US 8634800

I'll search for the patent record, its granted claims, and any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me pull the granted claim text and check specifically for any 2026 CAFC docket activity involving this patent or Tango Networks.

US Patent 8,634,800 — Summary and Docket Check

Scope note on docket searches: I searched for CAFC 2026 docket activity on this patent number and on Tango Networks. I found no 2026 (or any-year) Federal Circuit appeal involving US 8,634,800 or Tango Networks as appellant/appellee. For context, the CAFC's posted 2026 calendars (e.g., the September 2026 oral-argument calendar and Finnegan's June 2026 oral-argument roundup) list many patent appeals — Netlist, Centripetal, Google v. Sonos, Caddo Systems, Atlas Global, Headwater Research (No. 26‑1884), etc. — but nothing naming Tango Networks or 8,634,800. ID searches for 2026 CAFC dockets therefore returned no results for this patent number. (I could not directly query the CAFC's CM/ECF docket system; this is a negative on public calendars/opinion feeds, not a certified docket negative.)

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative patent text)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8634800/en

Abstract (verbatim)

"A system, method and computer-readable medium for allowing the use of an alternative numbering plan for delivering short messages to mobile subscribers using the public mobile telephone network is provided. Users of an enterprise or other closed networks as well as users that are not part of a closed network may send short messages destined to members of an enterprise or closed network from their mobile or other devices associated with their subscription using an alternative enterprise directory number, such as the office number, instead of the mobile number, such that the alternative number will be presented at the destination device as the originating number. The recipient may respond to the message by addressing the response to the enterprise or closed network number, and the response may be delivered to the originator's mobile or other device associated with their subscription."

Plain-language overview of the claims

⚠️ Important uncertainty — please read. The granted claim set of 8,634,800 was not verbatim retrievable in this session (the authoritative patent text supplied did not include a claims section, and I could not load Patent Center). The text below is the claim set as published in the pre-grant publication US 2013/0225113 A1 — the publication of the same application (13/846,991) that issued as 8,634,800 — retrieved from https://patents.google.com/patent/US20130225113. Claim numbering, count (20 claims), and independent/dependent structure may have changed during prosecution before grant; map any invalidity/infringement analysis to the granted claims once pulled from USPTO Patent Center.

A notable internal divergence to flag: the abstract and title emphasize SMS/alternative-numbering, but the published claims are directed to the voice-call re-routing embodiment of FIG. 12 — receiving a call to an enterprise number and automatically re-routing it to the user's mobile device on predefined criteria. This is consistent with (not a contradiction of) the earlier Prior‑Art and Obviousness sections, which already assumed the FIG. 12 claims as the operative proxy.

Independent claim 1 (method): A method that (a) receives a call originated from an originating mobile device in a mobile network, where the call is directed to an enterprise network routing number (e.g., the office/landline number); (b) processes the call through at least one of a carrier gateway server (GS‑C) and an enterprise gateway server (GS‑E); and (c) automatically re-routes that call from the enterprise network to a destination mobile device operating in the mobile network, where the re-route is driven by predefined routing criteria stored in the GS‑C and/or the GS‑E. In plain terms: a call dialed to the office number is intercepted at the gateway layer and pushed out to the person's cell phone based on stored rules.

Independent claim 8 (apparatus): A device/system comprising (a) a receiver configured to receive a call originated from a mobile device in the mobile network and directed to an enterprise network routing number, and (b) a processor configured to process the call and automatically re-route it from the enterprise network to a destination mobile device in the mobile network, based on predefined routing criteria stored in the GS‑C and/or GS‑E. Same substance as claim 1, claimed as hardware.

Independent claim 14 (non-transitory computer-readable storage medium): A non-transitory CRM storing instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to perform steps mirroring claim 1 — receiving a call from a mobile device directed to an enterprise network routing number, processing it via GS‑C/GS‑E, and automatically re-routing it to a destination mobile device based on predefined routing criteria stored in the gateway server(s). (The full claim-14 text was truncated in the retrieved snippet; the "mirror" description rests on the claims structure and should be verified.)

Dependent claims (as published):

• Claims 2–7 depend from claim 1: claim 2 — enterprise routing number stored in a mobile network HLR; claim 3 — the routing number associated with the destination mobile device; claim 4 — detecting that landline call routing services have been interrupted due to an emergency event prior to re-routing; claim 5 — setting the predefined routing criteria to an "emergency mode" in response to detecting the emergency event; claim 6 — setting the enterprise routing number, via the GS‑E, to be the corresponding mobile network routing number of the destination mobile device; claim 7 — (truncated) GS‑C/GS‑E fallback handling.
• Claims 9–13 mirror claims 2–7 as apparatus claims; claims 15–20 mirror them as CRM claims.

Caveats on authoritative information

1. Granted vs. published claims: The claim mapping above is to the pre-grant publication, not verified granted claims. This is the single largest uncertainty in this summary and should be closed via USPTO Patent Center (application 13/846,991).
2. Docket check: No CAFC 2026 activity for this patent or assignee was found on public calendars/opinion feeds; this is a negative result from indexed sources, not a certified docket search. The CAFC's CM/ECF and PACER were not directly queryable here.
3. Bibliographic data (title, inventors, assignee, dates, family chain) is taken from the authoritative patent text and is high-confidence.
4. Consistent with the earlier sections, no litigation, IPR/PGR/CBM, or CAFC appeal naming US 8,634,800 has been identified in this analysis.

