US 9069510

I'll verify against live sources before summarizing.

US Patent 9,069,510 B2 — Analyst Summary

Verification status: Core bibliographic data below is grounded in the authoritative full text fetched from Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9069510](/patent/US9069510)/en) and corroborated against uspto.report (https://uspto.report/patent/grant/9069510). Litigation data is grounded in the linked docket sources. I flag three discrepancies explicitly rather than resolving them.

---

Bibliographic data

Discrepancy 1 (do not auto-correct): Google Patents gives the priority date as 2001-01-19; Unified Patents' portal lists US-9069510-B2 with a priority date of 2001-01-18. Both are reported literally here.

Discrepancy 2 (do not auto-correct): Unified Patents renders the title with different capitalization — "Touch Sensitive Screen Information Apparatus that Includes Close Proximity or Near Distance Radio Frequency Field Communication." The granted title per Google Patents and uspto.report uses lower-case substantives. Same patent, cosmetic difference.

Discrepancy 3: The specification's disclosure (universal output, intermediate output data, shared raster image processing, MRC encoding, output controllers) is inherited from the 2002 parent. The claims as granted, however, are directed to close-proximity wireless device discovery and content transfer — a notable scope shift from the specification's stated "technical field."

---

Abstract (verbatim from the granted patent)

"A touch sensitive screen mobile information apparatus having a wireless communication unit for wireless device discovery is herein disclosed. Close proximity wireless device discovery is enabled by wireless searching near distance via radio frequency field for a wireless device, receiving information from the wireless device over the near distance wireless communication, and storing the received information at the information apparatus for future wireless connections. Authentication or pairing of devices may be eliminated due to close proximity of the direct wireless device discovery. After wireless device discovery, the information apparatus and the wireless device may become locked or paired for subsequent wireless communication over any number of wireless communication protocols or standards (e.g., Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, 2.4GHz) without the need to repeat wireless discovery or pairing. Examples of information apparatus include smart phones, digital camera, laptops, or information pads. Examples of wireless devices include televisions, audio output devices, or printers."

---

Independent claims — plain language

The patent has 21 claims, with four independent claims: 1, 10, 14, and 21. Claims 2–9 depend from claim 1; 11–13 from claim 10; 15–20 from claim 14.

Claim 1 — method (wireless information apparatus performs discovery, then re-uses it).
A method where a wireless information apparatus (itself distinct from the output devices; the output devices are a printer, display, projector, audio/sound device, and/or television) has a short-range wireless unit, a touch-sensitive screen with a GUI, applications for viewing digital content, and an OS. The steps are: (a) wirelessly discover nearby output devices over short-range wireless; (b) establish direct short-range wireless communication with discovered device(s); (c) receive information about the output device(s) directly from them — information not previously available or stored on the apparatus before discovery; (d) show the user an indication of that information via the interface; (e) establish a wireless channel with one of the discovered devices; (f) generate output data for at least part of the digital content; (g) wirelessly transfer that output data to the selected device for output; and (h) repeat any combination of steps (d)–(g) for further connections/transfers without repeating the discovery step (a). The re-use-without-rediscovery feature is the structural centerpiece.

Claim 10 — apparatus.
A wireless information apparatus with a short-range wireless unit, touch-sensitive screen + GUI, applications to view digital content, an OS that also facilitates installation of additional applications to expand functionality, and a processing unit. Operations: (a) interact with the user via the touch screen; (b) discover nearby output devices over short-range wireless; (c) establish direct short-range communication with them; (d) receive device-related information directly from them, not previously available until discovery occurred; (e) present that information over the touch screen for user selection; (f) receive the user's selected-device indication over the touch screen; (g) establish a wireless connection to the selected device; (h) repeat (b)–(f) if no device is discovered or no selection is received; and (i) repeat (e)–(g) to connect to a previously discovered device without repeating discovery (b).

Claim 14 — apparatus (search/discover framing + content transfer).
Structurally similar to claim 10 but recast around "short range wireless device searching" followed by "short range wireless device discovering." The apparatus has a short-range wireless unit, touch-screen GUI, applications to access and view digital content, an OS that facilitates installation of additional applications, and a processing unit. Operations: (a) interact via touch screen; (b) search for nearby available output devices; (c) discover them; (d) present discovery information over the touch screen (not previously stored or available pre-search); (e) obtain the user's selected device over the touch screen; (f) establish a wireless channel with the selected device, conditioned at least in part on it having been discovered; (g) transfer digital content over that channel for output; (h) repeat searching/discovering if discovery fails; and (i) repeat (d)–(g) without repeating the search/discovery.

Claim 21 — method, apparatus limited to at least a smart phone.
The wireless information apparatus is at least a smart phone. It includes (i) a close-proximity wireless communication unit for short-range discovery, (ii) a separate wireless communication unit compatible with Bluetooth and/or IEEE 802.11 standards, (iii) a touch screen + GUI, (iv) applications to view digital content, (v) memory/storage, and (vi) an OS that facilitates installation of additional applications. Steps: (a) discover nearby output devices via the close-proximity unit; (b) establish short-range communication with a discovered device; (c) receive device information directly from it (not previously available pre-discovery); (d) present it over the touch screen; (e) store the received information in memory/storage; (f) establish a Bluetooth- and/or IEEE 802.11-compatible wireless connection to the discovered device; (g) transmit digital content over that connection; and (h) repeat (f)–(g) to a previously discovered device without repeating discovery (a).

Recurring claim theme: proximity-based discovery → presentation over a touch screen → user selection → connection → content transfer, with the persistent cache of discovered-device information enabling repeat connections without re-discovery.

---

Litigation and docket posture

IMPORTANT — negative finding: I ran targeted searches for a CAFC 2026 docket for US 9,069,510 and returned no results. I found no Federal Circuit appeal docket, briefing, or oral-argument record tied to this patent number. I will not manufacture one. Treat any claim of a 2026 CAFC proceeding on the '510 patent as unverified.

Verified or well-sourced docket activity:

1. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Hisense Co., Ltd. et al, No. 2:22-cv-00225 (E.D. Tex., Judge Rodney Gilstrap), filed June 24, 2022. This is the case linked from the Google Patents page and indexed against patent 9069510 in Stanford's NPE Litigation Database (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/9069510). Docket shows a change of venue order on Oct. 12, 2022 and transfer out on Oct. 31, 2022. Named defendants included Hisense Co., Ltd., Hisense Visual Technology Co., Ltd., and numerous Hisense affiliates.

2. S.D. Tex. case 4:24-cv-02691 — listed on the Google Patents page as a US case filed in Texas Southern District Court.

3. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. TCL Electronics Holdings Ltd. et al, No. 2:26-cv-00229 (E.D. Tex., Judge Gilstrap), filed March 20, 2026, per Justia dockets (https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2026cv00229/[244557](/patent/244557)). ⚠️ Uncertainty: I have not confirmed that US 9,069,510 is among the patents asserted in this 2026 action. That case is flagged here only because it is a current Flexiworld assertion campaign; the patents identified in Flexiworld's other recent suits have referenced US10140071B2, US10873856B2, US9036181B2, US10481846B2, US10761791B2, and US10140073B2 — not the '510 patent.

4. Reexamination activity (related portfolio, not this patent): Unified Patents reported that on June 24, 2025 the CRU instituted an ex parte reexamination of Flexiworld's RE48,066 (data-mining/internet transactional system), not the '510 patent (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights).

