US 6055562

I'll search for this patent number and check for any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me check specifically for litigation or PTAB activity involving this patent.

US Patent 6,055,562 — "Dynamic Mobile Agents"

Search scope note: I searched for the exact identifier 6055562 / 6,055,562 (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, USPTO.report, Unified Patents portal) and separately for CAFC 2026 dockets and PTAB/litigation activity. I found no record of any litigation, PTAB proceeding, or CAFC appeal involving this patent — including nothing on the 2026 Federal Circuit dockets. I cannot rule out a non-indexed or very recent filing, but on the available record this patent appears never to have been asserted. The "CAFC 2026 docket" portion of your request returns nothing for this number.

Bibliographic data

Minor data conflicts to flag: Google Patents lists filing/priority as 1997-05-01 and issue as 2000-04-25; the Unified Patents portal instead shows priority 1997-04-30, grant 2000-04-24, and expiration 2017-04-30 (the assignment document records signing dates of 1997-04-30 to 1997-05-01). I treat the patent front page — filing 1997-05-01, issued 2000-04-25 — as authoritative, per your rule to prefer the full patent text.

Related family: A divisional, US 09/065,201 (filed 1998-04-23), issued as US 6,115,736 B1, "System and method for automatically localizing access to remote network components using implicit agent relocation." Foreign counterparts: JP H10320361A and KR 100290199B1.

Abstract (as issued)

An improved method and apparatus for dynamic execution of mobile agents. A symbolic name for a component to be executed can be dynamically resolved using a component directory to determine an appropriate network host the agent needs to visit. The component directory can be queried by client or host machines and updated by component hosts. Changes in a component's location and/or availability can be captured at runtime and agents dynamically routed to alternate component hosts. If a component's attributes are modified, or a component host becomes heavily loaded, agents adapt by looking up an alternate host for the same component. Component hosts can freely update a component's location and/or attributes at any time, without requiring changes to the code of agents that use components at the updated location.

The problem addressed

The patent characterizes prior art (expressly, White et al., US 5,603,031, and the IBM Aglets WorkBench whitepaper by Lange et al.) as statically pre-configuring the agent's itinerary of hosts. That approach allegedly fails when (1) information or destination objects move or a host goes down, (2) a host becomes overloaded, or (3) the system must be re-administered because relocation breaks the programs that reference the old locations.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — method (dynamic routing of mobile agents):
A computerized method for routing an agent whose program comprises multiple "executable units" (later defined as object classes, applets, servlets, or inline code blocks). Three steps:

• (a) Determine a name and an attribute that together specify a logical requirement of the unit — i.e., not a hard-coded host address, but a symbolic name plus a capability/requirement descriptor.
• (b) Dynamically select one or more target locations as a function of that name and attribute (per claim 8, by resolving the name against a component directory).
• (c) Dispatch the mobile agent to the selected location so the unit executes there.

In short: look up where a required piece of code should run, based on what it is and what it needs, then send the agent there — at runtime.

Claim 11 — system (means-plus-function):
The same three-stage functionality expressed as a system for a computer network: (a) means for determining the name/attribute logical requirement; (b) means for dynamically selecting target location by dynamically querying a directory as a function of the name and attribute; and (c) means for dispatching the agent to the selected location. The "querying a directory" limitation is recited directly in the independent claim, rather than only in a dependent claim as it is for the method (claim 8).

Claim 21 — program storage device:
A machine-readable storage medium tangibly embodying instructions that, when executed, perform the same (a)/(b)/(c) method steps of claim 1. This is the statutory-category variant covering the software product itself.

Key dependent-claim hooks (common to all three independent claims): determining whether further executable units remain (claims 2/12/25); iterating a–c for those additional units (4/14/26); defining "executable unit" (5/15); defining "name" as physical machine address, logical machine address, or logical component name (6/16); defining "attribute" as machine architecture type, load indicator, or set of supported features (7/17); dynamic resolution via a component directory (8/18/22); detecting that a location is unavailable or overloaded and dynamically picking an alternate (9/19/23); and modifying the target location/attribute without changing the agent's code (10/20/24).

Architecture described in the specification

• Agent Personal Assistant (APA) 110 — client-side coordinator invoked at agent launch (FIG. 3); inspects the first component, queries the directory, validates the location (e.g., timeout on unreachable/partitioned host), retries for an alternate if unsatisfactory, then dispatches.
• Agent Execution Shell (AES) 120 — daemon on each Component Host serving as single coordinator for all agent execution (FIG. 4); executes and strips the first component, then re-queries the directory for the next component's location and forwards the agent.
• Component Manager 122 — manages local components (spec cites Object Design's OBJECTSTORE as an example) and queries/updates component properties in the directory, including periodic updates of dynamic attributes such as availability and host load.
• Directory Server 106 / Component Directory 134 — LDAP-compliant server (e.g., Netscape Directory Server) or a DBMS such as IBM DB2; entries store name 203b, location 203a, and attributes 203c–203n. Query Subsystem 130 and Update Subsystem 132 handle lookups and add/modify/delete.
• FIG. 5 walks a four-component agent (A→B→C→D) across hosts 104a–104d, each host resolving and forwarding the remaining itinerary, with a final completion notification to the client.

Bottom line

US 6,055,562 is an IBM patent on directory-based, runtime routing of mobile agents — the agent carries symbolic component names and attributes rather than a fixed host itinerary, and each client or host resolves the next hop against an updatable component directory. It is a foundational-style reference in the mobile-agent literature (widely cited by later Sun/Oracle Jini, Curen Software, and Toshiba agent patents) and is long expired. I found no evidence of any enforcement, PTAB challenge, or 2026 CAFC docket activity for this number; if you need certainty on litigation history, that should be confirmed against Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, or PACER/PTAB APIs directly, since my search covered only public web-indexed sources.

I'll search the litigation databases for this specific patent number.

Let me search the litigation databases directly for this patent number.

Let me check the Unified Patents litigation caselist and CourtListener directly.

Litigation search results for U.S. Patent No. 6,055,562

Bottom line: I found no litigation of any kind involving U.S. Patent No. 6,055,562. No district court case, no ITC investigation, no PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), and no CAFC appeal asserting or challenging this patent appears in the sources I searched.

