Invalidity dossier
US 5717989
Full service trade system
Current assignee: Infor US LLC
Added 9/23/2026, 12:59:58 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US5717989A — "Full Service Trade System"
Patent number: US5717989A
Title: Full service trade system
Inventors: Guy Frederick Tozzoli; Christopher James Lynch
Original assignee: Full Service Trade System Ltd (later recorded assignments include World Trade Centers Association, Inc., Full Service Trade System Ltd., Tradecard, Inc., GT Nexus/Gtnx, Inc., and Infor (US), Inc.)
Application number: US08/323,071
Priority/filing date: 1994-10-13
Publication (grant) date: 1998-02-10
Legal status as listed: Expired – Lifetime
Classifications: G06Q30/06 (buying/selling/leasing transactions); G06Q20/08, G06Q20/10 (payment architectures; electronic funds transfer); G06Q20/405; G06Q40/00, G06Q40/02, G06Q40/04 (finance; banking; trading)
Purpose and plain-language scope (from the supplied excerpt): The invention "relates to a computer system that facilitates trade in goods and services." The excerpt describes conventional international trade using a letter of credit (L/C)—an irrevocable bank undertaking to pay a seller when specified conditions are met—and walks through the parties and steps: buyer issues a purchase order; instructs its issuing bank to open an L/C in favor of the seller (confirmed, unconfirmed, or standby); the issuing bank involves an intermediary bank, which approaches the paying bank; the paying bank advises the seller and pays upon presentation of conforming documents. Required documentation is described as including a bill of lading, invoice, insurance certificate, certificate of inspection, export licenses and/or health certificates, and certificates of origin. The shipper transports goods and provides the bill of lading; documents and proof of payment flow back through paying, intermediary, and issuing banks to the buyer, who uses the bill of lading to obtain goods, clear customs, and take delivery. The excerpt notes an L/C shields the seller from non-payment risk and reduces the buyer's risk of paying for goods not received, with banks charging fees.
What the excerpt does not establish: It provides no claims, no detailed description of the invention's computer implementation, no figures beyond a reference to FIG. 1, and no prior-art discussion. Litigation, ownership transfers, validity, and prior art are outside this overview.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5717989](/patent/US5717989)/en
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:53:20 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.