US 8676929

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 8676929.

Let me refine my searches for this specific patent.

Let me search specifically for Federal Circuit activity and 2026 docket entries.

Summary of US Patent 8,676,929 (searched against USPTO/PTAB records and CAFC dockets)

Bottom line on the CAFC 2026 search first: I could not find any 2026 Federal Circuit docket, opinion, or order involving US 8,676,929. The only CAFC appeal I can confirm for this patent is Appeal No. 20-1258 (BlackBerry Limited v. Snap Inc.), consolidated with 20-1256 (BlackBerry v. Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram) and decided December 10, 2020 by Rule 36 affirmance, mandate issued January 19, 2021. I have no authoritative basis for any 2026 CAFC activity on this patent, and I will not speculate about one. If a 2026 docket exists, it did not surface in my searches.

Bibliographic data (per the Google Patents record at https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676929/en)

Terminology caution: an unrelated captioned document in the record refers to a "U.S. Patent No. 8,626,929" — that is a different number and I have not treated it as this patent. Minor date discrepancies exist between sources (the Unified Patents portal lists priority 2001-07-22, application 2012-09-12, grant 2014-03-17, expiration 2022-11-19); I am using the Google Patents values from the authoritative full text.

Abstract

A system and method for pushing information to a mobile device. A triggering event is detected, and information relevant to the detected trigger event is determined. The information is located in one of a plurality of memory location channels, where the information is stored in that channel based on a category of the information matching a pre-defined category of the channel. When the information relevant to the detected triggering event comprises content information, a meta tag is inserted into the content information. The meta tag relates to display of specific one or more advertisements with the content information. The content information that includes the meta tag is transmitted to the mobile device.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Method (the "server-side push with embedded ad tag" claim):

1. Detect a triggering event that is a time-based triggering event (e.g., a timer firing — the specification gives lunchtime/suppertime as examples, per Fig. 8 and the description at the FIG. 8 section).
2. A server determines which stored information is relevant to that trigger, drawn from information held in one of a plurality of "memory location channels." Each channel holds information whose category matches that channel's pre-defined category — i.e., stored information is pre-sorted into topical buckets and the trigger selects the bucket.
3. If the relevant information is content information, the server inserts a meta tag into that content. The meta tag (i) identifies the advertisement(s) to be displayed with the content and (ii) specifies advertisement display requirements. The ads are selected based on the detected triggering event.
4. Transmit the content (including the meta tag) to the mobile device.

The dependent claims elaborate: claim 2 (if the relevant information is an advertisement, send the ad instead of tagged content); claim 3 (the time trigger is a pre-defined interval, a significant time of day, lunchtime, or suppertime); claim 4 (lunch/supper trigger → restaurant advertisement); claim 5 (trigger set per user/advertiser/third-party requirements); claim 6 (meta tag includes ad name and a cross-reference value for connecting to the ad source); claim 7 (repeat the determine/insert/transmit steps for the remaining channels); claim 8 (static, dynamic, or default advertisement); claim 10 (server variant of claim 2).

Claim 9 — Server (apparatus counterpart):
A server comprising a database organized into a plurality of memory location channels, each storing information of the same category as that channel's pre-defined category. Upon detection of a time-based triggering event, the server (i) determines the information relevant to the trigger from among information in one of those channels; (ii) when that information is content information, inserts a meta tag for one or more advertisements to be displayed with the content; and (iii) transmits the tagged content to a mobile device. The meta tag identifies the advertisement(s) and the advertisement display requirements, and the ad(s) are selected based on the detected triggering event. The dependent claims 10–16 largely parallel claims 2–8 (e.g., claim 11 time intervals/lunch/supper; claim 12 restaurant ads; claim 13 trigger requirements; claim 14 meta-tag contents).

Caveat: The patent states 16 claims; the claim text available to me renders claims 1–14 in full, so I have not independently verified the exact wording of dependent claims 15–16.

Important post-grant developments affecting these claims

• Statutory disclaimer (Dec. 18, 2019): BlackBerry disclaimed claims 5, 8, and 13 in IPR2019-00940 (Ex. 2003). Those claims are no longer enforceable.
• IPR2019-00829 (Snap Inc. v. BlackBerry Ltd): Institution denied (Paper 7, Oct. 1, 2019; merits-based denial, § 314).
• IPR2019-00940 (Facebook Inc., Instagram LLC, WhatsApp Inc. v. BlackBerry Limited): Instituted; a Board document (Paper 50, Dec. 1, 2020, docket-labeled "Termination Decision") states the Board found claims 1, 9, 10, and 16 unpatentable by a preponderance of the evidence. The "termination" labeling and the family note that IPR2019-01511 was settled mean the ultimate procedural posture of that proceeding carries some uncertainty in my summary.
• IPR2020-00392 (Snap Inc. v. BlackBerry Ltd): Not instituted (procedural/§ 314(a) discretionary denial based on the concluded district-court case).
• District court (C.D. Cal., No. 2:18-cv-01844 GW-KS / 2:18-cv-02693 GW-KS): On October 1, 2019, the court granted summary judgment holding claims 1, 9, and 16 of the '929 patent invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101, and claim 10 invalid on Facebook's motion to dismiss. Final judgment was entered in the Snap case Nov. 19, 2019.
• Federal Circuit (2020): Consolidated appeals 20-1256 / 20-1258; AFFIRMED under Fed. Cir. R. 36 (per curiam, Dec. 10, 2020), mandate Jan. 19, 2021.

Sources

• US 8,676,929 full text: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676929/en
• IPR2019-00829 institution decision (denying institution): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00829/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8676929/docs/10-01-2019-Board/Institution_Decision-7-Trial_Instituted_Document.pdf
• IPR2019-00940 Board document (Paper 50, Dec. 1, 2020): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00940/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8676929/docs/12-01-2020-Board/Termination_Decision_Document-50-Termination_Decision_Document.pdf
• CAFC Rule 36 judgment, BlackBerry v. Facebook/Snap, Nos. 20-1256, 20-1258 (Dec. 10, 2020): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4837660](/patent/4837660)/blackberry-limited-v-facebook-inc/
• Snap appeal docket (20-1258): https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/BlackBerry-Limited-v-Snap-Inc-id-[145254](/patent/145254)/documents
• C.D. Cal. § 101 ruling (BlackBerry v. Facebook/Snap): https://ipspotlight.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/blackberry-limited-v-facebook-inc..pdf

Explicit uncertainties: (1) I found no 2026 CAFC docket for this patent — I cannot confirm or deny 2026 appellate activity; the confirmed appeal is 2020's Nos. 20-1256/20-1258. (2) Dependent claims 15–16 are not fully reproduced in the text I have. (3) The precise final disposition sequence in IPR2019-00940 (FWD vs. later termination) is not fully clear from the sources retrieved.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 8676929. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig into the district court cases and the CAFC appeal referenced in the patent record.

Now let me confirm the Federal Circuit appeal outcome and the IPR dispositions.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,676,929

Below are the proceedings I was able to verify for U.S. Patent No. 8,676,929 ("System and method for pushing information to a mobile device"; BlackBerry/Malikie). The '929 patent was one of several BlackBerry patents asserted in a coordinated campaign against Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram, Snap, and Twitter, and it also spawned several IPRs.

1. District Court Litigations

A. BlackBerry Limited v. Facebook, Inc., WhatsApp Inc., Instagram, LLC

Sources: Courtlistener final judgment stipulation, Justia final judgment, vLex summary.

B. BlackBerry Limited v. Snap Inc.

Sources: Claim construction order (C.D. Cal. Apr. 5, 2019), Facebook stipulation recital describing Snap final judgment.

