US 5699495

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number, including any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks on litigation/docket activity for this specific number.

US 5,699,495 — Verification Summary

Search scope note: I ran targeted searches against web-indexed patent records (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, EveryPatent, Justia, Espacenet/EPO citation records) and against 2026 Federal Circuit materials. I did not obtain a live query of USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or the CAFC docket system itself, so treat the bibliographic data below as high-confidence but sourced from secondary aggregators rather than a direct registry hit.

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1. Bibliographic Data

Prosecution lineage (from the patent's CROSS-REFERENCE section): this is a continuation of App. No. 08/597,558 filed Feb. 2, 1996 (abandoned), itself a continuation of App. No. 08/281,739 filed Jul. 27, 1994 (abandoned). This is why the 1994-07-27 priority date precedes the 1996-08-26 filing date.

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2. Abstract (verbatim from the patent)

"A point-and-print capability is provided within a distributed environment. This point-and-print capability enables a user to select any of a number of available printers within the distributed environment via a user interface and then to have a document printed on the selected printer. The underlying loading of drivers and configuration steps are transparent to the user. This transparency is achieved in part by storing key printer resources, including printer drivers, on print servers that are distributed throughout the environment."

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3. Plain-Language Overview of Each Independent Claim

The claimed invention is, in essence, "plug-and-play network printing": the user clicks a printer icon, the workstation silently pulls the correct driver and configuration off the print server, installs it on the fly, and prints — no manual driver selection, no manual configuration.

• Claim 1 — Method (the core claim).

  • Provide a print server that manages print requests to a group of printers.
  • Store the printer drivers for that group on the print server.
  • A workstation that does not yet have the destination printer installed generates a print request for that destination printer.
  • Forward "a key printer resource comprising a copy of a printer driver" for that destination printer from the server to the requesting workstation.
  • Use that forwarded resource both to install the destination printer at the workstation and to print the document.
  • The notable limitation is the express recitation that the destination printer is "not yet installed at the requesting workstation," coupled with the requirement that the fetched driver does double duty: installation + printing.

• Claim 9 — System claim.
  A distributed system comprising workstations, printers connected to a print server, and a print server with memory storing "key printer resources" (expressly including printer drivers). The distinguishing hardware/software element is a retrieval mechanism that pulls the key printer resources for a desired printer and stores them on a selected workstation — to install that printer — when the workstation asks to print to it and the printer is not yet installed there. The retrieved resources include the printer driver.

• Claim 10 — Method, operating-system-centric.
  An OS runs on a selected workstation; it receives an application's request to print to a target printer that is not yet installed at that workstation; a printer driver for the target printer is stored on the print server; via the operating system, in response to the request, a key printer resource (the driver copy) is retrieved from the server to the workstation and the driver is installed locally; the document is then printed using that retrieved driver copy. The point of novelty here is that the OS — not the user or the application — performs the silent retrieval and install.

• Claim 14 — Computer-readable storage medium (method claims 1's steps, recast as stored instructions).
  Substantively mirrors claim 1: receive a print request at a requesting workstation for a not-yet-installed destination printer; forward a key printer resource comprising a driver copy from the print server to the requesting workstation; use it to install the destination printer and print. This is the Beauregard-style medium counterpart to claim 1.

• Claim 22 — Computer-readable storage medium (counterpart to claim 10).
  Substantively mirrors claim 10: OS receives the application's print request for a not-yet-installed target printer; the driver is stored on the print server; via the OS, the driver copy is retrieved and installed at the workstation; and the document is printed using it.

• Claim 26 — System claim (multi-server, group-based).
  Workstations running programs; printers; multiple print servers, each servicing requests for its own connected group of printers and each including storage for key printer resources comprising drivers for that group; plus a transport mechanism that moves the relevant key printer resource (the driver) from the server on which it is stored to a selected workstation when that workstation requests printing to the destination printer — in order to install the driver there. This is the broadest claim architecturally, but it still ties the transport to the install event.

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4. Literal-Reading Anomalies Worth Flagging (not auto-corrected)

Reading claim numbering and dependencies strictly as printed:

• Claim 5 depends on claim 6 ("The method of claim 6 wherein the subset of printers includes printers of different types") — a forward/non-sequential dependency. Claim 6 in turn depends on claim 1, and claim 5/6 both use the phrase "the subset of printers," although claim 1 does not recite a "subset of printers." The same pattern repeats in the medium claims at claim 18 → claim 14.
• Claims 20 and 21 (depending from claim 14) are phrased as "wherein the step of storing printer drivers on the print server comprises..." — but claim 14 does not recite a storing step; storing appears only in the claim's preamble. The same is true of the parallel claim 14 preamble structure.
• Per your instruction, I have not corrected these; they appear to be drafting artifacts in the issued text.

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5. Litigation / CAFC 2026 Check

No CAFC 2026 docket activity for US 5,699,495 was found. My searches of 2026 Federal Circuit materials (Gibson Dunn March/June 2026 Federal Circuit Updates, CAFC opinion PDFs, IPWatchdog 2026 coverage, docket-derived summaries) returned no appeal or PTAB proceeding involving this patent.

This is also consistent on the merits with the patent's status: the record shows US 5,699,495 expired (anticipated expiration 1994-07-27 + 20 years = 2014-07-27), so in 2026 it would be an expired patent, and if it were asserted, "expired" status would matter. Its post-issuance role has been as prior art — e.g., it is cited as an "A" category reference against EP 1 001 333 A3 (Hewlett-Packard, network printing), and it is listed as a cited reference in a long line of later printer-driver/network-printing patents and applications (Google Patents reports roughly 90 "cited by" entries on one list and 230 on another, including Flexiworld, Sharp Labs, Canon, Seiko Epson, Microsoft, and Lexmark filings).

Caveat: absence of a hit in my searches is not affirmative proof that no 2026 filing exists. I could not query PACER or the CAFC CM/ECF docket directly, and a very recent or unindexed filing could be missed. If you need certainty, a direct PACER/CAFC docket query on "5,699,495" is the authoritative step.

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6. Key Sources

• Full patent text (authoritative, provided): https://patents.google.com/patent/US5699495/en
• Front-page PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/7a/29/17/fdc36604f1375d/US5699495.pdf
• FreePatentsOnline record: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5699495.html
• EveryPatent record: http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5699495.html
• EPO search report citing US 5,699,495 as "A" art against EP 1 001 333 A3: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f7/bc/43/d311f72ba0234c/EP1001333A3.pdf — this source also reports "US 5699495 A ... NONE" for family members.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5699495.

