US 5307086

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 5307086 and check for any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me verify there is no litigation or CAFC activity involving this specific patent.

Summary — US Patent 5,307,086 (US5307086A)

Note on scope: I found no CAFC 2026 docket, appeal, IPR, or litigation involving patent 5,307,086. Searches returned only unrelated 2026 CAFC matters (e.g., Spero v. Mercedes-Benz USA, Nos. 2025-1306 et al.) and an unrelated 2026 ex parte reexamination of U.S. 8,532,286 — none of which concern the '086 patent. That is consistent with the patent's legal status: it is Expired – Lifetime, with an anticipated expiration of 2011-10-08, so it has been outside any enforceable/reviewable window for roughly 15 years. I could not locate any USPTO post-grant proceeding or Federal Circuit activity for this specific number.

Bibliographic data (confirmed via Google Patents, Espacenet, RPX/Insight)

Abstract (verbatim)

"A method of implementing a preview window in an object oriented programming system that includes an application having at least a first panel and a second panel that are selectively displayable on a display screen. The second panel displays underlying information and the first panel displays an abbreviated representation of the underlying information. The user can temporarily display a preview window that contains underlying information while viewing the first panel."

Independent claim — plain-language overview

The patent has 5 claims, of which only claim 1 is independent; claims 2–5 depend from claim 2, which depends from claim 1.

Claim 1 covers a computer-implemented method of viewing underlying information in an application that has at least two panels ("first" and "second") that are each separately displayable — but not simultaneously — on a display screen. The second panel shows the underlying (detailed) information; the first panel shows only an abbreviated/graphical representation of it. The method steps are:

1. Display the first panel (the abbreviated view) on the screen;
2. Open a preview window on the screen while the first panel continues to be displayed, in response to the user operating a selection device (e.g., pressing a mouse button over the abbreviated representation); and
3. Display the underlying information from the second panel in that preview window — without ever switching to/replacing the second panel.

In plain terms, it's the "press-and-hold to peek" interaction: instead of navigating from a summary view (e.g., a monthly calendar's busy-bar box) to a detail view (e.g., the daily panel's text entries) and back, the user pops up a transient window showing the detail over the summary view, then dismisses it.

Dependent claims (for completeness):

• Claim 2 — limits the pointing device to a mouse and the selection device to a mouse button, the trigger being a button press.
• Claim 3 — closes the preview window in response to releasing the mouse button.
• Claim 4 — keeps the preview window open with the underlying information until the mouse button is released.
• Claim 5 — ignores all user inputs until the mouse button is released.

Prosecution / prior-art context (relevant to the claim's scope)

• Examined citing (per Google Patents, "Citations"): US4464652, USRE32633E, US4587520, US4591840 (IBM — "Calendar event description abbreviation"), US4772882, US4896291, US5165012.
• Notably, the EP counterpart's search report (EP0537100A3) cited two IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin items as category "X" (i.e., directly anticipatory-type disclosures) against the counterpart claims: "Quick, Non-Obtrusive, Local Presentation of Truncated Data," IBM TDB vol. 34, no. 1, June 1991, pp. 360–361, and "Expanding Listbox Items in a Standard Presentation Manager listbox," IBM TDB vol. 34, no. 4B, September 1991, pp. 212–213. This suggests the U.S. claim set's scope was narrower than the originally filed/EU-considered subject matter, and that the "preview-on-demand, non-obtrusive local presentation of truncated data" concept was already known in IBM's own internal literature.

Forward citations of note

The patent is heavily cited (132+ "Cited By" entries). Representative notable citing documents include: Apple's US5457476/US5570109 (computerized organizer), Microsoft's US5640580/US5680629 (previewing computer output), IBM's US5936625 (monthly calendar with editable/magnified views), US8700996 (Corel, "Real time preview"), and Microsoft's later "document preview"/"calendar peek" families (e.g., US20060074869, US20140278666 "Enhanced calendar views with event peeks") — reflecting this patent's role as an early reference in the hover/peek-preview GUI lineage.

Uncertainty flags

• I could not access a live USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Assignment record directly; bibliographic data above is drawn from Google Patents, Espacenet, and RPX, which agree with each other and with the authoritative full text you provided.
• No CAFC 2026 docket found — I am reporting this as "not found," not as a definitive "no docket exists." A query directly against the CAFC's CM/ECF docket system or PACER by patent number would be needed to state that categorically, and given the patent's 2011 expiration, 2026 appellate activity is highly unlikely.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 5307086. Let me search multiple sources.

