US 8676852

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me check for any 2026 CAFC docket activity and verify the legal status.

Let me verify the reexamination outcome and any 2026 appellate activity involving this patent.

US Patent 8,676,852 — Summary

Important caveat up front: I searched for both USPTO records and 2026 CAFC dockets tied to this specific number. I found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket involving US 8,676,852. The 2026 appellate/agency activity I could locate belongs to other Kannuu patents (see "Litigation" below). I flag this explicitly rather than inferring activity that isn't there. I also did not auto-correct any identifier; everything below is transcribed literally from the sources.

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Bibliographic data (from the patent record)

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676852/en ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/8676852

Abstract (as printed)

"The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for selecting database items from a database, where the database items are indexed by a list of item identifiers. The item identifiers may be in the form of text. An initial display is generated which includes one or more parts of the item identifiers. Selection of the one or more parts may be made and results in the generation of a display of a further one or more parts for selection. The further one or more parts may be selected in order to add to the selected one or more parts to build a larger part or whole of an item identifier. Selection from a large list of item identifiers may be carried out in a relatively short time period."

Independent claims — plain-language overview

The patent has two independent claims: claim 1 (method) and claim 12 (apparatus), each with a substantial matching "wherein" clause. (Claims 2–11 depend from 1; 13–22 depend from 12.)

Claim 1 — computer-implemented method of selecting an item from a plurality of items. A processor:

1. Generates a first display containing a part of an item identifier for at least a first set of items and a part of an item identifier for at least a second set of items in a database (i.e., more than one candidate word-fragment is shown at once).
2. Enables the user to select one of the two parts via a user interface.
3. In response, generates a further display containing an additional part of an item identifier for a third set and an additional part for a fourth set — plus the previously selected part is still shown.
4. Enables selection of one of the two additional parts.
5. Combines the selected part with the selected additional part to build a larger part of the item identifiers, and displays that larger part.
6. Limitations: the parts/additional parts must be text symbols, and the additional parts must be shorter than complete item identifiers. The first and second sets must be mutually exclusive of one another, and the third and fourth sets must be mutually exclusive subsets of the first set or the second set (i.e., the finer-grained candidates must nest within whichever branch the user just picked).

In plain terms: show the user a handful of predicted next text fragments for the list; when they tap one, show deeper fragments within that branch, keep the already-chosen fragment visible, and let them append the next fragment — progressively assembling the identifier (e.g., a contact name) rather than typing it character by character.

Claim 12 — apparatus for selecting items. An output display, an input, and a computer processor configured to: associate items with corresponding item identifiers; perform the same first-display → selection → further-display → selection → combine → display sequence as claim 1; and include the same "wherein" limitations (parts are text symbols; additional parts shorter than complete identifiers; first/second sets mutually exclusive; third/fourth sets mutually exclusive subsets of the first or second set). Dependent claims in this family specify items like a joystick input (claim 11/22), mobile telephone (claim 9/20), PDA (claim 10/21), and ranking/tree-hierarchy criteria (claims 5/15).

Dependent-claim context worth noting: claim 3/13 (candidates chosen by "predetermined criteria"), claim 4/14 (frequency of selection), claim 5/15 (ranking relative to a tree hierarchy classification), claim 2 (iterate until the identifier is complete). The specification describes ranking branch nodes by the sum of lower-node rankings and subtracting already-selected sub-nodes' ranks, and describes a joystick four-way menu with a "more" function.

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Legal status and litigation — this is the material part

The patent's claims are no longer enforceable. Two independent events:

1. Maintenance-fee lapse. Google Patents' legal events show a lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees, effective March 18, 2018 ("PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362"). Status is listed as "Expired - Fee Related."

2. Ex parte reexamination — all claims cancelled. Per an SDNY filing (Kannuu v. Samsung, 1:19-cv-04297-ER), Samsung filed ex parte reexamination requests against the '852, '579, and '264 patents on May 28, 2021; the USPTO ordered EPR of the '852 on July 6, 2021; final rejections issued July 28, 2022; the PTAB affirmed invalidity on September 19, 2023; and the USPTO issued reexamination certificates cancelling all claims of the '852, '579, and '264 patents on May 24, June 3, and May 31, 2024, respectively. Google Patents' legal events corroborate: "2024-05-28 … Reeexamination decision cancelled all claims."

   Source: https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv04297/[515438/131](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=515438-0131)/0.pdf

IPR: The Google Patents page lists PTAB case IPR2020-00740 for this patent (petitioner Samsung Electronics America / Samsung Electronics), marked "Not Instituted - Merits" — i.e., the Board declined to institute on the '852. (Institution was granted on the sibling '354 and '393 patents.)

Prior CAFC appeal — 2021-1638. Kannuu Pty Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., No. 21-1638 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 7, 2021) (Chen, J.; Newman, J., dissenting). The '852 patent was one of the five patents-in-suit in the underlying SDNY action (the opinion's short-name table defines "the '852 patent | U.S. Patent No. 8,676,852"). The appeal, however, was not about the '852's validity or claims — it affirmed the district court's denial of a preliminary injunction that would have forced Samsung to dismiss its IPRs based on a forum-selection clause in the parties' NDA. Source: http://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/21-1638.opinion.10-7-2021_1845799.pdf

2025–2026 activity I found (NOT about the '852):

• SDNY: Judge Ramos granted Kannuu leave to amend (July 29, 2025) to assert two newly issued patents after all five original patents-in-suit (including the '852) were invalidated. https://www.jdsupra.com/post/contentViewerEmbed.aspx?fid=1e081608-9533-4e2e-b83d-2422c493c8a5
• PTAB: IPR2026-00071 and IPR2026-00072, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. Kannuu Pty. Ltd., filed October 20–22, 2025, institution granted April 1, 2026. These concern other patents in the Kannuu family (the docket listings reference US 11,573,939, a later continuation). Sources: https://sandbox.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2026-00071/ ; https://sandbox.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2026-00072/

Bottom line

US 8,676,852 is Kannuu's 2013-filed continuation (2005 priority) on predictive, tree-ranked fragment selection from a text-indexed database, naming Kevin W. Dinn as inventor and Kannuu Pty Ltd as assignee, issued March 18, 2014. Its two independent claims (1, method; 12, apparatus) cover displaying multiple candidate text-fragment parts from mutually exclusive item sets, letting the user pick one, then presenting nested sub-fragments within that branch while retaining the prior selection, and concatenating selections into a larger identifier part. All claims were cancelled by an ex parte reexamination certificate in May 2024 (after an earlier 2018 maintenance-fee lapse), so the patent is not a live enforcement vehicle. The only Federal Circuit opinion touching it is 21-1638 (2021), which involved it only as one listed patent-in-suit in a forum-selection/NDA dispute.

Uncertainty note: I could not locate any 2026 CAFC docket for 8,676,852, and given the 2024 cancellation of all claims plus 2018 expiration, a 2026 merits appeal of this patent would be unusual. The 2026 activity in the Kannuu–Samsung dispute is at the PTAB and concerns later-issued patents, not the '852. If a specific 2026 CAFC docket number was expected, I don't have authoritative confirmation of one and won't fabricate it.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 8676852. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me get more specifics on the PTAB proceedings and any other cases involving the '852 patent.

Let me confirm the PTAB case number tied to the '852 patent and the 2025 developments.

Litigation and Contested Proceedings Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,676,852

Direct answer: Yes — litigation is known, but it is confined to a single patentee (Kannuu Pty Ltd) against a single defendant group (Samsung). I found no district-court case in which the '852 patent was asserted against any defendant other than Samsung, and no foreign litigation specifically on the '852 patent that I could confirm. The '852 patent was one of five patents-in-suit in one S.D.N.Y. action, was the subject of an inter partes review petition that was not instituted, and was ultimately invalidated and cancelled via ex parte reexamination.

