US 9930043

I'll research this patent number directly. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me search for litigation/docket information and claim specifics.

Summary of US Patent No. 9,930,043

Note on sourcing: The following is grounded in the Google Patents full-text record for US9930043B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9930043B2/en), cross-checked against Justia Patents (https://patents.justia.com/patent/9930043) and IDIYAS (https://idiyas.com/patent/badge/9930043). I did not find any responsive CAFC 2026 docket entry for this patent number, and the claims below are reconstructed from the specification's summary-of-embodiments text rather than from a verbatim claim set — see the uncertainty note at the end.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (as published)

"Systems and methods of virtual world interaction, operation, implementation, instantiation, creation, and other functions related to virtual worlds (note that where the term 'virtual world' is used herein, it is to be understood as referring to virtual world systems, virtual environments reflecting real, simulated, fantasy, or other structures, and includes information systems that utilize interaction within a 3D environment). Various embodiments facilitate interoperation between and within virtual worlds, and may provide consistent structures for operating virtual worlds. The disclosed embodiments may further enable individuals to build new virtual worlds within a framework, and allow third party users to better interact with those worlds."

Plain-language overview of the independent aspects

This is a large omnibus patent that consolidates several distinct invention families from the same 2011 priority family. Per the specification's own summary, the independent aspects are:

1. Avatar transfer between virtual-worlds systems. A virtual-worlds server receives a request to transfer an avatar from an external virtual-worlds server; determines the avatar's authorization rights; completes a transfer protocol with the external server (in one embodiment a cryptographically secure transfer, Bitcoin-style, that inhibits the avatar from appearing in two worlds at once); converts the avatar's characteristics according to conversion rules; and then engages the avatar for interaction with its worlds. Conversions compare attributes/classes of items (e.g., spaceship ↔ horse), may invoke local-to-local conversion agreements between worlds, may be temporary (restored on exit, via local avatar state) or permanent (written to global avatar state), and may generate a credit/debit where the swapped items differ in value.

2. Permission ("gatekeeper") determination in a virtual world. On detecting an attempted action by a virtual-world entity on an object, the system selects "gatekeeper" objects (service provider, virtual world, scene, and/or the object itself) that carry permission rules having an avatar-matching, action-matching, and object-matching component; iterates the gatekeepers to find applicable rules (with inheritance from parent gatekeepers and possible override by later rules); and automatically permits or disallows the action.

3. Scoped script execution over a hierarchical object model. A virtual space is represented as a hierarchy of document objects (a document object model). A script attached to a first object may modify that object or its descendants, but is prevented from modifying non-descendant objects — except indirectly by invoking a second script that is legitimately attached to the other object.

4. Serving 2D vs. 3D representations of a 3D world. The service provider inspects request content (protocol and/or user agent) to decide whether to return native 3D world data or a generated 2D representation (e.g., a 2D rendering from a vantage point, plus executable UI code enabling chat/interaction). A variant covers the reverse direction: serving 2D HTML content that embeds a tag/URL which triggers the client to invoke a 3D "virtual world browser" at the corresponding world location, optionally in a flippable 2D/3D interface; the 2D content may also be search-engine indexable.

5. Automatic "cleanup" / re-arrangement of objects in a scene instance. The system compares an object's current spatial position against its original position in the scene, computes a transition path back, and automatically walks or otherwise transports the object along that path (the object may self-transport, or a configurable non-player character may do it), with speed optionally scaled to the number of avatars present.

6. Instantiating and recording a 3D scene defined by document objects (apparatus claim). A processor/memory apparatus instantiates a scene defined by markup-language document objects (HTML/XHTML/XML) modeling 3D objects or spaces; controls the object collection in response to client signals; records a sequence of scene states over time (including position and orientation of modeled objects); and supplies that state sequence to clients, formatted to enable a 3D animated display.

7. Permission-granting and template/persistence system. Systems in which virtual environments can nest inside other virtual environments, with a permissions database governing what objects, scenes, and environments may grant or exercise against one another (environments can require/permit/preclude permissions of subordinate scenes, and scenes of subordinate objects); plus a template-based system where an alteration to a templated object/layer is made persistent only if the altering actor had permission with respect to the later instantiating user — otherwise the unaltered template version is instantiated. Persistence may be time-limited or event-terminated.

Related family members (same 2011-08-18 priority)

• US 10,701,077 B2 — "System and methods of virtual world interaction" (priority to US 15/934,858)
• US 11,507,733 B2 (priority to US 16/882,497)
• US 12,373,635 B2 (priority to US 17/964,294)
• All three are listed as currently assigned to Pfaqutruma Research LLC.

Uncertainties and caveats

• CAFC 2026 dockets: My searches returned no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket entry, appeal, or decision specifically involving US 9,930,043. I cannot confirm from the available results whether any such appeal exists; treat the absence of results as "not found," not as affirmative evidence that no appeal exists. The searches did surface unrelated litigation (e.g., Mullen Industries LLC v. Meta Platforms) involving different patents, which I have excluded.
• Assignee conflict: Sources differ on the current owner. Justia lists Utherverse Digital, Inc. as assignee, while the Google Patents record lists both Utherverse Digital Inc and Pfaqutruma Research LLC, with 2020 assignment/conveyance records to Pfaqutruma. I am reporting the assignment records as recorded, not making a chain-of-title conclusion.
• Claim text: The full record I retrieved reproduces the specification's "Definitions"/summary section rather than a verbatim claim set, so the numbered independent claims above are described at the level of their disclosed embodiments. I have not independently verified exact claim numbering or exact claim language from the granted claims, and would need the issued claim set (or the USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search record) to quote claims verbatim. Treat the claim overviews as faithful summaries of subject matter, not as substitute claim language.
• The stated "expires 2034-12-09" and "Active" status are Google Patents assumptions, not legal conclusions.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 9930043 specifically. Let me run several targeted searches.

The first searches returned unrelated patents (e.g., patent 8,739,993 and Neonode's "993 Patent" — different patents). Let me search using the patent's owner and title.

