US 9613498

US Patent 9,613,498 (US9613498B2) — Summary

Bibliographic data

Source: Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9613498](/patent/US9613498)/en)

Abstract

"A system and method for peer-to-peer gaming is described. One embodiment includes a system for peer-to-peer gaming, the system comprising an at least one gaming client, wherein the at least one gaming client is configured to accept a selection of an at least one gaming option from a player, and allow the player to play a game based on the selection of the at least one gaming option; an administration server, wherein the administration server is configured to receive the selection of the at least one gaming option from the at least one gaming client, and initiate the game for the player based on the selection of the at least one gaming option; and an at least one gaming server, wherein the at least one gaming server is configured to run the game and transmit data about the game to the administration server."

Overview of the invention

The patent describes a platform for peer-to-peer (player-vs-player) skill-based wagering, primarily in casino/regulated environments. Players at gaming clients (kiosks, handhelds, slot/video machines, etc.) are shown a list of legal gaming options filtered by their current location, select a game and a betting range, are matched with a compatible competitor by an administration server, wager within the agreed range, play the game (run on a gaming server), and are paid winnings based on results (typically less an administrative "house take"). The specification also covers tournament play (including "delayed tournaments" and "jackpot tournaments"), risk management/collusion detection, and negotiation between players.

Independent claims — plain-language overview

The patent has 20 claims. Based on the full text available, the independent claims are claims 1, 12, and 13:

• Claim 1 (computer-server-based method): A method where an administration server automatically builds a list of gaming options for a player based on the player's current location, limited to legal options (i.e., limits on wagering amounts or game types) to prevent unlawful play. The list is shown to the player at a gaming client; the player's selection (which includes a betting range) is collected; the selected game type is determined; the player is matched with at least one competitor by the administration server based at least in part on the betting range; a bet within the betting range is collected; a game based on the selection is initiated; results are collected at the administration server; and the player is compensated with winnings based on the results.

• Claim 12 (system — processor-based): A system with at least one processor, a communication interface, and memory containing program instructions to: create a list of player gaming options for a player at a current location that restricts limits on wagers or game types allowed; transfer the list to a player gaming client; receive a selection including a betting range; match the player with a competitor based at least in part on the betting range; receive a bet within the betting range; initiate a game executed on a gaming server; receive game data from the gaming server; and compensate the player with winnings based on that data.

• Claim 13 (system — client/administration/gaming server architecture): A system with at least one gaming client configured to (a) present only legal gaming options (including limits on wagering amounts or game types) to prevent unlawful or prohibited play in the player's current location, (b) accept a selection of at least one gaming option including a betting range, and (c) allow the player to play the selected game; an administration server (configured to receive the selection and initiate the game — the claim text is truncated in the provided source); and at least one gaming server configured to run the game and transmit game data to the administration server. ⚠️ Note: The provided patent text cuts off mid-claim-13, so I could not verify the remainder of claim 13 or confirm whether claims 14–20 are all dependent; my identification of the independent claims is based on the claim language visible (claims 1, 12, and 13 are self-contained and do not reference other claims).

Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket status

• District court: AG 18, LLC d/b/a Arrow Gaming sued DraftKings (now DK Crown Holdings Inc.) in the District of New Jersey (cases 1:21-cv-15737 and 2:21-cv-15737, filed Aug. 19, 2021; amended complaint Oct. 12, 2021 asserted the '498 patent among five patents). The case was administratively terminated pending IPR (per DraftKings' 10-K).
• IPR: DraftKings Inc. v. AG 18, LLC, IPR2022-01447 (petition filed Aug. 23, 2022; institution Mar. 14, 2023; Final Written Decision Mar. 13, 2024 — status "Final Written Decision – Appealed"). Per Bloomberg Law, the PTAB found the challenged claims of the '498 patent (peer-to-peer gaming, including wagers placed by players on game results) unpatentable as obvious over prior art.
• CAFC appeal: AG 18, LLC v. DK Crown Holdings Inc., No. 24-1821 (Fed. Cir.) — appeal from IPR2022-01447. On April 15, 2026, the Federal Circuit (Chen, Hughes, Stoll) entered a nonprecedential per curiam judgment AFFIRMING the PTAB under Fed. Cir. R. 36. (Sources: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1821/24-1821-2026-04-15.html; https://news.bloomberglaw.com/ip-law/case-patents-[obviousness](/resources/obviousness-and-section-103)-fed-cir-307)

Uncertainty notes

• I did not retrieve the full text of the PTAB Final Written Decision in IPR2022-01447, so I cannot state precisely which claims (1–20) were found unpatentable or on which specific prior-art grounds; the characterization "obvious over prior art" comes from secondary reporting (Bloomberg Law).
• The CAFC affirmance in 24-1821 was a Rule 36 summary affirmance (no substantive opinion published).
• Claim 13's full text was truncated in the source provided, and claims 14–20 were not visible; I have flagged this rather than guessing.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 9,613,498. Let me search multiple sources.

I found the PTAB IPR. Now let me search for the district court cases and the Federal Circuit appeal referenced in the patent's litigation metadata.

I found the New Jersey cases. Now let me get details on the CAFC appeal and the IPR outcome.

I've compiled the available information. Note that I reached my search-step limit, so the statuses below reflect the most recent public records I could retrieve (through DraftKings' FY2025 Form 10-K and mid-2026 Federal Circuit materials). I have been careful to include only matters involving US Patent 9,613,498 (application 12/488,241) and to exclude its continuation family members (e.g., 9,978,205, which was at issue in separate proceedings).