What I searched and what came back

Important caution — the false-positive hits I discarded

Searches for "562" surface several unrelated patents that must not be confused with this one. Per your strict rule against auto-correcting or conflating identifiers, I flag them explicitly so they are not misattributed:

• U.S. 5,265,562 — Kruse Technology Partnership's engine-technology patent, asserted against Daimler, Volkswagen, and others in C.D. Cal. (case No. 8:10-cv-01066; summary judgment of non-infringement entered April 2012). This is a different patent number (5,265,562), not 6,055,562.
• The '562 patent in Sofamor Danek v. DePuy-Motech (spinal-rod implant, FWR doctrine-of-equivalents appeal). Different patent, different art.
• The '562 patent in Certicable v. ... (cable/connector art, E.D.N.Y.). Different patent.
• The KIPO/Korean and Chinese litigation tables returned are for unrelated chemical/copper-foil and other patents.

None of these involve IBM's "Dynamic mobile agents" patent.

Assessment

Given the record above, U.S. 6,055,562 appears never to have been asserted in litigation, and I found no PTAB challenge or Federal Circuit appeal involving it. This is consistent with what the prior generated section concluded. The patent expired May 1, 2017 (anticipated expiration; Google Patents "Expired – Lifetime"), so any window for assertion has closed.

Recommended next steps for certainty

My search covered publicly indexed, web-accessible sources. If you need a defensible "no litigation ever" opinion, confirm directly against:

1. Docket Navigator (full US district court + PTAB + ITC coverage, searchable by patent number).
2. Lex Machina — patent litigation module.
3. PACER — full-text docket search for "6,055,562" and "6055562."
4. USPTO PTAB API / Patent Trial & Appeal Board End-to-End — for IPR/PGR/CBM by patent number.
5. ITC EDIS — Section 337 investigations.

I cannot rule out a non-indexed, sealed, or very recent filing, so I state my conclusion as "no litigation found on the available public record," not as an absolute negative.

One contradiction to flag

The prior generated section noted a data conflict between Google Patents (priority/filing 1997-05-01; grant 2000-04-25) and the Unified Patents portal (priority 1997-04-30; grant 2000-04-24; expiration 2017-04-30). My searches reproduced that same discrepancy — the Unified Patents patent page returned today shows Priority Date 1997-04-30, Grant Date 2000-04-24, Expiration 2017-04-30. Per your rule to prefer the full patent text where it conflicts with secondary sources, the front page (filing 1997-05-01, issued 2000-04-25) remains authoritative for citation purposes. This discrepancy affects dates only; it does not affect the litigation conclusion.

I'll verify the structured data block against public sources before drafting.

Let me run additional targeted checks on possible enforcement, aggregator, and appellate activity.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 6,055,562 ("Dynamic mobile agents")

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 6,055,562: ZERO — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBM reviews, and therefore no claims invalidated, none sustained, none settled, and no institution denials. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured block returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and targeted web searches for "6,055,562" / "6055562" combined with IPR/PGR/CBM/PTAB, Unified Patents, and Federal Circuit/CourtListener returned no challenge of any kind. The defensive read is unusual but straightforward: this is not a hardened patent, it is an unasserted, long-expired one. There is no IPR record to attack and, more importantly, no IPR record to defend against — a defendant receiving a demand letter citing this patent faces a 2017-expired IBM patent that nobody has bothered to challenge, which typically means nobody has tried to enforce it.

Threshold note on availability of AIA trials: AIA trials only became available 2012-09-16. This patent issued 2000-04-25 and reached its anticipated expiration 2017-05-01, so the practical challenge window was roughly 2012-09-16 to 2017-05-01. PGR was never available (patent's effective filing date, 1997-05-01, predates the 2013-03-16 first-inventor-to-file cutoff). IPR and CBM were theoretically available for ~4.5 years and were not used. Note also that ODP ingest coverage of very old, never-challenged patents is not perfectly verifiable from public sources; the negative finding here is strong but not formally certified.

Per-proceeding detail

Not applicable — no proceeding exists. Per the constraint against fabricating proceeding numbers, no ### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} sections are generated. I did not invent placeholders, and I am explicitly declining to pad this section with template entries.

What I actually verified

One data conflict to carry forward (previously flagged, unresolved): the Unified Patents profile shows priority 1997-04-30, grant 2000-04-24, expiration 2017-04-30, whereas Google Patents / the patent front page show filing and priority 1997-05-01, issue 2000-04-25, anticipated expiration 2017-05-01. This discrepancy has no effect on the PTAB analysis — under either date set the patent is expired and the AIA-trial window is closed — but it should be cited consistently, and I treat the patent front page (filing 1997-05-01, issued 2000-04-25) as authoritative per your rule.

Strategic summary

Claim status: 100% UNTESTED. No claim of US 6,055,562 has ever been adjudicated by the PTAB, and no claim has been canceled, narrowed, or amended. All 26 claims stand exactly as issued on 2000-04-25: independent method claim 1, independent system claim 11 (the means-plus-function variant that expressly recites "dynamically querying a directory" in the independent claim), independent program-storage-device claim 21, and dependents 2-10, 12-20, and 22-26. There is no FWD to quote from, no certificate of correction narrowing anything, and no statutory disclaimer on record. For claim-mapping purposes, the issued claim set is the operative claim set — which also means the full breadth of claim 1 (any "name and attribute… specifying a logical requirement," dynamically selecting a target location, dispatching) remains textually intact, subject only to the prior art a defendant independently assembles.

Estoppel landscape: none, because § 315(e)(2) estoppel is triggered only by an IPR that reaches a Final Written Decision. With no petitioner and no FWD, no party is estopped from raising anything. Conversely — and this is the practically important half — there is no ready-made IPR record for a defendant to free-ride on. A defendant cannot point to an earlier petitioner's winning art, cannot adopt an institution decision as its roadmap, and gets no benefit from PTAB claim construction. Every invalidity ground must be built from scratch: the patent's own cited references (White et al. US 5,603,031; the IBM Aglets whitepaper by Lange et al.; Gray's Agent Tcl; Strasser's Mole; Peine's Ara platform; the Concordia whitepaper) plus the 12 cited U.S. patents are public and were before the examiner — but the far richer vein is the abundant 1995-1997 mobile-agent literature, including the 25 Non-Patent Citations listed on the face of the patent, much of which was not applied by the examiner. Because the patent is expired, IPR is no longer an available vehicle in the normal course (see below), so this art is district-court art, not PTAB art.

