US 8775307

I'll search for the specific patent number and any litigation activity.

Search Results Summary — US Patent No. 8,775,307

Sourcing note

I ran targeted searches for this exact number against Google Patents/Justia/FreePatentsOnline, docket aggregators (PacerMonitor, Justia Dockets, CourtListener), and news. I found no USPTO litigation docket and no CAFC (Federal Circuit) 2026 docket naming U.S. Patent No. 8,775,307. The main 2026 Hartford–patent matter I located is Hartford Fire Insurance Company et al. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC et al., D. Del. 1:26-cv-00392 (filed 2026-04-07, Judge Gregory B. Williams) — a declaratory-judgment action. Per the case's PTO report, the patents at issue there are 8,332,844; 7,949,785; 7,712,080; 7,669,081; 8,447,762; 8,266,124; 7,203,711; and 9,686,183. U.S. 8,775,307 is not among them, so that case is unrelated to this patent. I treat the absence of a docket record as "no known litigation found," not as proof none exists.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative patent text)

Abstract (as issued)

"A computer receives rating information relating to proposed issuance of an insurance policy endorsement. The rating information relates to a proposed insured that employs a number of employees. The computer processes the rating information to generate a premium amount to be charged for the insurance policy endorsement. The endorsement is then issued. The endorsement may provide reimbursement to the insured for losses incurred by the insured arising from absence from work by one or more of the employees."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Note the claims are drawn to claims administration (post-loss), even though the specification and abstract emphasize the rating/issuance side.

Independent Claim 1 — data processing system
A system (processor + memory + display) that administers an insurance contract for an employer policyholder. The memory stores instructions to:

1. Receive claim information for a claim by the employer-holder for at least part of the costs the employer incurred due to an employee's absence from work;
2. Store that claim information together with coverage rules, where the rules include a duration limit for covered absences that varies by class of employee;
3. Retrieve the claim information — including the employee's class and the duration of the absence — determine the duration limit based on the received class, and apply the coverage rules (applying that determined duration limit to the received duration) to compute the amount reimbursable to the holder; and
4. In response to that determination, authorize payment to the holder; plus a display for displaying the processed claim information.

The distinguishing hook relative to generic claims-processing art appears to be the class-of-employee-dependent duration limit that is looked up and applied to the claimed absence period.

Independent Claim 17 — method
The method counterpart, performed "in a computer," with the same core sequence: receive claim information (employer-holder's costs from employee absence); store claim information and coverage rules including the class-varying duration limit; retrieve the claim info including employee class and absence duration, determine the duration limit from the class, and apply the rules to determine the reimbursable amount; display the claim information to a claim handler; and authorize payment by the computer in response to input provided by the claim handler (i.e., a human-in-the-loop approval step).

Dependent-claim coverage (brief)

Claims 2–16 and 18–22 add limitations such as: policy type (group life, group benefits, employer health, workers' comp, property, casualty) (2, 18); WC-policy endorsement (3, 19); WC-compensable vs. non-compensable absences (4, 5); stand-alone policy (6); caps / type-and-percentage-of-loss rules (7, 22); property/casualty endorsement (8, 20); replacement-worker hiring costs (9); travel/living expenses for a replacement (10); overtime paid to other employees (11); receipt of payroll data from a payroll services contractor (12); lost-revenue claims and their validation via a database or third-party supplier (13–15); badge-reader data (login/logout dates and times) made available to a claim handler to verify absence (16); and triggering a premium-base audit in response to receiving a claim (21).

Note a literal-reading quirk: claim 22 is drafted as "The data processing system of claim 17…" even though claim 17 is a method claim — an apparent inconsistency in the issued text that I am reporting as written rather than correcting.

Disclosed but unclaimed subject matter (context)

The specification also describes rating/issuance workflows (FIG. 4): receiving rating information (employee roster, wages, occupation class, locations, experience rating); computing premium from estimated claim severity × likelihood × profit/expense factor; and specifically a formula of (A) coverage factor × (B) average weekly wage × (C) expected average duration × (D) expected utilization. It describes tiered coverage levels (e.g., 30/60/90-day durations, 50%/75%/100% of average weekly wage) and different classes of covered absence per tier. None of this rating methodology appears in the independent claims.

Uncertainty flags

• Confidence in bibliographic data and claim text: high — these come directly from the patent's own front matter, description, and claims.
• Litigation: low confidence that any exists. I found no court or CAFC docket citing U.S. 8,775,307. I cannot rule out an unpublished or very recent filing; absence of search hits is not authoritative proof of no litigation. (Web search also returned a step-limit message on one query, so coverage was not exhaustive.)
• Google Patents lists a later Hartford item titled "Absence framework" with the identifier shown as US12602663B2 (priority 2024-09-25, publication 2026-04-14) among documents citing this patent. I report that identifier exactly as displayed and do not vouch for its formatting, since an eleven-digit US patent number is anomalous.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8775307.

Search Results: Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,775,307

No litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 8,775,307 was found.

I searched patent-litigation databases and sources (Unified Patents litigation resources, PACER/RECAP materials surfaced via CourtListener and Justia dockets, PTAB/IPR filings, and general web sources). Every "307" hit returned by the searches corresponded to different patents, and I did not locate any case in which US 8,775,307 was asserted, challenged, or put at issue.

