US 10543422

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent and check for any litigation/docket activity.

Let me check specifically for litigation involving this patent and its assignees.

Let me dig into the litigation details and check for any Federal Circuit appeal.

Summary — US Patent 10,543,422 B1

⚠️ Sourcing note: I was able to retrieve the full authoritative patent text (Google Patents snapshot, fetched 2026‑09‑26) and corroborating data from Justia and court records. Where I could not confirm something (notably a CAFC docket), I say so explicitly rather than infer.

Bibliographic data

Note on the provisional date: the ’422 patent text states the provisional was filed May 7, 2012, but the complaint in the related litigation (below) describes the same provisional as filed May 12, 2012. I am reporting both verbatim rather than reconciling them.

Abstract (as issued)

The synchronized and integrated architecture provides a continuous visual experience for different players across different platforms (platform‑agnostic) and engages them at different levels as they access a game in a virtual gaming arena. Each player may have a unique visual experience depending on the platform used. Access is facilitated via PCs, mobile devices, game consoles, and tablets. A single player can play a game having a main component and a sub‑component from different platforms, where sub‑component play is seamlessly integrated into the main component.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — computer‑implemented method

1. Give a player network access to a video gaming arena through a first user device with a display UI.
2. Identify the game of interest based on a first incoming port number of that first device — the game has a "main game" played on the first device at a first network location.
3. Branch off a "sub‑game" from the main game, played on a second device at a second network location, letting the player pursue a particular aspect of the main game; the sub‑game is selected based on a second incoming port number of the second device.
4. Reconnect the sub‑game to the main game and transfer data from sub‑game to main game.
5. Integrate main‑game and sub‑game play within the arena by synchronizing the main game to the sub‑game using the transferred data; update a database associated with the arena; and advance progress of the particular aspect of the main game based on the sub‑game.

The distinctive hook is port‑number‑based game selection on both ends of a main‑game/sub‑game handoff between two devices/locations.

Claim 9 — system architecture
Substantively the same sequence re‑cast as a programmed system: provide arena access via a first device → identify the game by first port number → branch off a sub‑game on a second device at a second location, determined by a second port number → reconnect → transfer data → integrate/synchronize, update the arena database, advance progress of the particular aspect → and provide the gaming arena for display using the integrated play. (Claims 17–19 depend from claim 1 for the display aspect; claim 20 depends from claim 9.)

Dependent claims (2–8, 10–16) add: device types (PC, laptop, mobile device, gaming console, tablet); hosting venue (social network server, third‑party server, cloud, cross‑platform server); multi‑device synchronized access by a user; and status‑level designation (e.g., leader/follower/bystander) that controls the play capability accorded to a player.

Litigation / docket check

No CAFC 2026 docket for 10,543,422 was found. My searches of Federal Circuit materials returned only an unrelated appeal (Keysight v. Centripetal, No. 25‑01053); nothing matched this patent. I cannot confirm any appeal involving it.

District court litigation (family‑level, not this specific patent):

• CP Studios, LLC v. Twitch Interactive, Inc., No. 1:25‑cv‑01542 (D. Del.), filed 2025‑12‑19, assigned to Judge Maryellen Noreika. Asserted patents per the Patent/Trademark Report: US 9,604,132; 9,889,373; 10,632,388; 11,731,054 — US 10,543,422 is not among the asserted patents, although it is a sibling in the same 8‑member family (same inventors, same May 2012 priority).
• Docket activity continued into 2026 (amended complaint March 2026; answers/counterclaim April 2026). Some docket‑feed entries are timestamped June–July 2026 (including a "Stipulation‑General," a "Terminate Case – Civil" minute entry, and another Patent/Trademark Report). These dates fall after the stated current date in my instructions and after the system date, so I flag them as an internal inconsistency in the sources rather than asserting the case has concluded. A stipulation plus case termination is consistent with a settlement or dismissal, but I do not have the text of the order and will not characterize the outcome.

Bottom line

US 10,543,422 is a program‑claim‑style patent on cross‑device main‑game/sub‑game integration keyed to incoming port numbers, owned by the CP Studios entity, active through ~2034. It is a family sibling of, but not itself asserted in, the 2025–2026 CP Studios v. Twitch litigation, and I found no Federal Circuit docket naming it. If you need the definitive current litigation/ownership picture (including any ownership transfer from the Delaware CP Studios LLC to the Utah CP Studios, LLC, which reporting notes is not yet reflected in USPTO records), that should be confirmed against USPTO Patent Center and PACER directly.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 10543422. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig deeper with more targeted searches.

Let me search specifically for the '422 patent in litigation and check the asserted-patent lists.

Bottom line

I found no litigation that asserts U.S. Patent No. 10,543,422 ("Providing synchronized and integrated video gaming") specifically. What exists is family-level litigation — lawsuits by the patent family's owner (CP Studios) that assert other members of the same family. The '422 patent itself does not appear in the asserted-patent lists or the §21 patent/trademark reports I could review.

I want to be explicit about the limits of this answer: I completed several searches but was cut off before exhausting all sources (I had not yet run Docket Navigator/Unified Patents caselist or PACER cross-checks for the '422 number itself). Treat the "no '422 assertion found" conclusion as provisional.

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The family and its litigation

US 10,543,422 B1 issued 2020‑01‑28 from App. No. 13/889,274, filed 2013‑05‑07, priority to provisional 61/643,352 (2012‑05‑07). Inventors: Brian Joseph Wiklem and Carrie Ann Cowan. Original assignee Checkpoint Studios Inc., later CP Studios LLC. The Google Patents page carries the family-level flag "Family has litigation — First worldwide family litigation filed" (Darts‑IP family ID 58337141), which is a family indicator, not evidence that the '422 claims are in suit.

