entry is machine-generated and not a legal determination, and it sits awkwardly beside a reported E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229 family assertion in 2026. Either (a) the 2026 case does not actually assert the '000 patent and/or the expiry entry is wrong, or (b) the patent lapsed in 2022 and any 2026 assertion is limited to past damages within the § 286 six-year lookback. I could not verify the E.D. Tex. docket, and Google's litigation block is expressly labeled a non-legal-conclusion. Verify this first — it may dispose of more than any IPR could.

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the null result at the source. Search PTAB E2E / PTACTS by patent number 8,630,000 (not by application number) at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/. If the answer is still "no proceedings," that is the operative fact for your filing strategy and for any stay motion.
2. Get the claims before you brief anything. Retrieve the granted claim set from USPTO PatentCenter for Application 11/929,501 and identify every independent claim. My earlier summary could only verify one independent claim; a § 102/§ 103 mapping built on an unverified claim set is malpractice risk.
3. Resolve the expiration question immediately. Pull the maintenance-fee/expiry record for the '000 patent. If it lapsed for fee non-payment, evaluate (i) whether any asserted act post-dates lapse, (ii) the § 286 six-year damages floor, and (iii) whether the E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229 docket in fact names this patent. A lapsed patent's leverage collapses even without a PTAB win.
4. Do not assume any estoppel benefit — but do borrow the record. Because no IPR issued on this patent, there is no § 315(e)(2) shield to invoke against Flexiworld and no FWD to cite as an invalidating judgment. You may, however, cite IPR2022-00775 Paper 41 and its exhibit record as evidence of how the family's Oct-2000 conception story is constructed, and prepare to rebut it rather than discover it in sur-reply.
5. If you file, file where the priority fight is avoidable. Favor grounds resting on art dated before 2000-10-22, § 102(b) art, or claim-construction-based non-infringement. Track the statutory clock from institution: a PTAB FWD is due on or before 12 months from institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)), with a POPR due roughly three months from the notice of filing date accorded.
6. Monitor, don't wait. Given the 2026 E.D. Tex. filing, a petition against the '000 patent is plausible within the statutory one-year § 315(b) window from service on a real party in interest. Set a PTAB docket alert for patent number 8,630,000 rather than relying on periodic searches — and check CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com/) for any appeal captioning Flexiworld, since the IPR2022-00775 FWD's appeal status was not confirmed here.

Sourcing note. The proceeding count comes from the structured ODP block you supplied, which I treat as canonical; the corroboration and all sibling-patent details come from live web sources retrieved 2026-09-14 (Unified Patents insights archive; Patexia document list for IPR2022-00775; Docket Alarm PTAB records; the Lexmark IPR2023-00845 petition PDF at ptacts.uspto.gov; The Recycler's report on the Flexiworld v. Epson America complaint listing US 8,630,000 among 14 asserted patents; Jones Day PTAB Litigation Blog / JD Supra on IPR2022-00775 Paper 41). I did not independently verify the E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229 docket, the C.D. Cal. 8:21-cv-00807 docket beyond Lexmark's related-matters recital, or any Federal Circuit appeal — those are flagged as unverified rather than asserted.

I'll research the assignment record and related entity/litigation history.

Let me pin down the specific assignment record for the '000 patent and the entity's status.

Assignment & Ownership Chain — US 8,630,000

Sourcing note / limitation up front. I could not reach the USPTO Assignment Center interface to pull the Abstract of Title for this patent directly, and my searches did not surface a reel/frame citation for the '000 patent specifically. What I can verify is the Google Patents legal-events record supplied in your message (which mirrors the assignment recordation) plus the reel/frame citations Flexiworld has itself pleaded for sibling patents in the same family in its infringement complaints. Where I cite a reel/frame below that belongs to a different patent, I say so explicitly. I am not assigning any of those reel/frames to the '000 patent.

Inventors

• Employment basis: the only direct evidence in the record is the inventors→Flexiworld assignment itself. I did not retrieve an employment agreement, so "employer at filing" is an inference from the assignment chain, not a documented fact.
• No inventor-departure pattern. The usual fire-sale tell — all inventors leaving the assignee within 12 months of filing — is inverted here. Chang and Liu are named co-inventors on Flexiworld filings continuously from the 2000–2001 priority applications through at least 2021 (e.g., US 11,096,056, filed 2019-08-30, granted 2021-08-17, both named). This is a two-person, founder-inventor portfolio, not a corporate R&D group that walked away.
• Anomaly worth flagging: the inventor→company assignment for this application was not recorded until 2012-10-11 — roughly 5.5 years after the 2007-10-30 filing and about 21 months before issuance (2014-01-14), and 11 years after the 2001-01-19 priority date. Late inventor-assignment recordation on a continuation is common practice, but in this family the pattern is repeated (see the sibling reel/frames further down) and correlates with the enforcement era.

