US 5664110

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Bottom line on the searches

I searched for US 5,664,110 specifically and found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket or 2026 litigation involving this patent. What I found is the patent's full bibliographic record, its PTAB proceedings (2013–2015), and its Federal Circuit appeals from 2016 (decided 2017). Because the patent expired December 8, 2014, absence of 2026 activity is expected. I have not searched PACER directly (no direct access), so I cannot rule out a 2026 filing with certainty — treat "no 2026 docket found" as a search result, not a verified negative.

Bibliographic summary — US 5,664,110

Note on a conflicting secondary source: the Unified Patents portal lists the priority date as 1994-12-07, while the authoritative patent record (and the D. Del. litigation) uses December 8, 1994. I am not reconciling these.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A remote ordering system provides a user the ability to build and edit one or more order lists, resident in memory within a user device, and the further ability to review and manipulate a user interpretable display of the contents of such lists. A system comprising merchant stock databases, a data format/transfer computer (DFTC), and display/processor units (DPUs) (the user devices) enable creation and transmission of the order lists. Coded data read into each DPU identifies items to be added to the order lists. A DPU database contains user-discernable item information stored according to the associated coded data and is capable of learning new or updating old item information when in communication with the merchant database. Item information can be automatically or manually deleted to free DPU memory."

Independent claims in plain language

Confirmed independent claims: 1 and 22. Per the PTAB's decision denying institution in CBM2014-00082 ("Claims 1 and 22 are independent"), only claims 1 and 22 were at issue as independents among the challenged set (claims 1–3, 8–19, 22–28, 31–36, 41–44). Uncertainty flag: the claim text supplied to me was truncated at claim 6, so I cannot verify from the primary text whether any further independent claims exist among claims 45–75. My overview of claim 22 is reconstructed from the PTAB decision and the Markman record, not the verbatim claim language.

Claim 1 — the terminal (apparatus)

A remote ordering terminal — the customer-side device — for sending one or more lists of items (or groups of items) to a remotely located order processing system associated with one or more merchants, repeatedly over time. Each item has an associated item code. The terminal comprises:

• User and/or merchant identifier means (e.g., the ID control card or pre-stored account data).
• At least one data entry device that supplies the terminal with the item codes and the identifier data (e.g., a bar-code scanning wand).
• A database unit providing a user-specific database of user-discernable item data (human-readable descriptions such as product name, size, price — as opposed to the raw code) associated with item codes for items the user selected.
• Memory storing that user-specific database and the list(s), in communication with the data entry device.
• Communication means that, upon user command, associates the memory with the order processing system — remotely accessing it over a multi-user network — transmits the list using the identifier data, and receives new and/or replacement user-discernable item data from the order processing system. Critically, the received data corresponds only to the items/groups on the list (not a bulk catalogue download).
• A message display portion showing order-pertinent information, including the user-discernable item data from memory.
• At least one command entry device responsive to the user selecting items from the displayed information, for assembling the list and enabling the user command that triggers transmission.

The closing limitation is the key one: the list is either an order to be processed by the order processing system or a "provisional order list", and transmission of either results in on-demand receipt of the new/replacement user-discernable item data into the user-specific database. (This is the "teaching"/learning feature of the terminal database.)

Note: several elements are drafted in means-plus-function form ("communication means," "identifier means"), which was actively litigated in the § 112 ¶ 6 claim-construction dispute.

Claim 22 — the method

The method counterpart to claim 1, directed to a method for remote ordering. Based on the intrinsic record and the Markman proceedings, it recites the cooperative arrangement of an order device (with input means and user/merchant identifier means), a user-specific database, a central processing means, and a central inventory database/merchant database. The user interactively receives user-discernable item data and, as a result of the central processing means responding to the user input at the order device, transmits to the central inventory database the order list — again comprising either a list of items to be ordered or a provisional list of items for which updated user-discernable item data is desired.

(Caveat: I am paraphrasing from the PTAB decision and the Delaware Markman briefing because the verbatim text of claim 22 was not within the excerpt provided to me. Treat the precise wording as unverified.)

Litigation / PTAB / appellate history (for context)

PTAB (all covered-business-method reviews, all terminated without a merits win for petitioners):

• CBM2013-00048 — filed (eBay v. Cronos, per the exhibit caption); terminated by settlement.
• CBM2014-00082 — not instituted on the merits (Board denied institution, Sept. 15, 2014).
• CBM2015-00047 — not instituted (procedural); petitioner: Unified Patents.

District court: asserted by Cronos Technologies, LLC against numerous defendants in 2012–2013 (D. Del., E.D. Tex., S.D.N.Y., D.N.J., D. Nev., E.D. Ky., W.D. Ky., N.D. Ga., C.D. Cal., N.D. Cal.). Representative consolidated appeals arose out of Cronos Techs., LLC v. Expedia, Inc., Nos. 1:13-cv-01538-LPS, 1:13-cv-01541-LPS (Priceline), 1:13-cv-01544-LPS (Travelocity), D. Del.

Federal Circuit:

• Nos. 2016-2528, 2016-2529, 2016-2530 — decided August 17, 2017, Cronos Techs., LLC v. Expedia, Inc., 696 F. App'x 506 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (nonprecedential). Affirmed the district court's summary judgment of non-infringement. The court held the district court correctly construed "item code" and "identifying code" to be distinct from "user-discernable information," such that those codes contain no user-discernable information, and correctly construed the user-input terms. With that construction, no reasonable jury could find infringement. Mandate issued Sept. 25, 2017; costs taxed against Cronos in March 2018.
• A further appeal, No. 13-1599, is listed in the patent's Google Patents record.

2026 CAFC dockets: None found for this patent number. I searched for patent-number-specific 2026 appellate activity and returned only unrelated 2026 Federal Circuit matters (e.g., Contour IP Holding v. GoPro, No. 2026-2012; Extremity Medical v. Nextremity; Google v. Cellular South, No. 26-1519). Given the December 8, 2014 expiration and the 2017 affirmance of non-infringement, continued assertion in 2026 would be anomalous. I could not verify PACER comprehensively, so this is a search-based conclusion.

Sources

• Patent full text and bibliographic record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5664110/en
• PTAB CBM2014-00082 (denial of institution; identifies claims 1 and 22 as independent): https://ptabtrialblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CBM2014-00082-Denying-[CBM](/resources/patent-reviews)-Review-20140915.pdf
• Cronos Techs., LLC v. Expedia, Inc., 696 F. App'x 506 (Fed. Cir. 2017): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4419549](/patent/4419549)/cronos-technologies-llc-v-expedia-inc/
• Delaware docket 1:13-cv-01541 (judgment, appeal no. 16-2529, affirmance, mandate, costs): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/[6073451](/patent/6073451)/cronos-technologies-llc-v-pricelinecom-inc/
• Cronos Markman/claim-construction briefing (D. Del.): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/CBM2013-00048/.../Exhibit-1016-Cronos_Claim_Construction_Opening_Brief_08_26_2013.pdf
• Markman summary (11 disputed term groups): https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/claims-are-construed-in-dispute-15024/
• NPE litigation database entry: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[5664110](/patent/5664110)

Explicit uncertainties: (1) verbatim text of all 75 claims, including claim 22 and any independents among claims 45–75, was not available to me; (2) no 2026 CAFC docket was located, but I lack direct PACER access to confirm a negative; (3) the 1994-12-07 vs. 1994-12-08 priority-date discrepancy between Unified Patents and the patent record is unresolved.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 5664110. Let me run several searches.

