I'll search for this specific patent number in the USPTO database and CAFC 2026 dockets.

Let me refine the searches for USPTO record details and any CAFC 2026 activity for this specific patent.

Search Results & Summary — U.S. Patent 10,481,846 (US10481846B2)

Search methodology and caveats

I searched for the literal identifier 10481846 (equivalently US10481846B2) in USPTO-derived records (Google Patents, USPTO patent-image PDF, Unified Patents portal) and in CAFC 2026 docket sources. No CAFC 2026 docket entries for this patent were found — searches of Federal Circuit 2026 docket databases returned no hits for "10481846." All bibliographic data below is corroborated by the USPTO-issued patent PDF and Google Patents record.

Bibliographic data (authoritative)

Continuity chain (per the USPTO PDF): This is a continuation-in-part of 13/710,299 (→ Pat. 9,798,516), a continuation of 12/903,048 (→ Pat. 8,332,521), a continuation of 10/053,765 (→ Pat. 9,836,257), a CIP of 09/992,413 (→ Pat. 9,965,233), a continuation of 10/016,223 (→ Pat. 7,941,541).

Abstract (verbatim, from USPTO PDF)

"Information apparatus and application software supporting printing over air or network are herein disclosed and enabled. The information apparatus may include one or more software components that include (1) a discovery component to discover a supported printer in a local area network (LAN) and to receive device information related to the printer (e.g., capability, language or format supported, identification) from the printer, and (2) a printing component to generate or obtain print data based on the device information received and to transmit the print data to the discovered printer. After establishing the connection to the LAN, application software (e.g., Internet browser, email, photos, documents) in the information apparatus may print digital content by using the discovery component to discover the printer in the LAN, and may use the printing component to obtain and transmit print data in a form that is acceptable to the printer for printing the digital content."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims — with uncertainty noted

I was not able to retrieve the verbatim text of the independent claims from the available search results (the full claim set was not in the fetched specification excerpt). The following overview is therefore an inference from the abstract, the specification, and the prosecution family, not a claim-by-claim quotation. Treat the specific limitations below as provisional.

• Apparatus/software claim(s) — An information apparatus (or software application stored on a computer-readable medium) that includes: (a) a discovery component that discovers a supported printer on a local area network and receives device information from that printer (e.g., capabilities, supported language/format, identification); and (b) a printing component that generates or obtains print data based on that received device information and transmits the print data to the discovered printer. The effect is "driverless" printing over a LAN — i.e., printing digital content from applications (browser, e-mail, photos, documents) without installing a printer-specific driver for each printer.
• Method claim(s) — Likely a corresponding method of discovering a printer on a LAN, receiving device information, generating print data in a form acceptable to that printer, and transmitting it for printing.

Uncertainty: The exact number of independent claims and their precise limitations (e.g., whether wireless/LAN connection setup, print-data format selection, or driver-absence is recited as a positive limitation) could not be verified from the retrieved materials. To confirm, the authoritative source is the USPTO PDF at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9e/bb/be/ca7ed29850efcc/US10481846.pdf or the USPTO Patent Center record for application 15/697,247.

CAFC 2026 docket check

• No CAFC 2026 docket activity found for patent 10481846 in my searches (empty results).
• The patent does have a district-court litigation history (per Unified Patents/PatSnap): e.g., Flexiworld v. Xerox (6:23-cv-06371, W.D.N.Y., dismissed with prejudice), plus earlier cases in Texas W.D., California C.D., Tennessee, Kentucky, and Washington W.D. One analysis noted the claims of US10481846B2 (along with US10761791B2 and US10140073B2) remain unconstrued because the Xerox case ended without Markman, invalidity, or infringement rulings. A related 2024 case (4:24-cv-02691, S.D. Tex., Flexiworld v. HP) is listed as open.

Bottom line

US10481846B2 is a Flexiworld "printing over air / over a network" patent claiming a LAN printer-discovery-plus-print-data-generation scheme that avoids printer-specific drivers, with a priority date back to November 1, 2000. It expired (fee-related) in early 2022. I found no CAFC 2026 appeal for this patent, and I could not verify the verbatim independent-claim language from the available sources.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 10,481,846 (US10481846B2)

Based on searches of PACER-derived docket aggregators (Unified Patents, CourtListener, Justia, Ex Parte, PatSnap) and news sources, the litigation below is associated with US10481846B2 ("Software Applications and Information Apparatus for Printing Over Air or for Printing Over a Network," owned by Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.).

Cases where assertion of the '846 patent is confirmed

1. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Epson America, Inc.

• Plaintiff: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
• Defendant: Epson America, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Central District of California
• Case No.: 8:21-cv-00807
• Filed: April 29, 2021
• Patents: One of 14 patents-in-suit, expressly including 10,481,846 (the "'846 Patent") (Epson's answer admits the '846 Patent was asserted).
• Status: Closed. A Report on the Determination of an Action (Closing) with an "Order Dismissing Civil Action" was filed ~February 2, 2022. The case was dismissed (settlement/voluntary dismissal); no merits ruling (no Markman, invalidity, or infringement finding is recorded).

2. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Brother Industries (U.S.A.), Inc.

• Plaintiff: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
• Defendant: Brother Industries (U.S.A.), Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Western District of Tennessee
• Case No.: 2:22-cv-02237 (one of four coordinated actions)
• Filed: 2022 (docket listed on Google Patents' litigation record for the '846 family)
• Patents: US10481846B2 plus three further Flexiworld patents.
• Status: Consent judgment entered with prejudice, closing all four coordinated actions simultaneously. Terms (e.g., any license/payment) are not disclosed in the public record.

3. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Xerox Corporation

• Plaintiff: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
• Defendant: Xerox Corporation
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court, Western District of New York
• Case No.: 6:23-cv-06371
• Filed: 2023 (per Google Patents litigation record and PACER-derived docket)
• Patents: US10481846B2, US10761791B2, and US10140073B2. The complaint asserts at least claim 1 of the '846 Patent against Xerox's print apps (e.g., Xerox Print and Scan Experience, Print Service Plug-in for Android).
• Status: Stipulated dismissal with prejudice pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(ii), with each party bearing its own costs and fees. No Markman ruling, invalidity determination, or infringement finding.