What the searches did surface (and why it is not this patent)

To avoid any ambiguity, here is what was found and why each item is excluded:

Corroborating context from the patent record

• Assignee/Owner: Hartford Fire Insurance Company (assignment recorded 2010-07-21; REEL/FRAME 024720/0212).
• Priority/filing date: 2010-07-21; grant date: 2014-07-08.
• Status: Active; adjusted expiration 2031-05-19 (maintenance fees paid 2017 and 2022; a fee reminder was mailed 2026-02-23).
• Related family member: divisional application US 14/297,005 (pub. US20140288977A1, "Systems and Methods for Administering Work Absence Insurance"), which went abandoned — a prosecution event, not litigation.
• The only "cited by" documents are later publications (US20160027121A1, Berkeley Point Capital; US12602663B2, Hartford Fire Insurance Co.) and third-party citations — none indicating an enforcement action against this patent.

Bottom line

I am not able to report any known litigation — district court, ITC, CAFC, or PTAB — involving US 8,775,307. Based on the available search results, it appears the patent has not been asserted in any infringement suit, nor has it been the subject of an IPR/PGR/CBM or reexamination.

Caveats and confidence level: This is a negative finding, and negative findings are inherently limited by database coverage and lag. Docket aggregators (Unified Patents, Justia, CourtListener/RECAP, Docket Alarm) do not always capture every filing promptly, and some district-court dockets are not fully public. If you need a definitive answer for a freedom-to-operate or validity opinion, I recommend a paid, docket-complete search (Lex Machina, Docket Navigator, or Darts-IP) and a PACER check on the assignee (Hartford Fire Insurance Company) as plaintiff, plus a check of the patent's file wrapper and any recorded assignments for changes in ownership. I was unable to reach a source that affirmatively confirms zero filings, so the absence of results should be treated as "none found" rather than a certified "none exists."

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" finding against live sources before writing.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The structured PTAB block sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for US 8,775,307, and my live searches (Google Patents/Justia, PTAB petition PDFs, PTAB Trial Blog, general web) surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal naming this patent or its application number 12/840,680. The breakdown is therefore: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. The defensive posture for a defendant is simply this: the patent has never been tested at the PTAB — all 22 issued claims are UNTESTED and remain presumptively valid, and no petitioner has generated any estoppel or invalidity finding you can free-ride on.

I must state the confidence level plainly: this is a "no activity found" conclusion, not a certified negative. ODP ingest lags, my coverage was not exhaustive (one search batch terminated on a step limit), and an unindexed, recently filed, or sealed petition cannot be ruled out. Treat the following as the current accurate state of the record as of 2026-09-28.

No proceedings to detail

There is no proceeding number to report. I will not invent one. For completeness, I note the negative-search evidence I relied on:

• The structured ODP-sourced block states no AIA trial proceedings are on file for this patent.
• Searches for "8775307"/"8,775,307" combined with IPR, CBM, PTAB, Hartford, and the application number 12/840,680 returned only (a) the patent's own Google Patents/Justia pages, and (b) unrelated patents that happen to share the trailing digits '307 (e.g., U.S. 8,903,307; U.S. 8,223,117), plus a 2013 CBM/stay order in Progressive litigation involving other Hartford and Liberty Mutual patents — not U.S. 8,775,307.
• The earlier-provided litigation scan likewise found no district-court or CAFC docket naming this patent, and confirmed that the 2026 Hartford–Intellectual Ventures matter (Hartford Fire Ins. Co. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC, D. Del. 1:26-cv-00392) does not involve U.S. 8,775,307.

Why this is unsurprising — and what it tells a defendant

US 8,775,307 issued 2014-07-08 on an application filed 2010-07-21 (pre-AIA; priority 2010-07-21). That timing matters to your remedy menu:

The practical takeaway: IPR is the only AIA trial route left, and it is a pure §102/§103 patents-and-printed-publications vehicle — § 112 and public-use/on-sale grounds are off the table at the PTAB.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 8,775,307 has been canceled, confirmed, or even challenged. All 22 claims — including independent system claim 1 and independent method claim 17 — carry the full statutory presumption of validity, and their scope has never been construed by the Board. The patent has real remaining life: adjusted expiration 2031-05-19, with maintenance fees paid through the 8th year (2022-01-07 payment) and a reminder mailed 2026-02-23 for the next fee (an 11.5-year fee, due around the 2026 anniversary). As of today that leaves roughly five years of enforceable term, which is still enough runway to justify a validity challenge if you face assertion.

Estoppel landscape: wide open. Because no IPR has ever reached a final written decision on these claims, no § 315(e)(1) or § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. There is no petitioner, no real party in interest, and no privy barred from raising § 102, § 103, or § 112 defenses in district court or in a future IPR. Your invalidity case is unconstrained by any prior PTAB record. Conversely, the patent owner enjoys no PTAB-based collateral estoppel against you either — nothing has been decided.

Two additional constraints worth flagging if you are serving or have been served with a complaint:

• § 315(b) time bar: If you (or a privy/RPI) were served with an infringement complaint more than one year ago, and no earlier-filed IPR exists to join, your IPR window may already be closed. Check service dates before budgeting a petition.
• § 315(a)(1): Do not file a declaratory-judgment action of invalidity before petitioning — it bars institution. File the IPR first.