Based on the searches I was able to run (limited by tool-step constraints), here is what I found:

Direct result: No litigation found specifically involving US 8,634,800

I did not find any district-court complaint, ITC proceeding, IPR/PGR petition, or other litigation that names US Patent 8,634,800 (System, method, and apparatus for using alternative numbers for routing voice calls and short messages in a communications network; assignee: Tango Networks, Inc.; issued Jan. 21, 2014) as a patent-in-suit.

Search results that appeared relevant were false positives or unrelated:

• A "CommPlex Systems LLC v. [Verizon Communications Inc.](/litigations/by-defendant/Verizon%20Communications%20Inc.)" case (2:25-cv-00348, E.D. Tex.) concerns US 7,864,900 — a different number, not 8,634,800.
• A press release reference to "8,664,800" appears to be a typographical variant of the Tango patent number and does not reference litigation.
• A Klausner Technologies v. Tango Networks case exists (see below), but it does not involve 8,634,800.

Only Tango Networks case located (not involving 8,634,800)

• Case: Klausner Technologies, Inc. v. Tango Networks, Inc.
• Case number: 6:12-cv-00177 (LED)
• Court: U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Texas (Tyler Division)
• Filing date: March 20, 2012
• Patent-in-suit: U.S. Patent No. 5,572,576 ("Telephone Answering Device Linking Displayed Data with Recorded Audio Message") — visual voicemail technology
• Posture: Tango Networks was the defendant; per Patexia, the case terminated on April 10, 2012 (status unknown/early termination).
• This case is not litigation of US 8,634,800; it is noted only because it is the sole Tango Networks litigation my searches surfaced.

Caveats

• I was unable to complete direct queries of PACER, the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), DocketNavigator, or RPX in the available steps, so my result is based on general web/indexed search coverage and is not a comprehensive docket search.
• If US 8,634,800 has been litigated, it most likely would appear in a PACER/Unified Patents docket search as an infringement action brought by Tango Networks (or a successor/NPE) or as the target of an IPR before the PTAB. My searches returned no such matter.

Bottom line: Based on available search results, there is no known litigation directly involving US Patent 8,634,800. If you need a definitive answer, I recommend a direct docket search on PACER (for district-court complaints) and the PTAB's IPR search tool using the patent number "8,634,800," which I could not access within this session's tool budget.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 8,634,800: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) API returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and supplemental web searches of PTAB decisions, petitioner filings, and Tango Networks docket activity surfaced nothing to contradict that. There is no breakdown by status to give because no proceeding exists — and consequently no claim has ever been canceled, sustained, or settled in a PTAB trial. The bottom-line defensive posture is neutral-to-negative for a defendant seeking PTAB ammunition: the patent is entirely untested at the PTAB, with all claims (whatever the granted claim set contains — see caveat below) fully intact and no estoppel or FWD record to lean on.

No proceedings to report

There are no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings to itemize for US 8,634,800. To be explicit about what was checked and what was not:

• Canonical structured data (USPTO ODP): no AIA trial proceedings on file for this patent as of the most recent ingest. This is the authoritative list and it is empty.
• Web verification: targeted searches for "8,634,800" / "8634800" combined with IPR/PTAB/petition terms, and for "Tango Networks" combined with IPR/inter partes review/Final Written Decision/institution decision, returned no PTAB trial proceedings naming this patent or this owner. The only Tango Networks litigation ever surfaced in this analysis (Klausner Technologies, Inc. v. Tango Networks, Inc., 6:12-cv-00177-LED, E.D. Tex., filed 2012-03-20) is a district-court case in which Tango was the defendant on an unrelated visual-voicemail patent (US 5,572,576) — not a PTAB matter and not involving US 8,634,800.
• Scope limitation (stated honestly): I could not execute a direct query of the PTAB E2E/PRPS trial-search interface within this session's tool budget. The ODP "no proceedings" signal plus the absence of any indexed PTAB decision referencing the patent or owner is strong but not a certified negative. A definitive confirmation can be obtained at the PTAB Trial Search page (https://ptab.uspto.gov/) using patent number 8,634,800 (and, for completeness, family members 8,086,254, 8,412,241, 8,942,664, 9,596,353, 10,820,255, 11,659,471, and 12,219,460, which share the disclosure).

Strategic summary

Claims status — all CANCELED / SUSTAINED / UNTESTED. Every claim of US 8,634,800 is UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim has been instituted against, no FWD has issued, and no claim has been canceled or narrowed in any AIA trial. One important caveat carried forward from the prior analysis: the verbatim granted claim set of 8,634,800 could not be retrieved in this session (the full claim text was not accessible in the authoritative record provided). The published-application claims (US20130225113A1) center on the FIG. 12 voice-call emergency re-routing embodiment — receiving a call to an enterprise routing number at a GS-C/GS-E and automatically re-routing to a destination mobile device based on predefined routing criteria, with dependents covering HLR storage, number-to-device association, emergency detection, emergency mode, GS-E setting of the routing number, and GS-C fallback — but those may have been amended before grant. Until the granted claims are pulled from USPTO Patent Center or the Google Patents claims tab, treat "which claims are untested" as applying to the patent as a whole rather than to a verified claim list.

Estoppel landscape — completely open. Because no petitioner has ever filed an IPR/PGR/CBM against this patent, there are no § 315(e)(2) estoppels binding anyone. Every § 102 / § 103 / § 112 ground that could have been raised remains available to any future defendant. For a defendant facing assertion today, this means the prior-art field is wide open — the family-citation candidate US 7,873,001 B2 (Tango Networks, filed 2006-03-02, i.e., pre-priority-date relative to the 2007-05-18 chain) and any other art located in a proper search can be asserted in a first IPR without any estoppel concern, subject only to the § 315(b) one-year-from-service-of-complaint bar that runs from the date a defendant is actually sued.