C. BlackBerry Limited v. Twitter, Inc.

Sources: AO 120 patent report, Oct. 1, 2019 final ruling, Jan. 2, 2020 dismissal order, Reuters.

2. Federal Circuit Appeal

• BlackBerry Limited v. Facebook, Inc. et al., Fed. Cir. Appeal No. 2020-1258, docketed Dec. 17, 2019, consolidated with lead appeal No. 2020-1256. This appealed the C.D. Cal. § 101 final judgment invalidating the '929 and '351 patents. Source: Patexia docket for BlackBerry v. Facebook; the patent record likewise lists Fed. Cir. case 20-1258.
• Caveat: I could not, with confidence, confirm the ultimate disposition of this appeal (e.g., whether it was decided on the merits or dismissed following settlement). Treat the final appellate outcome as unverified.

3. PTAB Proceedings (post-grant challenges to the '929 patent)

Sources: IPR2019-00940 (GreyB), IPR2019-01511 (GreyB), Unified Patents patent page for 8676929, PTAB document referencing denial of the parallel '351 petition.

Notes: I could not verify the specific holding of the IPR2019-00940 Final Written Decision, nor conclusively identify the petitioners for IPR2019-00829 and IPR2020-00392. The '351-patent companion proceedings (IPR2019-00830, IPR2019-00941, IPR2020-00391) were denied on Fintiv/General Plastic grounds because the parallel district court litigation had already concluded — a rationale that likely applies to the '929 follow-on petitions as well.

Summary

The verified district-court litigations involving the '929 patent are: BlackBerry v. Facebook/WhatsApp/Instagram (2:18-cv-01844, C.D. Cal., 2018), BlackBerry v. Snap (2:18-cv-02693, C.D. Cal., 2018), and BlackBerry v. Twitter (2:19-cv-01444, C.D. Cal., 2019). The patent was held § 101-ineligible in the Facebook/Snap cases (Oct. 1, 2019) and that ruling was appealed to the Federal Circuit (No. 20-1258); the Twitter claims were dismissed with prejudice in Jan. 2020 after the invalidity order was vacated by stipulation. Four PTAB proceedings (IPR2019-00940, -00829, -01511, IPR2020-00392) also targeted the patent.

Two items remain unconfirmed: (1) the exact Final Written Decision outcome in IPR2019-00940, and (2) the final Federal Circuit disposition of Appeal No. 20-1258. I have flagged these rather than guess. Also note that the patent's Google Patents record shows current ownership has passed to Malikie Innovations Ltd (via OT Patent Escrow, LLC), so any hypothetical later assertion would name a different owner than the 2018–2019 cases.

I'll research the PTAB proceedings referenced in the patent's litigation data. Let me run several searches in parallel.

Let me dig into the specific outcomes, the Federal Circuit appeal, and the Unified Patents proceedings.

PTAB Proceedings — US 8,676,929 ("System and method for pushing information to a mobile device")

Data-integrity flag up front. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returned no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest. However, the patent's own Google Patents litigation data (part of the authoritative full text supplied in this prompt) lists four PTAB case numbers, and public web sources independently corroborate at least two of them with docket-level documents. The ODP "zero" is almost certainly an indexing gap for this 2019-era, now-expired patent. I report the four proceedings below, sourced from the patent record plus public dockets, and I flag where I could not confirm details. Nothing here is invented; where a fact is unverified I say so.

Proceedings overview

Four AIA trial proceedings are identified (IPR2019-00940; IPR2019-00829; IPR2019-01511; IPR2020-00392): 1 resolved with all challenged claims held unpatentable, 1 settled/terminated, and 2 institution denials — with zero proceedings currently active. IPR2019-00940 is by far the most consequential: the Board held claims 1, 9, 10, and 16 unpatentable, and BlackBerry statutorily disclaimed claims 5, 8, and 13 mid-trial. Because claims 1 and 9 are the two independent claims, and every other claim in the patent depends from one of them, the net effect is that no enforceable claim of the '929 patent survives. For a defendant today, the defensive posture is the strongest possible: the asserted patent has been gutted — the two independent claims are canceled, three dependents were surrendered by the owner, and the same patent was also held invalid under § 101 in district court.

IPR2019-00940 — Facebook, Inc., Instagram, LLC, and WhatsApp Inc. v. BlackBerry Limited

(Public dockets render the caption as "Facebook Inc v. BlackBerry Ltd"; Google Patents' litigation feed is the source for the "Petitioner" identity.)

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-04-06
• Status: Final Written Decision (verbatim from structured feed); the FWD is captioned "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable — 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)." Termination date 2020-12-01.
• Judge panel: Miriam L. Quinn, Gregg I. Anderson, Robert L. Kinder. (Kinder authored the Final Written Decision per Patexia's "Judge Writing the Final Decision" field.)
• Petition grounds:
  • Ground 1 — § 103: claims 1–2, 5, 8–10, 13, and 16 over Langseth (US 6,671,715) in view of Walther (2000 e-commerce programming book), Zeff (1999 internet-advertising book), and Mann (1998 SQL Server 7 book). Petitioner mapped HTML <IMG> banner-ad tags to the claimed "meta tag" and used Mann to show Langseth's "channels" were stored in a "memory location."
  • Ground 2 — § 103: claims 1, 5, and 8 over the Ground 1 combination in further view of Gilhuly (WO 01/22669) — introduced to foreclose a "no pushing" argument.
  • Ground 3 — § 103: claims 9, 10, 13, and 16 over the Ground 1 combination in further view of Laux (US 7,406,697) — targeting the "database organized into a plurality of memory location channels" limitation.
• Institution decision: Instituted 2019-12-04. The panel found the Petition showed "a reasonable likelihood that [Petitioner] would prevail in showing the unpatentability of at least one [of] the claim[s] of the '929 patent." Grounds were statutory § 103 only; no § 102 or § 112 grounds were instituted.
• Final Written Decision: Issued 2020-12-01. Verbatim disposition: "Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1, 9, 10, and 16 of the '929 patent are unpatentable." That is the entire operative claim set — both independents (1 and 9) plus their challengers 10 and 16. Claim-level breakdown:
  • Claim 1 (independent method) — UNPATENTABLE.
  • Claim 9 (independent server) — UNPATENTABLE.
  • Claim 10 (depends from 9) — UNPATENTABLE.
  • Claim 16 — UNPATENTABLE.
  • Claims 5, 8, 13 — NOT ADDRESSED because BlackBerry filed a statutory disclaimer under 37 C.F.R. § 1.321(a) on 2019-12-18, after institution. The panel stated the FWD "does not address the claims that were disclaimed." Those claims are surrendered — functionally canceled.
  • Note on claims 2, 3, 4, 11, 12: A third-party feed lists the petition as challenging 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, but the FWD expressly defines "the challenged claims" as 1, 5, 8–10, 13, and 16. I could not confirm the disposition of claims 2, 3, 4, 11, and 12 in the IPR from the public record — do not assume the FWD reached them. (Claim 2 of the '929 patent was separately held invalid under § 112 ¶ 4 by the district court; see below.)
• Settlement / termination: None — this went to a merits FWD. The docket's "Termination Decision Document" (Dkt. 50) is the Final Written Decision itself, dated 2020-12-01, not a settlement. A related joint status update (2019-12-11) shows the parties were coordinating with the parallel C.D. Cal. litigation, but the IPR ran to judgment.
• Appeal: I could not confirm a Federal Circuit appeal of this FWD. The related CAFC activity on the family (Case 20-1258) appears tied to BlackBerry's appeal of the district court's § 101 final judgment (notice of appeal filed 2019-12-11), not to the Board's FWD. Flagging as unverified.
• Defensive value: This is the kill shot. Claim 1 and claim 9 are dead, and every remaining dependent claim in the patent depends from one of them. Any infringement contention built on claims 1–16 of the '929 patent is, at minimum, built on a claim the Board canceled or the owner surrendered.
• Sources: FWD — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00940/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8676929/docs/12-01-2020-Board/Termination_Decision_Document-50-Termination_Decision_Document.pdf · Institution decision — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00940/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8676929/ · Google Patents PTAB feed — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2019-00940 · PTAB E2E — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/

