US 8955029

I'll run targeted searches against USPTO and litigation/PTAB/CAFC sources for this exact number.

Now let me pull the claim text and check for any 2026 CAFC activity.

Scope note

I searched for the exact number 8955029 only. All results below are for US 8,955,029 B2 (the “’029 patent”). I did not substitute results for similar numbers. Family members that surfaced in the same searches — US 9,053,494, US 8,719,090, US 7,840,437 — are different patents sharing a specification and are identified as such, not as the patent you asked about.

Bibliographic data — US 8,955,029 B2

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8955029/en ; https://www.docketalarm.com/patentapps/US/12-911,727/ ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/8955029

Abstract

“A system for handling data and transactions involving data through the use of a virtual transaction zone, which virtual transaction zone removes the dependency of such transaction on the delivery medium of the product. The invention may reside and operate on a variety of electronic devices such as televisions, VCRs, DVDs, personal computers, WebTV, any other known electronic recorder/player, or as a stand alone unit. The transaction zone also provides a mechanism for combining mediums, data feeds, and manipulation of those feeds. The transaction zone also provides a mechanism for controlling the content, delivery, and timing of delivery of the end consumer’s product.”

Sources: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US8955029B2](/patent/US8955029B2) ; https://golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_8955029... (identical text). The Google Patents rendering I retrieved did not display an abstract field; the text above is from these two consistent secondary sources.

Independent claims (plain language)

Claim 1 — “limited-use digital data” system. A device that:

1. receives limited-use digital data (e.g., rented/restricted content);
2. stores it in memory;
3. has playback circuitry that reads the stored data and converts it into signals for a playback device;
4. has processing circuitry running software that controls the memory and playback circuitry and governs at least one operation on the stored data as permitted by a use restriction;
5. has a user interface to program those processing functions; and
6. has at least one digital output that communicates with a “data supplier” so the supplier can monitor the operation performed on the stored data under the restriction.

The last element adds that the processing circuitry includes a program to transfer the stored limited-use data plus control data to a portable playback device so the portable device can perform a “virtual return” of the transferred data. (Full text at https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US8955029B2)

Claim 35 — “rented digital data” system. Same architecture, but the preamble recites “receiving, processing, and storing of rented digital data”; memory circuitry comprises at least one storage device; the processing circuitry both controls operations permitted under a rental restriction and enacts a virtual return; and the claimed operation is a transfer of the stored rented data along with control data to a portable playback device, where the control data is used by the portable device to perform the virtual return. (Quoted in full at https://www.jdsupra.com/post/contentViewerEmbed.aspx?fid=67bd653b-704d-48a3-bc82-0a49bbc111ba)

Claim 68. Identified as an independent claim by the district court because it recites both “rented digital data” and “limited-use digital data” and contains the same “user interface operatively connected to the processing circuitry for programming the at least one processing function” limitation that appears in claims 1 and 35. I do not have authoritative full text for claim 68, so I am not reconstructing it. (E.D. Tex. Markman order, Dkt. 56, https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.[165951](/patent/165951)/gov.uscourts.txed.165951.56.0.pdf)

Uncertainty on claim set. The ’029 patent appears to have roughly 84 claims: the IPR declaration lists claims 1-4, 6-9, 12-15, 19-22, 25-28, 30-32, 35-39, 41, 46-48, 54, 58, 61, 63-65, 68, 70, 72-76, 78-80, 82-84 as at issue. From the sources I retrieved, it is not possible to confirm that claims 1, 35, and 68 are the only independent claims. Treat the set {1, 35, 68} as strongly supported but not exhaustively verified.

Claim-construction anchors (useful for reading the claims)

• “performing a virtual return of the [limited-use / stored rented] digital data that has been transferred to the portable playback device” — construed as “making said [limited-use / stored rented] data inaccessible to the user on the portable playback device.”
• “limited-use digital data” — plain meaning; the court rejected the argument that “limited use” means only rental. Appears in claims 1, 8, 9, 19, 21, 22, 25, 31, 36, 53, 58, 64, 68, 70, 79, 82.
• “data supplier” — plain meaning (not limited to content generators; distributors such as a satellite provider can qualify).

Source: Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Networks Corp., E.D. Tex. 2:16-cv-00129-JRG, Dkt. 56 (Markman order, Feb. 2017), https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.165951/gov.uscourts.txed.165951.56.0.pdf

Litigation / PTAB / appellate posture

• District court: Customedia Technologies, LLC v. DISH Network Corp., No. 2:16-cv-00129-JRG (E.D. Tex., Marshall Div.). The ’029 patent was one of four asserted patents (with the ’090, ’494, and ’437). Accused products included DISH Hopper/Joey DVRs. Case stayed in August 2017 pending the PTAB proceedings.
• PTAB (as listed by Google Patents for this patent): IPR2017-00638 (DISH Network v. Customedia) — filed, Settlement; IPR2017-00639 — filed, Settlement; CBM2017-00031 — filed, Settlement. CBM2017-00031 was instituted on July 18, 2017 on § 101 grounds (Paper 10).
• Federal Circuit (historical): Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Network Corp., 951 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (opinion issued Nov. 1, 2019; March 6, 2020), affirming PTAB § 101 ineligibility and § 102 unpatentability findings for Customedia’s advertising-storage claims. Caution: the reported claim language in that decision (“individually controlled and reserved advertising data storage section”) and public commentary associate it with the ’090/’494 branch of the family. I could not confirm from my retrieved sources that the ’029 claims themselves were part of the affirmed judgment — consistent with the fact that the ’029 PTAB proceedings are recorded as settled, which would ordinarily leave no ’029 appeal to decide.

On your 2026 CAFC docket request — explicit limitation

My searches for CAFC 2026 docket activity involving patent 8,955,029 or Customedia returned no results. I did not obtain a match in any Federal Circuit 2026 docket. I am therefore not asserting that no such 2026 proceeding exists — only that my searches produced nothing, and the last appellate activity I could substantiate involving these patents is the 2019–2020 Federal Circuit Customedia v. Dish line. That is a search limitation, not a negative finding.

One further item I could not verify and will not assert: a 2022 SEC filing referencing “Contemporary Display” in connection with an appeal and a 2022 dismissal with prejudice may or may not involve this patent family or a successor assignee. I have no authoritative confirmation tying it to the ’029 patent, so treat it as unverified.

I'll research the litigation history for US patent 8955029 using the sources you've indicated.

Let me search for additional litigation and PTAB proceedings involving this patent.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,955,029

Patent: U.S. Pat. No. 8,955,029 ("System for data management and on-demand rental and purchase of digital data products")
Inventor: William Henry Lewis
Owner/Assignee: Customedia Technologies, LLC (a patent-assertion entity; per its Federal Circuit filings, parent is Texas Customedia LLC)

Based on the sources searched, the litigation history for the '029 patent is closely tied to a single district court action and a set of companion PTAB proceedings. I found one district court case and three PTAB proceedings specifically tied to the '029 patent.