Pattern signals — none. No repeat petitioner exists (no proceedings at all). There is no evidence of the patent owner pursuing PTAB appeals because there is nothing to appeal. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, LOT) appears in the chain — the patent remains with Tango Networks, Inc., an operating company that continues to prosecute and receive grants through 2025. The absence of PTAB activity is itself a signal worth weighing: US 8,634,800 issued 2014-01-21, is in a family that has been continuously prosecuted and maintained for nearly two decades, and has an anticipated expiration of 2027-05-18 — yet no one has challenged it. For a well-asserted patent, that is unusual. The most consistent explanation on the current record is simply that no assertion campaign has been mounted against this patent (no district-court litigation naming 8,634,800 was found either), so there has been no economic incentive for a competitor to spend IPR money on it. If you are being threatened with this patent now, you would be the first mover.

Recommended next steps

• Confirm the negative before relying on it. Run the patent number at the PTAB Trial Search (https://ptab.uspto.gov/), and also check the family members listed above — a challenger sometimes files against the youngest continuation (e.g., US 12,219,460 or US 11,659,471) rather than the 2014 grant. Also pull the granted claims of 8,634,800 from USPTO Patent Center (application 13/846,991) so any future petition maps precisely.
• If you are a defendant and are within the § 315(b) window (one year from service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent), the absence of prior PTAB activity means you can file a first IPR on any strong art without facing an estoppel or a copycat-petition joinder problem. The most promising identified candidate is the family's own earlier US 7,873,001 B2 (filed 2006-03-02) — verify its disclosure against the granted claims; note that common assignment to Tango does not defeat pre-AIA § 102(e) prior art where the inventive entities differ, but confirm inventorship overlap carefully. A full prior-art search beyond the family citation list is warranted before petition drafting.
• Do not expect a quick kill from the PTAB record — there is no FWD to quote, no canceled claim to cite, and no estoppel to deploy. Any invalidity defense must be built from scratch: art search → petition → institution → trial, with the statutory one-year trial clock running from institution if the Board takes the case.
• Watch the maintenance-fee and expiration horizon. Google Patents lists anticipated expiration on 2027-05-18 (pre-AIA 20-years-from-earliest-effective-filing-date, running from the 2007-05-18 priority application). If a dispute is brewing, the remaining life is short — that cuts both ways: it raises the settlement leverage calculus for the patent owner and may make a full IPR economically marginal for a defendant if the exposure is small.

I'll research the recorded assignment history for US 8634800 through available public sources.

The searches surfaced useful context (Tango is an operating company with a large portfolio) but not the reel/frame records. Let me dig for the specific USPTO assignment record entries.

I've reached the limit of my available search budget, and the USPTO Assignment Center itself was not directly queryable through my tools. Below is the reconstructed ownership record with clear labeling of what is confirmed versus unverifiable. No reel/frame numbers, correspondent names, or assignment details are fabricated — where I do not have them, I say so.

Inventors

Unusual pattern check: Not present. Both inventors are principals/long-tenured employees of Tango Networks, and Silver remained with the company well after filing — the opposite of the "inventors flee then portfolio is fire-sold" pattern. No departure-within-12-months signal.

Original assignee

• Original / current assignee of record: Tango Networks, Inc. (Texas; Google Patents lists the original assignee as Tango Networks Inc and the 2021 recorded assignment to TANGO NETWORKS, INC.)
• Line of business: Enterprise mobile-convergence / fixed-mobile convergence. Tango builds gateway-server products that bridge public cellular networks (MSC/SGSN/HLR) with enterprise PBX/VoIP networks, enabling enterprise control of cellular voice, SMS, and data (the exact technology this patent claims).
• Products: Yes — the company markets and sells enterprise gateway/mobile-convergence products and services to enterprises and carriers; press materials describe an active product business ("25th patent granted," distributed federated policy technology for mobile-service-provider network-edge control).
• Current status: Operating. PatentsView/PlainPatent data shows Tango Networks, Inc. receiving US grants continuously from 2015 through 2025 (~91 US grants; still filing). The family continued into US 8,942,664 → 9,596,353 → 10,820,255 → 11,659,471 → 12,219,460, and Google Patents lists anticipated expiration of US 8634800 on 2027-05-18 with status "Active."

Assignment timeline

Important access limitation: I was unable to execute a direct query of the USPTO Patent Assignment Search (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / assignment.uspto.gov) within my tool budget, and web-indexed sources did not expose reel/frame or correspondent data for this patent. The only assignment event independently confirmed for US 8634800 is the one surfaced in the Google Patents legal-events feed (which is drawn from USPTO assignment records). No reel/frame, no correspondent, and no assignee-address data for that event was retrievable from my sources.

Confirmed event:

• Executed date: not retrievable / recorded 2021-10-25 — Reel not retrievable (Google Patents legal events does not display reel/frame)
  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
  • Assignor: Patricia A. Landgren; Andrew Silver (the two named inventors)
  • Assignee: TANGO NETWORKS, INC. — the same entity that has always been assignee of record
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from available sources
  • Context: Chain-of-title confirmation recorded ~14 years after the 2007 execution of the underlying invention assignment and ~7.5 years after grant. Because the assignee is identical to the original assignee, this reads as a title-cleanup / confirmatory recordation (commonly done for financing, licensing diligence, or pre-sale title review) rather than a change of ownership. It is not a transfer to any third party or LLC.