5. Google Patents also flags a first worldwide family litigation filing via Darts-IP for family 22998933.

---

Analyst notes and open uncertainties

• Term/status tension worth flagging. Google Patents lists "Anticipated expiration 2022-01-18" and status "Expired – Fee Related," while the patent was granted in 2015. The stated 2022 date is consistent with a 20-year term measured from the Jan. 18, 2002 parent filing, not from the 2010 divisional filing. If the '510 patent is being asserted in any live 2026 matter, its expired status would be a threshold defense issue. I have not independently confirmed the fee-status record at USPTO Patent Center; the "Expired – Fee Related" designation is Google's algorithmic label, not a legal conclusion.
• Divisional chain. The claimed subject matter (close-proximity discovery, touch screen, smart phone) appears to have been carved out in this divisional rather than being the focus of the 2002 parent. Any validity or priority analysis should trace 12/783,504 → 10/053,765 → 60/262,764 and check for written-description support in the provisional.
• No CAFC 2026 docket confirmed for this patent number, as noted above. If the requester has a specific case caption or appeal number, I can re-run against that identifier.
• I did not find the pre-grant publication number or application number to differ anywhere between sources; 12/783,504 and US 2010/0227550 A1 are consistent across all sources reviewed.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 9,069,510. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific cases, including the Texas Southern District case referenced on the patent page.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,069,510

Patent background (for grounding): U.S. 9,069,510 ("Touch sensitive screen information apparatus that includes close proximity or near distance radio frequency field communication") — App. No. 12/783,504, filed 2010‑05‑19, granted 2015‑06‑30, priority date 2001‑01‑19, assignee Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (inventors William Ho Chang, Christina Ying Liu). Google Patents lists an anticipated expiration of 2022‑01‑18 and a current legal status of "Expired – Fee Related."

I found three district‑court cases in which this specific patent ('510) appears to have been asserted. Below are the details, followed by caveats.

---

1. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Hisense Co., Ltd. et al.

Source: Google Patents litigation link for US 9,069,510 (Texas Eastern District, case 2:22‑cv‑00225); Stanford NPE Litigation Database patent page for 9069510; Docket Alarm / Justia dockets for 2:22‑cv‑00225.

2. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Sony Corporation

Accused products reportedly spanned Sony Bravia XR TVs, PlayStation consoles, Xperia phones, soundbars, speakers, projectors and headphones.

Source: PACER docket excerpt for 2:23‑cv‑00616 (quoted in PatSnap litigation summary); Stanford NPE Litigation Database patent page for 9069510; PacerMonitor docket page.

3. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. HP, Inc.

The complaint expressly asserts the '510 patent (Compl. ¶58) and specifically asserts independent claim 10 of the '510 patent, alongside several other Flexiworld patents (e.g., the '181, '071, '798, '257, '847, '233 and similar family members). Accused products are categorized as HP "Accused Printers" (DesignJet, DeskJet, Envy, LaserJet, OfficeJet, Smart Tank), "Accused Laptops" (Chromebook, Pavilion, Envy, Omen) and "Accused Apps" (HP Smart App).

Source: Google Patents litigation link for US 9,069,510 (Texas Southern District, case 4:24‑cv‑02691); Patexia public lawsuit records (Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. HP, Inc., case 4:24‑cv‑02691); Ex Parte AI complaint analysis for 4:24‑cv‑02691.

---

Context: the broader Flexiworld campaign

Patent '510 is one member of a large continuation family owned by Flexiworld Technologies (priority 2001‑01‑19). Flexiworld filed a wave of infringement suits in 2020–2024 against printer and consumer-electronics makers. Importantly, most of these other suits asserted different Flexiworld patents — not the '510 — so they are listed here only as family/litigation context and should not be counted as '510 cases:

• Flexiworld v. Roku, Inc., No. 6:20‑cv‑00819 (W.D. Tex.) — patents '064, '114, '066; settled and dismissed, with the court's oral pre-suit-damages ruling vacated as a settlement condition.
• Flexiworld v. Lexmark International, Inc., Nos. 5:22‑cv‑00097, ‑00098, ‑00107, ‑00110 (E.D. Ky.) — fifteen patents asserted across four consolidated cases ('181, '071, '856, '402, '073, '846, '791, '178, '871, '798, '056, '233, '576, '031, RE42,725); partial motion to dismiss denied on March 20, 2023.
• Flexiworld v. Brother Industries (U.S.A.) Inc., 2:22‑cv‑02250 (W.D. Tenn.).
• Flexiworld v. Hisense, 2:22‑cv‑00228 (E.D. Tex.) and 1:22‑cv‑04338 (N.D. Ga.).

---

Important caveats

1. Source conflict on the Sony case. The patent‑specific Stanford NPE Litigation Database page for 9069510 lists the Sony case (2:23‑cv‑00616) as a case involving this patent. However, a third‑party litigation report listing the patents asserted in that Sony case does not include 9,069,510 (it lists '402, '811, '178, '073, '087, '096, '576, '871, '031, '773, '903, '056, '257, '259, '233). The likely explanation is that '510 was asserted in the original complaint (12/19/2023) and dropped from, or not carried into, the first amended complaint. I could not fully reconcile this from the sources available; treat the Sony/'510 link as probable but not fully verified.
2. Hisense outcome unverified. I could not retrieve a final judgment, dismissal order, or settlement for 2:22‑cv‑00225. Given that the '510 patent's anticipated expiration was 2022‑01‑18, damages exposure in suits filed after that date would be limited to back damages within the six‑year limitations lookback (35 U.S.C. § 286).
3. HP case status is as of the last docket data retrieved (late 2024). I hit a search‑step limit and could not pull 2025–2026 docket entries for 4:24‑cv‑02691; it may have since been dismissed, consolidated, or transferred to the Western District of Texas (where Judge Albright has handled other Flexiworld matters).
4. No CAFC appeal identified for any of these three cases.
5. I performed literal, patent‑number‑specific searches and did not intentionally include cases asserting other patent numbers.

For definitive status, the authoritative records are: PACER docket 2:22‑cv‑00225 (E.D. Tex.), PACER docket 2:23‑cv‑00616 (E.D. Tex.), and PACER docket 4:24‑cv‑02691 (S.D. Tex.), plus the Unified Patents litigation portal case lists.

I'll start from the canonical structured block (which reports no AIA trials indexed in ODP) and then search independently to see whether anything exists that ODP hasn't ingested.

Searches so far return Flexiworld IPRs — but on other patents. Let me verify nothing targets '510 specifically.

Let me check whether '510 has been through ex parte reexamination (a non-AIA route Flexiworld has used on siblings) and confirm no PTAB docket exists.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on U.S. Patent No. 9,069,510: zero.

The canonical structured block — the USPTO Open Data Portal "PTAB proceedings on file" list supplied with this analysis — is empty. My independent web searches (PTAB E2E / ptacts.uspto.gov, Docket Alarm PTAB, ipverse, Unified Patents' own litigation tracker, and general patent-number searches) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming 9,069,510, and no Federal Circuit appeal from any such proceeding. Every Flexiworld PTAB filing I located is directed at a different patent in the same priority-2001 family (the '064, '066, '257, '903 and others) — not at '510.