Known cases (all assert sibling patents, not the '422)

Key details and sources:

• Asserted patents: The court's Report to the Commissioner of Patents lists "US 9,604,132 B1; US 9,889,373 B1; US 10,632,388 B1; US 11,731,054 B1" — the '422 is not listed. (CourtListener docket 72059376, D. Del. 1:25-cv-01542; PacerMonitor case 64741454.)
• Accused products: Twitch.tv, Twitch mobile app, Twitch Studio, Twitch Bits, Twitch Turbo, and associated servers/subscriptions; the theory centers on "allowing viewers to affect gameplay."
• Plaintiff counsel: Folio Law Group PLLC (Seattle) and Farnan LLP (Delaware).
• Plaintiff identity nuance: The plaintiff is CP Studios, LLC (Utah entity formed Nov. 2024). The patents were assigned to CP Studios LLC (Delaware, formed Nov. 2013). RPX reports no publicly recorded USPTO assignment transferring the asserted patents to the Utah entity, and Twitch's dismissal motion turned on this corporate standing defect. If this ownership gap is real, it would be equally relevant to any future '422 assertion by the same plaintiff. (RPX/Mondaq, "Former Checkpoint Studios Patents Asserted Against Twitch," 2026‑02‑16.)
• Pre-suit notice: CP Studios contends its counsel sent Twitch a letter in November 2018 regarding the '132 and '373 patents specifically — again, not the '422. (Litigation press coverage, e.g., Bloomberg Law via legalnewsfeed.com, 2026‑05‑19.)
• Non-litigation validity work: Unified Patents published prior-art charts (2026‑03‑20) against "five patents owned and asserted by CP Studios LLC," all asserted against Amazon/Twitch, including the '132, '373, and '388. No '422 chart was identified in what I retrieved. (unifiedpatents.com/insights/2026/3/20/cp-studios-video-game-patents-prior-art-found.)

Why the '422 keeps appearing in these documents without being asserted

The '422 arises from application 13/889,274 — the same application whose title and content are cited in the '388 patent's priority chain (the '388 complaint expressly recites "U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 13/889,274, titled 'Providing Synchronized and Integrated Video Gaming,' filed May 7, 2013"). So the '422 is a named priority sibling of an asserted patent, which is why it surfaces in the record, but it is not a claim being enforced.

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Caveats and recommended verification

1. Do not conflate the numbers. US 10,543,422 is not the same as US 10,632,388 or US 11,731,054 — all three appear in this family/record and are different patents.
2. Distinguish assignment-side litigation. The standing/ownership dispute (Delaware CP Studios LLC vs. Utah CP Studios, LLC) is directed at the asserted patents; I found no separate suit over the '422.
3. Possible gaps in my coverage: I did not fully check (a) Unified Patents' litigation caselist and PTAB filings for the '422 number, (b) Docket Navigator, (c) PACER directly, or (d) any earlier CP Studios cases (2018–2024) that might have asserted the '422. An IPR/PGR on the '422 would also not be "litigation" in the district-court sense but is worth checking.
4. Date note: Several search results reflect events dated after the date given in your prompt (e.g., May–July 2026 filings). I have reported event dates as the sources state them rather than adjusting them.

If you need a definitive answer, pull the '422 patent's Patent/Trademark reports (which list every district-court case in which it is pleaded) via PACER/PatentCenter, and run the patent number through Unified Patents' caselist and Docket Navigator.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" default against live sources before finalizing.

Proceedings overview

US 10,543,422 has zero AIA trial proceedings on file at the PTAB — no IPR, no PGR, and no CBM — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials, and the defensive posture this gives a defendant is the opposite of "hardened": every challenged claim (1–20) is untested before the Board, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to any party, and the entire prior-art universe remains available to a challenger who has not been served with a complaint asserting this patent within the last year.

Two structural reasons the PTAB door is wide open rather than closed:

• PGR is unavailable. The '422 contains claims with an effective filing date no later than its 2012‑05‑07 provisional (US 61/643,352); PGR requires a claim with an effective filing date on or after 2013‑03‑16 (35 U.S.C. § 321(c), AIA § 3(n)(1)). The nine-month PGR window from the 2020‑01‑28 issue date also closed on 2020‑10‑28.
• CBM is unavailable. The Transitional Program for Covered Business Method patents has sunset (the Office stopped accepting new CBM petitions in September 2020, per AIA § 18(f)); independently, a video-gaming-architecture claim would have had a very hard time qualifying as a claim "for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service." I flag that the precise sunset day is a detail I am not asserting at high confidence, but the practical conclusion — no new CBM is available — is not in doubt.

So for this patent the only post-grant vehicle is IPR, and nobody has used it.

Important family-level caveat (not a proceeding against the '422): Twitch Interactive has filed an IPR against a sibling patent in this family. I did not find any petition, institution decision, FWD, termination, or appeal naming the '422 itself.

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No proceedings to report for US 10,543,422

There is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner} entry to populate. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returned no AIA trial proceedings, and targeted live searches for the patent number in combination with IPR/PGR/CBM returned nothing. I will not manufacture a proceeding number to fill the template.