Pattern signals: none — and the absence is the signal. No repeat petitioner, because there is no petitioner at all. No defensive aggregator activity — Unified Patents (which routinely IPRs NPE-asserted networking patents in exactly this CPC space, G06F 9/4856 / H04L 67/10) has not touched this patent. No patent-owner appeal activity, because IBM never had a PTAB loss to appeal and in fact never asserted the patent in any indexed forum. The maintenance fees were paid through the 12-year window (2011-07-15) and the patent then lapsed at its natural 20-year term in 2017 without ever being litigated. That combination — a well-cited, foundational-style IBM reference in the mobile-agent literature that was never asserted and never challenged — is the classic profile of a patent that is academically influential but commercially unenforced.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant receiving a demand letter citing US 6,055,562:

1. Lead with expiration. The patent expired at the end of its 20-year term on 2017-05-01 (per the front page; 2017-04-30 per Unified Patents — either way, a decade past). Under 35 U.S.C. § 286, damages are capped at six years pre-complaint, and there is no infringement liability for activity after expiration (post-expiration conduct cannot infringe an expired patent; only pre-expiration damages could ever be in play). Any demand premised on current products or services is, on its face, unsupportable.
2. Demand the assertion record. Ask for the litigation, IPR, and PTAB docket numbers on which the claimant relies. This patent has none — no IPR, no PGR, no CBM, no CAFC appeal, no reexam. I found no evidence it has ever been litigated. If the sender is a non-IBM entity, demand the recorded-assignment chain (the only assignment of record is the original 1997-05-01 inventor-to-IBM assignment, REEL/FRAME 008528/0717).
3. If pre-expiration damages are somehow claimed, the invalidity case is built in district court (not the PTAB — see below), and the starting portfolio is the patent's own cited art: White et al., US 5,603,031 (expressly distinguished by the applicant as statically pre-configuring itineraries — note the patent itself concedes the distinction turns on static vs. dynamic resolution, which is an obviousness battleground, not a novelty one), plus the mobile-agent literature on the face of the patent (Gray, Agent Tcl; Strasser et al., Mole; Peine et al., Ara; the Concordia whitepaper; and the Chess et al. IBM Research Division papers on Itinerant Agents and "Mobile Agents: Are They a Good Idea?").
4. Practical IPR availability is gone. With the patent expired, an IPR petition is generally not a viable tool (the Board's practice disfavors instituting on expired patents where no live claims remain to amend, and there is nothing to invalidate prospectively). Do not budget for an IPR. Escalate the analysis to whether the demand has any legally cognizable damages theory at all.

If you are advising a client on the patent's validity landscape generally: the correct statement is that US 6,055,562 has never been tested — not in an IPR, not in a PGR, not in a CBM, and not in district court. Do not represent to anyone that any claim of this patent has been invalidated, canceled, or confirmed. All 26 claims are untested text, and the patent is expired.

Sources

• USPTO PTAB E2E (trial number / patent number search): https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/
• USPTO Open Data Portal (canonical structured proceedings list used above — returns empty for this patent)
• CourtListener (opinion/docket search, no hits): https://www.courtlistener.com/?q=%226055562%22
• Google Patents — US 6,055,562 (authoritative full text, legal events, citations, family): https://patents.google.com/patent/US6055562/en
• Unified Patents patent profile (no litigation/IPR fields populated): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6055562-A
• United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTAB trial practice and statistics): https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab

Confidence statement: I am highly confident there is no AIA trial proceeding on US 6,055,562 on the public record. I cannot completely rule out a very recently filed, not-yet-indexed petition, and ODP ingest of decades-old, never-challenged patents is not independently auditable from public sources — so if this analysis is supporting a litigation or licensing position, confirm against Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, and the PTAB E2E "Patent Number" search directly before relying on the negative. I found nothing contradicting the negative, and I have not fabricated any proceeding number, petitioner, judge panel, or decision.

I'll search the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-reference sources for any recorded transfers of this patent.

Let me verify whether any post-issuance assignment exists and capture the correspondent of record for the original assignment.

Let me do a final verification on the Assignment Center record and current-owner status.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,055,562 ("Dynamic mobile agents")

Search scope. I queried USPTO Assignment Search (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov / legacy assignment.uspto.gov), the Google Patents legal-events abstract for US6055562A, the Unified Patents portal record (portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6055562-A), FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, and the sibling patent US 6,115,736 (the divisional). The public record for this patent contains exactly one recorded assignment — the original corporate assignment to IBM. There are no post-issuance assignment, security-interest, merger, change-of-name, or license records. That is itself the finding: ownership never left IBM.

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Inventors

All four named inventors were IBM employees at the time of filing, drawn from a single research team (IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Yorktown Heights / Briarcliff Manor / Elmsford, NY). This is a standard corporate-research inventorship set, not a fragmented or brokered one.

Patterns / anomalies worth noting:

• Recording typo, not an anomaly in substance. The recorded assignment cover sheet names the second assignor as "MOHNINDRA, AJAY" — a transposition of Ajay Mohindra. The patent front page, the Google Patents inventor list, the sibling patent US 6,115,736, and the Unified Patents record all read "Mohindra, Ajay." I flag this only because scrambled names on cover sheets sometimes signal an assembled/brokered chain; here the corroborating IBM-internal evidence (same four inventors on the divisional, same assignee) shows it is a clerical error, not a different party.
• No fire-sale precursor. All four inventors appear together as co-inventors on the sibling/divisional patent US 6,115,736 (filed 1998-04-23), which confirms the team remained intact and IBM continued to prosecute the family. There is no evidence of any inventor departing to a third party, and no inventor-side assignment to any entity other than IBM anywhere in the record. The "inventors scatter within 12 months" signal is absent.

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Original assignee

International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY — named as assignee on the issued patent and on the one recorded assignment.

• Line of business / product embodiment: IBM is a global operating company (hardware, software, services). The patent family is directly tied to IBM's own shipped mobile-agent technology: the specification cites IBM's Aglets WorkBench whitepaper (Lange et al.), and the sibling patent US 6,115,736 describes the Agent Execution Shell as a servlet deployed in IBM's Lotus Domino Go Webserver, with the directory function implementable on IBM DB2. IBM therefore has products/work attributable to the claimed subject matter, though the patent itself was an R&D/architecture patent rather than a discrete sellable SKU.
• Current status: Operating; no bankruptcy, no dissolution, no acquisition of IBM. The patent expired for failure to pay maintenance past the 12-year window (anticipated expiration 2017-05-01; Unified Patents lists 2017-04-30) — consistent with an aging, non-core R&D asset that IBM simply let lapse rather than monetize.

Google Patents current-assignee "IBM" and Unified Patents "Parent Company: IBM" with a blank Current Assignee field are consistent with unbroken IBM ownership.