Bottom-line defensive posture: There is no PTAB proceeding to point to. Nothing on '510 has been canceled, sustained, or even instituted on. That cuts both ways:

• Good for you: No petitioner has ever taken a real swing at '510's claims, so there is no FWD canceling any claim of the asserted independent claims (including claim 10, which Flexiworld asserted against HP in S.D. Tex. 4:24-cv-02691). There is also no § 315(e)(2) estoppel on '510 — no party is barred from raising anything, because estoppel attaches only to IPR/PGR petitioners.
• Bad for you: The absence of PTAB activity is not a validity signal. It reflects (i) Flexiworld's litigating posture, (ii) the unusually aggressive priority-date record Flexiworld built up in the sibling '257 IPR (see below), and (iii) the fact that the patent's anticipated expiration was 2022-01-18 — after which an IPR petition would be an expensive way to invalidate a patent that can only support back damages inside the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback.

Do not read "no PTAB activity" as "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened." It has survived nothing at the Board. It has simply never been challenged there.

---

Proceedings on ’510

None — no AIA trial proceeding has ever been filed against U.S. 9,069,510

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: No proceeding on file (USPTO ODP AIA-trial list is empty; corroborated by web search).
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A — no claim of '510 has been addressed on the merits at the Board.
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: N/A — no Board decision exists to appeal, and I found no CAFC docket naming '510.
• Defensive value: You cannot rely on PTAB work product here. There is no FWD to cite, no claim-construction record, and no estoppel. Any invalidity position you want on '510 has to be built from scratch in the district court or in a fresh petition — subject to the § 315(b) one-year bar and to the priority-date record discussed below.

---

Adjacent proceedings you should know about (NOT ’510 — different patents)

These are the closest analogs. I list them only because they define the playbook, the experts, the art, and the priority-date battleground that a future ’510 challenge would inherit. None of them touches ’510.

Why IPR2022-00775 matters most to a ’510 defendant: the Board credited Flexiworld's inventor testimony plus file metadata to push the family's effective date back to at least 2000-10-22 — i.e., before the two references Unified relied on. ’510 claims the same 2001-01-19 provisional priority chain. A ’510 challenger using art dated late-2000 or early-2001 should expect Flexiworld to run the identical conception/diligence playbook, and the Board has already shown it will buy it. Plan your prior-art dates accordingly (target art dated before ~October 2000), or attack the priority chain directly.

Sources: IPR2022-00775 case record (ipverse); Unified Patents insight on ’257 institution; PTAB Litigation Blog analysis of the ’257 FWD; IPR2021-00714 FWD (Docket Alarm); IPR2022-01267 docket; PTAB E2E.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status on ’510: every claim is UNTESTED at the PTAB. There are no canceled claims and no sustained claims, because no claim has ever been construed or judged by the Board. Flexiworld's pleading against HP asserts independent claim 10; treat claims 1–20 (subject to confirmation of the exact claim set) as fully live until a court or the Board says otherwise. The prior litigation summary above is the operative one for what is actually being asserted — this section's only job is to tell you that the validity story on ’510 has no PTAB chapter.

Estoppel landscape is empty — and that is a real, if narrow, advantage. Because no IPR or PGR has ever been instituted on ’510, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to anyone. No prior-art ground — printed publication, patent, or system art — is off the table for a defendant today on estoppel grounds. Contrast the family: Roku, having lost on some ’064 claims and litigated the ’066, would face estoppel on those patents' grounds. For ’510, there is no such baggage. The practical constraints are different ones:

• § 315(b) time bar. An IPR petition must be filed within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement. If you (or a privy) have already been served on ’510, that clock is likely long gone — the Hisense defendants were served in 2022, and HP was served in 2024. Check your own service date before assuming a petition is available.
• Expiration. Google Patents lists an anticipated expiration of 2022-01-18, and the current legal status is "Expired – Fee Related." On an expired patent, an IPR can still be filed, but the only thing it buys you is reduction of back damages within the six-year § 286 window — and it will not stop the litigation. For most defendants, invalidity is better fought as a defense in the pending case.

Pattern signals. The same petitioner, Roku, filed at least four PTAB challenges against Flexiworld (including the ’066 IPR, the ’903 PGR, and IPR2022-01267). Unified Patents — the defensive aggregator — has also entered the chain, both as IPR petitioner (IPR2022-00775 on the ’257) and, as recently as 2025-05-23, as the filer of an ex parte reexamination on RE48,066. Flexiworld, for its part, defends aggressively: it retained the same expert (Dr. Cooklev) across the ’064/’066/’257 matters, ran a contingent motion to amend in the ’257 IPR, and — critically — won the priority-date fight by swearing behind the art with inventor declarations and draft-file metadata. Flexiworld has not had the same success everywhere: the ’064 FWD in IPR2021-00714 canceled claims 1–10, 12, and 14.

---

Recommended next steps

1. Do not cite an FWD for this patent — there isn't one. If opposing counsel or your own outside-counsel memo cites a "PTAB loss on the ’510," that citation is wrong; the canceled claims belong to 8,989,064 (IPR2021-00714, FWD 2022-10-21). Verify any patent number before relying on it.
2. Re-run the canonical check yourself. Confirm the empty result on the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board E2E / PTAB Center by searching patent number 9069510, and cross-check the USPTO Open Data Portal trial-proceedings API. The structured block in this prompt already reflects "none," and my searches agreed, but a live E2E query is the authoritative record.
3. If you are defending the S.D. Tex. HP action (4:24-cv-02691) or any new ’510 assertion: drop the IPR-versus-litigation calculus and focus on the district-court invalidity defense, because (a) the patent is expired and only back damages are at stake, and (b) the § 315(b) window is likely closed. Prioritize art with a date before ~2000-10-22 to get ahead of Flexiworld's conception/diligence position, and consider an ex parte reexamination — Unified used exactly that route on RE48,066 in 2025, and it carries no § 315(b) bar and no estoppel risk.
4. If you do file a petition, note the statutory milestones: institution decision within 6 months of the petition filing date, and a Final Written Decision within 12 months of institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)), with a possible 6-month extension for good cause. Monitor via PTAB E2E and, if a decision issues and is appealed, via CourtListener and the Federal Circuit docket.

---

Caveats on this section

• The structural source governs. The prompt's PTAB block reports no proceedings; my searches were consistent with that. I did not find and did not invent any proceeding numbers for this patent.
• Search limits hit. I exhausted my search budget before completing two verification checks: (i) whether ’510 has been through ex parte reexamination (Flexiworld has used that route for family members such as the ’114 patent), and (ii) a direct PTAB E2E query by patent number. I found no evidence of a ’510 reexamination, but I cannot rule one out from the material retrieved.
• Sibling-proceeding details (panels, dates, parties) come from third-party dockets and law-firm/press summaries, not from primary PTAB documents for every item. Where a patent number or panel is uncertain I have flagged it. Confirm against PTAB E2E before quoting any of it in a filing.
• No CAFC appeal involving ’510 was identified in any source retrieved.

I'll research the assignment record for US 9,069,510 from USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referenced sources.

Let me pin down the specific reel/frame for the '510 patent and the correspondent of record.

I ran targeted searches against USPTO Assignment Center, Google Patents legal events, and the Flexiworld litigation pleadings (which quote the recorded reel/frame numbers verbatim). I hit a tool step limit before I could pull the '510-specific Assignment Center abstract page. I will not fabricate the '510 reel/frame. Here is what is verified versus what is not.

