US 10915296

I'll research US 10915296 across patent and litigation sources.

Let me search for litigation/docket activity and the actual claim text.

Let me get the exact text of independent claim 1 and check Federal Circuit activity.

US 10,915,296 B2 — Summary

Important caveat up front: I was able to retrieve authoritative bibliographic data and the full text of the application as published (US 2019/0303100 A1), but I was not able to retrieve a verbatim copy of independent claim 1 of the granted patent, and my search for Federal Circuit 2026 docket activity returned nothing. Those two points are flagged explicitly below rather than filled in from inference.

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1. Bibliographic data

Sources: Google Patents US10915296B2; USPTO/Google PDF front page; Justia; Unified Patents; uspto.report.

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

"An information apparatus that supports a touch sensitive screen for managing e-mails is disclosed and enabled. The information apparatus may include a graphical user interface, an e-mail application, an Internet browsing application, and applications for playing audio/video content. The information apparatus includes an operating system software and support for installation of new applications. In one example, a user of the information apparatus may reply to an e-mail by selecting an item over the touch sensitive screen. The user may scroll down or up an email using the touch sensitive screen. In other examples, the user may further select an item or functional control via the touch sensitive screen to output, synchronize, stream, transmit, play, print, display, or mirror at least part of digital content from the information apparatus to one or more output devices over air."

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3. Technical field and specification context

The specification's stated field is "device synchronization and digital output and, in particular, … providing pervasive output for information apparatuses." The bulk of the disclosure is the Flexiworld "output manager / output controller" architecture: a mobile or stationary information apparatus discovers output devices (printers, copiers, fax, displays, projectors, audio devices), negotiates services, synchronizes/uploads device-dependent components (e.g., printer drivers) from the output controller, and outputs digital content — deliberately avoiding pre-installed device-specific drivers. The e-mail/touch-screen subject matter that gives this patent its title is reflected in the abstract and claims rather than in the lengthy output-management description.

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4. Independent claims — plain-language overview

This patent has three independent claims: 1, 8, and 15.

Claim 15 — non-transitory computer-readable recording medium (CRM). (I have this claim's text verbatim from the published application.) It covers software/firmware for managing e-mails on a mobile, wireless information apparatus that has a touch-sensitive screen interface. The apparatus includes an OS with an API letting applications (e-mail, messaging, digital imaging, audio, video, document creation, Internet browsing) interface with device-management applications, and it allows the user to install additional applications. Hardware recited: touch screen, memory/storage, and wireless communication circuitry coupling to a WLAN. The e-mail application must present a GUI with an inbox, plus done, reply, and delete function controls/items selectable over the touch screen. Executing the software must cause the apparatus to: receive e-mails wirelessly; display e-mail content; receive a scroll-up/down indication; receive delete, done, and reply selections; and initiate a reply in response to the reply control. The apparatus must be a smart phone, information pad, digital pad, e-book, Internet appliance, or digital camera. Dependent claims 16–20 add: handing content from the e-mail app to an output manager via the OS API for transfer to a wireless output device (16); microphone/speaker with voice-activated command to request a reply (17); voice-command interaction showing an inbox e-mail (18); obtaining authentication/security information before discovering/accessing wireless output device services, with chips/chipsets compatible with IEEE 802.11 or Bluetooth (19); and displaying/s electing wireless output devices (TV, display, audio device, printer, TV controller, projector) and wirelessly transferring content to the selected one (20).

Claim 8 — method. (Text only partially recovered; treat as approximate.) It is a method performed at an information apparatus for managing e-mails and transferring digital content to a wireless output device. From the dependent claims I recovered: passing digital content from the e-mail application to an output manager via the OS's API (claim 11); chips/chipsets compatible with IEEE 802.11 or Bluetooth, using short-range and/or WLAN communication (claim 12); wirelessly discovering available output devices, presenting items on the touch screen, receiving a selection, and establishing a radio-frequency wireless connection to output content at a TV, display device, audio output device, printer, external TV controller, or projector (claim 13); and obtaining authentication/security information to enable discovery/access (claim 14). One claim in the 8–14 chain also recites wirelessly transferring image or video data taken by a digital capturing device of the information apparatus to the selected wireless output device.

Claim 1 — information apparatus. ⚠️ Uncertainty: I could not obtain verbatim claim 1. Given the claim-set symmetry (claims 15 et seq. mirror claims 1 et seq.) and the abstract/specification, claim 1 almost certainly recites the apparatus counterpart of claim 15 — i.e., a mobile, wireless information apparatus with a touch-sensitive screen, OS with API, installable applications including an e-mail application, memory/storage, wireless communication circuitry (IEEE 802.11 and/or Bluetooth compatible chips/chipsets) for WLAN coupling, an e-mail GUI with inbox and done/reply/delete controls, and functionality to receive, display, scroll, reply to, and delete e-mails, the apparatus being a smart phone, information pad, digital pad, e-book, Internet appliance, or digital camera. I am inferring this structure; I recommend verifying against the granted claim text at the USPTO before relying on it.

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5. Litigation / PTAB / CAFC status

• Assignee posture: Flexiworld Technologies is a well-known NPE asserting a large portfolio of patents sharing the 2000–2001 priority family (e.g., US 9,042,811; 9,836,257; 9,965,233; 10,140,073; 10,768,871; 11,029,903; 10,915,296).
• District court: Public aggregator data ties Flexiworld suits against Amazon to Flexiworld Techs., Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. (W.D. Tex. 6:20-cv-00553 and W.D. Wash. 2:21-cv-01055). There is a claim construction order in 2:21-cv-01055-DGE dated March 5, 2024. ⚠️ Uncertainty: I could not confirm from the sources retrieved that US 10,915,296 specifically was one of the asserted patents in those cases; the case listings I saw were attached to related Flexiworld patents (e.g., US 10,489,096). Flexiworld also sued Lexmark, Xerox, Hisense, and Roku on other patents in the family.
• PTAB: The notable Flexiworld PTAB proceedings I found concern other patents — e.g., Roku's PGR2021-00112 on US 11,029,903 (instituted, then terminated in 2022 after a Roku–Flexiworld license), and IPR2021-00713/00714 on US 10,740,066 and US 8,989,064. I found no PTAB challenge directed to US 10,915,296.
• CAFC 2026: ⚠️ I could not find any Federal Circuit docket, appeal, or 2026 activity involving US 10,915,296. My docket search returned no hits and my tool access for further searching was exhausted. This is a negative search result, not confirmation that no such appeal exists — please verify directly against the CAFC docket and PACER if 2026 appellate activity is material to your analysis.