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Adjacent proceeding worth tracking (different patent — US 10,632,388)

IPR2026-00397 — Twitch Interactive, Inc. v. CP Studios LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (challenging US 10,632,388, not the '422)
• Filed: 2026-06-29
• Status: Petition filed / preliminary stage as of the sources retrieved. This is not a proceeding against US 10,543,422.
• Judge panel: Not public in what I retrieved.
• Petition grounds: Petitioner requested cancellation of claims 1–23 of the '388 patent, all on § 103 obviousness, across multiple grounds: (1) FarmVille (FarmVille For Dummies, EX1004) in view of the Zynga patent (US 8,790,182) as to claims 1, 4–5, 7–9, 11, 14, 16–18, 20–22; (2) the same combination further in view of Tweet Land (a Kickstarter project) as to claims 1–22; (3) Barclay '019 (US 8,671,019) alone as to claims 1–8, 11–17, 20–23; plus additional combinations (FarmVille/Zynga + Shedletsky; FarmVille/Zynga + Calin; Barclay '019 + Barclay '363).
• Institution decision: Not yet issued as of the sources retrieved.
• Final Written Decision: None. No claim of the '388 has been canceled by the Board.
• Settlement / termination: None reported.
• Appeal: None — no appealable FWD exists yet.
• Defensive value (for the '422 and the family): This is the single most useful signal for anyone facing a CP Studios demand letter today. It tells you (a) the family is now on the PTAB's radar, (b) a well-resourced defendant is willing to spend IPR money on CP Studios' claims, and (c) the art being tested is social-network-influence art mapped to FarmVille/Barclay — not the cross-device main-game/sub-game handoff that the '422 claims. A '422 defense cannot ride on IPR2026-00397's coattails, because estoppel and issue preclusion under §§ 315(e)(2) and 325(e)(2) run claim-by-claim within a patent; a '388 FWD would say nothing about the '422's claims.

Source: IPR2026-00397 petition analysis, Ex Parte AI Lab.

⚠️ Unverified item I am flagging rather than asserting: Unified Patents' March 2026 insight post states that five CP Studios patents "have been asserted against Amazon" and offers prior-art charts for at least US 9,604,132, 9,889,373, and 10,632,388. The live docket Patent/Trademark Reports in both Delaware cases list only four patents (9,604,132; 9,889,373; 10,632,388; 11,731,054), and the prior section of this analysis confirms the '422 is not among them. I could not identify the fifth patent, nor confirm whether the '422 has ever been asserted in any complaint. If it has been asserted against a party more than one year ago, that party is now time-barred under § 315(b). This must be confirmed directly (Unified Patents post).

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all 20 claims are UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,543,422 has been canceled, confirmed, or even instituted for trial. Claim 1 (method) and claim 9 (system architecture) — the only independents — carry no PTAB history whatsoever, and dependents 2–8 and 10–20 likewise. Contrast this with what a defendant might assume from the July 2026 "Terminate Case – Civil" entry in the 2025 Delaware docket (flagged in the prior section as a source inconsistency): that entry relates to the district court case, not to any PTAB cancellation, and in any event CP Studios refiled against Twitch as 1:26‑cv‑00571 on 2026‑05‑18. There is no claim in the '422 that is dead, and no claim that is blessed.

Estoppel landscape: there is none, for anyone. Because no IPR on the '422 has reached a Final Written Decision, § 315(e)(2) estoppel has not attached to any petitioner, real party in interest, or privy as to this patent. That means a defendant sued on the '422 today may file an IPR on any § 102/§ 103 ground supported by patents or printed publications — including grounds that another party already raised elsewhere. The only timing constraint to check is § 315(b): a petition is barred if filed more than one year after the petitioner/RPI/privy was served with a complaint alleging infringement of this patent. Since the '422 appears never to have been asserted, no § 315(b) clock is running for anyone as far as the public record shows. The one soft constraint is the Board's § 325(d) and General Plastic-style discretion, which is irrelevant here because no art has ever been presented to the Board on this patent.

Pattern signals. (i) The same petitioner — Twitch — has moved to the PTAB, but only against the '388, which is consistent with CP Studios having sued on four patents and Twitch attacking the one whose claims read most directly onto its own product. (ii) CP Studios has not yet had to defend any claim before the Board, so we have no read on how aggressively it litigates PTAB trials or whether it has a track record of appeals to the Federal Circuit; the prior section's finding of no CAFC docket naming the '422 is consistent with there being nothing to appeal. (iii) There is a defensive-aggregator signal but not yet a defensive aggregator filing: Unified Patents has publicly charted prior art against the CP Studios portfolio on 2026‑03‑20, which is often a precursor to a Unified-filed IPR, but I found no Unified Patents petition on any CP Studios patent. (iv) The patent owner itself pleads extensively against a § 101 eligibility challenge in the Delaware complaints — a tell that the family's claim style is viewed by its own counsel as eligibility-exposed. That is a litigation vulnerability, not a PTAB one (a § 101 ground cannot be raised in an IPR).

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Recommended next steps

Confirm the negative directly before relying on it. Query PTAB E2E by patent number and confirm the trial list is empty: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/ → "Search" → "Patent Number" = 10543422. Cross-check the ODP API and the Google Patents "Trials" tab for US10543422B1. My search coverage is query-based, not an exhaustive registry dump, so the ODP ingest plus a direct E2E lookup are the authoritative confirmation.

If you are a defendant and the demand letter cites US 10,543,422:

• There is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to quote. Do not let anyone tell you claim 1 has been invalidated — that is false as of today.
• You have a clean IPR runway: an unrestricted § 102/§ 103 case, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel, no § 325(d) history, and (absent a prior complaint asserting this patent) no § 315(b) bar. File within one year of any complaint that does assert it.
• Attack the claim-1 hook directly: the claim requires branching off a sub-game on a second device at a second network location, with the sub-game determined by a second incoming port number, then reconnecting, transferring data, and advancing progress of the particular aspect. Standard streaming/spectating architectures do not select a game by incoming port number on a handoff device. That is an unusually specific, hardware-adjacent limitation that narrows the claim far more than the specification's broad "platform agnostic" rhetoric suggests.
• Consider an early § 101 motion (Rule 12(b)(6) or early summary judgment) in parallel — the patent owner's own pre-emptive eligibility pleading signals it expects that fight.
• Do not assume IPR2026-00397 helps you on the '422. Nothing decided there will estop a '422 challenge, and nothing decided there will cancel a '422 claim.

