US 6709333

I'll research this patent across the sources you specified. Let me run several searches.

Let me run additional targeted searches on the litigation/appeal side.

Research Summary — US Patent No. 6,709,333

Verification scope / negative findings first (important):

• I searched for a CAFC 2026 docket involving US 6,709,333 and found none. I could not identify any Federal Circuit appeal, IPR, or PGR in 2026 (or otherwise) in which 6,709,333 is the patent at issue. Treat any claim that such an appeal exists as unsupported.
• ⚠️ False-positive trap to avoid: a March 2026 Federal Circuit Innovaport petition/blog discussion repeatedly refers to "the '933 patent" and claim 1 thereof being abstract under Alice. That is a different patent (an Innovaport product-location/cross-referencing patent), not US 6,709,333. Similarly, the 2026 Aristocrat v. Light & Wonder/SciPlay Nevada litigation (Case 2:24-cv-00382-GMN-MDC, settled Feb. 2026 for $127.5M) concerns trade secrets/copyright in Dragon Train games, not 6,709,333. Neither should be attributed to this patent.
• The strongest 2026-date signal touching an assignee of this patent is LNW Gaming, Inc. (current assignee), but it is unrelated to 6,709,333 specifically.

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Bibliographic data (per Google Patents, USPTO/PlainSite, uspto.report)

Assignment history (USPTO records): Sierra Design Group → security interest to Bank of America (2013) → assignment to Bally Gaming, Inc. (2014) → releases (2014, 2017) → security agreements with Deutsche Bank (2017, 2018) → re-assignment of security interest to JPMorgan Chase (2022, assignor SG Gaming Inc.).

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Abstract

Per uspto.report (the Google Patents record uses equivalent language):

"A system and method for using two authenticators to identify a player in a gaming environment is disclosed, where the second authenticator is based on biometric data. The two authenticators allow a two-level authorization process providing very high assurance that a player at a gaming machine is who they claim to be, and where the second authenticator, being based on biometric data, enables a player to quickly and easily authenticate documents and/or authenticate age while continuing to play at game machines."

Note: The parent patent US 6,612,928 carries a slightly longer abstract version (also referencing EFTs and preventing an underage person from enabling the play button). I flag this because the two related documents differ in wording; the '928 text should not be quoted as the '333 abstract.

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Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Independent claims are 1, 2, 4, 11, and 15. Notably, all are drafted in "means for" form (i.e., means-plus-function under 35 U.S.C. § 112(f)), which materially limits how the claims are construed.

Claim 1 — Two-authenticator player identification system.
A system for identifying individual players in a gaming environment using at least two authenticators: means for entering a first authenticator; means for entering at least one more authenticator that must be biometric data; means for associating both with a particular player; and means for identifying that player at a game device using a first-authenticator reader plus a biometric reader. The first authenticator is limited to a closed list: magnetic stripe card; voucher; alphanumeric sequence; RFID tag; smart card; memory card; handheld device with retrievable memory and an RF interface; handheld device with retrievable memory and an IR interface; magnetic diskette; or optical diskette.

Claim 2 — System for creating a two-authenticator player identification.
Covers the enrollment side: means for creating a first authenticator usable as an initial authenticator to search a player ID database, where that first authenticator is expressly not a biometric authenticator; means for entering at least one further authenticator in the form of biometric data associated with that initial authenticator; means for associating them with a player; and means for identifying the player at a game device using the first authenticator and at least one biometric authenticator.

Claim 4 — Read, look-up, compare, and report system.
A system with a first authenticator and at least one second authenticator, where every authenticator that is not the first must be data derived from a biometric measurement, usable at a game device with an associated biometric reader. Comprises: means for reading the presented first authenticator; means for reading the player's biometric data; means for using the first authenticator to find the associated second authenticator; means for checking the biometric reading against that second authenticator; and means for indicating the check result.

Claim 11 — Age-verification during game play.
A system for verifying age during play using at least two authenticators (any non-first authenticator being biometric-derived): means for associating a first authenticator with the player's age; means for associating a second authenticator with the first; means for reading the presented first authenticator at the game device; means for reading the player's biometric information at the game device; means for comparing the read biometric data against the second authenticator retrieved via the first authenticator; and means for enabling the player to play only if the biometric data matches.

Claim 15 — Form generation with biometric verification.
A system for form generation using at least two authenticators (any non-first authenticator being biometric-derived), at a game device having a biometric reader: means for creating a database entry containing a first authenticator and at least the player's name; means for associating a biometric second authenticator with the first; means for associating a player using a game device with that entry; means for identifying a form-generation event; means for generating an at least partially completed form from the database entry; and means for using a biometric authenticator to verify the form.

Selected dependent claims (for context):

• Claim 3 (dep. 2): three or more authenticators, with a search-sequence indicator defining the order they are tried.
• Claim 5 (dep. 4): first authenticator is a player ID card, voucher ID, APID (anonymous player ID), or any item from the claim-1 list.
• Claim 7 (dep. 4): handling of one match vs. multiple matches — failure indicated if zero or more than one match results.
• Claims 8–10: fingerprint-specific and additional/backup biometric authenticator variants.
• Claim 13–14 (dep. 11): biometric read before each game play, using a single button integrating a fingerprint reader and the game-play initiator.
• Claims 16–17 (dep. 15): the form event is a W2G event, and the form is fully auto-completed from the database.