Let me dig deeper into the specific cases.

Let me gather the full defendant list and track outcomes.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 5,664,110

Bottom line: Yes — there is substantial known litigation. U.S. Patent 5,664,110 ("Remote Ordering System," Highpoint Systems, Inc., inventors Jonathan B. Green and William R. Pope; filed 1994‑12‑08; issued 1997‑09‑02) was asserted aggressively in 2012–2013 by Cronos Technologies, LLC, an acquired-patent (NPE) entity that took assignment of the patent from UBS AG in 2011. The campaign generated roughly 30 district court cases, three PTAB/CBM petitions, four Federal Circuit appeals (13‑1599 and 16‑2528/29/30), and an ex parte reexamination. The patent expired (anticipated expiration 2014‑12‑08) and is now shown as "Expired ‑ Lifetime."

Per your instruction, I have treated "5664110" literally and have not included similar numbers (e.g., the "5,664,110" reference and the many other patent numbers appearing in the same docket excerpts/prior-art lists are distinct references; I have flagged the one instance where a document mis-states the number).

1. District Court Cases — Cronos Technologies, LLC as plaintiff

Plaintiff in essentially all cases: Cronos Technologies, LLC (assignee from UBS AG as of 2011‑10‑19; original assignee Highpoint Systems, Inc.).

Endgame for the Delaware trio: In Cronos Techs., LLC v. Expedia, Inc., Nos. 13‑1538/13‑1541/13‑1544‑LPS (D. Del.), the court construed "item code"/"identifying code" to exclude user-discernable information, granted summary judgment of no infringement (literally and under the doctrine of equivalents) on 2016‑08‑15, and entered final judgment on 2016‑08‑18. Cronos also lost a motion to stay pending ex parte reexamination (order dated 2016‑03‑21 — denied). Defendants' bill of costs was taxed 2018‑03‑26 in the amount of $7,319.33 against Cronos.

2. PTAB Proceedings

Cronos's preliminary response in CBM2014‑00082 argued the '110 patent was not a "covered business method patent" (not tied to a financial product/service) and attacked the petitioners' claim-construction standard.

Ex parte reexamination: The PTO granted a reexamination request on 2015‑11‑10 and issued a non‑final office action on 2016‑03‑02 rejecting all claims asserted in the Delaware cases (as recited in the D. Del. order denying the stay).

3. Federal Circuit Appeals

4. Critical caveats

• Identifier accuracy. Several litigation documents (Cronos complaints, PTAB papers) refer to the patent as "U.S. Patent No. 5,664,110," which is the conventional comma-formatted rendering of 5664110. Also, a D. Del. opinion PDF for Cronos v. Expedia transcribes the patent as "U.S. Patent No. 5,664,110." I have not auto-corrected any of these; I note them because they are the same patent under your strict-literal rule. One justia PDF rendered the number as "5,664,110" but is clearly the same '110 patent.
• Unverified items: I could not confirm (a) the defendant identity/outcome for D. Nev. 2:12‑cv‑01748, (b) the precise defendant↔case‑number mapping for the ten September 2013 Delaware filings beyond Expedia/Priceline/Travelocity, (c) the resolution of CAFC 13‑1599, and (d) settlement terms in any case. Those should be verified in PACER/Unified Patents/Stanford NPE database before being relied upon.
• Primary sources used: Google Patents litigation links (portal.unifiedpatents.com and Darts‑ip), Stanford NPE Litigation Database (npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/5664110), Justia dockets, CourtListener/RECAP, the Morris James claim-construction PDF, the D. Del. 13‑1538 stay opinion (ded.uscourts.gov), the CBM2013‑00048 joint motion to terminate, the CBM2014‑00082 preliminary response, and the Sept. 2013 Retail Patent Litigation Report.
• Current status: The '110 patent expired 2014‑12‑08 (anticipated expiration) and is listed as "Expired ‑ Lifetime." All asserted claims were rejected in the 2016‑03‑02 reexamination office action, and the sole litigated Federal Circuit outcome (2017) was affirmance of non-infringement. Cronos's enforcement campaign is effectively over.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 5,664,110 ("Remote ordering system")

Data-integrity flag (read first). The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states the USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and instructs me to default to "no PTAB activity on file." The patent's own Family/Litigation data contradicts that default. The Google Patents record for US5664110A (the authoritative full text supplied in this prompt) lists three PTAB case links, and independent web sources confirm at least two of them substantively. I therefore treat the ODP block as incomplete (the CBM filings are from 2013–2015 and appear not to have been ingested into the ODP AIA-trial feed) rather than as evidence of no activity. Every proceeding below is cross-referenced to its source; where I could not verify a detail, I say so explicitly rather than supplying it.

Proceedings overview

The structured ODP feed shows zero AIA trials; the patent's own litigation data and independent sources identify four PTAB proceedings (three corroborated by the patent record itself, one flagged from a secondary source): 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 1 settled/terminated, 2 institution denials — and, critically, no Final Written Decision has ever issued on any claim of this patent. The defensive posture this yields is unusual and highly favorable, but not because the PTAB hardened the patent: the Board never reached the merits. The patent is expired (2014-12-08), and the binding decision that actually killed it is a district-court claim construction affirmed by the Federal Circuit in 2017 (Cronos Techs., LLC v. Expedia, Inc., 696 F. App'x 506 (Fed. Cir. 2017)), holding "item code"/"identifying code" cannot contain user-discernable information — which defeated infringement by every accused online-travel defendant. If a demand letter cites claims 1–44 today, the response is not "file an IPR," it is "this patent expired a decade ago and its claims were construed out of existence."

CBM2014-00082 — Travelocity.com LP, Priceline.com Inc. & Expedia, Inc. v. Cronos Technologies LLC

