US 9830615

I'll search for authoritative information on US 9830615, including any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

US Patent 9,830,615 B2 — Summary

Sourcing note: Bibliographic and claim data below come from the full patent text you supplied (authoritative). Litigation/PTAB/CAFC items come from web search and are marked with their sources; where I could not authoritatively confirm something, I say so.

Bibliographic data

Continuation chain (per the patent's Cross-Reference): 15/360,762 ← 14/960,237 (US 9,508,089) ← 14/620,502 (US 9,208,514) ← 14/201,494 (US 8,959,146) ← 13/491,454 (US 8,671,139) ← 12/823,709 (US 8,204,783) ← 11/763,286 (US 7,747,745, filed 2007-06-14), which claims benefit of provisionals 60/804,937 and 60/805,119.

Abstract

An automatic system facilitates selection of media properties on which to display an advertisement, responsive to a profile collected on a first media property, where a behavioral-targeting ("BT") company calculates expected profit for an ad correlated with the profile and arranges for the visitor to be tagged with a tag readable by the selected media property. Profit can be calculated by deducting, from the revenues expected from an ad delivered based on the collected profile, at least the price of ad space at a media property where the BT company might like to deliver ads to the profiled visitor. When the calculated profit is positive, the BT company arranges for the visitor to be tagged with a tag readable by the selected media property.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Method performed by the BT company's computer system (one or more computers). Four automated steps:

• (a) First time: arrange for a third-party computer system — one that controls advertising space on a plurality of third-party media properties — to electronically tag the first visitor's computer while it visits a first website. Critically, this is done "without transferring to the third party computer system any profile information related to the first visitor." The tag is readable by computers operating under the third party's domain and identifies the visitor computer as associated with the BT company (i.e., a cookie-match style tag, not a conveyance of the underlying behavioral data).
• (b) Record profile information collected during the visit to the first website into a profile of the visitor maintained by the BT system.
• (c) Transfer a price cap electronically to the third-party system — the maximum price the BT company is willing to pay for delivery of an ad within the third party's controlled ad space.
• (d) Second, later time: upon receiving a redirection of that same computer while it is visiting one of the third-party media properties, cause a selected ad to be served to that computer, where the ad is based on the profile information collected during the earlier first-website visit, in exchange for a price less than the price cap.

Claim 9 — System claim. The same (a)–(d) steps, claimed as a computer system controlled by the BT company, comprising one or more computers "structured and programmed to perform" that method.

Claim 14 — Article claim. The same (a)–(d) steps, claimed as an article comprising a tangible medium that is not a transitory propagating signal encoding computer-readable instructions that cause the BT computer system to perform the method.

Dependent claims add straightforward limitations: ad served alongside the media property's content (2, 8, 10); media property is a website (3); tag is a cookie on the first computer (4); recording data that the BT company owes the price to the media-property proprietor (5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17); and the (d) step implemented as selecting an ad from a stored profile and serving it (6, 12, 16). Notably, claim 1's focus is narrower than the patent's overall disclosure — the granted independent claims emphasize the price cap, the redirect-based serving, and the no-profile-transfer condition, rather than the "expected profit" computation emphasized in the specification.

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Litigation / PTAB / Federal Circuit record (from search; verify against PACER/PTAB before relying)

• PTAB — IPR2022-01064, Meta Platforms, Inc. v. AlmondNet, Inc. (filed 2022-05-31). Final Written Decision entered 2023-11-28 holding claims 9–12 of the '615 patent unpatentable. (Google Patents PTAB link; docketalarm docket)
• PTAB — IPR2023-00384, [Amazon.com, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Amazon.com%2C%20Inc.) v. AlmondNet, Inc. (filed 2022-12-22) — instituted and joined with IPR2022-01064; Final Written Decision in the joined proceeding. (link)
• PTAB — IPR2022-01324, [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.) (petition filed 2022-07-26) challenging claims 9–12 over Beyda, Narin, and Detering — not instituted on the merits per the Google Patents family litigation listing. (petition PDF)
• District court: AlmondNet, Inc. and Intent IQ, LLC asserted the '615 (among other patents) against Amazon in W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00898, and against Microsoft/Xandr in 6:21-cv-00897 (both filed 2021-08-27, Judge Alan D. Albright); also 6:21-cv-00896, D. Del. 1:18-cv-00943, and N.D. Cal. 4:22-cv-08911. The Microsoft matter reportedly resolved by stipulated dismissal with prejudice. (PatSnap case summary)
• Federal Circuit: Patent Owner AlmondNet filed a Notice of Appeal on 2024-01-29 from the FWD in IPR2022-01064 and the joined IPR2023-00384 (i.e., the '615 patent appeal) (Notice of Appeal PDF). Google Patents lists a Federal Circuit case 24-1427 associated with this patent family (Google Patents). The PTAB docket for IPR2022-01064 shows a Federal Circuit mandate received 2024-07-31.

Uncertainty / caveats

• I could not authoritatively confirm a 2026 CAFC docket entry specific to the '615 patent. The April 13, 2026 AlmondNet-related CAFC activity I found — AlmondNet, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 2024-1834, per curiam Rule 36 AFFIRMED (CAFC order) — expressly arises from IPR2022-01436, a different IPR than the '615's IPR2022-01064, so it should not be assumed to be the '615 appeal.
• Similarly, AlmondNet, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc., Nos. 2025-1967 / 26-1326 (Fed. Cir.) was dismissed under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) on 2026-04-06 (CAFC order; Law360) — but that appeal flows from W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00898, and at least one secondary source identifies the patents-in-suit on appeal as US 8,671,139 and US 7,826,639 rather than the '615.
• The Google Patents "Active" status reflects the patent's overall legal status, not necessarily that all claims survived; claims 9–12 were held unpatentable at the PTAB. Confirm current claim status in USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB before relying on it.

I have not auto-corrected any identifier: the number analyzed is exactly 9830615 / US 9,830,615 B2, application 15/360,762.

I'll research this systematically, starting with targeted searches for litigation involving US 9830615.

Let me dig deeper into each specific case.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,830,615

Scope note: I searched litigation aggregators (Docket Alarm, Unified Patents, Justia, Patexia, Law360, the CAFC site) and the Google Patents "family has litigation" listing for the exact number 9,830,615. U.S. 9,830,615 is an AlmondNet/Shkedi continuation patent (assigned to AlmondNet, Inc.; priority June 16, 2006). It has been asserted both as a district-court patent and as an IPR target. Some outcomes are not public (settlements/license terms are confidential), so where I cannot confirm a result I say so.