1. District Court Litigation

Case details:

• Customedia asserted the '029 patent, along with three related patents, against DISH's addressable advertising services, DISH Anywhere, and Pay-Per-View/VOD offerings.
• DISH filed dispositive motions including a sealed Motion for Summary Judgment of Invalidity and a Motion for Partial Summary Judgment of Non-Infringement for DISH's Joey Products for US 8955029 (Dkt. 125), which Customedia opposed and DISH replied to.
• The district court litigation was stayed on August 8, 2017 pending resolution of the PTAB proceedings.
• Pursuant to an agreement between the parties, on December 20, 2017, DISH dismissed its PTAB petition challenging the '029 patent, and on January 9, 2018 the parties dismissed their claims, counterclaims, and defenses as to the '029 patent in the litigation. Thus the '029 patent dropped out of the case by settlement, and the case continued only as to the other three patents.

⚠️ Identifier note (literal reading): One court document title refers to a summary-judgment motion against "8,915,029." That is a different number from the patent at issue (8,955,029) and appears to be a transcription/OCR variant. Consistent with the instruction to interpret identifiers literally, I flag it rather than silently correcting it. The other filings and DISH's SEC disclosures consistently identify the fourth asserted patent as 8,955,029.

2. PTAB Proceedings Involving the '029 Patent

• IPR2017-00638 was instituted on July 18, 2017 (Trial Instituted Document) and then jointly moved to terminate under 35 U.S.C. § 317 on Dec. 5, 2017, with termination ordered Dec. 20, 2017 — the same settlement that removed the '029 patent from the district court case.
• The three Google Patents "family has litigation" entries for this patent correspond exactly to these settlement-terminated proceedings (IPR2017-00638, IPR2017-00639, CBM2017-00031).

3. Related Appellate Activity (context)

Customedia appealed its PTAB losses on the '090, '494, and '437 patents — not the '029 patent. Federal Circuit Nos. 18-2239, 19-1000, 19-1002, 19-1003, 19-1027, 19-1029 concern those patents:

• Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Network Corp., 951 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2020) — affirmed invalidity of the '090 (and '494) claims under § 101.
• Customedia's cert. petition (S. Ct. No. 20-135) was denied Oct. 13, 2020.

These appeals do not involve the '029 patent because it settled out of the case before a PTAB final written decision.

Summary

• One known district court case involving U.S. 8,955,029: Customedia Technologies, L.L.C. v. Dish Network Corporation and Dish Network LLC, No. 2:16-cv-00129 (E.D. Tex., filed Feb. 10, 2016). The '029 patent was dismissed from that case by agreement in January 2018; the case ultimately ended with a Dec. 29, 2022 order.
• Three PTAB proceedings involving the '029 patent: IPR2017-00638, IPR2017-00639, and CBM2017-00031 — all instituted (where applicable) and all terminated by settlement in December 2017.

Confidence note: I did not find, and cannot confirm, any other district court case in which U.S. 8,955,029 (rather than its sibling patents) was asserted. Customedia filed other patent suits, but my search results tie those to the '090, '494, and '437 patents, not the '029. If you need to confirm the absence of additional '029 suits, the authoritative next step would be a PACER/RPX litigation search filtered specifically to the literal number "8,955,029," and a check of the USPTO PTAB Patent Trial & Appeal Board docket and USPTO PatentCenter assignment/expiration records (the patent's stated legal status is Expired – Fee Related, adjusted expiration July 4, 2018).

Sources:

• Customedia Technologies v. Dish Network, Dkt. 4530936 (CourtListener): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/4530936/customedia-technologies-llc-v-dish-network-corporation/
• Unified Patents litigation docket, 2:16-cv-00129: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2:16-cv-00129
• Justia docket, 2:16-cv-00129: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2016cv00129/[165951](/patent/165951)
• DISH/EchoStar SEC disclosure describing the Customedia action and PTAB petitions: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1536282](/patent/1536282) (and EchoStar 10-K/10-Q excerpts at ir.echostar.com)
• IPR2017-00638 documents (DISH Network L.L.C. v. Customedia Technologies, LLC): https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/DISH-Network-LLC-v-Customedia-Technologies-LLC-id-73468/documents/
• Finnegan case summary (Fed. Cir. 18-2239/19-1000; CBM2017-00023; CBM2017-00032): http://www.finnegan.com/print/content/72368/Customedia-Technologies-LLC-v-Dish-Network-Corporation.pdf
• Google Patents family/litigation data for US 8,955,029: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8955029/en

I'll reconcile the structured block against the patent's own metadata (which lists three PTAB cases) and dig into each.

Now let me pull details on the second IPR and the CBM.

Let me confirm IPR2017-00639's scope/outcome and check for any later proceedings or appeals on the '029.

PTAB / AIA Trial History — US 8,955,029 ("System for data management and on-demand rental and purchase of digital data products")

Data-conflict flag up front. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block says the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 8,955,029. That contradicts the patent's own Google Patents record, which lists three PTAB cases flagged "(Settlement)," and it contradicts multiple independent sources (National Law Review's PTO Litigation Center reports, Docket Alarm / Patexia dockets, and DISH's own SEC 10-K/10-Q disclosures). Three proceedings exist. The ODP "no activity" result appears to be an ingest gap, not a true negative; I have treated the three corroborated proceedings as canonical and flagged every field I could not verify.

Proceedings overview

Three AIA trial proceedings were filed against US 8,955,029 — all three by DISH Network, all three instituted on 2017-07-18, and all three terminated by joint settlement on 2017-12-20 with no Final Written Decision ever issued: 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 3 settled. That gives a defendant an unusual posture: the patent has not been hardened by surviving a PTAB trial, but it also has not been narrowed — every claim of the '029 patent (claims 1–84 as originally challenged) remains textually intact and completely untested at the Board. The real defensive value here is not the PTAB record; it is (a) the patent is expired (Google Patents records an adjusted expiration of 2018-07-04 and legal status "Expired – Fee Related"), which knocks out prospective relief and — on my analysis — the entire § 286 damages window for a complaint filed today; (b) the same specification's sibling patents ('090, '494, '437) had all asserted claims held § 101-ineligible and canceled, affirmed by the Federal Circuit; and (c) because no FWD ever issued, there is zero statutory estoppel, so DISH's own prior art (Ginter WO 96/27155, Stefik '012, Logan '827, Ellis '005/0028208) is still fully available to any new challenger.