Initial results are unrelated (referencing other patents). Let me search litigation-specific databases.

No litigation results so far — all hits are for different patents (e.g., 7,627,708, 5,207,678). Let me run targeted searches on court/litigation databases.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 5,307,086

Bottom line: I found no litigation — no district court case, no ITC action, no PTAB proceeding, and no CAFC appeal — involving U.S. Patent No. 5,307,086. To the extent any case exists, it is not surfaced in the publicly searchable sources I was able to reach.

Patent identification (to confirm I searched the correct patent)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5307086](/patent/US5307086)/en

Cases I searched for but did NOT find (i.e., no case list to report)

Because no litigation exists in the record, I cannot provide the requested plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case-number/filing-date/status fields for any case. No case list follows.

What the searches actually returned (and why they are not this patent)

It is important to flag that several near-miss identifiers appear in the literature, and none of them relate to 5,307,086:

1. "708" confusion — U.S. Patent 7,627,708 ("USB multi-host device"). IPR2017-00861 and a related district court/CAFC record concern the '708 patent, which is a 7,xxx,xxx patent and a completely different invention. This is not U.S. 5,307,086.
2. "678" confusion — U.S. Patent 5,207,678. The CAFC opinion DePuy Spine, Inc. v. Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc. (Nos. 2008-1240, -1253, -1401) involves the '678 patent (pedicle screws). This is not U.S. 5,307,086.
3. Chewy, Inc. v. IBM Corp., No. 2022-1756 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 5, 2024) — an IBM patent assertion in the S.D.N.Y. involving web-advertisement "prefetching" claims. The asserted patents are not 5,307,086.

Each of these surfaced only because the numeric strings or the "IBM" party name overlapped; none asserts 5,307,086.

Why the absence of litigation is unsurprising

• The patent is a 1991-filing, 1994-grant IBM patent covering a UI convenience feature (pressing a second mouse button to temporarily preview underlying data). IBM was a practicing manufacturer, not an NPE, and the patent expired in October 2011, removing it as an assertion vehicle.
• The patent has an unusually large forward citation footprint (Google Patents lists it among the "Cited By" set of many later UI/preview patents) — but citation as prior art is not litigation and does not indicate any infringement suit.

Caveats — please read

• Absence of evidence is not proof of absence. My search was limited to the web-accessible sources I could reach. I was unable to directly query the Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), PACER, Docket Alarm, or CourtListener for the exact string "5307086" before running out of search steps; a couple of targeted queries returned no results.
• To be conclusive, the following should be run directly (I could not complete these):
  • PACER – Docket Search / "Patent" search on patent number 5,307,086 (all districts).
  • CourtListener / RECAP – https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%225%2C307%2C086%22
  • Unified Patents caselist – search by patent number.
  • USPTO PTAB (PTAB Center / Patent Center "Litigation" tab) for any IPR/PGR/reexam tied to the patent — none found in my searches.
  • ITC EDIS – Section 337 investigations.
• Given the patent expired in 2011 and its owner was IBM (which did not assert this patent in the cases surfaced), I assess it as very unlikely that any litigation exists.

Conclusion: Based on available information, no litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 5,307,086. If a specific case is suspected, provide the case number or party names and I can verify against the patent number directly.

I'll verify the structured-data default with targeted searches before writing the analysis.

Let me run a few more corroborating searches before concluding.

One more check on the foreign counterpart (adjacent post-grant activity) and on any litigation assertion.

AIA Trial Proceedings — US Patent 5,307,086 (Griffin & Keane, IBM)

Note on the structured source: the "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied with this prompt (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) lists no AIA trial proceedings for US 5,307,086. I attempted to corroborate that with web searches across PTAB decision repositories, PTAB E2E-style petition texts, CourtListener, and general docket searches. Nothing surfaced connecting this patent number to any IPR, PGR, or CBM — only unrelated 2026 matters (a Corning glass petition arguing discretionary denial of an expired patent, a StratosAudio Fintiv dispute, and a design-patent citation table that lists '086 as prior art). The default of "no PTAB activity on file" therefore stands. Details of what I did not find are flagged in the uncertainty section.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 5,307,086: 0 — zero active, zero with claims invalidated, zero with claims sustained, zero settled, zero institution denials. There is no PTAB proceeding to report on, and therefore no FWD to quote, no judge panel to name, no estoppel to map. The defensive posture this gives a defendant is not "hardened patent" or "dead claims" — it is "the patent is not, and cannot be, the subject of a PTAB fight, because it expired on 2011-10-08, roughly eleven months before the first IPR was even filed under the AIA." The absence of PTAB activity here is not a signal about the patent's strength; it is a signal about the calendar.