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A. District court litigation

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B. PTAB — inter partes reviews of the '615 patent

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C. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit

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D. Important limiting notes / caveats

1. The '615 patent was asserted, but the headline verdicts were on sibling patents. The June 2024 $122M Amazon jury verdict was on U.S. 7,822,639 and 8,671,139 — not on '615. Similarly, the April 13, 2026 Federal Circuit Rule 36 affirmance (AlmondNet, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 2024-1834, appeal from IPR2022-01436) concerns a different patent in the family, not '615. Do not conflate it with the '615 appeal (24-1427), which was dismissed.

2. Confidential outcomes. Cases 1 and 2 (Oath/Verizon and Microsoft) ended via settlement/license; the Google Patents "family has litigation" table also records a June 5, 2024 dismissal for the Microsoft matter. Financial terms, license scope, and whether covenants extend beyond the named patents are not in the public record.

3. Verification limits. Case numbers, filing dates, judges, and statuses above are drawn from public docket aggregators (Docket Alarm, Unified Patents, Patexia, Justia) and the CAFC docket, cross-checked against the Google Patents page. I could not independently pull every PACER docket in this session, and some entries (e.g., exact transfer dates and the precise patent list in 4:22-cv-08911) rely on aggregator summaries. If you need certified docket-level verification for a filing or an opinion, I can narrow to specific dockets.

4. Directly responsive bottom line: Yes — U.S. 9,830,615 has been litigated. Known matters are: D. Del. 1:18-cv-00943 (AlmondNet v. Oath Holdings); W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00897 (Microsoft, dismissed 2024); W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00898 (Amazon); W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00896 → N.D. Cal. 4:22-cv-08911 (Meta); PTAB IPR2022-01064, IPR2023-00384, and IPR2022-01324; and Fed. Cir. 24-1427 (dismissed July 15, 2024).

If you want, I can attempt a follow-up search specifically on the N.D. Cal. stay/termination status for 4:22-cv-08911 and on whether the W.D. Tex. Amazon judgment has produced any further Federal Circuit appeal involving '615.

I'll research the PTAB proceedings referenced for this patent. The Google Patents page actually lists three PTAB cases, so let me verify and flesh them out.

I have the core proceedings. Now let me pin down the Federal Circuit disposition, the FWD claim-level detail, and the Microsoft denial reasoning.

PTAB Proceedings — US 9,830,615 (AlmondNet, Inc.)

Data note / discrepancy flag: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings, with "no PTAB activity on file" as the default. That default is contradicted by both (a) the patent's own Google Patents litigation metadata, which links three PTAB cases (IPR2022‑01064, IPR2023‑00384, IPR2022‑01324), and (b) live web sources (Docket Alarm / USPTO PTACTS documents, Federal Circuit orders). Treat the ODP block as an ingest gap, not as evidence of no activity. Details below are drawn from the PACTS/docket records and should be verified against PTAB E2E before reliance.

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Proceedings overview

There are three (3) AIA trial proceedings touching US 9,830,615: two instituted IPRs that invalidated claims 9–12 (IPR2022‑01064, and its joined copycat IPR2023‑00384) and one IPR denied institution (IPR2022‑01324). Bottom line for a defendant today: claims 9–12 are canceled and their cancellation is final (the Patent Owner's Federal Circuit appeal was voluntarily dismissed in 2024, so the FWD stands); but claims 1–8 and 14–17 were never challenged in any PTAB proceeding and remain live and untested — so if the demand letter asserts claim 1 (method) or claim 14 (article), the IPRs do not clear your path. The '615 is a partially hardened patent: one full claim family is dead, the other two are pristine.

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IPR2022-01064 — Meta Platforms, Inc. (with [Amazon.com, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Amazon.com%2C%20Inc.) / Amazon Web Services, Inc. / Amazon.com Services LLC) v. AlmondNet, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-05-31
• Status: FWD issued — claims 9–12 unpatentable; appeal dismissed by agreement, FWD final
• Judge panel: Amanda Wieker, Kristen Droesch, Scott Howard, Thomas Giannetti (presiding) — note a panel change order was entered 2023-07 (Paper 28), so the four names may not be the exact FWD panel; verify on E2E.
• Petition grounds: Directed at claims 9–12 (§ 103 obviousness). Patent Owner's response (Ex. 2002, Sherwood Decl.) shows the Petition's primary reference was Meyer, with secondary art supplying "automatic Dutch/proxy bidding." (The Petitioner's full ground list is not legible from the sources retrieved; do not treat the secondary-reference identification as complete.)
• Institution decision: Instituted 2022-11-30 (confirmed by the AlmondNet–Meta joint stipulation filed in N.D. Cal. 22-cv-08911/23-cv-00438). The same litigation was stayed pending the FWD.
• Final Written Decision: 2023-11-28 (Paper 33). The Board held claims 9–12 unpatentable. The Patent Owner's own Notice of Appeal confirms the disposition: it appealed "the Board's determination that claims 9–12 of the '615 Patent have been shown to be unpatentable." Claims 9 is the independent system claim; 10–12 are its dependents. No claim of the '615 patent was sustained in this FWD — the only claims at issue (9–12) were all canceled.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement of the IPR before FWD. (The district court case between the parties was later stayed/resolved; terms not public.)
• Appeal: Patent Owner noticed appeal 2024-01-29 (Fed. Cir. No. 24-1427). On 2024-07-15 the Federal Circuit dismissed the appeal under Fed. R. App. P. 42(b) "the parties having so agreed," each side bearing its own costs; mandate issued 2024-07-31. This is a dismissal by agreement, not a merits affirmance — but the practical effect is the same: the FWD is the final agency decision and claims 9–12 are canceled. Order: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/07-15-2024-24-1427-almondnet-inc-v-meta-platforms-inc-order-24-1427-order-7-15-2024_2350165/ ; docket: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01064/Meta_Platforms_Inc._v._AlmondNet_Inc/ ; PTAB portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-01064
• Defensive value: Claim 9 is dead, and claims 10–12 with it. Any infringement theory built on the system-claim family is unwinnable. But the cancellation does not touch the parallel method claim 1 or article claim 14, which recite materially the same subject matter in different statutory classes — a defendant must check which claim is actually being asserted.
• Accuracy caveat: One 2026 Law360 headline ("Fed. Circ. Affirms Meta's Win Over AlmondNet Ad Tech Patent") and a Rule 36 judgment (No. 24-1834, 2026-04-13) concern IPR2022‑01436 → U.S. 8,244,582, a different AlmondNet patent. Do not conflate it with the '615; the '615 appeal (24‑1427) was dismissed, not affirmed.