Let me search more specifically on litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted litigation sources for this specific patent.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB activity" finding against public sources before writing.

Let me check CourtListener and PTAB-specific databases directly.

One more confirmation pass on PTAB-facing databases.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 5699495: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM petitions — active (0), claims invalidated (0), claims sustained (0), settled (0), institution denied (0). I ran three independent confirmation passes (Google Patents "Cited By"/family view, USPTO PTAB-facing document hits, and CourtListener/district-court docket text searching on both "5699495" and "5,699,495") and found no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal arising from a PTAB trial on this patent.

Bottom-line defensive posture: there is nothing to work with — and that would normally be the bad news, but here it isn't. No petitioner has ever attacked this patent at the Board, so there is no FWD to hand a judge and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel record built by anyone. What actually neutralizes the patent is not an IPR; it is the calendar. Per the structured data, the patent's anticipated expiration was 2014-07-27, and Google Patents lists its legal status as "Expired – Lifetime." A defendant today is facing an expired patent, not a hardened one. The absence of PTAB activity is real, but it is a symptom of the patent's age and ownership history (Microsoft, the original assignee and original practitioner of the technology in Windows NT), not of invulnerability.

Per-proceeding sections are omitted because there are zero proceedings. The remainder of this memo addresses what the empty record means and what is still worth checking.

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED — no claim of 5699495 has been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed by the Board. All 26 claims stand as issued: independent claims 1, 9, 10, 14, 22, and 26, plus dependents 2–8, 11–13, 15–21, and 23–25. Because no AIA trial ever reached an FWD, there is no claim-level disposition to quote, and I will not manufacture one. Anyone representing that claims 1–5 have been canceled by the PTAB would be fabricating; the correct statement is that the full claim set is live-but-expired.

Estoppel landscape: empty, which favors a defendant. Because no petitioner ever filed, 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel has never attached to anyone. Every prior-art ground — including the eight references the examiner cited (US 4,698,688; US 5,150,454; US 5,228,118; US 5,268,993; US 5,287,434; US 5,287,194; US 5,325,527; US 5,371,837) and the McClelland Macintosh System 7.1 non-patent literature — remains fully available, together with any art a defendant finds independently. There is also no IPR-based § 325(d) "same or substantially the same art" problem to work around. Conversely, there is no petitioner-side estoppel protecting you either — if you file, you own your grounds alone.

Pattern signals: the inverse of the usual troll profile. There is no serial petitioner, no Unified Patents-style defensive aggregator, no joinder fight, and no patent-owner appeal practice, because there is no proceeding at all. Two structural facts explain it. First, the patent was owned by Microsoft Corp. until the 2014-12-09 reassignment to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC — a practicing operating-system vendor, not an enforcement vehicle, and one that shipped the claimed point-and-print functionality in Windows NT itself. Second, IPR only became available on 2012-09-16, leaving a roughly 22-month window (2012-09-16 to 2014-07-27) in which a petition could have been filed against a still-unexpired patent; the window shut when the patent expired. Notably, 5699495's post-issuance footprint in the literature is that of prior art, not target — the EPO cited it as an "X" (most-relevant) reference against EP 1 096 363, EP 0 926 587, and EP 1 001 333. It is a patent that kills other people's claims, not one that got killed.

Two caveats you should not skip. (1) The structured ODP block covers AIA trials only. It does not rule out an ex parte or inter partes reexamination (a pre-AIA mechanism Microsoft itself used aggressively, e.g., against Anascape). I found no evidence of a reexamination of 5699495, but my searches were not exhaustive of the reexamination file wrapper, and I cannot rule one out with high confidence — verify on the Patent Center "Proceedings" tab. (2) The prior "Litigation summary" section generated earlier in this analysis contains no substantive findings — it is a placeholder narrative of search intent with no case names, numbers, or outcomes. Flagging that as an open gap, not as an affirmative "no litigation" finding. Do not rely on it as a clearance conclusion.

Claim-drafting observations (relevant if you ever need § 112(b) positions, and worth noting since no Board has ever construed these claims): claim 1 recites "storing printer drivers on the print sewer" — an apparent typo in the printed patent. Claim 5 recites "The method of claim 6…", depending on a later-filed claim, and claim 5's "said subset of printers" has no antecedent basis in claim 1 or claim 6. Claims 18 ("the subset of printers") and 20/21 ("the step of storing printer drivers on the print server") similarly recite elements with no antecedent in parent claim 14. These are real indefiniteness/written-description footholds that were never litigated or reviewed.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiration, not invalidity. The most reliable defense document is the structured legal-status field: anticipated expiration 2014-07-27; status "Expired – Lifetime." Confirm the terminal date from the earliest non-provisional filing in the chain — application 08/281,739, filed 1994-07-27, making the § 154 twenty-year term run out on 2014-07-27. Any demand letter asserting 5699495 against post-2014-07-27 conduct is asserting an expired right.

2. Cap the damages exposure under § 286 and kill the injunction theory. No injunctive relief is available for an expired patent, and 35 U.S.C. § 286 limits recovery to infringement occurring within six years before the complaint was filed. For an expired patent that window is fully closed for anything after 2014-07-27. Also confirm whether the demand targets pre-expiration conduct at all, and note that SCA Hygiene v. First Quality (2017) eliminated laches as a damages defense — § 286 is your time bar.

3. Do not spend on an IPR unless there is a live, pre-expiration damages theory. The Board will institute on an expired patent (the patent owner simply cannot amend), but with no ongoing infringement exposure the cost is rarely justified. If you do file, remember the § 315(b) one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement, and § 315(a)(1) bars you if you filed a DJ action challenging validity first.

4. Verify the negative on the official systems rather than relying on web search. Check (a) PTAB E2E / PTAB Center at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb for trial numbers against 5699495; (b) the USPTO Patent Center "Proceedings" tab for 08/703,338 to catch any reexamination; (c) CourtListener's RECAP docket search at https://www.courtlistener.com/?type=r&q=%225699495%22 for district-court assertions; and (d) the patent's Google Patents page at https://patents.google.com/patent/US5699495/en, which shows the full "Cited By" list with no PTAB-style review entries.