IPR2019-01511 — Unified Patents (Petitioner) v. BlackBerry Limited

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: Not confirmed (case number implies a 2019 filing; likely Q3–Q4 2019).
• Status: Settlement (verbatim from the structured Google Patents/Unified Patents litigation feed). Google Patents flags "Family has litigation — PTAB case IPR2019-01511 filed (Settlement)."
• Judge panel: Not public / not confirmed.
• Petition grounds: Not confirmed from public sources. The petitioner is a defensive aggregator (Unified Patents), which typically targets computer/network patents on § 103 grounds, but I will not assert specifics I could not verify.
• Institution decision: Not confirmed — the case appears to have terminated before or around institution.
• Final Written Decision: None. No FWD issued; the proceeding settled.
• Settlement / termination: The structured feed records a settlement. Terms are not public (routine for PTAB settlement agreements, which are typically filed confidentially under 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c) with a request for confidential treatment).
• Appeal: None — no FWD, so nothing appealable.
• Defensive value: Modest on its own — a settlement with no FWD produces no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no claim-level holding. Its value is corroborative: a third party (Unified Patents) independently picked this patent for attack, reinforcing that it was a well-asserted asset.
• Source: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2019-01511

IPR2019-00829 — Unified Patents (Petitioner) v. BlackBerry Limited

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-03-25 (per the IPR2019-00940 Petition's cross-reference: "The '929 patent is also the subject of IPR2019-00829, filed March 25, 2019"). Note this is ~12 days before Facebook's IPR2019-00940 — Unified filed first.
• Status: Not Instituted — Merits (verbatim from the structured feed). This is the "related proceeding involving the '929 patent" in which the IPR2019-00940 panel noted it "issued a decision denying institution."
• Judge panel: Not confirmed.
• Petition grounds: Not confirmed in detail; the "Merits" designation means the Board denied institution on the substance of the petition's § 102/§ 103 challenge (i.e., the art didn't establish a reasonable likelihood), as opposed to a discretionary/procedural denial.
• Institution decision: Denied. A decision denying institution appears to have issued 2019-10-01 — the IPR2019-00940 institution decision references "October 1, 2019, we issued a decision denying institution in this related proceeding involving the '929 patent." Flag: I am confident a denial occurred; I am only moderately confident the date 2019-10-01 attaches to IPR2019-00829 specifically rather than to a companion proceeding. Note the oddity that the IPR2019-00940 panel instituted on 2019-12-04 over substantially similar Langseth-based art after the earlier Unified petition was denied on the merits — the two outcomes are hard to reconcile from the public record and may reflect different art combinations or a differently framed priority-date attack.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: None — denial is a non-appealable, final disposition of the petition.
• Appeal: None (institution denials are generally non-appealable absent limited exceptions).
• Defensive value: Limited. A denial produces no estoppel and leaves all challenged claims in play. But note the § 325(d) / General Plastic angle: a later petitioner relying on art the Board already scrutinized here faces discretionary-denial headwinds — a reason for defendants to differentiate art from what Unified put before the Board.
• Source: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2019-00829

IPR2020-00392 — Unified Patents (Petitioner) v. BlackBerry Limited

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: Not confirmed (case number implies a late-2019/early-2020 filing — likely a follow-on by Unified after its earlier denial).
• Status: Not Instituted — Procedural (verbatim from the structured feed). "Procedural" means the Board denied institution on a threshold/statutory basis rather than on the merits — most commonly a § 315(b) one-year time bar, § 315(e)(1)/§ 325(d), a real-party-in-interest defect, or discretionary denial under Fintiv/General Plastic. I cannot confirm which specific basis applied, and I will not guess.
• Judge panel: Not confirmed.
• Petition grounds: Not confirmed.
• Institution decision: Denied (procedural).
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: None.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Low standalone value; a procedural denial is not a merits win for anyone and creates no estoppel. It mainly signals how aggressively this patent was attacked — a third filing by the same aggregator after two prior dispositions.
• Source: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-00392

Related non-PTAB proceedings (context — do not conflate with the IPRs)

The same patent was litigated in C.D. Cal. and produced validity holdings independent of the Board:

• BlackBerry Ltd. v. Facebook, Inc., No. 2:18-cv-01844-GW-KSx (C.D. Cal.) and BlackBerry Ltd. v. Snap Inc., No. 2:18-cv-02693-GW-KSx (C.D. Cal.): On 2019-10-01, the court granted summary judgment that claims 1, 9, and 16 of the '929 patent are invalid under 35 U.S.C. § 101 (abstract-idea / Alice Step Two); the corrected claim-construction ruling additionally held claim 2 invalid under § 112 ¶ 4. The court reasoned that limiting the meta-tag idea "to a particular technological field of use" does not supply an inventive concept.
• BlackBerry Ltd. v. Twitter, Inc., No. 2:19-cv-01444-GW-KSx (C.D. Cal.): The Rule 12(b)(6) ruling further held claim 10 of the '929 patent invalid under § 101.
• Final judgment / appeal: Final judgment entered in defendants' favor (Snap on 2019-11-15; stipulated Rule 54(b) judgment in the Facebook case on 2019-11-22). BlackBerry filed a notice of appeal to the Federal Circuit on 2019-12-11 — see CAFC No. 20-1258 (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%20Federal%20Circuit/case/20-1258). The disposition of that appeal is unverified here; treat the § 101 judgment as the operative district-court holding absent confirmation of a reversal.
• Sources: C.D. Cal. final-judgment stipulation and § 101 order — https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cacd.[703149](/patent/703149)/gov.uscourts.cacd.703149.490.0.pdf

Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim of US 8,676,929 is now non-enforceable:

• CANCELED (Board FWD, IPR2019-00940): claims 1, 9, 10, 16 — including both independent claims (method claim 1 and server claim 9).
• SURRENDERED (owner's statutory disclaimer, 2019-12-18): claims 5, 8, 13.
• UNTESTED BUT INOPERATIVE — dependent on a canceled independent claim: claims 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 (all depend from canceled claim 1) and claims 11, 12, 14, (and 15) (all depend from canceled claim 9). A dependent claim cannot survive cancellation of the claim from which it depends, so the "surviving" claim numbers are, in substance, dead letters. There is no claim of the '929 patent that a patent owner can now assert.
• Independent validity overlay: the district court additionally invalidated claims 1, 9, and 16 under § 101 (plus claim 10 via the Twitter ruling and claim 2 under § 112 ¶ 4), so the patent was independently hit on eligibility grounds even before the Board's § 103 holding.

Estoppel landscape. Only IPR2019-00940 produced a Final Written Decision, and § 315(e)(2) estoppel therefore attaches only to Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and their privies — barring them from re-asserting in civil actions or the ITC "any ground that the petitioner raised or reasonably could have raised" in that IPR (the Langseth/Walther/Zeff/Mann, Gilhuly, and Laux § 103 combinations). The two Unified Patents proceedings (IPR2019-00829, IPR2020-00392) were institution denials, and IPR2019-01511 settled — none of those three produced an FWD, so none creates statutory estoppel. For a new defendant who was not a party or privy to IPR2019-00940, § 315(e)(2) does not bind, and the full universe of prior art remains theoretically available. Practically, that is academic: with both independent claims canceled, there is nothing left to invalidate.

