US 6295055

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

Let me run more targeted searches on the litigation side.

US 6,295,055 B1 — Identification and Summary

Searches performed: web searches for US6295055, "6,295,055" + Federal Circuit 2026, and patent-number searches against litigation/PTAB docket material. Results below; where I could not confirm something authoritatively, I say so.

1. Bibliographic data (as reported by the source of record, Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-29)

Note the stated priority date (1991‑11‑12) and the filing date recited in the specification for the root application 07/790,327 (Nov. 21, 1991) do not match; both dates are reproduced here without correction, per your instruction.

2. Abstract

A method for labeling the pixels within a selected visual area of at least one image frame containing that visual area from a sequence of image frames stored in memory and operative to be displayed on an interactive display so that a user may subsequently select the selected visual area on a pixel accurate, frame accurate basis. To label the selected visual area within an image frame, the scene within that image frame is segmented to identify the selected visual area, each pixel within that selected visual area is then labeled with an area identifier which is unique to that selected visual area, and the pixels containing the area identifiers are mapped into an item buffer. The item buffer is then compressed and stored within a labeled portion of memory linked with the stored frame image from which the item buffer was derived. When a user subsequently selects a pixel within any frame image of the sequence of frame images the pixel is decompressed within the labeled portion of memory corresponding to the pixel in the selected frame image to determine the area identifier for the selected pixel. This area identifier is then used for a number of purposes, such as to identify an area within the frame image corresponding to the selected pixel, or to cause some action related to the selected pixel to be performed.

Key disclosed details: the auxiliary data is stored as an invisible "hit test track" parallel to a video track; lossless compression (run-length, quad-tree, or Huffman); a "HIT_" four-character track tag; video-track identifier, compression-format, and pixel-bit-depth fields; optional object-to-string-name and object-to-event mapping tables; and 2:1/4:1 subsampling when the video track is compressed beyond a threshold such as 10:1.

3. Plain-language overview of each independent claim (5 total)

Claim 1 — Method of interactive playback (the core claim).
Two steps: (a) receive an indication that a user selected a location within an image of a movie; (b) identify the action to take by consulting an auxiliary track of data corresponding to the movie, where that auxiliary track contains (i) a tag identifying it as the auxiliary track and (ii) hit test data that identifies one of several possible actions based on both which image the selection was in and where in that image the user clicked. In plain terms: click on a spot in a playing movie, look up the invisible per-frame ID map, and get back a specific action for that object in that frame.

Claim 8 — Machine-readable medium.
The same two-step logic as claim 1, but framed as stored instructions that cause a processor to do the receiving and the auxiliary-track lookup.

Claim 13 — Apparatus.
A controller to receive the user-selection indication, plus a storage device holding multiple tracks for the movie, one of which is the auxiliary track containing both the tag and the hit-test data that identifies one of several actions based on image and location. (Claim 14 adds that the controller also identifies the action; claim 16 adds a second controller to display the video.)

Claim 17 — Apparatus in means-plus-function form.
Same subject matter as claim 13, expressed as (a) means for receiving the user-selection indication and (b) means for identifying the action by accessing the auxiliary track, which itself includes means for identifying the track (the tag) and first means for identifying one of several actions based on image and location.

Claim 20 — Article (storage medium bearing the track).
A storage medium on which is stored the auxiliary track of data itself: an identifier identifying it as the auxiliary track, plus hit test data that identifies one of several actions based on both the image of the video series in which a selection is made and the location within that image. This is the only independent claim drafted at the data-structure level rather than at the playback-method level.

Dependents: 2–7 (depend on 1; add video transmission to a display, track identifier, data-field-size/compression-format/bit-depth indicators, object-to-string-name table, object-to-event table); 9–12 (on 8); 14–16 (on 13); 18–19 (on 17); 21–26 (on 20; track identifier, data-field size, compression format, bit depth, object-to-string-name and object-to-event tables).

Notable point: These issued claims are drafted at a higher level of generality than the parent '048 patent's claims, which recited the item-buffer labeling/compression/storage method itself. The '055 claims instead center on the auxiliary track and the image-plus-location lookup of an action.

4. Prior art of record (for context)

Cited references include U.S. 4,601,003; U.S. 4,941,111; U.S. 5,021,770; EP 0332256 A1; U.S. 4,977,518; U.S. 5,174,759; U.S. 5,155,806; U.S. 5,307,457; U.S. 5,208,909; U.S. 5,274,753; U.S. 5,237,648; U.S. 5,317,680; U.S. 5,388,197; U.S. 5,524,193. Non-patent literature includes Foley & Van Dam, Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics; Cohen & Greenberg, "The Hemi-Cube" (1985); Weghorst, Hooper & Greenberg, "Improved Computational Methods for Ray Tracing" (1984); Hanrahan & Haeberli, "Direct WYSIWYG Painting and Texturing on 3D Shapes" (1990); and JP 3116474 / Patent Abstracts of Japan "CDI Disk for Karaoke."

5. Litigation, PTAB, and CAFC check — no case found involving this patent

• CAFC 2026 dockets: my searches surfaced no Federal Circuit docket in 2026 (or any year) involving U.S. 6,295,055. I could not search PACER/CAFC's CM-ECF directly with the tools available, so this is a "not found," not a certified negative.
• PTAB / IPR / reexamination: no IPR, PGR, CBM, or ex parte/inter partes reexamination referencing 6,295,055 appeared in results. By contrast, the same searches repeatedly surfaced other patents (e.g., 6,219,048's sibling family and unrelated 10,630,505 proceedings), which I did not conflate.
• Important false-positive to flag: the string "6295055" appears prominently in dockets as Illinois State Bar No. 6295055 (attorney Timothy E. Grochocinski, Nelson Bumgardner). And U.S. Patent No. 10,630,505 is the subject of Cisco Systems, Inc. v. Umbra Technologies Ltd., IPR2024-00497, where the patent owner noticed an appeal to the Federal Circuit on January 2, 2026 (final written decision Aug. 28, 2025; Director Review denied Dec. 19, 2025). Neither of these is U.S. 6,295,055. They are different numbers and must not be auto-corrected into one another.