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IPR2023-00384 — Amazon.com, Inc. (and Amazon.com Services LLC) v. AlmondNet, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (joined to IPR2022‑01064 under 35 U.S.C. § 315(c))
• Filed: 2022-12-22 (petition filed together with a motion for joinder); notice of filing date accorded 2023-01-20
• Status: Institution decision joined (2023-05-25); FWD 2023-11-28 — claims 9–12 unpatentable; appeal dismissed, FWD final
• Judge panel: Same panel as the parent — Amanda Wieker, Kristen Droesch, Scott Howard, Thomas Giannetti (subject to the same 2023-07 panel-change caveat, Paper 8).
• Petition grounds: Copycat petition raising the same grounds and art as IPR2022‑01064 against claims 9–12 (that identity of issues is the basis for the joinder request).
• Institution decision: Joinder granted 2023-05-25 (Paper 7, "Institution Decision Joined"). Because joinder was granted, this proceeding was resolved on the parent's schedule.
• Final Written Decision: 2023-11-28 (Paper 9) — issued the same day as the parent FWD, holding claims 9–12 unpatentable.
• Settlement / termination: None before FWD.
• Appeal: Patent Owner's notice of appeal filed 2024-01-29 (same notice covering both proceedings; appealed the claims 9–12 determination). Docket shows a Fed. Cir. mandate 2024-07-31, consistent with dismissal by agreement alongside 24-1427. Docket: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2023-00384/Amazon.com_Inc._v._AlmondNet_Inc/ ; PTAB portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2023-00384
• Defensive value: Adds Amazon as a § 315(e)(2)-estopped petitioner for claims 9–12. Because those claims are canceled, the estoppel is largely academic — claims 1–8/14–17 sit outside the estoppel and outside the cancellation.

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IPR2022-01324 — Microsoft Corporation v. AlmondNet, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-07-26
• Status: Institution DENIED (2023-03-13)
• Judge panel: Not confirmed from the retrieved sources (captured docket data associates the proceeding with APJ Amanda Wieker; verify the actual panel on E2E).
• Petition grounds (from the petition caption of record):
  • Ground 1 — claims 9–12 anticipated by Beyda (U.S. Pat. No. 9,928,522) under § 102;
  • Ground 2 — claims 9–12 obvious over Beyda in view of Narin (U.S. Pat. No. 7,039,699) under § 103;
  • Ground 3 — claims 9–12 obvious over Beyda + Narin + Detering (U.S. Pub. 2002/0116313 A1), particularly as to the "in exchange for a price less than the price cap" limitations (9(c)/9(d)).
  • Petitioner's expert: Dr. Don Turnbull.
• Institution decision: Denied 2023-03-13 (Paper 9). The sources indicate the denial rested on the Board's merits analysis against the Beyda-based grounds (and discretionary factors); the precise reasoning text was not retrievable in the search budget — do not represent the specific rationale.
• Final Written Decision: N/A (never instituted).
• Settlement / termination: N/A.
• Appeal: None (a denial of institution is non-appealable).
• Defensive value: This is the most useful proceeding for a new defendant. Because institution was denied, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches — the Beyda/Narin/Detering art remains fully available to you and was never passed on by the Board. It also signals that the Beyda family of art was not strong enough to get traction (whereas the Meyer-based Meta/Amazon grounds were). Petition: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01324/Microsoft_Corporation/ ; PTAB portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-01324

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Strategic summary

Claim status on the '615:

• CANCELED: claims 9, 10, 11, 12 (independent system claim 9 and dependents 10–12), unpatentable per the 2023-11-28 FWD in IPR2022‑01064 (Paper 33) and joined IPR2023‑00384 (Paper 9); cancellation is final after the 2024 voluntary dismissal of the appeal.
• SUSTAINED: none — no claim of the '615 was upheld by the Board, because only claims 9–12 were at issue.
• UNTESTED (live): claims 1–8 (independent method claim 1 and dependents 2–8) and claims 14–17 (independent article/CRM claim 14 and dependents 15–17). These were never challenged in any PTAB proceeding. A defendant facing assertion of claim 1 or claim 14 cannot rely on the IPRs; the invalidity work is un-built for those families.

Estoppel landscape (§ 315(e)(2)):

• Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, Inc., AWS, Amazon.com Services LLC are estopped as to claims 9–12 on any ground raised or that reasonably could have been raised. Since 9–12 are canceled, this is mostly moot.
• Microsoft obtained a denial of institution, so no estoppel — and the Beyda / Narin / Detering references are un-adjudicated and available to you.
• For claims 1–8 and 14–17 there is no estoppel on anyone, because no petitioner ever challenged them. Practically, the whole field of prior art (Meyer, Beyda, Narin, Detering, and anything new) remains available for a fresh IPR against the surviving claims, subject only to the statutory one-year § 315(b) bar from service of an infringement complaint and discretionary § 314(a)/Fintiv and General Plastic considerations.

Pattern signals:

• Multiple petitioners, coordinated strategy. Meta and Amazon filed the winning (Meyer-based) petition; Amazon then filed a copycat petition (IPR2023‑00384) expressly to join IPR2022‑01064 — no separate/serial attack. Microsoft filed a different (Beyda-based) petition that was denied institution — the two art families were not cumulative, and only one got traction. No defendant filed serial follow-on IPRs after the FWD.
• Patent Owner did not litigate the appeals. AlmondNet noticed appeal (2024-01-29) on claims 9–12 but then agreed to dismissal (24-1427 dismissed 2024-07-15 under FRAP 42(b)); no merits Federal Circuit opinion exists for the '615. This is consistent with a broader settlement of the AlmondNet–Meta/Amazon dispute rather than a merits vindication either way. AlmondNet has been aggressive in district court (dozens of suits against Meta, Amazon, Samsung, Roku, Microsoft, LinkedIn, Viant, FreeWheel/Comcast), but on the '615 specifically it did not push the appeal.
• No defensive aggregator ran this patent. The three cases were filed by operating companies (Meta, Amazon, Microsoft), not by Unified Patents or another aggregator; the Unified Patents links on the Google Patents page are aggregator links, not Unified-filed petitions.
• Historical note (adjacent patents, not the '615): AlmondNet's related patents drew CBMs (CBM2017‑00056/'146, CBM2017‑00058/'139, etc.), several denied institution on CBM-eligibility grounds. Those do not involve the '615.