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6. Practical notes

• Because the term is measured from the 2001 non-provisional priority, the patent's enforceable life appears to have been essentially exhausted at issuance (anticipated expiration 2021-11-01), and it is now marked "Expired – Fee Related." Any current monetization/marking value is therefore limited.
• The claim scope here is notably narrower and more consumer-device-specific (touch screen e-mail reply/delete/scroll, installable apps, voice commands, IEEE 802.11/Bluetooth) than the broad "pervasive output"/driver-synchronization claims asserted in Flexiworld's other patents, which have drawn written-description and § 101 challenges in the Roku PGR.

If you need the exact, verbatim text of granted claims 1–9, I can pull it from the USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter full-text record — that is the one item in this summary I could not fully ground.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 10915296 using litigation-focused sources.

Let me search more specifically for the patent number in litigation contexts.

Let me look at the RPX litigation database and specific cases.

Litigation Search: US Patent No. 10,915,296

Bottom line

I found no litigation in which US Patent No. 10,915,296 ("the '296 patent") is specifically identified as a patent-in-suit. I could not locate any district court complaint, IPR/PGR petition, or PTAB proceeding that names this exact patent number. Per your instruction on literal interpretation, I want to be explicit that I did not treat any similar number (e.g., US 10,489,096, US 9,659,296, US 10,140,072) as the same patent — those are distinct patents and none is 10,915,296.

If litigation exists, it was not surfaced by the sources I could reach, and I cannot confirm it. I am flagging this as an absence of evidence rather than a verified "no litigation" finding, because I was unable to run a definitive patent-level litigation query.

What the patent is (for identification)

• Patent: US 10,915,296 B2 — "Information apparatus that includes a touch sensitive screen interface for managing or replying to e-mails"
• Applicants/Inventors: William Ho Chang; Christina Ying Liu
• Assignee: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.
• Application: US 16/444,261, filed 2019-06-18; granted 2021-02-09
• Priority date: 2000-11-01 (claimed via US 10/016,223; US 09/992,413; US 10/053,765)
• Status per Google Patents: Expired – Fee Related; anticipated expiration 2021-11-01

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10915296/en

Context: the Flexiworld campaign (verified cases, none asserting the '296 patent)

Flexiworld Technologies is an active plaintiff, and its patents have been asserted in a number of suits. The litigation records I retrieved list the following patents-in-suit, and 10,915,296 does not appear among them:

Representative sources:

• RPX litigation document (Sony complaint): https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/15717164
• RPX: Flexiworld v. Indeed: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txwdce-1172809333-flexiworld-technologies-v-indeed
• Justia docket (Lexmark consolidated): https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/kentucky/kyedce/5:2022cv00097/98438/44/0.pdf
• Unified Patents on RE48,066 / Indeed: https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2025/5/27/flexiworld-data-mining-patent-challenged
• Indeed docket: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/1:2024cv01254/1172809333

Related PTAB activity (also not involving 10,915,296): Roku, Inc. v. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., IPR2021-00714 and IPR2021-00715 (U.S. 8,989,064); IPR2022-01114 (U.S. 9,965,233); PGR2021-00112 (U.S. 11,029,903); IPR2022-00775 (U.S. RE42,257 family); IPR2023-00845 (U.S. 7,609,402).

Important caveats on this answer

1. No confirmed litigation on the '296 patent. I could not retrieve a docket, complaint, or PTAB filing identifying US 10,915,296 as an asserted or challenged patent.
2. Coverage limitations. I was unable to directly query the RPX patent-level litigation page for 10915296, the Google Patents "Litigation" tab for this patent, PACER, or the Stanford NPE database at the patent level; my search-tool session also terminated before I could run additional targeted queries. A negative result here is therefore not conclusive.
3. Consolidated/amended pleadings risk. Flexiworld's cases were frequently amended and consolidated (e.g., the E.D. Ky. consolidated action grew to fifteen asserted patents), so a patent could in principle be added by amended complaint without appearing in the records I saw. The lists above reflect the patents identified in the documents retrieved, not necessarily every patent ever asserted in each case.
4. Do not conflate similar numbers. US 10,489,096, US 9,659,296, US 10,140,072, US 9,042,811, US 9,836,259, and US 11,029,903 are all separate patents appearing in these records and are not US 10,915,296.

If you need a definitive answer, the authoritative checks would be: (a) the RPX Empower patent page for 10,915,296, (b) the Google Patents "Litigation" tab for US10915296B2, and (c) a PACER docket search plus a USPTO Patent Center "litigation" (35 U.S.C. § 290) report search for the patent number. Would you like me to attempt those specific lookups next?

I'll verify the structured data against live sources before writing anything.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 10,915,296: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states that the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest, and my independent web searches for IPR/PGR/CBM petitions naming the '296 patent number returned nothing — no petitioner has ever challenged this patent at the PTAB. Breakdown: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied. Bottom line for a defendant: this is an untested patent, not a hardened one. Nobody has run an IPR against it, so there is no FWD, no estoppel, and no adverse claim-construction ruling to borrow. The defensive posture is therefore the opposite of "the troll's claims are dead" — but it comes with a much bigger, non-PTAB lever discussed below (apparent term expiry and a CIP/priority problem), and the surrounding Flexiworld family tells you exactly how this patent owner fights.

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No proceedings to itemize

Because there are zero proceedings captured by the structured data and zero surfaced by search, there is no proceeding to break out with panel, grounds, institution date, or FWD. I am not going to invent proceeding numbers to fill this template. If a proceeding is filed after the ODP ingest date, confirm it directly at PTAB E2E / PTAB Center or via the PTAB Decisions site.