Trial-stage milestones to calendar for the adjacent proceeding (IPR2026-00397, '388 patent):

• Patent Owner preliminary response due by ~2026-09-29 (three months from the 2026-06-29 filing).
• Institution decision due no later than ~2026-12-29 — 35 U.S.C. § 314(b) requires the determination within six months of the petition filing date.
• If instituted, FWD due within twelve months of institution (§ 316(a)(11)) — i.e., roughly late 2027 absent good-cause extension.
• Watch for a § 315(b) or § 315(e)(1) standing dispute and for any Fintiv-type discretionary-denial argument keyed to the Delaware schedule in 1:26‑cv‑00571 (Judge Maryellen Noreika).

Watch items that could change the answer quickly:

1. A Unified Patents IPR on a CP Studios patent (their prior-art charts are already public).
2. Any complaint newly asserting the '422 — that both starts § 315(b) clocks and may finally attract an IPR to this specific patent.
3. Any IPR petition filed against the '422 within the next several months; given the '388 petition is live and the family is under active attack, the absence of a '422 IPR today is genuinely informative about how narrowly that patent's claims read.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,543,422, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and Google Patents legal events.

Let me dig deeper into the assignment records and litigation context.

Sourcing note (read first)

The USPTO Assignment Center detail pages (reel/frame, correspondent of record, execution vs. recording dates per document) did not surface in any of my searches — the searches returned no Assignment Center result pages for this patent. I therefore cannot report reel/frame numbers or the recording correspondent for US 10,543,422, and I will not invent them. What I can confirm comes from the authoritative patent text's Google Patents legal‑events block (fetched 2026‑09‑26) plus the CP Studios v. Twitch pleadings and trade coverage. The two recorded assignments below are real; the reel/frame and correspondent fields are marked not retrieved.

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Inventors

Unusual patterns: The classic red flag here is not "inventors bolting within 12 months of filing." Both inventors stayed tied to the venture through the 2013 assignments, and the founder remained associated with the asserting entity. The unusual feature is the reverse: the operating company was wound down/repurposed within ~7 months of filing, with the assets moved into a newly formed Delaware holding LLC (see timeline). That pattern — rather than inventor departure — is what precedes the assertion phase here.

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Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: Google Patents lists the original assignee as "Cp Studios Inc" and the current assignee as "CP Studios LLC / CP Studios Inc." The legal‑events chain shows the applicant‑side entity as Checkpoint Studios Inc., which then transferred everything to CP Studios LLC. Treat "CP Studios Inc." / "Checkpoint Studios Inc." as the same operating venture line.
• Primary line of business: Checkpoint Studios Inc. was a social/cloud video‑gaming company (Wiklem, founder/CEO). The patent specification's own examples — an aviation "empire" game, social‑network play, leader/follower/bystander roles — describe the intended product.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear / likely no lasting commercial product. Trade coverage describes Checkpoint Studios as a gaming company but identifies no shipped, currently marketed title; the company's useful life appears to have ended within months of the May 2013 filing, and its assets were rolled into CP Studios LLC in December 2013.
• Current status: Checkpoint Studios Inc. — effectively dissolved/defunct (assets transferred out Dec 2013; no current operating activity disclosed). CP Studios LLC (Delaware) — a holding/assertion entity, formed 2013‑11‑08. CP Studios, LLC (Utah, with comma) — formed November 2024, the current litigation plaintiff. No USPTO record of the Delaware→Utah transfer was found.

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Assignment timeline

Chronological, from Google Patents legal events (reel/frame + correspondent not retrieved — see sourcing note):

• Executed ~2013‑09 / recorded 2013‑09‑18 — Reel not retrieved/not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Carrie Ann Cowan; Brian Joseph Wiklem (inventors)
  • Assignee: Checkpoint Studios Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Founder‑to‑company assignment — the inventors conveyed the application to their own operating venture (Checkpoint Studios) shortly after the May 2013 filing.

• Executed ~2013‑12 / recorded 2014‑01‑21 — Reel not retrieved/not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
  • Assignor: Checkpoint Studios Inc.
  • Assignee: CP Studios LLC (Delaware, formed 2013‑11‑08)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Internal reorg / asset‑to‑holding‑entity transfer — the operating company's rights moved into a Delaware LLC formed just two months earlier; no products moved with them.

• (Unrecorded) 2024‑11 → present — CP Studios, LLC (Utah, with comma)

  • Conveyance: none recorded at USPTO as of the sources reviewed
  • Assignor/Assignee: CP Studios LLC (Delaware) → CP Studios, LLC (Utah) (per plaintiff's pleading)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: The Utah LLC pleads ownership of the family but, per reporting, no transfer from the Delaware LLC appears in publicly available USPTO records — a standing/chain‑of‑title gap that Twitch reportedly attacked in its first motion to dismiss.

(No subsequent post‑issuance assignment of the ’422 patent to a third party was found. On the evidence available, the patent has never left the CP Studios entity line.)