• Type: Covered Business Method review (AIA § 18; transitional CBM program)
• Filed: Exact petition date not stated in the sources I could retrieve; the Patent Owner's Preliminary Response is docketed 2014-06-16, implying a petition filing in approximately 2014-03 (date not verified — do not rely on it).
• Status: Per the patent record: "Not Instituted - Merits." Plain English: the Board accepted that it had CBM authority but declined to institute because the petitioners did not show the challenged claims were more likely than not unpatentable.
• Judge panel: Not verifiable from the sources retrieved. I will not guess at APJ names.
• Petition grounds: Challenged claims 1-3, 8-19, 22-28, 31-36, and 41-44. The Patent Owner's Preliminary Response states the petitioners asserted the claims were obvious ("the petitioners failed to meet their burden to show that the '110 Patent is more likely than not obvious in light of the cited art"), i.e., § 103. Specific prior-art references were not recoverable in my searches — unknown. Statutory basis beyond § 103 (no § 101/§ 112 challenge surfaced) — unknown.
• Institution decision: Denied. Patent Owner's Preliminary Response framed two independent grounds for denial: (1) Article III/§ 18 standing — "Petitioners lack standing to request a CBM review on the '110 Patent because the '110 Patent is not a 'covered business method patent'… because it is not related to a financial product or service"; and (2) failure of proof — the petitioners "failed to meet their burden." The Board's institution decision text was not retrievable, so I cannot quote the panel's actual reasoning; the "Not Instituted - Merits" designation in the patent record is consistent with denial on the second ground. Patent Owner expressly reserved appeal rights on the covered-business-method question: "Because no Article III Court has reviewed these decisions, Patent Holder reserves its rights to appeal any adverse Final Decision by the Board… on the grounds that '110 Patent is not a covered business method patent." (That reservation became moot — there was no adverse Final Decision.)
• Final Written Decision: None. Never issued.
• Settlement / termination: N/A — the petition was denied; no settlement.
• Appeal: None from the PTAB (no FWD to appeal).
• Defensive value: A complete win for the patent owner at the institution stage — and therefore a cautionary tale, not a roadmap. A defendant today cannot rely on any of this estoppel or precedent; the denial has no preclusive effect, and the PTAB's institution denial says nothing about validity. The durable win came later and elsewhere (D. Del. + Fed. Cir.).
• Source: Google Patents US5664110A litigation data; Patent Owner Preliminary Response, CBM2014-00082 (2014-06-16).

CBM2013-00048 — Petitioner unidentified (see note) v. Cronos Technologies LLC

• Type: Covered Business Method review (AIA § 18)
• Filed: 2013 (exact date unverified; CBM2013 series). The Google Patents record gives only "PTAB case CBM2013-00048 filed."
• Status: "Settlement" (per the patent record).
• Judge panel: Not verified. A Docket Alarm filter result surfaced the docket entry "Document CBM2013-00048, No. 12 Institution Decision - Order Termination of Proceedings (P.T.A.B. Dec. 16, 2013)" in a query filtered by APJ Thomas Giannetti — this is weak circumstantial evidence that Judge Giannetti sat on the panel. Do not treat the panel composition as established. With 500+ hits in that filtered result, I cannot rule out a retrieval artifact.
• Petition grounds: Unknown. The petition never reached an institution decision on the merits — the proceeding terminated before institution.
• Institution decision: No merits institution. The Board instead issued an Order Termination of Proceedings dated 2013-12-16, consistent with the settlement status.
• Final Written Decision: None. Never issued.
• Settlement / termination: Terminated 2013-12-16 on the parties' settlement. Terms confidential and not public — the Google Patents record reflects only the "Settlement" disposition. Whether a license/royalty flowed to Cronos is not disclosed in any source I could retrieve.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Minimal as a substantive weapon — no claim was construed or canceled. Assume any settlement license you encounter may cover this patent.

⚠️ Additional proceeding flagged (UNVERIFIED): A law-school survey table of CBM filings lists a separate entry — "CBM2013-00051 | 8/21/13 | 5664110 | eBay, Inc. | Cronos" — i.e., an eBay, Inc. CBM against this patent filed 2013-08-21. I could not verify this against the PTAB docket, and I could not confirm whether it is a distinct proceeding or a numbering/record error alongside CBM2013-00048. Do not cite CBM2013-00051 as confirmed. If it is real, it introduces eBay as a second 2013-era petitioner. Source: Catholic University law review CBM survey table.

CBM2015-00047 — Unified Patents (Inc.) v. Cronos Technologies LLC

• Type: Covered Business Method review (AIA § 18)
• Filed: 2015 (exact date unverified; CBM2015 series).
• Status: "Not Instituted - Procedural." Plain English: the Board declined to institute on a procedural defect — not on the merits. Typical procedural bases include failure to serve the petition on all real parties in interest, late/incomplete mandatory notices, improper service, or § 42.106(a) fee/service defects. The specific defect is not stated in the sources I could retrieve — I will not guess at it.
• Judge panel: Not verified.
• Petition grounds: Unknown — the proceeding died on procedure before any merits analysis, so no ground was adjudicated. (Google Patents lists the Petitioner field for this case as blank; the petitioner attribution "Unified Patents" comes from the Unified Patents PTAB Data link embedded in the patent record.)
• Institution decision: Denied, procedural, date not verified.
• Final Written Decision: None. Never issued.
• Settlement / termination: N/A.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Procedural denials are not merits wins and carry no estoppel either way. The significance is strategic, not doctrinal: Unified Patents — a defensive aggregator — entered the fight in 2015, meaning independent third parties (not just the sued defendants) were willing to spend money to kill this patent.

Federal Circuit appeals (NOT PTAB appeals — included because they dominate the outcome)

• Docket numbers: 2016-2528, 2016-2529, 2016-2530 (consolidated).
• Type: Appeals from the District of Delaware, Nos. 1:13-cv-01538-LPS, 1:13-cv-01541-LPS, 1:13-cv-01544-LPS (Chief Judge Leonard P. Stark) — not from any PTAB FWD (none exists).
• Decided: 2017-08-17 — Cronos Technologies, LLC v. Expedia, Inc., 696 F. App'x 506 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (nonprecedential).
• Panel: O'Malley, Reyna, and Taranto, Circuit Judges (opinion by O'Malley).
• Issues: (1) summary judgment of no infringement (literal and DOE); (2) construction of "item code" and "identifying code"; (3) construction of the "user-input" terms.
• Disposition: Affirmed, on the ground that "the district court correctly construed the terms 'item code' and 'identifying code,' within the context of the '110 patent, to be distinct from 'user-discernable information' such that item codes and identifying codes do not contain any user-discernable information." Because the codes must contain no user-discernable information, "no reasonable jury could find that Appellees' accused products infringe the '110 patent under Cronos's theory, which relies on the use of search parameters containing [user-discernable information]."
• Defensive value: This is the operative decision. The Federal Circuit has affirmatively held that the asserted infringement theory for this patent cannot survive the claim construction — the construction that Cronos attacked and lost.

Links: CourtListener opinion — Cronos v. Expedia, 696 F. App'x 506 · CourtListener district docket, 1:13-cv-01541 · PTAB E2E / PTAB Center portal

Strategic summary

Claim status — nothing canceled, nothing sustained, nothing adjudicated. This is the single most important framing point and it cuts against the usual "hardened patent" narrative. No FWD ever issued on US 5,664,110. Across all identified CBMs: one settled before institution (CBM2013-00048, terminated 2013-12-16), one denied on the merits at institution (CBM2014-00082, challenging claims 1-3, 8-19, 22-28, 31-36, and 41-44), and one denied on procedure (CBM2015-00047). Consequently all 75 claims stand unamended before the Office — but that is a hollow survival, for two independent reasons:

1. The patent expired 2014-12-08 (filed 1994-12-08; the patent record shows "Anticipated expiration 2014-12-08" and status "Expired - Lifetime"). No injunctive relief is available and the damages window closed over a decade ago. Practically speaking, any assertion campaign on this patent is stale on its face.
2. The claims were construed out of reach. The D. Del. construction of "item code"/"identifying code" (2016-07-22) — reversed-roundly affirmed at 696 F. App'x 506 — forecloses infringement theories premised on search parameters or codes that themselves carry user-discernable content. Because no PTAB claim construction ever issued, the only authoritative claim-construction precedent on this patent is the district court/Fed. Cir. line, and it is a non-infringement construction.