Original assignee

Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — named as applicant and assignee on the '000 patent and on the sibling grants (e.g., US 11,096,056 lists Applicant and Assignee as Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., Vancouver, WA). It is also the current assignee of record; nothing in the record shows the patents ever leaving the company.

Did it ship a product embodying the claims? — There is direct, party-admission evidence that it did not. In its own infringement complaint (E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00960, against LG), Flexiworld pleaded at ¶ 90:

"Since issuance of each of the Patents-in-Suit, Flexiworld has not made, offered for sale, sold, or imported a product that practices any of the Patents-in-Suit or that would otherwise require marking under 35 U.S.C. § 287."

Strictly, that paragraph speaks to the patents then in suit, not to the '000 patent — but it is the company describing its own business model under Rule 11, and it is a very strong indicator of a licensing-and-litigation operation rather than a product company.

Primary line of business and status (per third-party profiles, not primary filings):

• Founded 2001; PitchBook describes it as a developer of pervasive wireless technologies / embedded short-range wireless and mobile-device solutions, formerly VC-backed (Starveups accelerator; Series A 2002 $295K; Series A2 2006; a secondary private transaction in March 2022). Primary industry listed as IT Consulting and Outsourcing; status Private, "Generating Revenue." Source: https://pitchbook.com/profiles/company/[112998](/patent/112998)-70
• Address discrepancy to flag: PitchBook lists a corporate office at 3439 NE Sandy Blvd, Suite 267, Portland, OR. The patent front pages use Vancouver, WA. I cannot reconcile these from the sources I retrieved; it may be a moved or dual office, not a shell indicator.
• No evidence of bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition surfaced in my searches. Flexiworld appears to still exist and to be actively filing suits as of 2026.

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of every recorded conveyance I could establish:

• Execution date not retrievable / recorded 2012-10-11 — Reel/Frame not retrievable for this patent; see caveat below

  • Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → company)
  • Assignor: William Ho Chang and Christina Ying Liu (jointly, "inventors")
  • Assignee: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. I could not obtain the correspondent of record for this recording and I will not guess at an attorney or firm. For context only — and this is prosecution counsel, not confirmed as the assignment correspondent — the attorney/agent of record on family member US 11,096,056 is Chernoff Vilhauer LLP. Do not treat that as the recording correspondent without pulling the cover sheet.
  • Context: Internal — founder-inventors conveying title to their own company; the equity holders and the assignee are the same two people. This is a title-cleanup recordation, not an arm's-length acquisition.

• No subsequent conveyance is recorded. Google Patents' legal-events block for US 8,630,000 shows exactly one reassignment entry (2012-10-11) followed only by the grant (2014-01-14) and an adjusted expiration (2022-05-18). There is no second assignment, no security agreement, no release, no merger, no change of name, and no license recordation.

Reel/frame caveat — read this before quoting any number

I do not have a verified reel/frame for the '000 patent's assignment. Flexiworld's complaints plead the following reel/frames, all of which belong to other patents in the same 2001-priority family — listed so you can see the recordation pattern and cross-check, not as citations to the '000 record:

Two observations that matter for the analysis: (a) the reel numbers span roughly 012xxx → 029xxx → 039xxx → 042xxx, i.e. Flexiworld recorded inventor assignments in several distinct waves across ~2009–2019, not once; and (b) the 042385/0202 reel is a single recording covering three different patents at once — a bulk "clean-up" filing. Both are consistent with belt-and-suspenders recordation ahead of assertion, which is standard practice for patent enforcers establishing standing.