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Family-level PTAB activity (context — these are different patent numbers, not the '296 patent)

US 10,915,296 sits in the Flexiworld / Chang & Liu "pervasive output" continuation family (App. 16/444,261, filed 2019-06-18, priority 2000-11-01, issued 2021-02-09, assignee Flexiworld Technologies, Inc.). That family has been attacked at the Board repeatedly, including by a defensive aggregator. Per the parties' own joint motion in IPR2022-01267, the Roku campaigns map as follows: IPR2021-00714 ('064), IPR2021-00715 ('114), IPR2021-00713 ('066), IPR2022-01113 ('811), IPR2022-01114 ('259), IPR2022-01112 ('233), PGR2021-00112 ('903) — see joint motion to terminate, IPR2022-01267. What matters for a '296 defendant:

Caveat: I have deliberately not assigned these outcomes to the '296 patent. Each entry above is a proceeding on a sibling patent.

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Strategic summary

What is CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED on US 10,915,296. Nothing is canceled. Nothing is sustained. Every claim of the '296 patent is UNTESTED. No IPR, PGR, or CBM has ever been filed against it. Any statement that "claims 1–5 were canceled" would be false — no such record exists. Accordingly there is no narrowing amendment, no certificate, and no surviving-claim list to report beyond the patent as issued.

Estoppel landscape. Because no proceeding exists on the '296 patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel does not attach to it at all. No petitioner and no privy is barred from asserting any § 102/§ 103 ground against these claims. That cuts both ways: Roku's work product and FWDs on '064/'066/'257 do not estop anyone, but they also do not bind the PTAB as to the '296 — a new panel decides anew. The real constraint on you is § 315(b): if you have been served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '296 patent, your IPR clock is running (one year from service), and it is the only statutory deadline that matters here. Note also that because the '296 patent claims priority to 2001-11-01 (pre-AIA), the PGR window closed nine months after issuance on 2021-11-09 — IPR (and ex parte reexamination) are your remaining PTAB/Office vehicles. § 112 and § 101 are unavailable in an IPR.

Pattern signals. Flexiworld is a serial, high-volume litigant that runs a wide continuation strategy and rarely goes to FWD when a license is available — Roku wiped out three IPRs plus litigation for one license (IPR2022-01267 joint motion). It has litigated to FWD when the other side pushed (IPR2022-00775: Unified Patents lost on the merits after a full trial and oral hearing). Unified Patents appears in the chain as a defensive aggregator on the '257 patent — so aggregator interest in the Flexiworld portfolio exists, but not on the '296 patent. Flexiworld's counsel of record in the PTAB work is Nelson Bumgardner (Albritton/Conroy) P.C. (Brent Bumgardner, Charles Ginnings, T. William Kennedy), with Kolisch Hartwell prosecuting the family. I found no Federal Circuit appeal addressing the '296 patent.

The two levers that likely matter more than PTAB here:

1. Term. The authoritative patent text you supplied lists the '296 patent's legal status as "Expired - Fee Related" with "Anticipated expiration 2021-11-01." If accurate, the '296 patent expired roughly eight-and-a-half months after it issued (20 years measured from the 10/016,223 parent filed 2001-11-01). Combined with § 286's six-year damages lookback, a 2026-filed assertion would reach only a narrow pre-expiration damages window. Confirm the term calculation before spending a dollar on an IPR — a terminal-disclaimer/PTA/§ 120-benefit analysis in USPTO Patent Center is the first thing to do. (This is a data point from the provided record, not a legal conclusion.)

2. Priority / effective filing date. The '296 is not a clean continuation — it is a continuation-in-part of App. 16/200,380 (filed 2018-11-26) and App. 15/973,317 (filed 2018-05-07), and a continuation of 16/229,896 (filed 2018-12-21). Any claim directed to the touch-screen e-mail manage/reply functionality that lacks § 112 support in the 2000–2002 provisional/non-provisional chain gets a post-2013 effective filing date, which unlocks an enormous intervening-art universe (2007–2018 smartphone/e-mail UI art) and, potentially, FITF treatment. The Board's institution of PGR2021-00112 on precisely this "the claims eliminate a component the specification made essential" theory — with the PO conceding the fight is § 112(a) written description and § 101 — is the closest thing to a roadmap in this family.

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Recommended next steps

• No PTAB activity exists on US 10,915,296. Say it plainly in your invalidity narrative. The absence is a signal: this patent has apparently never been asserted (I found it in none of the Flexiworld complaints I reviewed — the Sony, LG, Hisense, Amazon, Roku, and Lexmark suits plead other family members), which is why no one has paid to IPR it. If you have received a demand citing the '296 patent, you may be among the first targets, and you may have a clean shot at the first-filer advantages.
• Before filing anything: verify the expiration date. Pull the Patent Center term calculation and any terminal disclaimer. If the '296 expired 2021-11-01 as the record indicates, build your strategy around a short, capped damages period, not around a $400K IPR trial.
• If you file an IPR, move within § 315(b)'s one-year clock from service. Grounds are limited to § 102/§ 103 on patents and printed publications. Good candidates carried over from Lexmark's and Roku's work: Chang-121 (US 2002/0083121), Yamaguchi, Kammer, Moore, Kemp, Keeney, Vatland, Olgaard, Moghadam, Acharya, Griffiths — but note the Yamaguchi prior-art-status fight Flexiworld has won before.
• Pair the IPR with a district-court § 112(a) written-description and § 101 attack, modeled on Roku's PGR2021-00112 petition and the Board's institution decision, which accepted the Rivera "conflation/elimination of an essential component" theory against the '903 specification. IPR cannot carry § 112; your Answer and SJ briefs can.
• Budget for settlement, not just adjudication. Flexiworld's demonstrated behavior (Roku global license, 2022-10-27) is to trade a portfolio-wide covenant for cash rather than litigate to judgment against a well-funded adversary. The Unified Patents loss in IPR2022-00775 tells you the claims are not paper — price accordingly.
• Monitor for a late-filed petition. If Flexiworld expands assertion of the '296 patent in 2026, expect a defensive aggregator or a co-defendant to file; a parallel IPR trial binds only its petitioner, so do not assume someone else's petition will save you.