Estoppel landscape — essentially a clean slate, because nothing was instituted. Under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2), estoppel attaches only after a Final Written Decision. There is no FWD here, so no petitioner — Travelocity, Priceline, Expedia, Unified Patents, or (if real) eBay — is estopped, and none of their privies are estopped, from raising any ground. There is correspondingly no IPR/PGR estoppel benefit to inherit. If (counterfactually) a defendant were somehow still exposed, every prior-art ground remains on the table for a new IPR — but note that with the patent expired, an IPR would be a cost exercise with no practical payoff, and the CBM program that produced the 2013–2015 filings sunset on 2020-09-16 and is unavailable today.

Pattern signals. (i) Same-patent, multiple-petitioner pressure: Cronos was subject to at least three CBM attacks from at least two distinct interest groups over 2013–2015 — the online-travel defendants (CBM2014-00082) and the defensive aggregator Unified Patents (CBM2015-00047), with a probable third involving eBay (flagged above, unverified). (ii) NPE posture: Cronos Technologies LLC appears in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database as an "Acquired patents" asserter, with a wide defendant set across E.D. Ky., D. Del., E.D. Tex., S.D.N.Y., D.N.J., D. Nev., N.D. Ga., N.D. Cal., and C.D. Cal. (2012–2013), plus an assignment chain Highpoint Systems → UBS AG (2006-05-10) → Cronos Technologies LLC (2011-10-19). (iii) Patent owner did pursue appeals aggressively — but of the district case, not the PTAB: the 2016-2528/2529/2530 appeal was Cronos's, and it lost. There is no PTAB appeal history for this patent whatsoever.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant receiving an assertion today:

• Lead with expiration and the Federal Circuit affirmance, not with the PTAB. Link and quote the dispositive holding: "the district court correctly construed the terms 'item code' and 'identifying code' … to be distinct from 'user-discernable information' such that item codes and identifying codes do not contain any user-discernable information," and "no reasonable jury could find that Appellees' accused products infringe the '110 patent under Cronos's theory." — 696 F. App'x 506 (Fed. Cir. 2017) (affirming Nos. 1:13-cv-01538/-01541/-01544-LPS). Add the patent-record fact that the '110 patent's anticipated expiration was 2014-12-08.
• Do not over-claim PTAB wins. No claim of this patent has been canceled. If opposing counsel (or an internal memo) says "the PTAB invalidated the claims," that is false — the challenges were denied or settled. Correct it, because if you rely on a nonexistent FWD you hand the patent owner an easy rhetorical win.
• Covered-business-method relief is gone. The AIA § 18 CBM transition window closed 2020-09-16; do not budget for a CBM. Any new IPR would face an expired patent with no damages runway.
• If a settlement/license from CBM2013-00048 (2013-12-16 termination) surfaces in your chain of title or as a license defense, note that the terms are confidential — demand production rather than assuming scope.

If you are evaluating the patent for acquisition or defensive aggregation: the file is not worth the maintenance/reinstatement economics — the asserted claims are expired and construed narrowly with a Federal Circuit affirmance on the books. The only live value would be historical (prior-art/prosecution-history estoppel for other patents in the same family, e.g., against the Cronos portfolio broadly), not enforcement value against this patent.

Process note for your own diligence file: the ODP AIA-trial feed returned no proceedings for this patent while the patent record itself lists three CBM links. If your workflow treats ODP as canonical for AIA trials, that workflow will miss 2013–2015 CBM activity. Escalate this as a data-coverage finding.

Verification gaps I am explicitly not papering over (each needs a PTAB E2E / PFW pull before you rely on it in a filing): (1) the exact filing dates for CBM2013-00048, CBM2014-00082, and CBM2015-00047; (2) the judge panels for all three; (3) the specific prior-art references and the institution-decision reasoning in CBM2014-00082; (4) the procedural defect underlying CBM2015-00047; (5) the petitioner identity for CBM2013-00048; and (6) the existence, petitioner, and disposition of CBM2013-00051 (ebay).

I'll research this patent's ownership chain thoroughly before writing up the analysis.

Let me dig for the specific assignment record details — reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and correspondents of record.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 5,664,110 ("Remote ordering system")

Note on sourcing: The reel/frame chain below is grounded in the 37 C.F.R. § 3.73(b) Statement of chain of title that Cronos Technologies LLC filed in PTAB proceedings (CBM2013-00048, CBM2014-00082), which lists the recorded reel/frame for each link. Dates for the 1994 and 1997 events are from the patent front matter; the 2006 and 2011 transfer dates are from the Google Patents legal-events record for US5664110A. I could not retrieve the USPTO-recorded correspondent (the filing attorney) for the three assignment entries from the sources I was able to access — that is flagged where relevant rather than guessed.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: No fire-sale departure pattern. Green remained at the helm of Highpoint long after filing — he was still its CEO in 2001, personally directing the company's 2001 patent-infringement suit against Office Depot/BarPoint.com. This is the opposite of "all inventors depart within 12 months," so the inventors' behavior gives no distressed-sale tell. (What is suggestive is the entity-level transfer of the patent away from Highpoint in 2006, discussed below — but that is an assignee event, not an inventor event.)

Original assignee

Highpoint Systems, Inc. (Lexington, Massachusetts), a closely held software/hardware developer of home barcode-scanning and remote-ordering devices. The patent was assigned to Highpoint on the filing date itself (1994-12-08; Reel 007249/0473).

• Line of business: Consumer ordering hardware/software — barcode-reading "display/processor units," a scanner-equipped PDA project developed with Ideo, and a scanning pen (Symbol/Cross CyberPen). It is the DPU/DFTC merchant-network described in the patent.
• Product embodying the claims: Yes, plausibly. Highpoint developed and pitched dedicated household ordering terminals and scanner software; Wired (1999) describes a device with a modem for "keeping track of what you've run out of, uploading orders, and downloading pricing and delivery information" — i.e., the claimed remote ordering terminal. This is an operating-company lineage, not a paper assignee.
• Funding: Raised ~$6.4M, including from the UPS Strategic Enterprise Fund and a Connecticut VC (per Lighthouse/Crunchbase-style funding data).
• Current status: Operating history ended; status not verified as bankruptcy. Highpoint was still active and asserting the patent in 2001 but the patent was gone from its hands by 2006 (Reel 017606/0112). I did not find a confirmed Chapter 7/11 filing, so I am not characterizing this as a bankruptcy — see Signal 6.

Assignment timeline

• 1994-12-08 (executed, simultaneously with filing) / recorded on the 1994-12-08 filing — Reel 007249 / 0473

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Jonathan B. Green and William R. Pope (joint inventors)
  • Assignee: Highpoint Systems, Inc. (Delaware/Massachusetts operating company)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved from available sources; the Google Patents reassignment entry names the assignors only. (USPTO Assignment Center would show the recording correspondent.)
  • Context: Founding assignment — the inventors' original transfer to the startup that commercialized the technology.