Cases listed on the '846 patent's Google Patents litigation record (specific assertion of '846 not independently confirmed in my searches)

Google Patents lists the following dockets on the US10481846 page; they are associated with the Flexiworld patent family, but I could not confirm within available search results whether the '846 patent itself was asserted in each:

• Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Canon Inc. — 1:21-cv-00066, W.D. Tex. (Waco Div.), filed Jan. 21, 2021 (patent infringement complaint; asserted patents not itemized in the snippets I retrieved).
• Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. — 2:21-cv-01055, W.D. Wash. (parties confirmed via CourtListener; asserted patents not itemized).
• Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Roku, Inc. — 6:21-cv-00767, W.D. Tex., filed July 27, 2021; resolved via settlement/license agreement in 2022 (the complaint analysis I retrieved centered on other Flexiworld patents, e.g., 9,836,257; '846 not confirmed).
• Unidentified defendant(s) — 6:20-cv-00553 (W.D. Tex.); 6:21-cv-00143 (W.D. Tex.); 5:22-cv-00098 (E.D. Ky.); 5:22-cv-00097 (E.D. Ky.) — party names and asserted patents not confirmed in my searches.

More recent Flexiworld cases (filed after the '846 patent's adjusted expiration; '846 assertion unconfirmed)

• Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. TCL Electronics Holdings Ltd. et al. — 2:26-cv-00229, E.D. Tex., filed March 20, 2026 (before Judge Gilstrap); complaint filed but the patent list was not retrievable in my search results.
• Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. LG Electronics, Inc. and LG Electronics USA, Inc. — reported filed ~September 2025 in E.D. Tex., asserting six wireless-connectivity/streaming patents (per IP-NAVI); the reported patent list does not appear to include the '846 printing patent, but I could not verify the full list.
• Flexiworld v. Hisense — 2:22-cv-00225 and 2:22-cv-00228 (E.D. Tex.) and 1:22-cv-04338 (N.D. Ga.); asserted patents not confirmed.

Caveats

• The confirmed cases (Epson, Brother, Xerox) all ended by dismissal or consent judgment without a merits ruling, so no court has construed or invalidated the '846 claims.
• Google Patents' "Family has litigation" listing is family-wide (the '846 patent shares a family with many other Flexiworld patents, e.g., 10,481,847, 9,036,181, 10,761,791, 10,140,073), so not every listed docket necessarily asserts the '846 patent itself.
• For the cases where I could not confirm the asserted patent list (Canon, Amazon, Roku, the 2020–2022 W.D. Tex./E.D. Ky. dockets, and the TCL/LG/Hisense matters), I recommend checking PACER or the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) for the individual complaints to verify whether 10,481,846 is specifically asserted.

The initial searches surfaced IPRs on other Flexiworld patents (9,836,257, etc.) but none on 10,481,846 itself. Let me run targeted searches for this exact patent number at the PTAB.

Still no PTAB hits on the exact patent. Let me check the Unified Patents portal page for 10481846 (which tracks challenges) and search for any recent Flexiworld IPRs that may have touched this patent.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file for U.S. Patent 10,481,846. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent (active: 0 / claims invalidated: 0 / claims sustained: 0 / settled: 0 / institution denied: 0). My independent web searches for "10481846" against PTAB sources (PTAB dockets, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents portal, CAFC dockets) likewise returned no petition, no institution decision, and no Final Written Decision naming this patent.

The bottom-line defensive posture: the patent is completely PTAB-untested — all 20 claims remain intact and unconstrued by the Board — but it is also expired (fee-related, adjusted expiration ~2022-01-02/03), so exposure is limited to pre-expiration conduct, and no estoppel of any kind attaches. This is neither a "hardened" patent nor a "claims canceled" patent; it is an unproven and expired patent, which is a materially different (and weaker) assertion posture than one that has survived IPRs.

Proceedings

There are no proceedings to report on US10481846 itself. Rather than invent entries, the closest PTAB activity — all on other Flexiworld portfolio patents, none on the '846 patent — is flagged below so it is not mistaken for a challenge to this patent:

⚠️ Related-portfolio context (NOT proceedings on 10481846)

• IPR2022-00775 — Unified Patents, LLC v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — Patent 9,836,257 (a direct ancestor of 10,481,846 in the same disclosure family). Filed 2022-04-08; instituted on claims 27–28; Final Written Decision (Paper 41, 2023-11-01): no challenged claim unpatentable — Flexiworld successfully swore behind the asserted references (Olgaard, Acharya) using inventor testimony corroborated by draft-provisional metadata showing conception by 2000-10-22. Panel: McMillin, Ogden, Dougal.
• IPR2022-01267 / -01268 / -01269 — Roku, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — Patents 9,836,257, 9,389,822, 7,944,577 (all family/portfolio patents, not the '846 patent). Filed 2022-07-29; terminated pre-institution by settlement — joint motion to terminate (2022-10-27) citing a Patent License Agreement resolving the W.D. Tex. litigation (6:21-cv-00767-ADA).
• A Lexmark petition (ptacts.uspto.gov record) challenges 9,965,233 — again, a family member, not the '846 patent.

None of these proceedings touched claim 1 or any claim of 10,481,846.

Strategic summary

Claims status for US10481846: CANCELED — none. SUSTAINED by PTAB — none (untested). UNTESTED — all 20 claims. The patent has been litigated in district court (e.g., Flexiworld v. Xerox, 6:23-cv-06371, W.D.N.Y., dismissed with prejudice without Markman or merits rulings; Flexiworld v. HP, 4:24-cv-02691, S.D. Tex., reportedly still open), but no party has ever petitioned the Board against it. The claims therefore carry no PTAB estoppel, no adverse claim construction, and no Board credibility finding against them — but they also carry no Board validation.

