Invalidity dossier
US 9516136
Customer-specific request-response processing in a content delivery network
Current assignee: Sandpiper Cdn LLC
Added 9/21/2026, 4:00:58 AM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US 9,516,136 B2
Title: Customer-specific request-response processing in a content delivery network
Patent number: US 9,516,136 B2
Application number: US 14/302,944
Inventors: Christopher Newton, Laurence R. Lipstone, William Crowder, Jeffrey G. Koller, David Fullagar, Maksim Yevmenkin
Original assignee: Level 3 Communications, LLC
Current assignee (as listed): Sandpiper CDN, LLC
Key dates:
- Priority date: 2011-12-14
- Filing date: 2014-06-12
- Publication of US 2014/0372589 A1: 2014-12-18
- Grant/publication of US 9,516,136 B2: 2016-12-06
- Adjusted expiration: 2033-04-24
- Legal status: Active
Purpose and plain-language scope (based on the supplied text):
The patent concerns handling requests and responses in a content delivery network (CDN) on a per-customer basis—i.e., the way requests are processed and responses served can differ depending on which customer is involved. The listed prior-art keywords are request, CDN, cache, customer, and handlers.
The excerpt's classifications place the invention in network service provisioning, caching, and policy areas, including:
- H04L67/568 and H04L67/5682 — caching and policies/rules for updating, deleting, or replacing stored data
- H04L67/56 — provisioning of proxy services
- H04L67/02 — HTTP-based protocols
- H04L41/5061, H04L41/5064 — customer relationship management/service-provider interactions
- H04L41/508, H04L41/509 — value-added network services, including media content delivery
- H04L69/22 — parsing or analysis of headers
These classifications are consistent with a CDN that parses request information, applies customer-specific handling logic ("handlers"), and manages cached content accordingly. The source notes the family has litigation, but this is a status flag only.
What the excerpt does not establish:
The supplied text contains no claims, no written description, no detailed embodiments, and no prior-art references. It therefore does not establish the exact scope of any claim, the specific mechanisms of customer-specific processing, the limitations applied, or the merits of any litigation.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:02:39 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.