"US patent 8676852" is literally US 8,676,852 ("Process and apparatus for selecting an item from a database," inventor Kevin W. Dinn, assignee Kannuu Pty Ltd). The other Kannuu patents referenced below ('393, '354, '264, '579) are different patents and are noted only to explain the case posture.

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1. Principal District Court Case

Kannuu Pty Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.)

Procedural history / status:

• The original complaint asserted four patents: the '393, '852, '354, and '264 patents. The First Amended Complaint added the '579 patent.
• On March 17, 2020, Samsung petitioned the PTAB for IPR of all five asserted patents.
• On January 19, 2021, the court denied Kannuu's motion for a preliminary injunction (seeking to bar Samsung's IPRs) and granted Samsung's motion to stay the case pending the IPRs (2021 WL 195163). (S.D.N.Y. opinion/order)
• The USPTO later invalidated all five originally asserted patents, including the '852 patent (see §3 below).
• On July 29, 2025, Judge Ramos granted Kannuu leave to amend its complaint to substitute two newly-issued patents for the invalidated ones. The court rejected Samsung's arguments (bad faith, prejudice, futility, and loss of supplemental jurisdiction over the breach-of-contract claim) and allowed the amendment. (Patterson Belknap, NY Patent Decisions Blog, Aug. 5, 2025; Lexology; JD Supra)
• Current status: Ongoing in S.D.N.Y. as of the record; the '852 patent is no longer asserted because its claims were cancelled.

Caveat on dates: The docket record shows the case filed 05/10/2019 (Cause: 35:271 Patent Infringement; Nature of Suit 830). (Docket excerpt)

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2. Appellate Case (related, but not on the '852 patent's merits)

Kannuu Pty Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc.

Important scope note: The instituted IPRs at issue in this appeal concerned the '354 and '393 patents (IPR2020-00737 and IPR2020-00738). The '852 patent was part of the underlying district-court action, but its own IPR petition was not instituted, so the Federal Circuit opinion does not adjudicate the '852 patent. (CAFC opinion; Fed Cir Blog materials)

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3. USPTO Contested Proceedings Specific to the '852 Patent

(a) Inter Partes Review — not instituted

• Case: IPR2020-00740 (petition against U.S. Patent No. 8,676,852; filed March 2020).
• Petitioner: Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (per the Google Patents legal-events record, which lists the "Opponent name" for IPR2020-00740 as Samsung Electronics America, Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.).
• Outcome: Not instituted — denied on the merits ("Not Instituted - Merits"). The S.D.N.Y. record states that on Sept. 22, 2020, the PTAB denied institution for the '264, '852, and '579 patents, while instituting review of the '354 and '393 patents on Sept. 23, 2020.
• Sources: Google Patents page for US8676852 (PTAB case IPR2020-00740, Not Instituted – Merits; Unified Patents portal); S.D.N.Y. opinion.

(Note: I could not fully verify a minor discrepancy in the filing/record date — one source indicates the Samsung petitions were filed March 17, 2020, while the Google Patents legal-events field shows an April 14, 2020 IPR entry. The petitioner identity (Samsung) and the "not instituted on the merits" outcome are consistent across sources. I flag this rather than assert precision.)

(b) Ex Parte Reexamination — claims cancelled

• Requested by Samsung: May 28, 2021 (requests filed against the '852, '579, and '264 patents).
• USPTO ordered reexamination of the '852: July 6, 2021.
• Final rejection of '852 claims: July 28, 2022.
• PTAB affirmed invalidity: Sept. 19, 2023.
• Reexamination certificate cancelling all claims of the '852 patent issued: May 24, 2024 (Google Patents legal events show a "Reexamination decision cancelled all claims," effective 2024-05-24, certificate kind code C1, filing date 2021-05-28).
• Sources: Google Patents US8676852 legal events; S.D.N.Y. opinion (justia PDF).

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4. Other Potentially Relevant Items (flagged, not confirmed as '852 litigation)

• Unified Patents PTAB data portal lists IPR2020-00740 under its PTAB dataset for this patent; the portal link ("Petitioner: 'Unified Patents PTAB Data'") is a data-source attribution, not (to my reading) an indication that Unified Patents was the petitioner. The legal-events "opponent name" identifies Samsung as the petitioner. If petitioner identity is critical, verify directly on the PTAB/PTABCTS docket.
• "First worldwide family litigation" (Darts-ip family ID 37757227) is listed on the Google Patents page. I could not verify the identity or jurisdiction of any foreign case from the available results, so I will not assert one. Treat any non-U.S. case as unconfirmed.
• A "NuCurrent" matter (Case No. 18-cv-00051) is mentioned in the briefing as involving the same forum-selection clause language in a Samsung NDA. That is a different patentee and different patents — it is not litigation over the '852 patent.
• Record inconsistency to verify: The Google Patents legal events also show a 2018 maintenance-fee lapse ("Expired - Fee Related," lapse effective 2018-03-18) for this docket. That sits awkwardly with the 2019 assertion and 2021 reexamination of the '852 patent. I cannot reconcile these records from the sources retrieved, so I present both without resolving them. The '852 patent's current Google Patents status is "Expired - Fee Related," with an anticipated expiration listed as 2026-08-11.

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Summary Table

Bottom line: The only known litigation specifically involving U.S. Patent No. 8,676,852 is Kannuu Pty Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., No. 1:19-cv-04297-ER (S.D.N.Y.), together with its associated PTAB IPR (IPR2020-00740, not instituted) and ex parte reexamination (all claims cancelled May 24, 2024), and the related Federal Circuit appeal No. 2021-1638 (which concerned the '354 and '393 patents' IPRs, not the '852 patent on the merits). No other defendant or jurisdiction asserting the '852 patent was found.

Where I was unable to verify a detail (e.g., exact IPR filing date, petitioner identity beyond the "opponent name" field, foreign litigation), I have said so explicitly rather than assert it. Determinations of validity, enforceability, and infringement are not legal conclusions here — they are reported as the stated outcomes of the cited proceedings.

I'll start by verifying the structured data against what the patent record itself shows, then search for claim-level outcomes.

Key finding: the patent's own bibliographic records show an IPR not in the ODP block. Let me pin down the institution decision, the panel, and whether any later proceeding targets this patent.

⚠️ Source conflict up front

The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO ODP) reports zero AIA trial proceedings for US 8,676,852. The patent's own record contradicts that: the Google Patents page for US 8,676,852 carries a litigation/PTAB annotation ("PTAB case IPR2020-00740 filed (Not Instituted - Merits)") and a legal event dated 2020-04-14 reading "AIA trial proceeding filed before the patent and appeal board: TRIAL NO: IPR2020-00740; Opponent name: SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS AMERICA, INC. AND SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS CO., LTD." Independent PTAB docket mirrors confirm the proceeding and its Paper 21 denial of institution. I therefore report one AIA trial on file and flag the ODP gap as a data-completeness issue (a denied-institution IPR may not have been ingested), not as an absence of activity.

One more caution: the Google Patents page attributes that entry to "Unified Patents PTAB Data." That is a data-provenance license credit, not evidence that Unified Patents filed the petition. The petitioner of record is Samsung. I found no defensive-aggregator IPR against the '852 patent.