6. Explicit uncertainties

1. Term/expiration date is internally inconsistent in the source record. Google Patents lists an "anticipated expiration" of 2011-11-21 (consistent with 20 years from the Nov. 21, 1991 root filing date under a URAA-style calculation) and status "Expired – Lifetime." However, the same record lists a 12-year maintenance fee paid 2013-02-27, which would be pointless for a patent that expired in 2011 and would instead be consistent with a term running to roughly 2018-09-25 (17 years from grant). I cannot reconcile these from the data in hand; treat the exact expiration date as unverified.
2. Priority/filing-date discrepancy between 1991-11-12 (bibliographic) and Nov. 21, 1991 (specification text for 07/790,327) is reproduced as-is and not resolved.
3. No authoritative confirmation of any 2026 CAFC or district-court activity on 6,295,055; absence of results in web search is not proof of absence in PACER/CM-ECF.
4. The final written decision in IPR2024-00497 (which I cite above as distinct from this patent) was reported at the PTAB as finding claims 1–20 of 10,630,505 unpatentable; that content is included only to prevent mis-attribution to 6,295,055.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6295055 across patent litigation sources.

The first searches returned only attorney bar-number noise (Illinois Bar No. 6295055), not patent litigation. Let me refine.

Answer: No litigation is known for US Patent 6,295,055

I searched for litigation specifically involving US Patent No. 6,295,055 ("Object selection using hit test tracks," Apple Inc. / originally Apple Computer, Inc.; inventors Gavin Stuart Peter Miller and Eric Michael Hoffert; appl. No. 09/207,393; filed 1998‑12‑08; granted 2001‑09‑25). I found no record of any lawsuit, ITC investigation, or PTAB/IPR proceeding in which this patent was asserted or challenged.

Important note on search noise (why "results" looked like hits but weren't)

Searches for the string "6295055" produce a large volume of false positives that must not be mistaken for this patent. The number 6295055 is also the Illinois State Bar registration number of attorney Timothy E. Grochocinski (Nelson Bumgardner Conroy / NBFairm), and it appears on dozens of unrelated patent complaints and pleadings he filed (e.g., Unification Technologies LLC v. Dell Technologies Inc., Case No. 6:20‑cv‑499‑ADA (W.D. Tex.); Content Aggregation Solutions LLC v. Sony Mobile; Nova Intellectual Solutions, LLC v. Sharp Corp.; Nova Intellectual Solutions, LLC v. BlackBerry Corp., No. 3:15‑cv‑01299; Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Canon, Inc.; Secure Communication Technologies, LLC (W.D. Tex. 1:25‑cv‑1207); various MDLs). None of those cases involves U.S. Patent 6,295,055 — they cite Bar No. 6295055.

Likewise, the patent is frequently cited as prior art / in an IDS citation list on other patents (e.g., it appears in the reference list of WO 2001098943 A3), which is a citation, not litigation.

Search sources consulted

• General web searches combining the patent number with "litigation," "lawsuit," "infringement complaint," and the patent title.
• Attempted targeting of patent-litigation dockets (Unified Patents litigation portal, RPX/Insight, PACER-style/reCAP sources, CourtListener). My available tooling returned web-search results only; I could not run a native docket-number/party query on the Unified Patents caselist or PACER docket search directly. Results surfaced were the Bar-number false positives and unrelated cases described above.

Why the absence is plausible

• The patent expired on 2011‑11‑21 (anticipated expiration; status "Expired – Lifetime" based on the 20-year term running from the 1991‑11‑12 priority date). See the patent's legal-status record: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6295055B1](/patent/US6295055B1)/en
• It is a member of a continuation family — US 6,219,048 (parent, appl. 08/328,394), US 7,043,694, US 7,281,212, US 7,549,122, and abandoned US 2007/0019889 A1. I am not aware of litigation on these siblings either, but I cannot rule that out with the sources available here.
• Foreign counterparts exist (DE 4225872 C2, FR 2683648 B1), but I found no foreign infringement action either.

Bottom line

Caveat: This is a negative finding based on the sources I could reach. It is not a certified clearance search. If you need a definitive answer, I recommend a direct query in PACER/RECAP docket search, the Unified Patents litigation caselist, RPX Insight, and PTAB/IPR records (plus USITC EDIS for Section 337 actions) using the patent number 6,295,055 and its family members (6,219,048; 7,043,694; 7,281,212; 7,549,122). I did not see any evidence of such cases, but my tooling did not allow me to exhaust those databases directly.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,295,055: 0. The canonical structured source (USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file") returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and independent web searching surfaced no PTAB proceeding number tied to 6,295,055 either — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied. Defensive posture: there is no PTAB record to lean on. A defendant facing an assertion of this patent gets no free claim cancellations and no statutory estoppel against the patent owner; the defense, if any, has to be built from scratch — but the far more important fact is that the patent expired on 2011-11-21 ("Expired – Lifetime"; anticipated expiration logged 2011-11-21), which in practical terms ends the exposure question.

No proceedings to itemize

I am not listing per-proceeding blocks because there are no proceeding numbers to populate them with, and the instructions prohibit inventing any. For completeness on what was checked and what was not found:

Note on search noise: queries against the raw string "6295055" return many district-court filings because 6295055 is also an Illinois State Bar number (Timothy E. Grochocinski, Nelson Bumgardner), which appears as counsel of record in unrelated NPE suits (Unification Technologies v. Dell, Nova Intellectual Solutions v. Blackberry, Flexiworld v. Canon, etc.). None of those involve U.S. Patent 6,295,055. Do not mistake them for assertions of this patent.

Family context (same priority date, 1991-11-12)

All members of this family share the 1991-11-12 priority date and, as continuations/continuations-in-part of the same original filing chain, expired on the same schedule:

• US 6,215,048 B1 — Object selection using hit test tracks (parent of the '055)
• US 6,295,055 B1 — the subject patent
• US 7,043,694 B2 (filed 2001-09-18, continuation)
• US 7,281,212 B2 (filed 2003-05-02, continuation)
• US 7,549,122 B2 (filed 2006-05-10, continuation)
• US 2007/0019889 A1 (filed 2006-07-31, abandoned)

None of these family members shows a PTAB proceeding in the structured data either.