(No proceeding entries)

There are no proceeding sections to populate. Per the constraints of this task — do not invent proceeding numbers, do not attribute claim-level outcomes to decisions that do not exist — I am deliberately not manufacturing a "IPR20XX-XXXXX" header. If a demand letter or docket entry you have in hand cites a PTAB number against this patent, treat that citation as suspect and verify it before relying on it.

Strategic summary

Claim status: untested at the PTAB — all five claims are legally intact on the patent's face, but none are enforceable. No claim of US 5,307,086 has ever been canceled, disclaimed, or confirmed in an AIA trial. Claims 1–5 (claim 1 independent; 2–5 dependent through claim 2) stand as issued on 1994-04-26. That said, the operative fact is not claim survival — it is expiration. Google Patents records an anticipated expiration of 2011-10-08, and the patent's status is Expired – Lifetime; the UK IPO register for the family member EP0537100 shows the EP also lapsed (not in force as of 2012-09-24). The last possible date of direct infringement is 2011-10-08. Combined with the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year damages lookback, the last day on which a complaint could have reached back to any infringing act was approximately 2017-10-08. As of today (2026-09-29), no damages theory against this patent can reach a single accused act. Note the distinction for your file: the absence of PTAB proceedings is not evidence that the claims are strong — it is evidence that no one had a reason to file, because there was nothing left to clear and nothing left to collect.

Estoppel landscape: largely academic, but two real points. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only to petitioners who were parties to an instituted IPR. Because there are no petitioners, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel exists against anyone — every prior-art ground, including the IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin references the EPO examiners treated as category "X" against the EP counterpart ("Quick, Non-Obtrusive, Local Presentation of Truncated Data," IBM TDB vol. 34, no. 1 (June 1991), and "Expanding Listbox Items in a Standard Presentation Manager Listbox," IBM TDB vol. 34, no. 4B (Sept. 1991)), remains technically un-adjudicated and un-estopped. That is a rhetorical resource, not a practical one: even a fully successful invalidity challenge buys you nothing you don't already have for free from the expiration date and § 286. The second point is the mirror image — because no IPR ever issued an FWD, there is also no statutory disclaimer, no certificate of correction narrowing the claims, and no reexamination history; if you want claim-construction leverage, you will not find it in a PTAB record. You would look to the EP prosecution history and the UK/DE national files instead.

Pattern signals: none of the usual ones are present. No serial petitioner (no repeat filer, because no filer at all). No defensive aggregator in the chain — I found no Unified Patents, RPX, or similar challenge to this patent number. No patent-owner appellate aggressiveness — the family's litigation footprint is thin, which is consistent with an IBM-originated, never-asserted-offensively patent that instead accumulated value as a citation: 132+ "Cited By" entries including Apple's US5457476/US5570109 scheduler patents, Microsoft's US5640580/US5680629 "previewing computer output" patents, IBM's own US5936625 monthly-calendar patent, Corel's US8700996 "Real time preview," and Microsoft's later document-preview and "event peeks" families. In other words, the '086 patent functions today as prior art to other people's portfolios, not as an assertion instrument of its own. If a demand letter cites it, the more likely explanation is that whoever sent it scraped a citation list rather than read the front page — which is a useful tell about the sender.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and someone is asserting 5,307,086 against you today: the dispositive response is not an IPR petition — it is a 35 U.S.C. § 286 / expiration defense. Any accused act necessarily postdates 2011-10-08 (the patent was already expired), and any complaint filed after approximately 2017-10-08 cannot reach back to an in-term act. Because there is no Final Written Decision to link to, I am not going to link one; the supporting records are the patent's own legal-status entry (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5307086A](/patent/US5307086A)/en#legalEvents, "Expired – Lifetime," anticipated expiration 2011-10-08) and the UK register entry for the EP counterpart (https://www.search-for-intellectual-property.service.gov.uk/EP0537100, "Not in force," reason "Expired," not-in-force date 2012-09-24). Note that EP0537100B1 granted 1999-03-17; the nine-month EPO opposition window would have closed in December 1999, and I found no evidence of an opposition having been filed. I could not run the final confirmation search on EPO Register/opposition history before hitting my tool-call limit — verify that independently if the EP counterpart matters to your theory.
• If you are considering a defensive IPR anyway (e.g., to kill the citation value, or because a client insists): understand the posture before you spend. AIA trials became available 2012-09-16; this patent expired 2011-10-08. The Board retains authority to institute on expired patents, but the patent owner cannot amend, and discretionary-denial arguments aimed at expired patents are actively being pressed — the 2026 Corning petition in the search results argues that "expired patents do not implicate the right to exclude or the public's interest" and that this factor "weighs strongly in favor of discretionary denial." Expect a real § 314(a)/§ 325(d) fight over whether the Board should spend resources on a patent with no remaining exclusionary effect. Also note that CBM review was categorically unavailable here on two independent grounds: this is not a "covered business method" patent (it claims a GUI preview mechanism, not a financial product or service), and the CBM transitional program ran 2012-09-16 to 2020-09-16 — entirely after expiration. PGR was likewise unavailable, since the patent's 1991 priority date puts it well outside the AIA first-inventor-to-file regime, and PGR's nine-month window presupposes an issued patent still within its term.
• If no PTAB activity exists and nothing is being asserted: say so plainly, as I have. The absence of IPRs on this patent is not the usual "well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs" signal — the normal inference is defeated by the expiration date, which made a challenge economically pointless for roughly the last fifteen years. Do not let an adversary characterize the clean PTAB record as "the patent has survived every challenge"; it has never been challenged, and the reason has nothing to do with the strength of claims 1–5.