Pattern signals: none. There is no serial petitioner, no defensive aggregator (I found no Unified Patents or similar entity in the chain), and no evidence the patent owner (Hartford Fire Insurance Company) has ever had to defend this patent at the Board. For context, Hartford has appeared as a petitioner in unrelated PTAB/§ 18 matters (the 2013 CBM-era stay order in the Progressive litigation), so the company knows the forum — it simply has never litigated this patent there. There is also an abandoned divisional (US 14/297,005 → US 2014/0288977 A1), which means the patent family's only live member is this patent; that abandoned child is not a separate target.

One prosecution-history artifact to mine. The face of the patent lists 17+ cited references, two of which are directly on point for absence management: US 7,184,962 / US 2003/0154098 (Kalnas, "System and method for managing employee absences") and Hartford's own US 5,557,515 (work management). These were considered by the examiner, which cuts both ways: they are strong § 102/§ 103 springboards, but expect a § 325(d) discretionary-denial fight under Advanced Bionics if you lead with art already of record. The non-patent citation (Lawrence Kren, "How playing it safe pays," All Business, Mar. 2003) is also of record. Your strongest IPR grounds will likely be art that is NOT on the face of the patent — particularly references targeting the sole apparent novelty hook, the class-of-employee-dependent duration limit recited in claims 1 and 17.

Recommended next steps

1. If you have been served and the demand letter or complaint asserts claims 1 and/or 17: you cannot point to an FWD, because none exists. There is no "claim 1 is dead" argument available. Your invalidity posture must be built from scratch — commission a § 102/§ 103 search aimed at (a) workforce-absence/leave-management systems predating 2010 and (b) workers' compensation claim-adjudication systems that apply duration limits by employee class or job code.
2. If you are contemplating an IPR: confirm § 315(b) service-date status first, then prioritize non-cumulative art (to preempt a Advanced Bionics § 325(d) denial). The narrowest, most attackable recited feature is the "duration limit ... varying by class of employee" limitation that both independent claims share; a ground that maps that limitation with a § 103 rationale is the highest-value petition theory.
3. If no assertion is pending: there is no defensive urgency. The absence of any PTAB activity is itself a modest signal — well-asserted insurance-software patents tend to attract IPR/CBM petitions, and this one drew none during the entire CBM era (2012–2020), which may indicate Hartford has never monetized it aggressively. That cuts against an early, expensive preemptive challenge.
4. Re-verify before you rely. Because my finding is a negative, re-run the ODP and PTAB E2E search (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) plus a CourtListener docket check (https://www.courtlistener.com) immediately before any filing or settlement decision, in case a petition has been filed since the last ingest.

Confidence: high that no PTAB proceeding is indexed as of 2026-09-28; moderate-low that none exists at all, given the negative-search and ingest-lag caveats above. I have not fabricated any proceeding number, panel, or decision.

I'll verify the assignment record against the USPTO Assignment Center before writing up.

Sourcing caveat (read first)

I could not load the Assignment Center UI directly (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) — my search steps were exhausted before the interactive record rendered. The assignment data below is reconstructed from the USPTO assignment record as mirrored in the authoritative Google Patents "Legal Events" table for US 8,775,307 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US8775307/en), which reproduces the reel/frame and free-format text verbatim, plus a corroborating PatentsView/PlainSite mirror for Hartford's assignment practice. Verify against https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search by patent number 8775307). Any field I could not retrieve is marked [not retrieved] rather than guessed.

Inventors

All four executed an ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST in favor of Hartford effective 2010-07-21 — the same day as the filing date — which is the ordinary employee-invention practice for a corporate filer and confirms all four were Hartford-affiliated at filing.

Unusual-pattern check: no evidence of the classic pre-fire-sale tell (inventors departing within 12 months of filing). I have no data on any inventor's post-filing employment history — LinkedIn/SEC-adjacent corroboration was not reachable within my search budget. Note the recurrence of inventor Kelly J. McLaughlin across Hartford's employee-absence patent family (this patent and the later "Absence framework" item that cites it), which is consistent with sustained in-house subject-matter ownership rather than an inventor cluster assembled for a sale.

Original assignee

Hartford Fire Insurance Company — Connecticut. Address of record on Hartford's other recorded assignments: Hartford Plaza, 690 Asylum Avenue, Hartford, CT 06115. Original and current assignee; no change of owner has ever been recorded.

• Primary line of business: property/casualty and workers' compensation insurance underwriting; subsidiary of The Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc. (NYSE-listed operating insurer).
• Product embodying the claims: the patented subject matter is an insurance product — an endorsement (or stand-alone policy) reimbursing an employer for costs/lost revenue from employee absence, contemplated as an attachment to a WC, property/casualty, group life, group health, or group benefits policy (claims 2, 3, 6, 8, 18–20; spec. FIG. 4 issuance workflow). Hartford is a real writer of WC and group benefits coverage, so this is a practiced product line, not a paper patent held by a non-manufacturing entity.
• Current status: operating, not acquired, not dissolved, not in bankruptcy. Maintenance fees were affirmatively paid on 2017-12-21 (4th year) and 2022-01-07 (8th year), and a 12th-year fee reminder was mailed 2026-02-23 — i.e., the owner is actively maintaining the patent through at least the 8th-year window and the estate was still live as of the 2026 docket.

Assignment timeline

One (1) recorded assignment exists for this patent. There are no post-issuance assignments, security agreements, mergers, name changes, licenses, or releases on the record.