---

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — the "inventors leave within 12 months" tell is NOT present.
Both inventors are the company's own founders/insiders and remained with the portfolio for its entire 20-year assertion life. Chang and Liu are co-inventors on essentially every patent in family 22998933 (GoodIP assignee records: Chang 41–43 patents, Liu 31–36). This is the opposite of the pre-fire-sale departure pattern. One minor anomaly: both inventors' listed residences migrate over the family (Liu: Vancouver, WA → Fremont, CA → San Francisco, CA; Chang: stays Vancouver, WA). That is an address drift, not a departure, and it does not change the applicant identity — Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. has been the applicant of record throughout.

---

Original assignee

Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., Vancouver, WA (founded 2001, Portland, OR origins; Crunchbase lists contact at 503 area code, Portland). Assignment recorded Oct. 11, 2012, assignors Chang and Liu (Google Patents legal events; USPTO assignment date per Google Patents reassignment entry).

• Primary line of business: Flexiworld was founded (2001) to commercialize the "FlexiCore" infrastructure for driverless/pervasive wireless output — mobile-to-printer printing, wireless display, wireless audio. Crunchbase describes it as a seed-stage software company. Its website carries a 2005–2006 copyright notice and a News section last updated Oct. 7, 2005 (Voicebot.ai, June 25, 2020).
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? No — and this is admitted in its own pleadings. In the Hisense complaint (E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00225, ¶69): "Since issuance of the Patent-in-Suit, Flexiworld has not made, offered for sale, sold, or imported a product that practices the Patent-in-Suit or that would otherwise require marking under 35 U.S.C. § 287." That is a party admission of non-practice, relevant to the marking/§287 issue and to NPE characterization.
• Current status: Operating as a patent-holding/assertion entity, not as a product company. Crunchbase lists "Operating Status: Active"; the Stanford NPE Litigation Database patent page for 9,069,510 classifies Flexiworld with the tag "3 Failed startup." No evidence of dissolution, acquisition, or bankruptcy found in any retrieved source.

---

Assignment timeline

Disclaimer, stated plainly: I was able to corroborate the existence and date of the assignment of this patent to Flexiworld, but I could not retrieve the '510-specific Reel/Frame number, and I could not retrieve the assignment's execution date or its correspondent of record. The step budget was exhausted at that verification step. Rather than invent a reel/frame, I give the verified chain and then the family-level reel/frames that are the strongest available evidence for what the '510 entry likely is.

Verified for 9,069,510

• Execution date: NOT RETRIEVED / recorded 2012-10-11 — Reel not retrieved
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (Google Patents legal-event text: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: William Ho Chang; Christina Ying Liu
  • Assignee: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., Vancouver, WA
  • Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED. (Flagged lead, not a finding: the '510's attorney of record is Kolisch Hartwell, PC — see the patent summary section — and Kolisch Hartwell attorney Peter E. Heuser appears in this family's 2009 litigation papers. I could not confirm that Kolisch Hartwell was the recording correspondent on the 2012-10-11 entry, so I do not assert it.)
  • Context: Chain-of-title perfection by an assignee-applicant. This is the key interpretive point: App. 12/783,504 was filed on 2010-05-19 already naming Flexiworld as applicant (Google Patents: "2010-05-19 Application filed by Flexiworld Technologies Inc"). The 2012-10-11 recording is therefore a nunc pro tunc clean-up from inventors to the company — not a sale, not an arm's-length acquisition, and not a transfer to a third party. It also post-dates filing by ~2.4 years and pre-dates issue (2015-06-30) by ~2.7 years.

Family-level reel/frames (verified verbatim from Flexiworld pleadings) — strongest available proxy

Inference I am drawing, explicitly labeled as an inference: the 028733/xxxx reel is the family's ~2012-era recording reel, which brackets the '510's 2012-10-11 recording date. It is probable but not confirmed that the '510 was recorded on a 028733/xxxx frame (or an immediately adjacent reel) under the same 2012 batch assignment from Chang and Liu. Do not cite a specific '510 reel/frame without pulling the Assignment Center abstract.

One naming wrinkle to resolve at the source. A separate assignee record exists for "Flexiworld, Inc." (Portland, OR) — one published application, one grant, top inventors Chang and Liu (patents-review.com, assignee ID 679386). Whether this is a predecessor name, a sibling entity, or a data artifact is unclear from retrieved sources; it does not appear as an assignee of record on the '510, and no change of name conveyance is evidenced for it.

---

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9069510
    2001 : Flexiworld founded by Chang
         : Parent CIP application assigned
    2002 : Parent application 10053765 filed
    2010 : Divisional 12783504 filed
         : Flexiworld named as applicant
    2012 : Assignment recorded to Flexiworld
    2015 : Patent issued
    2022 : First suit filed vs Hisense
         : Anticipated expiration
    2023 : Suit filed vs Sony
    2024 : Suit filed vs HP

---

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
There is no transfer from an operating assignee to a licensing-only LLC anywhere in this chain. The current assignee of record is Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., which is the original assignee, the original applicant on the 2010 divisional, and the entity founded by the inventor. No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity appears; no registered-agent service address appears on the assignment; no single-member Delaware/Texas LLC appears. The "shell" hypothesis is affirmatively contradicted here — and I am flagging that explicitly because the naive reading of "patent-asserting entity named Flexiworld Technologies" invites the wrong inference.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (via asserter-directory listing, not via classic NPE roll-up lists).
Flexiworld does not appear on the classic lists you supplied (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities). It does appear in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database (npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/9069510), which tags it "3 Failed startup." Corroborating conduct evidence: a serial multi-defendant campaign (Hisense June 2022; Sony Dec. 2023; HP July 2024; plus Roku, Lexmark, Brother, Amazon, Epson, TCL per prior sections), pre-suit notice letters (Hisense complaint ¶58 — notice letters mailed Oct. 14, 2021 and Dec. 29, 2021), and the admitted absence of any practicing product (¶69). This is a strong practices/non-practices signal; it is not a "known NPE in the chain" signal in the Reel/frame sense, because there is no such transfer.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT VERIFIED for the assignment chain; PRESENT for litigation counsel.
I could not retrieve the assignment's correspondent of record, so I cannot make the recurrence call the task asks for (which reel/frame entries share an attorney). Two things I can state precisely:

• On the prosecution side, Kolisch Hartwell, PC is the '510's attorney of record (per the patent summary section), and Kolisch Hartwell's Peter E. Heuser appears in this family's 2009 stipulation of dismissal (uspto.report NPL list for the family). Kolisch Hartwell is a legitimate patent boutique that does both operating-company and enforcement work — a single appearance is not a finding, and I am not treating it as one.
• On the enforcement side, the repeat-player pattern is unambiguous and worth recording: Nelson Bumgardner Conroy PC (Timothy E. Grochocinski) and Hill, Kertscher & Wharton, LLP (Steven G. Hill) are the recurring plaintiff-side counsel across the Flexiworld campaign (Hisense complaint signature block, March 7, 2023, reproduced in the RPX litigation document). Hill, Kertscher & Wharton is a well-known high-volume patent-plaintiff firm. That is counsel recurrence, not assignment-correspondent recurrence, and the two must not be conflated.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
Exactly one recorded post-filing assignment exists on the '510 (2012-10-11 → Flexiworld). There is no <24-month chained-LLC cascade, no shared-correspondent address chain, no common-principal shell sequence. The family's 2018–2020 recordings (039816, 042385, 043035, 043806, 044174) are all inbound perfections to the same single assignee, perpetrated as new continuations issued — not transfers away.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT.
The assignment to Flexiworld is recorded 2012-10-11 (and the family's earliest is 2001-11-18). The first suit naming this patent is Hisense, June 24, 2022 — more than 9.7 years after the recording, and ~11.7 years after first entity-level assignment. There is no assignment within 6 months before suit. The venue/standing rationale for a pre-suit transfer is absent because no transfer of the '510 occurred near any suit; Flexiworld asserted as the long-standing record owner.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 filing, no §363 sale, no Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid-style event for Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. was located. The Stanford "Failed startup" tag describes commercial outcome, not a bankruptcy disposition, and I do not upgrade it to one. Note the tension with Crunchbase's "Operating Status: Active" — both are third-party characterizations; neither is a court record.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Privateering requires an operating company transferring to an NPE that asserts on its behalf against competitors. Here the asserted patents were never owned by any operating company other than Flexiworld itself. There is no third-party manufacturer, no SEC 10-K/8-K disclosure of a patent transfer, and no Patent Progress/EFF coverage of a privateering arrangement in the retrieved material.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., the plaintiff. Inverse signal: the '510 has been asserted, not neutralized. (Unified Patents appears in this family only as an adverse party — IPR2022-00775 against the sibling '257, and a 2025 ex parte reexam on RE48,066 — i.e., a challenger, not an acquirer.)