Uncertainty flags and verification trail

• Confidence: high that there are no AIA trial proceedings on US 5,307,086. The structured ODP list is empty, and multiple independent search angles returned nothing. I am reporting "not found / none on file," which is how the structured source should be characterized — I did not query PTAB E2E's search interface directly or pull a PACER docket, which would be the categorical confirmation. PTAB E2E public search: https://e2e.ptab.uspto.gov/ ; PTAB public decisions/information portal: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ .
• Not verified: whether any district court litigation ever named this patent. My searches surfaced none, but my final attempt to run a litigation-specific query was cut off by a tool-call limit before returning. Absent that check, treat "never litigated" as unconfirmed. CourtListener search for the number: https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%225307086%22 .
• Not verified: whether an EPO opposition was filed against EP0537100B1. The 1999 grant date means the window is long closed either way.
• General-practice point, flagged as such: the observation that expired patents can be subject to IPR but invite discretionary denial is drawn from the 2026 Corning petition text surfaced in my searches — that is a petitioner's argument, not a Board holding. Do not cite it as authority; cite the Board's own expired-patent decisions, which I have not verified case-by-case here.
• No contradiction found between the previously generated summary and the structured PTAB data: both recite an empty PTAB record and the 2011-10-08 expiration, which are mutually consistent and reinforce each other.

I'll verify the assignment record for US 5,307,086 before drafting. Let me query multiple sources.

I've exhausted my search budget. Here is the ownership report, bounded strictly by what I could verify.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 5,307,086

Verification sources actually reachable: Google Patents legal-events/assignment record for US5307086A (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5307086/en), Espacenet bibliographic record, and the authoritative full text supplied in this analysis. I could not directly query the USPTO Assignment Center UI or its public API (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/, mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — my only research tool in this session was general web search, and targeted queries for a reel/frame number for this patent returned either nothing or unrelated hits (e.g., a Japanese patent JP5307086B2, whose number string collides with this patent's grant number but which is an entirely different document — I am not treating it as a record for US 5,307,086). Treat every "not retrievable" note below as a genuine gap, not a negative finding.

Inventors

Unusual patterns: None observable. There is no evidence of either inventor departing IBM within 12 months of the 1991-10-08 filing date — but note the evidentiary limits: individual employment continuity is not something the assignment record discloses, and I found no public record (SEC filing, corporate history, news) bearing on either inventor's tenure. I am reporting "no evidence of departure," not "both remained at IBM," because I cannot distinguish the two.

The specification corroborates IBM employment contextually: the preferred embodiment is written for OS/2 Presentation Manager with Smalltalk/V PM (Smalltalk/V is a Digitalk trademark), and the inventors' code extension is written against IBM's SubPane/ApplicationWindow/Window class hierarchy — i.e., this was an internal IBM software-development effort, not an outside inventor submission. Address/state of residence of the inventors is not stated in the record.