Confidence and gaps. High confidence: zero proceedings on US 10,915,296 (ODP structured data + negative search). High confidence: IPR2022-00775 facts and outcome, and the Roku settlement terms as publicly docketed. Low confidence / unverified: the claim-level dispositions of IPR2021-00713, -00714, and the PGR2021-00111/-00112 FWDs, and the Lexmark IPR2023-00845/-00846 outcomes — these require direct retrieval from PTAB E2E and I have not confirmed them. I also did not find any CourtListener or Federal Circuit docket for an appeal of any Flexiworld FWD; absence of an appeal in my search is not proof none exists.

I'll research the assignment record for US 10,915,296 and the Flexiworld Technologies ownership chain.

Good leads. Let me dig deeper into the specific assignment record for this patent's application (16/444,261) and any post-issuance transfers.

Ownership Analysis — US Patent No. 10,915,296

Scope note up front: I was able to retrieve the Flexiworld family assignment pattern and the parties, but I was not able to retrieve the specific Assignment Center record (reel/frame) binding the '296 patent's own application (16/444,261) to Flexiworld. I flag that gap explicitly rather than inventing a reel/frame. What follows separates confirmed family records from the '296-specific record I could not verify.

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Inventors

• Both inventors are the same two individuals across the entire Flexiworld family (~40+ US filings tracing to the 2000–2001 priority applications). This is a two-person inventor team, not a corporate R&D lab — consistent with a founder-driven startup portfolio.
• No departure pattern. There is no evidence either inventor left Flexiworld within 12 months of filing, and there is no evidence of a subsequent fire-sale following inventor exit. William Ho Chang is still publicly identified as founder and president of Flexiworld Technologies and is prosecuting/asserting the family (see Flexiworld's own PTAB submissions, e.g. Patent Owner's Response, PGR2021-00112, filed via C. Austin Ginnings, Reg. No. 62,706). The usual "inventors depart → portfolio fire-sale" precursor is not present here.

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Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., Vancouver, WA (assignee of record; also seen as "Flexiworld, Inc.," Portland, OR, in an earlier/related registration). Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10915296/en and the family front pages, e.g. US 10,481,846 (Applicant: Flexiworld Technologies, Inc., Vancouver, WA).

• Primary line of business: Flexiworld was founded as a wireless/mobile computing technology developer — William Ho Chang built and managed a U.S. software engineering team, partnered with mobile phone companies, wireless carriers, and Asian chipset/maker firms, and pitched the company at the Silicon Valley "Gong Show" and the Northwest investment forum. Its present commercial posture, however, is patent licensing and enforcement, not product shipment. The company's own executive bio describes Chang as an inventor with "over 80 patents issued worldwide," and press coverage describes Flexiworld as "a specialist in wireless communication technologies" that sues (e.g., suits against HP Inc. and Lexmark). Source: https://www.flexiworld.com/about-us/executive-bio/ ; https://therecycler.com/posts/tech-innovator-sues-hp-inc/

• Product embodying the claims? I found no evidence of a currently shipped commercial product embodying the '296 claims. Flexiworld's public presence is licensing/inventor-bio oriented. On the record available, this is best characterized as an operating company that transitioned to a licensing/assertion model — not a classic acquired-and-shelled patent.

• Current status: Operating as a licensing/asserting entity (not dissolved, not in bankruptcy on any record I found). Notably, the '296 patent itself is expired: Google Patents lists it as "Expired – Fee Related," anticipated expiration 2021-11-01 — i.e., ~20 years from the 2001-11-01 priority filing, which ran out only a few months after the 2021-02-09 grant. https://patents.google.com/patent/US10915296/en

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Assignment timeline

Important finding: All Flexiworld-family assignment records I could retrieve are inventor → Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. conveyances. I found no assignment to any third party, no LLC shell, and no security interest for the family. For the '296 patent specifically, I could not retrieve the reel/frame of its own application (16/444,261); the entries below are the confirmed family records, which is the relevant chain of title context.

• Assignor: in every instance, the two named inventors, William Ho Chang and Christina Ying Liu (individually).
• Assignee: in every instance, Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. — the same entity from the first 2001 recording through the late continuations.
• Correspondent (attorney/agent of record): Not retrieved for these assignment recordations. I could not verify the recording correspondent on the family reels, so I cannot state the correspondent for the '296 patent without fabricating it. (Note: the attorneys appearing in the litigation are C. Austin Ginnings and Timothy E. Grochocinski of Nelson Bumgardner Conroy P.C., Orland Park, IL, and James M. Francis — but these are litigation counsel, not assignment correspondents, and I will not conflate the two.)
• Context for each: Internal/portfolio continuation assignment — inventor-to-employer conveyance to keep title clean in the original operating company. None is a fire-sale, securitization, transfer-to-asserter, or change-of-name event.

If you need the exact '296 reel/frame, run the patent/application lookup directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search field: patent number 10915296, or application 16/444,261). The '296 application was filed 2019-06-18, so a recording dated on/around that time is the one to look for; the family pattern above predicts another Chang & Liu → Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. assignment, not a transfer to a third party.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10915296
    2000 : Priority application filed by Chang and Liu
    2001 : Inventors assign rights to Flexiworld Technologies
    2019 : Continuation application 16444261 filed
    2021 : Patent 10915296 issued on Feb 9
    2021 : Patent term ends Nov 1

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The chain runs inventor → Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. at every recorded link (Reel 012325/0362, 028733/0064, 039816/0200, 042385/0202, 043675/0454, 046519/0534). There is no transfer to an "IP/Licensing/Holdings/Ventures" LLC, no single-member Delaware/Texas shell, and no registered-agent-service address. Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. is the original and remains the assignee.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (with qualification). Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. is not on the enumerated lists in the prompt (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation, Spangenberg entities), but it is a high-frequency patent plaintiff in its own right — a serial filer in W.D. Tex./E.D. Tex. against Amazon, Roku, Lexmark, Brother, Hisense, Sony, HP, and others. It therefore matches the "any entity surfaced by Unified Patents or RPX as a high-frequency plaintiff" prong. Unified Patents maintains a Flexiworld assignee page: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[10489096](/patent/10489096)-B2

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / not verifiable. I could not retrieve the assignment correspondents of record for the family reels, so I cannot state whether one attorney filed every recording. I am not listing the litigation counsel (Ginnings / Grochocinski) here, because litigation appearances are a different role from assignment recording and treating them as the same would be exactly the conflation the task warns against.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. There is a single substantive link (inventors → Flexiworld) repeated across continuations. No chain of successive LLC-to-LLC transfers within 24 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. Because there is no transfer to a third-party asserter, there is no assignment arranged within six months before a suit. Flexiworld asserts its own originally-held patents.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11, no Kodak/Nortel-type sale. No record found.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no upstream operating company transferring to a downstream NPE; Flexiworld is the original assignee and the asserter. This is a direct-assertion posture, not privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. (Unified and RPX appear only as adverse trackers/challengers, e.g., Roku's IPRs, not as assignees.)

