US 5535388

I'll search for the specific patent number and any related litigation/docket activity.

Search results for U.S. Patent No. 5,535,388

Search caveat up front: My live searches for "5535388" / "US5535388" against USPTO and CAFC sources returned no docket or litigation hits for this specific number. The only substantive match was the Google Patents page for US5535388A itself. I found no CAFC 2026 docket, IPR, or district-court action involving this patent, and I cannot confirm one exists. Also note: several PTAB documents reference a different "'538 patent" (a semiconductor fault-detection/weighting patent) — that is not US 5,535,388 and should not be conflated. The summary below is grounded in the authoritative full text supplied for US5535388A.

Bibliographic data

Abstract (as published)

"A process managing apparatus in a computer system for supporting an information processing system development. This process managing apparatus comprises a combination defining information storing unit for storing information defining a predetermined combination of process management information for managing processes of the information processing system development; a process management information acquiring unit for acquiring process management information in accordance with a process for creating specifications such as drawings and documents; and process management information editing unit for selecting and editing predetermined process management information from among said acquired process management information on the basis of said combination defining information."

Plain-language overview of each independent claim

Claim 1 — Apparatus (data-collection/editing system for software development)
An apparatus that automatically gathers and formats management data while developers work, rather than by counting finished program lines. It comprises six cooperating parts:

1. Storage means that holds (a) the set of management data items to collect — document ID, operator name, date/time and work-amount information — and (b) editing rules defining the output format.
2. Destination storing means holding information specifying where the collected items go, across multiple destination storage units.
3. Specification means that emits both the generated specification documents and the designated management data items concurrently while operators create the documents.
4. Management information acquiring means that monitors the specification means and collects the emitted data items.
5. Management information editing means that edits collected items per the stored editing rules and stores them in the destination storage units periodically.
6. Storing time means defining when the edited data is written, connected to at least one of the destination storage units and the editing means so that storing occurs at the designated times.

Drafting note: the claim introduces "a storing time means" but its enabling clause refers to "said timing means," which has no explicit antecedent — a claim-drafting quirk worth flagging, though it doesn't change the substance. A similar quirk exists in Claim 1's recital of "each specification documents ... locations."

Claim 2 — Time accounting method (programmer time tracking)
A method for accounting for programmers' time across multiple operators. Steps:

1. Store a designation of the management data items to collect: identification of each created program/specification document; each operator's name; the time periods worked on each; and the amount of work on each.
2. With multiple operators creating programs and specification documents on an information-processing system, concurrently while each operator creates a specification document, monitor the system and, during creation, acquire the name, time period, work amount, and document identification.
3. Do the same acquisition concurrently while each operator creates a program.
4. Store the acquired items in computer memory.
5. Reformat the stored items for the plurality of operators/programs/documents according to preselected, process-manager-defined format rules.
6. Store the formatted items in multiple computer storage units according to a designated location for each item.
7. Store a plurality of designated storage times and write the items to the storage units at those designated times.

Claim-family / prior-art context

• Cited prior art (examiner) includes: US3740759 (Alcotronics, time accounting); US3838396; US3815104; US4432051 (Honeywell, process execution time accounting); US4536646 (Celedata, time accounting); JPS61194532A (Toshiba, software development process control) — the reference the specification criticizes for counting program lines; US4751635 (Bellcore, distributed management support system); US4853873 (Hitachi, knowledge information processing).
• Non-patent citation: Baker, M.D., "Implementing an Initial Software Metrics Program," 1993 IEEE.
• Distinctive point of novelty versus the prior art, per the specification: (1) works for specifications/documents, not just program line counts; (2) the kinds of collected data are process-manager-specifiable; (3) the destination storage unit is freely specifiable; and (4) the storage time is freely settable (the "third register" embodiment of FIG. 6A).

Uncertainty flags

• I could not independently verify the bibliographic data through a live USPTO or CAFC query; the data above comes from the authoritative patent text provided, which shows the same values. No CAFC 2026 (or other) docket activity for 5,535,388 was found — treat any absence as "not found in my search," not as proof of no activity.
• Google Patents lists both a 1994-06-09 filing date and a 1991-08-21 priority date; the application is expressly a continuation of the 1992-08-06 application, so the 1991-08-21 date is the effective priority (JP filing), and the 1994 filing is the continuation date.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5535388 across multiple sources.

Initial searches returned unrelated matches for the numeric string. Let me search patent-specific litigation databases.

Litigation Search Report: US Patent No. 5,535,388

Patent identified: US 5,535,388 A — "Apparatus for dynamically collecting and editing management information during a software development process"

• Inventor: Shigeru Takeda; Original/Current Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd.
• Priority date: Aug. 21, 1991 (JP 3-234038); Continuation of US App. Ser. No. 07/926,342 (filed Aug. 6, 1992)
• Granted: July 9, 1996; Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration July 9, 2013, with maintenance fees paid through the 12-year window in Dec. 2007)

Conclusion: No litigation found

I could not locate any federal district court, ITC, PTAB, or CAFC proceeding in which US 5,535,388 was asserted, challenged, or otherwise at issue. To the extent public records reflect the patent's full history, it appears never to have been litigated.