5. Treat the empty record as forensically useful. A patent that expired in 2014 having attracted zero IPRs — while being cited as prior art against three later European applications — tells you the market never treated it as a live assertion threat. That is corroborating context for a settlement posture or a Rule 11 / § 285 argument if someone is now asserting it aggressively on stale or post-expiration conduct.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 5,699,495.

Key lead found. Let me verify the reel/frame and look for the original inventor-to-Microsoft assignment.

I was unable to obtain a direct Assignment Center reel-index lookup before hitting my research-step limit. Below is what the record supports, with the gaps flagged explicitly.

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Ownership Reconstruction — US 5,699,495

Primary source attempted: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (patent-number search) and the legacy interface https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.
Access note: I could not execute a live patented-number query against Assignment Center or PatentCenter. The ownership facts below are reconstructed from Google Patents legal events (as captured in the patent fetch supplied for this analysis), Espacenet/INPADOC legal-status records, and the patent's own front matter. Where a detail (notably the reel/frame attribution and the correspondent of record) is inferred, I say so.

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Inventors

• Single-inventor patent. No co-inventors, so the "all inventors departed within 12 months" red-flag pattern (which requires a team) cannot arise here in its usual form.
• Employer determination. I am treating Microsoft as the inventor's employer at filing because Microsoft is the applicant/assignee of record on the issued patent and the claimed subject matter is expressly the Microsoft Windows NT print subsystem (spooler, DDI, GDI, print processor). I did not locate a primary document (an employment agreement or an inventor-to-corporation assignment) confirming Snipp's employment relationship, so this is a reasoned inference, not a documented fact.
• Departure timing / fire-sale precursor: cannot determine. I found no record of Snipp's departure date from Microsoft. Note that a departure signal here would be weak evidence anyway — the patent was filed by, and issued to, Microsoft on original-owner terms.
• Notable: the inventor is listed with a GB nationality indicator in the EPO records, i.e., a UK national working for a US assignee — worth flagging only as a data-quality note; it does not bear on the ownership chain.

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Original assignee

Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, Washington (now One Microsoft Way, Redmond, WA 98052-6399).

• Product embodiment: Yes — high confidence. The specification describes the Windows NT print subsystem (spooler threads, GDI/graphics engine, DDI, print processor DLL, print monitor), and the "point-and-print" behavior recited in the independent claims is the shipped Windows NT / Windows 2000+ print-client behavior in which selecting a network printer silently pulls the driver from the print server. Microsoft's operating systems are the direct embodiment of independent claims 1, 9, 10, 14, 22, and 26.
• Primary line of business: platform/vendor software (operating systems, applications, cloud), i.e., a large operating company.
• Current status: operating. No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no assignment-for-the-benefit-of-creditors. Microsoft has never been a Chapter 7/11 patent seller of the Kodak/Nortel/Polaroid type.

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Assignment timeline

Two events are supportable; only one is a post-issuance transfer.

A. Original (pre-issuance) assignment — not located as a discrete record

I did not retrieve a recorded inventor-to-Microsoft assignment instrument for this patent. This is not evidence that none exists — most corporate-filed software patents do have an inventor assignment recorded near the filing date (and the Assignment Center often indexes such records under the parent application numbers 08/281,739 and 08/597,558, not the issuing 08/703,338, which can make a patent-number search miss them). I am therefore recording it as a gap requiring a reel/frame lookup, not as "no assignment."

• Conveyance: presumed Assignment of Assignors' Interest (unverified)
• Assignor: David B. Snipp (unverified)
• Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (supported by the face of the patent)
• Correspondent: not obtained

B. Post-issuance assignment — Microsoft → Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

• Executed 2014-10-14 (INPADOC "effective date") / recorded 2014-12-09 — Reel 034543 / Frame 0001
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (see document for details) — an omnibus/bulk portfolio assignment, not a case-by-case instrument
  • Assignor: Microsoft Corporation
  • Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (a wholly-owned Microsoft subsidiary; Washington)
  • Correspondent: not obtained. I could not retrieve the attorney/agent of record on reel 034543/0001. ⚠️ This is the single most important missing field for a troll-pattern screen, and I am not going to guess it.
  • Reel/frame attribution caveat: The patent's own legal-events data (Google Patents) shows "2014-12-09 — Assigned to MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC." The specific string 034543/0001 is confirmed from Espacenet/INPADOC legal-status records for other Microsoft properties (e.g., US 7,926,025 and US 2007/0182999 A1), which carry the identical assignor, recording date (2014-12-09), and effective date (2014-10-14) with REEL/FRAME:034543/0001. Matching on all three of those fields makes it near-certain that 5,699,495 sits in the same reel, but I did not read the reel's property list to confirm the patent is on it. Treat the reel number as high-confidence-inferred, and verify.
  • Context: internal reorganization / captive licensing-entity transfer. Microsoft in 2014 consolidated a very large block of its U.S. patent portfolio into Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC (the entity formed to hold and license Microsoft's patents). This is an intrafamily asset realignment, not a sale to a third party. Every attribute of the reel (one assignee string, two dates, 0001 frame) points to a mass conveyance covering thousands of properties.
  • Date anomaly worth flagging (literal reading): the assignment's effective date 2014-10-14 and recording date 2014-12-09 both fall after this patent's anticipated expiration date of 2014-07-27 (Google Patents lists legal status "Expired – Lifetime," anticipated expiration 2014-07-27). So Microsoft moved an already-lapsed patent into its licensing subsidiary. That is entirely consistent with a bulk bookkeeping transfer of a whole portfolio — it is not an assertion-enabling transfer, and an expired patent has no assertable term left.

C. Anything after 2014

None recorded. No assignment out of the Microsoft family appears in the record I could reach.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5699495
    1994 : Application filed
         : Priority date 1994 July 27
    1997 : Patent issued to Microsoft Corporation
    2014 : Patent term expires
         : Assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing

(The 2014 events share a year and are stacked with a leading colon per the required format. "Microsoft Technology Licensing" is abbreviated to keep the label short and free of punctuation; the full legal name is Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC.)

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

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Verdict

Insufficient data — selected on the record as it stands, with a strong substantive lean toward not an NPE.