If Assignment Center returns no additional records for 8,630,000 beyond the first inventor assignment, that is the finding: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. has been the sole owner since 2012 and still is.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8630000
    2001 : Priority date 19 January 2001
    2007 : Application 11 929 501 filed
    2008 : Pre-grant publication 2008 0049253
    2012 : Inventor assignment recorded to Flexiworld
    2014 : Patent issues 14 January 2014
    2021 : First listed suit C D Cal 8 21 cv 00807
         : Amazon campaign underway in W D Wash
    2022 : Adjusted expiration 18 May 2022
    2026 : E D Tex suit 2 26 cv 00229 listed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Important framing: this chain has no shell-LLC cascade. The classic "operating company sells to a Delaware shell, which sells to another shell" pattern is simply absent — there is one link, inventors to the company the inventors own. That means the usual signals 1, 4, and 5 will score low while the entity is still a non-practicing enforcer. Do not read the low score on those rows as exculpatory.

Additional non-practicing signal (beyond the eight)

Flexiworld's own pleading, ¶ 90 (E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00960), quoted in full above: no product has ever practiced the asserted patents. Combined with signal 2, that is the crux of this analysis. Note the claim is made about that case's patents-in-suit, not specifically the '000 patent.

Contradiction to flag against the previously generated section

The prior section recorded the legal status as "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2022-05-18 — i.e., the '000 patent's term ended for failure to pay maintenance fees. A patent that lapsed in 2022 cannot support a newly filed 2026 infringement claim on its own claims. Yet Google Patents' litigation block also lists E.D. Tex. 2:26-cv-00229. I cannot reconcile these two facts on the available record. Two plausible non-exclusive explanations, neither verified: (i) the 2026 case asserts other Flexiworld patents and the Google Patents link is a family-level attribution artifact, or (ii) the docket entry post-dates the lapse and the patent is named peripherally. Do not cite the 2026 case as an assertion of US 8,630,000 without pulling the complaint. This is exactly the kind of machine-generated legal-status entry the earlier section already disclaimed.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Justification: the entirety of the '000 patent's chain is a single 2012-10-11 recording of inventors Chang and Liu assigning to Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., which remains the owner today — a company that has never made, sold, or imported a product practicing the asserted patents by its own admission in a federal pleading (E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-00960 ¶ 90), and which is surfaced by both Unified Patents and RPX as a repeat plaintiff running multi-defendant campaigns (Amazon 2021, LG 2025, plus the 8:21-cv-00807 and 2:26-cv-00229 entries listed against this patent). The confidence rests on two independent strong signals — an entity that does not practice the claims, and a known asserter of record tracked by the defensive community — not on any shell-LLC naming inference, which is notably absent here. The signal that would normally clinch a "troll" characterization, a cascading transfer through anonymous holding LLCs, is not present, because Flexiworld never sold the portfolio and is itself the litigant.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent number 8630000) — and pull the coversheet PDF for the 2012-10-11 recording to capture the correspondent of record, which is the one field I could not obtain and the field most likely to reveal a repeat-player filer across the whole Flexiworld portfolio.

I'll search for the patent's citation record. Let me run several targeted queries.

I have a partial citation list. Let me pull more of it and find the foreign/other references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 8,630,000 B2

Search scope note: I was asked to search the USPTO database for the specific number 8630000 and to analyze each patent citation on that patent. I did not return or substitute similar numbers. Three constraints materially limit what follows, and I flag them up front rather than paper over them:

1. The authoritative patent text furnished for this analysis does not contain the "References Cited" section. It terminates mid‑sentence in the description ("…using controller management software in a host comp"). The front page, including the reference list, is simply not present in my authoritative source.
2. The citation list below is therefore a third‑party rendering (SumoBrain's transcription of the US 8,630,000 front page), not the USPTO document itself.
3. My retrieval was truncated. I recovered the domestic‑patent reference list only from US 5,048,057 (1991) through the start of the US 5,596,697 entry (1997); the remainder of the U.S. list, the Foreign Patent Documents section, and the Other Publications / Non‑Patent Literature section were not returned before my tool budget was exhausted. I have hit the step limit and cannot retrieve the balance now.

I am not going to invent the missing entries. What I can do authoritatively is analyze the set I actually recovered, and tell you precisely where the gaps are.

1. Patent record being analyzed (for anchoring)

The controlling effective filing date for § 102 purposes is 19 January 2001, which places this patent squarely under pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102/103.

2. Statutory framework applied

Because the priority date precedes the AIA, and because every reference recovered below issued between 1991 and 1997, each one is § 102(b) prior art: a U.S. patent granted more than one year before the 2001‑01‑19 critical date. There is no § 102(a)/(e) nuance to argue, no 102(b) grace‑period issue, and no AIA § 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) analysis needed.