Sources checked and what they returned

The patent's citation record shows later patents that cite US 5,535,388 (e.g., US 5,745,686; US 5,819,270; US 5,878,262; various Accenture "netcentric" architecture patents), but being cited as prior art is not litigation — I did not treat any of these as an infringement suit, and the provided record identifies them only as citations, not adversary proceedings.

Important conflict/verification note (per your STRICT RULE)

Several searches returned the digit string "5535388" in unrelated contexts, which must not be attributed to this patent:

• JP5535388U / JPH01159325U — a 1988 Japanese utility model for a flexible tube / cable machine. Different document type and jurisdiction; not US 5,535,388.
• A Brazilian TRF-3 court document listing "ID nº 5535388" (a procedural filing ID) and a Chinese judgment citing organization code "5535388-2" (Yichun Womou Industrial Co.). Both are coincidental numeric matches.
• Page/figure numbers "5535388" in an unrelated genomic/chemical patent PDF (AU 2004284945 B2).

None of these involve US 5,535,388.

Caveats on completeness

• No live litigation-database queries completed successfully. My searches of the Unified Patents litigation portal, CourtListener/RECAP, Justia, and PACER were either not fully retrieved or returned only unrelated Hitachi matters (e.g., the 2011–2013 Hitachi LCD antitrust/indirect-purchaser MDL, and Synchrome v. Hitachi America in N.D. Ga., 2009 — none of which asserted US 5,535,388).
• Because the patent expired July 9, 2013, and is a continuation with a 1991 priority date, any litigation would necessarily predate expiration; older cases (1996–2013) are not exhaustively indexed in free databases.
• I could not confirm an authoritative "no litigation" flag from a single litigation-specific registry. Recommendation: to make this determination conclusive, run the patent number directly through Unified Patents PORTAL, LexMachina/PatSnap, Docket Navigator, or PACER filtering by the E.D. Tex., D. Del., N.D. Cal., N.D. Ill., and C.D. Cal. dockets.

Bottom line: Based on the sources retrievable here, I found no known litigation involving US 5,535,388. I cannot affirm this represents an exhaustive search of all paid/older litigation databases, and I am flagging that uncertainty explicitly rather than asserting a definitive negative.

PTAB Proceedings — U.S. Patent No. 5,535,388

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for US 5,535,388 — no institution decisions, no final written decisions, no terminations — and my independent web searches across PTAB decision sources, Docket Alarm, and Google Patents' "Cited By" / litigation tables surfaced nothing involving this number. There is therefore no "claims canceled / claims sustained" breakdown to report: the patent stands untested at the PTAB, and, critically, it is long expired, which frames the defensive posture below.

Caution on look-alike hits — do not conflate these with US 5,535,388. My searches returned several proceedings and documents referencing a different "'388 patent." These are not this patent:

None of these shares a specification, priority claim, or claim set with the Hitachi patent. Any briefing or demand letter you receive that cites "the '388 patent" should be checked for the full seven-digit number before you assume it refers to US 5,535,388.

Per-proceeding detail

None to report. No proceeding number exists to cite, and I will not invent one. For completeness, the disposition of each requested field is:

• Type: — (no IPR / PGR / CBM on file)
• Filed: —
• Status: —
• Judge panel: — (no APJ panel has ever been assigned)
• Petition grounds: —
• Institution decision: —
• Final Written Decision: —
• Settlement / termination: —
• Appeal: — (no FWD to appeal; no CAFC docket identified for US 5,535,388)
• Defensive value: see below

The absence is not an artifact of a bad query on my end; it is consistent with the patent's age and status. Two structural facts explain it:

1. AIA trials only became available on 2012-09-16 (first IPR petition: Garmin v. Cuozzo, IPR2012-00001).
2. US 5,535,388 expired on 2013-07-09 (20 years from the 1991-08-21 priority date, per the anticipated expiration legal event in the structured data). Its entire post-AIA-trial life was a ~10-month window in which the patent was already in its final year and, critically, could not support a live infringement action for most of that period.

A PGR was never available (the patent's claims have a pre-March-16-2013 effective filing date). A CBM was never a fit (the claims are directed to software-development process management, not "a financial product or service," so AIA § 18 eligibility would have failed at the threshold). That leaves IPR as the only theoretical vehicle — and no one filed one.

Strategic summary

Claim status: both claims UNTESTED. Claims 1 (apparatus) and 2 (time-accounting method) of US 5,535,388 have never been challenged in an AIA trial, never been canceled, and never been amended. There is no IPR certificate cancelling any claim, and no FWD holding any claim patentable over specific art. Unlike a patent that has been "hardened" by surviving PTAB review, this patent's validity has simply never been adjudicated post-grant, in any forum I can identify. If someone tells you "claims 1–2 were confirmed by the PTAB," that is false — and given that the patent has only two claims and both are independent, there is no narrower claim set to fall back on if claim 1 is struck.

Estoppel landscape: empty — and that cuts both ways. Because no IPR was ever instituted, § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to nobody. Any defendant facing an assertion today (a) is not bound by any prior petitioner's grounds, and (b) may raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, including art that a hypothetical earlier petitioner "reasonably could have raised." Practically, though, this is moot: a defendant's first response should be to check whether the patent is even assertable. With an anticipated expiration of 2013-07-09, damages are confined to the six-year lookback measured from whatever pre-expiration conduct is alleged, and post-expiration use cannot infringe. An expired patent also cannot be the subject of a live IPR by a defendant in most practical postures (the Board has generally declined to institute where no amendment or other remaining controversy is possible), though a third party may still seek cancellation of claims for other purposes, e.g., to clear a cloud or on a fee-shifting/declaratory-judgment theory.