Justification: Ownership is a two-step, single-family chain — Snipp → Microsoft Corporation (on the face of the patent, filed 1994-07-27 / issued 1997-12-16) and Microsoft Corporation → Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, reel 034543/0001, effective 2014-10-14, recorded 2014-12-09 — with zero NPE signals (1–8) supported by evidence, no litigation naming the patent, and the patent already expired 2014-07-27 before the transfer. The chain terminates inside Microsoft's own corporate family (a captive licensing affiliate, not a third-party asserter and not a defensive aggregator), so I cannot honestly land on "Pre-litigation transfer," "Shell-entity transfer," or "NPE." I choose Insufficient data rather than Operating-company assertion because the current record owner, Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, does not itself ship products and no assertion by it is documented; and rather than Defensive / non-asserting because no defensive aggregator appears at the end of the chain.

What would move this to a firm verdict:

1. A live Assignment Center patent-number query on 5,699,495 (and on parent applications 08/281,739 and 08/597,558) to capture the missing original Snipp→Microsoft record, its reel/frame, and its correspondent.
2. Reading the property list of reel 034543/0001 to confirm this patent appears there and to capture MTL's correspondent of record.
3. A PACER/CM-ECF + Docket Navigator query on "5,699,495" to definitively close out signal 5.

Verification link (Assignment Center): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search by patent number 5699495; also try application 08703338, 08597558, and 08281739. Legacy mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
Supporting records: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5699495/en (legal events: 2014-12-09 assignment to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC; 2014-07-27 anticipated expiration; "Expired – Lifetime") · INPADOC legal status showing ASSIGNOR:MICROSOFT CORPORATION; REEL/FRAME:034543/0001 with effective date 2014-10-14, recorded 2014-12-09 (https://worldwide.espacenet.com/)

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Cross-check against the previously generated sections

No contradictions found. The prior sections independently recorded the 2014-12-09 reassignment to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC and the 2014-07-27 expiration, both of which match the assignment record above; the expiration date is what makes the pre-litigation-transfer signal (5) structurally impossible here, and that timing is corroborated rather than contradicted. The one thing the earlier sections asserted that I could not verify is the correspondent of record on the Microsoft→MTL link — neither section captured it, and I was unable to retrieve it, so it remains the open item flagged above.

I'll research each cited reference to build an accurate anticipation analysis. Let me run targeted searches.

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

Prior-Art Analysis — US 5,699,495 ("Point-and-print in a distributed environment")

Scope note: I queried web-indexed patent records (Google Patents authoritative full text, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, Justia, Espacenet/EPO citation records) for the exact number 5,699,495. I did not obtain a live PatentCenter/PAIR screen in this session, so the eight-references list below is taken from the "References Cited" table of the patent itself, which is the authoritative source provided in the record. No similar/adjacent numbers (e.g., 5,699,494, 5,699,495-family variants) were substituted.

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1. The "cited" prior art — what it actually is

The important framing point: these eight references are the examiner-cited "References Cited" list on the face of the patent. They are overwhelmingly category-"A" technological-background art, not anticipatory art. The patent issued with all 26 claims intact, and in my searches I found no evidence that any of these eight was used as the sole § 102 rejection that the applicant failed to overcome. That means the analysis below should be read as "which claim a reference could touch under § 102 if pushed," not "this reference anticipates."

Governing law and critical dates (pre‑AIA)

US 5,699,495 has an effective filing date of 1994‑07‑27 (parent 08/281,739), so pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs.

• § 102(b) statutory-bar date = 1993‑07‑27 (one year before the earliest US filing in the § 120 chain). References published before that date are bars: US 4,698,688, US 5,150,454, US 5,228,118, and the McClelland book.
• § 102(e) is available for the rest based on their US filing dates, all of which precede 1994‑07‑27: US 5,268,993, US 5,287,434, US 5,287,194, US 5,371,837, US 5,325,527.

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2. Reference-by-reference § 102 analysis

Reference 1 — US 4,698,688 A (Canon / NTT), "Image processing system"

• Citation: US 4,698,688 A; JP priority JPS6123468A (1984‑07‑11); US App. 06/752,720 filed 1985‑07‑08; issued 1987‑10‑06; assignees Canon K.K. and Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corp.
• Disclosure: An image-processing system (digital copier/facsimile context) that handles image data of differing bit depths, e.g., converting 4‑bit image data into 6‑bit data (lower 2‑bit replication) so a single binarizing/printer stage can reproduce an image regardless of the incoming bit number.
• § 102 potential: None realistically. It is hardware image-format/bit-depth conversion inside a copying machine. The only surface overlap is the concept of "converting data into a form a downstream device can accept," which is reminiscent of claims 4, 12, 17, 24 ("converting the document into a data type that is acceptable to the destination printer"). But those claims require conversion of a document into a printer-acceptable data type on a distributed path, not bit-depth expansion of raster image data. It discloses no print server, no printer driver, no workstation, no forwarding of a driver, and no install event.
• Verdict: Background only. Does not anticipate any of claims 1–26; could not even support a § 103 combination for the independent claims.

Reference 2 — US 5,150,454 A (Wood), "Printing system and method"

• Citation: US 5,150,454 A; inventor Patrick H. Wood; filed 1991‑10‑16; issued 1992‑09‑22.
• Disclosure: A system/method for controlling printing — directing/queuing print jobs and managing print output between a host and one or more printers.
• ⚠ Verification caveat: I was not able to retrieve the full text or claims of US 5,150,454 in this session (the hit returned for a "Printing system and method" was a different, later Wood-formatted 2004-era application, which must not be conflated with this 1992 patent). I therefore describe it only at the level of its title and general print-control subject matter and do not assert element-level anticipation.
• § 102 potential: On the record available, it is print-job control/queuing art. It discloses no network print server storing drivers, no retrieval of a driver copy to a workstation, and no driver-install-by-print-request. No anticipation of the independent claims (1, 9, 10, 14, 22, 26). Possible marginal relevance to the spooling limitations (claims 2, 11, 15, 23) — flagged, not asserted, pending full-text review.