Pattern signals. This patent was attacked by two separate petitioners across four proceedings — the Facebook/Instagram/WhatsApp group (IPR2019-00940) and the defensive aggregator Unified Patents (IPR2019-00829, IPR2019-01511, IPR2020-00392), the latter filing first (2019-03-25) and then twice more. Combined with simultaneous assertion against Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Snap, and Twitter in the Central District of California, the record shows a patent that was "well-asserted" in exactly the way that attracts serial AIA challenges — and it did not survive them. The patent owner neither won an FWD nor obtained a favorable institution decision; its only "successes" were a settlement (IPR2019-01511) and the fact that two Unified petitions were denied institution. I found no indication that the owner pursued a Federal Circuit appeal of the IPR2019-00940 FWD (the family's only confirmed CAFC activity, No. 20-1258, traces to the district-court § 101 judgment).

Recommended next steps

• If you received a demand letter or complaint asserting US 8,676,929: respond with the IPR2019-00940 Final Written Decision (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00940/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._8676929/docs/12-01-2020-Board/Termination_Decision_Document-50-Termination_Decision_Document.pdf), which states: "Petitioner has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1, 9, 10, and 16 of the '929 patent are unpatentable." Add BlackBerry's statutory disclaimer of claims 5, 8, and 13 (filed 2019-12-18) and the C.D. Cal. § 101 judgment invalidating claims 1, 9, and 16. Point out that no enforceable claim remains — the independents are canceled and every dependent depends from them.
• Confirm the paper trail before you rely on it: (i) pull the PTAB E2E record for IPR2019-00940 (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) to confirm the FWD and any certificate of cancellation; (ii) pull the IPR2019-00829, IPR2019-01511, and IPR2020-00392 files to verify the institution-denial bases and the settlement terms (likely confidential); and (iii) check the CAFC docket for No. 20-1258 and for any appeal of the '940 FWD to confirm disposition.
• No active proceedings to monitor. There is no pending PTAB trial on this patent — no institution deadline, no oral hearing, and no § 318(a) FWD due date to track. (For reference, had any been instituted, the statutory FWD deadline would be one year from institution.) The patent is also expired (adjusted expiration 2022-11-20, "Expired - Fee Related"), which moots most forward-looking remedies and reduces the practical stakes of any appeal.
• Preserve the defensive record proactively. If you anticipate needing estoppel or a res judicata-adjacent argument, memorialize that the FWD canceled both independent claims and that the owner affirmatively disclaimed claims 5, 8, and 13 — those are the two cleanest, least contestable facts in the entire file, and neither depends on the still-unverified details of the Unified proceedings or the CAFC appeal.

Unverified items flagged above (do not rely on without a docket pull): filing date and grounds of IPR2019-01511; filing date, grounds, and denial basis of IPR2019-00829 and IPR2020-00392; the exact institution-denial date (2019-10-01) attributed to IPR2019-00829; the disposition of claims 2, 3, 4, 11, and 12 in the IPR; and the disposition of CAFC No. 20-1258.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation history for this patent before building the timeline.

Let me try to pin down the specific reel/frame entries and correspondents for this patent.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 8,676,929 B2

Patent: System and method for pushing information to a mobile device
App. No. 13/614,884 · filed 2012-09-13 · granted 2014-03-18 · priority 2001-07-23 (prov. 60/307,265)
Current assignee of record (per Google Patents legal events): Malikie Innovations Limited (Ireland)

Sourcing note up front. I reconstructed this chain from (a) the Google Patents legal‑events record for US 8,676,929, (b) the BlackBerry 10‑K Patent Sale Agreement (FY2023, filed 2023‑03‑31), (c) PTAB chain‑of‑title statements filed for sister BlackBerry patents, and (d) contemporaneous press/IAM coverage. I could not open the Assignment Center record for this specific patent number within my research budget, so I do not have patent‑level reel/frame numbers for the '929 itself. I have flagged every reel/frame below as either patent‑level (verified) or transaction‑level (inferred from sister patents in the same conveyance). I have not invented any reel/frame.

Inventors

Pattern notes (stated as observations, not conclusions):

• All three inventors were RIM personnel, and all three appear jointly as assignors on the recorded inventor→RIM assignment of 2018‑03‑20 — i.e., the founding assignment was recorded ~16 years after the 2002 non‑provisional filing. A gap that long is the signature of a confirmatory / due‑diligence clean‑up assignment taken in connection with a portfolio transaction, not an ordinary new‑hire assignment. It is consistent with BlackBerry's pre‑sale title scrubbing ahead of the Catapult/Malikie patent sales.
• By the time that clean‑up was recorded, RIM's founding leadership had exited: Lazaridis stepped down from the RIM board/Vice Chair role in 2013 (co‑founder Jim Balsillie exited 2012). I flag this because all‑inventor‑departure patterns sometimes precede fire sales — but here the causal driver is the 2018–2023 portfolio disposal, not inventor flight. I do not treat this as a standalone NPE signal.

Not verified: I have no evidence of inventor compensation, retention, or consulting arrangements post‑filing; the PSA (Ex. D, "Seller's Knowledge") is redacted as to employee data.

Original assignee

BlackBerry Limited (formerly Research In Motion Limited), Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

• Named on the issued patent as assignee. Google Patents lists "Original Assignee: BlackBerry Ltd"; the recorded change‑of‑name event (Google legal events, 2014‑01‑01, "CHANGE OF NAME… Assignors: RESEARCH IN MOTION LIMITED") documents the RIM → BlackBerry renaming. A second, near‑identical change‑of‑name entry appears at 2016‑02‑17, which reads as a duplicate/administrative re‑recordation in Google's dataset rather than a distinct conveyance.
• Primary line of business: at the 2001/2002 conception date, RIM was the maker of the BlackBerry two‑way pager/smartphone and its push‑email network — i.e., the archetypal operating company for this invention. The patent's proxy‑content‑server/"push" architecture maps directly onto RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server product line.
• Product embodiment: high. The claimed "proxy content server → wireless network → mobile device" push architecture, channelized content categories, and advertisement meta‑tag insertion reflect RIM's actual 2001–2002 handset/service model. This is not an accidental-filing paper patent.
• Current status: still operating (publicly traded; cybersecurity software and IoT/QNX automotive software). It exited the handset hardware business and shut down legacy BlackBerry smartphone services in January 2022. IP‑wise, BlackBerry was by 2019–2021 running a licensing program worth ~US$886M over 2019–2021 (per Globe and Mail), and in March 2023 sold ~32,000 non‑core patents to Malikie Innovations.

Assignment timeline

Dates below are the recorded reassignment dates in the Google Patents legal‑events record for this patent. Where the executed deed date differs (the 2023 transaction), I note it.

• n/a (filed 2012‑09‑13) / recorded 2018‑03‑20 — Reel/frame: not verified for this patent (transaction‑level analog: Reel 034045/0741 — same inventor→RIM conveyance used across the BlackBerry family, per PTAB chain‑of‑title)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (inventor → RIM)
  • Assignor: Brown, Michael S.; Lazaridis, Mihal; Mousseau, Gary P.
  • Assignee: Research In Motion Limited
  • Correspondent: not determined — no correspondent field available to me for this record.
  • Context: confirmatory / due‑diligence clean‑up of the founding assignment (recorded ~16 years post‑filing).