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Uncertainty / caveats (explicit)

1. Claim count. uspto.report's reproduction ends at claim 17; I did not independently confirm from the official USPTO full text whether the '333 patent terminates at 17 claims. This is stated at moderate-to-high confidence, but note the parent '928 has 68 claims — do not conflate the two.
2. Priority date discrepancy. Google Patents lists the priority date as 2001-06-20 (the provisional), while a Unified Patents record for US-6709333-B1 lists the priority date as 2001-06-19. I am reporting both; Google Patents/USPTO-derived records support June 20, 2001.
3. Abstract wording. The abstract text above is drawn from a third-party (uspto.report) reproduction; it differs from the parent '928 abstract. I could not fetch the face-of-document abstract directly from USPTO PatentCenter in this session.
4. No CAFC 2026 docket exists for this patent as far as these searches can determine — and given the patent expired July 17, 2021, a 2026 appeal asserting it as a live right would be unusual (validity or damages appeals from earlier proceedings are conceivable but were not found).
5. I did not obtain an authoritative PTAB record (IPR/PGR) for this patent; none appeared in these searches, but absence of evidence here is not proof of absence.

Sources consulted: Google Patents (patents.google.com/patent/US6709333B1), Justia Patents (patents.justia.com/patent/6709333), PlainSite application docket 10/411,914, uspto.report/patent/grant/6709333, Unified Patents portal (US-6709333-B1), Federal Circuit blog (Innovaport petition — distinguishable patent), and LNW investor SEC filings/2026 Nevada dismissal order (unrelated matters).

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6709333. Let me run several targeted searches.

The initial results are noisy — I'm seeing other "'933" patents (e.g., U.S. 6,945,933 in Warsaw v. NuVasive, and others) that are NOT U.S. 6,709,333. Let me run more targeted searches.

Summary Answer

I did not find any litigation — district court, Federal Circuit, ITC, or PTAB — specifically asserting or involving U.S. Patent No. 6,709,333. Based on the searches I was able to complete, no infringement suits, declaratory judgment actions, IPRs/PGRs, or ITC investigations naming this patent appear to be publicly reported. I want to be explicit that this is a negative finding and is subject to the limitations noted below.

What I searched

I ran searches across Google Patents, the Unified Patents portal (including the patent-specific page portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6709333-B1), uspto.report, Justia Dockets, Docket Alarm, and general web/scholarly sources. The Unified Patents patent page for US-6709333-B1 returned assignee/prior-art/reference data but no litigation entries in the retrieved content. I was cut off before running several additional planned queries, so I could not verify against PACER directly.

Important caution on "'933" confusion — please read

My searches surfaced several unrelated patents commonly abbreviated as "the '933 patent," none of which is U.S. 6,709,333. Do not attribute these cases to your patent:

Because several of these share the gaming/electronics subject matter of U.S. 6,709,333, they are especially easy to misattribute.

One lead worth further checking

Bally Gaming, Inc. v. IGT, et al., No. 08-17430 (9th Cir., filed Nov. 6, 2008), nature of suit: Patent — with Sierra Design Group listed as a third-party-defendant. Sierra Design Group is the original assignee of U.S. 6,709,333. The docket summary I retrieved does not identify which patents were at issue, so I cannot confirm that 6,709,333 was among them. This should be verified against the actual complaint/docket before being cited as litigation involving your patent.

What the authoritative record does tell us (context, not litigation)

From the patent's own Google Patents bibliographic record:

• Patent: US 6,709,333 B1, "Player identification using biometric data in a gaming environment"
• Inventors: Russel Tower Bradford; Robert Anthony Luciano, Jr.; Russ Frederick Marsden
• Original assignee: Sierra Design Group Inc.
• Priority date: 2001-06-20 (priority claimed from US 09/908,878 → US 6,612,928 B1)
• Filing date: 2003-04-14 (App. No. 10/411,914); Granted: 2004-03-23
• Current assignee: LNW Gaming Inc.
• Status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2021-07-17)
• Security-interest reassignments (not litigation): Bank of America (2013), Bally Gaming (2014), Deutsche Bank (2017/2018), JPMorgan Chase (2022)

Note that the expiration of the patent's term (2021) means any infringement suit would have to have been filed well before then, further reducing the likelihood of active litigation today.

Caveats and recommended next steps

I do not know with high confidence that zero litigation exists — only that my searches did not surface any. Free docket aggregators have incomplete coverage, especially for older cases and PTAB proceedings. To close the gap definitively, I recommend running these directly (which I was unable to complete):

1. PACER / CourtListener RECAP — search the full-text docket field for "6,709,333" and "6709333."
2. Unified Patents litigation caselist (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and PTAB caselist — filter by patent number.
3. Docket Alarm / Lex Machina — party/pantent-number search.
4. Justia Dockets — confirm the Bally Gaming v. IGT (9th Cir. 08-17430) patents-in-suit.
5. USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records for 10/411,914 — these sometimes reference co-pending litigation.

If you can pull the Bally Gaming v. IGT complaint, I can help determine whether U.S. 6,709,333 was actually asserted.

I'll verify the ODP "no proceedings" result against web sources before finalizing, since pre-AIA-era patents sometimes have CBM/PGR activity that predates ODP indexing.

The first search surfaced a CourtListener CAFC filing (docket 21176) referencing "Bradford" as an IPR exhibit — I need to determine whether 6709333 was itself under review or merely cited as prior art. Let me dig.

Let me run a few more targeted checks for any proceeding naming 6709333 as the challenged patent, plus any litigation that would explain the litigation posture.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 6,709,333: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming this patent as the patent-under-review, and my independent web checks (PTAB decisions, PTAB E2E petition documents, Docket Alarm PTAB records, Unified Patents portal, and litigation reporting) surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal in which 6709333 was the challenged patent. The breakdown is therefore all zeros (0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied) against this patent, and the defensive posture is unambiguous: a defendant cannot free-ride on someone else's win — there is no IPR to cite, no cancellation certificate, no estoppel record. Every claim (1–17) is UNTESTED, and the defendant must build its own invalidity case from scratch. The one genuinely useful finding is directional: in a different IPR, a PTAB panel used 6709333 ("Bradford") as the primary invalidating prior art against another party's patent — meaning the '333 specification is loaded with admissions a defendant can turn into § 102/§ 103 art today. Details below.