Estoppel landscape (§ 315(e)(2)): Because no IPR was ever instituted on this patent, no ground is foreclosed. A defendant today is free to raise any § 102, § 103, or § 112 ground in district court, and could still file an IPR even though the patent is expired — the Board routinely takes expired patents (the claims remain amendable/cancelable and the estoppel and damages consequences still flow). The practical question is economics: an expired patent supports only pre-2022 damages, which rarely justifies the cost of a full IPR unless the exposure is large.

Pattern signals: (1) Flexiworld has been petitioned multiple times at the PTAB on its print/output portfolio — Unified Patents and Roku (2022), plus Lexmark on 9,965,233 — but the '846 patent specifically has never drawn a petition, possibly because its early-2022 expiry made it a lower-value target. (2) Where challenged, Flexiworld defends hard and has won: the IPR2022-00775 FWD shows Flexiworld successfully antedated art with inventor testimony plus draft-provisional file metadata — expect that "conception/swearing-behind" playbook if you petition any family patent. (3) Roku's petitions settled into a license rather than a merits decision; Unified Patents (a defensive aggregator) is the one petitioner that took a family patent to a Final Written Decision — and lost on the merits.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant facing assertion of 10481846 today: Say plainly that no PTAB activity exists — that absence is itself a signal that the patent has never been stress-tested, and more importantly that the patent expired in early January 2022. Verify the exact expiration/term (Unified Patents lists 2022-01-02; the Google Patents record shows "Expired – Fee Related" with adjusted expiration ~2022-01-03) and confirm whether the asserted conduct falls within the pre-expiration damages window. If it does not, the infringement case is largely moot as to prospective relief.
• If the alleged infringement predates expiration and exposure justifies it: An IPR remains procedurally available on an expired patent — no ground is estopped, and a well-chosen § 103 ground could still knock out claims. But weigh cost against the capped damages exposure, and expect Flexiworld to counter with the conception-date evidence that won IPR2022-00775 (draft provisional applications dated 2000-10-22, before most of its prior art). That FWD is public at USPTO PTAB (IPR2022-00775, Paper 41) and is the single most important Board precedent to read before drafting.
• If no pre-expiration exposure: Do not file an IPR. Use the absence of any PTAB challenge, the Xerox dismissal without claim construction, and the expiry date as leverage for dismissal or a nuisance-value resolution — the claims are untested, the patent is dead as to forward-looking relief, and the troll (Flexiworld, an NPE) has already lost its only merits-level PTAB fight on this family.

Verification caveat: I could not retrieve the verbatim claim text of 10,481,846 from available sources; claim-by-claim validity arguments should be checked against the USPTO PDF (patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9e/bb/be/ca7ed29850efcc/US10481846.pdf) before filing anything.

I'll research the assignment record for US10481846B2, starting with the USPTO assignment database and Google Patents legal events.

I found initial leads (reel 043675/0448 and a corrective assignment). Let me dig into the full assignment record — including any earlier assignments from the priority chain and post-issuance transfers.

Good progress — I've confirmed the inventor-to-Flexiworld assignment (reel 043675/0448, with a corrective filing). Now let me verify whether there are any other recorded assignments — post-issuance transfers, security agreements, or name changes — and check the litigation standing allegations.

I have sufficient verified data to complete the analysis. Note upfront: the tool-use budget capped my searches, so the correspondent-of-record names from the raw USPTO assignment records could not be retrieved; I flag that explicitly rather than fabricate.

Inventors

• William Ho Chang — co-founder/principal of Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (Vancouver, WA). Employer at filing: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (his own company). He is the named inventor on the entire Flexiworld wireless-output/printing portfolio.
• Christina Ying Liu (erroneously recorded at the USPTO as "Christina Ying Lu" on the original assignment; corrected by a corrective assignment) — co-founder/principal of Flexiworld. Employer at filing: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.

Unusual pattern? No fire-sale pattern. Both inventors are principals of the assignee itself; the inventors→own-company assignment (executed 2017-09-23, the same month the application was filed) is the normal founder-to-company transfer, not a departure-driven portfolio dump.

Original assignee

• Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., Vancouver, WA — the entity named on the issued patent and the current assignee of record.
• Line of business: wireless/"over the air" printing and universal output technology. Third-party litigation data characterizes it as a patent licensor — PatSnap describes Flexiworld as a "Wireless printing patent licensor," and Unified Patents tags it as an NPE (small company) in its litigation records.
• Products: No evidence located that Flexiworld ships products embodying the '846 claims; it operates as a licensing/assertion entity.
• Current status: Operating (as an assertion/licensing company). The '846 patent itself expired in early 2022 (status: Expired – Fee Related; adjusted expiration ~2022-01-02/03, a very short term because the family's priority dates to Nov. 1, 2000).

Assignment timeline

Per the USPTO-recorded legal events shown on the patent's own record (Google Patents mirrors USPTO assignment data), there are two recorded assignments, both inventor→Flexiworld. No post-issuance assignments, security agreements, name changes, or transfers to any other entity are recorded against US10481846.

• 2017-09-23 (executed) / recorded 2017-09-23 — Reel 043675/0448

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (see document for details)
  • Assignor: William Ho Chang; Christina Ying Lu (sic — surname mis-recorded)
  • Assignee: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not verifiable from retrieved records — the attorney/firm of record on this filing was not in the fetched materials. (The prosecution firm on the issued patent is Chernoff Vilhauer LLP, but I will not assert that is the recorded correspondent without confirmation.)
  • Context: Pre-issuance founder-to-company assignment from the two inventor-principals to their own entity; the same inventors assigned the wider Flexiworld portfolio across sibling reels (e.g., 028733/0064, 042385/0202, 043675/0454, 046519/0534, per admissions in Flexiworld v. Epson and other pleadings).