• 2006-05-10 (per Google Patents legal events) / recorded ~2006 — Reel 017606 / 0112

  • Conveyance: Purchase Agreement
  • Assignor: Highpoint Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: UBS AG (Swiss bank)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved. No attorney name appears in the available legal-events data.
  • Context: Outright sale of the patent by the operating company to a financial institution — an asset monetization/disposal, not a reorg. The "Purchase Agreement" conveyance type (rather than a merger or change-of-name) indicates UBS bought the right rather than acquiring Highpoint.

• 2011-10-19 (per Google Patents legal events) / recorded ~2011 — Reel 027089 / 0367

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: UBS AG
  • Assignee: Cronos Technologies, LLC (Delaware LLC; principal place of business 717 N. Union St. #65, Wilmington, DE 19805, per its own complaints)
  • Correspondent: Not retrieved from the assignment record. The attorney most closely associated with Cronos's title documentation is Melvin L. Barnes, Capitol Legal Group PLLC (1455 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC), who signed Cronos's § 3.73(b) chain-of-title statements (dated June 6, 2012 and September 11, 2013) and the PTAB power of attorney. Caveat: signing a § 3.73(b) statement filed with the PTAB is not the same as being the correspondent of record on the USPTO assignment — I am not asserting that equivalence.
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter. A non-practicing Delaware LLC acquires an already-expired-proximate patent from a bank and immediately monetizes it.

Assignment Correspondent caveat (the one element I could not ground): The brief asks me to name the attorney of record on each recording and flag recurrence. I could not pull the recorded correspondents (reel/frame filing attorneys) for entries 1–3 from the sources available to me. I will not invent them. What I can say is that Cronos's litigation counsel (e.g., Russ, August & Kabat; Bayard P.A.; Heninger Garrison Davis) and its PTAB counsel (Capitol Legal Group; Jackson Walker as petitioner-side) are documented and recurrent across Cronos matters — but litigation/PTAB counsel ≠ assignment recording correspondent, and I explicitly decline to conflate them.

Assignment Center verification: search by patent number at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (indexed mirror at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Search "5664110" and open Reels 007249/0473, 017606/0112, and 027089/0367 to read the recorded correspondents directly.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5664110
    1994 : Inventors assign to Highpoint Systems
    1997 : Patent issued to Highpoint
    2001 : Highpoint sues Office Depot
         : Suit withdrawn for licensing talks
    2006 : Highpoint assigns patent to UBS AG
    2011 : UBS AG assigns patent to Cronos
    2012 : Cronos files many infringement suits
    2014 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Reel 027089/0367 moves the patent from UBS AG to Cronos Technologies, LLC, a Delaware LLC whose own complaints state its principal place of business is 717 N. Union St. #65, Wilmington, Delaware 19805 — a suite-numbered address of the type used as a mail-drop/registered-agent service rather than a working office. Cronos self-describes as an "exclusive licensee" / owner whose sole asserted activity is enforcement, ships no products, and asserted a single patent (the '110) across dozens of defendants. This is a name-plus-conduct finding, not a naming inference: the address, the no-products fact, and the single-patent enforcement posture are the evidence.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
The current assignee Cronos Technologies, LLC is not on the enumerated list in the brief, but it is squarely a high-frequency patent plaintiff: it appears in the Stanford NPE Litigation Database (patent 5664110 entry, categorized "Acquired patents") and filed a large, contemporaneous wave of suits in 2012–2013 against retailers and travel sites (Vitamin Shoppe, GNC, Vitacost, Toys"R"Us, Carter's, Dick's Sporting Goods, Camping World, Expedia, Priceline, Travelocity, Tempur-Pedic, Moosejaw). It was sued into three PTAB CBM petitions (CBM2013-00048, CBM2014-00082, CBM2015-00047). The asserter is the current owner (Reel 027089/0367), so this is the assignee itself.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / not determinable.
I could not retrieve the USPTO assignment correspondents of record for Reels 007249/0473, 017606/0112, or 027089/0367, so I cannot confirm or deny a repeat filing attorney across the chain. Because the brief instructs that "a single appearance is not a finding," and I don't even have a single confirmed appearance, this must be marked unclear. (The one recurring attorney in related filings — Melvin L. Barnes, Capitol Legal Group PLLC, on Cronos's title/POA papers — is flagged above with the explicit caveat that it is not established as the assignment correspondent.)

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
The chain spans 17 years with long holds (Highpoint 1994–2006, UBS AG 2006–2011, Cronos 2011→). There is no <24-month cascade of chained LLCs with shared correspondents/principals. This is a long-hold chain, not a rapid flip.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT.
The UBS AG → Cronos assignment was recorded 2011-10-19 (Reel 027089/0367). Cronos then sent infringement demand letters dated January 10, 2012 (alleged in the Dick's Sporting Goods complaint) and filed its first suits in April 2012 (e.g., Cronos v. Vitamin Shoppe, D. Del. 1:12-cv-00444, filed April 9, 2012). The transfer lands roughly five to six months before the first filing — within the six-month pre-litigation window — consistent with arranging a clean standing/venue record before asserting.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — UNCLEAR.
The 2006 "Purchase Agreement" (Reel 017606/0112) from the operating company Highpoint to a bank (UBS AG) is consistent with a distressed disposition or loan-workout asset sale, and Highpoint's funding history and later disappearance from the record support a wind-down around that period. However, I did not verify a Chapter 7/11 filing for Highpoint Systems, so I cannot call this a bankruptcy fire-sale. Marked unclear rather than inferred from the "Purchase Agreement" label alone.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT (as to the original operating company).
The classic privateering pattern (operating company hands patent to an NPE to sue its competitors) does not fit: Highpoint asserted the patent itself in 2001 (against Office Depot/BarPoint), then sold it to a bank, not to an assert-on-my-behalf NPE. The eventual asserter (Cronos) targets unrelated retailers and travel sites, not Highpoint's competitors. No evidence of a coordinated privateering arrangement.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Cronos, an active litigant; it does not end at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent was never neutralized by defensive aggregation. (Notably, the 2013 CBM was terminated by settlement/license, not by a defensive-consortium purchase.)

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain is documented end-to-end by recorded reels: inventors → Highpoint (Reel 007249/0473) → UBS AG (Reel 017606/0112, a "Purchase Agreement") → Cronos Technologies, LLC (Reel 027089/0367). Cronos is a no-products Delaware LLC at a Wilmington mail-drop address that acquired the patent in October 2011 and asserted it against dozens of retailers and travel sites beginning in April 2012, after January 2012 demand letters — a pre-litigation transfer to a high-frequency asserter (Signals 1, 2, and 5 all present). The alignment of a shell-style assignee, a documented mass-assertion campaign, and a sub-six-month transfer-to-suit interval drives the high-confidence call; the inventor/operating-company origin does not soften it, because title left the operating company for a bank a decade earlier.

Verify the reel chain at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search patent number 5664110 (indexed mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html).