Pattern signals: none. No repeat petitioner (there are zero petitioners), no patent-owner appeals (there is no adverse decision to appeal), and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, AST, or similar) appears anywhere in the chain — the Google Patents "Cited By" table shows only unrelated later patents citing this one as background art, and the "Cited By"/"Families Citing" lists contain no adversarial filings. The commercial reality matches the data: Blume/Google-style prosecution histories for expired, single-inventor, two-claim enterprise-software patents from 1991 do not attract PTAB challenges because the recovery window was essentially closed before the AIA trial regime opened.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant being threatened or sued on US 5,535,388:

1. Lead with expiration, not invalidity. Pull the patent's Legal Events / term calculation yourself (USPTO Patent Center and the Google Patents page both list the 2013-07-09 anticipated expiration). Confirm whether any PTA/PTE extended the term; the structured data shows none, but verify against the face of the patent. If the term is confirmed, the assertion collapses to pre-2013 conduct, and a demand letter citing ongoing or recent infringement is facially defective.
2. Do not budget for an IPR. There is no proceeding to cite, no FWD to quote, and — for an expired patent — institution is very unlikely to be worth the fee. Spend the budget instead on a § 101/§ 112 and “no damages within the limitations period” motion practice, or on a declaratory-judgment-for-invalidity posture if there is a real controversy worth litigating.
3. Watch the numbers on any demand letter. Given the volume of unrelated "'388" patents (US 7,580,388 to 3G Licensing; US 9,648,388 to Broadband iTV; US 5,535,388 to Hitachi), insist that any assertion state the full patent number. A letter that says only "the '388 patent" is a red flag either for sloppiness or for a mismatched demand.
4. Verify my negative result before relying on it in a brief. This analysis rests on the structured ODP ingest plus web search; I found no PTAB activity, but an absence of hits is not affirmative proof of absence. Run the number directly through PTAB E2E / USPTO PTAB proceedings search and CourtListener's docket search as a belt-and-suspenders check, and note the date of your check in any filing.

Bottom line for a defendant: the practical posture is "this is a 1991-priority, two-claim, expired patent with zero PTAB history, no estoppel on anyone, and no surviving term." There is no PTAB decision to exploit — but there is also no PTAB decision to fear. Frame your position around the expiration date and the absence of any live enforceability window, not around a validity challenge that no one has ever brought.

(Uncertainty flag: I could not independently verify the PTAB-absence through a direct E2E docket query in this session — the negative finding comes from the structured ODP block supplied and corroborating web searches. Treat it as "no proceedings found," not as certified proof that none exists.)

I'll research the assignment record for US 5,535,388 through the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference sources.

Let me dig into the USPTO Assignment Center records and uspto.report directly.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 5,535,388

Critical sourcing caveat (read first): I was unable to retrieve any recorded assignment entry for US 5,535,388 from the USPTO Assignment Center / Patent Assignment Search by direct query — my live searches did not surface a reel/frame, assignor, assignee, or correspondent for this patent. The findings below are therefore grounded in (a) the Google Patents legal-events record supplied in the authoritative text, and (b) targeted web searches. Google Patents' legal-events table for US5535388A contains no assignment ("AS") entries whatsoever — only STCF (patent grant status), FEPP (fee-payment procedure), and FPAY maintenance-fee payments at years 4, 8, and 12. Google Patents continues to list Hitachi, Ltd. as both the original and current assignee, with no change of assignee recorded. I did not locate a reel/frame number for even the original inventor-to-Hitachi assignment, so I cannot represent one as verified. Treat any reel/frame absence as "not found in my search," not proof of non-existence.

Inventors

• Pattern check: No unusual inventor pattern. A single inventor, a single original corporate assignee (Hitachi), and a Japanese-employer factual matrix (employee inventions are customarily assigned to the employer under Art. 35 of the JP Patent Act). There is no evidence of inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing, no multi-inventor team breakup, and no fire-sale precursor. Nothing to flag.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Hitachi, Ltd. (original and current assignee per Google Patents; no successor entity substituted).
• Primary line of business: Japanese multinational conglomerate — information systems, computing hardware, industrial/social infrastructure, power systems, and a very large domestic software-engineering and systems-integration operation. The patent's subject matter (a process/personnel management tool for software and specification development) sits squarely within Hitachi's internal software-engineering tooling and its SI business.
• Product embodying the claims: Unconfirmed. I found no commercial product literature tying an Hitachi-branded product to these claims. Given the patent's nature (developer time/activity capture and reporting), the most plausible embodiment is internal engineering-management tooling rather than a sellable product — but I cannot verify this, so treat "shipped a product" as unknown.
• Current status: Operating. Hitachi, Ltd. remains an active going concern (post-2020 restructuring into Hitachi, Ltd. with listed/subsidiary units such as Hitachi High-Tech, Hitachi Astemo, and GlobalLogic). No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition of the parent. The patent itself expired 2013-07-09 (anticipated expiration; status "Expired – Lifetime").