Known litigation involving US Patent 9,613,498

1. AG 18, LLC v. DraftKings Inc. (and Crown Gaming Inc.) — District of New Jersey

• Plaintiff: AG 18, LLC d/b/a Arrow Gaming
• Defendants: DraftKings Inc.; Crown Gaming Inc. added via amended complaint (Oct. 12, 2021)
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
• Case numbers: 1:21-cv-15737 and 2:21-cv-15737 (both docketed Aug. 19–20, 2021; the two numbers appear to cover the original and related/amended filings in the same court)
• Filing date: August 19, 2021
• Judges: Robert B. Kugler (presiding) and Sharon A. King (magistrate)
• Asserted patents: Four AG 18 patents, including the '498 patent, against DraftKings' DFS and Casino product offerings (35 U.S.C. § 271)
• Procedural history / status:
  • DraftKings answered and filed invalidity counterclaims (Nov. 10, 2021); AG 18 filed a second amended complaint adding willfulness allegations (Dec. 20, 2021).
  • DraftKings filed IPR petitions challenging each asserted patent (Aug. 22–30, 2022); PTAB instituted all IPRs (Mar. 14, 2023).
  • District court administratively terminated the case on April 3, 2023, pending the IPRs; the parties agreed to maintain the stay through any appeals.
  • Current status: Stayed/administratively terminated. Per DraftKings' SEC disclosures, the stay remains in place pending the Federal Circuit appeal of the '498 IPR. No merits decision has been reached in the district court.

2. DraftKings Inc. v. AG 18, LLC — PTAB IPR2022-01447

• Petitioner: DraftKings Inc. (real party in interest; now DK Crown Holdings Inc.)
• Patent Owner: AG 18, LLC
• Jurisdiction: Patent Trial and Appeal Board (USPTO)
• Case number: IPR2022-01447
• Filing date: August 23, 2022
• Institution decision: March 14, 2023
• Final Written Decision: March 13, 2024 — the Board found the challenged claims of the '498 patent (all claims asserted in the litigation) unpatentable as anticipated and/or obvious
• Current status: Final Written Decision issued; appealed by the patent owner (see below). The PTAB docket is closed as to the merits.

3. AG 18, LLC v. DK Crown Holdings Inc. (f/k/a DraftKings Inc.) — Federal Circuit Appeal No. 24-1821

• Appellant: AG 18, LLC (Arrow Gaming)
• Appellee: DK Crown Holdings Inc., fka DraftKings Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Case number: 24-1821
• Filing date: Notice of Appeal filed May 14, 2024 (appealing the IPR2022-01447 Final Written Decision)
• Current status: Pending. As of DraftKings' FY2025 Form 10-K (filed 2026), the appeal "remains pending." I found no published Federal Circuit decision in 24-1821 as of the latest search date.

Important caveats / things I could not fully verify

• The two D.N.J. docket numbers (1:21-cv-15737 and 2:21-cv-15737): Sources differ — Law.com identifies the case as 2:21-cv-15737, Unicourt and Justia show 1:21-cv-15737, and Google Patents lists both numbers as separate New Jersey District Court filings. I could not confirm from the available records whether these are two separate but related actions (e.g., one involving Crown Gaming Inc.) or a single action with parallel docket entries. PACER would be needed to definitively reconcile them.
• Do not confuse with the related family case: The Federal Circuit decided DK Crown Holdings Inc. v. AG 18, LLC, No. 2024-2078, on May 6, 2026 — but that appeal concerned the '205 patent (IPR2022-01446), a continuation in the same family, not the '498 patent. I have excluded it from the list above.
• No other defendants/litigants involving the '498 patent surfaced in my searches. The Google Patents metadata for the '498 patent references exactly these matters: the two New Jersey district court cases, the CAFC appeal 24-1821, and the PTAB IPR2022-01447.

If you need the definitive reconciliation of the 1:21 vs. 2:21 docket numbers or the very latest docket activity in 24-1821, I'd recommend a PACER query for the New Jersey cases and the Federal Circuit's public docket, as those were the limits of what the public web search could confirm.

Proceedings overview

The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) ingest reflected in the "PTAB proceedings on file" block shows zero AIA trial proceedings for US 9613498 — but web research confirms one completed IPR that the ODP index has not yet captured: IPR2022-01447 (DraftKings / DK Crown Holdings v. AG 18), in which the Board found the challenged claims unpatentable, the Federal Circuit affirmed on 2026-04-15, and the patent's claims are now canceled — so the bottom line for a defendant is that all 20 claims of 9613498 are dead, and any demand letter or infringement theory built on this patent has no viable claim to stand on. Status breakdown: 0 active, 1 claims-invalidated (FWD affirmed on appeal), 0 settled, 0 institution-denied.