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 5,664,110. Let me start with the patent's own citation record.

Let me dig into the front-page reference lists for this patent.

Let me try to locate the patent's front page and citation lists directly.

Prior-art analysis — US 5,664,110 ("Remote ordering system," Green & Pope, Highpoint Systems)

Important limitation up front (read before using the tables below)

I was not able to retrieve the examiner's front-page "References Cited" list for US 5,664,110. The authoritative full text supplied to me (and the Google Patents page it came from) begins at the Abstract/Description and does not include the front-page "(56) References Cited" block, and my searches did not surface a source that reproduces it. I therefore cannot give you a verbatim enumeration of the examiner-cited U.S. patent documents with signature confidence.

Per my operating rules, I will not fabricate that list. Below I give (A) the reference I can verify from the '110 record itself, (B) the field-level candidate art whose dates and content I can support, each clearly labeled as confirmed vs. candidate, and (C) what still needs to be pulled from the paper record.

Two identifiers in the record that matter for prior-art dating:

• Effective filing / priority date: December 8, 1994 (App. 08/351,795). Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 therefore applies.
• §§ 102(a)/102(e) cut off at the invention date; § 102(b) requires a date before December 8, 1993; § 102(e) requires a U.S. patent/application filed before the '110 invention date.

A. Reference confirmed in the '110 record itself

A.1 — DeAngelis, US 4,654,482 ("Home merchandise ordering telecommunications terminal")

Brief description (from the reference's own text): A home terminal that orders merchandise from any of several merchants over the direct-distance-dial telephone network. A hand-held bar-code wand passes over printed merchandise codes (UPCs) in catalogs; a recognition-data cartridge (or fixed ROM) supplies the merchant's telephone number, formatting, security codes and the customer's account number; a microprocessor/controller with ROM + RAM holds a temporary item selection list; a modem auto-dials the merchant's order-receiving apparatus; a one-line LCD and indicator lights guide the user through a switch-driven ordering sequence.

Anticipation assessment under § 102 (preliminary):

• Claim 1 (apparatus) — likely NOT anticipated by DeAngelis alone. DeAngelis discloses several claim-1 elements: a terminal, a data entry device (wand/bar-code reader), identifier means (recognition-data cartridge carrying merchant + account data), memory, and communication means (modem over the DDD network, arguably a "multi-user network"). But claim 1 requires a "user-specific database including user-discernable item data associated with item codes" and on-demand receipt of "new and/or replacement user-discernable item data … corresponding only to said at least one item or group of items of said at least one list." DeAngelis' terminal stores raw item selections in RAM; as the '110 patent itself notes, user-readable product descriptions are only furnished after the order list is completed and conveyed to the merchant's order-receiving apparatus. That is the very gap the '110 patent claims to close. So DeAngelis is best characterized as a § 103 combination reference (e.g., against the code-scan + identifier + modem + list-memory subcombination), not a clean § 102 anticipation of the independent claims.
• Claim 22 (method) — likely NOT anticipated alone for the same reason: DeAngelis lacks (i) an identifier database of user-cognizable identifiers at the user device and (ii) the "interactively updating only said selected one of said user-cognizable identifiers … in response to a user action" step. It may, however, anticipate narrower dependent claims directed to bar-code input, merchant identification, and transmission of a list over a telephone network.

B. Field-level candidate prior art (dates/claims noted; NOT confirmed as front-page citations of the '110)

These are the pre-1994 U.S. references most relevant to the '110 claims on their face. Caveat: I located them from adjacent citation lists and same-field records (e.g., the citation list appearing with JP2007293888A, and the EP 1 202 200 A3 search report), not from US 5,664,110's own front page. Treat each as a candidate pending confirmation against the paper/PDF front page.

Note on § 102(e): For pre-AIA § 102(e) to apply, the reference's U.S. filing date must precede the '110 invention date. Several of the 1992–1994 references above are date-sensitive and cannot be relied on without confirming their filing dates and the '110's actual date of invention.

C. What I could not verify (and how to close the gaps)

1. The examiner's front-page "References Cited" list for the '110 itself is unretrieved. To get it, pull: (a) the USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper for App. 08/351,795 (the PTO-892 Notice of References Cited); (b) the PDF front page of US 5,664,110 (block 56); or (c) the granted EP 0 796 471 B1 / WO 96/18163 search reports from the same family, which reproduce the same examiner-cited art.
2. No verified anticipation of independent claim 1 or claim 22 by any single reference I can currently document. Anticipation under § 102 requires every element in one reference; on the record I have, the closest single reference (DeAngelis) is missing the local user-discernable "learning" database and the on-demand update limitation. I would expect the real § 102 exposure for the '110 to be against its narrower dependent claims, with the independents challenged under § 103 instead.
3. The category distinction matters. "Cited By" / forward citations (e.g., the many patents that cite US 5,664,110) are not prior art to the '110. Only the front-page "(56) References Cited" documents and the family search reports are.
4. Consistency check with the earlier-generated section: that section flagged that the verbatim text of all 75 claims was unavailable and reconstructed claims 1 and 22 from the PTAB/Markman record. The claim-22 text I now have from a search result (EveryPatent) matches that reconstruction's substance — the "provisional list … or … order list" alternative and the "interactively updating only said selected one of said user-cognizable identifiers" step — so there is no contradiction to flag there. The unresolved 1994-12-07 vs. 1994-12-08 priority-date discrepancy noted earlier also remains unresolved; use December 8, 1994 for § 102 date math unless the file wrapper says otherwise.

Sources consulted

• Full text and bibliographic record of US 5,664,110: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5664110/en (Background of the Invention citing DeAngelis US 4,654,482).
• DeAngelis US 4,654,482 full text: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4654482A](/patent/US4654482A)
• Citation list including US4654482, US4947028, US4841132, US5319542, US5664110 (appearing in the record of JP2007293888A): https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2007293888A/en
• EP 1 202 200 A3 extended search report (X/Y references: US 5,918,211; US 5,979,753; US 5,424,524; US 5,595,264; US 5,832,457): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/bb/89/ed/19226bbbe1cd74/EP1202200A3.pdf
• US 5,664,110 grant record: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5664110](/patent/5664110)

Explicit uncertainties: (1) the '110 front-page cited-references list was not obtained — do not treat Section B as that list; (2) exact DeAngelis priority date is disputed between sources; (3) § 102(e) eligibility for the 1992–94 references depends on filing dates I could not fully verify; (4) anticipation conclusions are preliminary and not element-by-element claim charts.

I'll research the prior-art landscape for this patent before building the § 103 combinations.

Let me pull the cited prior art references and the CBM petition's art.

Let me find the specific prior-art references cited on the '110 patent's face and relied on in the CBMs.

Obviousness Analysis — US 5,664,110 ("Remote ordering system")

Note on scope and evidence. I hit the tool-call limit partway through prior-art retrieval, so this analysis rests on (a) the prior art identified in the patent's own Background and in the litigation/PTAB record, and (b) the references I was able to verify by search before the limit. Where a reference number, title, or disclosure is drawn from my background knowledge rather than verified in this session, I flag it explicitly. Do not treat flagged items as established until the reference is pulled and read.

