Invalidity dossier
US 6442550
System and method in a collaborative data processing environment for customizing the quality of service on a per-client basis
Current assignee: International Business Machines Corp
Added 9/23/2026, 7:25:55 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 6,442,550 B1
Title: System and method in a collaborative data processing environment for customizing the quality of service on a per-client basis
Assignee/Inventor: International Business Machines Corp.; inventor Ramakrishnan Rajamony
Dates: Priority/filing 1999-12-14; granted/publication 2002-08-27; anticipated expiration 2019-12-14
Status: Expired – Fee Related
Purpose and scope (plain language):
The patent addresses a drawback of client/server networks: a server can only handle a limited number of concurrent requests before performance degrades. Existing server-centric strategies prioritized requests based on the resource being served (e.g., whether it belongs to a paying hosting customer), which allowed per-resource quality-of-service (QoS) customization but not per-client customization. The invention recognizes that organizations often consider requests from some clients more important than others, even for the same resource (e.g., an airline preferring a repeat first-class customer over an unknown visitor).
The invention transmits a priority value to a first client in response to that client's first request. When the server later receives a second request from that client including the priority value, and a third request from a second client, the server gives the second request preferential treatment relative to the third based on that priority value. The priority value may be transmitted within an HTTP cookie, leveraging cookies as context-creating facilities so the server can recognize a request as related to prior requests from the same client—an approach the patent notes was previously used to influence content, but here used to influence QoS.
Supplied figures/description (per excerpt): FIG. 1 server with per-client QoS facilities; FIG. 2 software layer diagram; FIG. 3 collaborative environment; FIG. 4 priority assignment process; FIG. 5 prioritized request dispatching to service threads; FIG. 6 request servicing.
What the excerpt does not establish: It provides no complete claim text, no detailed embodiment description beyond the introductory passages, no prior-art references, no measured performance data, and no discussion of litigation, ownership transfers, or validity. Classifications listed (G06Q, H04L, H04M) are as provided and not analyzed.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:42:05 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.