⚠️ Do not conflate two things. The proceedings described beneath the "Related proceedings" heading are not proceedings against 6709333. I flag them because they are the only PTAB/CAFC record that says anything authoritative about what the 6709333 disclosure teaches — and because a careless search will produce them and make them look like hits against this patent. Proceeding numbers below are copied from the public record; I have not invented any.

No proceedings against US 6,709,333 — patent-record context

• Patent: US 6,709,333 B1, "Player identification using biometric data in a gaming environment"
• Inventors: Russel Tower Bradford; Robert Anthony Luciano, Jr.; Russ Frederick Marsden
• Filed: 2003-04-14 | Granted: 2004-03-23 | Priority: 2001-06-20
• Assignment chain: Sierra Design Group Inc. (original) → Bally Gaming, Inc. (2014-10-27) → current assignee listed as LNW Gaming Inc. (Light & Wonder / Scientific Games family)
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration 2021-07-17 (Google Patents status, per the record supplied)
• Claims: 1–17, all in means-plus-function format ("means for entering a first authenticator…", "means for individual player identification…")
• PTAB activity: none

Related proceedings in which 6709333 was PRIOR ART (not the patent on trial)

IPR2022-00600 — Apple Inc. v. CPC Patent Technologies Pty Ltd. (different patent: US 8,620,039)

• Type: Inter Partes Review — challenged patent is US 8,620,039, NOT 6709333
• Role of 6709333: Petitioner's Ex. 1004 ("Bradford") — the primary reference in the sole ground on which the Board invalidated the claims
• Status of the '039 claims: All challenged claims held unpatentable; the Board's determination as to the '039 patent's claims 1, 2, 19, and 20 was subsequently affirmed by Rule 36 summary affirmance at the Federal Circuit (noted in the CAFC's 2025-11-10 CPC v. ASSA ABLOY opinion, footnote)
• Panel reasoning (quoted): the Board found that "Bradford discloses an enrollment process including receiving card information and biometric information, but does not describe specifically how to store the biometric information, [and that] Foss teaches how, i.e., using card data to define, that is—to establish or set a memory location … for storage of the biometric information in a local memory."
• What the Board found Bradford teaches (verbatim claim-limitation findings useful to a defendant): "a 'player ID entry in a player ID database' in which the claimed biometric signature is stored"; a magnetic strip card "inserted and read by a magnetic strip card reader to provide data of a 'first authenticator' of a player"; Figure 3's "General Gaming Device" 300 having "first authenticator readers" 304 and "fingerprint reader 310"; and "an enrollment process 'for the creation of an entry having biometric data in a player ID database.'"
• Note: this is a FWD; the Board's characterization of the Bradford disclosure runs against the interests of anyone relying on 6709333's breadth — the Board treated Bradford as disclosing the core two-authenticator enrollment/verification architecture.
• Sources: Banner Witcoff copy of the IPR2022-00600 FWD (IPR2022-00600, Patent 8,620,039 B2); appeal papers at CourtListener, CAFC docket 21176 and response brief; PTAB E2E: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts

ASSA ABLOY AB IPRs v. CPC Patent Technologies (different patent: US 8,620,039) — CAFC appeal decided 2025-11-10

• Type: Two Inter Partes Reviews (ASSA ABLOY as petitioner) — challenged patent is US 8,620,039, NOT 6709333
• Role of 6709333: again cited within the same Bradford/Foss/Yamane art family
• PTAB: invalidated the '039 patent's claims 3–18
• Federal Circuit (nonprecedential, 2025-11-10): reversed and remanded as to claims 3–18 — majority (Judges Prost and Chen) held the Board failed to grapple with the "Defining Limitation" requiring that card information establish the biometric storage location; Judge Wallach dissented. The court's footnote acknowledged the separate Rule 36 affirmance of the Board's invalidation of claims 1, 2, 19, 20 in the Apple IPR.
• Why a 6709333 defendant should care: the CAFC's narrowing of "defining" was a claim-construction-driven win for a patent holder, and it is the closest appellate law on how courts treat "memory location defined by card data" limitations — relevant if you intend to argue § 112 ¶ 6 indefiniteness or prior-art mapping against the '333's means-plus-function claims.
• Sources: IPWatchdog, 2025-11-10; Legal Era summary

Strategic summary

Claim status: 1–17 all UNTESTED before the PTAB. No claim of 6709333 has been canceled, confirmed, or even construed in an AIA trial. There is no certificate of cancellation to lean on and no estoppel record to mine. Compounding this, the patent expired 2021-07-17 (Expired – Lifetime), so the practical assertion window is closed for prospective relief; any remaining exposure is past-damages (subject to the § 286 six-year lookback) or a defense-and-settlement posture in a still-open case. Two structural features of the claims are worth modeling early: (i) every claim is drafted in means-plus-function form, which invites a § 112 ¶ 6 construction fight over whether the '333 specification discloses adequate corresponding structure for each "means" (a Williamson/Cochlear-style attack); and (ii) the independent claims are broad "at least two authenticators" systems, which cuts the other way on validity — the broader they read, the more the Bradford-as-prior-art findings in IPR2022-00600 hurt the owner, since a PTAB panel has already held that the Bradford disclosure reaches two-authenticator enrollment with a player ID database and fingerprint reader.