Because US 5,664,110 was filed December 8, 1994, this is a pre-AIA patent: pre-AIA §102/§103 govern, even though the invalidity challenges below arose in CBM review after 2013. (The AIA §102/§103 regime applies only to applications filed on or after March 16, 2013.)

1. Verified prior art in the record

What DeAngelis actually discloses (verified, from the retrieved text and abstract)

• A home ordering terminal connected to the direct distance dial (DDD) telephone network, capable of reaching "order receiving apparatus 16, 18, 20 and 22 respectively of merchants A, B, C and D" — i.e., multiple merchants over a multi-user network.
• A hand-held wand passed over machine-readable merchandise codes (UPC bar codes) printed in catalogs, newspaper inserts, and ads. A microprocessor-based central controller with ROM.
• A storage element — a plug-in cartridge — carrying "recognition data" for the desired merchant: telephone number, formatting information, and security codes. The cartridge also carries RAM for temporarily storing the product ordering information.
• Transmission of the compiled order on user command ("simply depressing control buttons") via an included modem.
• A one-line liquid-crystal text display that "directs the user to depress the correct buttons," plus indicator lights.

The gap DeAngelis leaves — as the '110 patent itself concedes

The '110 patent's Background admits the state of the art:

"Most such systems, such as U.S. Pat. No. 4,654,482 (DeAngelis), provide an indication that a product code has been scanned… However, none of the prior art systems describes how to produce a user-interpretable description of the products placed in a list of items based on the scanned codes such as manufacturer and product name, product size, and product cost while such list is being constructed. For example, user-readable product descriptions are only provided in DeAngelis once an order list has been completed and conveyed to a merchant's order receiving apparatus, and only while connected…"

This admission frames the entire obviousness question: the only substantive difference over DeAngelis is a locally-resident, item-code-indexed database of human-readable descriptions (and prices) that can be built, reviewed, and edited while offline. Everything else in claim 1 is DeAngelis.

2. Claim-construction predicate (carried forward, not repeated)

The Federal Circuit's affirmance in Cronos Techs., LLC v. Expedia, Inc., 696 F. App'x 506 (Fed. Cir. 2017), construed "item code"/"identifying code" to contain no user-discernable information, and treated the two as distinct. That construction helps the infringement defense but does not help validity: it confirms the claimed architecture is (i) a machine code, (ii) a separate human-readable record, (iii) a link between them. Every combination below supplies exactly that two-layer structure.

Flagged contradiction to watch: the previously generated summary notes the Unified Patents portal lists priority as 1994-12-07 while the patent record and D. Del. docketing use 1994-12-08. This analysis uses December 8, 1994, consistent with the authoritative patent text supplied to me.

3. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1

Claim 1 (verbatim text supplied to me) is the apparatus claim. Reading it against DeAngelis alone:

The claim collapses to four gaps that are all one concept — a local, code-indexed product-description cache that is taught/populated on demand. That is precisely the kind of single-concept gap that KSR rewards combining references to fill.

4. Combinations that render claim 1 obvious

Combination A — DeAngelis '482 + a home electronic-catalog terminal (e.g., Gore '028)

Where the secondary reference fits. Gore '028-style systems (and the broader 1980s videotex/electronic-shopping terminals) disclose a consumer terminal with memory holding a catalog of goods/services indexed by item identifier, a display for presenting the catalog entries, and a communication link to a central station. That supplies GAP 1 (local, code-indexed, user-discernable item data) and GAP 3 (display of that data).

Motivation (KSR factors).

• The references address the same problem and field. Both are home merchandise-ordering terminals using machine-readable product codes over the telephone network. DeAngelis itself explains that its motivation is convenience for the elderly, the incapacitated, and busy people and that "having to learn a different manual ordering procedure or sequence for each different store would effectively prevent the usage of such a device" — a usability motive that directly supports adding a richer local display.
• Predictable result. Storing product descriptions in terminal memory keyed by item code was the standard, decades-old architecture of retail point-of-sale: every grocery electronic cash register of the era resolved a scanned UPC against a local price-look-up (PLU) table and displayed the item name and price. Substituting a general-purpose local lookup table for DeAngelis's order-accumulating RAM is a substitution of one known element for another, yielding predictable results (KSR).
• Design incentive. DeAngelis's terminal is tethered to the telephone line during the session. Moving description generation local: (i) eliminates connect-time charges; (ii) frees the telephone line; (iii) enables building and editing a list before any merchant is even chosen — directly answering DeAngelis's stated concern that users be able to order "from any one of a plurality of merchants." The '110 specification makes exactly these points (the DPU "remain[s] in an 'ON' state … No communications link is established … during the building of an order list").

Reasonable expectation of success. High. The '110 patent itself treats a pre-programmed local database as a trivial "alternative embodiment" ("a DPU 10 may come with a standard pre-programmed database in RAM 34, a pre-programmed database in RAM 34 configured for a particular user, or … for a particular merchant") — an admission that local preloading was a known, routine design choice.

Combination B — DeAngelis '482 + US 5,465,291 (on-demand, item-specific central lookup)

Where the secondary reference fits. The '291 text I retrieved describes a bar-code-wand ordering device connecting to a remote database during use, with the remote system returning the item name and price for the scanned code (there, by voice). It expressly contemplates that "the user … may scan a bar code with the wand and have the voice respond with the name and price of the item, and at the same time see the price displayed on the LCD terminal" and that data "may then be sent over the line at the same time as audio information."

That supplies GAPs 2 and 4 exactly: an item-specific, on-demand return of user-discernable item data (name + price) in response to a scanned code, rather than a bulk catalogue push.

Motivation.

• Both references are bar-code-wand, telephone-based home ordering systems sharing the identical problem of converting a scanned code into something a consumer can recognize.
• DeAngelis supplies the terminal, the multi-merchant network, and the identifier data; '291 supplies the query/response protocol for item-specific descriptive data. Combining a known query-response mechanism with a known terminal is the "arrangement of old elements" paradigm of KSR.

⚠ Counterargument the analyst must confront (and the strongest non-obviousness argument available). The '291 specification retrieved in my search contains an express teaching away from the '110 architecture:

"A fundamental principle of database design is to eliminate redundant information … A better way to maintain information is to keep it in one central location … The bar code reader use of the present invention, accordingly, relies on centrally located information for its use and avoids the danger of spreading dated information around to numerous homes … Trying to keep the data stored in remote locations accurate would be an overbearing task."

Under In re Gurley / KSR, a reference that criticizes, discredits, or otherwise discourages the claimed approach is evidence of non-obviousness. A petitioner using '291 as the secondary reference must explain why a POSITA would nonetheless move the data cache into the terminal — the best answer is that the '110 claim requires only an item-specific, on-demand transfer (not a full mirror of the merchant catalogue), so the staleness objection is blunted by the very limitation that "new and/or replacement … data correspond only to … said at least one list." But this is a fight, not a walkover.