Strategic summary

Claim status on 6,295,055: all 26 claims UNTESTED at the PTAB. Claims 1–26 (the independent claims being 1, 8, 13, 17, and 20, with the balance dependent) have never been subjected to an AIA trial challenge. There is therefore no claim-level disposition to report — no canceled claims, no confirmed claims, no claims held unpatentable. Anyone describing this patent as "invalidated" or "narrowed through IPR" is describing a different patent. The only claim-scope events of record are ordinary: the '055 issued 2001-09-25 from application 09/207,393 (itself a continuation of 08/328,394, now US 6,215,048, which in turn continued 07/790,327 filed 1991-11-12), and underwent two ex parte reissue-unrelated continuations that produced the sibling patents above.

Estoppel landscape: nothing attaches. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is petitioner-specific and only runs from a final written decision. With no petitions and no FWDs, no party is estopped on any ground, and conversely no defendant can borrow an estoppel. For a comparably old patent the usual defensive prior-art universe is broad anyway — the '055 was examined against, and is cited alongside, US 4,601,003 (document rearrangement), US 4,941,111 (video picking and clipping), US 5,021,770 (Hitachi image display/data input), US 5,158,806 (Sun context-sensitive help), US 5,208,909 (IBM pre-drawing pick detection), US 5,277,453 (Apple frame-buffer distinguishing), US 5,317,680 (Broderbund pointer-selected graphic object), US 5,388,197 (Grass Valley video editing interface), US 5,523,193 (interactive multimedia annotation), plus the non-patent literature the applicant distinguished: Cohen & Greenberg's hemi-cube radiosity paper (1985), Foley & Van Dam (1982, pp. 200–204, "cursor picking"), Weghorst/Hooper/Greenberg on ray tracing (1984), and Hanrahan & Haeberli on WYSIWYG painting on 3D shapes (1990). If an assertion ever materialized, § 102/§ 103 art would have to be newly developed; there is no PTAB record to build on.

Pattern signals: none. No repeat petitioner (there is no petitioner at all), no defensive aggregator such as Unified Patents in the chain, no patent-owner appeal activity at the PTAB on this patent. The family has a healthy forward-citation trail — including US 5,727,141 (Apple, "Method and apparatus for identifying user-selectable regions within multiple display frames"), EP 0 841 610 (Adobe, "Hot areas in interactive movies"), Nintendo's game-apparatus filings, and more recently Microsoft's view-activation-via-hit-testing work (US 9,733,823; US 10,346,031) — which confirms the disclosure's continuing relevance to hot-spot/hit-test technology, but relevance is not the same as challenge pressure.

Recommended next steps

1. Verify the zero before you rely on it. The structured ODP block and my web searches agree, but neither is a substitute for a live PTAB E2E / Docket Navigator query on 6295055 and on the family members ('048, '694, '212, '122). If you want a belt-and-suspenders check, search PTAB E2E at https://ptab.uspto.gov and CourtListener's PTAB docket for the patent number and for the parties "Apple Computer" / "Apple Inc." That is the only step that could overturn this memo.

2. Lead with the expiration, not the PTAB. US 6,295,055 is recorded as Expired – Lifetime, anticipated expiration 2011-11-21, and its sibling continuations share the 1991-11-12 priority date. If a demand letter or complaint cites 6,295,055 today, the threshold questions are (a) whether the patent could have been infringed within the six-year damages look-back of 35 U.S.C. § 286 — which for a patent that expired in 2011 requires conduct reaching back to roughly 2005 at the latest, and (b) whether any pre-2011 marking notice under § 287 existed for the family. Ask the asserting party to plead the accused products, the accused practice, and the dates. That request usually ends the conversation.

3. If a pre-2011 damages theory somehow survives, build the § 102/§ 103 record from scratch. Because no IPR was ever filed, there is no institution-stage art package, no expert declaration, no Board construction to leverage — and equally no § 315(b) one-year bar or § 325(d) discretionary-denial risk working against a late challenger other than the general prejudice of delay. Note also that an IPR against an already-expired patent is permissible but moot as to forward-looking relief; the practical venue for an invalidity defense on an expired patent is the district court or a DJ action, not the Board.

4. Do not cite a Final Written Decision here. There isn't one. If opposing counsel asserts a PTAB outcome on 6,295,055, demand the proceeding number and the paper cite — the safe assumption is that they are confusing this patent with a different Apple multimedia patent, or with the bar-number false positives noted above.

Confidence statement: I have high confidence in the absence of PTAB proceedings as of the ingested ODP data plus the searches run; I have not independently confirmed the 2011-11-21 expiration via the USPTO Patent Center, which you should verify before relying on it in a damages analysis.

I'll research the assignment record for US 6295055, using the patent's legal events as an anchor and then checking the USPTO Assignment Center and corroborating sources.

Let me dig for the original inventor-to-Apple assignment and confirm the reel/frame of the change-of-name record.

Let me try to pull the USPTO Assignment Center / assignment database records directly and check the parent patent's record.

Ownership Analysis — US Patent 6,295,055

Patent: "Object selection using hit test tracks" | Appl. No. 09/207,393, filed 1998‑12‑08 | Granted 2001‑09‑25 | Term expired 2011‑11‑21 | Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6295055B1](/patent/US6295055B1)/en

Method note / caveat: My tooling in this session returned web‑search results only — I could not execute a native structured query against the USPTO Assignment Center API (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) or the legacy assignment.uspto.gov index. The reel/frame and conveyance data below are taken from the Google Patents "Legal Events" transcription of the USPTO assignment record (which mirrors the Assignment Center) and from corroborating SEC filings. Where a data element (e.g., the recorded correspondent) was not surfaced, I say so rather than guess.

Inventors

• Both named inventors reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, and the application was assigned to Apple Computer, Inc. (Cupertino, CA) as original assignee. On the strength of that assignment alone, both inventors were almost certainly Apple employees/contractors at filing. I could not retrieve a separate recorded inventor→Apple assignment instrument for application 09/207,393 in the records I could reach (see Assignment Timeline), so the employment inference rests on the assignee-of-record, not on a located employment agreement. Flagged as an inference, not a documented fact.
• Unusual patterns: None discernible from assignments. I found no evidence of a coordinated inventor departure, no re‑assignment of the inventors' interests to a third party, and no "inventors out the door within 12 months" precursor. The patent's original prosecution dates (1991 priority, 1994 and 1998 continuations) are far removed from the sole recorded 2007 transaction, so no departure/fire‑sale correlation can be drawn. Departure timing: unclear / not documented in the sources reached.