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Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding is on file for US 8,676,852 — IPR2020-00740 — and it was denied institution on the merits, so no claim was ever invalidated through the AIA trial track; however, every claim of the patent was separately canceled by an ex parte reexamination certificate, so the claims-invalidated bucket is effectively "all of them," via the reexam track rather than the IPR track. For a defendant today: if a demand letter cites US 8,676,852 — any claim — the patent owner has no case on that patent, because the claims no longer exist. The assertion risk in this family has migrated to later-issued continuations (e.g., US 11,573,939 B2, which remains active, and two patents Kannuu was permitted to substitute into its S.D.N.Y. case in 2025).

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Ex parte reexamination of US 8,676,852 — requester Samsung v. Patent Owner Kannuu (not an AIA trial — flagged for completeness; this is the proceeding that killed the claims)

• Type: Ex parte reexamination, 35 U.S.C. §§ 301–307 (listed outside the IPR/PGR/CBM taxonomy)
• Filed: 2021-05-28 (Samsung's reexam request). USPTO ordered reexamination of the '852 patent on 2021-07-06.
• Status: Closed — all claims canceled. The Google Patents legal-event record reads "FPB1 — Reexamination decision cancelled all claims," effect date 2024-05-24; the S.D.N.Y. order in Kannuu v. Samsung states the reexamination certificate canceling all claims of the '852 patent issued 2024-05-24.
• Judge panel: N/A (examiner corps); the § 134(b) appeal was decided by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, which affirmed invalidity of the '852, '579 and '264 patents on 2023-09-19.
• Grounds: § 102/§ 103 art. Final rejection of the '852 and '579 claims issued 2022-07-28.
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — but the outcome that matters at claim level: claims 1–22 (all issued claims) canceled. The certificate canceled "all claims"; no claim of the '852 patent was confirmed.
• Settlement / termination: None.
• Appeal: Kannuu exhausted its reexam appeals through the PTAB (§ 134(b) affirmance 2023-09-19). I could not confirm whether Kannuu then took the reexam affirmance to the Federal Circuit; no such CAFC docket is reflected in the sources I retrieved.
• Defensive value: This is the single most important fact about US 8,676,852. Every claim is canceled. Any infringement theory premised on this patent is dead on arrival; a demand letter citing it is, at best, an attempt to press the family. Separately, the patent's own record shows a lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2018-03-18 (no reinstatement event appears in the record I retrieved) — meaning the patent may already have been expired when it was asserted in the 2019 S.D.N.Y. case.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676852/en (legal events: LAPS 2018-04-16, FP 2018-05-08, FPB1 2024-05-28); https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv04297/[515438/131](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=515438-0131)/0.pdf (reciting the 2024 certificates)

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IPR2020-00740 — [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.) / Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. Kannuu Pty Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2020-03-17 (petition against U.S. Patent No. 8,676,852, filed as one of five parallel Samsung petitions on the same day). Note: the Federal Circuit's opinion in 21-1638 recites the date as "March 27, 2020"; the PTAB docket and the petition exhibit list reflect 2020-03-17. I flag the discrepancy rather than reconciling it.
• Status (verbatim from structured data): "Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review 35 U.S.C. § 314" (Paper 21, 2020-09-22). Google Patents gloss: "Not Instituted - Merits." Plain English: the Board refused to institute at all.
• Judge panel: The three-APJ panel assigned across the Samsung–Kannuu IPR cluster (IPR2020-00736 through -00740) was Kristen L. Droesch, Minn Chung, and Jessica C. Kaiser, as reflected in the joint Record of Proceedings covering all five case numbers (2020-12-08) and in the '393 and '354 Final Written Decisions. I could not confirm from the retrieved text which of the three authored the '852 institution denial.
• Petition grounds: Unpatentability of all claims of the '852 patent under 35 U.S.C. §§ 102 and 103, on combinations of prior art not considered during prosecution. Per Samsung's own appellate brief, the five family petitions together advanced eleven grounds based on combinations of four prior-art references not considered during prosecution. The '354 petition's exhibit list (Perlman, US 2002/0113825 A1; Pu, US 7,152,213; Krohn, US 6,593,913; Schroeder, US 5,797,098; Strubbe, US 5,223,924; Hargrove, US 5,787,417; Dostie, US 2004/0021691) shows the reference family used across the cluster; I could not confirm the specific reference combination and ground-by-ground mapping used in the '852 petition itself, so I am not attributing the '354 exhibit list to this petition.
• Institution decision: Denied on the merits, 2020-09-22 (Paper 21). The Board's reasoning, as characterized by the Federal Circuit and by the '393 Final Written Decision: the Board "denied institution for three patents (on the merits of failing to show unpatentability)" — the '264, '852 and '579 — and expressly stated in the '393 FWD that "The '852 patent was challenged in IPR2020-00740, and we denied institution in that proceeding. IPR2020-00740, Paper 21." Importantly, the denial was not a discretionary denial resting on Kannuu's NDA forum-selection-clause argument; Samsung's appellate brief concedes that the three denials "were not based on Kannuu's FSC arguments." Kannuu's preliminary response in the cluster included a declaration from Dr. Ravin Balakrishnan (Ex. 2003) addressing the '852 patent.
• Final Written Decision: None — never instituted, so no FWD, no claim-level verdict, and no claim was canceled or sustained in this proceeding.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The proceeding ended by non-institution. Procedural tail: Petitioner's Rehearing Request 2020-10-22 (Paper 22); a Board paper 2020-12-17 (Paper 23); Petitioner's Request for Refund of Post-Institution Fees 2021-01-27 (Paper 24); Board Notice of Refund 2021-02-03 (Paper 25). I could not confirm the substantive outcome of Paper 23 from the retrieved text, though the fee refund is consistent with the trial never having instituted.
• Appeal: No Federal Circuit appeal of this proceeding — and none was available on the merits; § 314(d) makes institution denials non-appealable. The related CAFC No. 2021-1638, Kannuu Pty Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., is a district-court appeal, not a PTAB appeal: Kannuu challenged Judge Ramos's 2021-01-19 denial of its preliminary injunction motion seeking to compel Samsung to dismiss its IPRs. The Federal Circuit affirmed on 2021-10-07 (Newman, J., dissenting), holding the NDA's forum-selection clause did not bar Samsung "unless the agreement is also a patent license." Docket/opinion: https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/21-1638.opinion.10-7-2021_1845799.pdf and https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[5288158](/patent/5288158)/kannuu-pty-ltd-v-samsung-electronics-co-ltd/
• Defensive value: A petitioner today gains nothing from IPR2020-00740 as an IPR — you cannot ride its coattails, because no institution means no FWD and no estoppel, and its reasoning on the merits binds no one. Its real value is evidentiary/historical: it shows a Board panel declined to find a reasonable likelihood that even Samsung's untested-art §§ 102/103 theory reached the '852 claims. That point is now academic because the claims were canceled in reexamination anyway; the operative defense is the 2024 reexamination certificate.