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10543422
    2012 : Provisional application filed
    2013 : Application filed by Checkpoint Studios
         : Inventors assign to Checkpoint Studios
         : CP Studios LLC formed in Delaware
    2014 : Assets moved to CP Studios LLC
    2020 : Patent issued on Jan 28
    2024 : CP Studios LLC formed in Utah
    2025 : Sibling patents asserted against Twitch

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NPE / troll‑pattern signals

1. Shell‑entity transfer — Present (moderate). Patent rights moved from the operating venture Checkpoint Studios Inc. to a Delaware LLC (CP Studios LLC) formed 2013‑11‑08, recorded 2014‑01‑21 — i.e., the assignee was created weeks before receiving the asset. CP Studios LLC shows no commercial product and functions as an owner/asserter. Caveat: the name lacks an "IP/Holdings/Licensing" suffix, and the entity is tied to the original founders rather than an anonymous third party, so this is a holding‑entity transfer rather than a classic anonymous shell. Cite: Google Patents legal event 2014‑01‑21, Checkpoint Studios Inc. → CP Studios LLC; formation date per CP Studios v. Twitch reporting.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present (by name). No chain entity matches the named NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). CP Studios does appear as a high‑frequency‑style plaintiff (RPX Empower docket 1:25‑cv‑01542), but it is a first‑party patent owner, not a listed aggregator.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / cannot assess. I could not retrieve the recording correspondent for either assignment (Assignment Center detail pages did not surface). No finding possible either way.

4. Cascading transfers — Present (mild). Two consecutive assignments within ~4 months (inventors → Checkpoint Studios, recorded 2013‑09‑18; Checkpoint Studios → CP Studios LLC, recorded 2014‑01‑21), both inside 24 months, ending at a freshly formed LLC. Cite: the two recorded legal events above.

5. Pre‑litigation transfer — Not present for this patent. The ’422 patent is not among the patents asserted in CP Studios, LLC v. Twitch Interactive (Patent/Trademark Report lists 9,604,132; 9,889,373; 10,632,388; 11,731,054 only). There is no suit naming the ’422 patent, so no 6‑month pre‑suit transfer window applies to it. The chain assignment dates (2013/2014) long pre‑date the 2025 suit.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Checkpoint Studios, CP Studios LLC, or CP Studios, LLC was found.

7. Privateering — Not present (classic form). The original operating company (Checkpoint Studios) did not transfer to an unrelated NPE to assert against its own competitors; the asserting entity (CP Studios) is the founders' own successor vehicle. Investor/funder‑driven privateering is not evidenced.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti‑NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. Inverse signal does not apply.

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The chain runs inventors → Checkpoint Studios Inc. (2013‑09‑18) → CP Studios LLC, a Delaware LLC formed 2013‑11‑08 and recorded 2014‑01‑21, with no product ever moving with the asset and the entity line now asserting the family against Twitch/Amazon. That gives one strong signal (holding‑entity transfer into an asset‑only LLC) plus one weak signal (two cascading transfers inside ~4 months), and the current owner is a non‑practicing entity, which precludes "operating‑company assertion." Confidence is held to moderate because (a) the correspondent/reel‑frame data needed to test the repeat‑counsel signal was not retrievable, (b) the entity is founder‑controlled rather than an anonymous shell, and (c) the ’422 patent itself is not asserted — the NPE character is inherited from the common family owner, not from this patent's own enforcement history.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 10543422; the two records to pull for reel/frame and correspondent are the 2013‑09‑18 Wiklem/Cowan → Checkpoint Studios assignment and the 2014‑01‑21 Checkpoint Studios → CP Studios LLC assignment). Cross‑check Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10543422B1](/patent/US10543422B1)/en

I'll research the citation record for US 10,543,422. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me retrieve the full citation list from Justia and USPTO.

Let me try to retrieve the complete citation list from the patent PDF and other databases.

Scope and sourcing note (read first)

I searched for U.S. Patent No. 10,543,422 as an exact identifier and did not deliberately substitute any similar number. Two things I want to be explicit about before the analysis:

• What I could verify. The authoritative granted text (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑26 per the corpus in this thread) confirms the bibliographic record and shows a "Citations (41)" table. A second mirror of the same USPTO-derived record (Justia, https://patents.justia.com/patent/10543422) returned the "Referenced Cited" table. I did not obtain a separate, directly-queried USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search screen in this session, so the data below rests on those two USPTO-data mirrors, which agree with each other and with the issued patent text.
• What I could not verify. The two sources truncate the citation table. I was able to recover 33 of the 41 cited documents. The remaining ~8 entries (the tail of the list, apparently 2013 publications) could not be retrieved, and I will not guess their numbers. I also could not retrieve the full titles / technical contents of every one of the 33. Where I do not know something with high confidence, I say so rather than filling it in.

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1. Confirmation of the record for 10,543,422 (exact identifier)

That matches the prior section in this thread, and I adopt it rather than re-deriving it. No contradiction with the earlier summary on any bibliographic point.

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2. The cited prior art (the "Citations (41)" table)

Important framing. This table is the examiner's/IDS "References Cited" list, i.e. art considered during prosecution. Being listed is not evidence that a reference anticipates anything — a granted patent (here after ~6.5 years of examination, 2013→2020) necessarily issued over this art. And no reference here is a same-family document; the true family members (9,889,373; 9,597,586; 9,604,132; 10,632,388; 11,731,054; US 2025/0281835 A1) share the same 2012‑05‑07 priority and therefore are not prior art to one another (they would be excepted as same-effective-filing-date / commonly owned).

A second framing point that governs the whole §102 answer below: every one of claims 2–8 and 10–20 depends from claim 1 or claim 9 and therefore incorporates all of claim 1's / claim 9's limitations. Anticipation of a dependent claim under §102 requires the single reference to disclose the independent claim's limitations too. So if no reference discloses claim 1, no reference anticipates any claim. I apply that rule strictly.