Note on what is NOT in the record I can see: I found no recorded transfer of US 8634800 to any entity other than Tango Networks, Inc. Google Patents' event list for this patent number shows no other assignment. It is possible that earlier assignments (e.g., the original 2007 inventors→Tango recordation) were recorded against parent application numbers and are therefore not displayed on this child patent's event page; I cannot confirm or refute that without Assignment Center access.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8634800
    2007 : Filed by Tango Networks
    2011 : Parent patent 8086254 issued
    2014 : US 8634800 issued
    2021 : Title confirmed to Tango Networks
    2027 : Anticipated expiration

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only recorded assignment event runs from the two inventors to Tango Networks, Inc., an operating company with products. No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" LLC appears anywhere in the chain I can confirm.
2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or Spangenberg entity appears. No Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency plaintiff surfaced in connection with this patent. (Prior searches also found no litigation naming US 8634800; the only Tango case located, Klausner Technologies v. Tango Networks, 6:12-cv-00177 E.D. Tex., asserted a Klausner patent against Tango and is unrelated.)
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / no data. Correspondent names and firms for any recorded assignment could not be retrieved within this session's tool budget. No recurrence finding is possible, and I will not speculate.
4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only one assignment event is confirmed for this patent; there is no chain of chained LLC transfers in any time window.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit naming US 8634800 has been located, so the 2021 confirmatory assignment cannot be tied to suit preparation. (Note: 2021 is also the year of the broader family's continued prosecution activity — US 17/081,988 was filed 2020-10-27 — consistent with portfolio-management, not assertion-driven, recordation.)
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Tango Networks, Inc. shows no Chapter 7/11 filing in any source I located; it continues to prosecute and receive grants through 2025.
7. Privateering — not present / no evidence. No transfer of the patent to any third-party NPE that could assert on Tango's behalf was found, and no SEC or EFF/Patent Progress coverage of such an arrangement surfaced.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain terminates at Tango Networks, Inc., an operating company — not RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Insufficient data

All available evidence points away from any NPE pattern: the patent was born in and remains with Tango Networks, Inc., an operating company that invented, products-embodies, and continuously prosecutes this technology family; no shell LLCs, no known asserter, no cascading transfers, no bankruptcy, and no litigation naming US 8634800 were found. The verdict is "Insufficient data" only in the narrow sense that I could not directly query the USPTO Assignment Center to (a) confirm whether earlier assignments exist under parent reel/frames and (b) capture correspondent-of-record data for the one confirmed 2021-10-25 recordation — so I cannot certify the record is complete to the reel/frame level. On the evidence available, there is no NPE signal of any strength, and the presumptive conclusion is operating-company ownership with no assertion activity identified for this patent.

For verification: query the USPTO Patent Assignment Search at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent number 8,634,800) to pull the reel/frame and correspondent for the 2021-10-25 Tango Networks recordation and to check for any earlier inventor-assignment recordations under parent applications 11/750,756 and 13/307,112.

I'll search for the specific patent US 8,634,800 and its cited prior-art references.

Let me dig deeper into the specific citation lists on the Google Patents record for this patent.

Let me try to retrieve the specific "References Cited" section from the Google Patents record and related citation data.

Prior-Art / Citation Analysis — US 8,634,800 B2

0. Method and access note (read this first)

I searched for the specific identifier 8,634,800 and constrained results to that number. Two honest caveats up front:

1. I could not retrieve the verbatim, face‑of‑patent "(56) References Cited" list for US 8,634,800 from the indexed USPTO/Google Patents sources within this session. The USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search full-text view, the USPTO Patent Assignment Center, and the Google Patents "Claims"/citation tab were not directly queryable with the tool available to me (web search only). What I could do is (a) confirm the patent's identity and family, and (b) surface citation data that appears on this patent's record and on the records of its family members.
2. Therefore the § 102 mapping below is analytical inference, not a report of the examiner's actual rejection. A reference can appear on a patent's face and still have been cited as a § 102/§ 103 reference, an "A" (background) reference, or a § 102(e) reference — the category is often unrecoverable from the printed patent alone. Treat "potentially anticipates" as "this reference's disclosure maps to these claim elements", with the confidence level I give.

Also carried forward from the prior sections (per the operating rules), and flagged as a correction:

⚠️ US 7,873,001 B2 is NOT titled "…alternative numbers for routing voice calls and short messages…". Its correct title is "System and method for enabling VPN-less session setup for connecting mobile data devices to an enterprise data network" (Tango Networks, filed 2006‑03‑02, issued 2011‑01‑18). The earlier prior-art section conflated its bibliographic data with the '800 family's title. This error propagated into that section's anticipation theory and was already flagged in the Obviousness section; I confirm the corrected title here.

I also note (to avoid a number-confusion error, per the strict rule): US 8,664,800 is a different patent number and is not US 8,634,800.

1. Target patent verified

(Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8634800B2](/patent/US8634800B2)/en; family cross-citations at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8942664B2](/patent/US8942664B2)/en#8.)

2. Citation inventory for US 8,634,800

Confidence key: C = confirmed as present on the '800 patent or its family record; P = probable (surfaced in a citation context tied to this number); A = additional relevant art located but not confirmed to be on the '800 patent's face.

Notes on rows 6‑9: these appear in the international search report of WO 2007/103269 A3 (PCT/US2007/005526, a sibling Tango PCT from the 7,873,001/8,023,479 family), not in a confirmed citation list of the '800 patent. They are included because they are the closest third-party art the searches surfaced. Do not represent them as face-of-patent citations.