Estoppel landscape: essentially empty, which is the problem. With zero AIA proceedings against this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to no one. There is no petitioner, no privy, no "grounds raised or reasonably could have been raised" bar. Conversely, there is also no defensive benefit to inherit — a defendant cannot point to a prior FWD and say "claims 1–5 are dead." Every ground is on the table for you to raise: the full § 102/§ 103 universe, printed publications, and system prior art. Note the closed doors on the procedural side: CBM review sunset on 2020-09-16 (8 years post-AIA, § 18(d) of the AIA), so the most natural channel for a gaming/financial-services § 101 attack on this patent no longer exists; PGR is unavailable (patent filed 2003, pre-AIA); and while an IPR may technically be filed against an expired patent, the commercial incentive to do so is low absent a live past-damages case. Practical consequence: your invalidity work will likely be done in district court / ITC, not the PTAB.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has ever filed against 6709333 — not surprising for a patent that has been expired since 2021 and was never, in the public record I could find, the subject of a high-volume assertion campaign. The current assignee family, however, is a sophisticated PTAB participant in both directions: SG Gaming/Bally (the same corporate family that acquired Sierra Design Group in 2014) was the petitioner in CBM2018-00005 and related CBM reviews against New Vision Gaming's US 7,325,806 / 7,451,987, which it won on § 101 grounds and which produced the Federal Circuit appeal New Vision Gaming & Development, Inc. v. SG Gaming, Inc., No. 20-1399 (Fed. Cir.) and a later Director-Review remand under Arthrex. That is a pattern signal about the owner's litigation posture (aggressive, PTAB-literate), not about this patent. I found no Unified Patents or other defensive-aggregator proceeding touching 6709333; the Unified Patents portal lists the patent only as a catalogued asset.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent to a court or client that 6709333 has been invalidated. It has not. The correct statement is: "No AIA trial proceeding has ever been instituted against US 6,709,333; all 17 claims remain untested." Absence of PTAB activity is not evidence of validity — but it is also not evidence of invalidity.
2. Rebut any demand letter that cites an IPR against this patent. If opposing counsel or a broker's chart implies this patent has been through the PTAB, the citation is almost certainly the Apple v. CPC line, where 6709333 was Ex. 1004 prior art, not the patent on trial. Cite the FWD: IPR2022-00600 FWD.
3. Mine the IPR2022-00600 record as your invalidity toolbox. The Board's verbatim findings about "Bradford" — two-authenticator enrollment, player ID database with first/second authenticator fields, magnetic-strip first authenticator, fingerprint reader 310, General Gaming Device 300 — are a ready-made roadmap for a § 102/§ 103 attack on the '333 claims, and they were made in a proceeding where the patent owner had no opportunity to defend its own disclosure. Add Foss (stored-value card enrollment) and Yamane (fingerprint registration flag on rewritable media) to attack the enrollment/verification claims (1–10), and a W2G/IRS-form art combination against claims 15–17.
4. Lead with § 112 ¶ 6. All 17 claims are means-plus-function. Run a Williamson indefiniteness analysis on each "means for…" term against the '333 specification before you spend money on prior art — a single missing corresponding structure on an independent claim can take out the whole asserted family, and the Board may not hold claims indefinite in an IPR (Samsung v. Prisua), so this is a district-court tool.
5. Check the expiration and damages math first. With the patent expired as of 2021-07-17, confirm whether any live case can even reach past damages within § 286, and whether the asserted claims have been removed from the case. If the matter is a pure pre-suit licensing demand on an expired patent, the cheapest and most defensible response is the expiration record plus the absence of any PTAB or district-court adjudication of validity.
6. If you do file an IPR (e.g., to knock out claims in a live past-damages case), target claims 1, 4, 11, and 15 with the Bradford/Foss/Yamane combination and a secondary W2G reference; note that no § 315(b) clock has been run by anyone, so you retain a clean one-year window and no § 315(e)(1) estoppel.

Confidence note: I could not locate any proceeding naming 6709333 as the challenged patent across the sources I searched, and I am not aware of one from training. I cannot rule out an older, poorly-indexed CBM petition that was denied institution before 2020 and never surfaced in the indexing I could reach. If you need certainty, pull the "Trials" tab for the patent in PTAB E2E / Patent Center directly — but nothing in the public record I reached contradicts the ODP default of no PTAB activity on file.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 6,709,333, focusing on reel/frame records and correspondents.

I found a key datapoint. Let me dig for the specific reel/frame numbers and correspondents.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 6,709,333 B1

Sourcing caveat up front (read before the timeline): I could not open the USPTO Assignment Center UI directly in this session. The reel/frame numbers below are reconstructed from (a) Google Patents' embedded legal-events records for US 6,709,333 (authoritative text supplied in the patent record), (b) PlainSite reproductions of USPTO assignment records (e.g. assignment 31745/1, 34501/49, 44889/662, 45909/513, 59793/1, 62669/341), and (c) USPTO PTAB filings that recite chain-of-title with reel/frame. Where a reel/frame is portfolio-level and I could not confirm it was recorded specifically against the '333 patent, I say so flag-style. The '333 patent is one member of a very large Bally/SG portfolio that was re-recorded in bulk blocks, so a handful of the later links are inferred from sister patents rather than read off the '333 record itself.

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Inventors

Pattern notes:

• No mass-departure red flag. Robert Luciano, Jr. was a founder/executive of Sierra Design Group and stayed through the acquirer: the Bally Gaming employment-agreement amendment in the record identifies him as "Executive Vice President of Bally and President of Sierra Design Group." He did not exit within 12 months of the July 17, 2001 parent filing. The classic "inventors bail, then fire-sale" pattern is absent here.
• Inventor–attorney overlap. Russ F. Marsden is named as both a co-inventor and the attorney/agent of record on the '333 filing. This is a genuine anomaly worth a footnote: it is common in the Sierra Design Group family (Marsden appears as inventor and prosecutor across many SDG filings), not evidence of anything untoward, but it means the same individual both conceived and prosecuted.
• The Bally employment-agreement amendment also shows the company assigning certain golf-ball/RFID patents back to Luciano personally (Ser. Nos. 10/057,007 and 10/087,378) out of the Sierra Design Group acquisition — i.e. the '333 inventors were economically entangled with the acquirer, the opposite of a distressed exit.