A. References recovered with full metadata (33 of 41)

Priority dates and publication dates below are taken verbatim from the retrieved citation records; actual filing dates may differ from the "priority date" column shown by these databases.

B. References I could not recover (~8 entries)

The retrieved tables end at US 2013/0006709 A1. The remaining ~8 of the 41 cited documents — apparently later 2013 US publications, and conceivably foreign patent documents or non‑patent literature that Google Patents reports separately — were not retrieved and are not analyzed here. I am flagging this as a gap rather than filling it in.

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3. §102 analysis — which claim(s) each reference could anticipate

3.1 The threshold obstacle on claim 1 and claim 9

Claim 1 requires, as a necessary element:

"identifying… a game in the video gaming arena of interest… based on a first incoming port number of the first user electronic device," and
branching off the sub‑game "determined based on a second incoming port number of the second user electronic device."

Claim 9 repeats both limitations in system form. Port‑number‑based selection of the game, and port‑number‑based determination of the sub‑game, is the feature I could not find in any of the 33 recovered references. Every closest‑fit reference (Chatani/Sony, Yamaoka/Konami, Kirmse/Yahoo, the two spectator references, Van Luchene, Stamper/Microsoft) addresses multiplayer, spectator, remote‑execution, or social‑integration architecture — but none of them keys game or sub‑game identification to a port number of the user's device.

Result: no cited reference anticipates independent claim 1 or independent claim 9. Consequently, no cited reference anticipates any dependent claim either (claims 2–8, 10–20 each import claim 1's or claim 9's full limitations — §102 requires a single reference to disclose all limitations of the claim as a whole, and a dependent claim's limitations include those of the claim from which it depends).

3.2 Where each reference could still matter (§103 / element‑by‑element)

Because the §102 question turns on the port‑number element, the practical value of this art is as obviousness material and as a map of what was already known:

3.3 Timing note (§102 date framework)

• The '422 patent's post‑AIA filing (2013‑05‑07) versus its pre‑AIA provisional priority (2012‑05‑07) makes the choice between pre‑AIA §102 and AIA §102(a) arguable under AIA §3(n). I am flagging this rather than asserting a conclusion — but it does not change the result here, because the references in table A above are overwhelmingly pre‑2011 and therefore prior art under either regime.
• The four post‑priority publications (#30–#33, July 2012–Jan 2013) would only be prior art if their actual U.S. filing dates precede the relevant critical date (pre‑AIA §102(e) / AIA §102(a)(2)); their listed publication dates alone are insufficient. I did not verify their filing dates.

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4. Bottom line

1. Exact-number confirmation: US 10,543,422 B1, "Providing synchronized and integrated video gaming," 20 claims, two independents (1 and 9).
2. No cited reference anticipates any claim. Anticipation fails on claim 1/9's twin incoming‑port‑number limitations (game identification and sub‑game determination), which I found in none of the recovered references. Because every dependent claim incorporates claim 1 or 9, §102 anticipation fails across the board.
3. Most relevant prior art for §103 / context, in order of proximity to the '422 claims:
   • US 2004/0266529 A1 (Chatani, Sony) — remote execution + wireless portable presentation (cross‑device architecture).
   • US 2003/0038805 A1 (Wong) and US 2003/0220143 A1 (Shteyn, Philips) — spectator play (claims 8/16).
   • US 6,699,125 B2 (Kirmse, Yahoo!) — game server coupled to a messenger server (claims 3/11).
   • US 2007/0087797 A1 (Van Luchene) — tracking help/advice to other players (claims 8/16).
   • US 2003/0008710 A1 (Yamaoka, Konami) — server-side network‑game progress control (claim 1 final clause).
   • US 2008/0004117 A1 (Stamper, Microsoft) — multi‑player gaming (claims 7/15).
4. Explicit gaps I did not fill: ~8 of the 41 cited documents (the tail of the list, apparently 2013 publications) were not retrievable in this session; and I could not independently verify titles/subject matter for the US patents 7,628,688 / 7,955,175 / 8,200,020 / 8,287,341 / 8,366,546 or for US pubs 2009/0307226 through 2013/0006709. Any of those could theoretically change the §102 picture, and I am not asserting otherwise.

Recommended next step for a definitive answer: pull the complete "References Cited" list (including any non‑patent citations and foreign documents) from the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper / Image File Wrapper (IFW) for application 13/889,274, and confirm the actual filing dates of US 2012/0184363, 2012/0220377, 2012/0254764 and 2013/0006709 for §102(a)(2)/§102(e) purposes.

I'll research the cited prior art references to ground this obviousness analysis. Let me start with targeted searches.

Let me pull the full cited-reference list and examine the key references in detail.

Let me examine the remaining key references and the port-number concept.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,543,422 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / how this builds on prior sections. This analysis assumes the claim construction and family/litigation picture already established in the Patent summary and Litigation summary sections, and does not repeat them. It focuses exclusively on the § 103 question and on the art appearing in the Prior Art section of the Google Patents page for US 10,543,422 B1 (fetched 2026‑09‑26). The authoritative claim text is taken from that page; all other reference characterization is flagged by verification status (see § 8) so you can tell what I confirmed this session from what I am supplying from general knowledge.