Assignment timeline

No post-issuance assignments were found for this patent. The Google Patents legal-events record shows no assignment events between issue (1996-07-09) and expiration (2013-07-09) — only grant-status and maintenance-fee entries. This is itself the key finding: the chain of title shows no movement away from the original assignee, Hitachi, Ltd., which remains the current owner of record.

Two explanatory notes rather than fabricated entries:

1. Continuation mechanics. US 5,535,388 is a continuation of US application Ser. No. 07/926,342 (filed 1992-08-06, now abandoned). Where a chain of title exists for a family filed this way, the original inventor→Hitachi assignment is frequently recorded once, against the parent application, and not necessarily re-recorded against the continuation. That would explain the absence of an assignment line under 08/257,934 without implying the inventor retained rights. I could not confirm a reel/frame for that original recording.
2. No downstream links. There is no recorded transfer to any licensing entity, holding company, aggregator, or other successor. I therefore have no reel/frame, conveyance type, assignor/assignee pair, or correspondent to report for any link beyond the original corporate assignment.

Because the Assignment Center record shows no records beyond the original (unverified) corporate assignment, the requested per-link detail — reel/frame, conveyance type, correspondent name/firm/address — cannot be populated for this patent. I will not invent it.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5535388
    1991 : JP priority filed by Hitachi Ltd
    1992 : First US filing as continuation parent
    1994 : Continuation filed by Hitachi Ltd
    1996 : US patent issued to Hitachi Ltd
    2013 : Patent expires with Hitachi as owner

(No assignment events to plot — no recorded transfers, no listed correspondents, no NPE links.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Framed against the required checklist. Because there is no recorded post-issuance assignment chain, most signals are structurally inapplicable rather than merely unproven.

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No transfer to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity is recorded. Owner of record remains Hitachi, Ltd. (operating company).
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc. Hitachi is not on any RPX/Unified asserter list.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Not applicable / unclear. There is no multi-link chain in which a correspondent could recur. No recording attorney is identified for this patent in any source I could retrieve. (I cannot cite a name, and won't.)
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Zero recorded transfers; no chained LLCs.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No assignment dated near any infringement suit; no suit involving this patent was found in my search.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Hitachi Chapter 7/11 patent sale involving this asset. (Distinguish the unrelated Kodak/Nortel-type sales.)
7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer to an assertion vehicle, so no privateering structure.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN; it simply never left Hitachi.

Note on the "financial-incentive" side: the only ownership-adjacent events of record are the maintenance-fee payments (FPAY at years 4, 8, and 12 — recorded 1999-12-30, 2003-12-30, 2007-12-28), which show Hitachi paid to keep the patent alive for its full term and then let it lapse at the natural 2013 expiration. That is the behavior of a maintaining operating owner, not of an entity positioning the asset for assertion.

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records, or only the original assignment).

There is no recorded assignment chain for US 5,535,388: Google Patents' legal-events table shows only grant-status and maintenance-fee entries between issue (1996-07-09) and expiration (2013-07-09), with Hitachi, Ltd. listed as both original and current assignee throughout. With no shell-entity transfer, no known-asserter link, no correspondent to track, and no pre-litigation transfer, none of the eight NPE signals can be affirmatively marked "present." The patent appears to have remained with its original corporate owner, Hitachi, until natural expiration. This is a non-assertion / status-quo outcome by default — but because I could not verify even the original inventor→Hitachi assignment reel/frame, I cannot upgrade it to a positive "defensive/non-asserting" call; the honest classification is insufficient data.

Verify directly: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 5535388) and the indexed Patent Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Searching the parent application 07/926,342 as well as the continuation 08/257,934 is advisable given the continuation filing, since an original assignment may be recorded only against the parent.

I'll research US 5,535,388 and each of its cited references to build a grounded prior-art analysis.

Let me research the remaining cited references and the non-patent literature.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,535,388

Patent under analysis: US 5,535,388 A — "Apparatus for dynamically collecting and editing management information during a software development process"
Inventor: Shigeru Takeda | Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd. | Priority: Aug. 21, 1991 (JP 3-234038) | Granted: July 9, 1996 | Claims: 2 (both independent — 1 apparatus, 2 method)

Method note / search caveat

A direct USPTO-number query for "5535388" did not surface the patent's own USPTO/PATENT CENTER record page in my retrievable results; the only on-point authoritative source remains the Google Patents family record (already supplied, and from which the citation list below is drawn). I therefore worked from the examiner-cited references listed on the face of the patent (the "Patent Citations (8)" and "Non-Patent Citations (2)" sections) and retrieved/verified the substantive content of each where a live source was available. Where I could not retrieve a reference's full text, I say so explicitly rather than fabricating content.

Critical date: All cited references predate the Aug. 21, 1991 priority date and the Aug. 6, 1992 U.S. filing. Each therefore qualifies as prior art under pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(a) and/or § 102(b). (The patent is pre‑AIA; the 2‑claim set uses means-plus-function language.)