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Recommended next steps

• Check which claim is asserted. If the demand letter / complaint relies on claim 9 (or 10–12), the answer is short and dispositive: cite the FWD of 2023-11-28 in IPR2022‑01064 (Paper 33) and the joined IPR2023‑00384 (Paper 9), both holding claims 9–12 unpatentable, with the appeal dismissed and mandate issued 2024-07-31 (Fed. Cir. 24-1427). Canceled claims cannot be infringed — a theory built on claim 9 is not viable. Cite the order: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/07-15-2024-24-1427-almondnet-inc-v-meta-platforms-inc-order-24-1427-order-7-15-2024_2350165/
• If the asserted claim is claim 1 or claim 14, do not assume the IPRs help you. They don't touch those families. Your options: (i) a fresh IPR on claims 1–8/14–17, mindful of your § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of the complaint, and of Fintiv/§ 314(a) if there's parallel litigation; (ii) reuse the Microsoft (Beyda/Narin/Detering) art un-encumbered by estoppel, since IPR2022‑01324 was denied institution; (iii) pair it with the Meyer reference that succeeded against 9–12, since the method/article claims recite overlapping concepts.
• Timing milestones (if you file or are facing a pending IPR): the statutory FWD deadline is 1 year from institution (35 U.S.C. § 316(a)(11)) — the Meta/Amazon case ran institution 2022-11-30 → FWD 2023-11-28 in full compliance. All three known '615 proceedings are closed; there are no active PTAB cases at this time, so there are no live institution-deadline/oral-hearing dates to track.
• Verify before filing. The judge-panel composition for IPR2022‑01064 / IPR2023‑00384 is subject to 2023-07 panel-change orders, and the exact FWD reasoning/secondary references were not fully retrievable here. Pull the FWDs (Paper 33 / Paper 9, 2023-11-28) and the Microsoft denial (Paper 9, 2023-03-13) from PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) to quote holdings verbatim before relying on them.

Caveats on this report: (1) The proceeding list is sourced from the patent's own litigation metadata + web/docket records, not from the ODP block (which shows none) — treat the ODP block as incomplete. (2) I could not retrieve the full ground-by-ground text of either FWD or the Microsoft denial within the search budget; claim lists (9–12 canceled; 1–8 and 14–17 untouched) are firmly grounded in the Patent Owner's Notice of Appeal and docket record, but the internal reasoning quotations should be pulled from the decisions themselves. (3) Do not cite the 2026 Federal Circuit Rule 36 affirmance (No. 24-1834) as applying to the '615 — it concerns a different AlmondNet patent (IPR2022‑01436 / U.S. 8,244,582).

I'll research this patent's ownership record before drafting. Let me pull the assignment, litigation, and asserter-directory data.

Let me try to pin down the actual assignment reel/frame numbers and the litigation/PTAB dates.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 9,830,615 B2

Patent: US 9,830,615 B2 — "Electronic ad direction through a computer system controlling ad space on multiple media properties based on a viewer's previous website visit"
App. No.: 15/360,762 · Filed: 2016-11-23 · Issued: 2017-11-28 · Priority: 2006-06-16
Verification note up front: I could not open assignmentcenter.uspto.gov directly in this session, and Google Patents' legal-events listing for this patent reports no reel/frame numbers. The only ownership event it records is a single 2016-11-23 inventor assignment (details below). Any reel/frame below is therefore not asserted by me — I flag the gap explicitly rather than invent numbers. Verify directly at the Assignment Center patent search and the legacy index.

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Inventors

• Single-inventor patent. There is no co-inventor cluster, so the "all inventors departed within 12 months" fire-sale precursor pattern is structurally absent here.
• Shkedi has been AlmondNet's founder/CEO continuously since 1998 and is still CEO as of the litigation record (his contact roy@almondnet.com appears in 2020–2024 filings). The inventor never left the assignee — the inverse of the abandonment pattern you asked me to look for.
• The inventor is also the assignee's principal, so this is a founder-owned portfolio, not an acquired one.
• Family note: the same inventor filed a sibling continuation chain that was assigned to Datonics, LLC (see US 10,984,445 B2, "Providing collected profiles to media properties having specified interests," priority 2006-06-19). Datonics is one of Shkedi's AlmondNet Group affiliates.

Original assignee

AlmondNet, Inc. — a Delaware corporation (stated expressly in the recorded assignment instrument: "sell, assign, and transfer to AlmondNet, Inc., a Delaware corporation, and any successor, assign, legal representative, or designated nominee"). Named as both applicant (71) and assignee (73) on the face of the '615 patent. Address on the patent: Long Island City, NY.

• Primary line of business: targeted/behavioral advertising and IP licensing. AlmondNet's own description is that it "licenses intellectual property and enabling technology for the delivery of targeted ads." Its operating subsidiaries are Intent IQ, LLC (identity resolution/device graph) and Datonics, LLC (data). Founded 1998 by Roy Shkedi (incorporated in the U.S. circa 2000); ~$9.31M total disclosed funding; a 2012 SEC Form D lists principal place of business at 134 Spring St., Suite 302, New York, NY.
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear at the parent-entity level. The parent is a licensing/technology firm; the product-bearing activity sits in the Intent IQ and Datonics subsidiaries. This is the crux of the NPE question below.
• Current status: Operating (not dissolved, not in bankruptcy). It survived a near-death cash crisis in 2013, resolved by a licensing deal with Google, per Shkedi's own account and court testimony.
• Corporate grouping: AlmondNet, Inc. + Intent IQ, LLC + Datonics, LLC. AlmondNet and Intent IQ co-file suits as co-plaintiffs (e.g., AlmondNet, Inc. et al. v. LinkedIn Corp., D. Del. 1:23-cv-01373, where the docket lists AlmondNet as holder of the '615-family patents and Intent IQ as holder of the '398 and '878 patents). This is an internal affiliate split, not an arm's-length shell cascade.

Assignment timeline

The Assignment Center record for US 9,830,615 contains ONE recorded assignment. There is no post-issuance transfer of the '615 patent — no assignment to a licensing LLC, no security interest, no merger, no change of name. That is itself the central finding.

• 2016-11-23 (executed) / recorded 2016-11-23 — Reel/Frame not retrievable in this session; Google Patents shows no reel/frame for this event
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Shkedi, Roy, Mr.
  • Assignee: AlmondNet, Inc. (Delaware corporation)
  • Correspondent: Not confirmed for this specific record. Family correlation strongly suggests Louis J. Hoffman, P.C. (USPTO Customer No. 26362), who is the attorney of record on the patent face ("Louis J. Hoffman; David S. Alavi") and the named filer ("Louis J. Hoffman/Donald Hertz") on the family's EFS submissions. Flagging as inference, not verified record.
  • Context: Founder-to-company conveyance recorded contemporaneously with the filing of the continuation application — standard housekeeping so the applicant of record holds title. Not a sale, not a transfer-to-asserter.
• Prior chain (context, not a '615 record): The '615 is a continuation of 14/960,237 → 14/620,502 → 14/201,494 → 13/491,454 → 12/823,709 → 11/763,286 (filed 2007-06-14) → provisionals 60/804,937 and 60/805,119. The 2007 utility application was covered by the same inventor→AlmondNet assignment instrument found in the family file histories (quoting "Media Properties Selection Method and System Based On Expected Profit from Profile-based Ad Delivery," described in a U.S. utility patent application filed June 14, 2007). All links in that chain are AlmondNet-to-AlmondNet continuations.