CBM2017-00031 — DISH Network Corporation / DISH Network L.L.C. v. Customedia Technologies, L.L.C.

• Type: Covered Business Method review (AIA § 18 / 35 U.S.C. § 321)
• Filed: 2017-01-10
• Status: "Terminated-Settled" (Docket Alarm/Patexia status string); Board docket entry "Termination – Settlement After Institution," 2017-12-20. Plain English: instituted, then killed by settlement ~5 months into the trial, before any FWD.
• Judge panel: Michael W. Kim, Kalyan K. Deshpande, and Kerry Begley. The Board's 2017-08-03 Order – Conduct of the Proceeding (Paper 14 in the companion IPR2017-00454) states verbatim: "Judges Kim, Deshpande, and Begley are paneled on CBM2017-00031, IPR2017-00638, and IPR2017-00639." APJ Meredith C. Petravick signed the consolidated order but was paneled on the '090/'437/'494 cases, not these three.
• Petition grounds: CBM review of claims 1-4, 6-9, 12-15, 19-22, 25-28, 30-32, 35-39, 41, 46-48, 53-54, 58, 61, 63-65, 68, 70, 72-76, 78-80, and 82-84 (quoted verbatim from the petition caption, Patexia doc. 1). Grounds asserted under § 101 (patent-ineligible abstract idea, Alice) plus a § 112 ¶ 2 indefiniteness theory. Supporting exhibits: Ginter et al. PCT Pub. WO 96/27155; Stefik et al. U.S. 5,634,012; Logan et al. U.S. 5,721,827; Ellis et al. U.S. Pub. 2005/0028208; plus the '029 file history and the E.D. Tex. LPR 3-1 infringement contentions and D.I. 35 joint claim-construction statement.
• Institution decision: Instituted 2017-07-18 (Paper 10). The panel held that CBM jurisdiction was proper because claim 35 — which recites a "system for receiving, processing, and storing of rented digital data" — contains a "financial activity element," reasoning that the rental of data "is a financial activity and a financial service." One qualifying claim is enough for CBM eligibility. The panel then rejected Customedia's "technological invention" exception on prong one (the claims recite no novel/unobvious technological feature), and expressly noted that, "as a practical matter," the Alice step-two "significantly more" analysis overlaps prong two of the technological-invention framework. (CBM2017-00031, Paper 10, at 8; discussed in Nat'l L. Rev., Vol. VII, No. 212.)
• Final Written Decision: None issued. The case settled approximately five months after institution. No claim of the '029 patent was ever adjudicated unpatentable.
• Settlement / termination: Joint motion to terminate under 35 U.S.C. § 317 and 37 C.F.R. § 42.74 filed 2017-12-05; joint request to treat the settlement agreement as confidential filed 2017-12-18/19; termination granted 2017-12-20. The terms are confidential — the record contains a 37 C.F.R. § 42.74(c) confidentiality request, so the license/consideration, if any, is not public.
• Appeal: None. No FWD issued, so there was nothing appealable. None of the Customedia Federal Circuit appeals (Nos. 18-2239, 18-2240, 18-2310, 19-1000, 19-1001, 19-1002, 19-1003, 19-1027, 19-1029) arises from CBM2017-00031.
• Defensive value: The institution decision is the single most useful document a defendant has. The Board already accepted that the '029 rental claims carry a financial activity element and lack a technological invention — and the Federal Circuit later held the same specification's claims ('090, '494) to be § 101-ineligible, 951 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2020). That reasoning transfers almost verbatim to the '029 independent claims. But note — the settlement means no estoppel and no binding validity ruling; you cannot cite this proceeding as an invalidation.

IPR2017-00638 — DISH Network Corporation / DISH Network L.L.C. v. Customedia Technologies, L.L.C.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2017-01-10
• Status: "Terminated-Settled"; Board docket "Termination – Settlement After Institution," 2017-12-20.
• Judge panel: Michael W. Kim, Kalyan K. Deshpande, Kerry Begley (per the 2017-08-03 order quoted above).
• Petition grounds: IPR of claims 1-4, 6-9, 12-15, 19-22, 25-28 and 30-32 of the '029 patent, "under 35 USC 311-319 and 37 CFR 42.100 et seq." (verbatim petition caption). Prior art relied on includes Ginter et al., WO 96/27155 ("Systems and Methods for Secure Transaction Management and Electronic Rights Protection"). The petition is a § 102/§ 103 anticipation-and-obviousness challenge to the independent claims and their dependents; I could not verify the precise § 102-vs-§ 103 split per claim from the public record, so I do not state one.
• Institution decision: Instituted 2017-07-18 ("Trial Instituted Document," Paper 9; Scheduling Order, Paper 10). The Board's contemporaneous 2017-08-03 order shows institution issued across the '029 trio on that date, and the Board also flagged that the '029 patent "may have expired recently, or may be expiring shortly—before the deadline for the final written decision," ordering the parties to meet and confer on the expiration date and applying the Phillips construction standard for expired patents.
• Final Written Decision: None issued. No claim was canceled and no claim was sustained.
• Settlement / termination: Petitioner's Joint Motion to Terminate under 35 U.S.C. § 317 and 37 C.F.R. § 42.74 (2017-12-05); joint confidentiality request (2017-12-18); termination 2017-12-20. Terms confidential. DISH's SEC filings describe it as follows: "Pursuant to an agreement between the parties, on December 20, 2017, DISH Network L.L.C. dismissed its petitions challenging the 029 patent in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, and on January 9, 2018, the parties dismissed their claims, counterclaims and defenses as to that patent in the litigation." The phrase "pursuant to an agreement between the parties" is the public confirmation that a settlement agreement exists; its contents are sealed.
• Appeal: None — no FWD, nothing to appeal.
• Defensive value: The broadest of the two IPRs (24 claims, including the core independent claims). Because it settled post-institution but pre-FWD, § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached — for DISH or anyone. Every ground DISH pleaded here, and any ground DISH "reasonably could have raised," is still live for a new petitioner or as an invalidity defense in litigation.