Original assignee

International Business Machines Corporation ("A CORP. OF NEW YORK"), Armonk, New York.

• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear / likely in part. IBM was unquestionably an operating company — OS/2 (including Presentation Manager) was a shipping IBM product line in the 1991–1994 window, and the specification describes an "electronic calendar application" built on that platform. However, the record I could reach does not identify a named commercially released IBM calendar product and does not establish that the claimed press-and-hold preview feature shipped in a GA product. The patent's own Figures 1–3 depict a calendar application, and the source code listing is a working implementation, so the feature was at minimum reduced to practice internally.
• Primary line of business: Computer hardware, software and IT services — at the relevant time, also the world's largest single recipient of U.S. patents.
• Current status: Operating. IBM remains an active publicly traded company. Critically for this analysis, IBM is not an entity that "went away" — so none of the classic post-operating-company transfer triggers (dissolution, Chapter 7/11, asset wind-down) applies to the original assignee.
• Cross-reference attempted: I searched for an SEC 10-K/8-K divestiture or portfolio-sale disclosure implicating this patent and found none. IBM has historically monetized patents through licensing and through large portfolio sales (e.g., later-era transactions), but nothing surfaced tying 5,307,086 to any such transaction. Google Patents records no reassignment for this patent after the original 1991 record — which, if accurate, means IBM held it to expiration.

Assignment timeline

One (1) recorded assignment exists in the records I could reach. Beyond that, the chain is empty.

• 1991-10-08 (executed) / recorded 1991-10-08 — Reel not retrievable / NNNNNN:NNNN unavailable (see caveat)
  • Conveyance: Assignment — "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST." (per the Google Patents legal-events entry)
  • Assignor: GRIFFIN, DAVID L.; KEANE, PATRICK J.
  • Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION, a corporation of New York
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable. The Google Patents legal-events summary does not surface the recording correspondent, and I could not reach the Assignment Center record itself. I will not guess at an attorney or firm name for a 1991 IBM in-house filing. This means signal #3 below cannot be evaluated — it is a data gap, not a negative.
  • Context: Original employment/assignment-of-inventors-rights transfer at filing. Routine, contemporaneous with the application filing date (application 07/772,801) — i.e., the inventors assigned before/at filing, which is standard corporate practice, not a fire-sale or reorg event.

Post-issuance assignments (1994-04-26 onward): none found. No assignment to any LLC, holding company, aggregator, or litigant appears in the accessible record. Google Patents' legal-event timeline for this patent shows only: application filed (1991-10-08), assignment to IBM (1991-10-08), foreign priority filings (1992-08-12 JP; 1992-09-25 DE/EP/SG), grant (1994-04-26), and anticipated expiration (2011-10-08). Foreign family members (EP 0537100 B1, DE 69228645 T2, JP H0778715 B2, SG 42863 A1) likewise show no assignment activity in the reachable data.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5307086
    1991 : Application filed Oct 8
         : Inventors assign rights to IBM
    1992 : Foreign family filed in JP EP DE SG
    1994 : Patent issued Apr 26 to IBM
    2011 : Patent expires Oct 8
         : No reassignment ever recorded

NPE / troll-pattern signals

All signals are scored against the record above. Because there is only one assignment (the original corporate one), most signals are structurally inapplicable — and I am labeling them accordingly rather than stretching.

Verdict

Insufficient data — the chain consists of only the original assignment.

Justification: the sole recorded transaction is the inventors' rights assignment to International Business Machines Corporation executed and recorded 1991-10-08, contemporaneous with application 07/772,801's filing date (Google Patents legal events, https://patents.google.com/patent/US5307086/en). No post-issuance assignment, no LLC transferee, no aggregator, and no asserter appears in any reachable record through the patent's 2011-10-08 expiration — which is exactly the "only the original assignment" case the rubric maps to Insufficient data. That said, the practical reading is benign rather than suspicious: ownership never left IBM, so there is no transfer-to-asserter, no cascading shell chain, and no pre-litigation assignment to flag, consistent with the earlier findings of no litigation and no CAFC activity.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 5307086 (or by application 07/772,801). If a live query there returns additional records beyond the 1991 IBM assignment, those records would supersede this section.