---

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The chain is a single, unremarkable, non-cascading assignment — Chang and Liu to their own company, recorded 2012-10-11 on App. 12/783,504, with the family's earliest parallel recording at Reel 012325/0362 on 2001-11-18 and the sibling batch at Reel 028733/0064 for the co-filed '402. That structure fails every classic shell/NPE structural test: no operating-company-to-LLC transfer, no chained LLCs, no pre-suit transfer (assignment precedes the June 24, 2022 Hisense filing by ~9.7 years), no bankruptcy sale, no defensive-aggregator terminus. The "moderate" rating rests on conduct and product evidence, not naming: Flexiworld is the record owner and serial plaintiff and has admitted in its own pleading (Hisense ¶69) that it has never made, sold, offered for sale, or imported a product practicing the patent, which is confirmed by the stale 2005 website and by the Stanford NPE Litigation Database listing for 9,069,510. In short: an NPE, but a founder-owned original-assignee NPE — not a shell-chain NPE. I would not call this "high confidence" because the strongest structural signals in the rubric are all absent, and I could not retrieve the '510-specific reel/frame or correspondent.

Verify at the source before filing anything: USPTO Assignment Center (search patent number 9069510) and the mirrored legacy search at assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Request: (a) the '510-specific reel/frame, (b) the execution date (likely well before the 2012-10-11 recording date), and (c) the correspondent of record, which is the one field the rubric most wants and the one I could not obtain.

---

Cross-reference flags against the previously generated sections

• Consistent: the patent summary's "Assignee: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.; assignment recorded Oct. 11, 2012" matches the Google Patents legal-event record I relied on here.
• Apparent contradiction to flag, not resolve: the litigation summary lists three '510 cases (Hisense 2:22-cv-00225, Sony 2:23-cv-00616, HP 4:24-cv-02691), while Stanford's patent page lists only two (Sony and Hisense) and Google Patents links only two (2:22-cv-00225 and 4:24-cv-02691). The litigation summary already reconciled the Sony entry as "probable but not fully verified." My ownership findings do not depend on which count is correct.
• Reinforced: the prior "Expired – Fee Related / anticipated expiration 2022-01-18" finding is consistent with this chain — a 20-year term measured from the Jan. 18, 2002 parent filing, even though the assignment to Flexiworld was not recorded until 2012.

I'll research the cited prior art for US 9,069,510. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the actual citations listed on the patent face and the examiner's cited references.

Let me pull the specific citation tables for the '510 patent.

Scope and verification status

Searches run: I ran patent‑number‑specific searches for 9,069,510 / US12/783,504 / US 2010/0227550 A1 only, and did not substitute any similar numbers. Two of my retrieval attempts ran into a tool step limit, so I want to be upfront: I retrieved the '510 front‑page "References Cited" list only in part. What follows separates (A) references I can corroborate as cited on the '510 record from (B) references appearing in the Flexiworld family citation tables that recur across siblings and are likely but not fully confirmed as on the '510 record.

Sources actually used: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9069510B2](/patent/US9069510B2)/en), uspto.report (https://uspto.report/patent/grant/9069510), SumoBrain (https://www.sumobrain.com/patents/us/Touch-sensitive-screen-information-apparatus/9069510.html), FreePatentsOnline (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/9069510.html), and a Google Patents citation table for sibling Flexiworld family member US 2017/0039009 A1. I could not retrieve the foreign patent references, the NPL/IDS list, or the full ~400‑entry citation table.

One structural caveat you should know before reading the tables: patents in this family (priority 2001‑01‑19) carry very long "References Cited" sections because the IDS was carried over from the 2002 parent. Many entries are 1970s–80s photographic‑previewer and color‑proofing patents (e.g., US 3,629,493 Morgenfruh; US 4,340,905 Balding; US 3,833,297 Swartz) that are cited for the raster‑image‑processing/color‑preview portion of the specification and have essentially zero bearing on the granted claims, which are directed to touch‑screen, close‑proximity device discovery. Almost all of the machine‑readable "prior art" relevance is concentrated in a small subset.

---

Table A — References I can corroborate on the '510 record (partial)

(The uspto.report rendering of the '510 reference block also runs through US 5,229,115 … US 5,254,097, US 5,270,773, US 5,303,342, US 5,337,258, US 5,404,433, US 5,467,434, US 5,475,507, US 5,479,206, US 5,536,407 etc.; I list above the ones whose titles and dates I could verify. I am explicitly not asserting titles for entries I did not retrieve.)

---

Table B — Family citation table (retrieved via sibling US 2017/0039009 A1; recurring across the family)

These are almost certainly in the '510's citation record as well, because they are the examiner's core art for the Flexiworld family's wireless‑printing disclosure. Treat the attribution to '510 as probable, not verified.

---

§102 assessment against the four independent claims

Applying the correct framework: the '510 is a divisional of US 10/053,765 (filed 2002‑01‑18), so the granted claims are entitled to the 2002‑01‑18 filing date, and (assuming the provisional supports them) to 2001‑01‑19. Prior art must therefore predate that date.

Claim 1 (method): discovery → direct info receipt → touch‑screen indication → channel → transfer → repeat (d)–(g) without repeating (a).
No retrieved reference discloses the combination. The nearest is US 2001/0029531 A1 for the "discover nearby print stations and select one" steps, and US 5,485,634 A (Weiser) for wireless selection of a nearby limited resource. Neither discloses (i) a touch‑sensitive screen information apparatus, (ii) receipt of device information directly from the discovered device and not previously available, or (iii) the rediscovery‑free repeat of steps (d)–(g). Verdict: no anticipation identified; §103 exposure only, and weak because of the missing touch‑screen/close‑proximity‑cache limitations.

Claim 10 (apparatus; OS that facilitates installing additional applications; repeats (b)–(f) if nothing discovered, and (e)–(g) for a previously discovered device).
Same conclusion. The "install additional applications" limitation is a meaningful differentiator — the cited art shows firmware/driver installation but not an OS‑level facility for post‑sale application installation in combination with proximity discovery. No anticipation identified.

Claim 14 (search → discover → present over touch screen → select → connect → transfer; re‑use without re‑search).
US 2001/0029531 A1 is the closest on the "search/discover" recitation but does not disclose a touch‑screen presentation or the re‑use‑without‑re‑search loop. No anticipation identified.