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1. Why the "Prior Art section" of this page is only partly usable

The Prior Art section contains three lists, and only one of them is actually prior art:

Two date traps apply inside the Citations (41) list itself:

• Several citations published after 2012‑05‑07 — e.g., US 8,200,020 (granted 2012‑06‑12), US 8,287,341 (2012‑10‑16), US 8,366,546 (2013‑02‑05), US 2012/0220377 A1 (2012‑08‑30), US 2012/0254764 A1 (2012‑10‑04). These are prior art only if their effective filing date precedes 2012‑05‑07 (pre‑AIA § 102(e)). Some clearly do (e.g., the Ayloo publication, filed 2011); others I could not confirm within this session.
• Pre‑AIA vs. AIA: the application was filed 2013‑05‑07 (after the AIA first‑to‑file date of 2013‑03‑16), but claims priority to a 2012‑05‑07 provisional. If the claims are supported by the provisional, the effective filing date is pre‑2013‑03‑16 and pre‑AIA §§ 102/103 govern — which matters because it keeps § 102(e)-style "secret prior art" available. (Basis for the 2012‑05‑07 date: the ’422 specification, "CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS.")

Inconsistency flag: the previously generated summary notes the litigation complaint states the provisional was filed 2012‑05‑12 rather than 2012‑05‑07. This is immaterial to the § 103 analysis (both precede every relevant reference date), but I flag it as unreconciled.

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2. Governing standard and level of ordinary skill

Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966) supplies the four factual inquiries: scope/content of the prior art; differences between prior art and claims; level of ordinary skill; and secondary considerations.

KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007) controls the combination question: a claim is obvious if the elements were known and combined according to known methods to yield predictable results, or if the combination was "obvious to try," or if the improvement follows from the "ordinary creativity" of the skilled artisan. Key KSR rationales available here:

1. Known elements each performing their established function;
2. Predictable use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way;
3. Design incentives and market forces ("platform extension" demand);
4. Simultaneous development by others.

Proposed POSITA: a person with a bachelor's degree in computer science/computer engineering (or equivalent) and 2–4 years of experience in networked/multiplayer game software and client‑server architecture, including socket-level programming and cross-platform game clients. This mirrors the skill level the specification itself presumes (the ’422 describes ordinary client/server, database, and network-adapter components — see its "Data processing system" and network discussions).

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3. Claim 1 / claim 9 element breakdown

Claim 9 recites the same sequence as claim 1 recast as a programmed system, plus "providing the video game arena for display using the integrated play." Claims 2–8 and 10–16 are dependents; claims 17–20 cover the display aspect. The elements that require art mapping are:

Note the specification's own Figure 10 encodes E2/E3 as a routing convention: "An incoming port number determines the appropriate game (1040)" — the port number is used as a dispatch key, not as an inventive arithmetic or cryptographic step. That matters for § 103: the patent itself treats port-to-game dispatch as implementation detail.

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4. Reference-by-reference mapping

Confidence key: ✅ Verified this session (I read the abstract/claims or a Reuters/CNET/GameSpot summary and the Google Patents or Justia record); 🟡 Probable (well-known reference, not re-verified in this session); ❓ Unverified (I cannot responsibly characterize the content without checking).

4.1 References I confirmed

4.2 References I did not re-verify this session (characterized on general knowledge)

Honesty note: I want to avoid the common failure mode of asserting that reference X teaches element Y when I have not actually read X. For the several dozen references marked ❓ above, a rigorous invalidity contention would need their abstracts and key figures pulled and charted individually. My combinations below therefore lean on the references I did verify, plus the well‑known spectator/help‑tracking family, and I flag where the record needs shoring up.

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5. Specific combinations rendering claim 1 obvious

I present four layered combinations of increasing scope. Combination C‑1 is the primary case; C‑2/C‑3 fill the narrower limitations.

Combination C‑1 — Chatani + Yamaoka (+ Kirmse/Stamper)

Covers: E1, E3(a), E4, E5, E6, and the hosting/device dependent claims.

• Chatani supplies the backbone: a game executed at a base/server (first network location), with interactive program portions delivered to and played on a portable second device (second network location), and "additional portions … received … as play … proceeds" (bidirectional data transfer, E5), which is inherently reconnected/synchronized back to the executing server (E4, E6).
• Yamaoka supplies the main‑game/sub‑game relationship: within one network game framework a user plays one of several games and also a mini‑game, with points awarded on the mini‑game results and fed back into the larger game's reward structure — i.e., a sub‑game in which the player "pursues a particular aspect of the main game," whose results advance progress (E6) and are persisted server‑side (the rewards "valuable data" database).
• Motivation to combine (KSR #1, #2, #3): Yamaoka's stated purpose is the same purpose the ’422 recites — to induce the user "to play the game continuously." A POSITA seeking continuous engagement across a user's devices would predictably apply Yamaoka's mini‑game/points mechanic to Chatani's cross‑device execution platform. Both are networked game servers with a client device; combining them is "the predictable use of prior‑art elements according to their established functions" (KSR). The ’422's own specification concedes the field was migrating this direction ("With the ongoing trends … it would certainly be beneficial to find better architectures").
• Kirmse (Yahoo!) adds the social/messenger hosting and shared-room aspects (dependent claims); Stamper (Microsoft) adds explicit cross‑device (PC ↔ console) multiplayer session management (claims 2, 7, 15).

What C‑1 alone does not supply: E2 and E3(b) — the port‑number keying.

Combination C‑2 — C‑1 + a port‑number dispatch reference or "official notice"

Covers: E2, E3(b) — the "identify the game based on a first/second incoming port number" limitations.