Residual caveats (please carry forward):

1. I could not retrieve the reel/frame or the recording correspondent for the 1991 assignment; the required "Reel NNNNNN/NNNN" field is therefore reported as unavailable rather than estimated.
2. Absence of post-issuance assignments is reported as not found in the accessible record, not as a certified negative. Conclusive confirmation requires a direct Assignment Center / Patent Center query, which this session's tooling could not perform.
3. Cross-reference conflict check: the earlier "Patent summary" and "Litigation summary" sections both concluded no CAFC/PTAB/litigation activity and an Expired–Lifetime status; this assignment analysis is consistent with both — no contradiction found.

I'll research the USPTO data and the specific prior-art references cited against US 5,307,086.

Let me gather details on each cited reference and the EP search report.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,307,086

Query executed literally against "5307086" (no auto-correction). The USPTO/Google Patents/Espacenet records for 5,307,086 (method of implementing a preview window in an object oriented programming system; IBM; filed/priority 1991‑10‑08; granted 1994‑04‑26; Expired – Lifetime 2011‑10‑08) all resolve to the same document and were used as the reference point. The prior-art below is the References Cited field appearing on the face of the patent (the seven U.S. patent documents the examiner listed), not the 130+ "Cited By" forward citations — those are later documents that cite this patent and are not prior art to it.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5307086/en · https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/biblio?CC=US&NR=5307086 · https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0537100A3

1. The seven references of record (prior art cited on the face of '086)

2. Anticipation assessment under 35 U.S.C. § 102

Bottom line: no single reference of record anticipates any claim of 5,307,086 in its entirety. Each cited reference supplies at most one element of independent claim 1:

• Claim 1 (independent) requires the combination of: (a) two panels, separately — not simultaneously — displayable; (b) the first panel showing an abbreviated representation; (c) opening a preview window while the first panel continues to be displayed, in response to operation of the selection device; and (d) displaying the underlying information from the second panel in that preview window.
  • US 4,591,840 (element b) and US 5,165,012 (element c) are the two references closest to a § 102 attack, but neither discloses (c)+(d) together — i.e., a transient preview of the second panel's underlying data over the still-rendered first panel. Individually, each fails the "arranged as in the claim" test (Net MoneyIN v. VeriSign) because every element is not disclosed.
  • US 4,587,520 and US 4,896,291 touch only navigation/selection elements.
• Claim 2 (depends from 1) — US 4,464,652 / RE32,633 disclose the mouse-plus-button hardware but nothing about the preview behavior; they cannot anticipate claim 2 because claim 2 incorporates all of claim 1.
• Claims 3, 4, 5 (all ultimately depend on claim 1 via claim 2) — no cited reference discloses closing/keeping-open the preview window or ignoring user input until the button is released. No § 102 anticipation.

So the seven references functioned as background/contextual art (§ 102(b) general-art and § 103 motivation evidence), consistent with the patent issuing.

3. The references that are actually the strongest § 102 candidates (non‑U.S.‑face art)

These did not appear on the U.S. face but were cited as category "X" (most relevant) in the EP counterpart's search report (EP 0 537 100 A3) against the corresponding claims. If the goal is "most relevant prior art for the '086 subject matter," these outrank every U.S. reference above:

1. "Quick, Non‑Obtrusive, Local Presentation of Truncated Data," IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol. 34, no. 1, June 1991, pp. 360–361.
2. "Expanding Listbox Items in a Standard Presentation Manager Listbox," IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin, vol. 34, no. 4B, September 1991, pp. 212–213.

Both were cited X (single-document relevance) against the EP claims — i.e., the examiner viewed them as directly bearing on "non‑obtrusive local presentation of truncated/abbreviated data," which is precisely the core of claim 1. This is the strongest § 102 signal in the whole family, and it is worth flagging that the U.S. claim set appears to have been narrowed relative to the EP-filed subject matter, since these X references did not prevent U.S. issuance. (Note: these TDB items are journal publications, not "patent citations," so they are outside the literal "patent citation" set you asked for, but they are the most legally relevant art and should not be omitted.)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/EP0537100A3

4. Caveats / confidence

• Reference list source: the seven U.S. citations above are taken from the References Cited field shown on the patent/Google Patents and Espacenet records. I was not able to open the live USPTO PatentCenter file-wrapper "References Cited" tab in this session; the Google Patents and Espacenet records agree with each other and with the authoritative full text you supplied, but a definitive check of the examiner's original PTO‑892 list (and any references considered but not printed) would require PatentCenter direct access.
• "Anticipation" determinations are provisional and made on the face of the references as summarized here; full-text verification of US 4,591,840, US 4,587,520, and US 5,165,012 (e.g., their drawing-level disclosures of any pop-up/overlay behavior) would be needed before relying on this assessment.
• No litigation/PTAB/CAFC matter involving 5,307,086 was located (consistent with the earlier litigation section); this does not change the prior-art analysis.
• I interpreted the identifier literally as 5,307,086 / US5307086A and did not substitute any similar number.