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Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification: the assignment record itself is clean — a single inventor-to-company conveyance, Reel 012325/0362 (executed 2001-11-18) and its continuation counterparts (028733/0064, 039816/0200, 042385/0202, 043675/0454, 046519/0534), all naming Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. as assignee, with no shell LLC, no bankruptcy sale, and no privateering. That structure alone would read as an operating-company chain. The NPE call instead rests on signal #2: Flexiworld is a serial patent plaintiff that no longer ships an identified commercial product embodying the claims, asserting the family against Amazon, Roku, Lexmark, Brother, Hisense, Sony, and HP (one strong signal → moderate confidence). I deliberately stop at moderate and decline to call it "high confidence," because the ownership chain shows none of the classic shell/fire-sale/cascading-transfer tells, and because the '296 patent itself is expired ("Expired – Fee Related," anticipated expiration 2021-11-01) and, per the prior litigation section, was not identified as a patent-in-suit — so it functions as portfolio ballast rather than a live asserted asset.

Primary verification link: search patent 10915296 (or application 16/444,261) at the USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

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Contradictions / gaps flagged

1. Reel/frame for the '296 patent's own application not retrieved — I confirmed the family chain but not the '296-specific record. Do not treat any reel above as the '296 recording without verifying the specific patent number at Assignment Center.
2. Date discrepancy to be aware of (not a contradiction in the patent text): Google Patents shows priority date 2000-11-01 but an anticipated expiration of 2021-11-01. The 2021 date is consistent with a 20-year term measured from the 2001-11-01 actual filing of priority application 10/016,223 (per the patent's own "priority claimed from" entries). Either way, the '296 patent's enforceable term ended in November 2021, ~9 months after grant — which is why it plausibly never surfaced as a patent-in-suit in the litigation search.
3. My prior litigation section noted no confirmed suit naming the '296 patent. That remains consistent with the expiry finding here, but it is still an absence of evidence, not a verified negative.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 10,915,296 using USPTO and patent database sources.

Let me get the specific "References Cited" section from the patent's official pages.

Let me look for the actual "References Cited" list on the patent's Justia and Google Patents pages.

Prior-Art Analysis: US Patent No. 10,915,296

Bottom line up front — an important limitation

I was unable to retrieve the complete "References Cited" section of US 10,915,296 from the sources available to me (Google Patents, Justia, Espacenet, and general web search). I therefore cannot provide the per-reference § 102 anticipation analysis you asked for without fabricating the citation list, which I will not do.

What I can confirm is the patent's identity and prosecution family, one partially recovered prior-art reference, and the analytical framework that would govern anticipation. I also flag below a small internal inconsistency with the authoritative text.

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1. Confirmed identification of the patent (literal)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10915296/en (authoritative full text supplied)

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2. Contradiction / gap to flag explicitly

• The authoritative full patent text you supplied does not contain the "References Cited" section. It runs through the specification, classifications, and family but stops before the front-page reference list. Because you instructed me to prefer the authoritative text over search results, I must treat that list as not established by the authoritative source.
• Date inconsistency: the current task states "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while my operating environment indicates 2026-09-30. I note this per the "flag contradictions" rule; it does not affect the technical analysis.
• Do not conflate US 10,915,296 with the similar-looking Flexiworld patents that do appear in easily retrieved records — e.g., US 10,489,096, US 9,659,296, US 10,140,072, US 9,965,233, US 9,836,257, US 9,836,259. None of these is US 10,915,296, and none is automatically prior art to it (several are family members sharing the same 2000-11-01 priority, and thus are not § 102 prior art to this continuation).

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3. What I did recover (partial, and treated cautiously)

The only specific "References Cited"-type content I could surface for this patent came from the Justia listing for US 10,915,296, which reproduced a portion of the family's "Other References" / prosecution-history citations. The single clearly identifiable item was:

Non-patent literature reference (recovered):

• Albrecht et al., "IP Services over Bluetooth: Leading the Way to a New Mobility," IEEE (published in the IEEE Local Computer Networks / LCN conference proceedings, 1999).
  • Relevance: Describes delivering IP-based services (including messaging/e-mail and device access) over Bluetooth short-range radio. Given the '296 claims recite a mobile, wireless information apparatus with wireless communication circuitry coupling to a wireless LAN and an e-mail application on a touch screen, this reference is the type an examiner would cite for the wireless-networking / service-discovery aspects. However — critically — Albrecht (1999) predates the 2000-11-01 priority date and is therefore potentially available as § 102(b) art, but it would not disclose the touch-screen e-mail management/reply GUI, so on its face it would not anticipate the independent claims; it would at most support a § 103 combination. I cannot confirm from my sources whether the examiner applied it as § 102 or § 103 art, or whether it was only "listed but not relied upon."
• The same Justia excerpt referenced a European Patent Office Examination Report for EP application No. 01985549.3 (dated 10 Jan 2017). That is a prosecution document, not prior art, and EP 01985549.3 is the foreign counterpart of this same family — not citable art against the US patent.

I want to be explicit: the search results I obtained did not reproduce the patents/publications actually listed under "U.S. Patent Documents," "Foreign Patent Documents," and "Other Publications" on the '296 front page. I did not fabricate any citations to fill that gap.

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4. Framework for the § 102 analysis you requested (what would apply if the list is retrieved)

Because the '296 patent is a continuation claiming a 2000-11-01 priority, the governing prior-art date matters enormously:

• If the pre-AIA framework applies (priority 2000-11-01, before the AIA's 2013 transition): prior art includes § 102(a), (b), (e), and (g) art. A § 102(b) printed publication or patent dated before 1999-11-01 would be anticipating art regardless of the applicant's activity; § 102(e) would apply to US patents/applications with an effective filing date before the '296 invention date.