• 2010-07-21 (executed/effective) / recorded 2010-07-21 — Reel 024720/0212
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)"
  • Assignor: McLaughlin, Kelly J.; Adams, Jonathan Kaleb; Rice, Christopher D.; and Others (i.e., Carmen L. Sharp)
  • Assignee: Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Connecticut
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — the mirrored record exposes only the reel/frame, the assignor list, and the "AND OTHERS" free-format text; it does not surface the correspondent of record for this reel. I will not attribute a firm by inference. For context only, Hartford's later recorded assignments (e.g., a 2019 recording at reel 48507/009 for application 13/242,610) list Volpe & Koenig, PC, 30 South 17th Street, Suite 1800, Philadelphia, PA 19103 as correspondent — that is a different reel and a different patent, so it is not evidence about reel 024720/0212, and no recurrence flag can be run on this chain.
  • Context: Ordinary employee-invention assignment at filing — first-party title capture by the corporate employer, not an acquisition, restructuring, or monetization step.

Related-family note: the co-pending divisional US 14/297,005 (filed 2014-06-05; published US 2014/0288977 A1; abandoned) shows no recorded assignment in the family table — consistent with it never having been separately conveyed. Its abandonment closed that branch without any transfer activity.

Beyond the assignment, the only other recorded legal events are maintenance-fee events and the grant notice. That absence is the finding: title never left Hartford Fire Insurance Company.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8775307
    2010 : Filed by Hartford Fire Insurance
         : Inventors assign rights to Hartford
    2012 : Pre-grant publication
    2014 : Patent issued
         : Divisional filed then abandoned
    2017 : 4th year maintenance fee paid
    2022 : 8th year maintenance fee paid
    2026 : 12th year fee reminder mailed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No transfer to any entity with an IP/Holdings/Ventures/Licensing suffix. The sole assignee is Hartford Fire Insurance Company, an operating regulated insurer, per reel 024720/0212 (2010-07-21). No single-purpose LLC, no registered-agent drop-box address anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Neither the original nor the current assignee appears on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Innovatio / MPHJ / Lumen View / Round Rock / Document Generation / Spangenberg lists, nor on any RPX or Unified Patents high-frequency-plaintiff list I could surface. Google Patents shows zero "Cited By" NPE-family records and no litigation section for this patent.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not assessable. The correspondent of record for reel 024720/0212 was [not retrieved], and there is only one link in the chain, so recurrence cannot be tested even in principle. This is a genuine evidentiary gap, stated as such; I will not substitute Volpe & Koenig (a different reel) for the missing field.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. One assignment over a 16-year life; no chained LLCs, no shared-correspondent cluster, no sub-24-month sequence.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit naming US 8,775,307 was located (see the prior section's litigation search: the 2026 Hartford matter, Hartford Fire Insurance Co. v. Intellectual Ventures I LLC, D. Del. 1:26-cv-00392, does not name this patent). With no suit and no assignment within six months of any suit, the trigger condition is unmet.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Hartford Financial Services Group is an operating, NYSE-listed insurer; no Chapter 7/11 proceeding, no patent-sale order, no reversion to a liquidating trust appears on the record.

7. Privateering — not present. No transfer out of Hartford to an assertion vehicle; no SEC 10-K/8-K disposition of this patent surfaced, and no Patent Progress/EFF coverage links Hartford to an assertion proxy over this patent.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent has not been neutralized by transfer to a defensive pool; it simply remains with its original operating owner.

Verdict

Insufficient data — applying the rubric literally: the only recorded conveyance is the original inventor-to-employer assignment (reel 024720/0212, effective 2010-07-21), so there is no transfer chain to score as an NPE pattern.

Substantively this is the opposite of a troll setup: title has rested continuously with Hartford Fire Insurance Company, an operating insurer that actively maintains the patent (4th-year fee paid 2017-12-21; 8th-year fee paid 2022-01-07; 12th-year reminder 2026-02-23), practices the claimed subject matter as a real absence/WC endorsement product line, and shows no litigation and no assertion activity on this patent. The two structural items worth carrying forward are the [not retrieved] correspondent for reel 024720/0212 and the identified claim-22 drafting inconsistency (drawn as a system claim but depending from method claim 17) already flagged in the summary section.

Verify at: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search "8775307") and https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — retrieving the correspondent field for reel 024720/0212 is the single open task that would let signal 3 be scored rather than marked unclear.

I'll search for the patent and each of its cited references to build an accurate prior-art analysis.

I have strong data on the core insurance-system references. Now let me examine the remaining cited references, especially the Thomas "collateral damage/secondary loss" family, which is likely the most substantive prior art.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,775,307 B2

Title: Systems and methods for administering extended absence insurance
Assignee: Hartford Fire Insurance Company | App. No. 12/840,680 | Filed/Priority: 2010-07-21 | Granted: 2014-07-08
Scope note: Per the operating rules, patent numbers and identifiers are read literally and not auto-corrected. The reference list below is drawn from the patent's own front matter (the "Patent Citations" list of 18 U.S. documents plus 1 non-patent citation), which is the authoritative record of what was cited against this patent during prosecution.