Reference 3 — US 5,228,118 A (Brother), "…printer driver … selected based on interpreters available on the printer"

• Citation: US 5,228,118 A; assignee Brother Kogyo K.K.; JP priority 1991‑06‑29; issued 1993‑07‑13.
• Disclosure: A printer has one or more language interpreters (PCL, PostScript, etc.). The data processor (PC) holds a plurality of printer drivers. In operation the PC sends an inquiry signal to the printer; the printer returns interpreter-identification data; the PC automatically selects the printer driver compatible with the printer's interpreter — and, in a multi-printer variant, automatically selects the printer compatible with the driver the PC has. The stated advantage is eliminating the operator's manual driver-selection burden.
• § 102 potential — this is the strongest of the eight for mechanism overlap, but it does not anticipate:
  • Claim 6 ("querying the forwarded copy of the printer driver to obtain information about the printer driver of the destination printer") — Brother queries the printer device, not a forwarded copy of a driver. Not anticipated; at most a § 103 argument on the query-for-configuration concept.
  • Claims 7 / 8 (drivers compatible with different operating systems / versions stored on the server) — Brother stores multiple drivers on the workstation, not on a server, and selects by interpreter, not by OS version. Not anticipated.
  • Claim 1 / 10 core limitations (driver stored on a print server; a copy forwarded to a requesting workstation; used to install the not-yet-installed printer and to print) — absent. Brother's drivers are locally resident and are neither copied from nor installed by a server. If anything, Brother's local-driver model teaches away from the server-resident-driver architecture of the patent.
• Verdict: Best "automated driver selection" art; no anticipation of any independent claim. Its real value is as § 103 context showing that automatic, user-transparent driver selection was known.

Reference 4 — US 5,268,993 A (Minolta), "Printer"

• Citation: US 5,268,993 A; assignee Minolta Camera K.K.; priority 1990‑06‑04; issued 1993‑12‑07.
• Disclosure: A printer/controller that stores multiple "analytical programs" (emulations E1, E2, E3 — character printers and a plotter emulation) and multiple sets of "analytical conditions." It provides selective means to choose a stored condition set, program-store means for the analytical programs, and changing means to switch the analytical program. It also recites receiving means for receiving a selection signal of emulation mode transmitted from an external device, and a file multiplex buffer (2) that multiplexes a plurality of data processing devices 1A, 1B, 1C onto one printer.
• § 102 potential — narrow:
  • A single shared printer serving multiple data-processing devices, with selectable emulation programs, superficially resembles the multi-printer/multi-workstation topology of claim 26, but the reference discloses no group-of-printers-per-server architecture, no print server storing drivers, and no transport/install of a driver to a workstation.
  • The "multiple emulations / multiple analytical programs" concept has only a loose analogical relationship to claims 7/8 (drivers for different OS versions). Minolta's "analytical programs" are emulation interpreters inside the printer, not workstation-side drivers. Not anticipation.
• Verdict: Background on printer-side emulation selection and device multiplexing. No anticipation of claims 1–26.

Reference 5 — US 5,287,434 A (Monarch Marking Systems), "Barcode identification system spooler"

• Citation: US 5,287,434 A; assignee Monarch Marking Systems, Inc.; filed 1991‑10‑28; issued 1994‑02‑15.
• Disclosure: A barcode/label identification system incorporating a spooler — i.e., queuing of barcode print/label jobs for output. (Full text not retrieved this session; characterized from title/subject matter.)
• § 102 potential: Only the spooling concept relates, and only to the dependent limitations claims 2, 11, 15, 23 ("spooling the document to a file"). It is a dedicated barcode-label environment with no distributed print server, no driver storage/forwarding, and no network point-and-print. No anticipation of any independent claim; at most § 103 background confirming spooling was routine.
• Verdict: Minimal relevance; spooling-only.

Reference 6 — US 5,287,194 A (Xerox), "Distributed printing"

• Citation: US 5,287,194 A; assignee Xerox Corp.; filed 1992‑11‑25; issued 1994‑02‑15.
• Disclosure: A printshop management scheduler for a network of printers (10) interconnected by a communication link (20), with workstations (30) and a print server (60) including a print spooler. A user enters job criteria (e.g., required completion time); the scheduler examines printer capability and queues, then allocates/partitions a large job among a plurality of local or remote printers, notifies the user where the job will print, etc.
• § 102 potential — closest on topology, weakest on the point of novelty:
  • It genuinely discloses a distributed print environment with print servers, networked printers, workstations, and spooling — the general stage set by claim 26 and the system context of claim 9.
  • But Xerox is about job scheduling/load distribution, not about a workstation that lacks a printer's driver retrieving a copy of that driver from the server and using it to install the printer and print. There is no disclosure of driver storage on the server, driver transport to a client, or install-on-request. The "capability" inquiries are about printer features (color, paper, finishing), not about the client's missing driver.
  • Relevance to dependent claims 2/11/15/23 (spooling) and to the network environment generally.
• Verdict: The best system-environment reference; does not anticipate the independent claims because the driver-retrieval-and-install limitation is absent.

Reference 7 — US 5,371,837 A (Dataproducts), "Virtual printer"

• Citation: US 5,371,837 A; assignee Dataproducts Corp.; filed 1992‑12‑18; issued 1994‑12‑06.
• Disclosure: A "virtual printer" — a software abstraction presenting/emulating a printer's behavior (e.g., a logical printer construct that can be configured, queued, and driven independently of the physical device). (Full text not retrieved this session.)
• § 102 potential: This is background for the patent's own distinction between a logical "printer" 44 and a physical "print device" 14, which is relevant context for claim 26 ("printers for printing documents" / logical printer constructs) and for the abstract "printer" in claims 1/9/10. But a virtual-printer abstraction does not disclose a server-resident driver forwarded to and installed at a requesting workstation. No anticipation of the independent claims.
• Verdict: Conceptual background on logical printer abstraction; no driver-forwarding/install teaching.

Reference 8 — US 5,325,527 A (Canon Information Systems), "Client/server communication system utilizing a self-generating nodal network"

• Citation: US 5,325,527 A; assignee Canon Information Systems, Inc.; filed 1993‑01‑19; issued 1994‑06‑28.
• Disclosure: A client/server communication architecture in which nodes self-generate/discover the network topology — i.e., dynamic configuration and connection of clients and servers. (Full text not retrieved this session.)
• § 102 potential: Supplies generic client/server + dynamic network discovery context that underlies the patent's print-server/workstation model (claims 9 and 26 environment). It discloses no printer driver storage, no driver download, and no print-on-selection/install behavior. No anticipation of claims 1–26.
• Verdict: Background on client/server networking only.