• For any cited reference, the anticipation test is strict: a single reference must disclose every limitation of the claim (arranged as claimed). The independent claims here (see Justia claim 15, reproduced in my earlier searches) require, in combination:

  1. a mobile, wireless information apparatus with a touch sensitive screen;
  2. operating system software with an API;
  3. an e-mail application with a GUI showing an inbox;
  4. done, reply, and delete function controls selectable over the touch screen;
  5. scroll up/down of e-mail content via the touch screen;
  6. wireless communication circuitry coupling to a wireless local area network; and
  7. (in method claims) establishing a radio-frequency wireless connection to a selected output device (TV, display, audio device, printer, output controller, or projector) for transferring digital content.

  A reference that lacks the touch-screen e-mail reply/delete GUI, or lacks the wireless-LAN + selectable output-device coupling, cannot anticipate — it could only be combined under § 103.

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5. Honest statement of what I could not do

Per your rules, I am stating this explicitly rather than guessing:

• I could not retrieve the enumerated prior-art citations for US 10,915,296. My searches for the "References Cited" tables returned unrelated patents' prosecution records (e.g., crib/haptic/Bluetooth-headset matters) rather than this patent's citation list.
• I therefore cannot truthfully assign "which claim(s) it potentially anticipates under § 102" to each reference, because I do not have a verified reference list to analyze.
• The Albrecht (1999) item and the EP 01985549.3 prosecution document are the only two items I can tie to this patent or its family, and only the former is even candidate prior art.

6. Recommended definitive checks (authoritative sources)

To complete the § 102 analysis properly, retrieve:

1. USPTO Patent Center / Patent Full-Text (patft) for US 10,915,296 — the front page "References Cited" block (U.S. Patent Documents, Foreign Patent Documents, Other Publications) and the Notice of Allowance / Examiner's Reasons for Allowance to see which references were relied upon versus merely listed.
2. The file wrapper for application 16/444,261 — to identify the parent applications' cited art (a continuation often re-cites the same references used against the parents).
3. Google Patents "Citations" tab and Espacenet "Cited documents" / "Citing documents" for the B2 publication.
4. Cross-check the related PTAB proceedings identified in the earlier litigation section (e.g., the Roku IPRs and Lexmark/Indeed matters) — those petitions sometimes analyze family-wide prior art that is equally relevant here.

Would you like me to attempt the specific USPTO Patent Center / Google Patents citations-tab retrievals for US 10,915,296 in a follow-up, so the per-reference § 102 chart can be built on a verified list?

I need to flag something important before analyzing: the patent text provided to me is truncated. It ends mid-sentence in the GUI description ("Options are provided to the user as whet...") and does not contain the "Prior Art," "Citations," "Cited By," or "Similar Documents" sections that Google Patents renders below the description. It also does not contain the actual claims. Let me try to retrieve those sections rather than invent them.

The search returned some reference lists. Let me try to retrieve the actual claims of US 10,915,296 B2 and its front-page references, since the supplied page text omits both.

I now have partial claim text. Let me retrieve the full claim set and the front-page references for US 10,915,296.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,915,296 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Threshold problem with this assignment (read first)

The instruction says to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." The page text supplied to me does not contain a Prior Art section. The Google Patents text provided is truncated mid-sentence in the GUI description ("Options are provided to the user as whet…"), i.e., before the "Citations," "Cited By," "Similar Documents," and "Prior Art" listings, and it also omits the claims entirely. I therefore could not "use" a section that was not supplied, and per your standing rule I will not invent its contents.

What I was able to retrieve through search, and what I rely on below:

Flagged contradiction: Google Patents states priority 2000-11-01 and anticipated expiration 2021-11-01; Unified Patents lists the priority date as 2000-10-31; uspto.report's legal-events table shows a lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees effective 2024-11-17. These do not reconcile cleanly. I am not resolving them — I'm reporting them literally, as instructed.

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1. What the claims actually cover

From the pre-grant publication of the same application 16/444,261 (claim wording/numbering in the granted patent may differ slightly; I could not retrieve granted claims 1–12 or 16–20 verbatim):

Representative claim 15 (non-transitory CRM / software-firmware):

• A mobile, wireless information apparatus with a touch sensitive screen, memory/storage, and wireless communication circuitry including one or more wireless units operable to couple to a wireless LAN;
• applications including e-mail, messaging, digital imaging, audio, video, document creation, and Internet browsing, plus OS software supporting an API for those applications to interface with device management applications, and support for user installation of additional applications;
• an e-mail application providing over the touch screen: an inbox, a done control/item, a reply control/item, and a delete control/item;
• receiving e-mails wirelessly; displaying e-mail content; receiving scroll up/down; receiving delete, done, and reply selections; initiating the reply in response to the reply selection;
• the apparatus being a smart phone, information pad, digital pad, e-book, Internet appliance, or digital camera.

Representative claim 13 (method): providing, on the touch screen, items related to wireless output devices; receiving a selection of an item; establishing a radio-frequency wireless connection to the selected device for transfer of digital content; where the device is a television, display device, audio output device, printer, externally-connectable output controller, or projector.

Claim 14: obtaining authentication/security information and enabling discovery/access based on successfully obtaining it.

So the claims are, functionally, a trisection: (i) a touch-screen mobile OS platform with installable apps, (ii) a conventional e-mail GUI (inbox/reply/delete/done/scroll), and (iii) short-range wireless discovery of, negotiation with, and output to peripheral/display/audio/printer devices.

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2. Legal framework

• AIA § 103 governs (application filed 2019-06-18, i.e., after 2013-03-16, and containing at any time a claim with an effective filing date on/after that date). The outcome would be identical under pre-AIA § 103 because the relevant art antedates even the earliest claimed priority.
• Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of claims, differences over prior art, PHOSITA level, secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007): combination of known elements is obvious where each element performs its known function and the combination yields predictable results; a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" (or an "obvious to try" design space with a reasonable expectation of success) defeats patentability; industry trends and market demand supply the motivation.
• PHOSITA here: a bachelor's in CS/EE plus ~2–3 years of experience in mobile computing, GUI/HCI, and short-range wireless communications, c. 2000.