Original assignee

Apple Computer, Inc. (Cupertino, CA; a California corporation) — named on the face of the issued patent.

• Line of business: Personal computing, operating systems, and — directly relevant here — the QuickTime multimedia architecture. The specification expressly frames the invention around a "computer 10, such as an Apple Macintosh" and a "software program that is designed to manipulate various forms of media represented as a series of related temporal tracks" (i.e., the multi‑track movie model that QuickTime popularized). The claimed "hit test track" auxiliary data (claims 1, 4–7) maps onto interactive‑movie hot‑spot behavior.
• Product embodying the claims: Yes, substantively. Apple shipped QuickTime, which supported interactive movies with clickable/hot‑spot regions — the practical realization of pixel‑accurate, frame‑accurate object selection. I did not locate a specific Apple marketing document tying this exact patent number to a named product, so the "shipped a product embodying the claims" call is based on the subject matter and Apple's QuickTime line, not on a product‑to‑claim mapping document.
• Current status: Operating. Still in business and now the world's most valuable public company. The original assignee is not dissolved, not in bankruptcy, and not acquired by a third party — it changed its corporate name only (see below).

Assignment timeline

Chronological record of every assignment surfaced for US 6,295,055:

• (pre‑issuance, date not surfaced in the records I could reach) — no recorded post‑issuance inventor or employer assignment instrument located for appl. 09/207,393 in the indexed data retrieved. This is common where the original assignment was recorded against the parent application (07/790,327, filed 1991‑11‑12, or 08/328,394, filed 1994‑10‑24) and carried forward to the continuation, rather than re‑filed against 09/207,393. I could not confirm whether such a parent‑application assignment exists.

• 2007‑01‑09 (executed/effective) / recorded 2007‑06‑04 — Reel 019399/0928

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Apple Computer, Inc., a California corporation
  • Assignee: Apple Inc.
  • Correspondent: Not surfaced in the Google Patents legal‑events transcription; not determinable from the sources I could reach. (Note: on the trademark side, Apple's parallel name‑change recordings for that era, e.g., TM reel 3469/0307 recorded 2007‑01‑26, name Apple legal personnel such as Thomas R. La Perle as correspondent — but that is a trademark record, a different reel/frame series, and I will not import it as the correspondent for this patent record.)
  • Context: Internal corporate reorg only — a pure change of name, not a transfer of ownership. It reflects the January 9, 2007 merger of Apple's wholly‑owned subsidiary "Apple Inc." into Apple Computer, Inc. under California Corporations Code §1110(d), with the surviving corporation renamed Apple Inc. (see Apple's Form 8‑K, event of report 2007‑01‑09, filed 2007‑01‑10: https://app.quotemedia.com/data/downloadFiling?...formType=8-K&dateFiled=2007-01-10).

No other assignments are recorded. There is no transfer to any third party, no IP‑holding LLC, no security interest, and no terminal assignment to a defensive aggregator. The chain is a single‑owner chain: Apple Computer, Inc. → (name change) → Apple Inc.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6295055
    1991 : Original application filed
    1994 : First continuation filed
    1998 : Continuation filed as 09 207 393
    2001 : Patent issued to Apple Computer Inc
    2007 : Name change recorded to Apple Inc
    2011 : Patent term expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Supporting signal — expiry: The patent reached its anticipated expiration on 2011‑11‑21 (20 years from the 1991‑11‑12 priority date; legal status "Expired – Lifetime" per https://patents.google.com/patent/US6295055B1/en). An expired, single‑owner, never‑reassigned patent has no live assertion value, which is fully consistent with the absence of any NPE activity.

Verdict

Insufficient data — but read this as a clean single‑owner chain finding, not a records gap.

Justification: The only recorded transaction in the entire chain is a Change of Name recorded 2007‑06‑04 at reel 019399/0928 (effective 2007‑01‑09), moving the patent from Apple Computer, Inc. to Apple Inc. — an internal California §1110(d) re‑incorporation documented in Apple's 2007‑01‑10 Form 8‑K. There are no third‑party assignments, so the patent never left its original operating‑company owner and none of the eight NPE signals is present. Because the chain reduces to the original owner plus a name change (the rubric's definition of "insufficient data," and no other category fits — no NPE, no defensive aggregator, no operating‑company assertion by suit), I record the verdict as Insufficient data / no NPE pattern, and I recommend confirming against the Assignment Center directly (reel/frame 019399/0928) plus a check of the parent applications 07/790,327 and 08/328,394 for the unlocated original inventor assignment.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6295055; also check family members US 6,219,048; 7,043,694; 7,281,212; 7,549,122).

Contradiction flag for the previously generated sections

The earlier Litigation summary concluded no known litigation for US 6,295,055 and correctly identified the "6295055" false positives (the Illinois Bar No. of attorney Timothy E. Grochocinski appearing in unrelated complaints such as Unification Technologies LLC v. Dell, W.D. Tex. 6:20‑cv‑00499, and Nova Intellectual Solutions v. BlackBerry). That negative litigation finding is consistent with — and corroborated by — the ownership record here: the patent stayed with Apple throughout, was never transferred to an assertion vehicle, and expired in 2011. No conflict between the two sections.

I'll verify the patent record and examine each cited reference.

Let me verify the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,295,055

A note on method and scope: I was able to reach only web-search tooling, not a native USPTO PatentCenter/Public-PAIR query or a USPTO full-text prior-art search. The record below is taken from the authoritative patent text supplied (which reproduces the USPTO citation lists on the face of the patent, as rendered at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6295055](/patent/US6295055)/en), supplemented by verification searches. I did not substitute any "similar" number — every reference below is tied specifically to 6,295,055. If a native USPTO search is required, this should be re‑run against the USPTO full-text search and PatentCenter.

1. Patent identification (exact number, no near-matches)

Because this is a pre‑AIA continuation claiming benefit back to 1991‑11‑12, every cited reference below (all filed/published before 1991‑11‑12) qualifies as prior art (§102(a)/(b), or §102(e) for U.S. patents granted on earlier‑filed applications).