3. § 102 (anticipation) analysis, reference by reference

Claim-mapping caveat (carried forward): the granted claims of US 8,634,800 were not retrieved. The mapping below uses the published-application claim proxy (US20130225113A1: method claims 1‑7, apparatus 8‑13, CRM 14‑20, directed to the FIG. 12 voice-call emergency re-routing embodiment), per the prior sections. If the granted claims are instead drawn to the SMS-rewriting embodiments (FIGs. 6A‑9C), the mapping must be re-run. A § 102 anticipation requires a single reference to disclose every element of the claim; where a reference discloses only some elements, it is a § 103 (obviousness) reference, not an anticipation reference — and I say so.

3.1 — US 6,317,594 B1 (Openwave) — strongest single reference

• Citation: US 6,317,594 B1; issued 2001‑11‑13; priority 1996‑09‑27; Openwave Technologies Inc. (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6317594B1](/patent/US6317594B1)/en).
• Description: Discloses mobile-network detection of wireless events (origination, dialed digits, registration, handoff) and delivery of those events through a gateway server to external computer/enterprise systems; a "sub SCP" that makes a private PBX "logically appear to the cellular (WIN) network as an extension of the network," supports private/reduced-digit dialing, and acquires fixed telephones associated with a mobile telephone "as if they were mobile telephones."
• § 102 potential, claim-by-claim (proxy):
  • Claim 1 (call to an enterprise routing number processed via GS‑C/GS‑E and re-routed to a destination mobile device on stored criteria): partial — discloses the enterprise-number/gateway/HLR architecture and fixed↔mobile association, but does not clearly disclose automatically re-routing a call to the enterprise number onward to that user's mobile device. Not a clean § 102 anticipation of claim 1; better as the architecture half of a § 103 combination.
  • Claim 2 (enterprise number stored in an HLR): strong — "acquired by the mobile network management system as if they were mobile telephones," profile held in HLR/SCP. Potentially anticipates.
  • Claim 3 (number associated with the destination mobile device): strong — express fixed↔mobile association. Potentially anticipates.
  • Claims 6–7 (GS‑E sets routing number; GS‑C fallback): partial — enterprise-side mediation disclosed; the specific fallback absent → § 103.
• Confidence the reference is genuinely on the '800 face: C.

3.2 — EP 1 527 653 B1 (Roamware) — mechanism reference

• Citation: EP 1 527 653 B1; granted 2007‑10‑31; priority 2002‑08‑05; Roamware, Inc. (US counterpart US 7,072,651 B2). (https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1527653B1/en)
• Description: Network-operator-controlled, criteria-based automatic redirection of mobile traffic — a "traffic redirection (TR) application logic deciding whether the subscriber should be moved to a different (preferred) network," executed transparently to the subscriber by a network-side TR element.
• § 102 potential, claim-by-claim (proxy):
  • Claim 1 ("automatically re-routing … based on predefined routing criteria stored in the gateway"): partial — discloses automatic, criteria-driven network-side redirection, but the object redirected is a roaming registration, not a voice call to an enterprise directory number. The purpose and target differ → not an anticipation of claim 1; a § 103 mechanism reference.
  • Claims 4–5 (detecting landline interruption due to emergency; emergency mode): partial — the condition-triggered, operator-controlled redirect mode maps to the structure of "emergency mode," but not to a landline-outage trigger → § 103.
• Confidence on face: C. Note: EP '653 is a published application/grant and can be § 102(a)/(b) art by publication date (WO 2004/014101 published 2004‑02‑12, before the 2006‑05‑18 bar).

3.3 — US 7,873,001 B2 (Tango) — likely disqualified; do not rely on

• Citation: US 7,873,001 B2; issued 2011‑01‑18; filed 2006‑03‑02; Tango Networks, Inc. Title (corrected): System and method for enabling VPN-less session setup for connecting mobile data devices to an enterprise data network.
• Description: Enterprise/mobile data-session setup (VPN-less) — not an "alternative numbers"/voice-call-re-routing disclosure.
• § 102 potential: Very weak / likely ineligible.
  • If the inventive entity is the same as the '800 patent (Silver/Landgren), it is not "by another" and does not qualify under § 102(e) at all.
  • Even if entities differ, pre‑AIA § 103(c) common-ownership bars using art that qualifies only under § 102(e)/(f)/(g) (see the Obviousness section).
  • It is not § 102(b) art (issued 2011, published ≈2007 — after the 2006‑05‑18 bar).
  • Conclusion: not an anticipation reference for any claim; at most corroborative infrastructure art, and probably barred.
• Confidence on face: C (it does appear in the family citation context, e.g., US8942664B2#8).

3.4 — US 2002/0019246 A1 (Forte) — probable citation; check

• Citation: US 2002/0019246 A1 (Forte, Stephen P.); published 2002‑02‑14. Also appears as X-category art in the sibling Tango PCT search report (WO2007103269A3) for claims 1, 13.
• Description: "Method and apparatus for communicating via virtual office telephone extensions."
• § 102 potential: moderate — a "virtual office extension" reference plausibly discloses associating an enterprise extension/directory number with a user device and routing communications to that device, which maps to the claim 3 association element and parts of claim 1 (enterprise number as the routing target). Given its 2002 publication, it is § 102(b) art. I could not retrieve its full specification to confirm it discloses the enterprise-number→mobile re-routing of claims 1/4‑5 — treat as a candidate § 102/§ 103 reference to be verified.
• Confidence on face: P (not confirmed).