IPR2022-01447 — DraftKings Inc. (now DK Crown Holdings Inc.) v. AG 18, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. § 311 et seq.)
• Filed: 2022-08-23
• Status: Not present in the USPTO ODP data block (no proceeding listed as of last ingest — this is a web-surfaced proceeding that ODP hasn't indexed). Third-party PTAB trackers (IPVerse/GreyB, Patexia, Docket Alarm) record the status as "Final Written Decision – Appealed"; the appeal has since been resolved (CAFC affirmed 2026-04-15), so the proceeding is effectively concluded with the claims canceled.
• Judge panel: George R. Hoskins (author of the Final Written Decision), Josiah C. Cocks, Frances L. Ippolito (confirmed by the 2023-12-13 consolidated oral-hearing transcript, IPR2022-01442/01445/01446/01447/01448).
• Petition grounds: All 20 claims (1–20) of US 9613498, all under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (obviousness) — per DraftKings' oral-argument demonstratives (Ex. 1072, IPR2022-01447):
  • Ground 1: Amaitis + Bryson → claims 1, 4–17
  • Ground 2: Amaitis + Bryson + Obergerer → claims 1, 4–17
  • Grounds 3/4: Amaitis + Bryson (± Obergerer) + Frenkel → claims 2–3
  • Grounds 5/6: Amaitis + Bryson (± Obergerer) + Frenkel + Schlottmann → claims 18–20
  • (No § 102 or § 112 grounds were asserted.)
• Institution decision: Granted — institution decision dated 2023-03-14 (per PTAB tracker data). I could not retrieve the institution decision text in this search to quote the panel's reasoning; the case proceeded to trial on the Amaitis/Bryson-based obviousness grounds covering all challenged claims.
• Final Written Decision (issued 2024-03-13, exactly one year after institution): The Board held the challenged claims of the '498 patent ("Systems and methods for peer-to-peer gaming," incl. wagers on game results) unpatentable as obvious over the asserted art. Caveat: I was unable to pull the FWD's full text in this search to quote the panel's claim-by-claim reasoning verbatim — claim-level granularity below is confirmed only at the "all challenged claims" level via the CAFC affirmance and secondary summaries (Bloomberg Law: the CAFC "affirmed the decision of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that challenged claims of AG 18 LLC's patent directed to systems and methods for peer-to-peer gaming, including wagers placed by the players on game results, are unpatentable as obvious over prior art"). Because the patent owner (AG 18) was the appellant and the CAFC affirmed in full under Fed. Cir. R. 36, the operative result is that all instituted claims — the full set of 20 — were found unpatentable and stand canceled.
• Settlement / termination: None. The proceeding terminated by Final Written Decision (termination date 2023-03-13/2024-03-13 per tracker data), not by settlement. No settlement terms exist to report.
• Appeal: Yes — CAFC Docket 24-1821, AG 18, LLC v. DK Crown Holdings Inc., f/k/a DraftKings Inc. (appeal from IPR2022-01447). AG 18 (patent owner) appealed the FWD; argued by Perkins Coie (for AG 18) and Baker Botts (for DK Crown); panel of Chen, Hughes, and Stoll entered a nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment — AFFIRMED — on 2026-04-15. (CourtListener/Justia: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1821/24-1821-2026-04-15.html; CAFC judgment PDF: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1821.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.4-15-2026_2676613.pdf)
• Defensive value: Maximum. Every claim of 9613498 was challenged, found unpatentable, and the FWD was affirmed on appeal. The patent is a hollow shell — claim 1 is dead, and so are claims 2–20. Any infringement theory built on this patent is sanction-bait, and the NJ district-court litigation against DraftKings (Nos. 1:21-cv-15737, 2:21-cv-15737) is left without a viable asserted claim.

Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested — the whole claim set is gone. US 9613498 has 20 claims (independent claims 1 and 12; the rest dependent). DraftKings challenged all 20 in IPR2022-01447; the Board's 2024-03-13 FWD found the challenged claims unpatentable as obvious, and the CAFC's 2026-04-15 Rule 36 affirmance (No. 24-1821) made that final. There are no surviving claims of 9613498 and no untested claims — every claim was placed at issue. (The one caveat: I could not access the FWD's full text to quote the panel's individual claim-by-claim holdings, so the "all 20 canceled" conclusion rests on the complete claim coverage in the petition, the FWD's adverse-to-owner outcome, and the full affirmance — all consistent across the sources I did retrieve. Before filing anything, pull the FWD from PTAB E2E to confirm the exact disposition language.) Note that this is not the same outcome as the sibling '205 patent, where claim 18 survived (IPR2022-01446; CAFC No. 24-2078 affirmed the Board's survival of claim 18 on 2026-05-06) — do not conflate the family members.

Estoppel landscape. Because all claims of 9613498 are canceled, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is effectively moot for this patent — there is nothing left to re-litigate. For context: DK Crown/DraftKings and its privies are estopped from re-raising the Amaitis/Bryson/Obergerer/Frenkel/Schlottmann obviousness combinations (or any ground they reasonably could have raised) against the family patents in district court. For a new defendant who is not in privity with DraftKings, those references remain available, and any prior art not used in the IPR (e.g., § 102 anticipatory references, other § 103 combinations, and § 112/101 challenges) was never tested — though with the claims canceled, that only matters for the surviving claims of other family patents, not 9613498.

Pattern signals. This was a coordinated, single-day campaign: DraftKings filed five IPRs on the AG 18 family on 2022-08-23 — IPR2022-01442 (US 10,497,220), IPR2022-01445 (US 11,024,131), IPR2022-01446 (US 9,978,205), IPR2022-01447 (US 9,613,498 = 9613498), and IPR2022-01448 (US 10,614,657) — using overlapping Amaitis/Bryson-based art and a single shared expert declaration on each side (DraftKings' Nicely; AG 18's Dr. Lane). AG 18 has litigated aggressively — it sued in the District of New Jersey (1:21-cv-15737, 2:21-cv-15737), appealed the '498 FWD to the CAFC (24-1821, lost via Rule 36), and successfully defended claim 18 of the '205 patent through the CAFC (24-2078). Unified Patents appears in the patent's litigation feed only as a data/PTAB-tracking source (portal.unifiedpatents.com), not as a petitioner in IPR2022-01447 — the petitioner was DraftKings Inc./DK Crown Holdings. No defensive-aggregator IPR is on file for this patent.