Claims at issue (26 total). Independent claims are 1 (method of interactive playback), 8 (machine‑readable medium), 13 (apparatus/controller + storage), 17 (means‑plus‑function apparatus), and 20 (article/storage medium storing the auxiliary track). Dependent claims 2–7, 9–12, 14–16, 18–19, 21–26 recite the video track, the track identifier, the data‑field‑size/compression‑format/pixel‑bit‑depth indicators, and the object‑to‑string and object‑to‑event tables.

The critical §102 test for claims 1, 8, 13, 17, 20 is whether a single reference discloses all of: (i) receipt of a user selection of a location within an image of a movie; and (ii) accessing an auxiliary track of data corresponding to the movie, the track including (a) a tag identifying it as the auxiliary track and (b) hit test data that identifies one of a plurality of actions based on both the image and the location.

2. Headline conclusion

None of the 14 U.S./EP patent citations, nor the 7 non‑patent citations, discloses the claimed combination in a single reference. The cited art is early‑1990s graphics "picking" technology and video‑editing / interactive‑video technology. It establishes the background (picking a displayed object; storing per‑pixel descriptive data in a buffer; selecting a video frame/region) but does not disclose a movie‑correlated auxiliary track bearing a HIT_ tag plus per‑image hit‑test data mapping image+location → action. Accordingly these references are far more useful as §103 (obviousness) art than as clean §102 anticipators. The closest single‑reference candidates against the broad independent claims are identified below.

3. Patent citations on the face of US 6,295,055 (14 references)

For each: full citation — dates — description — potential §102 target claim(s).

1. US 4,601,003 A — "Document rearrangement system" — Tokyo Shibaura Denki Kabushiki Kaisha. Priority/filed 1982‑11‑24; granted 1986‑07‑15. Document/image rearrangement apparatus; no video hit‑testing. §102: none of claims 1–26.

2. US 4,941,111 A — "Video picking and clipping method and apparatus" — Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Filed 1986‑04‑18; granted 1990‑07‑10. Hardware that "picks" a displayed video object at a screen location and clips it. Relevant only to the generic "receive a user selection of a location" step. §102: no independent claim in full; at most the selection limitation of claims 1/8/13/17/20 (not the auxiliary‑track/tag/hit‑test elements).

3. US 5,021,770 A — "Image display system and data input apparatus used therein" — Hitachi, Ltd. Filed 1987‑07‑15; granted 1991‑06‑04. Image display + input device. §102: none.

4. EP 0 332 256 A1 — "Graphical video system with a graphical cursor" — Laboratoires d'Electronique Philips. Filed 1988‑03‑08; published 1989‑09‑13. Video graphics system with a cursor. §102: none.

5. US 4,977,518 A — "Video graphics system equipped with a graphics cursor" — U.S. Philips Corporation. Filed 1988‑03‑08; granted 1990‑12‑11. Graphics cursor on video. §102: none.

6. US 5,174,759 A — "TV animation interactively controlled by the viewer through input above a book page" — Frank S. Preston. Filed 1988‑08‑04; granted 1992‑12‑29. Viewer input over a book page controls a displayed TV animation (interactive‑video action triggered by user input). §102: potentially argued against the bare "user selection → action" concept of claims 1/8/13/17/20, but it has no auxiliary track, tag, or per‑image/per‑location hit‑test data — no full anticipation.

7. US 5,155,806 A — "Method and apparatus for displaying context sensitive help information on a display" — Sun Microsystems, Inc. Filed 1989‑03‑15; granted 1992‑10‑13. Selecting displayed regions yields associated context‑sensitive help (selection → associated data/action). §102: relevant by analogy to dependent claim 6 (object‑to‑string name mapping) and the selection→action step; not a full anticipation of any independent claim.

8. US 5,307,457 A — "Trigger field display selection" — International Business Machines Corp. Filed 1989‑06‑16; granted 1994‑04‑26. User selects a "trigger field" on a display to invoke an associated action. §102: closest of the picking‑family references to the "selection → action" element of claims 1/8/13/17/20 and to the event‑mapping concept of claims 7/26; still lacks the movie‑correlated auxiliary track/tag/hit‑test‑data — not full anticipation.

9. US 5,208,909 A — "Pre‑drawing pick detection in a graphics display system" — International Business Machines Corp. Filed 1989‑10‑23; granted 1993‑05‑04. Picking (object identification) in a pipelined graphics system using a Cohen–Sutherland‑based pick window, before rasterization. §102: relevant to the "object/selection identification from screen location" concept; does not disclose a movie hit‑test track — not full anticipation.

10. US 5,274,753 A — "Apparatus for distinguishing information stored in a frame buffer" — Apple Computer, Inc. Priority 1990‑05‑24; continuation filed 1993‑04‑19; granted 1993‑12‑28. A single physical frame buffer with a separately addressable attribute area storing data about each pixel (e.g., whether the pixel is video or graphics). §102: this is the closest cited reference to the "store per‑pixel descriptive/auxiliary data alongside the image" concept, and is arguably relevant to claims 5/15/18/24 (pixel bit‑depth/word‑length‑style per‑pixel metadata). It does not identify objects for selection or map image+location → action — no full anticipation of claims 1/8/13/17/20.

11. US 5,237,648 A — "Apparatus and method for editing a video recording by selecting and displaying video clips" — Apple Computer, Inc. (Mills; Cohen). Filed 1990‑06‑08; granted 1993‑08‑17. User clicks a displayed video frame to create/drag "small digitized frames" for clip editing. §102: relevant to "user selection within a displayed video"; it is frame/clip editing, not per‑pixel object picking, and has no auxiliary track/tag/hit‑test data — no full anticipation.

12. US 5,317,680 A — "Using regular graphic shapes to identify a pointer‑selected graphic object" — Broderbund Software, Inc. Filed 1990‑06‑22; granted 1994‑05‑31. Identifies a pointer‑selected graphic object using regular (e.g., rectangular) shapes. §102: relevant to pointer‑based object selection (and to the patent's discussion of bounding‑region techniques); no movie hit‑test track — no full anticipation.

13. US 5,388,197 A — "Video editing system operator interface for visualization and interactive control of video material" — The Grass Valley Group, Inc. Filed 1991‑08‑02; granted 1995‑02‑07. Video‑material UI for visualization/interactive control. §102: video‑UI selection art; no auxiliary track with tag/hit‑test data — no full anticipation.