Let me search litigation databases directly using the patent number in various formats.

Bottom line

Based on the searches I was able to complete, I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 9,930,043. I want to be explicit about a few things, because "no results" here is a weak negative, not proof that no case exists.

1. Confirm the patent identity first (important — easy to confuse)

US 9,930,043 B2 is:

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9930043/en

2. What I searched, and what it returned

I searched for the exact number and for likely plaintiffs/owners:

• US patent 9930043 litigation
• "9930043" patent lawsuit case number
• Pfaqutruma Research LLC patent litigation
• "Pfaqutruma Research" v. lawsuit virtual world patent
• "9930043" Pfaqutruma OR Utherverse
• "9,930,043" patent litigation defendant
• portal.unifiedpatents.com litigation 9930043

None of these returned a case accusing anyone of infringing US 9,930,043. The results were entirely patent-registry/prosecution data (Google Patents, EPO/INPI/Luxembourg/Ireland registers, onscope, Unified Patents patent profile pages, Patent Arcade's patent database listing Pfaqutruma as an assignee).

Critically, the hits that looked like litigation were false positives on similar numbers, and I am flagging them so they are not mistaken for this patent:

• Patent 8,739,993 — Luv n' Care, Ltd. v. Munchkin, Inc., IPR2015-00872 (PTAB). Different patent (drinking cups).
• Neonode Smartphone LLC v. [[Samsung Electronics Co.](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.) Ltd.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%20Ltd.), No. 6:23-cv-00204 (W.D. Tex.) — the order referenced a "993 Patent," but that docket concerns Neonode's touchscreen patents, not US 9,930,043.

So neither of those is relevant, notwithstanding the "993" in each.

3. Why this is only a weak negative

• Pfaqutruma Research LLC is a Delaware holding entity (1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, DE) of the type commonly used to hold and assert former operating-company patents. It acquired the Utherverse portfolio around January 2020. Such entities are frequently used in enforcement campaigns, so litigation is plausible even if I did not surface it.
• My search tooling was cut off before I could query PACER, CourtListener, or the Unified Patents litigation caselist directly for this exact number. Those are the authoritative places to check.
• The Google Patents page for the patent lists "Related Cases," but that field was blank in what I retrieved — consistent with no litigation, but not conclusive.

4. Recommended verification (before anyone relies on "no litigation")

To convert this into a reliable answer, check these sources for the exact string 9,930,043 / 9930043:

1. Unified Patents litigation portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation (search assigned patents of Pfaqutruma Research LLC)
2. CourtListener / RECAP — https://www.courtlistener.com (search "9930043" and "Pfaqutruma")
3. PACER — docket search in likely venues (D. Del., W.D. Tex., E.D. Tex., C.D. Cal., N.D. Cal.) for party "Pfaqutruma Research"
4. USPTO Patent Center "Related Proceedings" for application 14/139,397 (would show IPRs/PGRs)
5. RPX / Docket Navigator / Lex Machina (subscription) — search by patent number
6. USPTO Assignment records — reel/frame noted above, to trace any enforcement-related assignments

Certificate of no-found litigation

As of the searches I was able to run, no case — no plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome — can be reported for US 9,930,043. I decline to supply any such details, because inventing a case number or docket would be a fabrication. If you want, I can re-run the searches specifically against Unified Patents, CourtListener, and PACER and report whatever the current ground truth is.

I'll verify the ODP result against public sources before drafting.

Let me run a few more targeted checks on the PTAB and litigation side.

One more targeted check on litigation and PTAB dockets.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 9,930,043. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent searches of PTAB public materials, docket aggregators, and litigation reporting surfaced no petition, no institution decision, and no Final Written Decision naming the '043 patent — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is the opposite of "the patent is hardened by a PTAB gauntlet": every claim of the '043 patent is completely untested before the Board, and there is no prior petitioner whose estoppel you can free-ride on. That cuts both ways — no claim is dead, but no claim has been validated either.

Proceedings

No proceedings to report. I am not going to invent a proceeding number, panel, or claim-level disposition to fill this section. To be explicit about the negative finding:

• PTAB (E2E / PTAB Decisions / ODP): no AIA trial proceeding identified for US 9,930,043 (or its continuations US 10,701,077 / US 11,507,733 / US 12,373,635) as of the search date.
• Federal Circuit: no appeal identified involving this patent, which is expected in the absence of any Board decision to appeal.
• No FWD exists, so there is no claim-level verdict, no canceled independent claim, and no "claims 1–5 are dead" argument available to you.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all claims UNTESTED. US 9,930,043 issued 2018-03-27 from application 14/139,397 (filed 2013-12-23), claiming priority to 2011-08-18, with an adjusted expiration of 2034-12-09 and current assignee Pfaqutruma Research LLC (originally Utherverse Digital Inc., with reassignments to Utherverse, Inc. in 2015 and to Pfaqutruma Research LLC in 2020). None of its claims — the avatar-transfer/interoperation claims, the gatekeeper/permission claims, the managed-script-execution claims, the 2D/3D dimensionality-serving claims, or the scene-cleanup claims reflected in the specification — has been construed by the Board or canceled. You are facing a patent whose family has been the subject of active enforcement activity elsewhere, but whose validity has never been adjudicated in an AIA trial.

Estoppel landscape: essentially a blank slate. Because no IPR/PGR reached a Final Written Decision under § 318(a), § 315(e)(2) estoppel is not triggered against anyone on this patent. There is no petitioner/privy who is barred from re-asserting art, and correspondingly no body of Board-credited art you can simply adopt. Practically, this means you are free to file your own petition with the full universe of § 102/§ 103 art, subject only to the normal rules (§ 315(b) one-year bar from service of a complaint; § 325(d) discretion to reject art already before the Office during prosecution). For what it's worth on § 325(d): this patent's prosecution was presumably examined against the Shuster/Utherverse family, so prior art that is already in the file history or already considered in a sibling's prosecution is the area where the Board is most likely to exercise discretion against you — prioritize art that is clearly outside the examined record.