Non-patent reference — McClelland, Macintosh System 7.1: Everything You Need To Know (Sybex, 1992)

• Citation: 2d ed., Sybex Inc., San Francisco, 1992, pp. 106–110, 379, 384–387.
• Disclosure (as cited): A user manual describing Apple's System 7.1 — including the Chooser-based selection of network printers and AppleTalk printer sharing. It is the classic printed-pubart support for the proposition that user-transparent selection of a network printer from a UI list was known.
• § 102 potential: Touches the user-interface selection limitations — claim 3 ("user interface that allows a user to select the destination printer"), and the parallel medium claims 13/16/25, and the general "point-and-print" user experience. However, on the Macintosh model the printer driver lived in the workstation's System Folder and was not fetched from a server and installed on demand; the Chooser selected a device, not a server-resident driver. So it supports the UI-selection concept only, not the driver-forwarding/install core.
• Verdict: The most relevant non-patent reference for the user-interface aspect; does not anticipate the independent claims.

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3. Ranked relevance (most → least relevant to the patented subject matter)

1. US 5,287,194 (Xerox, "Distributed printing") — the only true distributed-printing/network system with a print server + spooler + multiple printers/workstations; best § 103 environment art, but missing the driver-forward/install limitation.
2. US 5,228,118 (Brother) — automated, user-transparent printer-driver selection; closest to claims 6/7/8 mechanisms, but drivers are local and the printer (not the driver) is queried — the opposite of the patent's server-resident-driver model.
3. US 5,268,993 (Minolta) — multi-emulation printer serving multiple hosts; background for claims 7/8 and claim 26 topology.
4. US 5,371,837 (Dataproducts, "Virtual printer") — logical-printer abstraction supporting the patent's printer-vs-print-device distinction (claim 26 context).
5. McClelland, Macintosh System 7.1 — printed-pubart support for UI-selected network printing (claim 3 / 13 / 16 / 25 context).
6. US 5,325,527 (Canon Information Systems) — client/server + dynamic topology context (environment of claims 9/26).
7. US 5,287,434 (Monarch Marking) — spooling-only background (claims 2/11/15/23).
8. US 4,698,688 (Canon/NTT) — image-bit-depth conversion; essentially unrelated to distributed point-and-print (loosest possible tie to claims 4/12/17/24).

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4. Bottom line on § 102

None of the eight cited references, alone, appears to anticipate any of the 26 claims — and specifically none anticipates the independent claims 1, 9, 10, 14, 22, or 26. Every independent claim turns on at least one limitation that is missing from all eight reference disclosures:

• storing printer drivers on the print server for the server's group of printers (all independents);
• forwarding a key printer resource comprising a copy of the printer driver from the server to a requesting workstation (claims 1, 14, 9/26 retrieval/transport);
• doing so for a destination printer that is expressly "not yet installed" at that workstation, and
• using the forwarded resource to install the printer and to print (claims 1, 9, 10, 14, 22, 26).

The cited set instead maps onto the peripheral limitations (UI selection; spooling; multi-printer/emulation topology; client/server context). That is consistent with the references being category-"A" background art and with issuance of all 26 claims.

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5. Caveats you should be aware of

• Verification coverage: I retrieved substantive text/claims for US 4,698,688, US 5,268,993, US 5,228,118, US 5,287,194 and the citation data for US 5,150,454, US 5,287,434, US 5,371,837, US 5,325,527. I could not pull full text/claims for US 5,150,454, US 5,287,434, US 5,371,837, and US 5,325,527 within this session; their descriptions above are title-/abstract-level and are explicitly flagged where asserted. A true element-by-element § 102 mapping for those four requires reading their specification and claims directly.
• Identity trap avoided: A "Printing system and method" attributed to Wood in some search results is a later (2004-era) application and must not be treated as US 5,150,454.
• "Search the USPTO database": my hits were via Google Patents / uspto.report / FreePatentsOnline / Espacenet, not a live PatentCenter query; the "References Cited" list used here comes from the patent's own front page, which the record designates as authoritative.
• No contemplation of the "Point-and-Print" predecessor: if you want the strongest realistic § 102/§ 103 candidate in the whole art, it is likely the Apple/Macintosh System 7 "Chooser" + shared-printer prior art (the McClelland book), possibly combined with the Brother automatic-driver-selection reference — but even that combination lacks the server-resident-driver-forwarded-and-installed-on-demand element that the claims require.

I'll ground this analysis in the cited prior art. Let me pull the disclosures of the examiner-cited references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 5,699,495 ("Point-and-Print in a Distributed Environment")

35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA), claim-by-claim

Scope note. This analysis builds on the verification and claim-mapping sections already produced for this patent (bibliographic data, abstract, independent-claim summaries, and the flagged drafting anomalies in claims 5/6 and 18/14). It does not repeat them. Here I use only the Prior Art section of the Google Patents page — the eight examiner-cited U.S. patents and the two identical McClelland Macintosh System 7.1 non-patent citations — and I do not rely on the "Cited By" list, which is post-dating material and therefore not § 102/§ 103 art against a 1994 priority date unless separately shown to be prior art.

Confidence caveat up front. I retrieved abstracts/key text for six of the eight cited patents (see source list). I could not retrieve substantive text for US 4,698,688 (NTT) or US 5,268,993 (Minolta), and I could not retrieve the specific page ranges of the McClelland book (pp. 106–110, 379, 384–387). Where I characterize those, I mark it as inference. Everything else below is grounded in quoted text.

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I. Effective filing date and the legal standard

The application claims priority through 08/597,558 (1996-02-02) to parent 08/281,739, filed 1994-07-27. That is the § 103 critical date. Because the application was filed before 2013-03-16 and never contained a claim with an effective filing date on or after that date, pre-AIA § 103(a) governs, and the Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966) framework (scope/content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations — the last being irrelevant to this expired patent absent a live challenge) applies, as glossed by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).

All eight cited patents have filing or priority dates before 1994-07-27, so each qualifies as pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b) or § 102(e) art. One date trap: US 5,371,837 issued 1994-12-06 — after the critical date — so it is available only as § 102(e) art as of its 1992-12-18 application filing, and only for what that application discloses. (Its later continuation, US 5,903,716, adds disclosure not chargeable to the 1992 filing.) US 5,287,194 (filed 1992-11-25, issued 1994-02-15) and US 5,325,527 (filed 1993-01-19, issued 1994-06-28) published before the critical date and are cleanly available.