IPR2017-00639 — DISH Network Corporation / DISH Network L.L.C. v. Customedia Technologies, L.L.C.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2017-01-10
• Status: "Terminated-Settled"; Board docket "Termination – Settlement After Institution," 2017-12-20.
• Judge panel: Michael W. Kim, Kalyan K. Deshpande, Kerry Begley.
• Petition grounds: Second parallel IPR on the '029 patent filed the same day. The precise challenged claim set and ground-by-ground art mapping for IPR2017-00639 are not verified in the sources I retrieved — I will not guess them. Its exhibit list includes the '029 patent (Ex. 1001), Ginter WO 96/27155, the '029 and parent file histories, the E.D. Tex. complaint and LPR 3-1 contentions, and the district court's 2017-04-19 Claim Construction Memorandum and Order. Institution issued 2017-07-18.
• Institution decision: Instituted 2017-07-18; same docket entries as the -00638 (Trial Instituted Document, Paper 9; Scheduling Order, Paper 10; the 2017-08-03 expiration order, Paper 13).
• Final Written Decision: None issued.
• Settlement / termination: Identical posture to -00638: § 317 / § 42.74 joint motion to terminate (2017-12-05), joint confidentiality request (2017-12-19), termination 2017-12-20. Confidential terms.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Same as -00638 — a fully pleaded, fully instituted IPR that evaporated at settlement without an estoppel-triggering FWD. Functionally, the -00638/-00639 pair plus CBM2017-00031 means DISH spent three petitions against this patent and walked away with a license (presumably) rather than a judgment, leaving the rest of the world with a clean slate.

Strategic summary

What is canceled, what is sustained, what is untested. For US 8,955,029 specifically: nothing is canceled and nothing is sustained. Zero Final Written Decisions issued; all three proceedings terminated at settlement on 2017-12-20 (No FWD = no 37 C.F.R. § 42.73 judgment, so no claims were canceled and the § 318(b) certificate mechanism was never triggered for this patent). Every claim of the '029 patent remains untested at the PTAB. That is materially different from the patent's siblings in the same family, which were destroyed: the Board's 2018-06-11 and 2018-07-25 FWDs invalidated all asserted claims of U.S. 8,719,090, 9,053,494 and 7,840,437; the Federal Circuit affirmed the § 101 holdings for the '090 and '494 patents at 951 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2020) and summarily affirmed the '437 patent on 2019-11-08; and the USPTO issued cancellation certificates on 2021-06-16 ('437) and 2021-07-09 ('090, '494). None of those certificates touches the '029 patent. So the family was gutted, but the '029 patent itself — the one in front of you — is textually intact.

Estoppel: there is none, in either direction. Statutory estoppel under § 315(e)(2) (IPR) and § 325(e)(2) (CBM/PGR) is triggered only by a final written decision. Because IPR2017-00638, IPR2017-00639 and CBM2017-00031 all died at settlement before any FWD, no estoppel attached to DISH Network, its privies, or anyone else. Practical consequence for a defendant today: DISH's pleaded art is not burned. Ginter WO 96/27155, Stefik U.S. 5,634,012, Logan U.S. 5,721,827 and Ellis U.S. Pub. 2005/0028208 — plus every ground DISH reasonably could have raised but didn't — remain available for a fresh IPR petition or as § 282 invalidity contentions. The usual "you should have been in the first IPR" trap does not apply. (One caveat you cannot verify from the public record: whether the confidential 2017 settlement agreement contains a license or standstill that contractually restricts DISH — it very likely does, but it is sealed and I have no visibility into it.)

Pattern signals. This is a single-front, single-petitioner war, not a serial-filer free-for-all. DISH Network L.L.C. filed a coordinated package of petitions in December 2016 / January 2017 against four Customedia patents ('437, '090, '494, '029); the Board instituted on all of them within a five-week window in 2017 (2017-06-12 for '090 and '437, 2017-07-18 for '029, 2017-07-28 for '494); and the SEC filings confirm the instituted proceedings "cover all asserted claims of each of the asserted patents." DISH then carved the '029 patent out by agreement on 2017-12-20, took the other three to FWD and won outright, and Customedia appealed aggressively and unsuccessfully (Fed. Cir. affirmances; rehearing and rehearing en banc denied 2020-03-05 and 2020-06-09; Arthrex/Appointments Clause motions denied as forfeited 2019-11-01; Supreme Court cert denied 2020-10-13). No defensive aggregator was involved. An important correction: the Google Patents page's line reading "Petitioner: 'Unified Patents PTAB Data'" is a Creative Commons dataset attribution for the litigation data feed, not an identification of Unified Patents as a petitioner. DISH Network is the petitioner on all three '029 proceedings. Finally, no IPR, PGR or CBM petition against the '029 patent by any other party appears in the public record I retrieved — consistent with a patent that had already expired and had already been dropped from the only litigation asserting it.

One more thing a defendant must not miss: per Google Patents, the '029 patent's adjusted expiration is 2018-07-04 and its legal status is "Expired – Fee Related." The Board's own 2017-08-03 order independently observed the patent "may have expired recently, or may be expiring shortly—before the deadline for the final written decision." An expired patent supports no prospective injunctive relief, and it sharply constrains damages.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiration, not with the PTAB record. The '029 patent expired on or about 2018-07-04. Google Patents also records it as lapsed "Fee Related," i.e., maintenance fees appear unpaid — independently making it unenforceable even for the tail of its term. Under 35 U.S.C. § 286, a patentee may recover only damages for infringement occurring no more than six years before the complaint is filed. Any complaint filed after 2024-07-04 has a § 286 lookback window that begins after the patent expired — meaning no recoverable damages period exists at all. Verify the expiration date from the USPTO Patent Center maintenance-fee and term-adjustment record before relying on it (Google itself disclaims its legal-status field as "an assumption"), but if it holds, a demand letter on this patent is essentially unlitigable. Also scrutinize whether your client's accused conduct predates the expiration date at all.

2. If you need an invalidity ruling rather than just a damages defense, the strongest non-PTAB tool is the § 101 line that killed the family. CBM review is gone (AIA § 18 sunset; no new CBM petition could be filed after 2020-09-16). But the Board's CBM2017-00031 institution decision (Paper 10, 2017-07-18) already found the '029's rental claims contain a financial activity element and no technological invention, and the Federal Circuit's affirmance as to the shared-specification '090/'494 claims — Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Network Corp., 951 F.3d 1359 (Fed. Cir. 2020) — held that reserving memory for particular data is the abstract idea of delivering targeted advertising implemented with generic hardware. That is a ready-made Alice step-one/step-two record for a § 101 motion or § 282 defense. Full analyses: Docket Alarm — CBM2017-00031; courts' opinions via CourtListener search for Customedia Technologies v. Dish Network.

3. If you want a PTAB vehicle, you are not estopped — but weigh the incentive. A new IPR petition on the '029 patent is barred by no estoppel and no time bar (the § 315(b) one-year clock runs from service of a complaint asserting this patent; the only such complaint — Customedia Techs., LLC v. Dish Network Corp., No. 2:16-cv-00129-JRG (E.D. Tex.) — was resolved, with the '029 claims dismissed by agreement on 2018-01-09 and final judgment entered for DISH on 2022-08-10). If the patent owner has served you with a complaint asserting the '029 patent, calendar the § 315(b) deadline immediately. Realistically, though, an expired patent with no live damages exposure rarely justifies the cost of a full IPR — the cheaper path is a § 101/§ 102 invalidity defense reusing DISH's unburned Ginter/Stefik/Logan/Ellis art.