Pattern signals: no PTAB pattern, but note the enforcement pattern in the family. I did not find a serial IPR filer, a Unified Patents-style defensive aggregator, or any PTAB filings on this patent. What I did surface is an active *district-court enforcement campaign by a related entity, "Utherverse Gaming LLC," in Utherverse Gaming LLC v. Epic Games Inc., No. 2:21-cv-00799-RSM-TLF (W.D. Wash.)* — asserting different patents in the same family (reported as the '071, '605, '954, and '157 patents, with a claim construction order on 2022-10-20 and later summary-judgment/marking disputes in 2023–2024). None of the public filings I reviewed indicate that US 9,930,043 itself was asserted in that case, and I cannot confirm any link between that case and the '043 patent. Two caveats: the ODP ingest may lag recently filed petitions, and the litigation above is corroborated only by the search results I retrieved, not by a docket I pulled directly. Treat the "zero proceedings" conclusion as current-best-available, and re-check PTAB E2E / the PTAB Decisions portal immediately before you commit to a validity strategy.

Recommended next steps

1. No PTAB activity on file — verify, then act on the blank slate. Before relying on this, confirm directly against USPTO PTAB E2E and the PTAB Decisions portal (patents.google.com/patent/US9930043B2/en lists no PTAB proceedings; cross-check the assignment history there). Absence of IPRs on a patent this old (priority 2011, ~13 years of enforceability remaining) is itself a signal: either it hasn't been asserted enough to attract a petitioner, or those asserted against it have chosen district-court invalidity over the Board.
2. You retain every invalidity ground. With no § 315(e)(2) estoppel, a defendant may raise § 101, § 102, § 103, and § 112 grounds freely. Given the claims' subject matter (virtual-world avatar transfer, permission gating, script execution over a document-object-model hierarchy — see the claim language in the specification's Definitions section), § 101 (Alice/Mayo) is likely a high-value, patent-specific weapon in district court, and § 103 combinations of 2000s-era virtual-world/MMORPG art are wide open at the Board. Note Ingenico v. Ioengine (Fed. Cir. 2025) on the scope of IPR estoppel is a live issue if an IPR is later filed — see the GoPro/Contour reconsideration briefing at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.[315850](/patent/315850)/gov.uscourts.cand.315850.727.0.pdf.
3. Watch the sibling-patent litigation for claim-construction handcuffs. The Utherverse Gaming v. Epic Games case (W.D. Wash., 2:21-cv-00799) produced constructions and summary-judgment rulings on family patents that may travel to the '043 claims if the same patent owner asserts them. Pull the claim construction order (Dkt. 133, 2022-10-20, cited at https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/washington/wawdce/2:2021cv00799/[300451/199](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=300451-0199)/) and the later R&R/objections (https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.wawd.[300451](/patent/300451)/gov.uscourts.wawd.300451.381.0.pdf) to see whether the owner's own admissions about avatar/experience-file limitations can be leveraged against the '043 claims.
4. If you're evaluating filing an IPR: count the clock from the date you were served — § 315(b) gives you one year, and there is no joinder route to piggyback on since no trial exists to join. Build the petition on art that avoids the family's examined record to minimize § 325(d) risk.

Bottom line for a defendant today: don't expect to win an invalidity motion by pointing at a prior PTAB FWD — there isn't one. Your leverage is (a) the untouched § 101 exposure of these virtual-world claims, (b) a genuinely open prior-art field because no estoppel has been created, and (c) any family-wide claim-construction/admissions record generated in the W.D. Wash. enforcement campaign. Verify the zero-proceedings finding before you rely on it, because right now it is a negative result from search, not a positive document.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 9,930,043. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records, reel/frame numbers, and correspondents.

I hit the tool-call limit before I could query the USPTO Assignment Center directly (my queries for the reel/frame and correspondent returned empty or were cut off). Below is what I can actually ground, with the gaps flagged rather than filled. Read the sourcing note first — it materially limits the confidence of the NPE calls.

Sourcing note (read before relying on anything below)

• The USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) and the legacy assignment.uspto.gov mirror did not return records to my queries. I could not pull the recorded assignment abstracts, execution dates, or correspondents of record directly from the Office.
• What I can ground is (a) the legal-events/assignment table reproduced on the Google Patents record for US 9,930,043 (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9930043B2](/patent/US9930043B2)/en), and (b) the INPI (France) EP2745462 register entry (https://data.inpi.fr/brevets/EP2745462), which names Pfaqutruma Research LLC as titulaire at 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, DE 19801.
• Only one reel/frame number is actually evidenced in the record I retrieved: reel 051634 frame 0147, cited inside the Google Patents legal-events entry for the corrective 2020 assignment. I do not have the reel/frames for the 2015 recordings or for the 2020 corrective recording itself.
• I have no correspondent/attorney data for any assignment recording on this patent. The task flags the correspondent as the key tell; I could not obtain it, so signal #3 is reported as unclear, not guessed.

Inventors

Unusual patterns observed (and not observed):

• Two non-inventor assignors appear on the 2015 recording. The 2015-09-29 assignment to UTHERVERSE, INC. lists assignors Gorana Vulic and Zachary Zarry in addition to the seven named inventors. Neither is a named inventor on the '043 patent. That is the signature of a curative/confirmatory recording — the Office was being given a clean chain from "everyone who might hold an interest" to the company — rather than a routine first assignment. It is a marker of a title-defect cleanup, which in turn is a common precursor to a sale or assertion campaign.
• Gary Shuster is a repeat figure and is separately named as an inventor on the sibling Pfaqutruma/Shuster patents (e.g., US 10,977,851, "Animation control method for multiple participants," applicant Pfaqutruma Research LLC). The concentration of Shuster-named, Pfaqutruma-held patents across the family is a portfolio-consolidation pattern.
• Departure data: not determinable. I have no employment-departure or personnel records. I cannot confirm or refute the "all inventors departed within 12 months" pattern.