3.5 — US 2008/0268825 A1 (Research In Motion) — probable citation; date-limited

• Citation: US 2008/0268825 A1; filed 2007‑04‑30; published 2008‑10‑30; Research In Motion Limited.
• Description: Integrating an outgoing cellular call with enterprise/LAN telephony ("System and method for integrating an outgoing cellular call…").
• § 102 potential: low‑to‑moderate and date-sensitive. Its 2007‑04‑30 filing precedes the '800 2007‑05‑18 priority date, so it could qualify as § 102(e) art via its filing date notwithstanding its later publication. But § 102(e) anticipation still requires that it disclose every claim element, and RIM's disclosure concerns outgoing-call integration, not incoming re-routing of calls to an enterprise number in an emergency → better characterized as a § 103 reference. Also note § 103(c) caveat only applies to commonly owned art; RIM is a third party, so § 103(c) does not bar it.
• Confidence on face: P (not confirmed).

3.6 — Sibling-PCT X-category art (WO 00/69156; US 6,970,719 B1; US 6,799,041 B1; US 2005/0164693 A1)

• Citations/dates: WO 00/69156 A (Starvox) 2000‑11‑16; US 6,970,719 B1 (McConnell) 2005‑11‑29; US 6,799,041 B1 (Dressel) 2004‑09‑28; US 2005/0164693 A1 (Yach) 2005‑07‑28.
• § 102 potential: the search report marked the first three X (anticipation-grade for a different Tango application's claims 1/13) and Yach as A. Because these were assessed against WO 2007/103269's claims (the 7,873,001 sibling family, a different disclosure), their X-category status does not transfer to US 8,634,800. They are listed as third-party art candidates only; none is confirmed as a § 102 reference against the '800 claims.
• Confidence on face for the '800 patent: A (not confirmed).

4. What I could NOT confirm (stated plainly, per the operating rules)

• The verbatim granted claim set of US 8,634,800 — so all claim mapping uses the published-application proxy and is provisional.
• The actual face-of-patent "(56) References Cited" list and the examiner's category tags (X/Y/A) for US 8,634,800.
• The real inventors/assignees of US 2002/0019246 A1, US 6,970,719 B1, US 6,799,041 B1, and US 2005/0164693 A1 (I report only what the search surfaced and flag the gaps).
• Whether US 2008/0268825 A1 is genuinely cited on the '800 face or is a "Cited By" entry elsewhere.
• No non-patent literature citations were recoverable.

5. Bottom line

• Most relevant confirmed prior art for US 8,634,800: US 6,317,594 B1 (architecture/HLR/fixed↔mobile association) and EP 1 527 653 B1 (criteria-based automatic network-side redirection). On the published-claim proxy, US 6,317,594 B1 comes closest to § 102 anticipation on the dependent claims directed to storing an enterprise number in an HLR (claim 2) and associating that number with the destination mobile device (claim 3); it does not cleanly anticipate independent claim 1.
• EP 1 527 653 B1 is a § 103 mechanism reference, not a § 102 anticipation of the enterprise-number→mobile re-routing claims.
• US 7,873,001 B2 is corrected (VPN-less session setup) and is likely § 102/§ 103-ineligible for the '800 patent (same-assignee/inventive-entity and pre-AIA § 103(c)).
• Additional candidates surfaced — US 2002/0019246 A1 and US 2008/0268825 A1 — are unconfirmed as face citations and should be verified before use.

To make this authoritative, pull: (1) the granted claims and full "(56)" citation list of US 8,634,800 at USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search (application 13/846,991; https://patents.google.com/patent/US8634800B2/en claims tab); (2) the file history to learn the examiner's actual § 102 vs § 103 categories; and (3) the full texts of US 2002/0019246 A1 and US 2008/0268825 A1 to confirm element coverage. Until then, treat the § 102 mapping above as a verified-bibliography-plus-inference product, not a certified anticipation opinion.

Obviousness Analysis of US 8,634,800 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Critical correction to the Prior-Art section (flagged per operating rules)

Before building the § 103 analysis, I must flag a material error in the previously generated Prior-Art section, because live search results contradict it and the operating rules require search results to control.

The prior-art section described US 7,873,001 B2 as "System, method, and apparatus for using alternative numbers for routing voice calls and short messages in a communications network." That title is wrong. The authoritative Google Patents citation record (appearing on the citation page of family member US 8,942,664) and the Unified Patents portal both identify US 7,873,001 B2 as:

"System and method for enabling VPN-less session setup for connecting mobile data devices to an enterprise data network" — Tango Networks, Inc., filed 2006-03-02, issued 2011-01-18.
(https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7873001B2](/patent/US7873001B2)/en; citation entry visible at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8942664B2](/patent/US8942664B2)/en#8; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[7873001](/patent/7873001)-B2)

The prior-art section appears to have conflated 7,873,001's bibliographic data (filed 2006-03-02, Tango, 2011-01-18) with the title of the '800 family itself. This materially weakens the prior-art section's tentative "anticipation" theory for claims 1–7/8–13/14–20 — 7,873,001 is a mobile-data/VPN session-setup patent, not a voice-call re-routing patent — and changes the obviousness calculus set out below. The prior-art section's other two references are confirmed by live search:

• US 6,317,594 B1 — Openwave Technologies (formerly Unwired Planet), "System and method for providing data to a wireless device upon detection of activity of the device on a wireless network," priority 1996-09-27, issued 2001-11-13 (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6317594B1](/patent/US6317594B1)/en). Confirmed, including its full claim set and specification excerpts.
• EP 1 527 653 B1 — Roamware, Inc., "Method and system for cellular network traffic redirection," priority 2002-08-05 (PCT/US03/24582 → WO 2004/014101), granted 2007-10-31 (https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1527653B1/en; http://data.epo.org/gpi/EP1527653B1). Confirmed; it is the "Steering of Roaming" patent family whose US counterpart is US 7,072,651 B2.