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II. Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA)

Circa July 1994: a bachelor's degree in computer science or electrical engineering, or equivalent, plus approximately two to three years' experience with network operating systems and their print subsystems — i.e., familiarity with LAN print architectures (Novell NetWare, AppleTalk, Windows NT/Windows for Workgroups), print spoolers, device drivers, client/server redirectors, and printer configuration data (page description languages, PCL/PostScript interpreter identification, DeVMODE-style option structures). This is a software/systems integration art, not a hardware art, and the PHOSITA is charged with knowledge of the published product documentation of the day — including the McClelland Macintosh System 7.1 book that the examiner relied on, which is exactly the kind of reference a PHOSITA would consult.

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III. Claim 1 decomposed (the elemental template)

Claims 9, 10, 14, 22 and 26 are substantively the same combination recast as a system, an OS-centric method, and two Beauregard-style media claims; claim 26 adds multiple servers each with its own printer group. Claim 10/22's extra wrinkle is that the operating system itself, not the user or the application, performs the retrieval and install.

The crux limitation is 1e + 1f: not merely selecting a remote printer, but copying a driver off the server and installing it on the fly. Everything else in claim 1 was firmly in the art. That is where this obviousness case lives or dies.

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IV. What the cited references actually teach

Very important, admitted-prior-art point. The '495 specification itself recites, as the ambient environment, standard Win32/NT spooler APIs — AddPrinter(), GetPrinter(), GetPrinterDriver(), GetPrinterDriverData(), OpenPrinter(), StartDocPrinter(), OpenPrintProcessor(), the local/remote spooler pair 36/40, the print processor, and the monitor. The patent treats that entire client/server print architecture as given. That narrows the only contested difference to elements 1e/1f.

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V. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 (strongest on the architecture): US 5,287,194 + US 5,228,118

Rejection of claims 1, 9, 10, 14, 22, 26 (and 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 25 as dependents).

• '194 supplies: distributed workstation/printer system; a print server managing requests to its printers; a centrally stored server-side database of per-printer information; user selection of the destination printer.
• '118 supplies: automatic, operator-free selection and loading of the correct printer driver based on the target printer's capabilities, and the express rationale that operator driver-selection is "cumbersome and time-consuming" and gets worse as drivers are revised/added.
• The combination teaches "point" (select a printer) + "print" (the right driver is used without the user choosing it) with a server-side resource store.

Where Ground 1 is weakest: neither reference plainly discloses copying the driver file from the server to the client and installing the printer there (1e/1f). '118 stores drivers at the data processor; '194 stores information about printers at the server but does not describe downloading executable driver code. A challenger must bridge that with the PHOSITA's knowledge or add a reference (below).

Ground 2 (closes 1e/1f): US 5,287,194 + US 5,228,118 + US 5,325,527

'527 teaches a client/server LAN in which a peripheral server advertises its service, clients query available services, and the system "dynamically configures itself via an initialization file to support additional peripheral devices" — i.e., client-side dynamic configuration to accommodate a device that was not previously usable at that client. Combined with '194 (server-side per-printer resource store, including for printers of differing capability) and '118 (automatic driver selection obviating operator compatibility checks), the remaining step — fetching the needed resource from the server and configuring the client so it can print — is a predictable application of '527's dynamic-configuration technique to '194's print server and '118's automatic driver matching.

Ground 3 (closes 1e/1f via centralized configuration distribution): US 5,287,194 + US 5,371,837 + US 5,228,118

'837 teaches a server that holds configuration instructions keyed to an address the user selects, and the printer/workstation automatically receives and applies the corresponding configuration via a look-up table — no user set-up. Substituting a driver file for '837's configuration instruction set is a simple substitution of one known stored resource for another in the same server-to-client path (KSR rationale (B)/(C)), and '118 explains why the artist would do it (eliminate operator driver-management burden).

Ground 4 (the non-patent-literature route): McClelland Macintosh System 7.1 + US 5,228,118

If, as the examiner evidently assumed, the McClelland pages disclose Chooser-style selection of a shared network printer with transparent system-side establishment of the print path, then McClelland + '118 renders the core "point at a network printer and print without manual driver/configuration work" concept obvious, with '194 or '527 supplying the server-side store and dynamic client configuration. This ground is unverifiable by me without the page images; treat it as the examiner's theory, not as my own finding.

Ground 5 (dependent-claim add-ons)

• Claims 2/11/15/23 (spool to file) — '434 (spooler) and '194 (job data "temporarily stored in a buffer, RAM or other storage means… within a print server 60"). Routine.
• Claims 3/13/16/25 (user selects the printer) — '194 (keyboard/pull-down/touchscreen print-location entry) and '837 (selecting among logical printers).
• Claims 4/12/17/24 (convert document to a data type the destination accepts) — '118 (drivers express print data in the printer's control language; interpreter compatibility drives driver choice) and '454 (remote-rendering/decompression).
• Claims 5/18 (printers of different types) — '194 (printers of differing capability, color, special paper) and '527 (printer/scanner/fax servers on one network).
• Claims 6/19 (query the forwarded driver for information, then use it to print) — '118's inquiry/identification-data handshake supplies the query-and-configure teaching (though '118 queries the printer, not the driver copy); '837 supplies retrieval of stored configuration data.
• Claims 7/8/20/21 (drivers for different OS versions / different processors) — Weakest link in the whole case. I did not find, in the eight cited references, any teaching of a server storing multiple OS-version-specific or processor-specific driver variants and selecting by requesting-client platform. '118's problem statement ("interpreters and printer drivers may be revised or modified… further complicated") and the general LAN-heterogeneity context give a motivation to store variants, but the disclosure of doing so appears to be absent from the cited art. These dependents are the best candidates for a surviving validity position, or for a motivation argument requiring additional art.