I'll ground this analysis by verifying the key prior-art references cited on the page before building the § 103 combinations.

I have the key confirmations. Let me verify the two most important reference disclosures before building the combinations.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,307,086 (Griffin & Keane, IBM)

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre-AIA, as the application was filed 1991-10-08)

Building on the prior sections (bibliography, claim overview, and the no-litigation finding), this section addresses only § 103. Note at the outset a distinction the earlier summary implied but did not stress: the claims recite a method of viewing information, not an object-oriented implementation. The OOP subject matter is confined to the title, abstract, and written description. Because the claims never require OOP, "object oriented programming" cannot supply patentable weight under § 103 — the analysis turns on the GUI interaction alone.

1. Legal framework and level of ordinary skill

• Governing law: The application was filed 1991-10-08, before the AIA's first-inventor-to-file provisions took effect (2013-03-16), so pre-AIA § 103(a) applies. The Graham v. John Deere factors (scope/content of prior art, differences, PHOSITA level, secondary considerations) govern, informed by KSR Int'l v. Teleflex (obvious to try / predictable combinations of known elements) and the In re Bergel line on analogous art.
• PHOSITA: A software developer with ~2–3 years' experience building GUI applications on a windowing platform (the patent itself names OS/2 Presentation Manager), including familiarity with mouse-driven selection, pop-up/pull-down windows, and electronic calendaring. This is a low-skill, well-populated art.
• Critical date: 1991-10-08. Everything cited on the page predates it.

2. The prior art of record (as listed on the patent page)

Prosecution gap worth flagging: the U.S. examiner cited only the seven U.S. references above — the two IBM TDB items were never placed in the U.S. record, even though the EP search report (EP0537100A3) rated the first as category X against EP claims 1, 2, 4–7, 9, 10. The closest art therefore appears to have escaped U.S. consideration.

3. Claim 1 — element-by-element mapping

Every element of claim 1 is accounted for by two primary references plus a routine mouse reference. Claim 1 is therefore the classic KSR fact pattern: a known two-panel calendar (US4591840) + a known on-demand pop-up for abbreviated/truncated data (TDB), joined by a known mouse (Apple art).

4. The principal combinations

Combination 1 (strongest): US4591840 + IBM TDB "Quick, Non-Obtrusive, Local Presentation of Truncated Data" (+ US4464652/USRE32633E)

• What each supplies. US4591840 supplies the environment of claim 1 almost verbatim: a monthly panel whose cells carry one-character abbreviations, and a day screen carrying the unabbreviated descriptions from which the abbreviations are "directly translated" (so the monthly panel literally "displays an abbreviated representation" of the day panel's "underlying information"). The TDB supplies the preview step: pointing at a displayed truncated element brings up a temporary pop-up window showing the non-truncated content. US4464652/USRE32633E supplies the mouse.
• Motivation to combine. (a) Same field and same problem — both address the difficulty of reading abbreviated/truncated data on a crowded display. (b) US4591840 itself explains that a lone "I" is ambiguous absent context; the TDB's express purpose is to resolve exactly that ambiguity locally and non-obtrusively. (c) The combination is a mere substitution of one known data-retrieval UI for another in a known calendar — a predictable use of prior-art elements for their established function (KSR). No new structural or functional relationship is created, and the applicant's own background section concedes the alternative (navigate month→day→month) was the pre-existing, slower approach.

Combination 2: US4591840 + US5165012 (+ US4464652)

• US5165012 teaches surfacing information from a second process/screen "without ending the current display process" and keeping it current — i.e., the "continue displaying the first panel while showing a window with the second panel's content" limitation — and it is calendaring-adjacent (reminders/scheduling), making it plainly analogous art.
• Motivation: both references target the same user need — obtaining detail without abandoning one's place in the current view. A POSITA seeking to avoid the "go back and forth… re-establish his orientation" problem recited in the '086 background would look precisely to Comshare's "without ending current display" teaching.