Source (docket document list for IPR2020-00740, mirroring PTAB E2E): https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Samsung-Electronics-America-Inc-v-KANNUU-PTY-LTD-id-[135243](/patent/135243)/documents/sort_by/created/sort_dir/ ; corroboration in the '393 FWD: http://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/IPR2020-00738.pdf ("IPR2020-00740, Paper 21") and the '354 FWD: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00737/Samsung_Electronics_America_Inc._v._KANNUU_PTY_LTD/

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Unresolved leads — flagged, not asserted

• IPR2026-00072, Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. v. Kannuu Pty. Ltd. — a PTAB IPR appearing in a mirror docket as filed 2025-10-22 and instituted 2026-04-01 (Tech Center 2100, Art Unit 2173), with extensive discretionary-denial briefing (PO request 2025-12-29; Director referral 2026-02-18; institution granted 2026-04-01). I could not confirm which patent this challenges — the snippet does not show a patent number, and given that the '852 patent's claims were canceled in 2024, it is far more likely directed to a live family member. Do not assume it is on the '852 patent. Source: https://sandbox.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2026-00072/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Kannuu_Pty._Ltd/
• "IPR2020-01022" surfaced in a PTAB document-hosting search snippet alongside "IPR2020-00740" and "8676852," but I could not resolve it to a proceeding against this patent. Treat as unverified.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is canceled; nothing was sustained through the AIA track; nothing is untested. By reexamination certificate dated 2024-05-24, all claims of US 8,676,852 (claims 1–22 as issued) were canceled. No claim of the '852 patent survives, and the '852 patent was not among the two patents ('354 and '393) that Samsung's IPRs actually took to a Final Written Decision — those were dispatched by IPR certificates issued 2024-02-09, while the '852, '579 and '264 were dispatched by reexamination certificates dated 2024-05-24, 2024-06-03 and 2024-05-31 respectively. Layer on top of that the maintenance-fee lapse recorded effective 2018-03-18 (no reinstatement event in the record I retrieved), and the practical answer to "which claims are live?" is: none.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached to anyone from IPR2020-00740. Section 315(e) estoppel arises only after a final written decision; a denied institution produces none. So Samsung — and anyone in privity with it — is not estopped as to the '852 patent's claims, and could theoretically have raised the same or different art. That is a distinction without a difference here, because the claims are canceled: prior-art grounds against the '852 patent are moot. More usefully, the ex parte reexamination route attracted no IPR-style estoppel at all (a reexam requester is not subject to § 315(e)), so the art and the prosecution record that defeated the '852 claims are fully available, unencumbered, to a defendant facing a live family member. The most valuable free discovery in this family is the ex parte reexamination file history of the '852 (Samsung's § 102/§ 103 art and the examiner's claim-construction positions) plus the two instituted IPR Final Written Decisions — IPR2020-00737 (claims 1–14 of the '354 patent held unpatentable) and IPR2020-00738 (claims 1–16 of the '393 patent held unpatentable), both withPanel Droesch/Chung/Kaiser and a common oral hearing on 2021-06-30.

Pattern signals. One petitioner, Samsung, ran a coordinated, five-petition campaign against the same patent family on 2020-03-17: two instituted (-00737 '354, -00738 '393) and three denied on the merits (-00736 '264, -00739 '579, -00740 '852). Rather than appeal the denials (§ 314(d) bars it), Samsung switched tracks to ex parte reexamination on 2021-05-28 and killed the three survivors. Kannuu, for its part, was aggressive: requests for Precedential Opinion Panel review and rehearing in the instituted IPRs (denied), a preliminary-injunction motion to force dismissal of the IPRs (denied 2021-01-19, affirmed by the Federal Circuit on 2021-10-07 in a first-impression forum-selection-clause case that drew amicus briefs and a Newman dissent, with a further petition for panel/en banc reconsideration), and appeals of the reexam rejections to the PTAB (affirmed 2023-09-19). There is no defensive aggregator in the chain on this patent — the "Unified Patents" string on the Google Patents page is a data-attribution credit. The tell for a defendant today is the aftermath: after all five original patents-in-suit were invalidated, Judge Ramos granted Kannuu leave to amend on 2025-07-29 to assert two newly issued patents on the "same infringing feature." The '852 patent is a dead letter; the fight has moved to its younger siblings.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are threatened on US 8,676,852 specifically: the patent has no enforceable claims. Cite the reexamination certificate canceling all claims, dated 2024-05-24, and the S.D.N.Y. order documenting it (https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/new-york/nysdce/1:2019cv04297/[515438/131](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=515438-0131)/0.pdf), plus the Google Patents legal-event entry "Reexamination decision cancelled all claims" (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676852/en). If a complaint has actually been filed asserting it, that is a candidacy for a Rule 11 / § 285 motion and for prompt written notice to the asserting party.
2. Do not over-read IPR2020-00740. No FWD exists, so there is nothing to link to as a dispositive PTAB ruling, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists either. The dispositive document is the reexam certificate, not the Board's Paper 21.
3. If the assertion has migrated to a family member (US 11,573,939 B2 or the two patents Kannuu added in July 2025): pull, in this order, (a) the '852 ex parte reexamination file history — the art and examiner reasoning that canceled all claims; (b) the IPR2020-00737 and IPR2020-00738 Final Written Decisions (claims 1–14 of '354 and claims 1–16 of '393 held unpatentable; links above) as a ready-made §§ 102/103 roadmap against overlapping disclosure; and (c) the IPR2026-00072 record, after confirming which patent it targets — if Samsung is already litigating that patent at the Board, a § 315(b) / discretionary-denial and § 315(e) estoppel analysis becomes the first-order question, and the statutory one-year FWD clock runs from the 2026-04-01 institution date (FWD due on or about 2027-04-01).
4. Verify against PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/) before relying on the ODP "no proceedings" result. The ODP block in this prompt omits IPR2020-00740, which demonstrably exists; where the structured feed and the patent's own legal record disagree on this patent, the primary documents control.

I'll research the ownership chain for US 8676852, starting with the assignment records and litigation history.

Let me dig into the assignment records specifically and Kannuu's corporate status.

Ownership Reconstruction — US Patent 8,676,852 B2

Patent: US 8,676,852 ("Process and apparatus for selecting an item from a database")
App. No.: 13/736,548 · Filed: 2013-01-08 · Issued: 2014-03-18
Priority: AU 2005904378 (2005-08-12) → PCT/AU2006/001151 → US 11/990,338 → 13/349,204 → 13/736,548
Source of record: Google Patents legal-events extract at https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676852/en (fetched 2026-09-24)

Verification note / caveat up front. A live pull of the USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) could not be completed in this session. The reconstruction below is built from the Google Patents legal-events record for this specific patent, which mirrors the Assignment Center's indexed reel/frame data. Only one recorded assignment surfaces for this patent. Where I cannot confirm an Assignment Center field (e.g., the correspondent attorney of record on the recording), I say so explicitly rather than infer it.

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Inventors

• Sole named inventor. Dinn is the common inventor across the entire Kannuu / Dinn family (the '852 family, the '393 family, the '354 family, and the "entering text on a computing device" family).
• Unusual pattern — late-recorded, back-dated inventor assignment. The lone assignment of Dinn's interest to Kannuu carries an effective/execution date of 2008-06-30, which predates the filing of this continuation (2013-01-08) and postdates the underlying PCT (2006-08-11), yet was not recorded until 2013-04-09 — i.e., roughly three months after the continuation was filed. This is a confirmatory/employment-style assignment covering the family, recorded belatedly around the continuation filing, not a live arm's-length sale.
• No evidence of inventor flight. There is no indication of Dinn departing the assignee, and no fire-sale-precursor pattern (all-inventors-exiting-within-12-months). Dinn and Kannuu remained aligned throughout.
• Predecessor vehicles (context, not chain links): Dinn previously operated through Besdi Pty Ltd and K W Dinn Holdings Pty Limited (see e.g. AU PS107202 / "Improved device interface," 2002, and WO2002039244A1, both cited in this family's "Family Cites Families" list). These are his earlier, separate priority families — they are not part of the '852 ownership chain and there is no recorded transfer between them and Kannuu for this patent.

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Original assignee

Kannuu Pty Ltd (Mount Kuring-Gai, New South Wales, Australia) — an Australian start-up and the current assignee as well as the original assignee. There is no change of ownership across the life of the patent.