14. US 5,524,193 A — "Interactive multimedia annotation method and apparatus" — And Communications. Filed 1991‑10‑15; granted 1996‑06‑04. Annotating a multimedia work (text, graphic, audio, or video) with author‑defined "triggers"; selecting a trigger (which may be "a section of a video event") invokes a sequence of media events/actions. §102: this is the single strongest cited reference against the broad independent claims. It maps to (i) user selection of a location within a displayed media (including video) image and (ii) identification of an action (event) to take in response. However, it does not disclose a movie‑correlated auxiliary track bearing a tag, nor hit test data that maps a pixel location + image → one of a plurality of actions. Conclusion: potentially anticipatory of the selection→action step of claims 1/8/13/17/20 read at its broadest, and more directly relevant to the object→name/event mapping of claims 6/7/25/26; but not a clean §102 anticipation of any independent claim as written.

4. Non‑patent citations (7)

1. Cohen, M. F., & Greenberg, D. P., "The Hemi‑Cube: A Radiosity Solution for Complex Environments," Computer Graphics (SIGGRAPH), v.19, n.3, July 1985, pp.31–40. Hemi‑cube radiosity using item buffers of object tags. Cited as background for the "item buffer" (per‑pixel object identifier). §102: foundational to the per‑pixel object‑tag concept but no user selection, no movie track — none.

2. Foley, J. D., & Van Dam, A., "Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graphics," Addison‑Wesley, 1982, pp.200–204. Classic "cursor picking"/bounded‑extent object selection. §102: background on picking; none.

3. Hanrahan, P., & Haeberli, P., "Direct WYSIWYG Painting and Texturing on 3D Shapes," Computer Graphics, v.24, n.4, Aug 1990, pp.215–223. Object "id buffer" storing per‑pixel surface id; interactive painting on 3D shapes. §102: id‑buffer background; none.

4. JP 3‑116474 (Ota Minoru et al.), published May 17, 1991 (app. JP 89‑0253152, filed Sep 28, 1989). Japanese reference cited in the IDS. §102: I could not retrieve a detailed English disclosure in this session; treat as background; do not rely on it without a verified translation.

5. Patent Abstracts of Japan, "CDI Disk for Karaoke," vol.15, no.322 (P‑1239), abstract date Aug 16, 1991; Toppan Printing Co. Ltd., patent date May 17, 1991. Karaoke CD‑I disk (interactive audio/video). §102: interactive media context; none established without verification.

6. Tonomura et al., "Content Oriented Visual Interface Using Video Icons for Visual Database Systems," IEEE, 1989, pp.68–73. Video icons for browsing video databases. Also cited in other family members (e.g., US 5,524,193). §102: relevant to user interaction with video content via icons; not a per‑pixel hit‑test track — none.

7. Weghorst, H., Hooper, G., & Greenberg, D. P., "Improved Computational Methods for Ray Tracing," ACM Transactions on Graphics, v.3, n.1, Jan 1984, pp.52–69. Ray tracing accelerated with an item buffer of object tags. §102: item‑buffer background; none.

5. "Family Cites Families" references (11) — for completeness

These appear on the foreign family members (DE 4225872 C2 / FR 2683648 B1) and are relevant context art:

• US 4,333,152 — Best, R. M., "TV Movies that talk back," 1979‑02‑05 / 1982‑06‑01.
• US 4,305,131 — Best, R. M., "Dialog between TV movies and human viewers," 1979‑02‑05 / 1981‑12‑08.
• US 4,711,543 — Blair, P. E., "TV animation interactively controlled by the viewer," 1986‑04‑14 / 1987‑12‑08.
• US 4,837,842 — Holt, A. W., "Character and pattern recognition machine and method," 1986‑09‑19 / 1989‑06‑06.
• US 4,847,700 — ACTV, Inc., "Interactive television system …," 1987‑07‑16 / 1989‑07‑11.
• US 4,985,848 — Visual Information Technologies, "High speed image processing system …," 1987‑09‑14 / 1991‑01‑15.
• JP H02‑29880 — Fujitsu, "Separation of video rate area," 1988‑07‑20 / 1990‑01‑31.
• GB 8822062 D0 — Quantel Ltd., "Video processing," 1988‑09‑20.
• US 5,119,474 — IBM, "Computer‑based, audio/visual creation and presentation system and method," 1989‑06‑16 / 1992‑06‑02.
• JP H03‑116474 — Toppan Printing, "CDI disk for karaoke," 1989‑09‑28 / 1991‑05‑17.
• GB 2261803 B — Quantel Ltd., "An image processing system," 1991‑10‑18 / 1995‑10‑11.

The Best/Blair/ACTV items (US 4,333,152; 4,305,131; 4,711,543; 4,847,700) are the most on‑point interactive‑video art, and US 5,119,474 (IBM, computer‑based A/V creation/presentation) is a credible secondary reference. None discloses the HIT_‑tagged auxiliary track / per‑image hit‑test data structure.

6. Summary — best §102 candidates by claim

Bottom line: On the record provided, no cited reference anticipates claims 1, 8, 13, 17, or 20 (or the dependent claims) under §102 — each is missing at least the movie‑correlated auxiliary track, the identifying tag, and/or the image+location→action hit‑test data. The most productive use of this art against US 6,295,055 is as a §103 combination: e.g., US 5,524,193 (selection→action in multimedia/video) in view of US 5,274,753 (per‑pixel attribute/auxiliary data in an image buffer) and/or the item‑buffer non‑patent literature (Cohen & Greenberg 1985; Weghorst 1984), with US 5,307,457 or US 5,208,909 supplying the trigger/pick mechanics.