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VI. Motivation to combine (the KSR-permitted rationales)

1. Explicit problem statement in the art. '118 identifies precisely the deficiency the '495 background section decries: the user "has been given the burden of deciding which printer driver to use and what configuration options need to be set," which is "difficult, time-consuming and error prone." '495's summary is a restatement of '118's objective, extended across a network. This is about as strong a motivation as a § 103 record can have.
2. Design incentive / market forces. The '495 specification itself concedes the incentive: soft fonts "may be very large and, thus, it is advantageous to store only one copy for the print devices served by the print server." That is a direct motivation to centralize large, frequently-updated binaries on the server rather than replicate them per workstation — the same economic logic that drives storing drivers centrally.
3. Predictable solution to a known problem. '194 already stores per-printer descriptive data centrally; '837 already stores per-printer configuration centrally and applies it automatically; '527 already makes clients dynamically self-configure for new peripherals. Moving the driver executable into the same server-side store and the same automatic-application path is a combination of known elements yielding the predictable result of "user picks a printer; it works."
4. Infrastructure already in place. The '495 specification's own account of GetPrinterDriver() returning "a fully qualified path name of where the printer driver physically resides" shows that the Win32 print path already contemplated server-resident driver resources. The claimed invention is a modest step in an architecture the patent admits was conventional.
5. Thin-client/server-centric design trend. '527's advertising/advertisement nodal network reflects the contemporaneous industry direction of centralizing peripheral knowledge on servers and keeping clients configuration-free — a design incentive known to the PHOSITA.

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VII. Claim-by-claim § 103 summary

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VIII. Anticipation vs. obviousness, and the "not yet installed" limitation

I do not see a clean § 102 anticipation of claim 1 in the eight cited references, because none shows the combination of (i) a server-side driver store and (ii) forwarding a copy to the workstation for installation there. '118's drivers live at the processor; '194 and '837 store data/configuration, not executable driver copies; '527 configures dynamically but not by shipping a driver binary. This is presumably why the claims issued: the "not yet being installed at the requesting workstation" and "install the destination printer" language in claims 1, 9, 10, 14, 22 and 26 reads like prosecution-driven narrowing to a novel transfer-and-install event.

Two consequences follow:

• A § 103 challenge must rely on combination + PHOSITA knowledge rather than on a single reference, and must articulate the copy/install bridge convincingly.
• Conversely, if the file history shows those phrases were added to overcome a rejection over '194/'118, a challenger would need different art (e.g., a true remote-driver-distribution teaching, or contemporaneous AppleTalk/NetWare client-install documentation) to re-open the question. I did not retrieve the file wrapper and cannot confirm this — flagged as a hypothesis, not a finding.
• Useful side observation: the '495 specification's own GetPrinterDriver() discussion contemplates a driver that may simply be made reachable by path rather than copied. The claim is therefore narrower than the disclosed embodiment in one respect — a written-description/enablement curiosity with no bearing on § 103.

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IX. Where a validity defense would actually attack

1. Claims 7, 8, 20, 21 — no cited reference discloses storing multiple driver versions for different OS versions or different workstation processors with platform-based selection. Absent new art, these are the most defensible claims.
2. Claims 6 and 19 — the "query the forwarded copy of the driver" step is a subtle mismatch with '118 (which queries the printer), and '837 (which retrieves configuration by address). The examiner may have read this onto '118; a defendant should press the distinction.
3. Claims 5/6 and 18/14 dependency anomalies (identified in the prior section) — claim 5 literally depends from claim 6, and claims 18/20/21 invoke "the step of storing printer drivers on the print server" although claim 14 recites storing only in its preamble. Any invalidity contention must track the literal dependency as printed; a court applying pre-AIA § 112 ¶ 4 / indefiniteness could also find these claims invalid on their face, which cuts against a patentee but is not a § 103 issue.
4. Secondary considerations — moot: the patent expired 2014-07-27, so there is no live commercial nexus argument available in a 2026 challenge. That also means any § 103 finding here is academic/prior-art-valuation in nature, not enforcement-driven.

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X. Honest limitations of this analysis

• I did not obtain full texts of US 4,698,688 and US 5,268,993, or the specific McClelland page images; my characterizations of those are flagged inferences, and Ground 4 should not be relied on without re-verification.
• I did not obtain the application file history (08/281,739 → 08/597,558 → 08/703,338), so I cannot state which limitations were added to overcome art. The "not yet installed / install" phrasing strongly suggests a narrowing amendment, but that is inference.
• § 102(e) treatment of US 5,371,837 depends on the applicant's invention date evidences; I applied the conservative rule that its 1992-12-18 filing gives it § 102(e) effect as of that application's disclosure only.
• Cross-reference flag (per instructions): the prior "Patent summary" section stated the anticipated expiration as "1994-07-27 + 20 years = 2014-07-27," which is arithmetically correct and matches Google's "2014-07-27 Anticipated expiration." No substantive contradiction there. However, the prior sections were generated under a stated date of 2026-09-27, whereas this task states the current date is April 26, 2026. That date discrepancy does not affect any legal conclusion above (the patent expired in 2014 either way), but I flag it because the two sections cannot both be current-dated correctly.

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XI. Sources

• US 5,699,495 – https://patents.google.com/patent/US5699495/en
• US 5,287,194 (Xerox, Distributed printing) – https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5287194A](/patent/US5287194A)/en
• US 5,228,118 (Brother) – https://patents.google.com/patent/US5228118 ; https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5,228,118](/patent/5228118) ; http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5228118.html
• US 5,371,837 (Dataproducts, Virtual printer) – https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5371837](/patent/5371837) ; related continuation US 5,903,716 – https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/d2/08/c2/411fda7ca173ff/US5903716.pdf
• US 5,325,527 (Canon Information Systems) – https://patents.google.com/patent/US5325527 ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/1b/d6/a4/dac9dbbe1702b7/US5325527.pdf
• US 5,150,454 (Wood, Printing system and method) – https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5150454A](/patent/US5150454A)/en
• US 5,287,434 (Monarch) — examiner-cited spooler reference (cited-by listing, Google Patents page above)
• US 4,698,688 (NTT) and US 5,268,993 (Minolta) — examiner-cited; text not retrieved
• NPL: McClelland, D., Macintosh System 7.1: Everything You Need To Know, 2d ed., Sybex (1992), pp. 106–110, 379, 384–387 — examiner-cited; page images not retrieved

This analysis is a technical patentability/validity assessment, not legal advice. Any § 103 conclusion would ultimately turn on the full reference texts, the prosecution history, and claim construction, none of which are fully before me here.