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3. The decisive threshold issue: the effective filing date (this drives everything)

The '296 is a continuation-in-part filed 2019-06-18, claiming benefit back through US 15/332,432 → US 10/053,765 (filed 2002-01-18) → US 10/016,223 (2001-11-01) and US 09/992,413 (2001-11-18), with a stated family priority of 2000-11-01.

• If claims 13–15 are fully supported by the 2000/2001 specifications — and note that the '296's own description (supplied) discloses the "email application 302A1," a "touch-sensitive… screen," and a GUI in which a user "receives an email…" and selects a "print" control (FIG. 8A) — the claims get a 2000-11-01 effective date, and the art window is confined to pre-November-2000 references. That is exactly the window the front-page reference list occupies (see §4).
• If the applicants' 2019 CIP added any new matter essential to the touch-screen e-mail GUI limitations, then the claims are only entitled to 2019-06-18, and the entire 2001–2019 corpus becomes § 102(a)(1) prior art — including the family's own earlier published applications (US 2002/0051200 A1; WO 02/41107), the iPhone (2007) and Android (2008) e-mail clients, BlackBerry, Bluetooth Hardcopy Cable Replacement Profile, Apple AirPrint's predecessors, and the UPnP/DLNA stack. On that footing the claims are, in my assessment, plainly obvious.

This date question is the single highest-leverage § 103 issue and cannot be settled without the file wrapper's benefit claims and the examiner's Reasons for Allowance.

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4. The prior-art pool (as actually listed on the '296 front page)

uspto.report's partial render of the "References Cited" list yields a consistent body of 1998–2000 U.S. patents, e.g.:

5,852,721 (12/1998, Dillon et al.); 5,862,321 (1/1999, Lamming et al.); 5,907,831 (5/1999, Lotvin et al.); 5,911,044 (6/1999, Lo et al.); 5,916,309 (6/1999, Brown et al.); 5,917,542 (6/1999, Moghadam et al.); 5,926,104 (7/1999, Robinson); 5,930,466 (7/1999, Rademacher); 5,931,919 (8/1999, Thomas et al.); 5,933,498 (8/1999, Schneck et al.); 5,937,112 (8/1999, Herregods et al.); 5,940,843 (8/1999, Zucknovich et al.); 5,946,031 (8/1999, Douglas); 5,946,110 (8/1999, Hu et al.); 5,946,458 (8/1999, Austin et al.); 5,949,966 (9/1999, Hayashi); 5,949,978 (9/1999, Kondo et al.); 5,953,546 (9/1999, Okada et al.); 5,960,162 (9/1999, Yamamoto); 5,968,176 (10/1999, Nessett et al.); 5,970,473 (10/1999, Gerszberg et al.); 5,974,234 (10/1999, Levine et al.); 5,974,401 (10/1999, Enomoto et al.); 5,978,560 (11/1999, Tan et al.); 5,983,200 (11/1999, Slotznick); 5,987,454 (11/1999, Hobbs et al.); 5,993,047 (11/1999, Novogrod et al.); 6,003,065 (12/1999, Yan et al.); 6,006,265 (12/1999, Rangan et al.); 6,008,777 (12/1999, Yiu); 6,009,464 (12/1999, Hamilton et al.); 6,020,973 (2/2000, Levine et al.); 6,023,715 (2/2000, Burkes et al.); 6,034,621 (3/2000, Kaufman); 6,035,214 (3/2000, Henderson); 6,041,346 (3/2000, Chen et al.); 6,043,898 (3/2000, Jacobs); 6,046,820 (4/2000, Konishi); 6,061,142 (5/2000, Shim); 6,069,707 (5/2000, Pekelman); 6,070,185 (5/2000, Anupam et al.); 6,072,595 (6/2000, Yoshiura et al.); 6,076,076 (6/2000, Gottfrid); 6,076,109 (6/2000, Kikinis); 6,078,906 (6/2000, Huberman); 6,084,968 (7/2000, Kennedy et al.); 6,087,060 (7/2000, Chase et al.); 6,088,337 (7/2000, …); 6,618,039 (9/2003, Grant et al.).

Confidence caveat: I retrieved the numbers, dates, and first-named inventors of this list, but not the full list (it was truncated at the 2000 entries and cut off before any foreign references or NPL), and I did not verify the disclosures or titles of most of these patents. I therefore map categories, not holdings, below, and mark each mapping's confidence. The one NPL item I can identify with reasonable confidence from the family's prosecution listing is Albrecht et al., "IP Services over Bluetooth: Leading the Way to a New Mobility," IEEE — directly on point for the wireless discovery/negotiation elements.

The patent's own specification is also admission-against-interest prior art. It expressly acknowledges Bluetooth (including piconet master/slave topology and the 79-hop 2.4 GHz scheme), IrDA, HomeRF, IEEE 802.11, HiperLan2, and discovery protocols Jini, Salutation, Service Location Protocol, HAVi, and Universal Plug-and-Play — i.e., the entire "wirelessly discovering… available output devices" and "exchanging service information" architecture.

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5. Proposed § 103 combinations

Ground 1 — Touch-screen e-mail GUI + short-range wireless output (targets claim 15, and claim 13 as a whole)

• Reference A (e-mail/GUI half): a handheld computing device reference from the front-page list disclosing an e-mail client with an inbox and reply/delete/done controls on a touch-sensitive display — the "portable e-mail device / portable Internet access device" genre. The Palm OS / Palm VII (1999) and Windows CE / Handheld PC e-mail clients are the archetypes; of the cited patents, the handheld/portable-computing and remote-document-retrieval disclosures (e.g., Hobbs 5,987,454; Kikinis 6,076,109) are the closest structural analogues. Confidence: medium on the numbers, high on the general availability of such devices by 2000.
• Reference B (wireless output half): the Flexiworld family's own earlier disclosures plus the acknowledged Bluetooth/IrDA/802.11 specifications and the cited networked-printing/host-upload references (e.g., Hamilton 6,009,464; Chen 6,041,346; Yan 6,003,065; Levine 6,020,973 / 5,974,234). Confidence: medium.
• Motivation to combine: (a) both references address the same field (portable computing + digital output); (b) the combination is a mere aggregation of known elements each performing its known function — the e-mail GUI manages mail exactly as before, the wireless output module discovers/outputs exactly as before — the classic KSR rational; (c) industry trend: 1999 saw Bluetooth 1.0, 802.11b, and the first wireless handhelds, while printers/displays added network adapters; (d) market demand — the airport/kiosk/hotel printing scenario the Flexiworld family itself described, which is the very problem the reference combination is asked to solve. There is no teaching away.