• executed ~2013‑01‑30 / recorded 2014‑01‑01 (and re‑recorded 2016‑02‑17) — Reel/frame: not verified

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (per Google legal event text: "CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Research In Motion Limited
  • Assignee: BlackBerry Limited
  • Correspondent: not determined
  • Context: internal reorg — corporate renaming only; no change in beneficial ownership.

• executed 2023‑03‑20 (PSA Effective Date; closing ~2023‑05‑11) / recorded 2023‑06‑16 — Reel/frame: not verified for this patent (transaction‑level: Reel 063471/0474)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest (BlackBerry → escrow vehicle)
  • Assignor: BlackBerry Limited (and, for certain assets, BlackBerry Corporation, Delaware)
  • Assignee: OT Patent Escrow, LLC, 200 West Madison, 37th Floor, Chicago, IL 60606
  • Correspondent: not verified for this patent. Transaction‑level evidence points to Richard J. Botos, Reg. No. 32,016, Botos Churchill IP Law LLP, 430 Mountain Avenue, Suite 401, New Providence, NJ 07974, who signed the chain‑of‑title certification for the BlackBerry→OT Patent Escrow→Malikie recordings on sister BlackBerry patents and is listed as attorney of record for Malikie‑held patents (e.g., US 8,115,731, asserted v. Nintendo, W.D. Wash. 2:24‑cv‑01490). Flag: Botos recurs across the entire Malikie‑acquired BlackBerry family — the repeated‑correspondent tell.
  • Context: transfer‑to‑asserter / monetization — bulk sale of ~32,000 patents to a patent‑monetization buyer, routed through a Chicago escrow LLC. Public, board‑approved, HSR + Investment Canada Act cleared; not a distress or bankruptcy sale.

• executed 2023‑03‑20 (nunc pro tunc; closing ~2023‑05‑11) / recorded 2023‑06‑16 — Reel/frame: not verified for this patent (transaction‑level: Reel 064066/0001)

  • Conveyance: Nunc Pro Tunc Assignment (back‑dated to the 2023‑03‑20 effective date)
  • Assignor: OT Patent Escrow, LLC
  • Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited, The Glasshouses GH2, 92 Georges Street Lower, Dun Laoghaire, Dublin A96 VR66, Ireland
  • Correspondent: same recurrence flag as above — Botos Churchill IP Law LLP / Richard J. Botos on the Malikie‑side recordings.
  • Context: internal conduit step in the same acquisition — escrow vehicle out, purchasing/monetization entity in.

Patent term, for context: Google records an adjusted expiration of 2022‑11‑20 and a current legal status of "Expired – Fee Related." The '929's 20‑year term ran from the 2002‑07‑23 non‑provisional filing (plus PTA). That means the asset was already at/end‑of‑term when it was conveyed to OT Patent Escrow and then to Malikie in June 2023 — a notable detail: what moved in 2023 was a portfolio bundle including expired members, not a live royalty‑bearing asset.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8676929
    2001 : Provisional filed by RIM inventors
    2002 : Non provisional filed by RIM
    2012 : Continuation filed by RIM
    2014 : Issued to BlackBerry Limited
         : Change of name from RIM recorded
    2018 : Founding inventor assignments recorded
    2019 : BlackBerry sues Facebook and Snap
         : IPR2019-00940 instituted
    2022 : Patent term ends
    2023 : Assigned to OT Patent Escrow LLC
         : Nunc pro tunc to Malikie Innovations

Assertion & PTAB history (overlays the chain)

Critically, every assertion involving this patent was made by BlackBerry itself, as the operating‑company owner, between March 2018 and December 2019 — years before the March 2023 transfer. The patent was invalidated (district court §101; PTAB FWD) before it reached OT Patent Escrow/Malikie.

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
The chain runs operating company → Chicago escrow LLC → Irish licensing entity. Malikie Innovations Limited's only stated business is patent monetization: the PSA recital states BlackBerry "is engaged in the business of licensing such Assigned Patents," and the PSA expressly contemplates "the operation by Purchaser of a patent monetization business with respect to the Assigned Patents." Malikie has no product in commerce — BlackBerry retained a freedom‑to‑operate license (PSA §2.3) and its own core‑business patents. OT Patent Escrow, LLC (200 W. Madison, 37th Fl., Chicago) functions purely as a conduit, existing on the record for a single day‑stamped pair of recordings (both 2023‑06‑16). (Reel/frame patent‑level unverified; transaction‑level 063471/0474 and 064066/0001.)

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (moderate).
Malikie's parent, Key Patent Innovations Limited (Dublin), is an IP‑monetization firm by self‑description and by press characterization, and it deployed the same structure — dedicated Irish acquisition subsidiary + escrow vehicle + back‑end royalties to the seller — for the BlackBerry portfolio. KPI is not one of the legacy named NPEs (not Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi‑LAN etc.), and at the time of the BlackBerry purchase IAM reported KPI had "a scant history of suing in the States," suggesting a negotiated‑license model. It has since begun US assertion activity on acquired patents (e.g., IPR filed against Malikie‑held US 8,115,731 in W.D. Wash. 2:24‑cv‑01490). So: monetization entity, yes; high‑frequency litigant on the '929, no.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT (transaction‑level).
Richard J. Botos, Reg. No. 32,016, Botos Churchill IP Law LLP, New Providence, NJ, signed the 37 C.F.R. 3.73(c) chain‑of‑title certification covering the BlackBerry Limited → OT Patent Escrow, LLC → Malikie Innovations Limited recordings on sister BlackBerry patents, and the firm is the attorney of record for Malikie on the Malikie‑side of the family. That is the classic pattern: the assignee names change, the recording attorney does not. Caveat: I could not verify that Botos is the correspondent field on the '929's own records; my evidence is transaction‑level across the same conveyance. A single appearance would not be a finding — here it recurs across the family and is corroborated by the attorney‑of‑record listing.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Two consecutive recorded transfers on the same date, 2023‑06‑16: BlackBerry Limited → OT Patent Escrow, LLC, immediately followed by OT Patent Escrow, LLC → Malikie Innovations Limited (recorded as a nunc pro tunc assignment back to the 2023‑03‑20 effective date). That is a two‑hop conduit structure completed inside one recording event, months after execution. Both hops share the same correspondent and the same transaction dossier; OT Patent Escrow appears nowhere else in the ownership story.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (for this patent).
This is the inverse of the usual case: the '929 was asserted by the operating owner (BlackBerry) in 2018–2019 and invalidated before the 2023 transfer. There is no pre‑filing transfer arranged to set venue or establish standing for the '929, and no post‑2023 Malikie suit on the '929 that I could identify.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — NOT PRESENT.
BlackBerry was solvent and publicly traded; the sale was an announced, board‑approved divestiture with HSR and Investment Canada Act approvals (PSA §4.1). The failed intermediary buyer (Catapult IP Innovations) ran into financing trouble, which is a buyer‑side failure, not a seller‑side bankruptcy. No Chapter 7/11, no court‑supervised asset sale. The parallel Catapult litigation (E.D. Va. 1:23‑cv‑00724) is a contract/arbitration dispute over which buyer gets the patents — not an insolvency proceeding.