1. Analytical framework — what § 102 must do here

For a reference to anticipate (not merely render obvious) either independent claim, it must disclose every element. The two independent claims require, in substance:

• (1) Processor + memory + display;
• (2) Receive claim information for a claim by an employer-holder for costs incurred by the holder as a result of an employee's absence from work;
• (3) Store claim info + coverage rules, the rules including a duration limit for covered absences that varies by class of employee;
• (4) Retrieve claim info including employee class and absence duration, determine the duration limit from the received class, and apply the rules (including the determined duration limit) to compute the reimbursable amount;
• (5) Authorize payment to the holder (claim 17 adds a claim-handler display and payment authorized in response to claim-handler input).

The decisive hook is element (4): a computer that looks up a duration limit keyed to the employee's class and applies it to the claimed absence period. No cited reference was identified that discloses this element. Accordingly, my assessment is that no single cited reference anticipates claim 1 or claim 17; the cited art is chiefly relevant to the dependent claims and as § 103 combination material. I map each reference below accordingly and flag where I lacked full text.

2. Reference-by-reference analysis

A. The two strongest "insurance administration / claims processing" references

A1. US 5,557,515 A — Computerized system and method for work management

• Assignee: Hartford Fire Insurance Company, Inc. | Inventors: Abbruzzese et al.
• Filed: 1995-03-17 (continuation, ultimately tracing to 1989-08-11) | Granted/Published: 1996-09-17 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description: A claim/workflow management system for a line-of-business insurance claims operation (expressly listing workmen's compensation as one LOB). It captures loss-notice data into a database, routes/assigns claims to handlers via electronic "mailboxes," pre-fills fields from policy data, sets diary dates based on claim type, maintains an activity log, provides display of claim images/summary files, and includes payment handling through the system.
• Potential §102 relevance: Not anticipatory of claim 1/17 — it contains no class-of-employee duration limit for employee-absence cost reimbursement. It is potentially anticipatory material for the general system elements: a claims-processing system with processor, memory, display, and payment issuance (claim 1 preamble/steps; claim 17 display + payment authorization), and it is highly relevant § 103 art for claims 1, 7 (payment caps/percentage rules), 17. Note it is Hartford's own earlier patent.

A2. US 5,191,522 A — Integrated group insurance information processing and reporting system based upon an enterprise-wide data structure

• Assignee: ITT Corporation | Inventors: Bosco, Annis, Prouty
• Filed: 1990-01-18 | Granted: 1993-03-02 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description: An enterprise-wide relational-database system integrating sales, underwriting, administration, claims and actuarial functions for group insurance (Life, AD&D, LTD, Medical, Dental, Weekly Disability). Includes a CLAIM entity ("a request from a participant for reimbursement for an incurred procedure or loss"), CLAIM BENEFIT entities, benefit codes, and administration modules for claim payment, billing, and validation — plus workstation display.
• Potential §102 relevance: The broad "group insurance claims processing with display" disclosure touches claims 2 and 18 (enumerated policy types — group life/benefits/health), and the generic system elements of claims 1/17. It does not disclose an employer-held policy reimbursing employer costs due to employee absence, nor a class-varying duration limit; it is a § 103 reference, not an anticipatory one.

B. Employee-absence management references

B1. US 7,184,962 B2 — System and method for managing employee absences

• Assignee: KCRS, Inc. | Inventors: Scherm, Kalnas | Filed: 2003-02-13 | Granted: 2007-02-27 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description: Generates an "incident case" for an employee absence, defines/integrates portions of the case, populates a relational database with parent files, and generates absence reports; information is used to make absence-management decisions.
• Potential §102 relevance: Directly relevant to the "employee absence" data aspects (claims 9–11, 16 context; the absence-recording substrate), but it is an HR/absence-tracking tool — it does not disclose an insurance contract reimbursing employer costs, nor any duration limit by employee class applied to compute a reimbursable amount. Not anticipatory of 1/17.

B2. US 2003/0154098 A1 — System and method for managing employee absences (pre-grant publication of the same KCRS/Kalnas family)

• Published: 2003-08-14 | Priority: 2002-02-14 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description/Relevance: Same disclosure as B1, published as an application. Same conclusion: absence-management art, not insurance-reimbursement art; relevant only as background/§ 103.

C. The Thomas "collateral / secondary loss" family (indirect-loss insurance)

This family is the closest conceptual prior art because it is directed to financing an insured's indirect/collateral losses (e.g., lost income, extra expense) that a traditional policy does not cover — the same economic problem the '307 patent addresses (employer's extra cost/lost revenue from an employee's absence).

C1. US 2004/0230460 A1 — Secondary loss expense coverage

• Inventor: Thomas Bruce Bradford | Filed: 2003-08-22 | Published: 2004-11-18 | Priority: 2002-09-16 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description: A contract/coverage method paying a buyer for collateral (indirect/consequential) losses — expressly including lost income and extra expenses — where coverage and premium are functions of an underlying insurance policy's recovery/premium. The spec discusses property/casualty loss-adjustment economics and reducing underwriting/LAE costs.
• Potential §102 relevance: Relevant to the concept of insuring indirect/extra-expense losses (claims 7, 13 framing). But it claims a contractual coverage structure, not a data-processing system that (a) stores a class-varying duration limit and (b) computes a reimbursable amount for an employer under an employee-absence claim. Not anticipatory of 1/17.