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Assignment timeline

• 1997-05-01 (executed 1997-04-30 to 1997-05-01) / recorded 1997-05-01 — Reel 008528/0717
  • Conveyance: ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (cover sheet: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Murthy Devarakonda; Ajay Mohindra (recorded as "Mohnindra, Ajay"); Apratim Purakayastha; Deborra J. Zukowski
  • Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation, New York
  • Correspondent: not surfaced in the indexed record. The Google Patents legal-event abstract for reel 008528/0717 does not expose the correspondent field, and the publicly indexed Assignment Center result did not return it. I will not fabricate a correspondent name. What is determinable is the prosecution attorney of record on the face of the patent: Kevin M. Jordan (IBM) — that is the attorney/agent who handled the application, not necessarily the correspondent who filed the assignment cover sheet. IBM's own assignments of this era were routinely recorded through IBM's internal IP-law department; absent the reel image I cannot confirm the recording correspondent. No repeat-correspondent signal can be assessed from a single link.
  • Context: Internal corporate assignment — standard employee-to-employer assignment executed at filing, no third party, no consideration evidence beyond the employment relationship.

That is the entire recorded chain. The Google Patents legal-events list for US6055562A contains only: the 1997-05-01 assignment, the 2000-04-14 "patent grant" status entry, a 2002 entity-status entry, and maintenance-fee payments in 2003, 2007, and 2011. Everything after 1997 is IBM paying its own maintenance fees. No transfer, security agreement, merger, change of name, license, release, or correction ever appears.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6055562
    1997 : Application filed 01 May
         : Assigned to IBM by four inventors
         : Recorded at reel 008528 frame 0717
    2000 : Patent issued 25 April
    2011 : Final maintenance fee paid
    2017 : Patent expires for non-payment

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Data conflict to flag (consistent with the prior section): Unified Patents shows priority 1997-04-30, grant 2000-04-24, expiration 2017-04-30; Google Patents shows filing/priority 1997-05-01, issue 2000-04-25. The recorded assignment's execution-date range (1997-04-30 to 1997-05-01) explains the split. Per the operating rule, I treat the patent front page (filed 1997-05-01, issued 2000-04-25) as authoritative.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — narrowly, because the Assignment Center chain contains only the original assignment (reel 008528/0717) and nothing else, which is the fact pattern this category is defined to cover.

Justifying in plain terms: this is a clean, single-owner corporate patent with zero NPE indicators. The sole recorded transfer is IBM's own inventor-to-employer assignment, executed 1997-04-30/1997-05-01 and recorded 1997-05-01 at reel 008528/0717; the assignee never changed, no security interest or license was ever recorded, and the patent simply expired on 2017-05-01 for non-payment of maintenance fees while still held by IBM. None of the eight troll patterns is present on the evidence, and the absence of any post-1997 reel/frame entry is the affirmative proof that ownership never left IBM. (Note: "Insufficient data" here reflects the structural fact of a one-entry chain, not genuinely missing or ambiguous records — the ownership story is complete and benign.)

Verify at: USPTO Patent Assignment Search — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy interface: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) — search by patent number 6055562; the single hit is reel 008528/0717.

Caveats on evidence quality: (1) I could not retrieve the reel-image cover sheet itself, so the recording correspondent for 008528/0717 remains unconfirmed — I did not substitute the prosecution attorney for it. (2) The "no later assignment" conclusion rests on the Google Patents legal-events abstract and the Unified Patents record agreeing that no transfer followed issuance; if absolute certainty is required, the reel/frame index should be re-run directly against the Assignment Center API, since my coverage was limited to publicly indexed web sources.

I'll verify the patent record and each cited reference against live sources before building the § 102 analysis.

Let me verify the remaining cited references' subject matter.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 6,055,562 ("Dynamic Mobile Agents")

Scope, sources, and caveats

• Patent confirmed: The number you gave resolves literally to US 6,055,562 B1, App. No. 08/847,079, "Dynamic mobile agents," IBM, filed 1997-05-01, issued 2000-04-25. I did not substitute any similar number (e.g., 6,055,561 or 6,055,563). Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, EveryPatent, and uspto.report all return this same document; the KO/JP family members (KR100290199B1, JPH10320361A) and the divisional US 6,115,736 also match.
• Tooling caveat (must be stated): I could not execute a direct query against the USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentsView API from this environment; the records I relied on are USPTO-data mirrors (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, EveryPatent, uspto.report). That is sufficient to confirm the number and its citation set, but if you need a certified "References Cited" extract, it should be pulled from Patent Center.
• Date inconsistency to flag: Your task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026," while the session header says 2026-09-29. It does not affect the art here (this patent expired 2017-05-01), but I flag it per your cross-reference rule.
• Prior-art window: The critical date is the 1997-05-01 filing/priority date. Art published more than a year earlier (before 1996-05-01) is § 102(b) art; art patented on an application filed before 1997-05-01 but issuing later is § 102(e) art. This is a pre-AIA patent, so § 102(a)/(b)/(e) govern.
• Important structural note: On the Google Patents page, the "Cited By" list (~180 documents) is later art that cites '562 — it is not prior art. The operative prior-art set is the "Citations (12)" patent list plus the 25 non-patent citations. I analyze the 12 patent citations as requested and summarize the NPL.
• Legal caveat: Every entry below states potential § 102 exposure. Anticipation is a legal conclusion requiring that a single reference disclose every limitation, arranged as claimed. My mappings are analytical hypotheses, not adjudications.

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A. The 12 cited U.S. patents (the examiner's prior-art set)

All twelve bear the examiner's citation asterisk on the face of the patent. I list them chronologically by filing date, which is the order that matters for § 102(e)/(b).

(Front-page date note: EveryPatent's cover listing gives inventors as Nihart et al., Cowsar et al., Braden-Harder et al., White et al., Bettels, van Hoff, Buickel et al., Vanderbilt et al., Balick et al., Bristor et al., Waskiewicz, Noble et al. — matching the class numbers 395/500, 395/685, 395/604, 395/758, 395/200, 707/10, 395/200, 395/200, 395/701, 395/200, 395/680. I treat these as authoritative.)

Reference-by-reference analysis

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1. US 5,452,433 — Nihart et al., "Common agent computer management system and method" (DEC, filed 1990-06-28, issued 1995-09-19)

Description: A management architecture in which management tools issue commands that are translated by multiple protocol engines into a protocol-non-specific "common agent" interface. The common agent consults a hierarchical "location directory" that denotes operating-system components and their management handles, obtains the handles for the target components, and sends procedure calls (RPCs) to them. Explicitly built on "objects which have various attributes" that can be "queried, set and manipulated."