1. Governing law and claim-scope caveat

Statutory regime. Although the '800 patent issued from application 13/846,991 (filed 2013-03-19), every claim is entitled to priority through continuations back to US 11/750,756 (filed 2007-05-18). Because the effective filing date precedes the AIA's March 16, 2013 cutoff, pre-AIA § 103 governs, and the "time the invention was made" for Graham purposes is no later than May 18, 2007. This matters in two ways: (i) the § 102(b) critical date for statutory-bar analysis is May 18, 2006, and (ii) the pre-AIA § 103(c) common-ownership exception (as amended in 2004) is available for art that qualifies only under § 102(e), (f), or (g).

Claim-scope caveat (carried forward). The verbatim granted claims of US 8,634,800 could not be retrieved in this analysis. The analysis below maps to the published-application claims of US20130225113A1 (the best available proxy, per the prior-art section): a method (claims 1–7), apparatus (8–13), and non-transitory computer-readable medium (14–20) directed to the FIG. 12 voice-call emergency re-routing embodiment: (claim 1) receiving a call originated from a mobile device in a mobile network that is directed to an enterprise network routing number; processing the call via at least one of a carrier gateway server (GS-C) and an enterprise gateway server (GS-E); and automatically re-routing the call from the enterprise network to a destination mobile device in the mobile network based on predefined routing criteria stored in the GS-C and/or GS-E. Dependent claims add: enterprise number stored in an HLR (2); number associated with the destination mobile device (3); detecting interruption of landline routing due to an emergency (4); placing GS-C/GS-E in an emergency mode (5); GS-E setting the routing number to the member's mobile number (6); and GS-C fallback if GS-E is unavailable (7). Every conclusion below is conditional on re-verification against the granted claims.

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

A PHOSITA at the 2007 priority date would hold a B.S. in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or computer science (or equivalent experience) plus 2–5 years designing or operating telecommunications systems, with working knowledge of: GSM/UMTS and ANSI-41/IS-41 network architectures (MSC, HLR, VLR, GMSC, SMSC); SS7/IN signaling and CAMEL/WIN trigger mechanisms; SMS mobile-originated/mobile-terminated routing; one-number/follow-me and fixed-mobile convergence services; PBX/enterprise telephony and SIP/VoIP; and gateway servers interconnecting carrier and enterprise networks.

3. Reference inventory (corrected and confirmed) with § 102 status

4. Primary obviousness combination

Combination A: US 6,317,594 B1 + EP 1 527 653 B1 (+ common general knowledge)

This is the strongest available § 103 combination and does not depend on the problematic Tango reference.

Element-by-element mapping (published claim 1):

Motivation to combine (the required "why"): Both references lie in the same field — controlling and redirecting traffic at the boundary between public mobile networks and enterprise/other networks — and they are complementary rather than duplicative. US 6,317,594 supplies the architecture and data model (cellular-network trigger detection, gateway/sub-SCP coupling to the enterprise, fixed↔mobile device association, HLR-stored enterprise profiles); EP 1 527 653 supplies the decision engine (automatic, criteria-driven, network-side redirection logic transparent to the subscriber). A PHOSITA seeking to ensure that calls to an enterprise user's office number still reach that user when the enterprise/landline path is unavailable would have a predictable reason to combine: take Roamware's proven redirection-logic element and point its "preferred destination" at the associated mobile number from the Openwave-style fixed↔mobile profile. Under KSR, combining two known elements — each performing its known function — to produce a predictable result (maintained reachability) is the paradigm of obviousness; no specific teaching-suggestion-motivation document is required where the combination is of known elements in a known field yielding predictable results (KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007)).

Secondary references / common knowledge filling residual gaps:

• Enterprise-number-in-HLR "dummy" subscriber records (dependent claim 2): 6,317,594's disclosure that fixed telephones associated with mobiles are "acquired by the mobile network management system as if they were mobile telephones," with profile data held in the HLR/SCP, is a near-literal anticipation of the dummy-HLR concept the '800 spec describes in FIG. 4B. Provisioning HLR records for non-SIM endpoints (e.g., for SMS delivery, one-number services, IN triggers) was well-known GSM/ANSI-41 practice by 2007.
• Number-to-device association (claim 3): 6,317,594's fixed↔mobile association and the ubiquitous "one number"/follow-me services of the era.
• GS-C/GS-E split with enterprise-side database (claims 6–7): 6,317,594's enterprise gateway holding subscriber data and mediating with the carrier HLR; implementing redundancy/fallback from enterprise server to carrier server is a conventional high-availability design choice (EP '653 likewise centralizes logic in a network element precisely so service survives local failures).

Combination B: US 6,317,594 B1 + US 7,873,001 B2 (with EP 1 527 653 B1)

If (and only if) US 7,873,001 B2 is not disqualified by § 103(c) or same-inventive-entity rules — which, on current evidence, it likely is (see § 6) — it reinforces Combination A by showing a later Tango gateway that connects mobile devices to the enterprise network through carrier-side and enterprise-side server functions. A PHOSITA would combine 7,873,001's gateway infrastructure with 6,317,594's HLR/trigger/profile teachings and EP '653's redirection logic for the same business-continuity reason. However, because the reference is commonly owned and probably names the same inventors, I do not rely on it for the primary case; it is corroborative only.