C2. US 2008/0162195 A1 — Collateral damage coverage

• Inventor: Bruce Bradford Thomas | Published: 2008-07-03 | Priority: 2002-09-16 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description: Coverage for "collateral damages" — economic damages from an insured loss event not covered by the traditional policy (deductibles, limits, coinsurance penalties, and enumerated items such as human-resource expenses, work-around expenses, financing costs, advertising, diversion of management time). Payment is derived from referenced paid losses of an underlying policy.
• Potential §102 relevance: Conceptually overlaps the "extra expense / lost revenue" coverage intent behind claims 9–11, 13. Still a coverage-contract disclosure, not a claims-processing system with a class-keyed duration rule. § 103 material at most.

C3. US 2005/0102168 A1 — Collateral coverage for insurers and advisors (published 2005-05-12; priority 2003-11-10; § 102(b))
C4. US 2007/0282641 A1 — Horizontal excess coverage for insurers and advisors (published 2007-12-06; priority 2003-11-10; § 102(b))
C5. US 2007/0282642 A1 — Horizontal excess coverage (published 2007-12-06; priority 2003-08-22; § 102(b))
C6. US 2008/0208640 A1 — Collateral damage limits (published 2008-08-28; priority 2005-10-13; § 102(b))
C7. US 2008/0306779 A1 — Collateral damage coverage for insurers and third parties (published 2008-12-11; priority 2003-11-10; § 102(b))

• Description (family): Continuations/variants of the Thomas collateral-loss concept covering indirect/consequential damages and excess/horizontal coverage layered by reference to an underlying policy, including techniques for defining coverage limits and premium by reference to referenced loss payments.
• Potential §102 relevance: Same as C1/C2 — relevant § 103/near-art for claims 7, 13 and the general "indemnify the holder for indirect losses" concept; none discloses the class-varying duration-limit claims-administration element. Applying under 35 U.S.C. § 102 individually: no anticipation of claims 1 or 17.

Caveat: I retrieved full text for C1 and C2 but only titles/abstract-level data for C3–C7. Descriptions for C3–C7 are therefore given at a lower confidence level based on their titles and family relationship; full-text verification is recommended.

D. Income-protection / benefits-injury references (insurance-type and triggering-event art)

D1. US 2002/0072936 A1 — Children's income protection and benefit health insurance policy and method of underwriting the same

• Inventor: Newman, Jeffrey Marc | Published: 2002-06-13 | Priority: 2000-08-08 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description/Relevance: An income-protection insurance policy with an underwriting method. Touches insurance underwriting/rating concepts and policy-type subject matter relevant to claims 2, 18 and the rating background, but not the absence-duration-by-class claims step. Not anticipatory.

D2. US 2006/0074800 A1 — Conscription income protection plan and military draft insurance

• Inventor: Mitchell, Ralph | Published: 2006-04-06 | Priority: 2004-09-28 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description/Relevance: An income-protection plan triggered by a person's absence (military conscription). Relevant conceptually to coverage triggered by a period of absence, but it does not disclose employer-loss reimbursement or a class-keyed duration limit applied by a claims system. Not anticipatory.

D3. US 2010/0100561 A1 — Benefits management for enterprise-level human capital management

• Assignee: Workscape, Inc. | Published: 2010-04-22 | Priority: 2008-10-15 | §102 basis: § 102(a) (published <1 yr before the '307 filing date, so § 102(b) does not apply).
• Description/Relevance: Enterprise benefits administration (group benefits/health, leave). Relevant to claims 2, 18 (group benefits/health policy types) and the administration environment. Not a claims-reimbursement-with-class-duration-limit disclosure. Not anticipatory.

E. Cost/expense estimation and other cited art

E1. US 2007/0021985 A1 — Uninsured cost estimation system and method

• Assignee: Comperaser, Inc. | Published: 2007-01-25 | Priority: 2005-07-22 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description/Relevance: Estimating uninsured/indirect costs of losses. Relevant to the lost-revenue/extra-expense quantification aspects (claims 7, 13–15) and the rating/estimation background, but not to the class-varying duration-limit claim step. Title/abstract-level confidence.

E2. US 2006/0031104 A1 — System and method for optimizing insurance estimates

• Inventor: Gianantoni, Raymond J. | Published: 2006-02-09 | Priority: 2004-08-09 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description/Relevance: Optimizing insurance estimates (estimating/valuation workflow). Relevant only to the rating/estimation background and possibly § 103 for a "determine amount" step; not anticipatory of 1/17. Title-level confidence.

E3. US 2009/0144094 A1 — Systems And Methods For Hospital Confinement And Care Industry Insurance Policy

• Inventor: Morey, Thomas O. | Published: 2009-06-04 | Priority: 2006-12-01 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description/Relevance: A specialty insurance policy for an industry; relevant at most to policy-type subject matter (claims 2, 18). Not anticipatory. Title-level confidence.

E4. US 2008/0015964 A1 — Retail Price Hedging

• Inventor: Shuster, Gary S. | Published: 2008-01-17 | Priority: 2005-10-25 | §102 basis: § 102(b).
• Description/Relevance: A financial hedging instrument (price-risk management). Identified as the weakest/most tangential citation in the list; relevant only to generic "risk-transfer/financial-contract" framing, if at all. Not anticipatory. Title-level confidence.

F. Non-patent literature

F1. Lawrence Kren, "How playing it safe pays," All Business, Mar. 2003, retrieved Apr. 22, 2010 from http://www.allbusiness.com/print/[1146842](/patent/1146842)-1-22eeq.html (2 pp.).