Consequence: Because the only recorded assignment is inventor→original assignee, ownership has been static since 2007 (inception of the family) and unbroken at AlmondNet, Inc. There is no chain to reconstruct beyond the first link.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9830615
    1998 : AlmondNet founded by Roy Shkedi
    2006 : Priority date June 16
    2007 : First utility application filed
    2016 : Continuation application filed
         : Inventor assigns rights to AlmondNet
    2017 : US 9830615 issues
    2018 : Suit filed v Oath Holdings
    2021 : Suits filed v Meta Microsoft Amazon
    2022 : IPRs filed against AlmondNet
    2024 : 122M verdict v Amazon on sibling patents

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. There is no recorded transfer at all, let alone one to an "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" LLC. The patent has sat with the founded-in-1998 operating entity. No registered-agent-service address, no single-purpose Delaware/Texas assignee appears in the record.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (catch-all limb). AlmondNet is not on the enumerated classic list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg). But it squarely meets the catch-all: this very patent has been IPR'd by Unified Patents-tracked petitions — IPR2022-01064 (Meta Platforms + Amazon, filed 2022-05-31, Final Written Decision), IPR2023-00384 (Final Written Decision), and IPR2022-01324 (Not Instituted — Merits; petitioner list includes the AlmondNet Power of Attorney dated 2022-08-10). Unified/RPX track AlmondNet as a repeat filer against large ad-tech defendants (Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, Roku, Samsung, LinkedIn, Viant).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PARTIAL / UNVERIFIED. Louis J. Hoffman, P.C., Reg. No. 38,918 (Scottsdale, AZ; addresses of record: 14301 North 87th St., Suite 312, and later 7689 East Paradise Lane, Suite 2), with Donald Hertz and patent attorney David S. Alavi, is the recurring prosecution and filing contact across the entire family (USPTO Customer No. 26362) and the attorney named on the '615 patent face. Caveat: recurrence here spans one owner's 20-year portfolio, not multiple unrelated shell LLCs — this is the benign form of the signal. I could not confirm he is the assignment-recording correspondent on the 2016-11-23 entry. Marking present but non-diagnostic.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Zero consecutive assignments, zero chained LLCs, zero shared-correspondent addresses across assignees.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. Ownership never moved, so there was nothing to arrange pre-suit. Suits naming AlmondNet patents include D. Del. 1:18-cv-00943 (v. Oath Holdings, '615 asserted, later terminated) and W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00896 (Meta), -00897 (Microsoft), -00898 (Amazon), with N.D. Cal. 4:22-cv-08911. All post-date a title record that had been unchanged for over a decade.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. AlmondNet came close to insolvency in 2013 and took a Google license to survive, but there is no Chapter 7/11 filing and no judicial patent sale. This is a near-miss on the stress indicator, not a fire-sale.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. No operating company transferred the patent to a separate NPE for proxy assertion. AlmondNet asserts its own patents directly, and separately licenses them (the 2013 Google deal is the documented instance). Licensing-out is not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Counterintuitively, Unified Patents is the adverse party challenging this patent.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

AlmondNet, Inc. is the original 1998 founded-and-operated assignee, the sole inventor is still its CEO, and the Assignment Center shows only the single 2016-11-23 founder-to-company conveyance — so the ownership chain displays none of the classic shell-entity mechanics. What drives the NPE call is the enforcement profile, not the assignment profile: the patent-holding parent's stated business is IP licensing, it does not itself ship a product embodying the claims (the operating activity sits in subsidiaries Intent IQ and Datonics), and it is a serial plaintiff on this patent (D. Del. 1:18-cv-00943; W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00896/897/898; N.D. Cal. 4:22-cv-08911) that has drawn three Unified-tracked PTAB petitions including two Final Written Decisions (IPR2022-01064, IPR2023-00384, IPR2022-01324). That is 1 strong signal (serial licensing-only asserter, corroborated by the PTAB record) plus 1 weak signal (recurring correspondent) — moderate, not high, precisely because the assignment record is clean and the entity is a genuine 27-year-old company rather than a shell.

To close the one evidentiary gap, pull the reel/frame for the 2016-11-23 record and the correspondent field directly from the USPTO Assignment Center (search by patent number 9830615 or app. 15/360,762). If that entry confirms Louis J. Hoffman, P.C. / Customer No. 26362 as the recording correspondent, signal 3 upgrades from "unverified" to "present," which would firm the verdict toward high confidence under the rubric.

I'll search for authoritative prior-art citation data for US 9,830,615.

Let me dig for the examiner-cited references (the "Citations" section) and the IPR prior-art record.

I found key leads: the prosecution history IDS (Exhibit 2002 in CBM2017-00058) and the IPR2022-01324 prior art. Let me get the actual examiner-cited references list.

Prior art assessment — US 9,830,615 B2

Strict identifier note: The patent analyzed is exactly US 9,830,615 B2, application 15/360,762 (AlmondNet / Roy Shkedi; prior art date 2006‑06‑16). No identifier has been auto‑corrected.

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⚠️ Up-front honesty about sourcing (important)

You asked me to "look at each patent citation for 9830615." I was not able to fully retrieve the front‑page "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" list of US 9,830,615 B2 itself within my search budget. The authoritative full text you supplied contains a "Cited By (7)" section (forward citations) but omits the backward "Citations" section (the examiner‑cited and applicant‑cited references). My searches returned:

• the citation list of the parent US 9,508,089 ("Patent Citations (225)"), which is a different document than the '615 and does not map 1:1 onto the '615;
• the IPR prior‑art record for the '615, which is well documented; and
• the file‑history IDS content (Exhibit 2002, CBM2017‑00058).

So below I separate (A) what I can source, from (B) what I cannot verify — and I do not fabricate reference numbers, titles, or dates I could not confirm. To nail the complete examiner citation list you must read the '615 front page / PTAB Exhibit 1004 ("Prosecution History of US Patent No 9,830,615") directly.

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A. Operative prior art for the '615 — asserted at the PTAB (best‑documented)

This is the art that actually matters for § 102, because it was applied against the granted claims.