Cited references — full analysis

1. US 3,740,759 — "Time accounting apparatus"

• Assignee/Inventor: Alcotronics Corp. (McKeegan et al.)
• Filing date: June 18, 1971 · Grant date: June 19, 1973
• Description (verified from full text): An electromechanical/electronic time-clock system. An employee inserts a punch-card "time-card means" bearing machine-readable coded indicia identifying the employee. The time-clock automatically imprints the time of insertion and reads the coded employee identity (via photosensitive means) and records both the employee identity and the time of insertion onto a magnetic tape cassette. Periodically (e.g., weekly) the cassette is taken to a computer center for payroll computation.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Teaches the core time-accounting concepts: capturing operator identity + time-of-day, storing to a machine-readable medium, and periodic collection for later processing. These map loosely onto Claim 1's "name of each operator" and "date and hour information" data items and onto Claim 2's time-accounting subject matter.
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate Claim 1 or Claim 2. It discloses none of the software-specification context, no "specification means" that generates documents, no management-information acquiring by monitoring a document-creation process, no editing rules, no multiple destination storage units, and no stores-time means. It is time-accounting art only.

2. US 3,838,396 — "Data processor (including editing and revision) with buffer memory"

• Assignee: "Little Inc A" (as literally listed; i.e., Arthur D. Little, Inc.)
• Filing date: May 18, 1972 · Grant date: Sept. 24, 1974
• Description: A data-processing system providing for editing and revision of data using a buffer memory. (I could not retrieve the full specification text within the available search steps; description is based on the title of record.)
• Potential § 102 relevance: Most plausibly cited for the "editing … and buffer memory" concepts that correspond structurally to the patent's specification buffer (17), process-management-information buffer (18), and the editing unit (16).
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate either claim. Editing/buffering of data generally is a materially different invention from acquiring process-management information about specification/document creation and formatting it per process-manager-defined rules. It is, at most, evidence that editing-and-buffer-memory data processors were known.

3. US 3,815,104 — "Information processing system"

• Assignee: Lexitron Corp.
• Filing date: Jan. 18, 1973 · Grant date: June 4, 1974
• Description: An information-processing system (Lexitron was a word-processing vendor; the reference is representative of early text/document-processing systems). Full text not retrieved within available steps; description is title-based.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Contextual art showing that document/text creation and processing systems existed — relevant background to the patent's "specification creating unit," but not to the management-information collection/editing combination.
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate Claims 1 or 2. No teaching of management-data item selection, editing rules, multiple destination stores, or storage-time control.

4. US 4,432,051 — "Process execution time accounting system"

• Assignee: Honeywell Information Systems Inc.
• Filing date: Nov. 30, 1973 · Grant date: Feb. 14, 1984
• Description (verified from full text): An operating-system mechanism that accounts for process execution time. It maintains accounting words in a process-control block (PCB) — a running-time account (RUA), waiting-time account (WTA), and ready-time account (RTA) — updated by firmware (FIGS. 15a–17), using a time-of-day clock and interval/process timers. It automatically measures how long a computer process runs and stores the results in defined accounting structures.
• Potential § 102 relevance: The strongest of the artifacts cited for the automatic, monitored acquisition of "time period … and amounts of work" — the acquiring means' timing function in Claim 1 and the "time periods when said work was performed" data item in Claim 2. It demonstrates automatic timed accounting driven by monitoring an executing entity.
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate either claim. It accounts for machine processes, not human operators creating specification documents; it has no document/specification generation, no operator-name capture, no process-manager-defined editing rules, no multiple destination storage units, and no storage-time control. It is analogous in the timing mechanism only.

5. US 4,536,646 — "Time accounting system"

• Assignee: Celedata Corporation
• Filing date: June 16, 1983 · Grant date: Aug. 20, 1985
• Description (verified from full text and claims): A system with (a) a portable memory circuit carried by the worker, (b) a data entry circuit at the workstation that automatically and periodically writes pre-programmed task data into the memory while the worker performs the task (number of writes ∝ duration of work), and (c) a data reading circuit that transfers the stored data into a computer for job accounting. Claims 1–2 recite "automatically and periodically writing" and transferring the accumulated data to the computer.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Directly relevant to Claim 1's "periodically" storing limitation and to the general time-accounting-per-worker subject matter of Claim 2. Also touches the "amount of work performed" data item (number of periodic writes corresponds to work duration).
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate either claim. It records task-duration data for manual/manufacturing work; it is silent on creating specification documents/programs, on monitoring a document-creation process, on selecting data items via defining information, on editing rules, on multiple destination storage units, and on storage-time designation.

6. JP S61-194532 A — "Process control system for development of software"

• Assignee: Toshiba Corp.
• Filing date: Feb. 25, 1985 · Publication date: Aug. 28, 1986
• Description (as characterized in the patent's own Background): A software-development process-control system that reads the number of lines of programs created by respective programmers and stores that count as process-management information; the process manager then refers to the storage unit to learn the development situation.
• Potential § 102 relevance: The closest field-of-invention art. It is the reference the patent expressly distinguishes as the starting point (§ Background, problems (1)–(4)). It anticipates the general notion of automatically collecting software-development process-management information.
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate either claim, and the patent affirmatively distinguishes it. It collects only program line counts (fails to cover specification/document creation), has fixed collectable information kinds, a fixed destination storage unit, and a fixed storage time — i.e., it lacks each of the four distinguishing features the patent relies on (specification/document scope; manager-specifiable data kinds; freely specifiable destination; freely settable storage time). This is the single most important reference for novelty/obviousness, but it is a § 103-style primary reference, not a § 102 anticipation of the full claims.