Anticipation standard: under § 102, a reference anticipates only if it discloses each and every limitation of a claim, arranged as in the claim. "Potentially anticipates" is a high bar; near‑misses are § 103 art, not § 102 art.

Claim coverage caveat (important): the prior analysis was unable to recover the full claim set. Only claim 1 — the method claim covering local‑wireless search → discovery → attribute receipt → selection → acquisition of previously‑unavailable authentication information → authentication → enablement → retry — is available verbatim. Consequently my § 102 mapping runs against claim 1 only, and I cannot state whether any reference anticipates an unexamined independent claim.

3. Recovered citations and per‑reference assessment

All dates are grant dates as transcribed. "Claim 1 impact" answers: does this single reference disclose every element of claim 1 as I have it?

4. Bottom line on § 102

Not one recovered reference anticipates claim 1. Anticipation would require a single reference disclosing, in combination:

• the wireless search of a local wireless medium / WLAN for output devices that have broadcast their availability (elements a–b);
• receipt of a device attribute and selection based on that attribute (c–d);
• obtaining authentication information that was not previously available to the apparatus (e) — the element I regard as the sharpest novelty hook in claim 1;
• authenticating and enabling the connection conditioned on authentication outcome (f–g);
• and a retry loop when nothing is discovered or selected (h).

Elements (e) and (h) have no counterpart in any recovered reference. Element (d), where present (Weiser, Snyder), is reached by entirely different mechanisms. The closest reference on the discovery‑and‑selection concept, Weiser US 5,485,634, is a region‑based arbitration system, not a wireless broadcast‑discovery system, and says nothing about credentials obtained after discovery.

Accordingly the recovered set is best characterized as § 103 art of varying strength, not § 102 art:

• Strongest § 103 candidates: US 5,412,798 (Garney — driverless/on‑demand driver access), US 5,485,634 (Weiser — in‑region device selection), US 5,228,118 (Sasaki — capability‑based device/driver selection), US 5,564,109 (Snyder — selection among plural output devices).
• Secondary: US 5,490,287 (Itoh) and US 5,524,185 (Na) for wireless printing generally; US 5,519,641 (Beers) for audio output devices.
• Thematically relevant but weak: US 5,220,674 and US 5,580,177 (server‑mediated/centralized driver management); US 5,270,773 and — critically, once located — US 5,319,711 (Servi, Wireless device for verifying identification, class 380/247), which the snippet shows in the list but which falls between my recovered entries in the table ordering.

⚠️ Correction within my own retrieval: the SumoBrain snippet does include US 5,319,711 A, 1994‑06‑07, Servi, Wireless device for verifying identification (380/247). I did not place it in the table above because it was not listed in the same contiguous block I tabulated. It is material: it is a wireless identity‑verification reference and is the single most relevant recovered reference to elements (e)–(g). I would rank it second behind Garney as § 103 art, and it is the reference a defendant or examiner would pair with Weiser or Itoh to attack the authentication elements. See SumoBrain record.

5. What remains unanalyzed (must not be treated as complete)

1. Domestic references from ~US 5,596,697 (1997) forward through the 2000–2001 period. This is the most consequential gap, because the pre‑2001 references closest in time to the 2001‑01‑19 priority date are precisely the ones most likely to be anticipatory. My list stops before them.
2. The entire Foreign Patent Documents section (typically JP, EP, WO, DE entries for this family). Unretrieved.
3. The entire Other Publications / Non‑Patent Literature section. Unretrieved.
4. The full claim set, so no dependent‑claim or alternative‑independent‑claim mapping is possible.
5. The examiner's applied‑reference list (the references actually used in rejections during prosecution of 11/929,501), which is more probative than the front‑page cite list. Not retrieved.

Reliable completion paths: USPTO PatentCenter or Patent Public Search for application 11/929,501; the granted‑patent PDF front page; or the Google Patents "References Cited" and "Cited By" tabs at patents.google.com/patent/US8630000B2/en. Note that the forward citations are also of interest — my searches incidentally surfaced the '000 patent being cited by later Flexiworld continuations (US 8,169,649; US 2010/0203824) and by unrelated later patents (US 10,672,252; US 6,452,692), which is evidence of citation salience but not prior art against the '000 patent.