Ground 2 — Driver-less, device-informed output conforming (targets the "conform the content into output data based on the received device information" limitation of claim 13)

• References: automatic printer-driver acquisition/installation art (Hamilton 6,009,464; Chen 6,041,346) + network/Internet print-job submission art (Anupam 6,070,185; Peckelman 6,069,707; Robinson 5,926,104; Austin 5,946,458; Yoshiura 6,072,595) + a wireless adapter substitution for the wired link (expressly suggested by the '296's own acknowledgment that "wired connections… may also be implemented" and vice versa).
• Motivation: replacing a wired transport with a known wireless transport is a predictable substitution of one known element for another yielding the expected result (KSR). Automatically fetching/installing the device-specific component from the device itself was already a known technique for eliminating manual configuration; applying it to a handheld with limited memory/storage (a problem the '296 itself acknowledges) supplies a strong articulated rationale.

Ground 3 — Attribute-matching / discovery negotiation (targets claim 13's "providing items related to wireless output devices" + discovery steps)

• References: Albrecht et al. (IEEE, Bluetooth IP services) for Bluetooth-based service advertisement and discovery; the Bluetooth Service Discovery Protocol; and the Jini / SLP / UPnP / HAVi / Salutation discovery frameworks the '296 admits are known. Device-capability negotiation and content adaptation to a receiver's attributes (resolution, color space, formats) was likewise standard in the networked-printing and device-to-device content-transfer art cited on the front page.
• Motivation: the claimed "receive an attribute → determine whether it matches a requirement → select → conform → transmit" loop is exactly the known service-discovery/negotiation paradigm; applying it to printers/displays/audio devices is the ordinary use of those protocols.

Ground 4 — Authentication (targets claim 14)

• References: Nessett 5,968,176 (security/authentication architecture) and Schneck 5,933,498; the '296's own specification discloses PIN, password, ID number, IP address, digital keys, and biometrics as authentication options, and admits that restricted-use printers requiring authentication are conventional.
• Motivation: adding a known access-control step to a known resource-selection workflow to protect restricted or fee-based services is an obvious, predictable application of a known technique (KSR).

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6. Element-by-element vulnerability of claim 15 (the broadest-looking claim)

The claim is, in substance, a conventional GUI plus a conventional short-range radio, arranged to do what each was already designed to do, with the output-target list drafted in the alternative ("at least one of a television, a display device, an audio output device, a printer, an output controller…, or a projector") — a form KSR treats as presumptively broad.

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7. Counterarguments Flexiworld would raise (and their likely weight)

1. Effective filing date / antedating (strongest defense). If claims 13–15 are supported by the 2000/2001 disclosures, the relevant art is confined to pre-Nov-2000; much of the "convergence" art (iPhone, Android, AirPrint) drops out. But the front-page references are precisely that pre-Nov-2000 art.
2. No single reference teaches the combination — rebutted by KSR; a combination need not be taught in one reference.
3. Secondary considerations. No evidence of objective indicia appears in the supplied materials; any reliance would require proof of nexus to the claimed combination (licensing revenue alone is weak, and the family's broad licensing program cuts against nexus to these limitations).
4. Claim construction. Terms such as "short range wireless communication" and "conform… into output data" could be pressed for narrowing constructions — but the specification's own broad definitions ("output data… may be specific data, instructions, page description language, markup language, graphics and/or image file format") cut against narrow construction.

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8. Litigation/validity posture (cross-reference to the earlier section — no contradiction)

The previously generated litigation section found no case or PTAB proceeding naming US 10,915,296 as patent-in-suit. That is consistent with what I observed. Two cautions:

• The Flexiworld cases were frequently amended and consolidated; the '296 is a member of the same sprawling family as the asserted patents (e.g., 10,481,846; 10,489,096 — a different patent; 9,965,233), so it could be added by amended pleading.
• The Flexiworld v. Indeed dismissal referenced in that section was a § 101 (Alice) ineligibility ruling on a different patent set (RE48,066 family). It is not a § 103 ruling and does not directly resolve the '296's § 103 exposure — though it signals that courts have viewed parts of this portfolio as claiming generic computer implementation of conventional activity, which is a § 101 risk that parallels the § 103 analysis above.

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9. Bottom line

On the record I could actually retrieve:

• My § 103 conclusion is that claims 13–15 would very likely be held obvious over (i) a handheld touch-screen device running a conventional e-mail client with inbox/reply/delete/done/scroll controls, in view of (ii) short-range wireless device discovery and content-output art (Bluetooth/SDP, IrDA, 802.11, and the networked-printing/driver-download references cited on the '296's own front page), with (iii) routine authentication added for claim 14. Each element performs its known function; the result is predictable; and the specification's own admissions supply much of the motivation.
• This conclusion is conditional on the effective filing date. If the claims are entitled to 2000-11-01, the analysis rests on the pre-Nov-2000 references catalogued above. If any essential touch-screen e-mail matter was added by the 2019 CIP, the claims become very strongly obvious over the 2001–2019 art, including the family's own publications.
• Confidence is limited because (a) the Prior Art section was not in the supplied page text, (b) I could not retrieve granted claims 1–12 and 16–20 verbatim, and (c) I did not verify the disclosures of most front-page references. I am not asserting any specific reference's holding.

To finalize, the documents needed are: the patent's PTO-892/IDS and the Examiner's Reasons for Allowance for the '296; the benefit/continuity record establishing which limitations first appear in the 2000/2001 specifications (i.e., whether the 2019 CIP added new matter); and any IPR/PGR petition (none located) for a petitioner's own ground mapping.