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Original assignee

Sierra Design Group, Inc., Reno, Nevada.

• Line of business: slot-machine / gaming-terminal manufacturer and game-content developer (a direct competitor of IGT, Bally, WMS in the Nevada gaming-supply market). It was an operating manufacturer, not a holding vehicle.
• Shipped a product embodying the claims? Unclear / not confirmed. The specification itself points to off-the-shelf biometric hardware (AuthenTec fingerprint readers) rather than a Sierra-branded biometric reader, and describes the invention largely by reference to conventional game cabinets and SMIBs. I found no evidence in this session of a commercially shipped SDG "two-authenticator biometric player ID" product. Treat "SDG commercialized the claims" as unproven.
• Current status: No longer an independent operating company. Per Bally's own employment-agreement amendment, the Company "acquired Sierra Design Group on March 2, 2004." The SDG brand lived on under Bally/Alliance Gaming, then Bally Technologies, then Scientific Games, then Light & Wonder. The recorded IP assignment from Sierra Design Group, Inc. to Bally Gaming, Inc., however, is dated far later (2014-10-27, see timeline) — the acquisition was evidently a stock/subscription deal and the IP title clean-up was done separately. No bankruptcy.

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Assignment timeline

Note: the inventor → Sierra Design Group assignment (the "original" link) does not appear in the '333 legal-events set I could retrieve, and I could not read a reel/frame for it. That is itself a finding: the original assignment is not surfaced in Google Patents' '333 event list, and I am not going to fabricate a reel number for it.

• 2013-11-25 (executed) / recorded 2013-11-30 — Reel 031745/0001 and 031745/0183

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement — "Amended and Restated Patent Security Agreement"
  • Assignor: Bally Gaming, Inc. (entry 031745/0001) and Sierra Design Group (entry 031745/0183; this is the entry Google Patents attributes to the '333)
  • Assignee: Bank of America, N.A., as Administrative Agent
  • Correspondent: Latham & Watkins LLP, 650 Town Center Dr., Ste. 2000, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 — this is the only correspondent of record I recovered. Latham & Watkins is a large general-practice firm that does both operating-company patent work and lender-side secured-transaction work; a single appearance is not an NPE tell and I am not treating it as one.
  • Context: securitization / collateral — cross-collateralized lien over the Bally/SDG patent estate in favour of the term lender.

• 2014-10-27 (recorded; execution date not recovered) — Reel not recovered

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors Interest
  • Assignor: Sierra Design Group, Inc.
  • Assignee: Bally Gaming, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: internal reorganization / title clean-up — formal conveyance of the SDG patent estate into the Bally Gaming entity around the Scientific Games–Bally Technologies combination (BofA release effective 2014-11-21).
  • Flag — possible duplicate/earlier link: a 2006 bulk assignment Sierra Design Group, Inc. → Bally Gaming, Inc. was recorded 2006-08-29 at Reel 025315/Frame 0345 (recited in PTAB CBM2015-00154 for US 5,816,918, a sister SDG patent). I could not confirm whether the '333 was included in that 2006 block. If it was, the 2014-10-27 entry is a confirmatory second recording and the title actually moved in 2006.

• 2014-11-21 (executed) / recorded 2014-12-01 — Reel 034501/0049

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party (Release of Security Interest)
  • Assignor: Bank of America, N.A.
  • Assignee: SHFL Entertainment, Inc.; Arcade Planet, Inc.; Bally Gaming, Inc.; Bally Gaming International, Inc.; Bally Technologies, Inc.; Sierra Design Group
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: collateral release — the 2013 BofA lien discharged in connection with the Bally/Scientific Games refinancing.

• 2017-07-25 (recorded) — Reel not recovered (release expressly cites RF 031745/0183)

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest in Patents
  • Assignor: Bank of America, N.A.
  • Assignee: Sierra Design Group
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: release / lender housekeeping — second, later discharge of the same 2013 BofA lien.

• 2017-12-14 (executed) / recorded 2017-12-15 — Reel 044889/0662

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Bally Gaming, Inc.; Scientific Games International, Inc.
  • Assignee: Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: securitization — replacement credit facility collateral.

• 2018-04-09 (executed) / recorded 2018-04-11 — Reel 045909/0513

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Bally Gaming, Inc.; Scientific Games International, Inc.
  • Assignee: Deutsche Bank Trust Company Americas, as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: securitization — incremental/amended facility collateral.

• 2020-01-03 (executed) / recorded ~2020-01-18 — Reel 051649/0139 (or 051642/0164 — see flag)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (no transfer of title)
  • Assignor: Bally Gaming, Inc.
  • Assignee: SG Gaming, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: change of name only — corporate rebrand inside Scientific Games.
  • Flag: Both 051649/0139 and 051642/0164 are "Change of Name, Bally Gaming → SG Gaming" recordings covering different lots of the portfolio; I could not determine which block the '333 sits in, and neither appears in the '333 Google Patents event list.

• 2021-07-17 — Anticipated expiration (20 years from the 2001-07-17 parent filing). Google Patents status: Expired – Lifetime. Every record below this line concerns an already-expired asset.

• 2022-04-14 (executed) / recorded 2022-04-22 — Reel 059793/0001

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: SG Gaming, Inc.
  • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: securitization — this is the one post-expiration lien that does appear in the '333 legal-events set. A companion BofA release on Reel 059756/0397 (effective 2022-04-14) discharges the old BofA collateral.

• 2023-01-03 (effective) / recorded ~2023-02-07 — Reel 062669/0341

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (no transfer of title)
  • Assignor: SG Gaming, Inc.
  • Assignee: LNW Gaming, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: change of name only — Scientific Games gaming business rebranded to Light & Wonder. This is the entity Google Patents reports as current assignee.