7. Explicit caveats

• No native USPTO database query was completed. This analysis rests on the patent's own citation lists (as rendered by Google Patents from the USPTO record) plus verification web searches; I could not exhaust USPTO PatentCenter, PTAB/IPR records, or a USPTO/examiner full‑text search. A definitive prior‑art search should be re‑run there.
• No "similar number" substitution: I confirm I analyzed 6,295,055 only. (Consistent with the earlier litigation section, the bare digits "6295055" also correspond to an Illinois attorney bar number and appear as noise in complaint text — those results were excluded.)
• Anticipation determinations are provisional. §102 requires each and every limitation in a single reference; my "potential" mappings above reflect feature correspondence only and should be confirmed against the full text of each reference (including any uncited passages) before being relied upon.
• The JP 3‑116474 / "CDI Disk for Karaoke" citations could not be fully characterized (no verified translation obtained); I flag them rather than assert their content.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,295,055 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Built on the earlier identification, abstract, and litigation sections. This section does not repeat those; it appends the § 103 analysis. All patent numbers and identifiers are reproduced literally from the record and not auto-corrected.

0. A threshold framing point that drives everything below

The issued claims of US 6,295,055 are materially broader than the disclosure. The specification's centerpiece is a compressed item buffer stored as an invisible, parallel "hit test track" — but not one of the five independent claims requires an item buffer, compression, or pixel-accurate object labels. What claim 1 actually requires is:

1. receiving an indication that a user selected a location within an image of a movie; and
2. identifying an action by accessing an auxiliary track of data corresponding to the movie, that track containing
   • a tag identifying the track as the auxiliary track, and
   • hit test data identifying one of a plurality of actions based on both the image and the location.

So the legally operative invention is a (frame, x, y) → action lookup in a tagged auxiliary track that runs alongside the video. Every "hard" element the applicant might point to (item buffers, lossless compression, 2:1 subsampling, HIT_ tag) lives only in the specification and in dependent claims. That asymmetry makes the independent claims highly vulnerable under § 103.

The specification itself supplies admissions that cut against patentability: it concedes that run-length, quad-tree, and Huffman coding are "well known in the art"; that "cursor picking" is described by Foley & Van Dam; and that item buffers are conventional in radiosity/ray tracing. See https://patents.google.com/patent/US6295055/en. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), such known, combinable building blocks are presumptively obvious to combine where the result is predictable.

1. Critical date, and a priority warning

The operative priority is 1991-11-12 / Nov. 21, 1991 (the earlier sections flag this internal discrepancy; I do not resolve it). Because '055 is a continuation, its claims get the 1991 date only to the extent the 1991 disclosure supports them. That matters here: the generic "one of a plurality of actions" language is supported by the object→event mapping table disclosure, so 1991 priority probably holds — but if it does not, later-filed references (e.g., the item-buffer picking patent US 5,555,003, discussed below) convert from marginal § 102(e) art into full §§ 102(a)/(b) prior art, and the obviousness case becomes even stronger. Either way the § 103 conclusion is the same.

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

A person of ordinary skill as of late 1991 would have: a bachelor's degree in CS/EE (or equivalent), plus ~2 years in computer graphics / interactive multimedia, with working familiarity with (i) screen-space picking, (ii) frame buffers and off-screen/auxiliary buffers, (iii) id/item buffers from rendering literature, and (iv) emerging multi-track, time-based media architectures (video + audio + auxiliary data streams). This is the level the cited art itself presumes.

3. The prior art of record, organized by the function it performs

The references on the page fall into four functional buckets. The claim is a combination of these buckets, which is exactly why § 103 rather than § 102 is the correct vehicle (no single reference discloses the whole claim).

Bucket A — Location-based picking / object identification from a pointer (the "(x,y) → object" half):

Bucket B — Item / id buffers (per-pixel object labels, incl. on complex shapes):

Bucket C — Interactive video / stored-program media with selectable regions and resulting actions (the "movie + action" half):

Bucket D — Multi-track temporal media with tagged/auxiliary tracks (the "auxiliary track + tag" limitation):

A "similar document" worth flagging (not a citation of record, and date-sensitive): US 5,555,003 (HP) claims an item buffer built by assigning unique item identifiers per object and, on selection, "referenc[ing] corresponding location in item buffer" to retrieve the item number — the closest single reference to the spec's core. It is listed under Similar Documents, not under Citations, and it is a continuation of an application filed Apr. 12, 1993, i.e., after the 1991 priority date. It is therefore likely not §§ 102(a)/(b) art against '055 as properly prioritized (potential § 102(e) only). It is nonetheless powerful evidence of what the 1990–1993 field considered routine, and it becomes directly anticipatory/obviousness art if the '055 priority claim is broken. https://patents.google.com/patent/US5555003

4. Combinations that render claim 1 obvious

Combination I (strongest) — Broderbund '680 + Hanrahan id buffer + multi-track movie ('197 or '474), optionally + Tonomura

• '680 supplies the full "(x,y) → identified object → predetermined action" chain, and does so using a table of invisible selection regions — i.e., the "hit test data" concept in substance. Its only weakness is generality (regular overlay shapes, single static drawing).
• Hanrahan supplies the fix: a per-pixel id buffer so arbitrary/complex boundaries are selected precisely, which is precisely the limitation '680's own background laments (irregular shapes need "thousands of parameters").
• '197 / '474 supply the "auxiliary track… corresponding to the movie" and the "tag" — per-track typing in a multi-track temporal media container is routine organization.

Motivation: '680's stated purpose is to identify a pointer-selected object, including irregular ones, and then perform "a predetermined activity"; Hanrahan's id buffer is the field's known tool for exactly that identification; extending a location-based lookup from one drawing to each frame of a movie is a predictable application of the same solution to a new but closely related content type, and Tonomura demonstrates the field was already linking content/actions to video frames. Under KSR, this is a combination of known elements yielding a predictable result — precisely the "familiar elements according to known methods" scenario.

Combination II — Interactive video (Preston '759, or Best '131/'152, or ACTV '700, or karaoke JP 3116474) + picking ('909 or '111) + item buffer (Cohen/Greenberg or Hanrahan)

• The interactive-video references establish selectable content tied to a playing video/image sequence and user input that triggers playback/response ("one of a plurality of actions… based on the image").
• '909/'111 establish screen-space pick detection with pointer coordinate → object → operation ("based on the location").
• Cohen/Greenberg or Hanrahan establish per-pixel object tags.

Motivation: the recognized deficiency of interactive video was coarse, pre-authored hotspots; pixel-accurate picking on a frame-specific basis is the natural, predictable improvement, and the karaoke/CDI art shows the demand for user-selectable regions in playing video. The combination merely applies known picking precision to known interactive video.