• 2017-10-11 (recorded) — Corrective assignment correcting Reel 043675/Frame 0448

  • Conveyance: Corrective Assignment (confirming the assignment and correcting the second assignor name)
  • Assignor: William Ho Chang; Christina Ying Liu
  • Assignee: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not verifiable from retrieved records.
  • Context: Clerical correction only — fixes the second inventor's recorded surname from "Lu" to "Liu"; no change in ownership.

Bottom line: The Assignment Center record for 10481846 is minimal — inventors → Flexiworld (plus a name correction). The patent never left Flexiworld's hands; Flexiworld is both original and current assignee of record.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10481846
    2000 : Priority filed
    2017 : Filed as continuation
         : Inventors assign to Flexiworld
         : Corrective assignment recorded
    2019 : Patent issued
    2020 : First infringement suit
    2021 : More suits filed
    2022 : Patent expired fee related
    2023 : Suit against Xerox filed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No recorded transfer from Flexiworld to any "IP / Licensing / Holdings" LLC or registered-agent address. The record shows only the original inventors→Flexiworld assignment (reel 043675/0448) and its corrective filing. The classic shell-LLC tell is absent because the patent never moved.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present. The current (and only) assignee, Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., is itself the high-frequency plaintiff asserting this patent and its siblings: cases against Xerox (6:23-cv-06371, W.D.N.Y.), Lexmark (5:22-cv-00097/00098, E.D. Ky.), Brother (2:22-cv-02237, W.D. Tenn.), Epson, HP (4:24-cv-02691, S.D. Tex.), plus earlier W.D. Tex., C.D. Cal., and W.D. Wash. actions (6:20-cv-00553, 1:21-cv-00066, 6:21-cv-00143, 6:21-cv-00767, 2:21-cv-01055, 8:21-cv-00807). Unified Patents classifies Flexiworld's entity type in the Xerox case as NPE (Small Company); PatSnap describes it as a "wireless printing patent licensor." While not on the named list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, etc.), Flexiworld matches the "entity surfaced by Unified Patents as a high-frequency plaintiff" criterion.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not verifiable. I could not retrieve the correspondent attorney/firm names from the raw assignment records, so recurrence cannot be established or ruled out. Do not treat this as a finding either way.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Only two recorded events, both to the same assignee, separated by three weeks; no chained LLCs, no <24-month shuffle.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The 2017 assignments predate the first infringement suit (6:20-cv-00553, filed 2020) by ~3 years and predate issuance; the chain was not arranged to manufacture standing or venue on the eve of suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceedings found for Flexiworld; the patent was not sold in any bankruptcy estate sale.

7. Privateering — not present / unclear. No operating company transferred this patent to an NPE to sue competitors on its behalf. The inventors assigned to their own licensing company — an inventor-origin NPE structure, not a privateering arrangement.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain terminates at Flexiworld, an asserting entity; there is no RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN endpoint.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The single strong signal is that the current assignee of record, Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. (per reel 043675/0448, recorded 2017-09-23, and the 2017-10-11 corrective), is a verified, high-frequency NPE plaintiff — Unified Patents tags the entity type as NPE and Flexiworld has filed 10+ suits on this family against printer OEMs (Xerox, Lexmark, Brother, Epson, HP). The classic assignment-chain tells (shell-LLC transfers, cascading transfers, pre-litigation transfers, bankruptcy fire-sale) are all absent because the patent never left the inventor-founded licensing company, which caps confidence at moderate (one strong signal) rather than high, and the correspondent-of-record data needed to test signal #3 was not retrievable. Verification: search patent number 10481846 at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (same underlying records indexed at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

I'll research the prior art cited against US Patent 10,481,846. Let me search for the patent's citation records.

The Unified Patents portal shows a partial citation list. Let me get the authoritative "References Cited" section from the patent record.

Let me try to access the patent's full citation list from multiple patent databases.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent 10,481,846 B2 (US10481846B2)

Methodology and important caveats

• I was unable to retrieve the verbatim "References Cited" section from the USPTO PDF or the Google Patents record for US10481846B2 in the available searches. The citation list below is drawn from the Unified Patents portal record for US-10481846-B2 (portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/10481846), which aggregates the patent's citation data. That portal listing appears to mix backward citations (references cited) with forward citations (cited-by), and I could not definitively separate the two. Treat the list below as the candidate cited references, with verification status noted per item.
• The verbatim claim text was not retrievable in the prior analysis either. The claim mapping below is therefore provisional, keyed to the claim limitations inferable from the abstract and specification: (1) a discovery component that discovers a supported printer on a LAN and receives device information (capability, language/format, identification); (2) a printing component that generates or obtains print data based on the received device information; (3) transmission of that print data to the discovered printer; and (4) the driverless/universal-printing effect (printing from browser, e-mail, photo, and document applications without installing a printer-specific driver). No court has construed these claims (the Xerox W.D.N.Y. case settled without Markman), which is consistent with the uncertainty.
• Effective-filing-date nuance for § 102. The '846 patent is a continuation-in-part in a chain back to November 1, 2000. If a given claim is fully supported by the 2000–2001 priority documents, its effective filing date is Nov. 1, 2000, and only references publicly available (or, for U.S. patents, filed) before that date qualify as § 102 prior art. References published/filed after 2000 are relevant under § 102 only if the claim relies on post-2000 new matter and thus has a later effective filing date (potentially the 2017 filing date). I flag this per reference below.

Cited references and § 102 relevance

1. US 8,169,649 B2 — Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — "Mobile Device Methods for Enabling Pervasive Wireless Digital Media"

• Filed Oct. 19, 2009; issued May 1, 2012; family priority Nov. 1, 2000.
• Description: Flexiworld family member (same 2000 priority chain as '846) disclosing mobile-device methods for pervasive wireless digital media/output.
• § 102: Not § 102 prior art against '846 — commonly owned, same effective filing date. Likely an applicant/IDS or continuity citation, not a statutory reference.
• Claims potentially affected: none (as § 102 reference).