Original assignee

Utherverse Digital, Inc. (also recorded as UTHERVERSE DIGITAL INC.), 2985 Virtual Way, Suite 150, Vancouver, BC V5M 4X7, Canada — a foreign corporation.

• Primary line of business: operator of 3D virtual-world products. The patent's own specification names the product line (Red Light Center World, Virtual Vancouver World, etc.), and the company's own marketing/patent family maps to the Utherverse virtual-world platform. This is an operating company that shipped the claimed subject matter, not a holding vehicle at origination.
• Current status: unclear / no reliable current record retrieved. I found no bankruptcy filing, dissolution notice, or acquisition filing for Utherverse Digital, Inc. in the material I could retrieve. Note that the corporate line appears to have split: enforcement in the family has been carried out by a related entity, Utherverse Gaming LLC (see Utherverse Gaming LLC v. Epic Games Inc., No. 2:21-cv-00799-RSM-TLF (W.D. Wash.)), while the patent title sits with Pfaqutruma Research LLC. I cannot state Utherverse Digital's current operating status with confidence.

Assignment timeline

Chronological, from the legal-events table on the Google Patents record for US 9,930,043 (execution dates not exposed in that table — recording dates shown):

• 2015-09-29 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (recorded as a "reassignment")
  • Assignor: Brian M. Shuster; Gary S. Shuster; Aaron Burch; Frisco Kristiansen; Ian Neufeld; Dirk Herling; Patrick Tyroler; Gorana Vulic; Zachary Zarry (last two not named inventors)
  • Assignee: UTHERVERSE, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — flag as gap
  • Context: curative/confirmatory assignment — inventors (plus two extra parties holding potential interests) conveying to the corporate entity; consistent with closing a chain-of-title gap rather than a first-time transfer.

• 2015-09-29 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (recorded as a "reassignment")
  • Assignor: UTHERVERSE, INC.
  • Assignee: UTHERVERSE DIGITAL, INC.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — flag as gap
  • Context: internal reorganization / entity consolidation — same-day intra-group transfer aligning title with the named assignee on the issued patent.

• 2020-01-27 (recorded) — Reel/frame: 051634/0147

  • Conveyance: Assignment (recorded as a "reassignment")
  • Assignor: UTHERVERSE DIGITAL INC.
  • Assignee: PFAQUTRUMA RESEARCH LLC, 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, DE 19801
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — flag as gap. (Note: prosecution counsel of record on the sibling Shuster/Pfaqutruma patent US 10,977,851 is Fernando & Partners, LLP; that is prosecution counsel, not confirmed to be the assignment correspondent, so I do not treat it as signal #3.)
  • Context: transfer to an assertion/holding vehicle — operating company out, Delaware LLC at a registered-agent address in, ~21 months before the family's first district-court complaint (2021).

• 2020-01-29 (recorded) — Reel/frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Correction (corrective assignment)
  • Assignor: UTHERVERSE DIGITAL INC.
  • Assignee: PFAQUTRUMA RESEARCH LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — flag as gap
  • Context: title cleanup only — the record states it corrects "the spelling of the assignor previously recorded at Reel 051634 Frame 0147." No change in beneficial ownership.

If the USPTO Assignment Center shows records I could not retrieve, they will appear as the 2015 and 2020 recordings above with their own reel/frame pairs. Verify the reel/frames and, critically, the correspondent of record, at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 9930043).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9930043
    2011 : Priority date
    2013 : Application 14 139 397 filed
    2015 : Inventors and two others assign to Utherverse Inc
         : Utherverse Inc assigns to Utherverse Digital Inc
    2018 : Patent US 9930043 issued
    2020 : Utherverse Digital assigns to Pfaqutruma Research
         : Corrective assignment recorded
    2021 : Utherverse Gaming sues Epic Games in W D Wash

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT. On the 2020-01-27 recording (reel 051634/0147), the asset moves from an operating virtual-world company (Utherverse Digital, Inc.) to Pfaqutruma Research LLC, a Delaware LLC at 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, DE 19801 — a well-known registered-agent service address (also confirmed as the titulaire address on the parallel EP2745462 register entry at https://data.inpi.fr/brevets/EP2745462). Combined with a "…Research LLC" name and no product footprint I can identify, this is a concrete operating-company→licensing-vehicle move, not a naming inference alone. Caveat: I could not independently confirm "no products in commerce" for Pfaqutruma.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (on the named lists); UNCLEAR on the broader test. Pfaqutruma Research LLC does not appear on the classic public NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities). However, the family is being enforced: **Utherverse Gaming LLC filed Utherverse Gaming LLC v. Epic Games Inc., No. 2:21-cv-00799-RSM-TLF (W.D. Wash.)**, asserting family patents (reported as the '071, '605, '954, and '157 patents). I could not confirm that Pfaqutruma and Utherverse Gaming are commonly controlled, and US 9,930,043 itself was not in the public filings I reviewed. Reported as unclear on the linkage.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT RETRIEVED. I could not obtain the correspondent of record for the 2015 or 2020 recordings. The only plausibly relevant name in the record is Fernando & Partners, LLP, listed as prosecution counsel on the sibling Pfaqutruma/Shuster patent US 10,977,851 — but that is prosecution counsel on a different application, and I am explicitly not treating a single appearance as the recurrence signal the task requires. This is the single most important open item; pull it from the Assignment Center.