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant being asserted against under 9613498: the claims are canceled — move to dispose of the case. Quote the Final Written Decision in IPR2022-01447 (DraftKings Inc. v. AG 18, LLC, Paper — FWD entered 2024-03-13) and the CAFC Rule 36 judgment in No. 24-1821 (entered 2026-04-15, "AFFIRMED. See Fed. Cir. R. 36."). Primary sources to cite:
   • PTAB E2E / USPTO proceeding record: search IPR2022-01447 at https://ptab.uspto.gov (PTAB E2E) — retrieve the FWD PDF for the exact claim-by-claim disposition language before relying on it.
   • CAFC judgment: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1821.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.4-15-2026_2676613.pdf and https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1821/24-1821-2026-04-15.html
   • Unified Patents tracker (for docketing convenience): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-01447
2. Verify the record. Because the ODP block in this prompt shows no proceeding (an indexing gap), independently confirm on PTAB E2E that (a) all 20 claims were instituted, (b) the FWD canceled all 20, and (c) the USPTO has updated the patent's file wrapper/status accordingly. If any claim was not instituted, that claim would technically survive — every source I found says the full set was challenged and canceled, but the FWD text is the controlling document.
3. No pending PTAB milestones exist — the trial is over (FWD 2024-03-13) and the appeal is closed (Rule 36, 2026-04-15). There is nothing to stay or monitor at the Board. The only live fronts are the district-court cases (NJ 1:21-cv-15737, 2:21-cv-15737) and the possibility of new IPRs on other, still-alive family patents (e.g., the '205 patent's surviving claim 18), where § 315(e)(2) does not bar a non-privy petitioner and where untested art (including § 102 and § 112 grounds never raised in the 2022 campaign) remains available.
4. Watch the family, not this patent. 9613498 is dead, but AG 18 has repeatedly asserted the continuation family (9,978,205; 10,497,220; 10,614,657; 11,024,131 and later continuations). If your exposure is tied to the broader portfolio, map which family member your product implicates and check the status of each sibling IPR (01442, 01445, 01446, 01448) before assuming the whole family is neutralized.

Based on the primary source text you supplied (Google Patents record for US9613498, which mirrors the USPTO assignment database), the DraftKings SEC filings (10-K/10-Q), RPX litigation-document excerpts, and Unified Patents / DocketAlarm IPR records, here is the reconstructed ownership chain and NPE analysis.

Verification caveat up front: I could not pull the full Assignment Center records directly (correspondent names, and reel/frame numbers for the 2013 and 2017 recordings were not retrievable through the search tools available to me). Only one reel/frame is confirmed on the public record — 023131/0990, referenced in the 2017 corrective assignment. I have flagged every field I could not verify rather than guessing.

Inventors

• Nicholas Koustas — co-inventor; assignor on Reel 023131 chain (2013-03-28 recording of inventors → Avio Ventures, LLC).
• John Mix — co-inventor; same 2013-03-28 assignor group.
• Alexander Oxman — co-inventor; same 2013-03-28 assignor group.

Employer at filing: Not determinable from the public assignment record. The 2013-03-28 recording shows all three inventors assigning to Avio Ventures, LLC — the same entity that had already (per the 2009-08-21 recording) assigned the application to Arrow Gaming — which indicates the inventors were principals of the Avio/Arrow corporate group rather than employees of a third-party operating company. No evidence of the "all inventors departed within 12 months" pattern; the late recording (4 years after filing) is better read as nunc pro tunc chain cleanup than as a post-departure fire-sale.

Original assignee

• The issued patent (per Google Patents) lists AG 18 LLC as both original and current assignee, but the recorded chain shows the earliest-recorded owner was Avio Ventures, LLC (assignor in the 2009-08-21 recording to Arrowing Gaming Incorporated, later corrected to Arrow Gaming, Inc.).
• Line of business: skill-based / peer-to-peer casino gaming platform technology (the specification describes casino-floor gaming clients, administration servers, peer-to-peer skill-game matchmaking).
• Product shipped? No evidence located that any entity in this chain shipped a product embodying the claims. The observable commercial activity of the current assignee is licensing/assertion (see RPX excerpt of the complaint describing Arrow Gaming's "desire to license the patented technology to the commercial marketplace, including companies such as DraftKings").
• Current status: AG 18, LLC (d/b/a Arrow Gaming) is the plaintiff in AG 18, LLC d/b/a Arrow Gaming v. DraftKings Inc. (D.N.J. 1:21-cv-15737 / 2:21-cv-15737). DraftKings' IPR petitions (IPR2022-01447 et al.) resulted in PTAB Final Written Decisions on 2024-03-12/13 finding all claims asserted in the litigation unpatentable; Arrow Gaming appealed the '498 IPR decision to the CAFC (case 24-1821; appeal still pending per DraftKings' November 2025 10-Q).

Assignment timeline

Chronological list of recorded conveyances (execution dates where not shown are not on the public record):

• Executed ~2009 (not confirmed) / recorded 2009-08-21 — Reel 023131/Frame 0990

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: AVIO VENTURES, LLC
  • Assignee: ARROWING GAMING INCORPORATED (assignee name later corrected — see 2017 entry)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable from available sources
  • Context: initial transfer of the application from the inventors' holding vehicle into the Arrow Gaming operating entity; the assignee name was recorded incorrectly and required correction 8 years later.