6. Flags and contradictions

• Contradiction with the prior section: the previously generated summary states searches "did not return any results for a CAFC 2026 docket naming this patent." I likewise found no CAFC authority. The Google Patents litigation block does list E.D. Tex. 2:26‑cv‑00229 and C.D. Cal. 8:21‑cv‑00807; those are district‑court, not appellate, entries and I did not verify either docket. Nothing in the recovered citation data bears on them.
• Internal inconsistency in the instructions: the system context gives today's date as 2026‑09‑14, while this task states April 26, 2026. The litigation entry dated "2:26‑cv‑00229" is consistent with a 2026 filing under either date. I flag the discrepancy rather than silently pick one.
• Date tension already noted in the prior section (2001 priority vs. 2022‑05‑18 adjusted expiration) is unaffected by anything recovered here.
• Unverified transcription risk: the SumoBrain list is a third‑party rendering. Item 9 (US 5,412,798 A / Garney) and several others in the 5,3xx–5,5xx range should be verified against the USPTO document before being relied on in any filing, because third‑party transcriber error in patent numbers is common and my instructions require literal, non‑auto‑corrected treatment of identifiers.

I'll research the prior art cited on this patent's face and in its family before building the § 103 combinations.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,630,000 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

A. Scope, sourcing, and one important contradiction

What "the Prior Art section of this page" gave me. My authoritative copy of the Google Patents page for US 8,630,000 (fetched 2026‑08‑29) was truncated before the References Cited / Cited By / Similar Documents blocks and before the claims. To avoid fabricating a reference list, I reconstructed the printed patent's front‑page "References Cited" set from a mirror record (SumoBrain, https://www.sumobrain.com/patents/us/Essential-components-enabling-pervasive-wireless/[8630000](/patent/8630000).html) and the family's "cited by" data (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5917542A](/patent/US5917542A)/en). That list is verified only as far as U.S. 5,580,177 (Gase); everything after it in the alphabetical/numeric run is unverified by me. I flag this because a § 103 analysis is only as good as the reference set, and I am working with a partial set.

Contradiction with the previously generated section — flagging explicitly. The earlier section stated that US 8,630,000 "does not appear to be among" the patents Flexiworld has asserted. That was true of the Amazon campaign, but it is now contradicted by the Epson campaign: a report dated 2026‑05‑09 (reported at https://www.rtmworld.cn/news/law/view_id/3747) states Flexiworld sued Epson America in the Central District of California on 14 patents, expressly including 8,630,000, alongside 7,609,402; 9,036,181; 10,037,178; 10,140,071; 10,140,073; 10,481,846; 10,481,847; 10,642,576; 10,740,066; 10,761,791; 10,768,871; 10,846,031; 10,873,856. Note two anomalies I will not smooth over: (i) that article carries a date (2026‑05‑09) later than the current analysis date (2026‑04‑26), so the dating is internally inconsistent; and (ii) Google Patents lists the 2026 filing as E.D. Tex. 2:26‑cv‑00229, not a C.D. Cal. case. I cannot reconcile either without the dockets.

Net effect on this analysis: the '000 patent is now a live assertion target, which raises the practical stakes of the § 103 question but does not change the prior art.

B. Governing standard

The application (11/929,501) was filed 2007‑10‑30 with a claimed priority of 2001‑01‑19. It is therefore governed by pre‑AIA § 103(a), with pre‑AIA § 102(a)/(b)/(e)/(g) defining the prior art. Because the § 102(b) one‑year bar runs from the 2001 priority date, any reference published before 2000‑01‑19 is § 102(b) art — which is why the 1991–1996 U.S. patents on the face of the '000 patent are unassailable as art, and why the 1999 specifications below (Bluetooth 1.0, Jini 1.0, T.44) also qualify.

The controlling test is Graham v. John Deere as refined by KSR Int'l v. Teleflex: (1) scope/content of the art; (2) differences from the claims; (3) PHOSITA level; (4) motivation with a reasonable expectation of success; (5) secondary considerations. Where the elements are "known elements … combined according to known methods," the combination is obvious unless the patentee shows unexpected results (KSR). An express teaching, suggestion, or motivation is not required; market pressure, design incentives, and "obvious to try" in a predictable art suffice.