Combination 3: US5165012 + IBM TDB "Expanding Listbox Items in a Standard Presentation Manager listbox" (+ US4464652 / US4896291)

• The listbox TDB supplies the in-place expansion of a truncated item (the "abbreviated representation → underlying information" transformation), US5165012 supplies the non-terminating overlay window, and US4896291 supplies pointer-invoked GUI tooling. This is a fully self-sufficient three-reference combination that does not even need US4591840's calendar.

Combination 4 (the "press-and-hold" framing): any of the above + US4587520 / US4772882 / US4896291

• US4587520 (cursor-controlled page selection), US4772882 (cursor-driven pop-up interface) and US4896291 (pointer-invoked modal tool) all evidence that cursor-driven, transient on-screen selections were routine in the art, supplying the "in response to operating said user operable selection device" step and the temporary, dismissible nature of the window.

5. Dependent claims 2–5

Claims 3–5 are the natural, predictable consequences of implementing claims 1–2 with a momentary mouse-button interaction — precisely the kind of "predictable variation" that KSR holds obvious. The specification itself concedes the purpose of claim 5's capture ("for the sake of stability") is an ordinary implementation choice, not an inventive insight.

6. Motivation-to-combine rationale (articulated)

1. Same problem, same field. All principal references concern reducing the cost of reading abbreviated/truncated data on a constrained display; calendaring and listbox/data-field display are analogous arts (a POSITA working on an e-calendar UI would readily consult general GUI "show full value" techniques).
2. Express teaching in the art. The TDB's title and content state the objective — present truncated data quickly, non-obtrusively, locally. That is a direct teaching to do what claim 1 recites.
3. Predictable result. Combining US4591840's two-panel calendar with a temporary pop-up yields nothing more than the expected sum of the parts; there is no unexpected result, no criticality, and no new operability.
4. Design incentive / market pressure. The '086 background itself describes the long-standing annoyance of mode-switching between month and day views — an articulated need that supplies the "reason to combine" independently of the references.

7. Anticipated rebuttals and why they likely fail

• "The TDB shows a truncated field, not a panel." Fair as to § 102, but irrelevant to § 103: claim 1's "panel" is just a displayable view; US4591840 supplies genuine panels, and the TDB supplies the preview step. The two-reference combination covers every element.
• "US5165012 suspends the first application, whereas claim 1 continues to display the first panel." The reference's stated purpose — showing secondary information without ending the current display process — teaches the claimed result even if its claim 1 recites suspension; a POSITA would read the disclosure, not merely its claim.
• "Non-analogous art." Calendaring, listboxes, and truncated-field presentation are all "electronic display of abbreviated data" — reasonably pertinent to the problem, satisfying the analogous-art test.
• "No suggestion to combine." KSR forecloses a rigid TSM requirement where, as here, the combination is of familiar elements according to known methods yielding a predictable result.

8. Secondary considerations

None are apparent from the record. The patent is Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2011-10-08), there is no identified litigation, licensing, or industry-praise evidence, and the earlier section found no CAFC/PTAB activity. The only candidate — the background's recital of user frustration with month↔day mode-switching — cuts against the patent, because it establishes a known, articulated problem the prior art (TDB, US5165012) had already begun to address.

9. Conclusion

U.S. 5,307,086 would have been obvious under pre-AIA § 103(a). The strongest single showing is:

US4591840A (two-panel electronic calendar; monthly abbreviations translated from day-screen descriptions) in view of IBM TDB vol. 34, no. 1 (June 1991), pp. 360–361 ("Quick, Non-Obtrusive, Local Presentation of Truncated Data" — temporary pop-up showing non-truncated content of a pointed-at truncated field) in further view of US4464652A/USRE32633E (mouse cursor control).

That combination discloses every element of claim 1; claims 2–5 add only the predictable, well-known momentary-mouse-button implementation. Alternative, self-sufficient combinations exist — notably US5165012A + the PM-listbox TDB + US4896291A, which do not depend on US4591840.

Caveats: (i) The TDB and Japanese family references' full texts were not directly inspected; the TDB's substance is quoted from the EP counterpart's granted specification (EP0537100B1 ¶[0005]) and the EP search report's category-X entry, both of which I treat as reliable secondary evidence of content. (ii) I did not verify the three Japanese family citations (JPH02306334A, JPH0343825A, JPH03113629A), which may add further § 102/§ 103 art if English translations exist. (iii) Obviousness is a legal conclusion; this is a technical analyst's assessment, not a legal opinion.