Combination C: any single reference + "emergency rerouting / network-failure failover" common knowledge (dependent claims 4–5)

Claims 4–5 (detecting interruption of landline routing due to an emergency; placing the gateways in an emergency mode) are the features most likely to resist a pure two-reference combination, because neither 6,317,594 nor EP '653 concerns landline outages or emergencies. The rebuttal case is nonetheless strong:

• EP '653's TR logic is condition-triggered (it decides whether to redirect only upon detecting a defined network state — there, a non-preferred-network registration). Replacing the trigger condition with "landline/enterprise path unavailable" is a routine reconfiguration of detection criteria, not a new machine or method of operation.
• Condition-based network failover and emergency re-routing were textbook telephony: automatic route selection, E911-type emergency handling, and "send-to-mobile-on-PBX-failure" features were well known long before 2007. The '800 spec itself characterizes the emergency embodiment as the gateway servers being "placed in an emergency routing mode" — an operator-controlled, criteria-driven state change of the very type EP '653 implements (operator backend decides whether redirection applies).
• Under KSR, "obvious to try" and the "predictable use of prior-art elements according to their established functions" cover substituting a known trigger condition (landline outage) into a known redirection engine.

5. Claim-by-claim obviousness summary (published-claim proxy)

6. The US 7,873,001 complication (and why the primary case avoids it)

Because US 7,873,001 B2 is (i) assigned to the same entity (Tango Networks, Inc.) that owns the '800 patent and (ii) very likely names the same inventive entity (Andrew Silver / Patricia Landgren — the recordation at reel/frame 057903/0970 lists exactly those inventors for the family), it probably is not usable in a pre-AIA § 103 challenge:

• If the inventive entities are the same, it is not "by another" and does not qualify under § 102(e) at all.
• If the inventive entities differ, the 2004-amended pre-AIA § 103(c) bars using art that qualifies only under § 102(e)/(f)/(g) when commonly owned at the time of invention — and its publication date (~September 2007, if an 18-month publication after the March 2006 filing) likely falls after the May 2007 invention date, so it would not independently qualify under § 102(a).
• It is not § 102(b) art because it was neither patented (2011) nor published (≈2007) before May 18, 2006.

Accordingly, the robust obviousness case rests on US 6,317,594 B1 + EP 1 527 653 B1 + common general knowledge — both independent, third-party, unquestionably eligible references. US 7,873,001 B2 is noted only as corroboration, with its corrected (non-"alternative numbers") identity.

7. Patentee's likely counterarguments and rebuttal

1. "No reference teaches enterprise-number → mobile re-routing for emergencies." True individually, but § 103 does not require a single reference to teach the claimed combination. 6,317,594 supplies the gateway/HLR/fixed↔mobile architecture; EP '653 supplies the automatic criteria-driven redirection mechanism; the purpose (reachability during landline failure) is supplied by the routine, well-documented motivation for network failover. The combination uses each element for its known function.
2. "US 6,317,594's claim 1 requires the external device to be 'not associated with routing calls.'" That claim language narrows the claimed embodiment, but the specification affirmatively teaches the "sub SCP" that participates in the routing plane: converting TSAPI to IS-41 for the HLR, supporting private dialing plans and closed user groups, and making fixed phones appear as mobiles. A PHOSITA reading the reference as a whole (as § 103 requires) would understand the gateway/sub-SCP as capable of routing-related mediation; the narrow claim limitation does not teach away from the disclosed embodiment.
3. "The GS-C/GS-E split and emergency mode are specific and non-obvious." The split between carrier-side and enterprise-side control was a known deployment choice for fixed-mobile convergence (the '800 spec admits both architectures in FIGS. 1–2 as design alternatives); assigning redirection logic to either server, with carrier-side fallback, is conventional high-availability engineering (claim 7). EP '653 already centralizes redirection logic in a network element precisely to control service independently of any single endpoint.
4. Secondary considerations: No evidence of long-felt need, commercial success, licensing, or unexpected results was located for the '800 patent (consistent with the litigation/assignment research showing an operating-company portfolio with no identified assertion activity). Absent such evidence, the Graham factor weighs in favor of obviousness on the current record.

8. Overall bottom line and confidence statement

On the corrected and confirmed record, the independent claims of US 8,634,800 (published-application proxy) would likely be obvious under pre-AIA § 103 over the combination of US 6,317,594 B1 (Openwave) and EP 1 527 653 B1 (Roamware), supplemented by common general knowledge of GSM/ANSI-41 HLR provisioning, one-number services, and network-failover/emergency re-routing. The dependent claims add limitations that map to express teachings of US 6,317,594 (claims 2–3, 6) or to routine engineering choices (claims 4–5, 7). US 7,873,001 B2 — previously misidentified in the prior-art section — is likely disqualified by common ownership/same-inventive-entity rules and is therefore not load-bearing.

Honest limitations: (i) the granted claims of '800 were not retrieved verbatim; if the granted independent claims differ from the published FIG. 12 claims (e.g., if they are drawn to the SMS-rewriting embodiments of FIGS. 6A–9C instead), the element mapping must be redone — though 6,317,594's fixed↔mobile association and address-substitution teachings would still be highly relevant; (ii) the full specifications of US 7,873,001 and EP '653 were only partially retrieved; and (iii) this is an analytical framework with best-available mapping, not a certified invalidity opinion. Before reliance in litigation or IPR, verify: the granted claim set at USPTO Patent Center (patent 8,634,800), the complete specifications of each reference, and the inventive entity of US 7,873,001 B2 for § 103(c) purposes.