2. US 2014/0309870 A1 — Autoconnect Holdings LLC — "Vehicle-Based Multimode Discovery"

• Filed Mar. 13, 2012; published Oct. 16, 2014.
• Description: multimodal discovery of devices (in a vehicle environment) — teaches device discovery and capability exchange.
• § 102: Only relevant if the asserted claims have an effective filing date after Oct. 2014 (i.e., new matter not supported by the 2000 priority documents). Otherwise outside the § 102 window.
• Claims potentially affected: the discovery-component limitations of independent claim 1 (discovering a supported printer and receiving device information).

3. US 6,195,564 B1 — "Method for Automatically Establishing a Wireless Link Between a Wireless Modem and a Communication Device"

• Filed Sep. 18, 1997; issued Feb. 27, 2001.
• Description: automatic establishment of a wireless link between a modem and a communication device — early wireless link setup/discovery.
• § 102: Strong § 102(a)/(e) prior art — filed and issued before Nov. 1, 2000.
• Claims potentially affected: connection-setup/discovery limitations of independent claim 1 (establishing communication and discovering a printer on a LAN).

4. US 6,801,692 B2

• Filed Feb. 5, 2001; issued Oct. 5, 2004. Title/assignee not retrievable in my searches — flagging as unverified.
• § 102: Filed just after Nov. 1, 2000 → § 102(e) only if the relevant claim's effective filing date is after Feb. 5, 2001.
• Claims potentially affected: cannot assess without the reference's disclosure.

5. US 7,349,722 B2 — Visteon Global Technologies, Inc. — "Wireless Communications System and Method"

• Filed May 25, 1999; issued Mar. 25, 2008.
• Description: wireless communications system/method (in-vehicle context) — wireless data transport between devices.
• § 102: § 102(a)/(e) prior art — filed before Nov. 1, 2000.
• Claims potentially affected: wireless LAN communication/transmission limitations of the independent claim(s).

6. US 6,628,417 B1 — Canon Kabushiki Kaisha — "Data Communication Apparatus, Image Server, Control Method, Storage Medium, and Image System"

• Filed Oct. 29, 1998; issued Sep. 30, 2003.
• Description: data communication apparatus and image server with control method — network image/data communication.
• § 102: § 102(a)/(e) prior art — filed before Nov. 1, 2000.
• Claims potentially affected: network-based communication and print-data transfer limitations of the independent claim(s).

7. CN 100334577 C — Fuyi Technology Co., Ltd. — "System and Method for Device-to-Device Pervasive Digital Output"

• Priority Oct. 31, 2000 (one day before the '846 priority date); Chinese grant publication later (date not retrieved).
• Description: device-to-device pervasive digital output system — highly factually relevant to the "universal output" theme of the Flexiworld family.
• § 102: As a foreign patent, prior art as of its publication date, not filing date. If it published after Nov. 1, 2000, it is not § 102(a)/(b) prior art against claims entitled to the 2000 priority date; it would only matter for later-effective-date claims. If its publication preceded the effective filing date of the relevant claim, it could be § 102(a)(1)/(b) art.
• Claims potentially affected: driverless/universal output method limitations.

8. US 9,164,718 B2 — [[Samsung Electronics Co.](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.), Ltd.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%2C%20Ltd.) — "Output Device and Method for Output Without an Output Driver"

• Issued Oct. 20, 2015 (Unified Patents lists Samsung as assignee; Google's data oddly shows a "2000-11-01" priority entry for this patent, which I could not verify — flagging).
• Description: output device and method enabling output without an output driver — directly on point for the '846 driverless-printing concept.
• § 102: Issued 2015 → relevant only if the asserted claim's effective filing date is after Oct. 2015 (new matter). Otherwise outside the § 102 window.
• Claims potentially affected: the driverless-printing limitations (printing without installing a printer-specific driver).

9. US 2002/0097418 A1 — Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — "Raster Image Processor and Processing Method for Universal Data Output"

• Filed Jan. 18, 2001; published Jul. 25, 2002.
• Description: Flexiworld family member (same priority) disclosing raster image processing and universal data output.
• § 102: Not § 102 prior art against '846 — commonly owned family member with overlapping effective filing date. Likely an IDS/continuity citation.
• Claims potentially affected: none (as § 102 reference).

10. JP H11-316658 A — Ricoh Co., Ltd.

• Filed May 1, 1998; published Nov. 16, 1998. Title not retrieved (printing/output related, given Ricoh and the context).
• § 102: § 102(a)/(b) prior art — published before Nov. 1, 2000.
• Claims potentially affected: cannot map precisely without the Japanese abstract, but likely the output/print-data generation limitations.

11. US 4,291,956 A — "Graphic Forming Device with Preview Feature"

• Filed Dec. 16, 1979; issued Sep. 29, 1981.
• Description: graphic forming device with preview — early raster/imaging output device.
• § 102: § 102(b) prior art (more than one year before all relevant filing dates).
• Claims potentially affected: imaging/rasterization background; weak fit to the LAN-discovery + device-info + print-data limitations.

12. US 5,475,507 A — "Color Image Processing Method and Apparatus for Same, Which Automatically Detects a Contour of an Object in an Image"

• Filed Oct. 13, 1992; issued Dec. 12, 1995.
• Description: color image processing with automatic contour detection — raster image processing background.
• § 102: § 102(b) prior art.
• Claims potentially affected: raster-image-processing sub-features, if any are positively recited; weak fit to the discovery/print-data limitations.

13. US 6,545,612 B1 — "Apparatus and Method of Detecting Proximity Inductively" (current assignee per Unified Patents: Optis Cellular Technology LLC)

• Filed Jun. 20, 1999; issued Apr. 8, 2003.
• Description: inductive proximity detection — short-range device detection.
• § 102: § 102(a)/(e) prior art — filed before Nov. 1, 2000.
• Claims potentially affected: short-range/wireless device-detection limitations, if recited.