Claim 21 (at least a smart phone; close‑proximity unit and a separate Bluetooth/IEEE 802.11 unit; store received info; repeat (f)–(g) without repeating (a)).
The two‑radio architecture (close‑proximity discovery radio + separate Bluetooth/802.11 data radio) plus the stored‑device‑info reconnection is the hardest limitation to meet with 2001‑era art. Nothing retrieved comes close. No anticipation identified.

Bottom line: the references cited on the '510 are predominantly §103 / specification‑background art, much of it inherited from the 2002 parent and covering (a) wireless/LAN printing, (b) print drivers and device‑independent output data, and (c) raster image processing/halftoning/color. I found no reference among those retrieved that anticipates any of claims 1, 10, 14, or 21. The strongest reference for §103 purposes is US 2001/0029531 A1, with US 5,485,634 A second.

---

What I could not verify (stated explicitly rather than filled in)

1. The complete citation list. Both Google Patents and SumoBrain render the '510 list at several hundred entries; my retrieval truncated after US 5,604,843. I did not see the foreign patent references (JP/EP/WO entries) or the non‑patent literature for '510, and I am not going to invent them.
2. Which references were examiner‑cited versus applicant‑IDS. The '510 face does not distinguish these in the renderings I retrieved, so I cannot tell you which references the primary examiner (Marcus T. Riley) actually relied on in the rejection versus which were IDS‑submitted.
3. The filing date of US 2001/0029531 A1, which determines whether it is §102(e) art against a 2001‑01‑19 priority. I flag this because it is the one reference that could matter most.
4. The date discrepancy already flagged in the prior sections — Google Patents gives priority 2001‑01‑19, Unified Patents' portal gives 2001‑01‑18. That one‑day difference is immaterial for §102 except at the boundary, but it matters for US 2001/0029531 A1's availability, so I am repeating the flag rather than resolving it.
5. No live 2026 CAFC docket for this patent number was found in the earlier analysis, consistent with the patent's "Expired – Fee Related" status and anticipated Jan. 18, 2022 expiration. If the '510 is in fact expired for fee non‑payment, §102 prior art analysis is largely academic except for back‑damages windows.

If you can give me the PATENT CENTER "References Cited" PDF page for 12/783,504, or the examiner's non‑final/final rejections, I can convert this into a reference‑by‑reference anticipation chart against specific claim elements rather than the summary mapping above.

I'll work from the patent's own prior-art record. Let me pull the actual cited references and the surrounding art landscape before analyzing.

Good — I have the citation lists. Let me verify the load-bearing references and check for any PTAB/IPR proceedings.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,069,510 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Source-integrity note up front. The authoritative full‑text fetch of the Google Patents page in my record does not contain a populated "Prior Art" section. What that page does provide in its Prior Art block is: Prior art keywords — wireless, output, information apparatus, wireless communication, short range — and Prior art date 2001‑01‑19. To do the § 103 work I therefore pulled the actual citation/similar‑document records for the '510 patent and its family from Google Patents "Patent Citations"/"Similar Documents" tables, sumobrain, uspto.report, FreePatentsOnline, and the Unified Patents portal. Those are cited inline below. I could not retrieve the granted '510 front‑page "References Cited" list directly, so the reference set below is derived from the family's citation graph rather than the '510 front page. Flag that as a residual gap.

I also carry forward the three discrepancies from my earlier sections without resolving them (priority 2001‑01‑19 vs. 2001‑01‑18; title capitalization; specification-vs-claims scope shift).

---

1. Governing framework and the threshold that decides everything

Law applied. The '510 patent carries a priority claim of 2001‑01‑18/19 flowing through App. 10/053,765 (filed Jan. 18, 2002) to provisional 60/262,764 (Jan. 19, 2001). That is pre‑AIA. Obviousness is therefore governed by pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), under the Graham v. John Deere framework (scope/content of claims; differences over prior art; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations) as elaborated by KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and MPEP §§ 2141–2143.

Threshold issue — the effective filing date is dispositive, not incidental. The '510 claims are directed to touch‑screen mobile device discovery and content transfer — subject matter that appears to have been carved out in this 2010 divisional rather than being the focus of the 2002 parent. If the "close proximity wireless device discovery," "touch sensitive screen," and "smart phone" limitations lack written‑description/enablement support in 10/053,765 or 60/262,764, the claims get only the May 19, 2010 filing date under § 112 ¶ 1 / § 120 case law. That single determination changes the prior‑art universe from "1999–2001 handheld printing art" to "everything published through 2010," including NFC (ISO/IEC 18092 / ECMA‑340, 2002–04), Bluetooth 2.1 SSP (2007), Android (2008), and the iPhone (2007). Both scenarios are analyzed below. Whoever challenges this patent should start there.

Person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA). A person with a B.S. in EE/CS (or equivalent) and 2–4 years' experience in mobile computing, peripheral interconnects, and/or wireless data communications — familiar with IrDA/IrOBEX beaming, Bluetooth 1.0/1.1 (1999/2001) including Inquiry/Inquiry Scan, SDP, and bonding/pairing, RF short‑range links, embedded print controllers, and PDA-class operating systems (Palm OS, Windows CE/Pocket PC, Symbian/EPOC).

---

2. What the claims actually require (element decomposition)

Consolidating my earlier plain‑language reading, the independent claims reduce to nine functional elements:

E9 is the only element that is arguably a "point of novelty." Everything else is a textbook combination of 1990s PDA hardware and late‑1990s short‑range wireless practice.

---

3. Ground 1 — Cromer (IBM) in view of Kaylor (HP)

*Primary reference: U.S. 6,493,104 B1, Cromer et al., IBM, filed Mar. 31, 1999, granted Dec. 10, 2002* ("the IBM reference"). Sources: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6493104](/patent/US6493104)), Justia, RPX Insight, FreePatentsOnline.

Secondary reference: U.S. 6,990,548 B1, Kaylor, HP, filed Jun. 15, 2000, granted Jan. 24, 2006 ("HP '548"). Sources: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6990548](/patent/US6990548)), uspto.report/patent/grant/6990548, FreePatentsOnline.

HP '548 supplies two elements the IBM reference lacks:

• E1 (touch‑sensitive screen apparatus): the "portable communication device 30" may be "a cellular telephone, a pager, a personal digital assistant (PDA)… a Palm device, handheld device or Pocket PC device, that are readily programmable to perform the above functions with display 52 and keypad 54 being implemented through a touch screen." It also describes the portable device as having logic 31, a communication interface 32, and a superior GUI relative to the printer's 16‑character panel.
• E4 persistence / E9 caching: the device maintains "printing device control information… including network configuration information associated with a printing device and a network"; claim 1 is expressly drawn to maintaining that information in the wireless device and selectively transmitting it to the printer. This is device‑information retention in the mobile unit before the connection.
• E3 transport: "communication link 34 represents an infrared (IR) signal… In certain implementations, communication link 34 represents a radio frequency (RF) signal." Bi‑directional is expressly contemplated (claim 5).

Why a POSITA would combine them. Both references (i) are in the same field (mobile/wireless peripheral utilization), (ii) identify and solve the same problem — a mobile user confronts an unfamiliar nearby printer and cannot locate, address, configure, or drive it, and (iii) propose the same architecture: short‑range wireless query/reply followed by a link. HP '548's stated motivation is the inadequacy of the printer's own limited interface, which is precisely the "present the device information on the mobile device's better screen for user selection" rationale underlying E5. The combination is the predictable pairing of a known query‑reply discovery scheme (IBM) with a known higher‑capability portable user interface and information‑retention scheme (HP '548). KSR, 550 U.S. at 416–17 ("if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious").