Potential § 102 mapping: Weak-to-moderate. It discloses directory-based resolution of a component to a handle/address (a "location directory" of components and handles) and attribute-bearing managed components — conceptually adjacent to independent claims 1/11/21(b) and to the directory limitations of claims 8/18/22. However, it contains no mobile agent, no agent itinerary, and no "dispatching a mobile agent" step, so it cannot anticipate the independent claims. Best treated as § 103 background art for the directory/resolution concept.

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2. US 5,630,121 — Braden-Harder et al., "Archiving and retrieving multimedia objects using structured indexes" (IBM, filed 1993-02-02, issued 1997-05-13)

Description: Retrieval of multimedia objects by means of structured indexes — i.e., locating stored objects via index records rather than fixed physical addresses.

Potential § 102 mapping: Marginal. It supports only the generic proposition that an object may be located by a logical key/index at runtime — relevant at most to claims 6/16 (logical name/address of a component) and 8/18/22 (resolving a name). It lacks agents, executable-unit dispatch, and attribute-driven selection. Not an anticipation reference.

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3. US 5,615,400 — Cowsar et al., "System for object oriented dynamic linking based upon a catalog of registered function set or class identifiers" (Apple, filed 1993-06-30, issued 1997-03-25)

Description: Dynamic linking in an object-oriented system using a catalog of registered function-set/class identifiers — i.e., a registry that resolves a logical class/function identifier to a loadable code unit at link time.

Potential § 102 mapping: Moderate for the resolution concept. It discloses resolving a logical identifier to a code unit via a catalog/registry, which is conceptually close to the "dynamically resolving a component name using a component directory" limitations of claims 8/18/22, and to the "object classes" species of the executable-unit claims 5/15. It does not disclose mobile agents or dispatching an agent to a selected location, so it cannot reach claims 1/11/21. Useful as § 103 art for the component-name-resolution feature.

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4. US 5,603,031 — White et al., "System and method for distributed computation based upon the movement, execution, and interaction of processes in a network" (General Magic, filed 1993-07-08, issued 1997-02-11) ⭐ most relevant

Description (verified from the issued text and the EP 0634719 counterpart): The Telescript system — mobile agent processes that "direct their own movement through a computer network." A place process provides the execution context; an agent moves by executing a go operation with a ticket, and a ticket "can identify the destination place by specifying the address, name, class or any combination of the address, name and class." The engine consults a "finder" (a dictionary keyed by telenames) to determine the transfer destination toward the trip destination. Agents may be cloned and sent to several destinations (send), and class definitions travel with the agent so classes not defined at the destination can be used.

Why it is the pivotal reference: It is the only cited patent that discloses a mobile agent plus runtime selection of where the agent goes based on a symbolic destination specification (name/class) resolved by the system, rather than a fixed host list.

Potential § 102 mapping:

• Claims 1/11/21 (a)-(c): Potential anticipation under a broad construction — the ticket supplies a name/class ("name and attribute"), the finder/engine selects a destination, and the agent is dispatched. Counter-argument the specification itself makes: '562 characterizes White as statically pre-configuring the itinerary in a "destination list," and the "executable unit" in '562 is a component the agent must execute at a host, which is not the same as White's agent-as-the-moving-code model. The '562 applicant distinguished White on exactly this basis. Expect '562's claims to survive over '031 on the "name and attribute specifying a logical requirement of an executable unit" and "dynamically selecting as a function of the name and the attribute" language.
• Claims 5/15 (executable unit = object classes/applet etc.): Moderate — White expressly transports and executes class objects.
• Claims 6/16 (name = physical address / logical address / logical name of a component): Strong textual overlap — White's ticket names are telenames and teleaddresses (logical name, logical address) and can include physical addresses.
• Claims 4/14/26 (iterate for additional units): White's send/multi-hop trips touch this.
• Claims 8/18/22 (dynamically resolving using a component directory): Weak — White routes via a finder/region table, not a queryable, updatable component directory storing component attributes. This is the key gap.

Bottom line: White '031 is the closest art and the natural § 103 primary reference (alone or with a directory reference such as Nihart '433, Buickel '362, or van Hoff '147), but a standalone § 102 anticipation of claims 1/11/21 is doubtful.

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5. US 5,678,045 — Bettels, "Method and apparatus for multiscript access to entries in a directory" (DEC, filed 1993-12-06, issued 1997-10-14)

Description: Accessing directory entries under multiple scripts/locales — a directory-lookup mechanism handling multilingual entry names.

Potential § 102 mapping: Marginal; directory-mechanics only. Relevant at most to claims 8/18/22 (directory lookup) and claims 6/16 (logical naming). No agent mobility, no dispatch.

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6. US 5,815,712 — Bristor et al., "System for controlling functions of a target application using controllable objects" (Sun, filed 1994-11-14, issued 1998-09-29)

Description: Using controllable objects to invoke/control functions of a target application — a distributed object-control framework.

Potential § 102 mapping: Weak. Touches distributed object invocation, relevant at most to the "executable unit" species claims 5/15 and the system-architecture framing of claim 11. No dynamic location selection, no directory, no mobile agent.

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7. US 5,822,585 — Noble et al., "System and method for cooperative processing using object-oriented framework" (Compuware, filed 1995-02-21, issued 1998-10-13)

Description: Cooperative/distributed processing across an object-oriented framework — distributing processing among cooperating object components.

Potential § 102 mapping: Weak. Background for the "executable unit = object classes" claims 5/15 and the cooperative-processing context of claims 1/11. Does not reach the name+attribute selection or the mobile-agent dispatch.

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8. US 5,793,965 — Vanderbilt et al., "Method and apparatus for determining the type of an object in a distributed object system" (Sun, filed 1995-03-22, issued 1998-08-11)

Description: Runtime determination of an object's type in a distributed object system — dynamic type/interface resolution.

Potential § 102 mapping: Weak-to-moderate; it supports the concept of runtime resolution of object identity/type relevant to claims 8/18/22 and possibly the "attribute specifies a logical requirement" idea (claim 1(a)). No agent mobility or dispatch.

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9. US 5,802,291 — Balick et al., "System and method to control and administer distributed object servers using first class distributed objects" (Sun, filed 1995-03-30, issued 1998-09-01)

Description: Administering distributed object servers using first-class distributed objects — includes runtime discovery/selection of servers.

Potential § 102 mapping: Weak-to-moderate. Conceptually touches runtime server selection (claim 1/11/21(b)) and the "load indicator / availability" attribute notion of claims 7/17/9/19/23, but it does not disclose agent migration or executing an executable unit at the selected server. § 103 candidate for the "select among servers" idea.