4. No trial-stage milestones are pending anywhere on this patent. All three proceedings closed on 2017-12-20. There is no institution-decision deadline, no oral hearing and no § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD deadline outstanding, and there is no Federal Circuit appeal to track — none of Customedia's nine CAFC appeal numbers arises from a '029 proceeding, because settlement produced no FWD to appeal. PTAB E2E remains the authoritative docket and CourtListener remains the authoritative CAFC docket for Customedia's other, unrelated appeals.

5. Verify against primary sources before you file. My inputs were the patent's Google Patents record (which supplied the three case numbers, the "Settlement" tags and the 2018-07-04 expiration), the National Law Review PTO Litigation Center reports of 2017-01-11, the Docket Alarm / Patexia dockets for all three proceedings, the Board's 2017-08-03 expiration order, and DISH/EchoStar SEC disclosures. Two fields I could not verify and deliberately did not fill in: the full challenged-claim set of IPR2017-00639, and the substantive per-claim art mapping for either IPR. Pull the petitions and the two July 2017 institution decisions from PTAB E2E before quoting any claim-level reasoning. And because the ODP feed the prompt relied on reports no proceedings for this patent, do not repeat that "no PTAB activity" default in any filing — it is wrong, and the record shows three.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation history before reconstructing the chain.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and entity details.

US 8,955,029 — Ownership Chain Reconstruction

Patent: US 8,955,029 B2 — "System for data management and on-demand rental and purchase of digital data products"
Application: 12/911,727, filed 2010-10-26 · Published US20110041146A1 (2011-02-17) · Granted 2015-02-10
Claimed priority: 1997-06-12 (assumption per Google Patents; family parent 08/873,584 filed 1997-06-12 per the E.D. Tex. complaint)
Legal status: Expired – Fee Related; adjusted expiration 2018-07-04

Verification note up front. I was able to confirm that a recorded assignment exists, but I could not retrieve the reel/frame image or the recording correspondent from USPTO Assignment Center in this session. Rather than invent reel numbers, I have marked every unretrieved field explicitly as [not retrieved]. All other facts below are sourced to Google Patents legal events, PTAB docket records, the E.D. Tex. docket, and EchoStar/DISH SEC filings, with links.

Inventors

Unusual patterns worth flagging:

1. Inventor = assignee control person. This is not a corporate spin-out where inventors leave an operating company; the sole inventor assigned into his own LLC and then signed the litigation/PTO papers for that LLC. That collapses the "employee-inventor vs. company" distinction that normally matters in fire-sale analysis.
2. No inventor exodus analysis applies — there is only one inventor, and he did not depart any employer. The relevant anomaly is instead 17 years of continuations: the family runs from 08/873,584 (1997-06-12) → 09/383,994 (1999) → 10/126,829 (2002) / 10/848,238 (2004) → 10/933,875 (2004) → 12/911,727 (2010) → 14/158,812 (2014). This staggered the family so that different members carried different expiration dates — and several lapsed for unpaid maintenance fees around 2017–2018 (see below).
3. Family copy of the inventor's signature block is inconsistent across records — the '494 chain-of-title statement gives the parent filing date as "18-JAN-2014" in one place and "January 18, 2014"/"January 19, 2017" in another. Minor, but it shows the family's paper was prepared in bulk.

Original assignee

CUSTOMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES LLC (also spelled "Customedia Technologies, L.L.C." — the patent's own chain-of-title statement describes it as "a Limited Liability Company"). It is both the original assignee (per Google Patents) and the current assignee of record.

• Primary line of business: The documented record shows patent holding and enforcement only. There is no evidence in any source I reviewed of a Customedia-branded product, catalog, or service in commerce. The device described in the specification (a "VPR/DMS" / Audio-Video Processor Recorder-Player) is described hypothetically; no commercialization is evidenced.
• Shipped a product embodying the claims? No evidence found. The company's only documented activities are prosecution of the Lewis family, PTAB appearances, and district court enforcement.
• Current status: Still assignee of record, but the asset is dead — the '029's adjusted expiration is 2018-07-04, i.e., it lapsed roughly 3.4 years after grant. The family's other members fared similarly: Unified Patents' record for sibling US 9,053,494 shows expiration 2017-07-21. Meanwhile the whole asserted family was invalidated at the PTAB and affirmed by the Federal Circuit (2019–2020), and the district case was dismissed with prejudice (2022-08-10). The entity is best characterized as winding down / non-operating, not "acquired," "dissolved," or "in bankruptcy" — I found no bankruptcy or dissolution record.

Assignment timeline

Exactly one post-inventor assignment is surfaced for this patent. There is no chained-LLC cascade.

• 2012-02-07 (recording date; execution date [not retrieved]) — Reel [not retrieved] / Frame [not retrieved]
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)" per Google Patents legal events)
  • Assignor: LEWIS, WILLIAM HENRY (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: CUSTOMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — the Assignment Center record image did not surface in this session, so I cannot name the attorney/agent of record. I will not guess. This is precisely the field you asked to capture, and it is the one field I cannot report.
  • Context: Initial inventor-to-owner assignment of the enforcement vehicle — a one-step transfer out of the inventor into a single-purpose LLC, not a fire-sale, reorg, or securitization.

Related-family data point (sibling patent, NOT the '029): In the '494 patent's file history (Exhibit 1004 in CBM2017-00023), the owner's chain-of-title statement declares: "From: William Henry Lewis To: Customedia Technologies, LLC. The document was recorded in the United States Patent and Trademark Office at Reel 033031 Frame 0452." That record, tied to application 14/158,812 with an EFS receipt dated 2014-09-21, documents the same assignor→assignee pair on a sibling. I could not confirm it covers the '029, so it should be treated as corroboration of the family pattern, not as the '029's reel citation.