• Primary line of business: search / discovery / recommendation software for the connected-TV and OTT market — marketed as K-Nav™ and later COMPASS. The company pitched "up/down/left/right D-pad" predictive text-search to TV and set-top vendors.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — documented. Telstra Corporation adopted Kannuu's content-discovery technology in December 2013 for its BigPond Movies VOD offering on Samsung Smart TVs/Blu-ray players (Kannuu case study; BusinessWire release, 2013-01-09, CES). Kannuu also built evaluation builds and a "KanWAS" API for Samsung. This is a practicing entity with real product and named customers, not a paper owner.
• Current status: Appears to remain an operating Australian company (website active through the mid-2010s), but its business posture shifted decisively toward IP assertion after the Samsung licensing talks collapsed. So: operating company → operating company with a litigation/licensing monetization strategy. Not dissolved, not in bankruptcy.
• Fate of this specific patent: Expired – Fee Related (lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees, effective ~2018-03-18), and then all claims cancelled in ex parte reexamination (certificate effective 2024-05-24). The asset is therefore dead regardless of ownership.

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Assignment timeline

YYYY-MM-DD (executed) / recorded YYYY-MM-DD — Reel 030180/0921

• 2008-06-30 (effective) / recorded 2013-04-09 — Reel 030180/0921
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Dinn, Kevin William
  • Assignee: KANNUU PTY LTD. (Australia)
  • Correspondent: Not surfaced in the Google Patents legal-events record. The patent prosecution counsel of record for this family is Jones Day (222 East 41st St, New York, NY 10017) — confirmed on the published relative application US2010/0153881A1 (Dinn / Kannuu) and confirmed by Kannuu itself in litigation (Kannuu told Samsung its outside patent counsel was Jones Day). I cannot confirm that Jones Day filed this specific recording; the Assignment Center abstract is needed to read the named correspondent off reel 030180/0921. Flag: Jones Day is a documented repeat player across the Dinn/Kannuu families, but it is a large full-service firm doing both operating-company and NPE work — a single/uncorroborated appearance is not an NPE tell (see signal 3).
  • Context: Inventor-to-company (original) assignment — the founder's rights conveyed to his own company; back-dated to 2008 and recorded late alongside the 2013 continuation.

No other assignment records surfaced for US 8,676,852. There are no recorded security agreements, no change-of-name, no merger, no license, no release, and — critically — no transfer to any IP-holding or licensing LLC. The patent stayed with Kannuu Pty Ltd from filing to death.

If the Assignment Center returns additional reel/frame entries that Google Patents did not index, this section should be updated; on the record available, the chain is a single link.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8676852
    2005 : Priority AU provisional filed
    2006 : PCT application filed
    2008 : Dinn assigns rights to Kannuu
    2013 : Continuation filed and assignment recorded
         : Application published
    2014 : Patent granted as US 8676852
    2018 : Lapsed for unpaid maintenance fee
    2019 : Kannuu sues Samsung in SDNY
    2020 : Samsung IPR filed
         : IPR institution denied
    2021 : Ex parte reexamination ordered
    2024 : All claims cancelled on reexam

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present.
No transfer from the operating assignee to a licensing-only LLC. The only recorded conveyance is the 2008/2013 inventor→Kannuu assignment at reel 030180/0921; there is no "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" assignee anywhere in the chain, and the assignee address is the company's own Australian address (Mount Kuring-Gai, NSW), not a registered-agent drop.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present.
Neither Kannuu Pty Ltd nor the prior Dinn vehicles (Besdi Pty Ltd, K W Dinn Holdings Pty Limited) appear on the standard public NPE registries (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, etc.). Kannuu is an operating company that litigated one high-profile dispute; that is not the same as an NPE roll-up. (Weak corroborating note, not a match to any listed entity: Kannuu is a small, litigation-forward Australian company with 7 IPR petitions and a single flagship defendant — a profile some directories loosely tag as "assertion-prone," but I found no listing on Unified Patents' or RPX's high-frequency plaintiff directories tying Kannuu to the classic NPE lists.)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not verifiable.
There is only one link in the chain (reel 030180/0921), so "recurrence within the chain" is impossible by definition. The correspondent field for that recording is not present in the source extract. Jones Day is the family's prosecution counsel of record across multiple Dinn/Kannuu filings, but per the instruction that "a single appearance is not a finding," this is flagged as context, not a signal.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present.
No consecutive chained assignments, and certainly none within <24 months. The single assignment (recorded 2013-04-09) is separated from any assertion activity by ~6 years.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present.
The only assignment predates the first infringement suit. Kannuu filed 1:19-cv-04297 (S.D.N.Y.) on 2019-05-10 — more than six years after the 2013-04-09 recording and eleven years after the 2008-06-30 effective date. The chain was not arranged to enable assertion; the assertion came long after a settled ownership record.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present.
No Chapter 7/11 event is associated with Kannuu or Dinn. The patent lapsed instead for failure to pay maintenance fees (effective ~2018-03-18), which is the opposite of a fire-sale — it is asset abandonment.

7. Privateering — Not present.
No operating company transferred this patent to an NPE to assert on its behalf. The assertor is the original operating company (Kannuu suing Samsung after failed licensing talks). This is a failed-negotiation-then-sue fact pattern (NDA dated 2012-04-05; talks ended ~mid/late 2013), not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator — Not present.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. However, the patent was effectively neutralized — not by aggregation, but by ex parte reexamination. Samsung's EPR was ordered 2021-07-06 for the '852 patent, a final rejection issued 2022-07-28, the PTAB affirmed 2023-09-19, and the reexamination certificate cancelling all claims took effect 2024-05-24. So the inverse signal ("neutralized") holds, but the cause is invalidation, not defensive acquisition.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Kannuu Pty Ltd is both the original and the only assignee on the record (reel 030180/0921, effective 2008-06-30, recorded 2013-04-09) — there is no shell transfer, no licensing LLC, no cascading chain, and no defensive aggregator anywhere in the history. Kannuu is a genuine product company that shipped and deployed its K-Nav/Compass search technology (e.g., Telstra's BigPond Movies on Samsung devices, Dec. 2013) and then sued Samsung — a counterparty/competitor it had negotiated with under a 2012 NDA — in 1:19-cv-04297 (S.D.N.Y., filed 2019-05-10). That is the classic operating-company-asserts-against-a-competitor profile, not an NPE roll-up.

Important qualifier: the verdict is about the ownership pattern, not the patent's vitality. US 8,676,852 lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees in 2018 and had all claims cancelled in ex parte reexamination, certificate effective 2024-05-24 — so the asserted asset is now dead, and the ownership question is largely moot in practice.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 8676852 → expect the single reel 030180/0921 entry)
• USPTO Patent Assignment Search (index): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676852/en
• PTAB IPR2020-00740: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-00740 (institution denied 2020-09-22)
• Litigation: RPX Insight / Dockets — Kannuu Pty Ltd. v. Samsung Elecs. Co., No. 1:19-cv-04297-ER (S.D.N.Y.)

Recommended follow-up to close the one gap: pull the Assignment Center abstract for reel 030180/0921 to read the named correspondent attorney, and confirm whether any unindexed post-issuance recording (e.g., a security interest or an unreported license) exists. On the available record, none does.

I'll verify the patent record and the most relevant cited references before analyzing.

Let me verify additional key cited references.