C. PHOSITA

A person with a B.S. in electrical engineering or computer science and roughly 2–3 years of experience in wireless data communications and/or network printing, familiar with: IEEE 802.11‑1997 (published 1997) active/passive scanning and WEP shared‑key authentication; the Bluetooth 1.0 Specification (1 Dec 1999) — inquiry, page, Service Discovery Protocol, and pairing with PIN‑derived link keys; IrDA/IrLPT printing; Page Description Languages (PostScript, PCL) and raster image processing; service discovery via SLP (RFC 2165, 1997; RFC 2608, 1999), Jini 1.0 (1999), and UPnP (2000); MRC/mixed raster content per ITU‑T T.44 (1999); and access‑control/authentication practice (access control lists, challenge‑response identity verification). This is a predictable, mature art space — a point that cuts against the patent under KSR.

D. Claim 1 limitation‑by‑limitation mapping

Claim 1 (verbatim text as reported in the earlier section) is a method of outputting digital content from a wireless information apparatus to one or more wireless output devices over a local wireless medium/WLAN, expressly excluding the Internet path, with a Bluetooth/IEEE 802.11‑compatible wireless unit.

Reading of the "not previously available" language. This is the only limitation with genuine nonobviousness potential. But the art maps it directly: in Bluetooth 1.0, a device connecting to an unbonded peer must acquire (via user‑entered PIN) and then generate a link key that it did not hold before the inquiry/discovery sequence. That is precisely "authentication information … not previously available to the apparatus before at least part of steps (a)–(d)." Notably, this limitation would be construed against the same family's claim‑construction record, where the W.D. Wash. court construed "authentication procedure" (in sibling patents 8,332,527 and 10,140,072) as "receiving authentication information and comparing to stored information to authenticate identity" (Flexiworld v. Amazon, No. 2:21‑cv‑01055‑DGE, Dkt. 149/160, order of 5 Mar. 2024). Under that construction, Servi and Bluetooth both satisfy the element — though "stored information" arguably cuts the other way if the patentee urges that freshly acquired credentials are not "stored," and that is the fight to expect.

E. Specific § 103 grounds

Ground 1 — Weiser in view of Snyder and Servi (and the Bluetooth 1.0 Specification).
Weiser teaches a local region in which devices dynamically discover, select, and arbitrate control among themselves. Snyder teaches querying a plurality of peripheral devices for their attributes and letting the user prioritize/select. Servi teaches wireless identity verification — receive, compare, permit or deny. The Bluetooth 1.0 Specification supplies the local radio, inquiry/discovery, SDP attribute exchange, and pairing‑based authentication, and expressly contemplates printing. Motivation: the art's own unmet need, recited in the '000 patent's background, of printing from a mobile device at a nearby printer without installing device‑specific drivers; Bluetooth SIG's printing usage models and the IrDA/IrLPT printing precedent supply the design incentive; and adding authentication to a shared output device is a recognized security requirement (Sklut; Servi). Expectation of success is high because every element is a known, off‑the‑shelf mechanism.

Ground 2 — Saleh in view of Motoyama, Sklut, and Servi.
Saleh provides a wireless LAN; Motoyama provides a document‑processing system with device capability data; Sklut provides image‑device security to prevent disclosure of sensitive documents; Servi provides wireless identity verification. Motivation: enterprise/airport printing explicitly calls for restricting who may use a given printer — a classic security‑versus‑convenience tradeoff a POSHITA would resolve by authenticating before enabling output.

Ground 3 — Itoh or Na in view of Hower/Snyder and the Bluetooth Specification's pairing mechanism.
This is the cleanest structural read of claim 1: a wireless communication device and printing system (Itoh) or a wireless computer system with a shared printer (Na), plus attribute‑based printer selection (Hower/Snyder), plus first‑contact credential acquisition and authentication (Bluetooth pairing; Servi). Motivation is essentially the claim's own stated purpose — "walk up to a printer and print."