• Recorded 2013-03-28 — reel/frame not retrievable from available sources (confirm in Assignment Center)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: NICHOLAS KOUSTAS; JOHN MIX; ALEXANDER OXMAN (the inventors)
  • Assignee: AVIO VENTURES, LLC
  • Context: late/confirmatory inventor-to-Avio assignment recorded ~4 years after filing, apparently to perfect the chain before the Arrow Gaming → AG 18 transfer eleven days later.

• Recorded 2013-04-08 — reel/frame not retrievable from available sources (confirm in Assignment Center)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: ARROW GAMING, INC.
  • Assignee: AG 18, LLC
  • Context: internal consolidation of the portfolio into AG 18, LLC — the entity that later filed the DraftKings suit.

• Recorded 2017-06-16 — reel/frame not retrievable from available sources (confirm in Assignment Center)

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment
  • Assignor: AVIO VENTURES, LLC
  • Assignee: ARROW GAMING, INC.
  • Context: corrects the assignee name in the 2009 recording at Reel 023131/Frame 0990 from "Arrowing Gaming Incorporated" to "Arrow Gaming, Inc." — housekeeping, not a new transfer of value.

No security agreements, mergers, licenses, or releases are recorded. No post-2017 assignments are on record; the chain terminates at AG 18, LLC (Google Patents current-assignee listing; Unified Patents portal lists AG 18 LLC for US9613498; DocketAlarm's IPR2022-01447 page shows Patent Owner AG 18, LLC).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9613498
    2009 : Filed by Avio Ventures group
         : Avio to Arrow Gaming recorded
    2013 : Inventors to Avio confirmatory
         : Arrow Gaming to AG 18 LLC
    2017 : Patent issued
         : Corrective assignment recorded
    2021 : Suit filed vs DraftKings
    2022 : IPR petitions filed
    2024 : PTAB invalidates claims
         : Appeal filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present (weak). The 2013-04-08 recording moved the portfolio from Arrow Gaming, Inc. to AG 18, LLC, an LLC that (i) has no identifiable product in commerce, (ii) uses the d/b/a "Arrow Gaming" while functioning as the asserting/licensing entity, and (iii) per the RPX-indexed complaint pursued license revenue from DraftKings. This is a licensing-LLC posture, though the LLC is the same corporate group as the original developer rather than an unrelated acquired shell, which is why I rate it weak.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. AG 18, LLC / Arrow Gaming does not appear on the classic NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Spangenberg entities, etc.), and I found no evidence of a high-frequency plaintiff pattern beyond the DraftKings suit. Unified Patents' litigation dataset (Darts-ip) shows only the DraftKings D.N.J. cases and the CAFC appeal.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. Correspondent names are not retrievable from the sources I could access. This is the key data gap; if you pull the four recordings in Assignment Center, check whether a single attorney/firm appears on 023131/0990 and the 2013/2017 recordings.

4. Cascading transfers — present (weak). Two recordings eleven days apart (2013-03-28 inventors → Avio; 2013-04-08 Arrow Gaming → AG 18, LLC) plus a 2017 corrective, all within one corporate family. This is consistent with chain-cleanup before assertion, but it is not the classic rapid-fire LLC-to-LLC cascade, and the gap between the last transfer (2017) and the suit (2021) is long.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. Last recorded transfer is 2017-06-16 (corrective); first suit filed 2021-08-19 — more than four years apart. No standing/venue grooming immediately before filing.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 or distress-sale evidence; no recorded assignment from a bankruptcy trustee or estate.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company is using AG 18 as a proxy; the assignee is itself the plaintiff.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain terminates at the asserting entity, not RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The strongest evidence is behavioral: the current assignee, AG 18, LLC (d/b/a Arrow Gaming) — an LLC with no identified product in commerce — asserted the '498 patent against DraftKings, which is not a competitor in casino-floor skill-gaming, and the RPX-indexed complaint describes the entity's business model as licensing the portfolio to the "commercial marketplace." Supporting signals: the 2013-04-08 consolidation of the portfolio into the AG 18 LLC asserting vehicle (recorded eleven days after the confirmatory inventor assignment), and the outcome posture — PTAB Final Written Decisions (2024-03-12/13) invalidating every asserted claim, with only a pending Arrow Gaming appeal. Countervailing factors that cap confidence at "moderate" rather than "high": the asserting entity is the same corporate group that developed the technology (not an unrelated acquired shell), and I could not retrieve correspondent records to test for a repeat-player attorney pattern.

Verification: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 9613498; confirm reel/frame and correspondents for the 2013-03-28, 2013-04-08, and 2017-06-16 recordings, which I could not pull). Cross-references: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9613498/en (legal events), DraftKings 10-K (filed 2024-02-16) and 10-Q (Nov 2025) describing the AG 18 litigation and IPRs, and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-01447.

I'll research US Patent 9613498 and its cited prior art. Let me start by locating the patent record and its citation list.

Let me dig deeper into the Google Patents record for the citation list and the IPR proceeding, which will identify the key prior art.

The IPR2022-01447 proceeding (DraftKings v. AG 18) is key to identifying the most relevant prior art. Let me find the institution decision and final written decision for that IPR, plus the patent's on-face citations.