Combination III — Tonomura + Hanrahan + '909 + '197

Tonomura links per-frame content/metadata to video (image-axis lookup); Hanrahan + '909 link pixel → object (location-axis lookup); '197 supplies the auxiliary track + tag. Joining a frame-indexed lookup to a pixel-indexed lookup in a tagged parallel track is the two-dimensional lookup claim 1 recites, and each axis was independently known. Motivation: content-based video retrieval (Tonomura's own goal) requires identifying what was selected in which frame; that is the stated purpose of the invention.

Combination IV — '806 (Sun context-sensitive help) or '457 (IBM trigger fields) + a video track + auxiliary data ('193 or '197)

'806/'457 teach "location under the cursor → fire a specific action." Adding a temporal image track and a tagged auxiliary data track ('193's annotation model) yields claim 1's structure. Motivation: applying known cursor-triggered help/trigger fields to time-based content to make video "active."

On the "tag" limitation specifically: no reference needs to be found teaching the literal four-character "HIT_" string; the claim requires only "a tag to identify the auxiliary track as the auxiliary track." Per-track type/kind identifiers in multi-track media ('197, '474) are ordinary data-structure design, and the applicant treats the format fields as conventional (the spec even says bit depth/compression fields may be replaced by defaults).

5. Independent claims 8, 13, 17, 20

These are the same subject matter in different statutory dress and rise or fall with claim 1:

• Claim 8 (machine-readable medium) and claim 13 (apparatus: controller + storage device) track claim 1 nearly verbatim; obviousness follows directly. Claim 13's "storage device to store a plurality of tracks" is met by any multi-track media store ('197/'474), and its "controller to receive an indication of a user selection" is met by the picking art ('909/'111).
• Claim 17 (means-plus-function) is the same content in § 112(f) form; under Williamson v. Citrix the "means" terms presumptively cover what the spec discloses (a general-purpose computer performing the lookup), so the prior-art mapping is identical.
• Claim 20 (article: "a storage medium… having stored thereon an auxiliary track of data") is the data-structure-level claim. This is the most exposed independent claim: a data structure whose only inventive content is that a tagged track carries per-frame/per-pixel action lookups is a non-technical, functional data-recording claim. Even setting aside § 101 concerns for a non-transitory storage medium, the content of the record is the product of the same obvious combination; a stored data structure is not patentable merely because the method that generates it is obvious. Expect a strong § 103 (and, for signal/disc embodiments, § 101) attack.

6. Dependent claims 2–7, 9–12, 14–16, 18–19, 21–26

These add little and are squarely obvious over the same references, often by the applicant's own characterizations:

• 2–3, 11–12, 16, 19 (transmit/display video) — inherent in any playback system (Preston, ACTV, Tonomura, karaoke art).
• 4, 9, 21 (video-track identifier) — routine track-header field in multi-track media ('197/'474).
• 5, 10, 15, 22–24 (data-field size; compression-format indicator; pixel-bit-depth indicator) — the spec itself calls the compression schemes "well known" and says these fields may be replaced by defaults; these are ordinary, predictable data-structure fields.
• 6–7, 25–26 (object→string-name table; object→event table) — '680 expressly teaches associating/displaying a name for a selected object, and '111 teaches an index table mapping object number → an operation to perform. Combining a name table with an action/event table is the predictable union of two known tables.

7. Objective (secondary) considerations and counterarguments

• Nexus problem: any commercial-success argument would rest on Apple/QuickTime's "hit test track" feature (see the previously generated sections on the assignee and family). But the claims do not require the compressed item-buffer track; commercial success tied to unclaimed features does not rebut obviousness. No evidence of a claim-nexus is in the record I have.
• Long-felt need: pixel-accurate, frame-accurate object selection in movies was a recognized goal. A satisfied, long-recognized need can support non-obviousness — but here the need was being addressed piecemeal by the cited art ('680 for static selection, Tonomura for frame-linked content, item-buffer literature for per-pixel labeling), which under KSR points to obviousness rather than away from it.
• Teaching away: I found no reference that criticizes combining item-buffer/picking techniques with interactive video; the literature instead presupposes it. No teaching-away is available.
• Unexpected results: none apparent; the spec presents the invention as an application of known techniques.

8. Bottom line

The gravamen is simple: the claims cover a tagged per-frame, per-pixel action lookup in a parallel track — a predictable union of (a) known pointer-picking, (b) known per-pixel item/id buffers, and (c) known multi-track time-based media. The applicant's genuinely novel contribution (a compressed item buffer stored as a hidden track of a QuickTime-style movie) is not claimed, so it cannot save the claims from a § 103 challenge.

9. Confidence and caveats (do not over-read)

1. Characterizations vs. retrieved text. I grounded US 5,208,909, US 4,941,111, US 5,317,680, US 5,274,753, and US 5,555,003 directly in retrieved text/claims/abstracts (URLs above). For US 5,174,759, US 4,847,700, US 4,305,131, US 4,333,152, Tonomura 1989, JP 3116474 / CDI karaoke, US 5,237,648, US 5,388,197, US 5,119,474, US 5,524,193, US 5,155,806, and US 5,307,457 I am relying on the titles/abstracts as they appear on the US 6,295,055 page plus general field knowledge; I did not retrieve and verify each full specification in this session. A full invalidity analysis should pin down the exact disclosures (and dates) of these references against each claim element.
2. Date-sensitivity. Several family-cited references cluster around the 1991 priority (e.g., US 5,388,197, US 5,524,193); their qualification as §§ 102(a)/(b)/(e) art depends on exact filing/publication dates not fully resolved here. The combinations above do not depend on the borderline ones for their core logic.
3. US 5,555,003 is labeled a similar document, not a citation, and its parent was filed 1993-04-12. I have not treated it as §§ 102(a)/(b) art against a properly prioritized '055; it is corroborative only unless priority is broken.
4. No litigation/PTAB holding is implicated. Consistent with the earlier sections, I found no decision invalidating this patent; this is an independent technical § 103 assessment, not a report of an adjudicated outcome.
5. I did not auto-correct any identifier: 6295055, 10,630,505, US 5,555,003, 5,208,909, 5,317,680, 4,941,111, 5,274,753, etc. are each reproduced exactly as they appear.