14. US 6,952,414 B1 — Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. — "Portable Internet Browser Device with Cordless Phone Module and Method of Operation"

• Filed Sep. 25, 2000; issued Oct. 4, 2005.
• Description: portable Internet browser device (handheld) with cordless phone — a mobile information apparatus with browsing capability.
• § 102: § 102(e) prior art — filed before Nov. 1, 2000.
• Claims potentially affected: the information-apparatus/application-software limitations (a portable device running a browser from which digital content is output).

15. US 7,239,346 B1 — "System and Architecture that Supports a Multi-function Semiconductor Device Between Networks and Portable Wireless Communications Products"

• Filed Oct. 17, 1999; issued Jul. 3, 2007.
• Description: multi-function semiconductor device bridging networks and portable wireless communications products.
• § 102: § 102(a)/(e) prior art — filed before Nov. 1, 2000.
• Claims potentially affected: wireless communication circuitry/LAN-connectivity limitations of the information apparatus claims.

16. US 5,799,068 A — Inpro II Licensing S.a.r.l.

• Filed Jun. 28, 1992; issued Aug. 25, 1998. Title not retrieved.
• § 102: § 102(b) prior art.
• Claims potentially affected: cannot map without the title/abstract; likely cited for wireless-communication background.

Which claims are most exposed

Assuming the provisional claim structure (a software-apparatus claim and a method claim centered on LAN printer discovery → device-info receipt → print-data generation → transmission, all without a printer-specific driver):

• Independent claim 1 (apparatus/software) and the corresponding method claim are the claims most plausibly at risk from the pre-2000 art: US 6,195,564 B1 (wireless link establishment), US 6,628,417 B1 (network data communication/image server), US 6,952,414 B1 (portable browser device), US 7,349,722 B2 and US 7,239,346 B1 (wireless communication systems), and CN 100334577 C (device-to-device pervasive digital output) as to the universal-output concept — subject to the effective-filing-date analysis above.
• US 9,164,718 B2 (Samsung, "output without an output driver") and US 2014/0309870 A1 (multimode discovery) are conceptually the closest to the driverless-discovery core, but both post-date Nov. 1, 2000 and would be § 102 prior art only for claims whose effective filing date is later (new matter added in the CIP chain).
• The two Flexiworld-family references (US 8,169,649 B2, US 2002/0097418 A1) are not § 102 art but rather continuity/IDS citations.

Bottom line

I identified 16 candidate references from the Unified Patents portal record for US10481846B2. Only the pre-November-2000 references (US 6,195,564; US 6,628,417; US 7,349,722; US 6,545,612; US 6,952,414; US 7,239,346; JP H11-316658 A; US 4,291,956; US 5,475,507; US 5,799,068; and CN 100334577 C if published early) are reliable § 102 prior art against claims entitled to the 2000 priority date. I could not verify (a) the complete official "References Cited" section, (b) the titles/disclosures of US 6,801,692, JP H11-316658 A, and US 5,799,068, or (c) the verbatim claim language — so final anticipation determinations cannot be made with confidence. The authoritative sources to confirm are the USPTO PDF at patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/9e/bb/be/ca7ed29850efcc/US10481846.pdf (References Cited page) and USPTO Patent Center for application 15/697,247.

I'll start by attempting to locate the prior-art record for this patent (the "Prior Art section" wasn't included in the materials provided, so I'll reconstruct it from the patent's citation list and related proceedings), then build the § 103 analysis.

I found the patent's citation list source and two IPRs against family members. Let me dig deeper into the cited references, the actual claim language, and the IPR proceedings (which identify the strongest § 103 combinations).

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 10,481,846 (US10481846B2)

0. Preliminary note on the record used

The "Prior Art" section referenced in the task was not included in the materials provided to me, so I reconstructed the prior-art record from three authoritative sources: (1) the USPTO "References Cited" list on the grant (via uspto.report/patent/grant/10,481,846), (2) the verbatim text of claim 1 published by the assignee (flexiworld.com/patent/us-10481846/), and (3) IPR petitions filed against directly-related Flexiworld family patents (IPR2022-00775 against US 9,836,257; a Lexmark IPR against US 9,965,233) that identify the strongest § 103 art for this disclosure family. Where I could not verify the specific teachings of a reference, I say so explicitly.

Critical date used: November 1, 2000 (earliest claimed priority, provisional 60/245,101). Every reference relied on below must be prior art as of that date; I flag any reference whose status I could not confirm.

Claim coverage caveat: Only claim 1's text is verified verbatim (the "Sample Claim" on Flexiworld's own patent page). The patent has 20 claims; I could not retrieve claims 2–20. The analysis therefore centers on claim 1, which is representative of the independent software/apparatus/method claims as described in the abstract and specification.

1. Claim 1 element breakdown (verified text)

Claim 1 is a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim requiring:

The claim is, in substance: driverless LAN printing driven by a printer-supplied capability profile, with LAN discovery. Every one of these concepts was well developed before November 1, 2000.

2. Primary prior-art anchors (with verification status)

A. HP JetSend — driverless, capability-negotiated device-to-device printing (verified).

• WO 1998/047076 A1 ("Method and apparatus for device control," HP) and the public HP JetSend specifications (1997–1998) describe devices exchanging "e-material" comprising a description (a hierarchy of format/encoding choices) and content; devices negotiate so the source sends content "in a form chosen to be suitable for the device sending it and the device receiving it," and a printer consumes e-material in a device-specific way. JetSend's stated purpose is that devices "interact successfully and in a predictable way with other devices" — i.e., without device-specific drivers. HP also published a "JetSend Protocol on IrDA Application Note" (1998), showing the protocol was transport-flexible. (Verified via patents.google.com/patent/WO1998047076A1/en and the NPL list in US 6,298,164.)
• Maps to: 1c (content), 1f/1h (print data generated per the receiving printer's format choices), 1i (driverless).