Where to confirm the '029 reel/frame and correspondent: Search patent number 8955029 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Google Patents legal events for the '029 corroborate the single 2012-02-07 record here: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8955029/en#legal-events

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8955029
    1997 : Priority application filed by Lewis
    2010 : Application 12911727 filed
    2011 : Application published
    2012 : Assignment to Customedia Technologies LLC
    2015 : Patent granted
    2016 : Suit filed against Dish in EDTX
    2017 : PTAB reviews instituted
         : PTAB petitions settled
    2018 : Dish claims dismissed as to the 029
         : Patent lapses for unpaid fees
    2022 : EDTX case dismissed with prejudice

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (in substance, non-standard form).
The chain is a one-step transfer of the sole inventor's rights into a licensing-only LLC, recorded 2012-02-07. Evidence beyond naming: (a) the assignee is a single-purpose LLC whose only identified principal is the inventor himself — he signed PTAB powers of attorney "on behalf of Customedia Technologies, L.L.C."; (b) no product in commerce appears anywhere in the record; (c) the entity's only documented activity across 2016–2022 is enforcement. Caveat: this is not the classic "operating company → shell" shape (Kodak→NPE style), because no operating company ever held the patent. The shell-quality finding rests on single-purpose + no-products + inventor-controlled, not on the "Technologies LLC" suffix.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Customedia Technologies is not on the enumerated lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid-Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, etc.). It is an entity surfaced directly by both cross-referenced directories, which satisfies the catch-all: Unified Patents maintains the litigation record at https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2:16-cv-00129 and the PTAB records IPR2017-00638 / IPR2017-00639 / CBM2017-00031; RPX Insight carries the Federal Circuit appeal at https://insight.rpxcorp.com/federal_circuit/[3008674](/patent/3008674)-customedia-technologies-v-dish-network (case 19-1027, filed 2018-10-05). The enforcement campaign was against DISH Network in E.D. Tex., 2:16-cv-00129, complaint filed 2016-02-10.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR.
There is only one recorded assignment in the '029 chain, so "recurrence" cannot be tested from this patent alone. The recording correspondent is [not retrieved]. Separately — and this is counsel of record, not assignment correspondent, a different field — the same enforcement-side names recur across the family's PTAB matters: Raymond W. Mort, III (Reg. No. 47,807) as Patent Owner's attorney in CBM2017-00019 (2018-08-09) and on every Federal Circuit filing in 19-1002; Daniel Scardino appointed in IPR2017-00454 (2018-02-13) and later withdrawn along with Robert Baker (unopposed withdrawal motion in 2:16-cv-00129). Recurrence of litigation counsel across a single-owner family is expected and is not the shell-rotation tell.

4. Cascading transfers (<24 months through chained LLCs) — NOT PRESENT.
One assignment, 2012-02-07, and no subsequent transfer. There is no LLC-to-LLC chain, no shared correspondent address to compare, and no common-principal shell rotation. The single-entity pattern actually runs the other way: one LLC holds the entire family for a decade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The only assignment (2012-02-07) predates the complaint (2016-02-10) by roughly four years. At the family level the closest fact is weaker still: the '494 assignment was recorded ~2014-09-21 against a 2016-02-10 complaint — ~17 months, outside the 6-month window. No venue- or standing-motivated last-minute transfer appears.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 record, no § 363 sale, no assignment out of an insolvent operating company. The asset died by maintenance-fee lapse (adjusted expiration 2018-07-04), not by bankruptcy sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
There is no operating-company transferor, so no competitor-directed proxy campaign to evaluate. (The '029 was asserted by its owner directly against DISH.)

8. Defensive aggregator / anti-NPE — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. Note the nuance: the PTAB petitions on the '029 settled and the parties dismissed the '029 claims from the litigation (DISH dismissed its '029 petitions 2017-12-20; the parties dismissed claims, counterclaims and defenses as to that patent 2018-01-09), so the '029 was neutralized by settlement plus fee lapse, not by a defensive acquisition. Unified Patents' role here is as a data source/portal, not as an assignee — do not read the "Unified Patents" attribution on Google Patents as a petitioner identity.

Collateral finding that matters for the pattern: the family's other asserted members ('090, '494, '437) were invalidated at the PTAB, affirmed by the Federal Circuit (2019-11-08 as to '437; 2020-03-06 as to '090 and '494), rehearing denied (2020-03-05, 2020-06-09), cert. denied 2020-10-13, and the district case dismissed with prejudice on 2022-08-10. The '029 escaped invalidation by settlement but the owner stopped paying maintenance fees months later — consistent with a portfolio being abandoned once assertion revenue failed.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain consists of a single recorded assignment, 2012-02-07, moving sole-inventor William Henry Lewis's rights into CUSTOMEDIA TECHNOLOGIES, LLC — a licensing-only entity with no products in evidence, controlled by the inventor himself, whose only documented activity is enforcement. That entity then asserted this patent and its siblings against DISH Network in E.D. Tex. 2:16-cv-00129 (complaint 2016-02-10) and carried the resulting PTAB, Federal Circuit and Supreme Court proceedings through 2022, while the '029 itself lapsed for unpaid maintenance fees (adjusted expiration 2018-07-04). Two signals are present (single-purpose non-practicing assignee + asserter surfaced on Unified Patents and RPX), with signals 4–8 affirmatively absent.

Two honesty caveats you should carry forward: (1) the reel/frame and recording correspondent for the 2012-02-07 assignment were not retrieved in this session, so signal 3 (repeat correspondent) — often the strongest shell-rotation tell — is unresolved here and the '029's own reel citation should be pulled directly from Assignment Center before this analysis is relied on; (2) the "shell" finding rests on single-purpose LLC + no products + inventor control, not on the entity's name.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 8955029) · https://patents.google.com/patent/US8955029/en#legal-events · https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2:16-cv-00129

I'll research US patent 8955029 and its cited prior art references.

Let me dig deeper into the specific cited references for this patent.

Let me access the patent's cited references directly and the IPR petition documents.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent No. 8,955,029

Identification of the patent (interpreted literally)

Mandatory caveat on scope

I could not retrieve the face-of-patent "References Cited" list for US 8,955,029. The authoritative full text supplied to me ends before the claims and does not include the front-page references; my searches (Google Patents, PTAB/USPTO documents, litigation dockets) returned the patent's bibliographic data, its litigation/IPR history, and family-member documents, but not the enumerated list of examiner-cited patent references. I will therefore not fabricate a reference-by-reference citation list. Instead I give you (a) exactly what the record does document, and (b) a rigorous framework for the § 102 mapping you asked for, with each item flagged for verification.

To obtain the authoritative citation list, pull the front page from USPTO PatentCenter (application 12/911,727) or the Google Patents "References Cited / Cited By" tables at https://patents.google.com/patent/US8955029 — these are the sources I was unable to surface in-session.

A. Literal-number caution (do not auto-correct)

Several documents in the litigation/PTAB record refer to US 8,915,029 — a different number from US 8,955,029. Both strings appear in the same docket entries (e.g., the E.D. Tex. invalidity motion is captioned against "8,719,090, 9,053,494, 7,840,437, and 8,915,029"). Per your strict rule, I treat these as distinct patent numbers and do not assume they are the same document. Any prior-art list keyed to "8,915,029" must be independently verified before being attributed to 8,955,029.

B. What the record does document as prior art activity

1. IPR2017-00638 — DISH Network L.L.C. v. Customedia Technologies, LLC (filed 2017-01-10; terminated 2017-12-20, Settlement).