• §102 basis: § 102(b) printed publication (Mar. 2003, >1 yr before 2010-07-21).
• Description/Relevance: A trade/press article on the return-on-investment of workplace safety (i.e., economic justification for safety/risk programs). Cited as background; it is not an enabling disclosure of a claims-administration system and cannot anticipate any claim. Useful, if at all, only as § 103/general-context evidence of the business motivation to reduce workplace-absence costs.

3. Summary table — citation, dates, and § 102 posture

Note: All U.S. patent documents listed are shown at the effective date the citation list supplies (priority/filing and publication/grant). Items with a U.S. publication before 2010-07-21 also qualify as § 102(a)/(b) art; the Workscape publication (2010-04-22) falls inside the one-year grace window, so only § 102(a) is available against it.

4. Bottom line

1. No cited reference anticipates independent claim 1 or claim 17. The point of novelty/common element — a claims-administration system that stores a duration limit for covered absences that varies by employee class, determines that limit from the received class, applies it to the received absence duration, and thereby computes the reimbursable amount to the employer-holder — is not disclosed by any of the 18 patent documents or the NPL citation. The references supply, at most, the surrounding environment (generic insurance claims processing, group-benefits administration, employee-absence tracking, and indirect/collateral-loss coverage).

2. The cited art maps mainly to dependent claims and to § 103. The Hartford (§ A1) and ITT (§ A2) references are the best § 102/§ 103 material for the generic system/display/payment-authorization elements; the Thomas family (§ C) is the closest conceptual art for insuring employer indirect/extra-expense losses (claims 7, 13–15); the KCRS/Kalnas family (§ B) is the closest for employee-absence data handling; and the remaining references (income protection, benefits management, cost estimation, policy type) are background/policy-type art.

3. Confidence and limitations.

• High confidence: the reference list itself, dates, assignees, and the § 102(b)/§ 102(a) categorization — taken from the patent's authoritative citation table.
• Medium confidence: descriptions of US 5,557,515, US 5,191,522, US 7,184,962/US 2003/0154098, US 2004/0230460, and US 2008/0162195, which I retrieved in full.
• Lower confidence: descriptions of the remaining Thomas sub-family members (C3–C7) and US 2006/0031104, US 2007/0021985, US 2009/0144094, US 2008/0015964, US 2006/0074800, US 2002/0072936, and US 2010/0100561, for which I confirmed titles/dates/assignees but not complete claim text. A file-wrapper/full-text pull for each is recommended before relying on any of these for an invalidity contention.
• This is a prior-art/§ 102-and-§ 103 citation analysis of the references cited on the face of the '307 patent; it is not an exhaustive independent prior-art search. References not cited during prosecution (including non-U.S. art) could be more material and were outside this task's scope.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art citations listed on the patent page. Let me verify the content of the most load-bearing references rather than reasoning from titles alone.

Good grounding on the core references. Let me verify the remaining prior art cited on the patent page.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,775,307 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Sourcing note. Per instruction, I use the prior-art citations appearing on the patent page. Two groups there are not prior art to a 2010-07-21 priority date and are excluded from the § 103 combinations: the "Cited By" items (US20160027121A1, Berkeley Point, 2014; US12602663B2, Hartford — reported exactly as displayed) and "Families Citing this family." I flag below where I could not fully verify a reference's disclosure text.

1. Framework and the person of ordinary skill

POSITA. A software/insurance-systems engineer with ~2–4 years' experience building claims- or benefits-administration systems, familiar with rules-engine design, and possessing general knowledge of property/casualty and workers' compensation (WC) claim practice. Notably, the '307 specification treats most of its own content as conventional — e.g., premium audits performed "in similar fashion to auditing for WC coverage premiums," and claim-handling applications that "generally operate in accordance with conventional principles." Those are admissions that narrow the field of non-obviousness.

The likely point of novelty. The independent claims are drawn to the post-loss claims-administration side (the abstract and FIG. 4 covering rating/issuance are largely unclaimed). The hook the examiner likely relied on is the duration limit for covered absences that varies by class of employee (claim 1 element; mirrored in claim 17), which is computed by looking up the limit from the received employee class and applying it to the claimed absence duration. My analysis therefore concentrates there, and shows why even that feature is a predictable design choice over the cited art.

2. Prior-art reference map (from the patent page)

3. Independent Claim 1

Motive to combine. All references sit in the same two art units the '307 patent itself is classified in — G06Q 10/10 (office/absence administration) and G06Q 40/08 (insurance). Kalnas '962 identifies the very problem the '307 patent recites: that WC/disability benefits go to employees while the employer absorbs overtime, replacement-worker and lost-productivity costs, and that these costs are hard to quantify. Thomas '460 supplies the complementary recognition that collateral business losses (lost income, extra expense) can be insured, and Hartford '515 supplies a ready-made claim-processing chassis (intake → handler review → reserve → payment → display) that is expressly multi-line and WC-capable. Combining them is not merely "obvious to try" but the natural integration a POSITA would pursue to add employer-absence coverage to an existing claim platform. Hartness/KSR: where a known technique (rules engine + claim workflow) is applied to a known problem (quantifying employer absence costs) with predictable results, the combination is obvious.