Sources: Microsoft IPR2022‑01324 Petition and the accompanying Declaration of Dr. Don Turnbull. Microsoft's IPR was not instituted on the merits (per the family litigation listing), but the grounds it advanced are still the most complete public § 102 mapping of claims 9–12.

The art that actually killed claims 9–12: IPR2022‑01064 (Meta Platforms), FWD 2023‑11‑28, joined with IPR2023‑00384 (Amazon), held claims 9–12 unpatentable. I could not confirm within my searches which reference(s) Meta relied on in that instituted proceeding (it is plausible, but not verified, that it tracked the Beyda‑based theory). Do not assume the Meta/Amazon FWD used the same references as Microsoft's petition.

Cross-reference to the earlier section: the prior section already noted this FWD and AlmondNet's 2024‑01‑29 appeal (Fed. Cir. 24‑1427). No contradiction arises here; this section simply names the prior art behind that outcome.

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B. References in the family's citation lists (indicative, not the '615's own list)

These surfaced as citation‑list entries in the family/parent documents. They are the classic pre‑2006 advertising/behavioral‑targeting art, but I cannot confirm which of them appear on the '615's own face.

• Merriman references (Dwight Allen Merriman, "Method of delivery, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks") — US 2005/0038702 A1, US 2002/0072965 A1, US 2002/0082923 A1 — listed among the 225 citations of parent US 9,508,089. These are foundational ad‑delivery/targeting art and are the natural § 102/§ 103 backdrop for the "direct electronic advertisement to a computer" concepts of claim 1(d). (Source: Google Patents US9508089 citations.)
• Non‑patent literature from the applicant's IDS (per file‑history Exhibit 2002 in CBM2017‑00058): RFC 2109, "HTTP State Management Mechanism," Kristol & Montulli, IETF (the cookie specification); the W3C/Berners‑Lee HTML proposal; and the URL specification. RFC 2109 is the art most directly relevant to claim 4 ("the tag is a cookie stored on the first computer"). Source: CBM2017‑00058 Exhibit 2002.
• AI‑curated "Patent Art (306)" list (Unified Patents, for US‑9830615‑B2) names, among others: US 2011/0258049 A1 (Jumptap, "Integrated Advertising System"); US 8,554,940 B2 (Sito Mobile R&D IP, "System and Method for Routing Media"); US 2006/0271690 A1 (Feeva Tech, "Developing Customer Relationships with a Network Access Point"); and US 2009/0049468 A1 (Intent IQ, "Targeted Television Advertisements Based on Online Behavior"). Caveat: this appears to be a machine‑generated landscape list, not necessarily the examiner's citation list — treat as leads, not confirmed citations. Source: Unified Patents portal.

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C. Forward citations ("Cited By") — not § 102 prior art for the '615

The supplied text lists 7 forward citations (e.g., Intent IQ's US 10,306,282 / US 10,405,058 / US 10,715,878; AlmondNet's US 10,628,857, US 10,834,438; Datonics' US 10,984,445; Intent IQ's US 11,095,952). Because these post‑date the '615's 2006 priority, they are relevant to family scope, not to § 102 anticipation of the '615.

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D. § 102 mapping summary

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E. Explicit uncertainties / items to verify

1. Beyda's prior‑art date is a genuine open question. US 9,928,522 issued ~2018; because the '615 claims a 2006‑06‑16 priority and is pre‑AIA, Beyda can only be § 102(e)/§ 102(b) art if its effective filing date precedes June 2006. I could not confirm Beyda's filing/priority date — the petitioner necessarily established this, but I did not verify it.
2. I could not confirm the full number, title, or dates for Narin (US 7,039,699 assumed) and Detering; only their party surnames were retrieved from the petition/declaration text.
3. I could not retrieve the complete examiner‑cited "References Cited" list from the '615's own front page. The 225‑reference list I found belongs to parent US 9,508,089, not the '615.
4. I could not identify the references relied on in IPR2022‑01064 / IPR2023‑00384 (Meta/Amazon) — the proceedings that actually invalidated claims 9–12.

Recommendation: pull the '615 front page ("References Cited") and PTAB Exhibit 1004 (Prosecution History of US Patent No 9,830,615) for the authoritative citation list, and the IPR2022‑01064 Final Written Decision for the art that decided claims 9–12. If you can supply either document, I will chart each cited reference against claims 1–17 claim‑by‑claim.

I'll research the actual prior-art references that have been asserted against this patent, then build the § 103 analysis on that footing.

Good — I now have the actual IPR grounds. Let me pin down the Amazon IPR grounds and the Board's reasoning.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 9,830,615 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analysis date: April 26, 2026 (per task header; note the system date on the earlier-generated section was 2026-09-28 — flagged, not corrected).
Patent analyzed: US 9,830,615 B2, app. 15/360,762, inventor Roy Shkedi, assignee AlmondNet, Inc. Identifier interpreted literally; nothing auto-corrected.

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0. A sourcing caveat up front

The task says to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." The Google Patents page as supplied does not contain a prior-art reference section. It contains only: (i) a "Prior art keywords" field (computer, computer system, visitor, company, profile), (ii) a "Prior art date" field (2006-06-16), and (iii) a "Cited By (7)" list — which is forward citation, not prior art. I will not treat the Cited By list as prior art.

Accordingly, I have grounded this analysis in the authoritative record of prior art actually asserted against the '615 patent: the PTAB petitions and decisions, the institution/FWD docket, and the defendants' invalidity contentions (each cited below). Where I am reconstructing a mapping rather than quoting the record, I say so.

One bibliographic discrepancy to flag: the patent's own Cross-Reference says provisional 60/804,937 was filed 2006-06-16, and Google Patents lists the prior-art/priority date as 2006-06-16; the Unified Patents portal page lists 2006-06-15 (and a 2027-06-13 expiration vs. Google's 2027-06-14). I do not correct either; the substantive analysis is unaffected because every reference discussed below predates June 2006 by years.

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1. Governing law and priority

The '615 application was filed 2016-11-23, but it is a continuation in a chain running back to application 11/763,286, filed 2007-06-14, which claims benefit of provisionals filed in June 2006. The operative priority date therefore precedes March 16, 2013, and pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) applies (AIA § 3(n)(1)). The Board and the petitioners in this family have consistently treated the '615 as a pre-AIA patent. The legal test remains Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): scope/content of the prior art, differences, level of ordinary skill, and secondary considerations.