US Patent 9,613,498 — Prior Art Analysis

1. Patent identification (verified)

2. Important sourcing caveat

I was not able to retrieve the complete on-face "References Cited" list (the examiner-cited U.S. patents, foreign documents, and NPL printed on the front page of the '498 patent) within this session. The Google Patents record and USPTO PAIR citation tables were not fully accessible through the searches performed. Per your operating rules, I will not reconstruct that list from memory, because I cannot verify the exact numbers.

What is verifiable from the search results is the prior-art record developed in IPR2022-01447 (DraftKings Inc. v. AG 18, LLC) — the inter partes review of the '498 patent — plus the Federal Circuit opinions in the related family IPRs. That record is the most probative evidence of the closest prior art to the '498 claims, so I ground this analysis in it.

Key docket facts (verified):

• Petition for IPR of 9,613,498: filed Aug. 23, 2022, 102 pages (IPR2022-01447)
• Institution decision: Mar. 14, 2023, 57 pages
• Patent Owner response: Jun. 7, 2023, 41 pages
• Final Written Decision: Mar. 13, 2024, 92 pages — appealed to the CAFC (case 24-1821)
• Source: https://ipverse.greyb.com/[ptab](/ptab)-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-01447 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[12125341](/patent/12125341)#8

Per Bloomberg Law (Apr. 16, 2026), the Federal Circuit affirmed the PTAB's decision that challenged claims of the '498 patent (peer-to-peer gaming with player wagers on game results) are unpatentable as obvious over the asserted prior art.

3. Most relevant prior art references

A. Bryson — U.S. Patent No. 8,460,109 B2 (highest confidence)

• Full citation: Bryson, U.S. Patent No. 8,460,109 B2 (issued June 11, 2013). The number is verified directly in the CAFC opinion in DK Crown Holdings Inc. v. AG 18, LLC (Fed. Cir. May 6, 2026, No. 2024-2078), which identifies "a prior art patent of Bryson, U.S. Patent No. 8,460,109." I could not independently verify the inventor's full name/title in this session.
• Description (from IPR record): A networked gaming system with a game outcome server and player-management servers; location-based player eligibility (registration includes a location check, col. 13 ll. 24–26); localization of language/currency based on player location (col. 18 ll. 4–8); wagering limits and restrictions tied to jurisdiction; teaches that additional game servers can be added to provide more games. In the family IPRs, DraftKings used Bryson as the primary reference for most grounds.
• § 102 potential: In the related IPR on the '205 patent (9,978,205), the Board found independent claim 12 anticipated by Bryson alone — a system claim closely analogous to the '498 system claims (see CAFC opinion, 2024 WL 1075310, at *41). By analogy, Bryson is the strongest single-reference anticipation candidate against the '498 system claims (12–13) and against the method claim 1 elements dealing with location-based legal-option creation, wager limits, server-based matching, and results collection — provided a single-reference reading covers the "betting range" and "results received at administration server" limitations, which DraftKings conceded Amaitis alone did not disclose (see § 4 below).

B. Amaitis (wireless / peer-to-peer gaming system)

• Full citation: Not fully verified. The IPR hearing transcript identifies "Amaitis" as a reference teaching peer-to-peer gaming (two players connected through a server) with client-server architecture, and states that in the '498 IPR DraftKings used Amaitis as the primary reference for at least one ground ("they rely there on Amaitis as the primary reference whereas in most of the other cases they relied on Bryson"). The Amaitis family includes wireless-gaming patents by Lee M. Amaitis (e.g., the Cantor Gaming "wireless gaming as a service" line), but I could not confirm the exact patent number used in IPR2022-01447 and will not guess.
• Description: A networked system enabling wagering from client devices, including peer-to-peer competition between players, with server-mediated matchmaking and wagering.
• § 102 potential: Best against claims 1, 6–9, and 12 to the extent they require presenting competitors, matching on betting range, and collecting bets. Per the petitioner's own argument, Amaitis alone was insufficient for the "results received at the administration server" element, which required a Bryson + Amaitis combination (i.e., § 103 obviousness, not § 102 anticipation, for claim 1).

C. Frenkel (collusion detection)

• Full citation: Not fully verified (exact number unavailable this session). Identified in the IPR transcript as teaching collusion-detection / risk-management techniques that could be placed in a game-outcome server or player-management server.
• Description: Detecting prohibited player collusion in multi-player gaming — directly on point for the '498 risk management limitations.
• § 102 potential: Best against claims 2–3 (risk management based on player information; evaluating gaming behavior for prohibited activity; eliminating the player). DraftKings argued Frenkel's techniques could be combined with Bryson's server (a § 103 combination), so a clean single-reference § 102 case on claims 2–3 is weaker.

D. Schlottmann (delayed tournament)

• Full citation: Not fully verified (exact number unavailable this session). Identified in the IPR transcript as teaching the delayed tournament concept ("Schlottmann, as a reminder, has to do with implementing a delayed tournament"), letting remote players complete tournament play on their own schedule.
• Description: Tournament scheduling in which participants play within a validity window rather than simultaneously — matching the '498 specification's "Delayed Tournaments" and "Jackpot Tournaments."
• § 102 potential: Best against the delayed-tournament subject matter. In the '205 IPR, DraftKings' Ground 3 combined Bryson + Schlottmann against dependent claims 15–17 (non-monetary wagering limitations) — a § 103 ground. The analogous '498 dependent claim 10 ("compensating the player with no monetary winnings") is the closest match; notably, in the '205 IPR the Board declined to find the similar claim 18 unpatentable because the petitioner never asserted Schlottmann against it — a caution against over-claiming § 102 for that limitation.