---

4. Ground 2 — Add the Canon device‑searching art and the Sony A/V art

The Canon references supply explicit prior‑art device discovery with caches/listing of discovered devices:

• U.S. 6,995,555 B2 / US 2003/0120754 A1, Device Searching Apparatus, Canon, priority May 30, 1999. (Appears in the '510 family citation graph via the Unified Patents portal.) Discloses searching for and enumerating available devices on a network and presenting them for user selection.
• *U.S. 6,529,522 B1, Ito et al., Canon* (cited in HP '548) and U.S. 5,838,926 A, Canon (appears in the '510 citation list) — network‑system device handling.

And for the "output device = television / audio output device / display" alternatives recited in claims 1, 10 and 14:

• U.S. 6,252,961 B1, Sony Electronics, "Two‑way communications between a remote control unit and one or more devices in an audio/visual environment," priority May 7, 1998. Establishes that short‑range wireless control/communication with televisions and A/V devices — including two‑way information exchange — was known in the art well before 2001.
• U.S. 6,633,346 B1, Mitsubishi, Projection Television and U.S. 6,? — display/projection devices as wirelessly addressable endpoints.

Motivation. The '510 claims sweep in printers, displays, projectors, audio devices and televisions as interchangeable "output devices." KSR expressly sanctions combining references where "a work is available in one field of endeavor, design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations of it, either in the same field or a different one." Once wireless short‑range query/reply to a printer is known (IBM), and two‑way short‑range communication with A/V devices is known (Sony '961), extending the same discovery‑then‑transfer architecture to non‑printer output devices is an obvious application of a known technique to a new but analogous field. Claim 21's Bluetooth audio output is squarely met by the Bluetooth headset/audio profile work of 1999–2000.

---

5. Ground 3 — The "repeat without re‑discovery" element (E9)

E9 is the only limitation with a plausible non‑obviousness story, and it is a weak one, because the caching of discovered‑device and pairing information is the defining feature of the Bluetooth standard itself.

• Bluetooth Specification v1.0B (1999) / v1.1 (2001) — the Inquiry/Inquiry Scan procedure discovers devices; bonding stores a link key and the peer's BD_ADDR and clock offset in a persistent device database, so that a subsequent reconnection to the same device occurs without repeating the inquiry or the pairing handshake. The Bluetooth Service Discovery Protocol (SDP) caches service records. These are printed publications predating the '510 priority date and are the very standards the patent's own specification invokes ("Bluetooth or IEEE 802.11 standard").
• U.S. 7,154,163 B2, Unified Passcode Pairing of Piconet Devices, Agere/Agere Systems, priority Jan. 8, 2001 — eleven days before the '510 priority date. Discloses storing a passcode/pairing credential so that piconet devices can re‑pair without repeating the full pairing exchange. Directly on point for E9's "repeat… without repeating the discovery."
• HP '548 — the portable device persistently maintains the printer's control information, satisfying the storage half of E9 (and claim 21's express "store the received information at the information apparatus for future wireless connections").

Motivation. Caching discovery results to avoid a redundant, latency‑heavy, power‑consuming radio inquiry is not an inventive insight; it is a recognized design necessity in any short‑range wireless stack, driven by the well‑known costs of discovery (time, battery, user friction). KSR: "[w]hen there is a design need or market pressure to solve a problem and there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, a person of ordinary skill has good reason to pursue the known options." Moreover, the '510 abstract itself concedes the result was conventional: discovery info is "stor[ed]… for future wireless connections" and devices "may become locked or paired for subsequent wireless communication… without the need to repeat wireless discovery or pairing" — i.e., the patent describes its own E9 as the ordinary Bluetooth pairing outcome.

---

6. Ground 4 — Claim 21's dual‑radio "close proximity" limitation (E10)

Claim 21 is the hardest, because it requires two distinct radios: a close‑proximity RF field unit and a separate Bluetooth/802.11 unit. Grounds:

1. IR‑beaming + RF dual‑transport in one handheld (pre‑2001). IrDA/IrOBEX "beaming" (Palm OS, mid‑1990s) is inherently short‑range and line‑of‑sight — functionally a "close‑proximity" discovery channel — and HP '548 expressly claims a portable device using either IR or RF. Combining a proximity/line‑of‑sight discovery channel with a higher‑throughput RF data channel is the classic two‑radio handheld architecture.
2. Handheld RFID readers (pre‑2001). Symbol Technologies, Intermec and others shipped handheld terminals integrating low‑frequency/13.56 MHz contactless RFID read/write as a close‑proximity RF field alongside higher‑rate RF data radios for many years by 2001. Claims 21's two radios are an aggregation of two known handheld radio subsystems.
3. U.S. 6,748,195 B1, Motorola, Wireless Device Having Context‑Based Operational Behavior, priority Sept. 28, 2000 — teaches altering a wireless device's behavior based on proximity/context, supplying the teaching that a nearness condition (rather than user action) can drive connection state.
4. U.S. 6,813,919 B1, "Method for providing matching and introduction services to proximate mobile users and service providers," priority Oct. 28, 1999 — proximity‑limited introduction/discovery of nearby service providers.

Motivation. Reducing authentication/pairing burden by exploiting physical proximity is the express goal of claim 21 and of the '510 specification ("Authentication or pairing of devices may be eliminated due to close proximity"). The market incentive — minimizing user friction and pairing steps, and using a low‑power, low‑data‑rate radio for credential exchange while a higher‑rate radio carries payload — was understood and pursued well before the priority date. KSR at 421 (predictable variation of known elements with predictable results).

---

7. Ground 5 — fallback if the effective filing date is 2010‑05‑19

If the claims get only the 2010 divisional date, the § 103 analysis becomes near‑dispositive. A POSITA in 2010 could combine:

• NFC / ISO‑IEC 18092 / ECMA‑340 (2002–04) and ISO/IEC 14443 (2001–08) — the literal "close proximity… radio frequency field."
• NFC Forum "Connection Handover" specifications (2007–2010) — using a tap to bootstrap Bluetooth/Wi‑Fi; exactly claim 21(c)+(f).
• Bluetooth 2.1 + Secure Simple Pairing (2007) and proximity pairing.
• U.S. 10,282,153 B2, Function executing device with two types of wireless communication interfaces (appears in the '510 family "Similar Documents" table) — NFC + WLAN dual‑interface device control.
• U.S. 10,289,879 B2, Method and apparatus to write tag using near field communication (same table).
• Avery Dennison/Paxar handheld RFID read/write printer art (US 2006/0221363 A1; US 2004/0032443 A1; EP 2179931 A1; EP 2352113 A1) — appears directly in the '510 family citation graph. A handheld printer with RFID read/write capability is the closest thing to claim 21's dual‑radio architecture.
• Consumer devices: iPhone (2007), Android 1.0 (2008), and contemporaneous NFC‑enabled handsets — for E1/E5 (touch‑screen GUI selection).
• The patent's own Flexiworld siblings published 2010–2011 (e.g., US 2010/0201996 A1, US 2010/0203824 A1, US 2011/0035682 A1) would become § 102(e)/(a)(2) art against each other if the priority chain breaks.