4. Cascading transfers — WEAK / PARTIAL. The chain is not the classic "three LLCs in under 24 months," but there are four recordings across two clusters: two same-day 2015-09-29 conveyances (inventors → Utherverse, Inc. → Utherverse Digital, Inc.), then the 2020-01-27 transfer to Pfaqutruma plus a 2020-01-29 corrective recording two days later. A corrective assignment recorded 48 hours after the substantive one is a title-hygiene step typical of preparing a portfolio for assertion.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — UNCLEAR. The 2020-01-27 transfer to Pfaqutruma precedes the family's 2021 W.D. Wash. complaint by roughly 12 months — outside the 6-month window this signal specifies — and US 9,930,043 itself was not among the asserted patents I could identify. Not a clean hit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT (no evidence). I found no Chapter 7/11 proceeding for Utherverse Digital, Inc. and no indication the transfer was a court-supervised asset sale. The 2020 transfer is documented as an ordinary assignment, not a bankruptcy conveyance.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR. The structural picture (operating company out; Delaware LLC in; a sibling "Utherverse Gaming LLC" litigating family patents against a large platform) resembles privateering, but the task requires evidence — SEC filings, Patent Progress/EFF coverage, or a documented retainer/back-office link between Pfaqutruma and Utherverse. I did not retrieve any such document, so I do not make the call.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at Pfaqutruma Research LLC. It does not end at RPX, Allied Security Trust, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or Open Invention Network. The patent has not been neutralized.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: Signal #1 (shell-entity transfer) is clearly present on concrete evidence — the 2020-01-27 assignment recorded at reel 051634 frame 0147 moved US 9,930,043 from the operating entity Utherverse Digital, Inc. to Pfaqutruma Research LLC at 1209 Orange Street, Wilmington, DE 19801, a registered-agent service address corroborated by the parallel EP2745462 register. That alone is one strong signal; the additional evidence is suggestive but individually weak or unretrieved — the two-day-later 2020-01-29 corrective recording, the 2015 curative recording that swept in two non-inventor assignors (Vulic, Zarry), and the family's 2021 enforcement campaign by Utherverse Gaming LLC v. Epic Games, No. 2:21-cv-00799-RSM-TLF (W.D. Wash.), which I could not tie to Pfaqutruma or to this patent. I did not promote this to "high confidence" because the correspondent of record — the decisive recurrence tell — was not retrievable, and because US 9,930,043 itself has not been shown to be asserted.

Verification link: search patent number 9930043 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

Two honest limits on this verdict: (a) I could not reach the Assignment Center, so the reel/frames and correspondents above are only partly evidenced and partly reconstructed from the Google Patents legal-events table; and (b) at least one prior section of this analysis found no litigation naming US 9,930,043 — that remains a "not found," and nothing here contradicts it, since the enforcement I identified is on sibling patents by a different LLC.

I'll research the specific prior-art citations on the face of US 9,930,043. Let me pull the patent record and its cited references.

Let me pull the patent's cited-references list more directly.

Let me retrieve the granted patent PDF directly, which contains the front-page "(56) References Cited" list.

Sourcing limitation — read this first

I was cut off before I could open the exact front-page "(56) References Cited" block of US 9,930,043 B2, and the Google Patents text record I retrieved reproduces the specification/Definitions section and the family-linkage tables rather than the verbatim examiner-cited list. So I cannot honestly hand you a guaranteed-complete, verbatim transcription of the '043 front page. Two consequences for the answer below:

1. I will not invent citations. Everything in the table is drawn from records I actually retrieved (the '043 page, the sibling/continuation pages that reproduce '043's "Application Number | Title" linkage, and the granted PDFs of the individual references). Where I could not confirm a date or that a reference sits on this patent's face, I say so.
2. Watch the two different senses of "citations" on US 9,930,043. The number you may see quoted (≈293) is Google Patents' combined citation field. It blends (a) references cited during prosecution of '043, (b) the family/continuation cross-links (the Utherverse siblings filed off the same 2011-08-18 priority), and (c) "Cited By" forward references. Only (a) are "references cited for US 9,930,043" in the (56) sense, and even within (a) only some are § 102 anticipatory art. Conflating them is the single most common error in this kind of exercise.

The reference-integrity problem specific to this patent: most of what is "cited" is not § 102 art

Building directly on the Obviousness section already generated: the Utherverse family that dominates US 9,930,043's citation list — US 8,522,330; 8,673,142; 8,673,689; 8,453,219; 9,046,994; 8,493,386; 9,509,699; 8,572,207; 8,947,427; 9,386,022; US 2013/0047217 A1 — all share the same 2011-08-18 priority and are commonly owned. They are not § 102(a)/(b)/(e) art, and § 103(c) would disqualify them from § 103 combination anyway. The continuation cross-links (US 15/934,858 → US 10,701,077; US 16/882,497 → US 11,507,733; US 17/964,294 → US 12,373,635) are same-family members, not prior art — they cannot anticipate or render obvious anything in '043. Any "prior art list" for this patent that leads with the Shuster/Utherverse siblings is mislabeled. The genuinely usable art is the third-party art below.

Most relevant references I could ground, with § 102 mapping

The mapping is to the disclosed independent aspects (per the standing caveat carried forward from the Summary section: the record I retrieved did not give me a verbatim granted claim set, so I map to subject matter, not verified claim numbers). Treat "potentially anticipates" literally under § 102 — a single reference must disclose every limitation of the claim; where a reference covers only the preamble-plus-two-limitations core of an aspect, I mark it a § 102 candidate for only the narrowest claim in that family, otherwise it is § 103 fodder.

Also screened and excluded as false positives (they surface in searches on "993" but are unrelated to US 9,930,043): the Luv n' Care v. Munchkin drinking-cup patent 8,739,993 (IPR2015-00872), and the Neonode "993 Patent" touchscreen litigation. Neither is this patent.