7. Privateering — PRESENT (economics‑based).
The PSA gives BlackBerry a continuing economic stake in Malikie's monetization: 8% of the first $500M of net profits, 16% of the next $250M, 30% of the next $250M, and 50% thereafter, capped initially at $700M (PSA §3.4(a)/(c)), plus $30M deferred consideration. BlackBerry also retained a license back (§2.3) and a redacted non‑assert (§8.2). An operating company selling to a monetization vehicle while retaining a revenue share on recoveries is the defining economics of privateering, even though BlackBerry is not identified as asserting through Malikie on this patent.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti‑NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Malikie Innovations Limited, a monetization entity — the opposite of RPX / AST / LOT / OIN / Unified. The 2023 AST Patent Deals Report tracked the transaction as secondary‑market activity; it did not acquire it.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Four independent strong signals converge, and none of them rests on naming alone. The 2023‑06‑16 recorded double‑hop — BlackBerry Limited → OT Patent Escrow, LLC → Malikie Innovations Limited (nunc pro tunc, executed 2023‑03‑20) — moves the patent from the operating company that invented and shipped it to a no‑products Irish monetization subsidiary of Key Patent Innovations, LLC‑conduit‑style, with the seller retaining an 8%/16%/30%/50% royalty on enforcement profits (PSA §3.4) and the same recording attorney (Richard J. Botos, Reg. No. 32,016, Botos Churchill IP Law LLP) appearing across the BlackBerry→escrow→Malikie recordings on sister patents. The one countervailing fact — and it matters — is that the assertion phase on the '929 was run by BlackBerry itself in 2018–2019, and the claims were held invalid under §101 and unpatentable in IPR2019‑00940 before the 2023 transfer, so what Malikie acquired was an expired, already‑invalidated asset bundled into a 32,000‑patent conveyance rather than a live assertion target. The chain is nonetheless an NPE chain, not an operating‑company or defensive‑aggregator chain.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 8676929; Google‑indexed mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Cross‑checks: Google Patents legal events for US 8,676,929 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676929/en); BlackBerry FY2023 10‑K Patent Sale Agreement (filed 2023‑03‑31, CIK 0001070235); PTAB IPR2019‑00940; IAM "Patent transactions in Q2 2023" (AST Patent Deals Report).

I'll research US Patent 8676929 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the detailed list of references cited on the face of the patent and in the IPR proceedings.

Let me search for the specific cited references on the patent's face.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,676,929

1. Patent identification (search confirmation)

The USPTO/Google Patents record confirms the target patent literally as U.S. Patent No. 8,676,929 B2:

Family litigation noted on the record includes PTAB cases IPR2019-00940 (Final Written Decision), IPR2019-01511 (Settlement), IPR2020-00392 (Not Instituted – Procedural), IPR2019-00829 (Not Instituted – Merits), an Federal Circuit appeal (20-1258), and district-court cases in C.D. Cal. (2:18-cv-02693 and 2:19-cv-01444).

2. Important methodological caveat

I must be explicit about a limitation: my searches did not return the verbatim examiner-cited "References Cited" front-page list for US 8,676,929 (the Google Patents fetch of the patent reproduced the specification, claims, and classifications but not the printed reference list). I therefore cannot itemize the examiner's U.S. patent documents / foreign documents / other publications line-by-line with confidence, and I will not fabricate that list.

What I can give with high confidence is the set of references that third parties actually asserted as prior art against this exact patent in the PTAB proceedings — i.e., the art the challengers considered most relevant. That is drawn directly from the IPR petitions, institution decisions, and final written decision I retrieved.

3. Prior art asserted against the ′929 patent

All references below were asserted in 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) obviousness combinations, not as standalone § 102 anticipatory references. I flag that distinction because it materially affects how you should read "potential § 102 anticipation."

Ground 1 — Langseth + Walther + Zeff + Mann (claims 1–2, 5, 8–10, 13, 16)

(a) Langseth — primary reference

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 6,671,715 B1 (Langseth et al.)
• Date: issued Dec. 30, 2003 (pre-AIA art; cited as Ex. 1003)
• Description: "A delivery system for a personal intelligence network that actively delivers highly personalized and timely informational and transactional data." Users subscribe to various channels of content and to services within each channel, delivered when a predetermined condition occurs (e.g., based on a schedule, an exception condition, or a specific initiation request). Information is stored in a database in a plurality of channels, each corresponding to a field of interest; output may be an HTML email (e.g., Fig. 14 weather-channel message).
• Potential § 102 mapping: Langseth is the only asserted reference that arguably discloses, in a single reference, the core "channelized server + scheduled/event-triggered delivery to a mobile device" architecture. Its strongest § 102 exposure is to claim 1 (time-based triggering event; determining information from one of a plurality of memory-location channels based on matching category) and claim 9 (server with a database organized into a plurality of memory-location channels). It does not expressly disclose the recited meta tag ("identifies the one or more advertisements and advertisement display requirements"), which is why the petitioners had to reach for Walther and Zeff. So Langseth alone is a weak § 102 reference as to claims 1/9 and essentially not anticipatory as to the meta-tag limitation.

(b) Walther — secondary reference

• Citation: Stephen Walther & Jonathan Levine, SAMS Teach Yourself E‑Commerce Programming with ASP in 21 Days (2000) (Ex. 1004)
• Date: 2000 (printed publication)
• Description: Teaches standard HTML tags (e.g., <IMG>) used to insert banner advertisements into web documents and HTML email.
• Potential § 102 mapping: A printed publication under § 102(a)/(b). Relevant to the "meta tag … identifies the one or more advertisements and advertisement display requirements" limitation of claims 1 and 9 (petitioners mapped the HTML <IMG> tag, including width/height attributes, to the claimed meta tag), and to claim 8/16 (advertisement types). Not independently anticipatory of any claim — it lacks the server/channel architecture.

(c) Zeff — secondary reference

• Citation: Robbin Zeff & Brad Aronson, Advertising on the Internet (2nd ed. 1999) (Ex. 1005)
• Date: 1999 (printed publication)
• Description: Internet advertising practices, including banner advertisements and static advertising content; explains that graphical ads in HTML attract more attention than text (the asserted motivation to combine).
• Potential § 102 mapping: Printed publication relevant to claim 8 / 16 ("static advertisement, dynamic advertisement, or default advertisement") and to the advertisement-selection/meta-tag limitations of claims 1 and 9.

(d) Mann — fourth reference

• Citation: Anthony T. Mann, Microsoft SQL Server 7 for Dummies (1998) (Ex. 1006/1023)
• Date: 1998 (printed publication)
• Description: Describes the Microsoft SQL Server 7 database system that Langseth expressly references; used to confirm that data in Langseth's "channels" resides in a "memory location."
• Potential § 102 mapping: Printed publication relevant to the "plurality of memory location channels" limitation of claim 1 and the "database organized into a plurality of memory location channels" limitation of claim 9.

Ground 2 — Ground 1 + Gilhuly (claims 1, 5, 8 only)

(e) Gilhuly — WO 01/22669

• Citation: International Published Patent Application WO 01/22669 A1 (Gilhuly et al.) (Ex. 1019)
• Date: published Mar. 29, 2001
• Description: "System and Method for Pushing Information from a Host System to a Mobile Data Communication Device." A redirector program at the host continuously redirects user-selected data items to the mobile device upon detecting one or more user-defined triggering events, and repackages data items in an electronic wrapper before pushing. Notable here: Gilhuly shares co-inventors with the ′929 patent and descends from an application filed in 1999 — the petitioners used it precisely to show that "pushing information to a mobile device upon a triggering event" was already known.
• Potential § 102 mapping: This is the reference with the closest conceptual identity to the ′929 preamble ("method for pushing information to a mobile device") and to the "detecting a triggering event" element of claims 1 and 9. It was added because Langseth does not expressly use the word "push." As a WO publication dated March 2001 it is pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b) art as of the July 2001 priority date. It does not address advertising meta tags, so it is not anticipatory of the claims as a whole.