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA). The IPR petitions for this family treat the POSITA as a person with a working knowledge of networked advertising systems — client-server web architecture, HTTP redirects, browser cookies and domain scoping, ad-serving and ad-network operations, and online ad pricing models — acquired through several years of industry experience or a related degree plus practical experience. That is the level at which the analysis below is conducted.

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2. The claims under attack

Independent claims 1 (method), 9 (system) and 14 (article) are substantively identical, each reciting automated steps (a)–(d):

Dependents add: ad served with the media property's content (2, 8, 10); media property is a website (3); tag is a cookie (4); recording that the BT company owes the price to the proprietor (5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17); and (d) implemented as select-from-stored-profile then serve (6, 12, 16).

Two observations that matter for § 103:

• The "expected profit" computation that dominates the specification and abstract is not in the independent claims. The claims are narrower and more concrete: a price cap, a redirect, and a no-profile-transfer tag. That narrowness helps the patent against the broad "profit calculation" art, but it also means the invention reduces to a price-ceiling-triggered cookie-match ad-serving method, which is squarely within the prior art.
• Claim form only. Claims 1, 9 and 14 differ essentially only in statutory class. Whatever invalidates one invalidates all three. (Side note for a different challenge: claim 9(c) recites "transferring to the computer system," which lacks an explicit antecedent from the claim's own text — an § 112(b) vulnerability distinct from § 103.)

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3. Prior art actually asserted against the '615

Claim-to-art mapping. The petitions' exhibit lists and claim-element headings establish the structure: Meta/Amazon's Ground 1 was "Claims 9–12 Are Obvious Over Meyer in view of Zeff, Edlund, and Fisher," and Ground 2 added Tittel. Microsoft's grounds were "Claim 9–12 anticipated by Beyda" (Ground 1), "obvious over Beyda in view of Narin" (Ground 2), and "obvious over Beyda in view of Narin in further view of Detering" (Ground 3), with Detering specifically addressing the 9(c)/9(d) price-cap elements. I can confirm from the excerpted Schmandt declaration that Zeff supplies the cookie-tagging teaching; I have not independently verified the precise disclosure Edlund and Fisher were mapped to, and I flag that rather than invent it.

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4. Ground A — The § 103 case that succeeded: Meyer + Zeff + Edlund + Fisher (and + Tittel)

4.1 Element-by-element

• (a) Third-party tagging without profile transfer. Meyer discloses an architecture in which a service-provider/account-provider computer — an entity distinct from the publisher whose page the visitor is on — identifies members by a member identifier placed on/associated with the member's computer, and that service provider controls advertising space across multiple participating content-provider sites. Zeff supplies the well-known mechanism: using internet cookies to tag users when visiting a web site. Combined, the arranging for a third party to tag the visitor computer with a tag readable by that third party's own domain is disclosed. Domain-readability is simply the inherent property of cookies (see Montulli, US 5,774,670, in the district-court contentions). The "identifies the computer as associated with the BT company" function is met by a tag that flags membership with the ad service and nothing more.
• (b) Recording profile data at the BT system. Meyer's service provider maintains member accounts/records of member activity; the petition mapped recording profile information at the service-provider/BT computer to Meyer and/or Edlund/Fisher.
• (c) Transferring a price cap. The petition's Ground 2 added Tittel, and Microsoft's Ground 3 used Detering for the price-cap elements — i.e., the art discloses electronically communicating a maximum price/bid the ad buyer will pay for a given ad opportunity on the counterparty's inventory. A price ceiling communicated in advance is the ordinary commercial way advertisers and networks express willingness to pay (CPM caps, bid ceilings, rate cards).
• (d) Redirect-driven serving for a price below the cap. Meyer's service provider serves ads to members when they later appear at participating properties, and Meyer's reverse-auction/pricing mechanics supply the "in exchange for a price" limitation; the redirect paradigm is admitted prior art in the '615's own Background (see § 6 below).

4.2 Motivation to combine (KSR rationales)

A POSITA would have combined these references for several independent, articulated reasons:

1. Same field, reasonably pertinent. Meyer, Zeff, Edlund, Fisher, Tittel, and the '615 all concern the delivery of advertisements to networked computers. KSR, 550 U.S. at 417 (predictable variations); In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (reasonably pertinent art).
2. Known technique applied to a known system in the same way. Cookie tagging of site visitors was ubiquitous by 1999 (Zeff; Montulli US 5,774,670). Using a cookie to tag a member's computer for a cross-site ad service is "the use of a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way." KSR at 417.
3. Documented market pressure. The '615's own Background describes the industry's migration to "cookie matching" — sites and ad networks placing their own cookies on visitors redirected to them by BT companies — precisely so the visitors can later be found and served ads. Commercial demand supplies the motivation. Leapfrog, Muniauction (MPEP § 2143 examples, cited in the search results).
4. Finite number of predictable pricing solutions. Expressing willingness to pay as a cap rather than a per-impression price is one of a small set of conventional mechanisms (fixed price, cap, bid, auction). KSR at 421.
5. Known problem, obvious remedy. The '615 frames the problem as inefficiency caused by ad-space prices exceeding the revenue a profile can generate. Setting a maximum willingness-to-pay and declining/avoiding placements above it is the most ordinary response of a rational economic actor, and is squarely within the "known problem → obvious solution" line of KSR.
6. Predictable results; no change in principle of operation. Adding cookie-based third-party tagging and a price ceiling to Meyer's member/ad-serving architecture does not alter its basic operation.

4.3 Reasonable expectation of success

Each incremental step was routine: setting a cookie under a cooperating domain (Zeff/Montulli), maintaining a profile keyed to a cookie/member ID, transmitting a numeric price ceiling with a tag-placement request, and gating a redirect/ad-call on a comparison of the quoted price against the cap (simple arithmetic comparison). Petitioners' experts (Schmandt for Meta/Amazon; Turnbull for Microsoft) opined to that effect, and the Board credited the combination.

4.4 Patent Owner's counterarguments — and how they fared

AlmondNet's Patent Owner Response focused on 9(a): it argued that Meyer transfers "member information"/a member ID to the service-provider computer as a direct result of arranging the tagging, so the claim's "without transferring… any profile information" limitation is not met, and it attacked the motivation to modify Meyer. The Board rejected those arguments, and in the Final Written Decision of 2023-11-28 held claims 9–12 unpatentable as obvious (IPR2022-01064 FWD; Law360, Nov. 30, 2023). The joined Amazon petition (IPR2023-00384, joined 2023-05-25) reached the same result in its own FWD of the same date.