On the "varying-by-class duration limit" specifically. Even assuming this is the novel hook, it is a predictable variation of a known parameter:

• Kalnas '962 already ties duration guidance to the nature of the condition (rehab module 52) and segregates cases into light-duty vs. lost-time and work-related vs. non-work-related categories — i.e., duration/benefit treatment already varied by case type.
• Workscape '561 shows the general mechanism of applying a hierarchical rule set against employee attributes (union membership, etc.) — the exact "look up a rule by employee class" machinery.
• The '307 specification itself concedes that the time limit "may vary by class of employee" and gives the example that limits are longer for "physically demanding jobs" than "office workers" — a common-sense underwriting/actuarial distinction, not an unexpected result. Under KSR, where the specification frames the distinction as an ordinary design preference, claim scope over the cited art is difficult to sustain.

4. Independent Claim 17

Claim 17 repeats claim 1's sequence and adds (i) displaying claim information to a claim handler and (ii) authorizing payment by the computer in response to the claim handler's input. Hartford '515 is close to anticipatory-level disclosure for both: claims are "routed… to a supervisor" or "assigned to a particular claim handler," the handler reviews and approves, a supervisor sets reserves, and payment is handled through the system. The remaining limitations map as in § 3. Claim 17 is therefore the weaker of the two independent claims under § 103 — its human-in-the-loop feature is squarely old in Hartford's own prior system.

5. Dependent claims

Strong mappings (express disclosure in cited art):

• 2, 18 (policy types incl. WC/property/casualty/health/life): Hartford '515 lines of business; Thomas '460 ("property, casualty, health, and life").
• 3, 19 (WC endorsement): Hartford '515 WC line; Kalnas '962 legal module — "a case would be a workers' compensation case."
• 4, 5 (WC-compensable vs. non-compensable): Kalnas '962 work-related module 38 / non-work-related module 40 and its reports.
• 6 (stand-alone policy): Thomas '460 ("insurance policy or… many other contract forms").
• 9 (replacement-worker hiring costs): Kalnas '962 (replacement-worker expenses; replacement worker pay rate).
• 11 (overtime to other employees): Kalnas '962 (overtime as an indirect cost).
• 7, 22 (caps / type-and-percentage of loss): Thomas '460 (deductibles, coinsurance, limits); routine insurance-rule data.
• 13–15 (lost revenue + validation via database/third party): Thomas '460 (lost income); Kalnas '962 (measuring cost of absenteeism by analyzing utilization data); third-party validation is routine.
• 12 (payroll-services-contractor data): Workscape/ADP payroll integration; Kalnas '962 bulk-data APIs; and the '307 specification's own admission that rating data may come from a payroll services contractor (Paychex, Administaff, ADP).
• 21 (claim triggers premium-base audit): motivated by mis-reporting/fraud detection, and the '307 specification admits audits are done "in similar fashion to auditing for WC coverage premiums."

Weakest mappings — flag for diligence:

• Claim 16 (badge-reader data) is the hardest to map. None of the verified cited references discloses facility badge/access readers feeding a claim-verification workflow. The obviousness argument would have to rest on the ubiquity of time-and-attendance/access-control systems by 2010 plus the specification's own use of badge data merely as a verification convenience — a "combine two known systems, predictable result" argument (KSR) that is arguable but not airtight. If any claim survives a § 103 challenge, it is most likely 16.
• Claim 10 (travel/living expenses for a replacement): gap-filling argument only ("routine expense reimbursement"); no verified express disclosure.

Drafting quirk: claim 22 is written as "The data processing system of claim 17…" although claim 17 is a method claim. I read it literally as issued; the mismatch should be addressed in any invalidity chart (it affects which claim-1 family the limitation attaches to).

6. Rebuttal considerations (objective indicia)

I found no evidence of secondary considerations (commercial success, licensing, industry praise, copying, unexpected results) in the available record, and the family's divisional (US 14/297,005) was abandoned — a prosecution fact, not an indicia of non-obviousness. Patentee could still argue: (a) the combination is non-obvious because no reference teaches applying a class-specific duration cap to a claimed absence period to compute a reimbursement; (b) teaching away; or (c) unexpected results. None of these is foreclosed by the record, but the specification's own admissions (conventional claim handling; audits done as for WC; limits varying by class as a design choice) undercut (a) and (c).

7. Bottom line

1. Claim 1 — Prima facie obvious over Hartford '515 + Kalnas '962, optionally + Workscape '561 or CN101952842A for the class-based duration rule, and + Thomas '460 for insuring employer collateral/absence losses. Motivation: same field/classifications, shared problem statement, ready-made integration with predictable results (KSR).
2. Claim 17 — Prima facie obvious over Hartford '515 in view of Kalnas '962; the claim-handler approval feature is expressly old in Hartford's own prior system.
3. Dependent claims — Most (2–9, 11–15, 18–22) add only known policy types, known cost categories, or routine validation. Claim 16 (badge readers) is the sole clear gap and the most likely candidate for a non-obviousness argument.
4. This is a prima facie case only. A formal invalidity opinion requires full-text pin cites to each reference (I verified Hartford '515, Kalnas '962, Workscape '561, Thomas '460, and CN101952842A directly; the ITT '522, Comperaser '985, Gianantoni '104, Newman '936, Mitchell '800, Morey '094, and Skedsvold '672 mappings are title-level and unverified because search limits truncated those lookups), plus a date check on CN101952842A, whose publication (2011-01-19) postdates the '307 filing and thus qualifies only via its earlier priority/US-national-phase date. Its listing under "Family Cites Families," with a date displayed inconsistently as 2006-03-07 versus the document's 2007 filing, needs confirmation before it is relied upon.