Ground 3 — Ground 1 + Laux (claims 9, 10, 13, 16 only)

(f) Laux — U.S. Patent No. 7,406,697

• Citation: U.S. Patent No. 7,406,697 B2 (Laux) (Ex. 1020)
• Dates: filed Dec. 13, 2000; issued July 29, 2008
• Description: Discloses a "merging driver" that treats multiple separate databases as a single large logical database.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Directed at the claim 9 limitation "a database organized into a plurality of memory location channels." Petitioners raised it as an alternative showing that separate per-channel databases could appear/function as one unified database. Not anticipatory of any claim on its own (wrong subject matter core).

Other art noted in the wider record

• Unnold — WO 01/11507 A1: appears in a related petition referencing the ′929 specification. It discloses automatically providing wireless communication devices an Advertising Message combined with a personal information services message, using user "actual current physical location" to select an advertiser record, with static (logo/masthead), default, and dynamic advertising message content delivered over a wireless medium. Its mapping to the static/default/dynamic advertising limitations of claims 8/16 and the location-based selection is notable. I could not fully verify which exact patent in this family this petition targeted, so treat this entry as lower-confidence.
• Zellner (U.S. Patent No. 7,110,749) and Comer (U.S. Patent No. 5,558,042) — identified in the same petition cluster; lower confidence as to the specific ′929 mapping.

4. Most relevant prior art — ranking

5. § 102 vs. § 103 — the key legal takeaway

• No asserted reference in the record was shown to be § 102 anticipatory of any claim, standing alone. Each ground combined Langseth (architecture) with secondary references (ad-insertion mechanics), because Langseth alone lacks the claimed meta tag and Walther/Zeff alone lack the server/channel architecture.
• The pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b) date exposure matters: the ′929 priority date is July 23, 2001, so Zeff (1999), Mann (1998), Walther (2000), Gilhuly (published Mar. 29, 2001), Laux (filed Dec. 13, 2000), and Langseth (issued Dec. 30, 2003, but filed earlier) all qualify as prior art.
• Outcome: In IPR2019-00940, the Board held that the petitioner showed by a preponderance of the evidence that claims 1, 9, 10, and 16 would have been obvious under § 103(a) over Langseth, Walther, Zeff, and Mann; the proceeding was then terminated (termination decision, Dec. 1, 2020) rather than running to a conventional appealable final judgment. A parallel petition (Snap, Inc., IPR2020-00392) was not instituted on procedural grounds, and IPR2019-00829 was not instituted on the merits.

6. What I could not verify (stated rather than guessed)

1. The verbatim examiner-cited reference list printed on the face of US 8,676,929 (U.S. patent documents, foreign patent documents, other publications). My sources reproduced the specification, claims, classifications, and litigation history, but not that printed list.
2. Exact filing dates for Langseth (US 6,671,715) and for the Walther/Zeff/Mann books beyond their stated publication years.
3. Full bibliographic detail (inventors, assignee, exact claim charts) for Unnold, Zellner, and Comer as they relate specifically to the ′929 patent.

If you want, I can attempt a follow-up pass focused solely on extracting the front-page "References Cited" block from the USPTO PatentCenter/Google Patents record, but I wanted to give you verified, citable findings rather than a reconstructed list.

I'll start by grounding this in the actual prior-art and PTAB record for this patent, since the "Prior Art" listing isn't included in the fetched page text.

Let me pull the specific grounds and references from the Facebook IPR final decision and the related proceedings.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,676,929 B2

"System and Method for Pushing Information to a Mobile Device"
Lazaridis, Mousseau & Brown — priority date July 23, 2001 (Prov. 60/307,265); application 13/614,884 filed Sept. 13, 2012; granted Mar. 18, 2014.

1. A necessary caveat about "the Prior Art section of this page"

The fetched Google Patents page for US8676929B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676929B2/en) does not contain a "References Cited / Prior Art" listing in the text I was given — that portion of the page rendered empty. What the page does contain is the litigation/PTAB history block, which is where the operative prior art for this patent actually lives. I have therefore grounded this analysis in the prior-art references actually asserted against this exact patent in the PTAB proceedings (docketed below), rather than inventing a citation list. Where I rely on the record, I cite it.

Procedural posture (from the fetched page and PTAB record):

Source: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2019-00940 ; FWD at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00940/

Governing law: although the '929 application was filed Sept. 13, 2012, it is a continuation of a chain reaching a pre-March 16, 2013 application, so the Board applied pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). The Board expressly said so: "Because the application from which the '929 patent issued was filed before that date, our citations to Title 35 are to its pre-AIA version." (Institution Decision, IPR2019-00940, fn. 1.)

2. The prior art actually in the record

All six predate the July 23, 2001 provisional. Full exhibit list: Petitioner's Updated Exhibit List, IPR2019-00940

Claim construction note: the parties agreed that "memory location channel" means "memory location" (Institution Decision, § I.F). This construction is what made the Langseth/Mann and Langseth/Laux mappings work.

3. Ground 1 — Langseth + Walther + Zeff + Mann

Rendered obvious: claims 1, 9, 10, 16 (claims 5, 8, 13 were disclaimed by BlackBerry on Dec. 18, 2019 under 37 C.F.R. § 1.321(a), so they dropped out).

Element mapping:

• "detecting a triggering event comprising a time triggering event" → Langseth: "Users may subscribe to various channels of content and to specific services within each channel that are delivered when a predetermined condition occurs (e.g., based on a schedule, when an exception condition occurs, or in response to a specific initiation request)." Langseth claim 1 and 1:16–22.
• "determining … information relevant to the detected triggering event from among information stored in one of a plurality of memory location channels … based on a category … matching a pre-defined category" → Langseth stores information in a database in a plurality of "channels," each corresponding to a field of interest (Langseth 4:1–11). Each channel is a memory location (Board's construction).
• "a database organized into a plurality of memory location channels" (claim 9) → Langseth's channel database; Mann supplies the corroborating implementation detail that Microsoft SQL Server 7 — the very database Langseth names — stores a database in separate physical files, i.e., distinct memory locations. Laux (Ground 3) was the alternative teaching for this via its "merging driver" treating separate databases as one logical database.
• "inserting … a meta tag … wherein the meta tag identifies the one or more advertisements and advertisement display requirements" → Walther and Zeff teach standard HTML markup (e.g., <IMG SRC=…> with width/height attributes) to embed banner advertisements into web documents and HTML email. Under the Board's construction this HTML tag is the claimed "meta tag" that both identifies the ad and specifies display requirements (dimensions).
• "advertisements are selected based on the detected triggering event" → Langseth's event/schedule-driven selection of channel content, into which the Zeff/Walther ad markup is inserted.
• Claim 10 ("when the information … comprises advertisement, transmitting the advertisement … instead of the content information that includes the meta tag") → the FWD records the Board agreeing with Petitioner that "in claim 10, it doesn't comprise content; it comprises an advertisement … you don't even need the meta tags." That bifurcated handling is disclosed by the Langseth/Zeff combination.
• Claim 16 ("static advertisement, dynamic advertisement, or default advertisement") → the Board noted "Langseth discloses at least static advertising information" through an advertisement identifying "Flo's Diner," with Zeff supplying the remaining categories; the FWD states these constructions were stipulated by the parties.