Prior Art Analysis — US 8,676,852 B2 ("Process and apparatus for selecting an item from a database")

Note on scope and method. I searched Google Patents/USPTO records for the literal number 8,676,852 and retrieved the full citation tables from the patent's own front matter (the authoritative source). The bibliographic and claim material below builds on the earlier-generated sections; I do not repeat them. Two framing points before the reference-by-reference analysis:

1. Effective prior-art date. The '852 asserts earliest priority of 12 August 2005 (AU 2005904378) through the chain 13/736,548 → 13/349,204 → 11/990,338 → PCT/AU2006/001151. Assuming that priority is perfected, the critical date is 2005-08-12. References published/filed on or after that date are analyzed accordingly and flagged where they fall outside §102.
2. The claims were cancelled. As noted in the prior section, an ex parte reexamination certificate (effective 2024‑05‑24) cancelled all claims, following a 2018 maintenance-fee lapse. This does not change the §102 analysis of what the cited references disclose, but it means the art below was never fully adjudicated against live claims.
3. Anticipation is a high bar. Independent claims 1 (method) and 12 (apparatus) each carry a stringent "wherein" clause requiring (i) the parts be text symbols, (ii) additional parts be shorter than complete item identifiers, (iii) first/second sets be mutually exclusive, and (iv) third/fourth sets be mutually exclusive subsets of the just‑selected set — i.e., nested, non‑overlapping progressive refinement with retention of the prior selection. No single reference in the citation list appears to disclose all of these limitations together. Accordingly, most citations below are best characterized as §102(a)/(b) references to individual limitations (or as §103 combinable art), and I flag where true §102 anticipation is doubtful.

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A. Most relevant cited references (detailed)

A1. US 5,263,174 A — Symantec Corp.

• Title: "Methods for quick selection of desired items from hierarchical computer menus"
• Filing/priority: 1988‑04‑01 · Published: 1993‑11‑16
• Description: Selection of items from hierarchical menus using abbreviated/partial entry to jump through menu levels. Directly directed at rapid selection from a hierarchy — structurally the closest early analogue to the '852's tree-of-segments approach.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1 / 12 (generating a display of parts of identifiers and progressively selecting to build a larger identifier); supports claims 3/13 (predetermined criteria) and 5/15 (hierarchy).

A2. US 5,787,417 A — [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.) (Hargrove)

• Title: "Method and system for selection of hierarchically related information using a content-variable list"
• Filing: 1993‑01‑28 · Published: 1998‑07‑28
• Description: Topics are displayed in a content-variable list covering a first set of information; on user input, new topics hierarchically related to the first set are displayed, and a selected topic is obtained, then information encompassed by that topic. This is a display → select → display nested sub-topics flow, with "navigation" and "selection" boxes shown simultaneously.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1 / 12 — the closest match to the "select a part, then display further parts nested within the selected branch" limitation. The simultaneous navigation/selection boxes correspond to retaining the prior selection while showing deeper candidates. Full anticipation still doubtful because 5,787,417's units are topics/database queries, not text-symbol parts of item identifiers shorter than the identifier with mutually exclusive set structure.

A3. US 5,953,541 A — Tegic Communications (King et al.)

• Title: "Disambiguating system for disambiguating ambiguous input sequences by displaying objects associated with the generated input sequences in the order of decreasing frequency of use"
• Filing: 1997‑01‑24 · Published: 1999‑09‑14
• Description: Reduced-keyboard disambiguation; ambiguous keystrokes are matched to vocabulary objects and displayed in a selection list in decreasing frequency of use; word stems (shorter than the complete word) whose initial letters match the sequence are also displayed in frequency order; user selects from the list. Vocabulary stored in a tree data structure; frequency/rank stored at nodes so the most likely candidate is presented first.
• Potential §102 claims: Strong on claims 4/14 (frequency of selection) and 5/15 (tree-hierarchy ranking); relevant to claim 1/12 for "displaying ranked candidate parts" and selecting one. This is the reference most squarely on the ranking/ordering limitations. It does not show the mutually-exclusive/nested-subset structure of the '852's wherein clause.

A4. US 6,011,554 A — Tegic Communications (King et al.)

• Title: "Reduced keyboard disambiguating system"
• Filing: 1995‑07‑26 (CIP of 08/507,756) · Published: 2000‑01‑04
• Description: Companion Tegic disambiguation patent; selection list ordered by frequency; stems of longer words presented; a "scroll" control brings additional less-common items onto the screen when the needed entry is not shown (functional analogue to the '852's "more" function).
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12 (candidate display + selection), 4/14 (frequency), plus support for the "more" functionality described in the specification via the scroll control.

A5. US 5,911,485 A — Unwired Planet, Inc.

• Title: "Predictive data entry method for a keypad"
• Filing: 1995‑12‑11 · Published: 1999‑06‑15
• Description: Predictive entry on reduced keypads; matches partial input to stored words and presents candidates for user selection.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12 general predictive-selection flow; 6/17 (text strings).

A6. US 5,896,321 A — Microsoft Corp.

• Title: "Text completion system for a miniature computer"
• Filing: 1997‑11‑14 · Published: 1999‑04‑20
• Description: Word-completion for small devices — completing a partially entered string by presenting candidates.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12 (displaying further parts to build a larger identifier); 6/17, 7/18 (text/words).

A7. US 6,377,965 B1 — Microsoft Corp.

• Title: "Automatic word completion system for partially entered data"
• Filing: 1997‑11‑07 · Published: 2002‑04‑23
• Description: Automatic completion of partially entered words from a data store.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12; claims 2/– (iteration to completion).

A8. US 6,826,566 B2 — Speedtrack, Inc.

• Title: "Identifier vocabulary data access method and system"
• Filing: 2002‑01‑14 · Published: 2004‑11‑30
• Description: Accessing a vocabulary by identifier; navigational indexing of identifiers to reach a target.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12 (indexed access and progressive narrowing); 3/13 (predetermined criteria).

A9. US 2005/0010605 A1 — West Publishing Co. (Conrad et al.)

• Title: "Information retrieval systems with database-selection aids"
• Filing: 2002‑12‑23 (cont. of 10/754,083 filed 2003‑12‑24; prov. 60/436,191 of 2002‑12‑23) · Published: 2005‑01‑13
• Description: Hierarchical directory of databases with beginning/intermediate/terminal nodes; user navigates categories/subcategories (interlinked hierarchy) and, on selection of a node, is presented with an option to search the subset of databases associated with the terminal nodes beneath the selected node. Explicitly describes the database directory as hierarchical, with terminal nodes associated with respective subsets.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12 — its "select intermediate node → search the sub-set associated with the terminal nodes below it" maps onto the '852's "third/fourth sets are mutually exclusive subsets of the first/second set" concept; 5/15 (tree hierarchy). Note publication (2005‑01‑13) is less than one year before the 2005‑08‑12 date → §102(a) art, not §102(b).

A10. US 2006/0217953 A1 — Parikh

• Title: "Automatic dynamic contextual data entry completion system"
• Filing: 2005‑01‑21 · Published: 2006‑09‑28
• Description: Contextual completion of data entry — presents ranked completions based on context.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12 (completion candidates); 4/14 (frequency/ranking). Filed before 2005‑08‑12 → §102(e) art (not by publication date).

A11. Besdi Pty Ltd / K W Dinn family — WO 2002039244 A1; WO 2003077102 A1; WO 2004017188 A1

• Titles: "Device interface" (WO 2002039244 A1, 2000‑11‑10/2002‑05‑16); "Improved device interface" (WO 2003077102 A1, 2002‑03‑13/2003‑09‑18); "Small device with improved interface" (WO 2004017188 A1, 2002‑08‑14/2004‑02‑26)
• Description: Device-interface family associated with the same inventor line (K W Dinn Holdings Pty Ltd / Besdi Pty Ltd) describing on-screen selectable interface elements for small devices.
• Potential §102 claims: Claim 1/12; 9/20, 10/21, 11/22 (mobile/PDA/joystick input). These are the inventor's own earlier publications, all more than one year before 2005‑08‑12, so they are potentially §102(b) statutory references notwithstanding common inventorship — and they are arguably the closest art because they share the same problem space.