B. LAN printer discovery and attribute retrieval (verified as standards).

• SLP — Service Location Protocol, RFC 2608 (June 1999): standard LAN protocol by which a client discovers services (including printers) and retrieves service attributes/capabilities. Maps to: 1d, 1e.
• SNMP Printer MIB — RFC 1759 (March 1994): standard MIB for querying a networked printer's attributes, including resolution, color/colorant, duplex, and related engine capabilities. Maps to: 1e's profile fields (resolution, color space, duplex, bit depth).
• PJL — HP Printer Job Language (~1992): host-to-printer queries of configuration/capabilities (e.g., INFO commands) and job-parameter setting. Maps to: 1e, 1f.
• UPnP/SSDP (specification published June 2000): zero-configuration discovery of devices on a LAN with retrievable device-description documents; predates the critical date. Maps to: 1d, 1e.

C. PPD-driven PostScript printing — profile-based, driverless-at-PDL-level printing (verified as standard art).

• Adobe's PostScript Printer Description (PPD) specification (early 1990s) and the ubiquitous generic PostScript driver model: a generic driver reads a PPD (the printer's capability profile: resolution, duplex, color space, bit depth, media) and generates PostScript tailored to that printer. One generic driver serves any PPD-supported PostScript printer — no printer-specific driver. This is the exact "device profile → print data → no printer-specific driver" paradigm of claim 1, minus the automatic LAN discovery. The patent's own Background admits PDL/PostScript printing (its FIG. 1B) was conventional.

D. Mobile/handheld printing (verified as a category).

• The Apple Newton OS (Welland et al., COMPCON '94, IEEE 1994) demonstrated printing from a handheld information apparatus, and the 1990s PDA market (Palm, Windows CE) shipped network and IR printing. The "information apparatus" as a mobile device printing to nearby printers was a known use case by 2000 — indeed the patent's own Background describes it as the problem to be solved.

E. Family-IPR art (verification status: numbers confirmed; individual teachings not independently verified).

• In the Lexmark IPR against US 9,965,233 (a direct family ancestor via 09/992,413), the petition's Ground 1 alleged obviousness over Keeney (US 6,748,471) and Ground 2 over Keeney + Vatland (per the USPTO PTACTS petition document).
• In IPR2022-00775 (Unified Patents v. Flexiworld) against US 9,836,257 (a family ancestor via 10/053,765), the petition relied on Olgaard (US 7,849,198), Moghadam (US 5,917,542), Acharya (US 2002/0080091), Griffiths (US 7,136,999), Chuah (US 6,285,665), and the Newton OS paper, characterizing the claims as applying "well-known techniques of wireless and network communications, print processing, and fundamental digital image encoding." Because US10481846B2 descends from the same specification lineage (via 10/016,223 → 7,941,541 and 09/992,413 → 9,965,233), this art maps onto the '846 disclosure as well. I could not verify the effective dates or specific teachings of Keeney, Vatland, Olgaard, Moghadam, Acharya, Griffiths, or Chuah from the available search results — treat the element-mapping for these as provisional.

F. Examiner-cited references on the face of '846 (verified as a list).
The USPTO citation list (uspto.report) shows a dense field of 1990s printing, networking, and mobile-computing patents (e.g., 5,483,534 Weiser; 5,469,363 Grimes; 5,535,107 Funado; 5,594,697 Foster; 5,604,843 Shaw; 5,619,123/5,619,124 Tsang/Atkinson; 5,712,942; 5,949,997; 5,983,200 Slotznick; 6,144,997 Lamming; 6,167,514 Matsui; 6,233,611 Ludtke; 6,263,503 Margulis; 6,285,357 Kushiro; 6,288,790 Yellepeddy; 6,312,106 Walker; 6,324,521 Shiota; 6,366,682 Hoffman; 6,366,912 Wallent). This crowded-art list corroborates that LAN printing, printer capability handling, and mobile-device networking were thoroughly explored before 2000. I did not verify the disclosure content of each listed patent individually.

3. Combinations rendering the claims obvious

Combination A — JetSend + SLP (or SNMP Printer MIB / UPnP): the strongest single combination

• JetSend supplies: obtaining digital content; generating output data whose format is selected from the printer's advertised capability description (e-material description hierarchy); transmitting that data to the printer; and doing so without a device-specific driver (JetSend's defining purpose). It supplies limitations 1c, 1f, 1g, 1h, 1i.
• SLP (RFC 2608) supplies the missing LAN piece: a client on a LAN discovers a printer and receives the printer's attributes (its service description) over the LAN — limitations 1d and 1e. The SNMP Printer MIB (RFC 1759) or UPnP device description supplies the specific profile fields (resolution, duplex, color, bit depth) if one wants those fields spelled out.
• Motivation to combine (KSR): Both references are used for their intended purposes. JetSend's architecture explicitly separated the negotiation protocol from the transport, and HP published a JetSend-on-IrDA note — signaling that a practitioner would run JetSend-style driverless negotiation over whatever transport was available, including a LAN. SLP exists precisely to let clients locate a service and retrieve its attributes before interacting. Combining a capability-negotiation printing protocol with a LAN service-discovery/attribute protocol is the textbook "known technique" combination: a finite, predictable set of steps to solve the known problem of finding a printer and selecting a format. The result is exactly claim 1, with no unexpected synergy.

Combination B — PPD/PostScript generic-driver printing + LAN discovery + capability query (PJL/SNMP)

• PPD + generic PostScript driver supplies: a device profile whose fields (resolution, duplex, color space, bit depth) are read by the driver to generate print data in a form the printer accepts, without a printer-specific driver (limitations 1e-in-part, 1f, 1h, 1i). This was the standard Adobe model for a decade before the critical date.
• SLP/SNMP/PJL supply automatic LAN discovery of the printer and retrieval of the profile over the network (limitations 1d, 1e). By 1999–2000, print servers (HP JetDirect, etc.) already exposed printers to LAN clients; SLP and the Printer MIB standardized discovery and attribute retrieval.
• Motivation to combine: The patent's own Background identifies the problem — "a user may not want to be bothered with looking for a driver or downloading it and installing it just to print out ... one page of email at the airport." The obvious engineering fix, already half-built in the art, was to let the printer advertise its capabilities (PJL/SNMP/PPD) and let a generic client select the format. Automating the "find the printer, fetch its profile" step via SLP/UPnP is the predictable next step from manual PPD selection, which was routine. A POSITA combining a generic PDL driver with standard LAN discovery protocols would arrive at claim 1 without any inventive step.