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10. US 5,740,362 — Buickel et al., "Management of network distributed agents in a distributed computing environment" (IBM, filed 1995-11-06, issued 1998-04-14) ⭐ highly relevant to the directory limitations

Description (verified): A DCE-based system where agents are registered and addressed. A Master Object (MOB) stores a "principal name list" and the binding handles of agents; "each one of said binding handles are stored in a directory server" and there are "means for registering each one of said agents in said principal name list" and "means for retrieving from said directory server one of said binding handles." A request identifies a principal name; the system locates the corresponding binding handle and executes the agent to invoke the application.

Potential § 102 mapping: This is the strongest cited art for the "component directory" limitations:

• Claims 8/18/22 (dynamically resolving a component name using a component directory): potentially anticipates — principal name → directory server → binding handle mirrors name → component directory → location.
• Claims 1/11/21(a)-(b) in part: a name identifies a target and the system dynamically selects the target by querying the directory.
• But '362's agents are stationary server-side objects invoked by handle, not mobile agents dispatched to a host. It therefore does not disclose '562's step (c) "dispatching a mobile agent to a selected target location," which is the core of the independent claims. It cannot anticipate 1/11/21 as a whole. It is, however, an excellent § 103 secondary reference to supply the "query a directory for the location" element that White '031 lacks.

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11. US 5,727,147 — van Hoff, "System and method for resolving symbolic references to externally located program files" (Sun, filed 1995-12-08, issued 1998-03-10) ⭐ relevant to dynamic resolution

Description (verified): A program interpreter that, on encountering an unresolved symbolic reference to a remotely stored method, creates an application-specific class loader carrying location information identifying the server, loads the referenced object class from that server, and resolves further symbolic references through that loader. The class loader embeds the server location and enforces server-specific load policies.

Potential § 102 mapping: Moderate-to-strong for the resolution limitations:

• Claims 8/18/22: potentially anticipates the "dynamically resolving a [component] name [using a directory]" concept — a symbolic reference is resolved at runtime to a remote location and the code unit is loaded/executed there.
• Claims 6/16 (logical address/name of a component): the symbolic reference is a logical name; the loader holds the logical location.
• Claims 5/15 (object classes): it moves/loads object classes.
• Not an anticipation of 1/11/21 — there is no mobile agent; the code is fetched to the client rather than an agent being dispatched to the code. Note '562 itself contemplates the inverse ("the component could be downloaded from the Component Host for execution on the client"), which actually narrows the conceptual gap and makes '147 a real § 103 concern for claims 8/18/22.

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12. US 5,822,526 — Waskiewicz, "System and method for maintaining and administering email address names in a network" (Microsoft, filed 1996-06-03, issued 1998-10-13)

Description: Name-to-address administration in a network (email address names maintained/translated centrally).

Potential § 102 mapping: Marginal. Supports only the generic name→address mapping idea relevant to claims 6/16 (name = physical/logical address) and 8/18/22. No agents, no executable-unit dispatch. Not an anticipation reference.

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B. Ranking of the 12 patents by relevance

1. US 5,603,031 (White / General Magic) — only reference showing mobile-agent movement with a destination specified by name/class and system-side destination selection. Closest art; § 103 primary reference; § 102 threat mainly to the broadest claims 1/21 (a)-(c) under a very broad construction, and to claims 4–6/14–16.
2. US 5,740,362 (Buickel / IBM) — best teaching of the directory-server / principal-name → binding-handle resolution, i.e., the "component directory" element. § 103 secondary reference; potential § 102 to 8/18/22.
3. US 5,727,147 (van Hoff / Sun) — best teaching of runtime symbolic-reference resolution to a remote location + dynamic code loading. Potential § 102 to 8/18/22, § 103 concern given '562's own "download the component" alternative.
4. US 5,452,433 (Nihart / DEC) — component location directory + management handles + attribute-bearing components; the only cited reference that is both § 102(b) and § 102(e) art. § 103 background.
5. US 5,615,400 (Cowsar / Apple) — identifier→code-unit catalog resolution; § 103 for claims 8/18/22 and 5/15.
6. US 5,802,291 (Balick / Sun) and US 5,793,965 (Vanderbilt / Sun) — runtime server/object selection and type resolution; § 103 support.
7. US 5,678,045 (Bettels / DEC) and US 5,630,121 (Braden-Harder / IBM) — directory-index/lookup mechanics.
8. US 5,822,585 (Noble / Compuware), US 5,815,712 (Bristor / Sun), US 5,822,526 (Waskiewicz / Microsoft) — general/background only.

Net assessment: None of the twelve, taken alone, discloses the full combination recited in independent claims 1/11/21 — specifically (i) a name and attribute defining a logical requirement of an executable unit, (ii) dynamic selection of a target location as a function of both, and (iii) dispatching a mobile agent there for execution. The claims most exposed to § 102 are the narrow directory/resolution claims 8/18/22 (via US 5,740,362 and/or US 5,727,147) and possibly the broad independent claims under a White '031-based reading. The unique aspects of '562 that appear unanticipated by the cited art are claims 9/19/23 (detecting unavailability/overload and dynamically choosing an alternate target) and 10/20/24 (modifying the location/attribute without changing the agent's code).

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C. The 25 cited non-patent references (also § 102(a)/(b) printed publications)

These are examiner-cited printed publications and are prior art in their own right. The most material:

• D. Chess et al., "Itinerant Agents for Mobile Computing," IBM Research Division, Oct. 1995 — mobile-agent itinerary concept (§ 102(b) if publicly accessible before 1996-05-01).
• D. Chess et al., "Mobile Agents: Are They a Good Idea?," IBM Research Division, Dec. 1994 — § 102(b).
• Robert Gray et al., "Mobile agents for mobile computing," Tech. Report PCS-TR96-285, Dartmouth, May 2, 1996; and Robert S. Gray, "Agent Tcl: A flexible and secure mobile-agent system," 1996 — agent migration mechanisms.
• Markus Strasser et al., "Mole — A Java Based Mobile Agent System," Univ. Stuttgart, Oct. 23, 1996 — agent system with locations/engines.
• H. Peine et al., "The Architecture of the Ara Platform for Mobile Agents" — agent platform.
• Mobile Agent Facility Specification, IBM Corp., Aug. 24, 1996 — inter-operability of mobile-agent systems, including name/location services.
• Mobile Agent Computing, Concordia White Paper (no date); Danny B. Lange et al., "Programming Mobile Agents in Java — With the Java Aglet API," 1997; Bill Venners, "Under the Hood: The Architecture of Agents," Apr. 1997; Don Gilbert et al., "IBM Intelligent Agents," 1997; Anselm Lingnau et al., "An Infrastructure for Mobile Agents: Requirements and Architecture."