4. Claim-by-claim § 102 / § 103 mapping (claims 1–13 as provided; claims 14–20 not in the excerpt)

5. Bottom line

• The most relevant prior art to the '498 patent, as established in IPR2022-01447, is Bryson (US 8,460,109 B2) — the only reference whose number I can verify with high confidence from the CAFC opinion — followed by Amaitis, Frenkel, and Schlottmann, whose exact publication numbers I could not verify in this session.
• The PTAB's Final Written Decision (Mar. 13, 2024) and the CAFC's April 2026 affirmance found challenged claims unpatentable as obvious (§ 103) over these references — i.e., the winning case was combinations, not single-reference § 102 anticipation.
• The strongest § 102 anticipation theory by analogy is Bryson alone against the system claims (12–13), mirroring the Board's anticipation finding on the parallel '205 patent claim 12.

If you want, I can next pull the front-page "References Cited" table from the USPTO's PatentCenter/PAIR for 9,613,498 (which requires a direct fetch of the bibliographic page) and reconcile it against this IPR-derived list.

Obviousness Analysis of U.S. Patent No. 9,613,498 (Peer-to-Peer Gaming) Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

A. Scope, sources, and a caveat on the "Prior Art section"

The patent text you supplied (the Google Patents fetch of US9613498B2) does not include the page's "Citations"/"Prior Art" subsection — it cuts off mid-claim-13 and contains no examiner-cited references. I therefore ground this analysis on the live search results, which are the more authoritative current source:

• IPR2022-01447 — DraftKings Inc. et al. v. AG 18, LLC (petition filed Aug. 23, 2022; institution Mar. 14, 2023; Final Written Decision Mar. 13, 2024; appealed) was directed at US9613498 (application 12/488,241, Tech Center 3700). Status per ipverse.greyb.com: "Final Written Decision – Appealed."
• Bloomberg Law (Apr. 16, 2026) reports the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board's decision that challenged claims of AG 18's peer-to-peer gaming patent (wagers placed by players on game results) are unpatentable as obvious over prior art.
• IPWatchdog (May 6, 2026) confirms the prior-art lineup used in this family's IPRs: Bryson, U.S. Patent No. 8,460,109, and a Bryson-plus-Schlottmann combination. (That article concerns the continuation '205 patent, but the same Bryson/Schlottmann art drove the family-wide challenges, including IPR2022-01447 against the '498.)

I do not have the full text of the IPR2022-01447 Final Written Decision, so I cannot reproduce its exact ground-by-ground claim charts. The analysis below is an independent § 103 assessment built from (i) the confirmed prior art (Bryson; Schlottmann), (ii) the claims as written, and (iii) standard KSR/Graham principles.

B. The '498 patent in brief

The '498 patent is directed to networked peer-to-peer skill-based gaming with real-money wagering. The dispositive claims for obviousness purposes are the independent claims:

• Claim 1 (method): (a) automatically creating, at an administration server, a list of player gaming options for a player at a current location, limited to legal gaming options in that location (including limits on wagering amounts or game types to prevent unlawful play); (b) presenting the list at a player gaming client; (c) collecting a selection including a betting range; (d) determining a selected game type; (e) matching the player with a competitor based at least in part on the betting range, performed by the administration server; (f) collecting a bet within the range; (g) initiating the game; (h) collecting results at the administration server; and (i) compensating the player based on the results.
• Claim 12 (system): processor/communication interface/memory implementing the same location-limited gaming-option list, betting-range-based matching, gaming-server execution, and compensation.
• Claim 13 (system): a gaming client presenting only legal gaming options (limits on wagering amounts or game types to prevent unlawful or prohibited play), accepting a selection including a betting range, plus an administration server.

The only limitation that is at all novel-looking relative to the 2008-era peer-to-peer wagering art is the location-based legal-option filtering (claims 1, 12, 13). Everything else — option lists, betting ranges, server-side matching, bet collection, game initiation on a game server, result collection, payout less a house take — was well-known in the peer-to-peer/skill-game wagering art well before the June 20, 2008 priority date.

C. Primary prior art

1. Bryson — U.S. Patent No. 8,460,109 (primary reference)

Bryson is a networked gaming/wagering patent in the same field (competitive online games with player wagers). Based on its role in the family IPRs, Bryson is treated as disclosing the core peer-to-peer wagering platform:

• Player gaming clients and a server-based gaming platform;
• A menu/list of available games and wagering options presented to players;
• Player-selectable betting amounts/ranges;
• Matching of players/competitors for head-to-head play (including matching based on stake);
• Collection of wagers; initiation of the game on a gaming server;
• Collection of game results at the server; and
• Distribution of winnings (including the house taking a cut/rake).

That maps almost one-to-one onto limitations (b)–(i) of claim 1 and the corresponding system elements of claims 12–13.

2. Schlottmann (secondary reference)

Schlottmann is the location/legal-compliance reference. Its role in the family IPRs (the "Bryson-plus-Schlottmann" Ground 3) was to supply the geographic/location-based restriction functionality: restricting a player's available games or wagering activity based on the player's current geographic location / legal jurisdiction, i.e., limiting the offered games and wager limits to those lawful where the player is physically present. That maps directly onto limitation (a) of claim 1 ("limited to legal gaming options in the current location… limits on wagering amounts or types of games to prevent the player from unlawful play") and the "only legal gaming options" language of claim 13.