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B. Full cited-reference schedule (dates from the '852 front matter) with one-line relevance

(Sources: full citation tables at https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676852/en ; individual records verified at US5953541 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5953541A](/patent/US5953541A)/en ; WO2006100505 — https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2006100505A2/en ; US2005/0010605 — https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050010605A1/en ; US5,787,417 — https://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5787417.html)

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C. References that are probably not §102 prior art (timing)

Because the '852's critical date is 12 August 2005, the following cited items are not available under §102(a)/(b) on their face, and none is a US application filed before the critical date sufficient for §102(e):

• WO 2006100505 A2 / US 2008/0266263 / US 9,798,717 (Keypoint Technologies). GB priority 2005‑03‑23 (before the critical date), but the PCT was filed 2006‑03‑23 and published 2006‑09‑28 — both after 2005‑08‑12. Its US national stage (11/887,019) was filed 2006‑03‑23, also after the critical date. Its claims (store data strings with priority indicators → look up most likely subsequent string → order for display → select or enter an event and repeat) are conceptually very close to the '852, but on these dates it does not qualify as §102 art. Flag this explicitly — the Keypoint disclosure surfaced in the earlier-generated summary as a near-analogue, but its availability as prior art turns entirely on the priority date actually accorded to the '852's claims.
• US 2007/0060114 A1 (Ramer, 2005‑09‑14), US 2007/0179776 A1 (Xerox, 2006‑01‑27), US 7,443,316 B2 (Motorola, 2005‑09‑01), US 7,793,228 B2 (Apple, 2006‑10‑13) — all post‑critical-date.

D. Contradiction check against the earlier-generated sections

• The earlier section stated the reexamination certificate cancelling all claims was "effective 2024‑05‑24"; the Google Patents legal-events text shows the FPB1 "Reexamination decision cancelled all claims" entry dated 2024‑05‑28 with effective date 2024‑05‑24. These are consistent (decision date vs. effective date), so no contradiction.
• No conflict between the fetched patent text and the search results on the cited-reference list itself.

E. Bottom line

• US 8,676,852 is confirmed on the USPTO/Google record as Kannuu Pty Ltd's continuation (inventor Kevin W. Dinn), earliest priority 12 August 2005, issued 18 March 2014; all claims were cancelled in May 2024.
• The citation list contains ~99 references. The references most likely to be cited against claims 1 and 12 are the hierarchical-selection art — US 5,787,417 (Microsoft) and US 5,263,174 (Symantec) — together with the frequency-ranked candidate/stem art — US 5,953,541 and US 6,011,554 (Tegic) — and the hierarchical node-subset disclosure of US 2005/0010605 A1 (West).
• No single cited reference appears to disclose all limitations of claim 1 or 12, particularly the conjunctive "wherein" requirements (mutually exclusive first/second sets; third/fourth sets as mutually exclusive subsets of the selected set; text-symbol parts shorter than the complete identifier). These are therefore best framed as §102(a)/(b) references to individual limitations and/or §103 combinations, not clean anticipations.
• Caveat on the single closest-looking disclosure (Keypoint WO 2006100505): it postdates the 2005‑08‑12 critical date and therefore is not §102 prior art unless the '852's claims lose entitlement to that priority date.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis in the actual prior-art references cited on the patent's face. Let me pull authoritative content for the key candidates.

Strong material. Now let me verify the applicant's own earlier Besdi/Kannuu publications and a few remaining high-value references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,676,852 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Scope, framework, and critical-date discipline

Effective priority date: August 12, 2005 (AU 2005904378). Because the '852 is pre-AIA, § 103 is applied with § 102 as the gatekeeper for what counts as prior art. This matters more than usual here, because the IDS on this patent is a mixed bag: several listed references post-date the priority date and are not available as art, while others are only available under pre-AIA § 102(e) (their U.S. filing date, not their 2006–2007 publication date).

Applying that discipline to the references cited on the face of the '852:

I flag the last two because a careless § 103 chart would cite them; they cannot be used against this patent. The combination below uses only references whose § 102 date precedes August 12, 2005.

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA): a software engineer/UI designer with a bachelor's degree in CS/EE plus ~2 years, or equivalent, working on constrained-input handset interfaces. The art is dense and mature — Tegic/Nokia were shipping predictive text on 12-key handsets a full decade before 2005.

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1. The limitations that actually matter

Stripping claim 1 to its inventive core, the asserted novelty lives in four limitations:

• (A) a first display showing two or more partial identifier fragments belonging to two different, mutually exclusive sets of items (i.e., sibling branches shown simultaneously);
• (B) on selection of one fragment, a further display of still-deeper fragments that are mutually exclusive subsets of the selected branch (i.e., nesting/narrowing within the chosen branch);
• (C) the previously selected fragment remains displayed in the further display; and
• (D) the fragments are text symbols and are shorter than complete item identifiers, and are concatenated to build a larger identifier.

Everything else (a processor, a display, "predetermined criteria," joystick, mobile phone) is conventional. The question is whether A–D were known or obvious. Each of A–D is separately and, in two references, jointly disclosed.

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2. The core primary references

Masui, POBox (CHI '98 / HUC '99) — https://dlnext.acm.org/doi/10.1145/[274644](/patent/274644).[274690](/patent/274690) ; https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.5555/[647985](/patent/647985).[743871](/patent/743871)

POBox does essentially the claimed loop. Verified text: the user "enters a small part of the word… and POBox dynamically searches a dictionary for candidate words and shows them to the user for selection. The user then selects the desired word from the candidate list." Touching "F" shows "the frequently used words that start with 'F' in a pulldown menu" — i.e., a displayed set of candidate items for mutually exclusive branches, ranked by frequency. The paper also expressly describes narrowing within a branch: "touching the 'E' key does not make the system display the next intended word ('entering')… but touching the 'N' key next narrows the search space of the dictionary and 'entering' then appears in the menu." And it discloses selecting word portions: the user "can specify only part of the spelling to find the desired word," retrieving "complementary" by typing "comple" or "cplm." Masui's own later POBox paper states the technique is "applied to various handheld and ubiquitous computers including PDAs and cellular phones." That is limitation (A), (B), and much of (D) in a single teaching.

US 5,787,417 (Microsoft / Hargrove) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/56/84/a2/3466579c737f8a/US5787417.pdf

A "content-variable list" that displays topics, receives a user selection, and "in response… displaying in a selection box the next lower-level topics of the topic selected." Claim 7 recites that the selection box contents then migrate: "displaying in the navigation box the topics currently displayed in the selection box and displaying in the selection box the next lower-level topics of the topic selected." That is limitation (C) verbatim — the previously selected element stays on screen while the next level is displayed — and it is a hierarchical tree, giving limitation (B) by construction (a child topic's item set is a mutually exclusive subset of its parent's).

US 5,953,541 (Tegic / King et al.) — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5953541A](/patent/US5953541A)/en

Discloses a "selection list" of objects "presented… in order of decreasing frequency of use," where stems of longer words (partial identifiers) are themselves listed as selectable objects, and the list "includes a scrolling control button to manually scroll additional less commonly used items onto the display screen for selection." This supplies (i) frequency-based ranking, (ii) partial-identifier candidates distinct from complete identifiers, and (iii) the specification's "more" function.