Relevance: Collectively these establish that static itinerary configuration and agent migration were well known by early 1996–1997 (the premise '562 concedes in its Background). None of them, on the record here, teaches a queryable, updatable component directory keyed on component name and attribute that dynamically selects and re-selects the target host, which is '562's stated point of novelty. They are § 103 context, not standalone anticipators of claims 1/11/21.

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D. Direct answers to your specific asks

1. USPTO record for 6,055,562: Confirmed — IBM, filed 1997-05-01, issued 2000-04-25, inventors Devarakonda/Mohindra/Purakayastha/Zukowski, 26 claims (independent 1, 11, 21), expired 2017-05-01. (No results for adjacent numbers substituted.)
2. Most relevant prior art: US 5,603,031 (White/General Magic) is the closest patent; US 5,740,362 (Buickel/IBM) and US 5,727,147 (van Hoff/Sun) are the closest on the directory/dynamic-resolution element; US 5,452,433 (Nihart/DEC) is the closest on component-directory + attributes.
3. Claims most exposed to § 102: 8/18/22 (directory-based name resolution) — potentially met by US 5,740,362 and/or US 5,727,147; and 1/21 in the broadest reading — potentially challenged by US 5,603,031 alone.
4. Claims apparently NOT anticipated: 9/19/23 (unavailable/overloaded → alternate target) and 10/20/24 (modify location/attribute with no agent-code change) are not disclosed by any of the cited references.

Recommended verification step: For litigation-grade certainty, pull the certified "References Cited" and examiner's Form 892 / Reasons for Allowance from USPTO Patent Center (App. 08/847,079), and run the four nearest references (US 5,603,031; 5,740,362; 5,727,147; 5,452,433) through a full claim-chart against claims 1, 8, 11, 18, 21, and 22, including the applicant's distinguishing remarks in the file history.

I'll ground the key references before building the §103 analysis. Let me verify the teachings of the load-bearing prior-art references from the patent's "Prior Art" section.

Obviousness Analysis — US 6,055,562 ("Dynamic Mobile Agents") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note: Per the task, I use only the references listed in the "Prior Art" section of the patent page — i.e., the 12 Patent Citations and the 25 Non-Patent Citations, plus the three references the applicant itself discusses in the Background (White et al. US 5,603,031; the Lange et al. Aglets whitepaper; and the general "static itinerary" art). I do not import the "Cited By" art, which post-dates the 1997-05-01 filing. Where I use general knowledge (e.g., load balancing as a design technique), I label it as such rather than attributing it to a cited reference.

Date discrepancy flagged: The system prompt states today's date as 2026-09-29; this task states April 26, 2026. Immaterial to the analysis, but noted per the cross-reference rule. Bibliographic conflicts noted in the earlier summary (priority 1997-04-30 vs. 1997-05-01; grant 2000-04-24 vs. 2000-04-25) are not repeated here; I use the front-page dates (filed 1997-05-01, issued 2000-04-25) as authoritative.

I verified the teachings of the load-bearing references against the published texts:

• US 5,603,031 (White et al., General Magic) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/c0/8c/a9/30c0793a2cc476/US5603031.pdf — finds a go operation transporting an agent process to a place process via a ticket, agents transporting their own class definitions; the Telescript Reference adds engines, places, and the go operation as the transport primitive.
• US 5,727,147 (van Hoff, Sun) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5727147 — "resolving symbolic references to externally located program files," runtime construction of a URL and fetch of a remote object class, with location information embedded in a per-application class loader.
• US 5,615,400 (Cowsar et al., Apple) — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5615400A](/patent/US5615400A) — a resource set/class catalog keyed by function-set/class IDs; "the client need not be aware of changes in the structure of the library"; function sets "can be moved into and out of internal memory, revised … without requiring re-compilation of the client application"; catalog flags filtered by processor/architecture type (e.g., mc68000, mc68020, FPU presence) and version.
• Chess et al., "Itinerant Agents for Mobile Computing" (IBM, Oct. 1995) — https://www.mit.edu/~bgrosof/paps/rc20010_abstr.html — agents "roam among a set of networked servers until they are able to accomplish their task," with the ability "to migrate from server to server, perhaps seeking one that can help with the user's task."

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1. The person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

For a May 1997 filing, the PHOSITA is a software engineer with a B.S. in computer science/electrical engineering plus roughly two to three years of experience in distributed computing and network programming — familiar with client/server RPC, directory/name services (X.500/LDAP, DNS, CORBA naming), object-oriented dynamic linking and class loading (Java 1.0/1.1, C++ shared libraries), and the then-current mobile-agent systems (Telescript, Agent Tcl, Ara, Mole, Concordia, and IBM Aglets). This is a highly relevant skill level because the patent's own Background presumes familiarity with all of these.

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2. The claim 1/11/21 core, decomposed

The independent claims reduce to three functional steps:

Claims 11 and 21 are the system (means-plus-function) and program-storage-device variants of the same three steps; 21 is a Beauregard-style article claim requiring only a machine-readable medium embodying the claim-1 steps.

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3. Primary combination: White et al. + van Hoff + Cowsar

3.1 Element-by-element mapping

The single genuine gap in the primary pair (White + van Hoff) is the "attribute specifying a logical requirement" — resolving not merely where a name lives but which of several candidate hosts satisfies a capability requirement. Cowsar fills this: its catalog stores records that characterize the code (including mainframe/processor architecture flags and version/compatibility), and "a client can enumerate all derived classes of a given class by class ID, it can determine what classes are available dynamically." That is a name-plus-attribute catalog query used to select among implementations. Ordinary database/LDAP query-by-attribute (the patent's own Component Directory 134 is an LDAP server) supplies the rest.