Critical legal caveats on the § 102 call

1. Anticipation requires a single reference teaching every limitation, arranged as in the claim. Of the references above, only US 8,584,025 comes close to single-reference anticipation of an entire independent avatar-transfer claim — and only if the granted claim omits the cryptographic-simultaneity and item-conversion/credit limitations. Everything else is § 103 material, not § 102. I am stating this plainly rather than over-claiming § 102 hits.
2. Date/§ 102(b) contradiction to flag against the prior Obviousness section. That section labels US 8,245,283 (pub. 2010-09-09) as "→ § 102(b)." Given a critical date of 2010-08-18 (one year before the 2011-08-18 priority), a 2010-09-09 publication is less than one year before that critical date and therefore is not § 102(b) art; it is properly § 102(e) (published U.S. application with an earlier effective filing date). I flag this as a likely correction, not a stylistic quibble — it matters because § 102(e) art cannot be combined under § 103(c) the same way, and it is curable by antedating sworn evidence in a way § 102(b) art is not. If, instead, '043 is not entitled to the full 2011-08-18 priority for a given claim, the critical date shifts to one year before the actual 2013-12-23 filing (i.e., 2012-12-23) and the reference becomes § 102(b). Which of the two applies turns on a priority analysis I could not complete from the retrieved record.
3. Pre-AIA statute applies. Priority is 2011-08-18, before the AIA first-inventor-to-file transition, so § 102(a)/(b)/(e) pre-AIA govern (as developed in the Obviousness section). That is why the "one year before" and "earlier US filing date" mechanics above matter.
4. Issuance vs. publication dates I did not independently verify. For US 8,379,968, US 9,331,860, US 8,161,385, US 8,082,501, US 8,392,839, and US 8,151,191/8,149,241 I retrieved or recall issuance/filing data but did not confirm their pre-2011 publication dates in this session. Their § 102(b) vs. § 102(e) status is therefore unconfirmed — verify in Patent Public Search before relying on any of them as anticipatory.
5. I could not verify that items 3–12 sit on '043's own (56) face. Several surfaced through sibling-patent records or the individual references' own pages. If the deliverable requires "references actually cited on US 9,930,043," that list must be pulled verbatim from the granted front page (PDF) or USPTO Patent Center for application 14/139,397. Retrieve it there before filing anything.

What I recommend to close the gap (this is the honest next step, not filler)

1. Pull the verbatim (56) list from the granted PDF (patentimages/Google Patents "Download PDF") or USPTO Patent Public Search for app 14/139,397 → "References Cited." That single document resolves items 3–12 above and gives the true count (separating applicant-cited from examiner-cited, and marking the "*" examiner-attention references).
2. Pull the European counterpart (EP 2745462 / WO 2013/025907-ish, from PCT/US2012/051503) — the EPO search report's X/Y category coding is a ready-made § 102/§ 103 relevance map for exactly this family, and the ISR "Relevant to claim No." column tells you which claims the examiner thought a reference touched. That is the fastest way to convert my table into a claim-numbered § 102 matrix.
3. Do not use the Utherverse siblings as art (items 1 and 11 of the family list). They are same-priority, commonly-owned cross-references, not prior art.
4. Re-run the § 102 date analysis for US 8,245,283 (item 2) and US 8,379,968 (item 6) once the front page confirms they are cited, because the § 102(b)/(e) distinction there is claim-dispositive.

Bottom line: the reference that most plausibly anticipates anything in US 9,930,043 is US 8,584,025 B2 (Dawson, IBM) for the avatar-transfer aspect; US 8,245,283 B2 is a § 102(e) candidate for the authorization-rights limitation; the remaining grounded references (Leahy/Worlds.com; IBM 2D→3D; Carter 2008; Nakamoto 2008; the collaborative/permission references) are § 103 art, not § 102 art, for these claims. I deliberately did not reproduce a 293-item list or assign claim numbers I could not verify — the exact front-page (56) list and the granted claim set must be pulled from the patent PDF / Patent Center to make this a filing-grade § 102 chart.

I'll build on the prior sections. Before drafting the § 103 analysis, let me try to close the two gaps the Prior Art section flagged: the verbatim granted claims, and the identity/content of key cited references.

I now have the key structural finding — but I need to pin down the granted claim set of 9,930,043 specifically (not its siblings). Let me run two more targeted searches.

Obviousness Analysis — US 9,930,043 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Built on: the Patent summary, Litigation, PTAB, Assignment, and Prior Art sections already generated. This section does not repeat those findings; it uses them as inputs and flags where my new research corrects them (see §8).

1. Correcting the claim-identification problem first (it drives everything)

The Prior Art section correctly warned that the verbatim granted claims of US 9,930,043 were not in hand. My additional research materially narrows (but does not fully close) that gap:

1. The pre-grant claims of application 14/139,397 are now fully visible at Justia's page for publication US 2014/0189542 A1 (https://patents.justia.com/patent/20140189542), which expressly lists "Patent Grant number: 9930043." Those claims 1–9 are a system claim to nested virtual environments plus a permissions database (claim 1), a "means for realizing the permissions data" limitation with environments/scenes requiring-permitting-precluding subordinate permissions (claim 2), a database "encoded into objects themselves and not centrally stored" (claim 3), and a template/persistence computer system (claims 4–9).
2. The child patent US 10,701,077 (pub. US 2018/0227308 A1) — a continuation of 14/139,397 — carries essentially the same claim-1 language ("one or more scenes within the virtual environment; one or more virtual environments, a subset of which are defined as part of at least one of the virtual environments not in the subset; and a database containing information defining permissions…"), confirming the family's claim-1 template for this omnibus case. See https://patents.google.com/patent/US20180227308A1/en
3. Correction to the earlier summary: the "arranging objects within a three-dimensional virtual space" (scene-cleanup) claims do not appear to belong to 9,930,043. They are the claims of sibling US 2013/0044106 A1 (application 13/590,166, "Systems and methods of object processing in virtual worlds"). See https://patents.searchlight.law/doc/US20130044106 (8 claims, claim 1 = "A method of arranging objects within a three-dimensional virtual space…"). Similarly, the avatar-transfer method claims belong to sibling US 8,522,330 B2 (application 13/590,174), whose granted claim 1 reads "A method of communicating user data between virtual worlds systems…" (text at http://shuster.com/pat/US8522330.pdf).
4. Best-evidence conclusion: 9,930,043's granted claims most likely sit in the nested-environment/permissions and template/persistence families (the 2014/0189542 claims 1–9), with the avatar-transfer, script-scoping, 2D/3D-serving and cleanup subject matter appearing in the specification and in sibling patents. I analyze all four families below, because (a) the priority/claim-scope risk runs both ways and (b) a § 103 opinion that only covers the leading candidate is not defensible.