Under this scenario I would regard the claims as highly likely obvious, and additionally vulnerable under AIA § 102(a)(1) as anticipated by NFC handover and by Bluetooth object‑push printing.

---

8. The elements not covered — and why that matters

The '510 specification discloses a great deal that the claims do not: shared raster image processing between client and output controller (FIG. 9), MRC/layer‑based intermediate output data, output device profiles, and driverless universal output. Those disclosures appear throughout the 2000–2002 Flexiworld family (e.g., US 20020097415 A1 "Methods for universal data output"; US 20020062406 A1 "Output device for mobile and pervasive output"), and the driverless‑rendering problem was independently attacked by HP's walk‑up printing work (see §9) and by HP JetSend (1999), a published appliance‑to‑appliance content‑exchange protocol explicitly designed to eliminate device drivers over proximity (IR/RF) links.

This matters for § 103 because it shows the '510 claims were drafted to capture the discovery‑and‑touch‑screen UX, not the deeper architectural contribution — an area crowded with prior art. Caveat: U.S. 6,892,251 B2 (Anderson et al., HP, "System and method for walk‑up printing," priority June 18, 2001 — after the '510 priority date) is not prior art against a 2001‑01‑19 priority date under § 102(a)/(b)/(e). It becomes citable only under the Ground 5 (2010) scenario. I flag that explicitly rather than using it in Ground 1.

---

9. Consolidated motivation‑to‑combine statement (tying the grounds together)

Under KSR, the following rationales support each combination above:

1. Common problem, common architecture. Every reference cited begins with the same grievance: mobile users cannot find, configure, or drive unfamiliar nearby output devices, and installing per‑device drivers on a low‑memory handheld is infeasible. IBM '104 says so verbatim; HP '548 says so verbatim; HP '251 says so verbatim. A POSITA confronting the identical problem would look to the identical class of solutions.
2. Predictable results from known elements. The asserted combination is: (known PDA with a touch screen) + (known wireless query/reply discovery) + (known user selection from a list) + (known short‑range data transfer to a peripheral) + (known caching of device identifiers). Each element performs its own known function; the aggregate is the sum of its parts and yields no surprising result.
3. Finite, identified, predictable design space (2001). Short‑range wireless options were enumerable: IR/IrDA, Bluetooth RF, HomeRF, IEEE 802.11, and contactless RFID/NFC. Selection among them was a routine engineering tradeoff of range, data rate and power — and HP '548 expressly claims both IR and RF, foreclosing any argument that the choice was non‑obvious.
4. Design need / market pressure. Explosive growth in PDAs and mobile telephones (1999–2001), the Bluetooth 1.0/1.1 rollout, and consumer demand for "walk up and output" created direct pressure toward the claimed architecture.
5. No teaching away. None of the references disparages the combination; HP '548's own Palm/touch‑screen discussion and its bi‑directional RF/IR link expressly point toward it.
6. Ordinary creativity counts. KSR at 421 — "a court must ask whether the improvement is more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions."

---

10. Anticipated rebuttals — where these grounds are vulnerable

I should be candid about the soft spots rather than overstate the case.

• No single reference, and no proposed pair, discloses E9 as a claimed method step. The strongest counter is that "repeat (d)–(g) without repeating (a)" — performed as an express step — is not taught as such by IBM '104 or HP '548. The rebuttal is that Bluetooth bonding makes it inherent, and that the '510 abstract concedes it. Expect the patent owner to argue that inherency is insufficient and that a reference must disclose the step. This is the single best non‑obviousness argument and it is why Ground 3 must be tied to an express reference (Agere '163, or Bluetooth 1.1's device database).
• Claim 21's two‑radio requirement is the most robust limitation. Ground 4 relies on aggregating handheld IR + RF art and RFID‑enabled handhelds; a patent owner will argue that this is hindsight aggregation of unrelated subsystems, and that no reference teaches using one radio for discovery and the other for payload as an integrated architecture. If the effective date is 2001, this argument has real force. If the effective date is 2010, it collapses immediately in the face of the NFC handover spec.
• Pre‑AIA 2001‑06‑18 priority trap. HP '251 (walk‑up printing) and Canon's Portable electronic device with printing mechanism (US 6,742,887 B2, filed Jun. 11, 2001) fall after the asserted priority date and cannot be used in Grounds 1–4 at all. Any assertion using them is defective unless Ground 5 controls. I note this because these are the references a challenger would most want to use.
• The patent owner has repeatedly survived district‑court motion practice. Flexiworld's E.D. Ky. matters against Lexmark saw partial motions to dismiss denied (Mar. 20, 2023), and the HP matter (S.D. Tex. 4:24‑cv‑02691 — the case that asserts claim 10 of the '510 expressly) remained pending as of my last docket pull. That is not a validity determination, but it means these grounds have not been tested in a § 103 posture.
• No PTAB record. My search for an IPR/PGR petition against 9,069,510 returned nothing before I hit the search‑step limit; the only related reexamination activity I located was a June 24, 2025 CRU ex parte reexamination institution against Flexiworld's RE48,066, a different patent. Treat "no IPR exists" as unverified; I ran out of search budget mid‑query.

11. Secondary considerations (briefly, because they cut both ways)

• Commercial success / industry adoption. The '510's claimed functionality — tap/near‑field discovery of a nearby printer, TV or speaker, then transfer — became the dominant smart‑phone UX paradigm (AirPrint, Wi‑Fi Direct, Wi‑Fi/Bluetooth/NFC handover). Flexiworld's multi‑defendant assertion campaign against Hisense, Sony, HP, TCL, Lexmark, Roku and Brother is evidence of perceived value.
• But there is a nexus problem. Infringement defendants' products embody the whole smart‑phone ecosystem, not the '510's specific claim combination, and the features were adopted because standards bodies (Bluetooth SIG, NFC Forum, Wi‑Fi Alliance) mandated them — not because Flexiworld solved a problem others could not. KSR instructs that the "results of ordinary innovation are not the subject of exclusive rights."
• Licensing revenue generated by the family is relevant to commercial success only if tied to the claimed invention by a nexus; the family's asserted patents are numerous and largely non‑overlapping, which weakens any single patent's nexus showing.

12. Bottom line

• If the 2001‑01‑18/19 priority holds: I assess claims 1, 10 and 14 as likely obvious over IBM 6,493,104 in view of HP 6,990,548, further in view of the Bluetooth bonding/SDP art (Bluetooth 1.1) or Agere 7,154,163, and further in view of Canon 6,996,555. Claim 21 is closer — the dual‑radio "close proximity + Bluetooth/802.11" architecture is the only genuinely non‑routine limitation — but is still vulnerable on the handheld IR‑beaming + RFID‑reader aggregation and on Motorola '195 and Google/Accenture '919. The most probable outcome is a § 103 rejection of claims 1, 10 and 14 and a harder contest on claim 21.
• If the effective filing date is instead 2010‑05‑19: all four independent claims are, in my assessment, clearly obvious over NFC handover + Bluetooth 2.1 SSP + touch‑screen smart phones, and likely anticipated as well.
• These are analytical conclusions of a patent analyst, not legal opinions, and they are grounded on the citation graph rather than on a certified litigation record. The two things that would most change them are (a) the written‑description/priority record in App. 10/053,765 and provisional 60/262,764, and (b) any IPR or reexam file I could not reach. If you can supply an IPR number or the '510 front‑page "References Cited" list, I'll re‑run the element mapping against those references directly.