3.2 Motivation to combine

The § 103 motivation here is unusually strong because it is supplied by the applicant's own Background and by a cited IBM reference:

1. Applicant's express admission of the problem. The specification states that the prior art's "static pre-configuration of an agent's itinerary introduces a number of weaknesses": it "is not robust because it can fail if the location of the information or destination objects changes …"; it "is not amenable to a dynamic environment where network hosts can become unsuitable due to an increasing load"; and "the system can be difficult to manage because information or destination objects cannot be freely relocated." Under KSR, a recognized problem in the field is itself a reason to seek the solution.
2. Chess et al. (IBM, same assignee as the patent) already aims at the same goal — an agent that "roam[s] among a set of networked servers until [it is] able to accomplish [its] task," migrating "seeking one that can help."
3. Applicant's admission that the Aglets approach was a partial step. The Background cites Lange et al.'s Aglets whitepaper as "suggest[ing] statically configuring multiple alternate network hosts" and concedes this "may lessen some of the above weaknesses." Once the field was already maintaining multiple candidates for a component, replacing a hard-coded candidate list with a runtime directory lookup is a predictable substitution of a known mechanism (symbolic-name resolution) for a known mechanism (static address lists) — exactly the kind of "combination of familiar elements according to known methods" that KSR holds obvious.
4. Same field, overlapping problem, predictable result. White (mobile-agent transport), van Hoff (runtime symbolic resolution of remote code), and Cowsar (code catalog with attribute records and relocatable code) all address "where does this piece of code live, and how do I get it there without breaking callers." Combining the transport primitive of White with the runtime resolver of van Hoff/Cowsar yields the expected, predictable benefit of robustness to relocation and load — no unexpected result.
5. Reasonable expectation of success. Each sub-technique was separately proven: Telescript had commercial agent transport; Java had runtime class loading via URL (van Hoff); Apple's System 7 had a dynamic class catalog (Cowsar).

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4. Dependent-claim chart (representative combinations)

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5. Alternative and secondary combinations

For a rejection, the examiner would not need one monolithic three-way combination; several narrower two-way combinations reach most claims:

• White + van Hoff reaches claims 1, 2, 4, 6/16, 8/18/22, 9/19/23, 11, 21 in most of their scope (the "attribute" limitation being the contested element).
• White + Cowsar reaches the same set and, importantly, adds the "modify without changing agent code" limitation (claims 10/20/24) plus architecture/feature attributes (claims 7/17).
• White + Chess et al. reaches claims 1, 2, 4 and supplies the reason to abandon static itineraries.
• van Hoff + Cowsar (both "locate remote code by name at runtime against a catalog") supplies elements (a) and (b) even without White; the mobile-agent transport of (c) is then supplied by any of White, Chess, Lange (Aglets), or the Ara/Mole/Concordia/MAF papers.

The Non-Patent Citations (Chess; Gray, "Agent Tcl"; the Concordia whitepaper; Ara; Mole; and the Mobile Agent Facility Specification, IBM, Aug. 24, 1996) collectively establish that name-based location services and server-to-server migration were routine in the mobile-agent art by late 1996 — i.e., the "environment of the invention." The MAF/Concordia/CORBA descriptions in the secondary literature even use the phrase "location-independent name service," which is the essence of element (b).

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6. Where the patent is strongest (candidate non-obviousness arguments)

A competent analyst must flag the limitations for which the cited art is thinnest, because these are where a patentability defense would focus:

1. "Attribute specifying a logical requirement" as a selection criterion, not mere name resolution. White/van Hoff resolve names to addresses; they do not expressly teach choosing among multiple candidate hosts by matching capability attributes at dispatch time. Cowsar's architecture/version flags are the best rebuttal but are library-local, not network-distributed-host selection. Assessment: weak defense — Cowsar's catalog characterization plus ordinary attribute-based (LDAP) querying plus routine load-aware selection makes the step obvious; still, the combination is doing real work here.
2. "Load indicator" (claim 7/17) and "overloaded" alternate selection (claim 9/19/23). No cited reference expressly discloses a load attribute or load-triggered rerouting. This is the single most defensible element. Assessment: defensible in isolation, but the applicant's own Background admits the load problem, and dynamic load-based dispatch was conventional in 1997 (this is common-knowledge art, not a cited reference — so a rejection would need a fourth reference, e.g., a load-balancing/host-selection patent, which is outside the page's "Prior Art" section).
3. Re-resolution at each hop by the executing host (FIG. 4/FIG. 5, AES queries the directory for the next component): distributed, per-hop resolution rather than origin-only resolution. Assessment: White's per-place ticket semantics and Chess's server-to-server roaming make per-hop behavior a natural implementation choice; but the distributed authority to re-resolve is a point worth pressing.

Teaching-away check: White's teleaddresses are "preassigned to specific regions," which could be argued as a teaching of static assignment. But White also discloses name-based resolution within the Telescript environment, and Chass/Aglets show the field migrating toward dynamic selection; a reference is not "teaching away" unless it criticizes, discredits, or discourages the claimed approach. Nothing in the cited art does that. No viable teaching-away argument.

Secondary considerations: The patent is cited by 95+ later patents (notably the Sun/Oracle Jini family, Curen Software's agent-rule patents, and Toshiba's agent-system patents), and IBM Aglets saw real commercial deployment. This citation density is evidence of technical significance and could support a "pioneering/reference-status" narrative. However: (i) there is no evidence of a nexus between these later citations and the specific claimed attribute-based dynamic selection; (ii) the field was crowded and fast-moving in 1996–1998, so citations are weak proof of non-obviousness; and (iii) the applicant's own admissions of the problem cut against it.

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7. Conclusion per claim

Bottom line: On the four corners of this page, the independent claims (1, 11, 21) and most dependents are vulnerable to a § 103 rejection using the White et al. mobile-agent transport as the primary reference, van Hoff (US 5,727,147) and/or Cowsar (US 5,615,400) for runtime name/attribute resolution against a directory, and Chess et al. (or the applicant's own Background admissions) for the motivation to replace static itineraries with dynamic resolution. The patent's only genuinely resilient redoubt is the "load/overload" attribute-driven reselection of claims 7/17 and 9/19/23 — and even that is undermined by the specification's concession that host overload was a known, recognized problem in the field.

Caveats I cannot resolve from this page:

1. Reference dates. US 5,822,585 and US 5,822,526 issued 1998-10-13 — after the 1997-05-01 filing — so they are prior art only under § 102(e) if their applications predate the filing; their filing dates are not shown here. Lange et al. (Aglets, 1997) and Venners (Apr. 1997) are near or after the filing date and may qualify only under § 102(a)/(g), which turns on facts not in the record. Verify filing dates before relying on these in a formal rejection.
2. Full text of the shorthand references. I have confirmed the teachings of White, van Hoff, Cowsar, and Chess from primary sources; the exact disclosures of US 5,740,362, US 5,452,433, US 5,793,965, and US 5,802,291 (cited here for the unavailability/alternate-location and naming elements) were not verified line-by-line and should be checked against their specifications before any final obviousness determination.