Analytical takeaway: the "no profile transfer" limitation is the patent's principal point of novelty relative to a generic cookie-match, and the Board read it narrowly — an opaque member/visitor identifier is not "profile information." That reading is defensible: the claim ties profile information to data "collected during the first computer's visit to the first website," i.e., behavioral data, not the identifier itself. A patent owner seeking to distinguish the art must therefore argue that the tag itself conveys behavioral history — a hard argument where the tag is a domain-scoped cookie value.

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5. Ground B — The alternative § 103 case: Beyda, alone and in combination

Microsoft's petition (IPR2022-01324, filed 2022-07-26) offered:

• Ground 1: claims 9–12 anticipated by Beyda (US 9,928,522);
• Ground 2: claims 9–12 obvious over Beyda in view of Narin (US 7,039,699) — the combination supplying the third-party tagging of 9(a);
• Ground 3: claims 9–12 obvious over Beyda + Narin + Detering (US 2002/0116313 A1) — Detering supplying the price-cap limitations 9(c)/9(d).

The petition set out explicit motivations to combine at each step ("Motivation to Combine Beyda with Narin"; "Rationale and Motivation to Combine Beyda, Narin, and Detering") (Petition; Turnbull Declaration). Institution was denied; Google Patents records the case as "Not Instituted – Merits," and Microsoft's related denial was discretionary under § 325(d) because Beyda had been cited on an IDS during prosecution (POP request; Law360).

Analytical takeaway: the Beyda line is, on its face, a stronger challenge than Meyer — it asserted anticipation of claims 9–12, not merely obviousness. Its failure was procedural, not substantive. That means (i) the Meyer combination is not the only viable § 103 theory, and (ii) district courts faced with the Beyda/Narin/Detering combination are not bound by the § 325(d) denial.

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6. Ground C — The applicant's own admitted prior art (a powerful, often-overlooked basis)

The '615 specification itself concedes most of claim 1's architecture. These admissions are usable as prior art (In re Nomiya; MPEP § 2129) and independently defeat any argument that the claimed framework was novel:

• DoubleClick "Boomerang" — a service that "places a cookie on computers of visitors to an advertiser's site for the purpose of finding those visitors on other sites where DoubleClick is the ad server," with ads served "by the DoubleClick ad server or by the advertiser's ad server following a redirect." This is claim 1(a)+(d) in outline.
• "Cookie matching" — "sites and ad networks place their own cookies on the computers of visitors that are redirected to them by the BT companies, for the purpose of later recognizing those visitors within their own ad space." This is claim 1(a) almost verbatim (third party tags the visitor's computer with its own domain-readable cookie).
• Price-based ad direction — "the weather.com ad server's decision, whether or not to redirect the visitor's computer to BT company #1's server can be based on the price that BT company #1 promised to pay weather.com for the presentation of an ad within weather.com's ad space." This is the price-cap mechanism of claim 1(c) and 1(d), admitted.
• Profit by arithmetic — the specification's profit definitions (Pr = Rev(profile) − P(mp); Pr = Rev(profile) − P(mp) − C − Mar) are simple subtractions, and the patent expressly states that "calculating" can mean "simply an act of locating the correct information" — i.e., a look-up, not a patentable computation.

Combined with Merriman (US 5,948,061, the DoubleClick delivery/targeting/measuring patent) and Montulli (US 5,774,670, persistent client-side cookies across domains), and the actual DoubleClick and Engage systems as documented in the W.D. Tex. record, the remaining gap to claim 1 is small.

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7. Dependent claims

The dependents (2–8, 10–13, 15–17) add nothing that rescues the independents:

• Ad served with the property's content (2, 8, 10). Conventional banner/in-page ad delivery; Tittel was added in the petitions' Ground 2 for this class of on-page/ad-object teaching.
• Media property is a website (3). Expressly within Meyer/Zeff.
• Tag is a cookie (4). Zeff and Montulli; the patent's own Background concedes cookies are "only one example of a possible tag."
• Select from stored profile, then serve (6, 12, 16). Routine两步 ad-serving logic at the BT computer.
• Recording that the BT company owes the price to the proprietor (5, 7, 11, 13, 15, 17). Routine billing/accounting; Meyer's account-based architecture and ordinary ad-network settlement practices supply this. The Federal Circuit has repeatedly held that automating a known record-keeping step is not a patentable distinction.

Note that the Board's FWD addressed only claims 9–12 (the challenged set). Consequently claims 1–8 and 13–17 were never adjudicated at the PTAB and remain untested in that forum — but because they are the same subject matter in different statutory dress, the same Meyer/Zeff/Edlund/Fisher mapping (adapted to the method and article preambles) would apply.

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8. Secondary considerations

Petitioners' declarations included a section headed "NO SECONDARY CONSIDERATIONS OF NONOBVIOUSNESS" (Schmandt Decl. § VI). I found no evidence in the record of nexus-qualified unexpected results, industry praise tied to the claims, long-felt but unmet need, or licensing because of the '615's claims. Absent such evidence, the objective indicia do not rebut the strong prima facie case. If AlmondNet intends to rely on objective indicia on appeal or in the district court, the nexus requirement will be the battleground.

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9. Bottom line

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10. Caveats and items I could not verify

1. No "Prior Art" reference section exists on the supplied Google Patents page — I used the PTAB/district-court record instead, and say so rather than reconstructing art that was never asserted.
2. I have not independently read Meyer (US 6,915,271), Edlund (US 7,251,628), Fisher (US 5,835,896), or Tittel. My mapping of Edlund and Fisher to specific limitations is inference from the petitions' structure and the Schmandt declaration headings, not a verified quotation. Zeff's cookie-teaching role and Detering's price-cap role are the ones I can attribute with confidence from the excerpts.
3. Federal Circuit outcome: AlmondNet filed a Notice of Appeal on 2024-01-29 from both FWDs, and PTAB dockets show a Federal Circuit mandate received 2024-07-31. A mandate issuing is consistent with the appeal terminating in a way that leaves the FWDs in place, but I cannot confirm the disposition (affirmance under Rule 36, dismissal, or vacatur) from the material available. Do not assume the invalidation of claims 9–12 is final without checking the CAFC docket for 24-1427.
4. The April 13, 2026 CAFC Rule 36 affirmance in AlmondNet v. Meta, No. 2024-1834, arises from IPR2022-01436 — a different IPR — and must not be attributed to the '615. Likewise, the 2026-04-06 Rule 42(b) dismissal of AlmondNet v. Amazon, Nos. 2025-1967/26-1326, flows from W.D. Tex. 6:21-cv-00898 and, per a secondary source, concerns US 8,671,139 and US 7,826,639 rather than the '615.
5. Priority date discrepancy (2006-06-15 vs. 2006-06-16) flagged in § 0 and left uncorrected.