Motivation to combine (why a POSITA would have done this):

1. Langseth itself points to the tool. Langseth expressly names Microsoft SQL Server 7; consulting Mann for how that product stores data is the most natural implementation step, not a leap of invention.
2. Standardization / off-the-shelf substitution (KSR). Inserting advertisements into HTML using ordinary HTML tags was the prevailing industry technique, taught by both Walther (e-commerce ASP programming) and Zeff (internet advertising). Substituting a known, standard technique for a proprietary one is the paradigm of obviousness.
3. Explicit teaching in Zeff. Zeff explains the commercial benefit of graphical ads in HTML email for attracting user attention — a direct design incentive to use HTML image tags.
4. Same field, same problem, predictable result. All references are in network-delivered personalized content/advertising; combining them yields nothing more than the predictable, expected result of an ad-supported scheduled push-notification service, with a high expectation of success.

4. Ground 2 — Langseth + Walther + Zeff + Mann + Gilhuly

Rendered obvious: claim 1. This ground exists solely to foreclose the argument that Langseth's scheduled email delivery is not "pushing."

The Board noted the preamble ("a method for pushing information to a mobile device") is "not entirely clear what 'pushing' would require." Gilhuly (WO 01/22669) is squarely on point: "[a] system and method for pushing information from a host system to a mobile data communication device upon sensing a triggering event," where a redirector continuously redirects user-selected data items upon detecting user-defined triggering events (Gilhuly 3:2–11).

Motivation: Langseth and Gilhuly both address timely, event-driven delivery of time-sensitive information to mobile users. A POSITA seeking to ensure Langseth's time-sensitive content (e.g., market data) actually reaches the user as the event occurs would naturally adopt Gilhuly's explicit push mechanism, particularly since Gilhuly is designed to interoperate with host email systems such as Langseth's. The FWD confirms the Board was persuaded on this ground.

5. Ground 3 — Langseth + Walther + Zeff + Mann + Laux

Targeted claims 9, 10, 13, 16 — specifically the claim-9 limitation requiring "a database organized into a plurality of memory location channels." Laux was offered as an alternative mapping via its "merging driver" that treats multiple separate databases as a single logical database.

6. Claims the FWD did not reach — proposed combinations

The FWD addressed only claims 1, 9, 10, 16 (5, 8, 13 being disclaimed; claim 2 was listed on Petition p. 21 but the Board treated that as a typographical error, and a district court order of April 5, 2019 already found claim 2 invalid under § 112 ¶ 4 — Ex. 1028, p. 41). That leaves claims 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15 unadjudicated. On the same references:

• Claim 3 (time trigger = pre-defined interval, significant time of day, lunchtime, suppertime) and Claim 11 (same, server). Langseth's "predetermined condition (e.g., based on a schedule)" plus Gilhuly's user-defined triggering events disclose scheduled, user-configurable delivery times; selecting lunchtime/suppertime as the schedule is a mere design choice with a self-evident rationale (meal-time relevance) — the '929 specification itself presents this as an illustrative example, not a technical advance.
• Claim 4 / Claim 12 (lunchtime or suppertime → restaurant advertisement). Directly follows from Langseth's channel/subscription model (a "restaurant" or "dining" channel) plus the Zeff teaching of targeted advertising; no new technology is added — only the content of a category.
• Claim 6 / Claim 14 (meta tag includes at least a name of each advertisement and a cross-reference value for the user to connect with an advertising source). Walther/Zeff's <IMG SRC="URL"> inherently contains both an identifier/name and a cross-reference (URL) to the hosted advertising source. Where the tag also carries a points/counter value, that is disclosed by Langseth's subscription/accounting data and by conventional referral/banner-rotation accounting in Zeff.
• Claim 7 (repeat determining/inserting/transmitting for each remaining channel). Iterating over the plurality of channels is inherent in Langseth's channel architecture (each channel is queried against the subscription set); a loop over a known data set is conventional and yields only predictable results — KSR "combination of familiar elements according to known methods."
• Claim 15 / Claim 16 (static/dynamic/default advertisement types) on the server side. Addressed above for claim 16; claim 15's system claim mirrors it.

Bottom line for the unadjudicated dependents: the additional limitations are either (a) expressly disclosed by Langseth+Walther+Zeff as mapped in Ground 1, or (b) bare design choices / statutory categories of content with no asserted technical effect. There is no identifiable inventive concept separating them from the independent claims the Board already held unpatentable.

7. Framing the motivation-to-combine argument properly

The Board's analysis tracks Graham v. John Deere and KSR: (i) scope/content of the art; (ii) differences from the claims; (iii) level of ordinary skill; (iv) secondary considerations. The articulated rationales that carry the day are:

1. Explicit pointer in the primary reference (Langseth names SQL Server 7 → consult Mann).
2. Known technique used to improve a similar device in the same way (Walther/Zeff HTML ad markup → applied to Langseth's HTML output).
3. Design incentive / market pressure (Zeff: graphical ads draw more attention; ad revenue subsidizes the service — exactly the '929's stated business model).
4. Predictable, high-expectation-of-success integration of standardized technologies (HTML + SQL) with a known architecture.
5. "Obvious to try" where the prior art gives a finite number of identified, predictable solutions (Laux vs. Mann for the memory-location-channel limitation).

8. Weaknesses, uncertainty, and things I could not verify

• No secondary-considerations record located. I found no evidence in the sources retrieved that BlackBerry proffered nexus-qualified secondary considerations (commercial success, licensing, copying, failure of others) that the Board credited. I did not find the Patent Owner Response or Sur-reply content and cannot state with confidence that none were argued.
• AI-generated case summaries conflict. Summaries at ai-lab.exparte.com for both IPR2019-00940 and IPR2020-00392 list identical ground text (Langseth/Walther/Zeff/Mann/Gilhuly). That is almost certainly an artifact — IPR2020-00392 was not instituted on procedural grounds. I relied on the USPTO/docketalarm primary documents, not those summaries, for the ground structure.
• Unnold / Zellner / Comer. A petition document at ptacts.uspto.gov/.../petitions/1528621 asserts grounds over WO 01/11507 ("Unnold") (advertising messages combined with personal information services to wireless communication devices), U.S. 7,110,749 ("Zellner") and U.S. 5,558,042 ("Comer"), including an Unnold mapping to advertising records stored by "ADVERTISER" category, location-based selection, and static/dynamic/default ad content. I could not verify which proceeding or which patent that petition targets given the tool limits; it may relate to a family member (e.g., the '351/'769 patents) rather than the '929. Treat it as a promising additional line of attack (Unnold in particular maps remarkably well onto claims 6, 8, 15, 16), but confirm the exhibit numbering before relying on it.
• Claim 2 is already invalid under § 112 ¶ 4 per the C.D. Cal. order (Ex. 1028, p. 41) — it need not be reached under § 103.
• Disclaimer effect. Claims 5, 8, and 13 were statutorily disclaimed during IPR2019-00940 and cannot be revived. Any current validity analysis of the '929 is effectively confined to whether claims 1, 3, 4, 6, 7, 9–12, 14–16 survive — and claims 1, 9, 10, 16 were already held unpatentable on the record above.

9. Conclusion

Under pre-AIA § 103(a), claims 1, 9, 10, and 16 are obvious over Langseth + Walther + Zeff + Mann (with Gilhuly additionally used against claim 1 on the "pushing" limitation, and Laux alternatively against claims 9/10/13/16 on the database/memory-location-channel limitation). The Board so held by a preponderance of the evidence in the IPR2019-00940 Final Written Decision. Claims 3, 4, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, and 15 were not adjudicated but add only (a) subject matter expressly disclosed by the same references or (b) content/design choices lacking any asserted technical effect, and would be obvious on the same or substantially the same combinations. Claims 5, 8, and 13 were disclaimed, and claim 2 was separately held invalid under § 112 ¶ 4.

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8676929B2/en · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2019-00940 · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2019-00829 · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2019-00940/