7. US 4,751,635 — "Distributed management support system for software managers"

• Assignee: Bell Communications Research, Inc. (inventor Michael A. Kret)
• Filing date: Apr. 16, 1986 · Grant date: June 14, 1988
• Description (verified from full text): A distributed network of a host computer plus workstations. Separate on-line software support systems each hold data reflecting a life-cycle phase of a development project; the host periodically extracts information from those support-system databases (data indicative of development activity, including lines of code) and updates a relational database. A manager at a workstation formulates queries, the host executes them and downloads results, and the manager analyzes them locally (spreadsheet/graphics/text).
• Potential § 102 relevance: The most substantive reference against Claim 1, because it discloses (i) automatic collection of management information reflecting software-development activity, (ii) periodic extraction/aggregation into a database reflecting the life cycle, and (iii) flexible, manager-controlled querying/formatting of the collected data for analysis. It maps to Claim 1's "management information acquiring means" and "management information editing means … in accordance with … rules," and to Claim 2's "reformatting … in accordance with preselected … rules."
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate either claim. Key gaps vs. the claims: it does not capture data concurrently while an operator is creating a specification document (it extracts from pre-existing support-system databases periodically); it does not disclose a specification means that emits both the documents and designated data items concurrently; it lacks the storing-time means with a designated storage time; and its storage is a single relational database rather than a plurality of destination storage units selected per data item. Because of the concurrent-capture and storage-time limitations, this reference cannot alone anticipate.

8. US 4,853,873 — "Knowledge information processing system and method thereof"

• Assignee: Hitachi, Ltd. (same assignee as the patent under analysis)
• Filing date: June 11, 1986 · Grant date: Aug. 1, 1989
• Description: A knowledge-based / rule-driven information-processing system (inference, knowledge base, and control method). (Full text not retrieved within available steps; description is title- and field-based.)
• Potential § 102 relevance: Most plausibly cited for rule-based processing/knowledge control — i.e., the concept of defining and applying rules to select/derive outputs, corresponding loosely to the "editing rules" stored in the first register (13) and applied by the editing unit (16).
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate either claim. It discloses no software-development document creation, no operator/time/work-amount data collection, and none of the destination/storage-time limitations.
• Note: Because this reference is commonly owned by Hitachi and granted in 1989 (more than one year before the 1992 filing), it is § 102(b) prior art and is not disqualified for § 103 obviousness by pre-AIA § 103(c). Flagged for completeness.

Non-Patent Literature — Baker, Mark D., "Implementing an Initial Software Metrics Program"

• Source of record: Modern Technologies Corp., 1991 IEEE (as listed on the face of the patent). ⚠️ Discrepancy to flag: the prior summary in this analysis cites this as 1993 IEEE; the patent's own citation list shows 1991 IEEE. I am using the patent text (authoritative here) but flagging the inconsistency rather than silently choosing.
• Description: A practitioner paper on standing up a software-metrics program — i.e., defining, collecting, and applying software-development measurement data (productivity/quality metrics) for management.
• Potential § 102 relevance: Background evidence that defining and collecting software-development metrics for management was known. It supports the notion of manager-selected management information but is not a system/apparatus disclosure.
• Anticipation assessment: A printed publication cannot anticipate apparatus Claim 1's structural "means" elements as a whole; and it does not disclose the claimed concurrent capture, multiple destination stores, or storage-time control. At most it is § 103/general-knowledge background.

Summary table — citation vs. potential claim relevance

Bottom line

• No single cited reference anticipates Claim 1 or Claim 2 under 35 U.S.C. § 102. Anticipation requires every limitation in one reference, and none of the eight patent citations (or the Baker NPL) discloses the full combination — in particular the (a) concurrent capture of management data while an operator creates specification documents/programs, (b) process-manager-defined editing/combination rules, (c) a plurality of freely specified destination storage units, and (d) freely designated storing times.
• The most relevant prior art, in order:

1. JP S61-194532 A (Toshiba) — the closest art and the reference the patent expressly distinguishes (program-line counting; fixed items/destination/time).
2. US 4,751,635 (Bellcore) — the best § 103 primary reference for the "collect + edit/format + periodically store management information" concept, but missing concurrent capture and storage-time control.
3. US 4,432,051 (Honeywell) and US 4,536,646 (Celedata) — the best references for automatic, monitored, periodic time/work-amount acquisition but in non-document contexts.
4. The remaining references (US 3,740,759; US 3,838,396; US 3,815,104; US 4,853,873) are peripheral/background (time-card accounting, generic editing/buffer memory, generic info processing, rule-based processing).

• Novelty therefore rests on the specific combination, notably the FIG. 6A "third register" storage-time embodiment and the "concurrently while creating specifications" acquisition — consistent with the patent's own stated points of distinction over the Toshiba reference.

Verification caveats I am deliberately flagging rather than papering over:

• I could not open the full specifications of US 3,838,396, US 3,815,104, or US 4,853,873 within the available search steps; their descriptions are title/field-based, not full-text-verified.
• The Baker NPL year is stated as 1991 on the patent but 1993 in the earlier section of this analysis — treat the patent text as authoritative and note the inconsistency.
• My USPTO-number search did not return the patent's own USPTO record page; all citation data derive from the authoritative Google Patents family record supplied for US 5,535,388 (and the on-point references I retrieved).

I'll verify the key prior-art references before building the §103 analysis, since the previous sections relied on citation titles plus the specification's own characterizations.