Combination C — Mobile information apparatus + JetSend-style negotiation + LAN discovery

• The Newton OS and 1990s PDA printing art supply the "information apparatus" being a mobile, resource-constrained device that prints to nearby printers (limitations 1a, 1b, and the contextual use case).
• Adding JetSend (driverless format negotiation) and SLP/UPnP (LAN discovery + profile retrieval) yields the complete claimed method. The motivation is the well-documented market pressure toward pervasive/mobile computing in 1998–2000 (the patent itself cites the airport/email scenario as the desideratum), which drove HP, Microsoft (UPnP), and the IETF (SLP) to standardize exactly these building blocks. A POSITA had every reason to assemble them.

Combination D — Family-IPR grounds (Keeney; Keeney + Vatland; Olgaard/Moghadam/Acharya/Griffiths/Chuah/Newton)

• The IPR petitions against US 9,965,233 and US 9,836,257 — patents from the same disclosure lineage as '846 — alleged that combinations such as Keeney alone and Keeney + Vatland (and the Unified Patents set including Olgaard, Moghadam, Acharya, Griffiths, Chuah, and Newton) rendered family claims obvious over "well-known techniques of wireless and network communications, print processing, and fundamental digital image encoding." To the extent '846's claim 1 adds LAN discovery and a printer-supplied device profile, those elements are supplied by SLP/SNMP/UPnP and by the profile/negotiation teachings in the family art. Caveat: I could not verify the individual disclosures of Keeney, Vatland, Olgaard, Moghadam, Acharya, Griffiths, or Chuah, and some issued after the 2000 critical date (e.g., US 6,748,471 issued 2004; US 6,285,665 issued 2001), so their § 102(e) effective dates must be confirmed before reliance. This combination is corroborative, not the primary ground.

4. Why a POSITA would have been motivated to combine (KSR framework)

1. Known problem, recognized in the patent itself: The specification's Background complains that installing device-specific printer drivers on mobile devices "adds a degree of complexity and work to end-users" and discourages pervasive computing. A problem acknowledged in the patent is strong evidence the solution was being actively sought in the art.
2. Known solutions, used for their intended purposes: PDL printing (PostScript/PCL) already freed clients from printer-specific drivers; PPD files already encoded printer capability profiles; SLP/SNMP/UPnP already performed LAN discovery and attribute retrieval; JetSend already performed driverless format negotiation. Claim 1 is an aggregation of these known elements, each performing its known function — the hallmark of obviousness under KSR (and its "obvious to try" and "predictable variation" rationales).
3. Express or inherent suggestions to combine: JetSend's transport-agnostic protocol design and its published IrDA application note suggest running it over LAN transports; SLP's purpose is to return service attributes to clients that will then interact with the service; the PPD model's entire point is client-side format selection from a printer profile. The combination is a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" to a known problem.
4. Design incentives and market pressure: 1998–2000 saw a coordinated industry push toward zero-configuration device networking (SLP, UPnP, JetSend, Bluetooth/IrDA printing) precisely to enable walk-up, driverless output for mobile devices. A POSITA designing such a system would naturally select discovery + profile + format-selection components from the available standards.
5. No unexpected results or new capability: The claimed method produces the predictable outcome — a mobile device finds a LAN printer, reads its profile, formats data accordingly, and prints without a driver. Nothing in the record suggests a surprising or non-obvious technical effect.

5. Secondary considerations

I found no objective indicia of non-obviousness in the public record: no evidence of long-felt unmet need, industry skepticism, copying, unexpected results, or commercial success tied to the claimed invention. The patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees (expired 2022), and every confirmed assertion of the '846 patent (Epson, Brother, Xerox) ended by dismissal or consent judgment without a Markman, validity, or infringement ruling — so no court has reached a contrary conclusion, and the claims remain unconstrued. The absence of merits rulings means this analysis is an independent § 103 assessment, not a reflection of any adjudication.

6. Conclusion

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103, claim 1 of US 10,481,846 (and, on the available record, the analogous independent claims) would have been obvious over the prior art available before November 1, 2000. The most compelling grounds are:

1. JetSend (WO 1998/047076; HP JetSend spec 1997/1998) in view of SLP (RFC 2608) and/or the SNMP Printer MIB (RFC 1759) and/or UPnP (2000) — together supplying every element of claim 1, including driverless printing based on a printer-supplied capability profile.
2. PPD/PostScript generic-driver printing in view of SLP/UPnP discovery and PJL/SNMP capability retrieval — the profile-to-print-data mapping (including duplex, color-space, bit-depth, and resolution fields) being the standard Adobe PPD model, with LAN discovery added by standard protocols.
3. Mobile-apparatus printing (Newton OS / 1990s PDA art) combined with either of the above — supplying the mobile "information apparatus" context.

A person of ordinary skill — an engineer designing networked or mobile printing systems in 1999–2000 — would have been motivated to combine these known elements to solve the very driver-installation problem the patent identifies, with a reasonable expectation of success, and the result is a predictable aggregation of known techniques rather than an inventive step.

Remaining uncertainties (stated plainly)

• Claims 2–20 were not retrieved; the analysis is anchored to claim 1. A full § 103 opinion requires the complete claim set.
• The "Prior Art section of this page" referenced in the task was not in the materials I received; I reconstructed the art from the USPTO citation list, the assignee's published claim 1, and family IPR filings (URLs above).
• The individual teachings of Keeney, Vatland, Olgaard, Moghadam, Acharya, Griffiths, and Chuah were not independently verified, and their § 102(e) effective dates (some issue post-2000) must be confirmed before relying on them. The JetSend, SLP, RFC 1759, PPD, UPnP, and Newton anchors are the verified foundation of the analysis.