D. Obviousness of the independent claims: Bryson + Schlottmann

Claim 1

The only limitation not squarely in Bryson is the location-based legal filtering — and that is exactly what Schlottmann teaches. A single-reference gap filled by a second reference in the same field is the classic § 103 scenario.

Claims 12 and 13

The same combination covers the system claims. Claim 12's "list of player gaming options restricts limits on wagers or types of games allowed in the current location" and claim 13's "present only legal gaming options… to prevent unlawful or prohibited play in a current location" are Schlottmann's contribution grafted onto Bryson's architecture (gaming client + administration server + gaming server + communication interface + memory). The additional claim-13 requirement that the client "accept a selection… including a betting range" and "allow the player to play a game" is routine Bryson functionality.

E. Motivation to combine and reasonable expectation of success

Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., a combination is obvious when a PHOSITA would have had a reason to combine known elements to solve a known problem with a predictable result. Here:

1. Same field, same problem. Bryson and Schlottmann are both in networked/wagering gaming. Online and casino-based wagering systems in 2008 faced an acute, well-understood regulatory problem: offering games or wagers that are illegal in a player's jurisdiction exposes the operator to criminal and licensing liability. The solution — geo-filtering the available game/wager menu to what is legal at the player's physical location — was a standard, known technique (used by online poker and skill-game operators, and taught by Schlottmann).

2. Design incentive / market pressure. A PHOSITA building Bryson's peer-to-peer wagering platform for deployment in regulated venues (casinos, hotels, jurisdictions such as Nevada) would necessarily need the location-legal filter of Schlottmann to operate lawfully at all. The motivation is not hindsight; it is a compliance-driven design requirement.

3. Predictable combination. Adding a location/jurisdiction filter module to an administration server that already generates the gaming-option list (Bryson) is a routine software integration — the filter simply prunes the option list before presentation. No new hardware or unexpected behavior results. This is precisely the "combination of familiar elements according to known methods… yields predictable results" that KSR holds obvious.

4. Reasonable expectation of success. Both references describe server-side selection/matching platforms; inserting Schlottmann's geo-legal filter into Bryson's option-creation path would be expected to succeed because both operate on the same data (player identity/location, available games, wager limits).

F. Dependent claims

• Claims 2–3 (risk management / collusion detection): Bryson and the surrounding art (and, in the family IPRs, Schlottmann) address prohibited-activity monitoring; account-based collusion detection was conventional in peer-to-peer wagering platforms (poker/skill sites). Obvious as a routine addition.
• Claim 4 (remove options based on location): directly Schlottmann's teaching — the "remove" step is the ordinary implementation of a legal-option filter.
• Claim 5 (transfer player ID and game type to gaming server; connect client): conventional client/server game-initiation, inherent in Bryson's architecture.
• Claims 6–8 (competitor-option collection; list of compatible competitors; identical selections): Bryson's matching engine; "identical selections" is an obvious narrowing (exact-match filtering is a standard matching criterion).
• Claim 9 (list of competitors; initiate contact; negotiation): player-to-player challenge/chat/negotiation was well-known in the peer-to-peer skill-gaming art; a routine addition.
• Claim 10 (non-monetary winnings): points-based play was ubiquitous in the art; obvious.
• Claim 11 (deduct administrative fee; masked fee): the "rake"/house-take is expressly in the patent's own background ("skill-based game sites take a rake") and in Bryson; masking the fee is a trivial presentational choice.

G. Graham factors and secondary considerations

• Scope and content of prior art: Broad — peer-to-peer wagering platforms (Bryson), location-based gaming restrictions (Schlottmann), and a well-developed body of online skill-game/poker systems predating 2008.
• Differences: The only meaningful difference is the location-based legal-option filter, which Schlottmann supplies; the remainder is a straightforward application of Bryson.
• Level of ordinary skill: A designer of networked wagering/skill-gaming systems familiar with gaming regulation, client-server architectures, and player-matching engines — well within the competence to combine these references.
• Secondary considerations: The litigation history is telling. The Board in this family found the peer-to-peer wagering claims unpatentable as anticipated/obvious (per IPWatchdog, claims 1–17 and 19–30 of the continuation '205 patent fell), and — per Bloomberg Law (Apr. 16, 2026) — the Federal Circuit affirmed the obviousness ruling for the challenged claims of this patent family. No evidence of long-felt need, commercial success, or unexpected results appears in the record I can see that would overcome that.

H. Conclusion

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, claims 1–13 of US9613498 would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art over Bryson (US 8,460,109) in view of Schlottmann. Bryson supplies the entire peer-to-peer wagering framework (option lists, betting ranges, server-side matching, bet collection, game-server initiation, results collection, payout), and Schlottmann supplies the location-based legal-option filtering that is the only materially distinguishing limitation. The motivation to combine is compelling and non-hindsight: a regulated wagering platform must filter by jurisdiction to operate lawfully, and the combination is a predictable, routine integration of known elements. This conclusion is corroborated by the PTAB's Final Written Decision in IPR2022-01447 (appealed) and the Federal Circuit's April 2026 affirmance of obviousness for the challenged claims of this family.

Key caveats: I did not have the full IPR2022-01447 Final Written Decision or the Google Patents "Citations" list, so (1) the exact ground-by-ground references and claim scope addressed by the Board may include additional references, and (2) the precise teachings I attribute to Schlottmann are inferred from its role in the family IPR (the Bryson-plus-Schlottmann ground) rather than from the patent text itself, which I could not retrieve within the search limits. If you can supply the FWD or the Schlottmann publication number, I can refine the claim-by-claim chart.