I have solid confirmations for four references. Let me verify the remaining two US references and make one targeted attempt at the Toshiba JP reference.

I hit the tool-call limit, so I'll write the analysis now using the confirmed reference texts (Honeywell US4432051, Bellcore US4751635, Celedata US4536646, Alcotronics US3740759) plus the characterized titles for the remaining references, and I'll flag explicit uncertainty where I could not retrieve full text. This builds on the Patent Summary and Litigation Summary already produced.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,535,388 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Threshold framing (important, and builds on the prior sections)

Two facts from the earlier sections control the whole analysis:

1. Every reference in the "Patent Citations" list was before the examiner. The eight references and the Baker NPL citation are the prosecution record's cited art. US 5,535,388 nonetheless issued with two independent claims. That gives the claims the § 282 presumption of validity, and any § 103 challenge must explain what the examiner missed — a bare "these references were known" argument is not enough.

2. The applicant's own specification concedes the prior art and frames the problem. The Background section expressly states four deficiencies of the Toshiba reference (JPS61194532): (1) line-counting cannot collect data for specifications/documents; (2) collectable data kinds are fixed; (3) the destination is fixed; (4) the storage time is fixed. Under In re Fracalossi / Constant v. Advanced Micro-Devices, a specification's characterization of the art and the stated problem is usable as evidence of what a PHOSITA knew and what the inventor himself regarded as obvious sub-steps. This cuts against patentability because the claimed "advances" are framed as removing arbitrary, admitted limitations of a known system — precisely the KSR "improving a known device" scenario.

Prior-art date hygiene (per the STRICT RULE, no ID auto-correction):

• Usable as § 102/§ 103 art: the eight cited references (all pre-1991) and Baker, M.D., "Implementing an Initial Software Metrics Program," 1991 IEEE.
• NOT usable as prior art: every entry in the "Cited By" table whose priority post-dates Aug. 21, 1991 — e.g., US5819270 (priority 1993‑02‑25), US5909688 (priority 1993‑10‑29), US5745686 (1995), US5878262 (1996), and the entire Accenture "netcentric" family (1999+). These can only be cited, if at all, as evidence of the later trajectory of the field — not as § 103 art. Any obviousness theory built on them is defective on its face.

1. Level of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A person having ordinary skill would be a software engineer/systems analyst with a bachelor's degree in computer science or equivalent, plus roughly 2–4 years' experience in management-information / project-support systems, and familiarity with: (a) interactive document/ specification editing tools, (b) automated data-capture and time-accounting systems, and (c) database/reporting architectures. This is a combination-invention field: the relevant art is not one field but the intersection of software-engineering process management, time/activity accounting, and management-information databases. This breadth increases the pool of combinable art.

2. Scope of the claims to be compared

Claim 1 (apparatus) — six cooperating means:

1. storage means = (set of data items) + (editing rules for output format);
2. destination storing means = specifies locations across a plurality of destination storage units;
3. specification means = outputs generated documents and designated data items concurrently while operators create documents;
4. management-information acquiring means = monitors the specification means and collects the items;
5. management-information editing means = edits per rules and stores them in the destinations periodically;
6. storing-time means = defines when the edited data is written.

Claim 2 (time-accounting method) — steps: (a) store the designation of items to collect (doc/program ID, operator name, time periods, work amount); (b)+(c) concurrently monitor and acquire those items during document creation and during program creation, for multiple operators; (d) store in memory; (e) reformat per process-manager-defined format rules; (f) store in multiple storage units per a designated location; (g) store a plurality of designated storage times and write at those times.

Construction note: Claim 1 recites "a storing time means" and then refers to "said timing means," which has no literal antecedent. For § 103 purposes the term must be construed in light of the specification (the third register 20 of FIG. 6A); the limitation is real even though the drafting is loose. (This is the same quirk flagged in the Patent Summary; it does not defeat the § 103 comparison but would matter in a § 112 analysis.)

3. Reference-by-reference content (verified where noted)

4. Proposed § 103 combinations and motivations

Combination A — Claim 1: Toshiba (JPS61194532) + Bellcore (US4751635) + Honeywell (US4432051), optionally + Little (US3838396)

Motivation (KSR rationales):

• Known problem, known solution in an adjacent field. Bellcore already solved "give a software manager timely, formatted, life-cycle-wide project data from multiple sources." Toshiba already solved "capture software-development process data automatically." Combining them is the use of a known technique (configurable multi-source reporting) to improve a similar device (a line-counting process monitor) — KSR rationale (C).
• Design incentive / predictable result. Substituting Bellcore's periodically-refreshed relational store for Toshiba's fixed output, and letting the manager define queries, yields the predictable benefit of manager-tailored reports — nothing more than the expected result of the known components (KSR rationale (A)).
• The specification supplies the motivation. The Background identifies exactly the gap (documents/specifications are not programs; data kinds fixed; destination fixed; time fixed). A PHOSITA reading Toshiba and Bellcore together would be led directly to the claimed fix because the applicant himself framed it as closing known gaps.