   • Challenge covered claims 1-4, 6-9, 12-15, 19-22, 25-28, 30-32, 35-39, 41, 46-48, 54, 58, 61, 63-65, 68, 70, 72-76, 78-80, 82-84 — i.e., the asserted set spans at least 84 claims.
   • Supporting evidence: Declaration of Anthony Wechselberger, Exhibit 1004 (Docket Alarm / PTAB docket).
   • Because the case settled before a Final Written Decision, the Board never issued a public merits ruling on the references; the petition and institution record are the extent of the public § 102/§ 103 record.
   • Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2017-00638/DISH_Network_L.L.C._v._Customedia_Technologies_LLC/

2. IPR2017-00639 and CBM2017-00031 — both filed by Unified Patents / related petitioner and both terminated by Settlement (no merits decision).

3. Sibling-family IPR2015-00516 (US 6,269,275, Customedia) — the Customedia preliminary response identifies the prior art asserted in the parallel Cisco petition as:

   • US 6,298,482 to Seidman
   • US 6,446,621 to Rosser
   • WO 97/17771 (described in the petition as "Park"; the Patent Owner alleged the document produced was actually "Martin")
   • Proximity caveat: this reference set is tied to a different Customedia patent (6,269,275), not to 8,955,029. It is relevant context (same technology family, overlapping specification lineage) but is not established as a citation of 8,955,029.

C. § 102 mapping — framework and best-known correspondence

Because the actual citation list was not retrievable, treat the following as claim-targeting guidance, not as confirmed anticipatory art. Independent-claim structure of the '029 family (per the IPR claim list) is anchored at claims 1, 12/13-type, 30-type, and ~82-84; the large dependent set falls into these functional buckets — each bucket is where a given class of reference would be mapped under § 102:

Anticipation verdict: for each reference above, § 102 anticipation is only supportable if the reference discloses all elements of the specific claim and enables them, arranged as claimed. The heavy dependent-claim set (up to ~84 claims) means most references will be § 103 combinations rather than clean § 102 anticipations — consistent with the fact that the PTAB challenges were multi-reference petitions that terminated by settlement rather than on the merits.

D. What I could not confirm (explicit)

• The exact examiner-cited patent references and non-patent literature on the 8,955,029 front page.
• Which specific references Wechselberger (Ex. 1004) and the DISH petition mapped to which claims, since the IPR settled.
• Whether any "8,915,029"-labeled reference set is co-extensive with "8,955,029."

I am flagging these rather than asserting them. If you supply the front-page "References Cited" list (or the IPR2017-00638 Exhibit 1004), I can produce the full per-reference table — full citation, publication/filing date, description, and the precise claim-by-claim § 102 mapping — exactly as requested.

I'll ground the reference identities before building the § 103 theories, since dates and content control whether these references even qualify.

Good grounding. Let me pin down Logan '827 and the Ellis '208 publication, which are the two references whose dates are most consequential for § 103.

Obviousness Analysis — US 8,955,029 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on the Prior Art, PTAB, and Patent Summary sections above. I do not repeat their content. One internal contradiction between those sections is flagged in §0.

0. Framing, and a contradiction I must flag

The Prior Art section states flatly that the front-page "References Cited" list could not be retrieved and that the §102 mapping for the '029 IPRs is unverified — it names only the Wechselberger Exhibit 1004 and refuses to assert a reference-by-reference list. The PTAB challenges section, by contrast, records a specific four-reference exhibit set for the '029 proceedings: Ginter WO 96/27155; Stefik US 5,634,012; Logan US 5,721,827; Ellis US Pub. 2005/0028208.

These are not reconcilable on the present record. Per the operating rule that search results govern where they conflict with earlier framing, I treat the four-reference set as identified (I independently verified all four exist and matched their dates, §2) but the per-claim element mapping as still unverified — no Final Written Decision ever issued in IPR2017-00638/-00639 or CBM2017-00031, so the petitioner's mapping never became a public merits record. Everything below is therefore my independent §103 analysis, not a restatement of any tribunal's holding, and it has never been adjudicated.

Two further constraints carry forward:

• The literal-number caution: filings referring to "8,915,029" are a different string from 8,955,029 and are not merged here.
• The '029 patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2018-07-04) and no estoppel attached to any party, so this art set remains fully available.

1. POSITA and the effective filing date — the pivot point

POSITA (my construction, not court-established). As of the 1997-06-12 priority date: a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer science (or equivalent) and 2–4 years of experience in one or more of (a) conditional-access/pay-TV systems, (b) digital content distribution and accounting, (c) digital rights management/cryptographic access control, or (d) consumer A/V recorder-player design; or a master's degree with 1–2 years. This is a mechanical/software systems arts level, consistent with the spec's own framing that everything but the "transaction zone" was known hardware.

Why the effective date decides the case. The '029 application (12/911,727) was filed 2010-10-26 but claims 1997-06-12 priority (Google Patents labels this an "assumption"). Two consequences:

1. Pre-AIA §102/§103 governs (application filed before 2013-03-16), so the reference-qualification rules are §102(a)/(b)/(e), not AIA §102(a)(1)/(a)(2).
2. Ellis US 2005/0028208 A1 is not prior art at all if the claims are entitled to 1997. It published February 2005 — after the priority date but long before the 2010 filing. So Ellis is usable only if the challenged claims lack §112 written-description support in the 1997 parent. Conversely, if the effective date slides to 2010, a decade of post-1997 art floods in (Ellis, the TiVo/ReplayTV/PVR literature, and the whole interactive-TV-guide corpus) and the obviousness case becomes substantially easier. This priority determination is the single most consequential issue in the analysis and I cannot resolve it from the retrieved record.

Critical date: if priority is perfected, pre-AIA §102(b) art must predate 1996-06-12.

2. The reference set — verified bibliographic facts

Note on provenance: these are the petitioner's references, not necessarily the examiner's cited art. The '029 front-page reference list remains unretrieved (Prior Art section).

3. Element mapping — independent claims 1 and 35

Element set from the Patent Summary section (sourced there to RPX/JDSupra). Claim 68 text remains unverified; I do not reconstruct it and I do not assume it is coterminous with 1 and 35.

The crux. Under the E.D. Tex. construction (Patent Summary section), "virtual return" = "making said… data inaccessible to the user on the portable playback device." The first six elements are squarely met by Ginter and Stefik individually; the seventh — the portable medium itself enforcing inaccessibility — is where the §103 combination carries the most weight and the least independent verification.

Claim 35 adds: rented (not merely limited-use) data; memory = "at least one storage device"; processing circuitry enacts a virtual return; the operation is the transfer + control data to a portable playback device. Ginter/Stefik supply the rental and usage-rights elements; the portable-medium control-data element again needs the copy-control art in §4-C.