Combination C — DeAngelis '482 + portable-data-terminal art (local lookup store) + cache-eviction art

Where the third reference fits. Independent claim 1's storage limitation, plus the specification's "aging" disclosure, map onto well-known cache management. Portable bar-code terminals with onboard lookup tables (e.g., the Symbol/MSI-type hand-held terminals of the late 1980s) teach a local, code-indexed data store on a portable reader; and LRU/least-frequently-used eviction on memory exhaustion was textbook database and operating-system practice long before 1994.

The '110 specification's "aging" teaching — "the CPU 30 determines the oldest, or least accessed, product information based on access date. This oldest information is aged out, or deleted … until sufficient room exists within RAM 34" — is the paradigm case of a known technique applied to a foreseeable, known problem (bounded local memory). A patent claim to LRU eviction of a local cache, combined with a terminal otherwise known from DeAngelis, is obvious as a matter of law under KSR.

5. Claim 22 (the method claim) — and the "provisional order list"

Claim 22 is described in the previously generated section (and in the PTAB record) as the method counterpart reciting cooperation among an order device (input means + identifier means), a user-specific database, a central processing means, and a central inventory database. I have not verified its verbatim text and will not paraphrase it further.

For §103 purposes, whether claim 22 is obvious rises or falls with claim 1: the method steps — input a code, look up a human-readable record, build a list, transmit, receive updated data — are the performance of claim 1's apparatus by its intended use. A method claim whose steps are the ordinary operation of an obvious apparatus is likewise obvious.

The "provisional order list" nuance. Both claims recite that the transmitted list may be an order or a "provisional order list" for which updated user-discernable data is desired. This is drawn from the '110 specification's "price inquiry" function — the price inquiry icon 60 and the nutritional information icon. In other words, the "provisional order list" is a price/availability query carrying the candidate items. Price-check queries against a merchant's database were routine in the field (the '110 specification itself describes the price inquiry as an ordinary user option and the merchant database response as a data return). This limitation therefore does not rescue the claims; it simply adds a second, conventional purpose to the same transmission.

6. Dependent claims (claims 2–6, the only ones whose text I have)

Claims 2–5 are notable because they are drafted as mutually exclusive alternatives (memory-resident vs. external identifier means) — the classic "claim every embodiment of a known design choice" pattern. Both alternatives are literally disclosed in DeAngelis. That is a §103 (and arguably §102) vulnerability.

Independence caveat carried forward: the previous section established claims 1 and 22 as independents (per the CBM2014-00082 denial). Because the claim text I was given truncates at claim 6, I cannot rule out further independent claims among claims 45–75, and cannot analyze them.

7. Secondary considerations and counterweights

Evidence supporting patentability (must be weighed):

1. Teaching away in US 5,465,291 — the express "eliminate redundant information / avoid spreading dated information around to numerous homes" passage. This is the strongest non-obviousness datum I identified.
2. The PTAB denied institution on the merits in CBM2014-00082 and CBM2015-00047 was not instituted, while CBM2013-00048 settled. Petitioners never obtained a merits holding of unpatentability despite three separate CBM attempts — meaningful evidence that the art as then assembled was not a clean §103 kill.
3. Commercial activity by the assignee (Highpoint Systems) and later acquisition by UBS AG and then Cronos Technologies could support a commercial-success narrative — but no nexus argument has been established, and the patent later expired.

Evidence cutting against patentability:

1. The specification's own admissions about the prior art and about "alternative embodiments" (pre-programmed databases, dumb terminals, price inquiry) narrow the distance between the claims and the art.
2. The breadth of the claim set (75 claims, with independently-drafted alternatives for the same design choice) is a hallmark of claims to a known architecture with predictable variations.
3. KSR's "predictable variations" rationale applies forcefully to LRU cache eviction, menu-based account selection, and local-vs-remote data storage — all routine engineering choices in 1994.

Balancing: the honest assessment is that claim 1 and its dependents are substantially vulnerable to a §103 challenge, but the challenge is not airtight — principally because the most on-point secondary reference ('291) argues against local caching. A petitioner would need either (i) a different secondary reference that affirmatively teaches local code-indexed product-description storage, or (ii) a persuasive rebuttal that the '110 claim's item-limited ("corresponding only to said at least one item") transfer is materially different from the full-mirroring that '291 criticizes.

8. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is likely obvious over DeAngelis '482 in view of a local electronic-catalog/lookup-table reference (Combination A), motivated by connect-time/phone-line savings, offline list building, and the ubiquitous retail PLU-lookup model; and over DeAngelis + '291 (Combination B) if the teaching-away in '291 can be overcome.
• Claims 3 and 5 are anticipated by — or at minimum obvious over — DeAngelis alone, because they claim the integral-memory and plug-in-cartridge embodiments DeAngelis expressly discloses.
• Claims 2 and 4 are obvious as conventional account selection over DeAngelis's multi-merchant scheme.
• Claim 22 tracks claim 1 and is obvious to the same extent; the "provisional order list" limitation adds only a conventional price/availability query.
• The strongest defense is the '291 teaching away, plus the three unsuccessful CBM petitions. The strongest attack is the specification's own prior-art admissions plus KSR's predictable-variation doctrine.
• No merits invalidity holding exists for this patent. It expired December 8, 2014; the 2013–2015 CBMs all terminated without institution on the merits; and the Federal Circuit's 2017 affirmance was on non-infringement, not invalidity — so nothing in the record legally forecloses or confirms the §103 conclusions above.

Sources

• US 5,664,110 full text and bibliographic record: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5664110/en
• US 5,664,110 full-text PDF (Carnegie Mellon e-commerce archive): http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/[5664110](/patent/5664110).pdf
• US 4,654,482 (DeAngelis) full text: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/d5/be/66/21f99c5c678e22/US4654482.pdf
• DeAngelis '482 as Exhibit 1010, CBM2013-00048 (eBay v. Cronos): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/CBM2013-00048/Covered_Business_Method_Patent_Review_of_U.S._Pat._5664110/docs/08-21-2013-Petitioner/Exhibit-1010-USP_4,654,482.pdf
• US 5,465,291 (on-demand central lookup; teaching away from distributed data): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/59/43/b1/cf04519d0cdc83/US5465291.pdf
• PTAB CBM2014-00082 denial of institution (claims 1 and 22 independent): https://ptabtrialblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CBM2014-00082-Denying-CBM-Review-20140915.pdf
• Cronos Techs., LLC v. Expedia, Inc., 696 F. App'x 506 (Fed. Cir. 2017): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[4419549](/patent/4419549)/cronos-technologies-llc-v-expedia-inc/
• DeAngelis later continuation, US 2005/0075940 A1 (discussing the '482 patent's scope): https://eureka-patsnap-com.sutd.idm.oclc.org/patent-US20050075940A1

Explicit uncertainties: (1) I did not verify Gore US 4,947,028 this session — treat it as a candidate, not established art; (2) US 5,465,291's title, inventors, assignee, and filing date are unverified — its availability as §102(e) art depends on a filing date before December 8, 1994, which I could not confirm; (3) verbatim text of claim 22 and of claims 7–75 was not available to me, so any independent claims beyond 1 and 22 are unanalyzed; (4) I lack direct PACER access, so "no 2026 activity" remains a search-based, not verified, negative.