Combination B — Claim 1's "storing time means" + plural destinations: Celedata (US4536646) + Alcotronics (US3740759) + Bellcore (US4751635)

• Celedata claims "automatically and periodically" writing of task data while the worker performs the task, and transferring captured data to a computer that sorts and reformats it. Alcotronics records operator identity + time to a removable medium read elsewhere. Bellcore supplies the multiple destinations and manager-defined formatting.
• Motivation: these are all time/activity-accounting systems serving the same managerial goal ("who did how much, when, and produce a usable report"). A PHOSITA asked to build a developer time-accounting tool would predictably reach for proven automatic time-capture (Celedata/Alcotronics) and pair it with a known configurable reporting backend (Bellcore). Result is a mere combination of known elements with predictable aggregate behavior.

Combination C — Claim 2 (method): Toshiba + Celedata + Alcotronics + Bellcore + Baker

Claim 2 is, on its face, a time-accounting method, and the cited art is literally a set of time-accounting systems. Mapping:

• store designation of items (doc/program ID, operator, periods, amount) → Bellcore + Baker;
• concurrently monitor/acquire during document creation → Celedata (automatic, periodic, during task) + Toshiba (software documents);
• concurrently monitor/acquire during program creation → Toshiba (program-line capture) + Honeywell (process execution);
• store in memory → Celedata (portable memory) / Alcotronics (magnetic medium) / Little (buffer);
• reformat per process-manager-defined rules → Bellcore (manager queries/reporting) + Celedata ("present the results in a usable format");
• store in multiple units per designated location → Bellcore (multiple databases);
• store designated storage times and write at those times → Celedata ("periodically") + Honeywell (interval accounting) + Alcotronics (weekly batch).

Motivation: the claims' own preamble calls claim 2 a "time accounting method." Once the method is so characterized, the time-accounting references are per se pertinent, and the only "new" ingredient — applying it to specification documents as well as code — is taught as desirable by Toshiba's (admitted) limitation and by Baker's metrics-program context. Combining them yields no unpredictable result; it is a substitution of one accounting substrate for another (KSR rationale (B)).

5. Anticipated rebuttals and where the patent survives

A well-prepared challenger should be ready for these defenses — several are strong:

1. Analogous-art objection. Alcotronics/Celedata are payroll time-clocks; the Bigio/Clay test asks whether they are reasonably pertinent to the problem of managing a software-development process. The best counter is (a) Honeywell's US4432051 is computer-process accounting (squarely in the computer field), and (b) claim 2 self-identifies as a time accounting method, making time-accounting art presumptively pertinent. The patent survives this objection for claim 1's apparatus framing better than for claim 2.

2. "Concurrently while" is a real temporal limitation. The applicant emphasized collecting data during creation, not by post-hoc line counting. To preempt, the challenger must point to Celedata's automatic, periodic writing while the worker performs the task (verified) as disclosing concurrent capture — which it does.

3. Aggregation vs. combination. Six interacting means could be attacked as a § 103 "aggregation" of known elements. But KSR requires only a reasonable expectation of success, and Bellcore demonstrates the integrated architecture already works for the same user (a software manager). This is the challenger's cleanest path.

4. Secondary considerations (unaddressed in the record). There is no evidence of the classic objective indicia — no long-felt-need showing, no failure of others, no licensing, no praise, and (per the Litigation Summary) no litigation invoking the patent. Absent nexus evidence, secondary considerations do not rebut a prima facie case.

5. Presumption of validity / examiner had the art. This is the patent's strongest shield. All core references were considered; issuance implies the examiner did not find the specific combination of (a) specification documents + (b) configurable data set + (c) configurable destination + (d) configurable storage time in a single § 103 rationale. A challenger must articulate why the combination was nonetheless obvious — e.g., because each of the four features maps to a distinct cited reference and the motivation is supplied by the applicant's own admitted problem statement.

6. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is vulnerable but not clearly anticipated: the strongest § 103 case is Toshiba (JPS61194532) + Bellcore (US4751635) + Honeywell (US4432051), with Little (US3838396) for the editing/buffer element and Baker for the configurable-metrics motivation. Bellcore independently teaches three of the four "novel" features (multiple destinations, periodic storage, manager-defined formatting); Toshiba supplies the software-development setting; Honeywell supplies automated process-time accounting.
• Claim 2 is more vulnerable on its face, because it is expressly a time-accounting method and the cited art is a stack of time-accounting systems (Celedata, Alcotronics, Honeywell) that together disclose concurrent automatic capture of operator, time, and amount plus reformatting/reporting. The "specifications, not just programs" wrinkle is supplied by Toshiba's admitted deficiency + Baker.
• The decisive question is whether the combination of all four configurable features in one specification-creation context is more than the predictable sum of its parts. Bellcore's existence as a software-manager-facing, multi-database, periodically-updated reporting system makes the KSR "predictable result" argument strong for claim 1 and near-decisive for claim 2.

Confidence and caveats (explicit):

• ✅ High confidence in the content of US4432051, US4751635, US4536646, US3740759 (verified against Google Patents / Unified Patents full text).
• ⚠️ Low/medium confidence in the mapping contributions of US3815104 (Lexitron), US3838396 (Little), and JPS61194532 (Toshiba) — I could not retrieve their full texts, so their roles above rest on titles, the specification's own characterization of Toshiba, and field knowledge. The Toshiba reference is the linchpin of the "software-development setting" element and should be pulled and read in full before any opinion is relied upon.
• ⚠️ I did not re-fetch US4853873 (Hitachi) or the Baker paper text; their treatment is by title/topic only.
• The "Cited By" references dated after Aug. 21, 1991 are not § 103 art and were excluded.