• 2025-05-21 (effective) — Reel 071340/0404

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: LNW Gaming, Inc.
  • Assignee: JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not recovered
  • Context: securitization — refinancing collateral on an expired patent.

Chain-of-title net result: Sierra Design Group, Inc. → Bally Gaming, Inc. (2014, or 2006 if the bulk block covered it) → renamed SG Gaming, Inc. (2020) → renamed LNW Gaming, Inc. (2023). Bank collateral sits on top throughout (BofA 2013 → Deutsche Bank 2017/2018 → JPMorgan 2022/2025).

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6709333
    2001 : Priority application filed
    2003 : Continuation filed
    2004 : Issued to Sierra Design Group
         : Sierra design acquired by Bally
    2013 : Bank of America security agreement
    2014 : Assigned to Bally Gaming Inc
         : Bank of America releases lien
    2017 : Deutsche Bank security agreement
    2018 : Deutsche Bank security agreement
    2020 : Bally renamed SG Gaming Inc
    2021 : Patent expires
    2022 : JPMorgan Chase security agreement
    2023 : SG Gaming renamed LNW Gaming
    2025 : JPMorgan Chase security agreement

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. Every assignee in the chain is either an operating gaming-supply company (Sierra Design Group, Bally Gaming, SG Gaming, LNW Gaming — all Nevada corporations) or a bank acting as collateral agent (BofA, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase). No "IP / Holdings / Ventures / Licensing" entity ever appears. No single-member Delaware/Texas LLC, no registered-agent service address in the record. Per Reels 031745/0183, 034501/0049, 044889/0662, 045909/0513, 059793/0001.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. None of the assignors or assignees matches a public NPE list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). None of them appear in Unified Patents' or RPX's high-frequency-plaintiff directories. LNW Gaming / Light & Wonder is a casino-floor equipment manufacturer.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. I recovered exactly one correspondent: Latham & Watkins LLP, Costa Mesa, CA, on the 2013 Amended and Restated Patent Security Agreement (Reel 031745/0001 and /0183, executed 2013-11-25). That is a single appearance by a large general-practice firm — by the task's own standard, not a finding. I did not recover correspondents for the 2014, 2017, 2018, 2020, 2022, 2023 or 2025 recordings, so I cannot either confirm or rule out recurrence. This signal is genuinely unresolvable from what I could retrieve.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Consecutive transfers span 2003 → 2023 (and the substantive ones, 2013 → 2018), driven by M&A, a name-change cascade, and secured lending cycles. There is no <24-month chain of LLC-to-LLC hops sharing an address or principal. The two 2017/2018 Deutsche Bank security agreements (044889/0662 and 045909/0513) are a lender's own back-to-back facility filings, not an assignment chain.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No assignment in the chain falls within 6 months before any infringement suit naming this patent; indeed I found no suit asserting US 6,709,333 at all. Related litigation exists in the corporate family (Bally Gaming's assertion of the sister SDG patent US 5,816,918, and Bally Gaming, Inc. v. IGT, Fed. Cir. 2009-1072, with Sierra Design Group as third-party defendant), but those involve different patents and post-date the SDG acquisition by years.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 anywhere in the chain. Scientific Games/Light & Wonder carried heavy leverage (hence the serial Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan liens on Reels 044889/0662, 045909/0513, 059793/0001, 071340/0404) but never filed, and there was no court-supervised sale of this patent.

7. Privateering — not present. No transfer by an operating company to an NPE asserting against competitors. Title has stayed inside the same corporate family from 2003 to the present.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. It terminates at LNW Gaming, Inc., an operating manufacturer — so the patent was neither neutralized nor weaponised by an aggregator.

Cross-check note / flagged inconsistency with the prior section: the earlier-generated summary lists the current assignee as "LNW Gaming Inc (Google Patents);—uspto.report lists Sierra Design Group." The assignment record resolves this in favour of LNW Gaming, Inc.: the Sierra Design Group entry is the historical assignor on the 2013 BofA lien, not the present owner. uspto.report's "current assignee" field is stale. Separately, I confirm the prior section's note that no CAFC 2026 docket and no IPR/PGR exists for this patent — consistent with a portfolio patent that was never asserted.

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion — but read this as a structural finding, not an assertion finding.

Justification: the entire record of title runs unbroken between operating gaming-machine manufacturers — Sierra Design Group, Inc. → Bally Gaming, Inc. (Reel 031745/0183 era; assignment recorded 2014-10-27) → renamed SG Gaming, Inc. (Reel 051649/0139, effective 2020-01-03) → renamed LNW Gaming, Inc. (Reel 062669/0341, effective 2023-01-03) — with every intermediate recording being either an internal reorganization, a change of name, or a lender's security agreement (Reels 031745/0183, 034501/0049, 044889/0662, 045909/0513, 059793/0001, 071340/0404). Zero of the eight NPE signals is present, and I found no suit naming this patent. The honest refinement is that this is an operating-company, non-asserting chain: LNW Gaming ships gaming products, but US 6,709,333 expired 2021-07-17, so the three most recent recordings (2022, 2023, 2025) are collateral and rebranding housekeeping on a dead asset, and assertion is now legally impossible.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6709333); mirror index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Re-run the search there to pull the reel/frame numbers I could not recover (the 2014-10-27 SDG→Bally assignment, the 2017-07-25 release, the two change-of-name recordings, and the correspondents for every link after 2013).

I'll research the prior art cited for US 6,709,333 (application 10/411,914). Let me run targeted searches.

Let me pull the full citation list from the Google Patents record directly.

I have a partial citation list. Let me retrieve the remainder of the "Patent Citations (24)" list.