This is still a reconstruction, not the granted claim set. Everything below is at the level of claim scope disclosed in the specification and published/child claims. Pull the granted claims from USPTO Patent Public Search before filing anything.

2. Governing law, priority, and the level of ordinary skill

• Statute: Pre-AIA § 103 applies if every claim is entitled to the 2011-08-18 priority (via provisional 61/524,956). If any granted claim contains new matter added in the 2013-12-23 filing, AIA § 102/§ 103 applies to that claim, moving the critical date forward ~2 years and enlarging the prior-art field. Either way the analysis is favorable to a challenger — flag it, but don't depend on it.
• Framework: Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966); KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007); MPEP § 2143 (rationales for combining). KSR supplies the rationales used throughout below: (a) combination of known elements with predictable results; (b) simple substitution of a known element; (c) use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way; (d) application of a known technique to a known device ready for improvement; (e) "obvious to try" where a finite number of identified, predictable solutions exist; and (f) design incentives/market forces.
• PHOSITA: a software engineer with 2–4 years' experience in networked multiplayer/3D virtual-world systems, or a bachelor's degree in CS plus equivalent experience. Critically, this person is presumed to know IBM's virtual-universe literature (2007–2011), Second Life's object-permission model, MMORPG "instancing," and the Bitcoin white paper (Oct. 31, 2008) as of August 2011.

3. The prior-art set relied on

Note the two most useful facts: the patent's own IDS contains the MMORPG-"instancing" NPL, and the specification itself admits Bitcoin as an existing cryptographic-transfer option (see the JP translation of the family at https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f4/97/0a/7c13d44f6c3558/JP2014529792A.pdf and the '330/2013/0046854 text: "A system similar to the system behind the Bitcoin technology is one example of a cryptographically secure decentralized system"). Admissions in the specification are prior-art-equivalent evidence of what was known.

4. Combination 1 — the leading claim family (nested environments + permissions database)

Target: published claims 1–3 of 2014/0189542 (system of objects, scenes, nested environments, permissions database; environments may require/permit/preclude permissions of subordinate scenes; scenes of subordinate objects).

Primary combination: Dolbier 2010/0031164 + Hamilton 2009/0175559 + Brillhart 2011/0131509.

• Dolbier discloses every structural element: a "virtual world layer" (the claimed "virtual environment defined as part of at least one of the virtual environments not in the subset"), layers coupled to the base world and to the user, multiple layers nested VW[1]…VW[n], inherited functionality, and — decisively — it expressly frames the extension mechanism as "permissions-based," with use cases of adult-vs-child content segregation and security-clearance-based information hiding.
• Hamilton 2009/0175559 supplies objects/artifacts within spaces and the census-driven remapping that corresponds to the claimed scene-level behavior.
• Brillhart 2011/0131509 supplies rule objects whose applicability is determined by matching avatar data — i.e., the claimed per-entity/per-object permission records.

Motivation (KSR):

1. Dolbier and the '043 specification identify the identical problem: existing 3D worlds are "monolithic," single-operator, and rigidly scoped. Dolbier's stated use cases (children must not see adult content; cleared users see more than uncleared users) are, word for word, the adult/child-adjacency example in the '043 specification. Same problem, same field → KSR rationale (d).
2. Both Dolbier and Hamilton are IBM virtual-universe filings in the same classification art; a PHOSITA seeking to nest worlds with different rule sets would predictably consult them.
3. Combining a permissions database (a known mechanism — ACLs) with a nested object hierarchy (known from Dolbier) to yield hierarchical permission inheritance is the predictable use of prior-art elements according to their known functions (KSR rationale (a)).
4. Brillhart supplies the motivation to key permission records on avatar attributes, completing the "avatar matching component / action matching component / object matching component" tri-partite rule of the specification's §[0214].

No teaching away. Nothing in Dolbier, Hamilton, or Brillhart disparages nesting or permission inheritance; to the contrary, hierarchy is the point of Dolbier's layer order notation.

5. Combination 2 — template / permission-conditioned persistence (published claims 4–9)

Target: object-or-layer holding templates → alteration → determine by reference to permissions data whether the alteration persists → instantiate template version if the altering actor lacked permission, recorded version if it had; persistence time-limited or event-terminated.

Combination: Dolbier 2010/0031164 (layers/templates) + Brillhart 2011/0131509 (rules as function of entity data) + Second Life object-permission model (NPL) + routine DOM "copy-on-write"/prototype-inheritance design pattern.

Motivation: The problem — one user's edit must not silently propagate to another user who never authorized it — is the ordinary clone/copy-on-write problem and the ordinary IP-protection problem. Second Life had published per-object no-modify/no-copy/no-transfer flags a decade earlier. Applying a known access-control predicate at instantiation time (rather than at edit time) is a simple substitution of one known implementation for another, with a predictable result (KSR rationale (b)), and time-limiting or event-terminating persistence is the routine "lease/TTL" concept. Secondary evidence is weak here because the claim recites only generic "means for" functional language (see §8, §101 note).

6. Combinations 3 and 4 — belt-and-suspenders for the sibling-families subject matter

If 9,930,043's granted scope (or a dependent claim) reaches these, they fall the same way.

Avatar transfer / interoperation:
Amsterdam 2009/0287614 (transfer avatar between virtual universes; authenticate; transfer virtual property; sign out of world A so the avatar disappears there and appears in world B) + Betzler 2011/0126272 (identity and virtual-object sharing among worlds) + Kane thesis (interoperability of avatar information, cited during prosecution) disclose receiving a transfer request from a second server, determining authorization, completing a transfer protocol, converting characteristics, and engaging the avatar. Motivation: interoperability between walled-garden virtual worlds was an expressly recognized industry problem by 2008–2010 (Amsterdam's title is literally the claim). Adding the Bitcoin mechanism for the "inhibit the avatar from appearing in multiple virtual worlds simultaneously" limitation is the textbook KSR "known technique to solve a known problem" case: preventing an avatar from being in two places at once is isomorphic to preventing a coin from being spent twice, and the specification admits Bitcoin was the known solution. Value-differential credits (the "credit accounting for the difference in value" limitation) are routine exchange/accounting mechanics (Second Life's LindeX, 2005).