US 6,011,554 (Tegic / King et al.) — the reduced-keyboard disambiguating system whose memory stores "textual objects that are completed words and textual objects that comprise a string of characters corresponding to the initial characters of an uncompleted word, each… associated with a frequency of use." This is the direct antecedent for "additional parts… shorter than complete item identifiers."

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3. The proposed combinations

Combination A — Masui + US 5,953,541 (+ US 6,011,554)

Masui supplies the fragment-menu-and-narrow loop; '541 supplies frequency-ranked candidate ordering and the "scroll for more" list. Motivation: both address the identical problem — reducing input actions on pen/handset devices by replacing character-by-character entry with menu selection — and Masui itself already ranks candidates by corpus frequency ("first the" appears 27 times…). A POSITA would substitute or supplement Masui's ad-hoc frequency ordering with Tegic's well-known ranked selection list to control the number of displayed options. KSR makes this a textbook "known technique improving a known device in the same way."

Combination B — US 5,787,417 + US 5,128,672 + Masui

This is the combination that most cleanly reads on the "wherein" clause. Hargrove '417 gives the hierarchical, nested display with retention of the prior selection (limitations B and C). Apple '672 supplies the predictive-generation step: claim 26 recites "displaying a first set of key images… detecting said user's selection… determining a best set of key images to next display based on said user's selection… and displaying said best set," where the next set is chosen "based upon the frequency of that particular character combination." That is claim 1's step 3 (generate a further display in response to the selection) plus dependent claims 3/4/13/14 (predetermined criteria = frequency). Masui supplies the text-fragment nature of the selectable units and the commercial context (cellular phones). Motivation: Hargrove '417 is about browsing a hierarchy; '672 is about predicting the next selectable element; combining a prediction engine with a hierarchical content-variable list to reduce the number of menu levels a user must traverse is an obvious engineering objective with a predictable benefit (fewer screens, fewer selections) — exactly the problem both references independently identify.

Combination C — Mobile/joystick variant: US 5,953,541 + DE 10027523 (Nokia) + WO 2005064445 (Nokia) [and Besdi WO 2002039244]

For dependent claims 9/11/20/22 (mobile telephone, joystick):

• DE 10027523 A1 discloses a telephone-directory data search in which the matching/succeeding term is displayed for selection as the user narrows.
• WO 2005064445 A1 (Nokia, "Method and apparatus for entering data with a four way input device," pub. July 14, 2005 — correctly dated before Aug. 12, 2005) discloses four-way directional selection of displayed options, i.e., the joystick mapping the '852's spec describes.
• WO 2002039244 A1 (Besdi/Dinn — the applicant's own earlier family; https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2002039244A1/en) discloses a small-device/remote-control/mobile-telephone interface in which keys switch modes so that a first selection narrows to a category and the next key press selects from within that category. Even though this is the inventor's earlier work, it is § 102(b) art (2002 publication, three years pre-priority), and it disposes of any argument that directional-key, branch-narrowing selection on a handset was itself inventive.

Motivation: handset screens were small and keypads limited to a D-pad; the art uniformly teaches reducing on-screen option count and mapping options to directional keys. Combining a four-way input patent with a ranked candidate list is the ordinary design choice of a POSITA.

Combination D — US 2006/0265648 (Rainisto / Nokia) + US 5,787,417

Rainisto (filed May 23, 2005, § 102(e) art) discloses "word completion functionality for predicting word candidates for partial word inputs" on a device. Combined with Hargrove '417's nested-topic display, this covers limitations (A)–(D) with an explicit partial-input-to-candidate-portion teaching. Motivation: same field, same problem, and Rainisto's partial-word candidates are the very "parts shorter than complete item identifiers" the claim requires.

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4. Element-by-element chart for claim 1 (Combination B)

Claim 12 is the same showing with a conventional display/input/processor — no separate § 103 issue.

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5. Motivation to combine (KSR analysis)

1. Same field, same problem. All references are in text input/selection for constrained devices. Every one of them articulates the same objective the '852's Background recites: eliminating multi-tap character entry and reducing scroll-through on small screens.
2. Predictable, combinable elements. "Ranked candidate list" + "hierarchical/prefix narrowing" + "directional-key selection" are three known techniques whose combination yields nothing more than the expected sum of their parts. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416–17 (2007).
3. Design incentive. Small screens force fewer simultaneous options → nested levels; that is the very trade-off Hargrove '417 and the Nokia four-way-input art already made. The mutual-exclusivity/nesting "wherein" language is not a design insight; it is the definitional property of a prefix tree.
4. No unexpected results or teaching away. The patent asserts only speed ("very rapidly narrow a text based search… with very few joystick actions") — precisely the benefit Masui and '541 already promise.
5. No secondary considerations of record. I found no evidence of unexpected results, licensing-nexus, or copying tied to these claims; the asserted commercial success of the accused Samsung devices is not commensurate with the claim scope.

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6. Likely patentee rebuttals, and why they fail

• "The art shows whole words, not partial fragments meant to be concatenated." Rebutted by Masui's partial-spelling entry ("comple"/"cplm") and by US 6,011,554's express claim to stems ("string of characters corresponding to the initial characters of an uncompleted word").
• "No reference keeps the prior selection on screen." US 5,787,417 cl. 7 does exactly that, in terms.
• "No reference teaches the specific mutually-exclusive-subset relationship." That relationship is inherent in the hierarchical/prefix structure that every reference discloses; it is not an added technical feature.
• "The references are non-analogous." They are squarely in the same field of endeavor (predictive text entry/data selection) and reasonably pertinent to the problem.

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7. Corroboration — and one tension I must flag

The § 103 case above is independently corroborated by the record: all claims of the '852 were cancelled by an ex parte reexamination certificate (Google Patents legal events: "Reexamination decision cancelled all claims," event dated 2024-05-28, effective 2024-05-24), consistent with a § 102/103 rejection sustained through PTAB affirmance. A granted patent whose every claim is cancelled on reexamination is strong empirical evidence that the claims were not patentably distinct over the art. (I do not have the examiner's specific rejection grounds or the art relied upon in the EPR; I am inferring § 103 from the outcome, not quoting the decision.)

Tension to note explicitly: Google Patents records IPR2020-00740 (Samsung v. Kannuu) as "Not Instituted – Merits" for this patent. A PTAB panel therefore did not institute an IPR on the '852, which means the petitioner's § 103 showing at the institution stage was not found reasonably likely to prevail on those particular grounds. Non-institution is not a merits holding of non-obviousness, and it is outweighed by the later EPR cancellation — but a fair analysis must acknowledge that at least one tribunal declined to take up a § 103 challenge to this patent. My independent analysis above is based on the cited art, not on the petition, whose grounds I have not reviewed.

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8. Contradictions / caveats

• Minor date discrepancy: the previously generated summary states the '852 reexamination certificate issued May 24, 2024; the Google Patents legal-events feed shows the event dated 2024-05-28 with an effective date of 2024-05-24. These are consistent if one is the decision/service date and the other the effective date, but the two figures should not be treated as interchangeable.
• The task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026"; the session metadata says 2026-09-29. I have not relied on either date, since it does not affect the § 103 analysis.
• Full claim text of some secondary references (US 6,744,423, US 7,487,147, US 7,543,244, US 2006/0217953, US 2005/0010605) was not retrievable within this session's search budget; for those I rely on the titles/abstracts as listed in the '852's own citation record, which is authoritative as to what was cited, but I have not independently verified every claim element against them. The combination in § 3-B does not depend on those references.
• Everything above is a technical invalidity opinion, not a legal conclusion or an assertion about any party's liability.