Prior Art for US Patent No. 6,709,333 — Cited-Reference Analysis

0. Provenance caveat (read first)

I was able to retrieve the "Patent Citations (24)" table associated with the US 6,709,333 B1 record and the bibliographic data attached to it. Two honest limitations apply, and I am flagging them rather than papering over them:

1. Provenance of the 24-item list. The consolidated citation list (below) was surfaced in the Google Patents citation data returned for the US 6,709,333B1 record. However, the specific snippet that contained the full list was rendered on a Google Patents page for a related record (US 2003/0210610 A1, Unirec Co. Ltd., "Worker Management Device," issued as US 7,099,236). There is therefore a genuine possibility that some rows in that table belong to that document rather than to 6,709,333. The subject-matter mix (biometric access control + time-and-attendance + casino gaming) strongly indicates that the gaming-family rows belong with the '333 record, but item-by-item confirmation against the face of the printed patent ("References Cited") is recommended and I could not complete it within this session.
2. Completeness. The table is captioned "(24)". I recovered 17 entries; the final ≈7 rows were truncated before I could retrieve them. The list below is therefore partial and not exhaustive.
3. Consistent with the earlier-generated sections: no §102/§103 challenge, IPR/PGR, or infringement suit naming US 6,709,333 itself was found. Nothing here contradicts that. (The one live PTAB matter touching this family — IPR2019-00317 — is discussed in §4; it uses the '333's parent, US 6,612,928, as prior art, and does not involve the '333 as the challenged patent.)

Claim mapping below builds on the previously generated summary: independent claims 1, 2, 4, 11, 15, all in means-plus-function form (35 U.S.C. § 112(f)).

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1. Prior-art references cited in the US 6,709,333 record

1.1 Fingerprint / biometric identification core

1.2 First-authenticator / token / access-control art

1.3 Time-and-attendance / verification art (background density)

1.4 Gaming-context art (the citations that matter for the gaming limitations)

Recovered but truncated: the remaining ~7 of the 24 rows were not retrieved. Google Patents also records 0 non-patent-literature citations for this record.

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2. Bottom line on the cited art

• Nothing on this list appears to fully anticipate independent claim 1 or 2 as a single reference. The cited references split cleanly into (a) fingerprint read/compare access control (Fingermatrix, Siemens, Harris, Accu-Time, Caltech) and (b) casino gaming player identification (Walker Digital ×3, Ellis). Claim 1's novelty is the combination — a non-biometric first authenticator and a biometric second authenticator associated in a player record and used together at a game device — and the cited art does not appear to disclose that combination in one reference.
• The closest single-reference threats are US 2002/0160834 A1 (Urie) and US 5,903,225 (Harris) — Urie for the gaming+biometric combination (claims 1/2/4), Harris for the enrollment-plus-access-token combination (claim 2).
• Claim 4 (read first authenticator → read biometric → use first authenticator to find the associated second authenticator → compare → indicate) is the independent claim most exposed to a §102 attack by the fingerprint-access-control art (Fingermatrix '899; Siemens '086).
• Claim 11 (enable play only if biometric matches) is the most exposed to US 6,373,967 (Caltech, biometric combination lock).

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3. References that are not §102 prior art to the '333 (important negative)

• US 6,612,928 B1 ("Bradford '928") — the parent of the '333 (continuation; same inventive entity), priority 2001-07-17. Same-family/same-inventor, so it is NOT available as prior art against the '333. Do not attribute it as a §102 reference to this patent. (See §4 for why it nevertheless matters.)
• Any of the '333's own "Cited By" documents (e.g., US 2008/0113785 A1, CFPH/Alderucci, "Conditional Biometric Access in a Gaming Environment"; US 2004/0192438 A1, IGT; US 7,125,335; US 6,979,264; US 2006/0046842 A1) are later publications that cite the '333 — they are not prior art to it, and must not be reported as citations of the '333.

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4. Related art that is highly probative even though it is not on the '333's face

These matter because they show how this patent family's own disclosure reads on biometric-authentication gaming claims:

• US 6,612,928 B1 (Bradford '928) — the '333's parent — was the anticipation reference in IPR2019-00317 against US 9,269,224 B2. The Board found a reasonable likelihood that claims 2, 4–7 and 9–15 of the '224 patent are anticipated by Bradford '928 (and obviousness grounds over Bradford '928 + knowledge of the POSITA were also instituted). This is the single strongest piece of evidence that the Bradford family's two-authenticator disclosure is anticipatory-grade art against later biometric-gaming claims. It does not, however, make '928 prior art to '333 itself.
• US 5,768,382 A (Schneier et al.) — cited as an "X" reference against claims 1–4, 6, 8–15, 17–22 in the International Search Report for IGT's WO 2004/025397 A3 ("Method and system for verifying entitlement to play a game using a biometric identifier," priority US 10/224,156, 2002-09-12). Schneier discloses remote gaming verified by biometric (fingerprint) match against a stored print keyed by an ID code — i.e., the same two-part scheme (ID code → located stored biometric → live biometric compare → permit play). Highly relevant to claims 4 and 11 of the '333, and potentially anticipatory to the extent its disclosure predates the '333 priority date (Schneier published 1998-06-16). I would rank this among the most relevant art in the field, despite not appearing in the recovered '333 citation list.
• US 6,142,876 (Cumbers) — cited as a "Y" reference (claims 5, 24) in the same IGT WO 2004/025397 proceeding.
• DE 100 60 079 A1, WO 01/82176 A1, US 2002/0142991 A1 — cited in EP 1 606 776 B1 (IGT, "Methods and apparatus for limiting access to games using biometric data") as the art nearest to biometric-gated gaming access.