• This is the crux. The ’422 does not treat the port number as anything more than a dispatch key: its own FIG. 10 states "An incoming port number determines the appropriate game (1040)." In internetworking, mapping a TCP/UDP destination port to a service or application instance is one of the most thoroughly conventional techniques in the art (the IANA port registry; standard bind()/listen() socket semantics). Multiple virtual servers, each bound to a distinct port, are addressed by port number — a technique that long predates 2012.
• How a challenger would supply it: (i) a secondary reference (or the multi‑game server of Yamaoka, which hosts "a plurality of games" and must therefore discriminate among them) combined with the POSITA's background knowledge that port number is the standard discriminator; or (ii) USPTO official notice under MPEP § 2144.03 that port‑to‑application mapping is well known. Under KSR, using a known networking convention (port as service discriminator) for its established function is not inventive.
• ⚠️ But note the tension: if a single reference also identified the sub‑game by a second port number on a second device, the analysis becomes much cleaner. I did not verify such a reference this session. E2/E3(b) is the element most likely to have carried the allowance, and it is the element where this record is thinnest. I say so explicitly rather than papering over it.

Combination C‑3 — C‑2 + Wong and/or Shteyn (+ Van Luchene)

Covers: dependent claims 8 and 16 (status levels).

• Wong ("spectator experience for networked gaming") and Shteyn ("On‑line gaming spectator") disclose non‑players observing a live networked game with differentiated levels of participation — i.e., designating a status that controls the play capability accorded to the player, exactly claim 8/16's requirement ("'leader' … full play capabilities … 'follower' … restricted … 'bystander' … viewing" per the ’422 specification).
• Van Luchene supplies the reward side: tracking and rewarding a player's help/advice given to another player — matching the ’422's "A bystander … influence[s] game play … Reward or point allocation is based on the status of the player."
• Motivation: all three are directed to the same problem (broadening participation beyond core players), and combining spectator/interaction roles with a multiplayer game server is a predictable design choice with a known benefit (KSR #1–#3; and "design incentives … market forces," KSR #4). The ’422 itself lists "spectator mode that permits non‑players in a network to assist friends" as a feature, not an invention.

Combination C‑4 — C‑1/C‑2 + social‑network hosting art

Covers: claims 3–6, 11–14.

• Kirmse (games tied to a messenger/social server) + Ayloo (social‑network member matching/activity organization) render the social‑network‑hosted arena, the third‑party‑server and cloud variants, and the cross‑platform‑server variant straightforward design alternatives. The ’422's own specification recites each hosting venue (social network server, third‑party server, cloud, cross‑platform server) as an equally acceptable implementation option, which is itself an admission that the choice among them was a routine engineering decision and not a point of novelty (cf. In re Harza, In re Kuhle — a result‑effective change in a known element or the mere selection among known options is not inventive).

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6. Dependent‑claim summary

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7. Secondary considerations (Graham factor 4)

I found nothing in the record under review that supplies objective evidence of non‑obviousness, and I will not invent it:

• No unexpected results are disclosed; the ’422 characterizes its benefits (continuous experience, cross‑platform pollination) as expected consequences of platform extension.
• No evidence of industry praise, licensing‑driven success, or copying appears in the patent or the litigation reporting summarized earlier. Note that the family litigation targets Twitch over sibling patents (9,604,132; 9,889,373; 10,632,388; 11,731,054) — not the ’422 — so the commercial‑success narrative does not attach to these claims.
• Skepticism / teaching away: I found none in the verified art. Chatani and Yamaoka expressly encourage (rather than deter) cross‑device continuation and sub‑game mechanics, so there is no teaching‑away overlay.

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8. Bottom line and candid weaknesses

Bottom line. On the verified record, claim 1 (and mirror‑image claim 9) would appear obvious under § 103 over Chatani + Yamaoka, with the port‑number limitations (E2/E3(b)) supplied by the ordinary networking convention of port‑to‑service dispatch (or an additional reference), and with Wong/Shteyn/Van Luchene covering the status‑level dependents. The strongest single reference is Chatani (cross‑device continuation of one executing game), and the strongest motivation reference is Yamaoka (mini‑game + points "to induce continuous play"). The combination is a textbook KSR case: known elements, known functions, predictable result, strong market/design incentive.

Where the case is weak — stated plainly:

1. E2/E3(b) — the "incoming port number" keying — is unproven on this record. I did not verify any cited reference that expressly identifies a game, or a sub‑game, by an incoming port number on two different devices. This is very likely the examiner's allowance hook. If you need an invalidity position, this is the element to attack with a dedicated secondary reference (multi‑game/load‑balanced game servers, or port‑based virtual‑hosting art) or with official notice under MPEP § 2144.03 — not with the art as it stands.
2. Several dozen cited references are unverified (❓ in § 4.2). Characterizing their disclosures without reading them would be irresponsible; each needs its abstract and key figures charted before being relied upon.
3. § 102 date gate. Any combination must confirm each reference's effective filing date precedes 2012‑05‑07 (pre‑AIA § 102(e) for post‑priority publications). I have not completed that check for US 8,200,020, US 8,287,341, US 8,366,546, US 2012/0220377, or US 2012/0254764.
4. The claim's "particular aspect" / "advancing progress" language is functional and broad; a challenger can meet it with mini‑game/reward art, but a patentee will argue it requires a branching relationship (main → sub → back to main) rather than Chatani's continuation-of-the-same-session model. Yamaoka's mini‑game analogies are the answer, and they are persuasive but not identical.

Suggested next steps if you are building a contention: (a) pull full text/figures for the ❓ references and screen them specifically for port‑based game/sub‑game selection and cross‑device session hand‑off; (b) run a targeted prior‑art search on port‑number‑keyed game dispatch (a search I was cut off from running — see the ⚠️ note above); (c) if a § 103 position is pursued administratively, expect the patentee to defend on E2/E3(b) and on the joining of "branching" to "port identification."