Ground 4 — Grounds actually litigated against sibling family patents, which I flag as not verified for the '000 patent.
Two real campaigns produced § 103 theories against close relatives, and they are the most credible templates for the '000 patent:

• Roku v. Flexiworld, IPR2021‑00714 (U.S. 8,989,064) — grounds pleaded as Ground 1/1A: Yamaguchi + Gu (and Garfunkel); Ground 2/2A: Ikonen + Gu; Ground 3/3A: Ikonen + Kammer (and Peng); the patent owner's preliminary response also addressed Ikonen + Beck (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2021-00714/...). The final written decision invalidated claims 1–10, 12 and 14 of the '064 patent (Patexia, IPR2021‑00714). I could not verify the patent numbers behind the names Ikonen, Gu, Yamaguchi, Kammer, Garfunkel, Beck, or Peng, so treat those as names, not citations.
• Lexmark v. Flexiworld, IPR2023‑00846 (U.S. 9,965,233) — Ground 1: obvious over US 6,748,471 (Keeney) in view of the general knowledge of a POSHITA; Ground 2: obvious over Keeney in view of US 6,091,507 (Vatland). Lexmark stressed that "[n]either Keeney nor Vatland was before the Board during the 18‑year long examination." If the '000 claims overlap the '233 claims in scope, the Keeney/Vatland combination transfers; if they do not, it does not, and that transfer must be shown limitation by limitation.

This is the strongest practical point for a challenger: the family's own adversaries have repeatedly been able to assemble KSR‑style combinations from ordinary wireless‑networking and printing references, and at least one PTAB panel agreed as to the '064 patent. The counterpoint is that the PTAB upheld claims 27 and 28 of U.S. 9,965,257 in Unified Patents' IPR (decision 8 Nov 2022 institution; final decision reported 3 Nov 2023), holding Unified failed to prove § 103 unpatentability. The family's record is genuinely mixed.

F. Secondary considerations and likely defenses

The patentee's best nonobviousness arguments are:

1. The exclusion of the Internet from the apparatus‑to‑device path. If the prior art routes through a server or the Internet, the patentee will argue the local‑only architecture is a structural difference, not a mere design choice. Expect a response that a POSHITA would obviously choose a local link for proximity‑based walk‑up printing (Bluetooth/IrDA were designed for exactly that), so the exclusion is a negative limitation reading on a known design preference.
2. The "not previously available" credential limitation. The patentee will argue the art pre‑provisions credentials (e.g., enterprise print queues, pre‑shared keys) rather than acquiring them on the fly. This is the pivot point, and the Bluetooth 1.0 pairing mechanism is the best rebuttal.
3. Secondary considerations. I found no verified evidence of long‑felt need, commercial success, licensing royalties, industry praise, or copying tied to the '000 patent specifically. Licensing activity (Epson, Canon, Roku, Lexmark, Brother, Hisense) is suggestive of value but is legally weak absent a nexus.
4. Objective evidence against obviousness. The PTAB's refusal to invalidate claims 27/28 of the '257 patent is the patentee's best record evidence, and the "output manager software"/"data generation software component"/"physical proximity" constructions (Flexiworld v. Amazon, supra) show the family's terms have been read to require specific structure rather than mere generic disclosure — which is precisely where a § 103 challenge must be careful not to rely on conclusory "black box" disclosures.

G. Bottom line and confidence

• On the face of the partial reference set I could verify, claim 1 of US 8,630,000 reads onto a straightforward combination of (i) a local wireless network or wireless printer device, (ii) attribute‑based peripheral discovery/selection, and (iii) first‑contact authentication and connection gating — e.g., Weiser (5,485,634) + Snyder (5,564,109) + Servi (5,319,711) + the Bluetooth 1.0 Specification, with further support from Itoh (5,490,287), Na (5,524,185), Saleh (5,048,057), Hower (5,467,434), Sasaki (5,228,118), Motoyama (5,353,388) and Sklut (5,270,773). Under KSR, the motivation comes from the admitted problem in the patent's own background, the 1999 Bluetooth/IrDA printing usage models, and ordinary security engineering.
• Confidence: moderate. Moderate because (a) I could not retrieve the complete References Cited/Cited By/Similar Documents block or the full claim set, so this is not an exhaustive § 103 analysis; (b) the "not previously available authentication information" limitation is a real, arguable fulcrum; and (c) the family's litigation record is mixed, with at least one PTAB panel refusing to invalidate closely related claims.
• To make this bulletproof I would need three things I could not obtain here: (1) the granted claim set of 11/929,501 and its prosecution history; (2) the complete front‑page citation list and the third‑party "cited by" art from the Google Patents page; and (3) the E.D. Tex. 2:26‑cv‑00229 and C.D. Cal. 8:21‑cv‑00807 dockets plus any invalidity contentions, since those will contain the parties' actual claim charts and expert testimony on POSHITA level and motivation to combine.