4. §103 combinations and motivation to combine

Combination A — Ginter '155 + Stefik '012 (primary; covers most of claims 1/35)

Ginter teaches a distributed environment in which distributed content carries rules, is accessed only in authorized ways, and use is metered/monitored back to an administrator (report receiver 200e / usage analyst). Stefik teaches precisely the "limited-use" concept: usage rights attached to a digital work that define how it may be used or further distributed, stored in repositories that control access, with fee reporting to a credit server and billing clearinghouse.

Motivation (KSR / MPEP 2143):

• Same field, same problem (2143(A)(2)): both are 1994–1996 electronic rights-management systems solving unauthorized distribution/use of digital content while enabling commerce — the identical problem the '029 spec sets out to solve.
• The references acknowledge each other (2143(A)(2)(i)): Ginter's own US 6,640,304 front page lists Stefik 5,530,235, 5,534,975, 5,629,980, 5,634,012, 5,638,443 and 5,715,403. That is documentary evidence that artisans viewed this art as a single, interdependent body — the strongest available "suggestion to combine."
• Predictable result (2143(A)(1)): combining Stefik's usage-rights/fee-reporting model with Ginter's secure distribution architecture yields nothing more than the expected aggregation — controlled access plus metered reporting.
• Finite number of predictable solutions (KSR): by the mid-1990s, secure distribution of restricted digital content resolved to a small set of approaches (cryptographic repositories with attached rights), of which Ginter and Stefik are two leading examples.

Combination B — Ginter '155 + Logan '827 (strengthens the "monitoring by a data supplier" element)

Logan supplies an unusually clean teaching of the claim's last monitoring element: a server transmits content to a client device, the client periodically uploads a Usage Log containing a subscriber AccountNo and usage records to the server over a network. That maps directly onto "at least one digital output that communicates with a data supplier so the data supplier can monitor the operation performed on the stored data under the restriction."

Motivation: Logan and Ginter target the same commercial objective — metering and auditing content use to enable charging and targeted delivery. A POSITA building a subscription or on-demand system would predictably pair a rights-enforcement platform (Ginter) with a client-server metering/log-upload architecture (Logan); adding usage reporting to an access-controlled delivery system is a known, predictable technique (2143(A)(1)) and a known work flow improvement (2143(B)(1)). Logan's own use of usage logs to drive targeted advertising additionally gives a reason to want the feedback channel.

Combination C — A or B + portable-media copy-control art (for the transfer-to-portable-medium and "virtual return" limitations)

Neither Ginter nor Stefik is primarily about writing to a removable disc. But the transfer element is largely admitted prior art in the '029 specification itself: the spec describes as known the CD-R/CD-RW/DVD-R/DVD-RAM/minidisc recorder-player, MPEG-2/MP3 encoding, Macrovision copy protection, and the Serial Copy Management System ("SCMS") — whose express purpose is to "set certain control bits to prevent further digital copies." Application-Admitted Prior Art can be combined with the Ginter/Stefik/Logan set under 2143.

Motivation: the spec frames its own problem as eliminating the late-fee/inventory/return friction of physical rentals ("auto return (no late fees)"). That is a classic market force / design incentive rationale (MPEP 2143(C)). Once SCMS/Macrovision-style copy-control bits are carried on the portable medium, having the portable player refuse playback after the rental term is the predictable application of those bits — i.e., "making the data inaccessible" per the court's construction. Stefik's usage rights expressly contemplate limiting further distribution, and Ginter's "secure chain of handling and control" is designed to survive media transfer.

Combination D — Ellis '208 + A/B/C (contingent)

If priority is not perfected, Ellis adds interactive program guides, remote VOD ordering, remote playback control, and user-profile monitoring. Its combination motivation is straightforward (same field — television content delivery and ordering). But this combination cannot be asserted against claims entitled to 1997 priority, and I will not present it as a §103 ground without first resolving priority.

Combination E — "Obvious to try" / finite solutions (KSR Part III)

Zooming out: by the claimed date the art already contained on-demand rental/purchase with per-use pricing, control data, time-limited playback, and modem callbacks — the specification itself describes the Divx system exactly that way. Whether or not Divx is §102 art on its own timeline, the spec's characterization is evidence that the commercial model was known and that the design space was small: (a) embedded rights vs. server-granted keys; (b) internal HDD buffer vs. direct transfer; (c) fixed rental window vs. open-ended. Choosing among these was "obvious to try" with predictable results.

5. Dependent-claim buckets

Using the functional buckets from the Prior Art section, mapped to combinations and the KSR rationale that most cleanly disposes of each:

The heavy dependent set (~84 claims) means most references will be §103 combinations rather than clean §102 anticipations — which is itself corroborating evidence that the petitioner framed a multi-reference obviousness case (consistent with the IPR institution under §§102/103).

6. Secondary considerations (Graham factors)

No secondary consideration in this record rebuts the §103 combinations.

7. Verdict and confidence tiers

Bottom line: the independent claims read as an aggregation of known electronic-rights-management elements (restricted-use content, repository-controlled access, metered reporting to a supplier) combined with known portable-media copy-control — a combination Ginter, Stefik and Logan render obvious, with the specification itself admitting much of the hardware. The combination case is strong on the merits but has never been adjudicated (all three PTAB proceedings settled pre-FWD), and it is untested against the specific "virtual return" limitation as construed, which is the only element where I would want element-by-element proof.

8. What must be verified before this analysis is relied on

1. The '029 front-page "References Cited" list — still unretrieved (Prior Art section).
2. IPR2017-00638 Exhibit 1004 (Wechselberger declaration) and the petitions — for the petitioner's actual per-claim mapping.
3. Logan '827 filing/priority date — determines whether it is §102(e) art at all.
4. Entitlement of the challenged claims to 1997-06-12 priority — controls whether Ellis '208 and post-1997 art are even available. This is the decisive issue.
5. Full text of claim 68 and confirmation of the complete independent-claim set.
6. Whether any document using "8,915,029" is co-extensive with 8,955,029 — not assumed here.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8955029/en · https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/05/86/d7/c3e04f5ba400fe/WO1996027155A3.pdf · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2017-00638/DISH_Network_L.L.C._v._Customedia_Technologies_LLC/ · https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2023-00017/MICROSOFT_CORPORATION/docs/11-23-2022-Petitioner/Exhibit-1014-Corrected_US_Patent_No_5,634,012.pdf · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1462804](/patent/1462804)/download-documents (Logan '827 quotations) · https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.[165951](/patent/165951)/gov.uscourts.txed.165951.56.0.pdf (Markman order)