Scene cleanup / object arrangement:
Hamilton 2009/0175559 (census-driven remapping keyed to avatar count/density; repositioning artifacts) + Hamilton US 9,003,304 (moving an avatar through a virtual universe) + the cited MMORPG-instancing NPL + Dijkstra's algorithm (1959) disclose comparing a current position to an original position, computing a path, and automatically transitioning the object — with speed keyed to the number of avatars present, which Hamilton's density-triggered remapping already teaches. Using an NPC ("bot") to do the moving was ubiquitous in MMORPGs. Motivation: KSR rationales (a), (c), (e).

7. Objective indicia and how the patentee will respond

• Commercial success: the Patent summary documents Utherverse's reported 600k active users / $10M revenue. Expect secondary-consideration argument. Attack the nexus: Red Light Center and Virtual Vancouver launched around 2005–2006 — before the 2011 priority — so the commercial product cannot be attributed to the claimed advance; if anything it evidences that the field was already building interoperable 3D worlds. Also, the omnibus claims are generic; the success is attributable to content/moderation/business model, not the claimed architecture (In re GPAC; Brown & Williamson nexus requirement).
• Failure of others / long-felt need: the '043 background admits others had attempted 3D-web systems for years and failed. That cuts both ways — it can support nonobviousness, but it equally supports "the problem was known and the solution was recognized as desirable," which strengthens motivation.
• Copying: the Litigation section's Utherverse Gaming v. Epic Games campaign (if it ever reaches 9,930,043's claims) would invite a copying argument; no evidence of that today.
• Unexpected results: none disclosed; the specification describes predictable handoffs of avatar data between servers.

8. Weaknesses, and explicit corrections to the earlier sections

Corrections / new findings:

1. The earlier summary listed seven "independent aspects" of US 9,930,043. My research indicates 9,930,043's granted claims are most likely the nested-environment/permissions + template/persistence claims, while the scene-cleanup claims belong to US 2013/0044106 (13/590,166) and the avatar-transfer claims to US 8,522,330 (13/590,174). This refines, and in part corrects, that framing.
2. The Prior Art section's guess that "the § 102 analysis should target the permissions/sub-environment subject matter" is corroborated by independently confirming the identical claim-1 language in the child US 10,701,077.
3. New art located: Dolbier US 2010/0031164 (expressly nested layers + adult/child permissions), Hamilton US 2009/0175559, Brillhart US 2011/0131509, Amsterdam US 2009/0287614, Betzler US 2011/0126272, the Kane thesis, and the three MMORPG-"instancing" NPL items — all now with usable substance rather than bare number/date.

Risks to the § 103 case:

• § 325(d) risk: Hamilton '559, Amsterdam '614, Betzler '272 and Brillhart '509 all appear in the (partial) IDS list I retrieved. A petition built principally on those invites discretionary denial. Lead instead with Dolbier 2010/0031164 (nested-layers + express permissions motivation) and the instancing NPL, and treat the cited IBM references as secondary. I could not confirm whether Dolbier 2010/0031164 is on the 9,930,043 IDS — the retrieved list was truncated at ~2009/0319609, and a different Dolbier filing (2010/0026681) appears in the family's other lists. Verify against the front page of the granted patent before building the petition.
• Claim-text risk: the entire mapping is at the level of the published/child claims. If 9,930,043's granted claims were amended during prosecution to add limitations (e.g., the "means for realizing the permissions data" limitation, or a specific template-instantiation step), the § 103 case narrows accordingly and must be re-run against the granted language.
• Priority risk (the other direction): if 9,930,043's claims are not entitled to 2011-08-18, then the 2011–2013 IBM/Disney-era art also comes into play and the case strengthens. Consider pleading both alternatives.
• § 101: independently of § 103, these claims — "a database containing information defining permissions" + generic "means" — are exposed under Alice step two (recall the Board's own reasoning in Appeal 2016-005720 that "the fact that these generic computer functions are applied to the particular environment of virtual reality is not sufficient to circumvent the prohibition against patenting an abstract idea," https://e-foia.uspto.gov/Foia/RetrievePdf?system=BPAI&flNm=fd2016005720-09-06-2017-1). This is the single highest-value ground for a defendant and should be pleaded alongside any § 103 theory.

9. Bottom line

• If 9,930,043 claims the nested-environment/permissions architecture (most likely): obvious over Dolbier 2010/0031164 in view of Hamilton 2009/0175559 and Brillhart 2011/0131509. All elements are present; the motivation is supplied by the references' own stated problem (adult/child segregation, security clearance, monolithic-world limitations) — which mirrors the '043 specification's own examples.
• If it claims template/permission-conditioned persistence: obvious over Dolbier + Brillhart + Second Life object-permission model (copy-on-write/ACL substitution).
• If it reaches avatar transfer (per the sibling '330 claims): obvious over Amsterdam 2009/0287614 + Betzler 2011/0126272 + Kane thesis + Bitcoin, with the Bitcoin combination motivated by the specification's own admission.
• If it reaches scene cleanup (per sibling 2013/0044106): obvious over Hamilton 2009/0175559 + Hamilton US 9,003,304 + the cited instancing NPL + Dijkstra.

Every combination above rests on references dated before the 2011-08-18 priority (all but the Brillhart and Betzler publications are meaningfully earlier, and Brillhart's effective filing date of 2009-12-02 predates priority regardless of its 2011-06-02 publication). I have not verified the granted claim language, and I have not confirmed the complete IDS — those two verifications should precede any formal § 103 contention.