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5. Explicit uncertainty / verification steps I could not complete

1. The full, verified 24-row "References Cited" list on the face of US 6,709,333. I recovered 17 rows and flagged the provenance ambiguity in §0. Verify directly against USPTO PatentCenter full text or the printed patent columns "(56) References Cited."
2. Non-patent literature. The record shows none, but I did not verify the paper face of the patent.
3. Priority-date exposure of US 2002/0160834 A1 (Urie). Whether it is §102(b)/§102(a) art depends on the effective priority date (Google Patents: 2001-06-20 provisional; a Unified Patents record lists 2001-06-19). I report both and do not resolve it.
4. Whether any of the §102 mappings above would succeed as anticipations rather than mere §103 showings. Because every independent claim is means-plus-function, each requires the reference to disclose the corresponding structure — this analysis is provisional pending a full-text comparison of each reference.
5. The remaining ~7 unretrieved citations, and any references added during prosecution via IDS after the recovered snapshot.

Sources consulted: Google Patents record and citation data for US 6,709,333B1 and for US 2003/0210610 A1; Unified Patents portal page for US-6709333-B1; IPR2019-00317 Institution Decision (Patents 9,269,224 B2 and US 6,612,928 B1) via CourtListener/IPWatchdog; Federal Circuit appeal record (gov.uscourts.cafc.21176) discussing Bradford '928 and Foss; International Search Report for WO 2004/025397 A3 (IGT) citing US 5,768,382 (Schneier) and US 6,142,876 (Cumbers); EP 1 606 776 B1 search/back-reference list; PLAINSITE assignment record 59793/1.

If you can pull the printed "References Cited" column from USPTO PatentCenter for application 10/411,914, I can close the §0 gap and re-run the §102 mapping against the complete list.

I'll pull the cited prior art for this patent, since the authoritative text I was given doesn't include the "References Cited" table.

Let me try to retrieve the exact "Patent Citations" table from the US 6,709,333 front page.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,709,333 B1

35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA), Graham v. John Deere / KSR v. Teleflex

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0. Provenance note on the prior art set (read first)

The authoritative full text supplied for this patent does not include the "References Cited" table, so I reconstructed the prior‑art set from the patent's Google Patents record and from the front page of its parent, US 6,612,928 ("Bradford '928," same specification, same examiner, same family; a replicate of the '928 front page appears in IPR2022‑00600 Ex. 1004 — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/[PTAB](/ptab)/IPR2022-00600/Apple_Inc._v._CPC_Patent_Technologies_PTY_Ltd/docs/02-23-2022-Petitioner/Exhibit-1004-EX1004_US_Patent_No_6,612,928_to_Bradford_et_al.pdf).

The examiner‑cited list on the '928 front page (U.S. Class 463/29, Art Unit 3744, Examiner Melvin Jones) includes: 5,326,104 (Pease); 5,473,144 (Mathurin); 5,613,912 (Slater); 5,802,199 (Pare Jr. et al., classified 382/115); 5,991,431 and 5,995,630 (Borza); 6,026,166 (LeBourgeois); 6,099,408 (Schneier); 6,113,493 (Walker); 6,149,055 (Gatto); 6,154,131 (Jones II); 6,234,900 (Cumbers); 6,264,557 (Schneier); 6,296,101 (Hasegawa); 6,307,956 (Black); 6,363,485 (Adams et al.).

Caveats: (i) I could not retrieve the '333's own 24‑entry front‑page citation table; the list above is a proxy from the parent, not verified against the '333 face. (ii) The priority chain is ambiguous: Google Patents lists the '333 priority as 2001‑06‑20 (prov. 60/300,029), claiming domestic priority from 09/908,878 filed 2001‑07‑17, while a citation table on the '928 record lists its priority as 2001‑02‑15. Any reference published between 2001‑02‑15 and 2001‑07‑17 therefore has an art‑date problem that turns on which provisional supports the claims. I flag this for each such reference below.

I have accordingly organized the grounds so that each stated ground rests primarily on art that is unambiguously prior regardless of which priority date controls, with the borderline art identified.

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1. Legal framework that drives the outcome

Two construction facts dominate the § 103 analysis:

1. Every independent claim (1, 2, 4, 11, 15) is means‑plus‑function. Under 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 6 (now § 112(f)), each "means for…" recites a function and is limited to the corresponding structure in the specification (fingerprint reader/reader 210/310/410/412, SMIB, RGC, BDIM, player ID database, general‑purpose embedded computer) and equivalents. For § 103, the question becomes whether the prior art performs the same function — a lower hurdle than a structural apparatus claim with specific hardware recitals. Broad functional language ("means for identifying the individual player at a game device") is correspondingly easy to read on prior art.
2. The specification is itself a prior‑art admission machine. The '333 states that "Biometric identification systems such as fingerprint readers built by AuthenTec, Inc. … are known"; that numeric fingerprint characterization (minutiae, correlation points) is "prior art"; and that existing game control is by physically isolated areas with ID checks. These admissions supply the general knowledge of the art and, under In re Fout‑type reasoning and KSR, narrow the gap the claims must clear.

Under KSR, a combination is obvious where (a) the elements were known, (b) the combination does no more than yield predictable results, or (c) there was a design need/market pressure with a finite number of identified, predictable solutions. All three are satisfied here.

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2. Ground 1 — Claims 1, 2, 4 (and 5): the core two‑authenticator system

Primary: WO 94/16416 A1 (Specialiteiten B.V. / J.M. van Alphen, publ. 21 Jul 1994, PCT/NL94/00004) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/09/ef/e5/f4c90f46c9ae39/WO1994016416A1.pdf

WO '416 discloses a gambling/arcade game system in which play is released only on comparison of data read from a "playing authorisation card" with an identification code, and — expressly — "the information read from the information carrier contains body‑dependent characteristics of the player" (claim 1); claim 3 lists "fingerprint … scan of his eye or his hand‑geometry, or voice recognition or his typing style." Claim 4 recites the arcade game system with identification device and coin handling being released for play on positive identification; claim 6 recites a smart‑card memory carrying a unique code readable by "authorised instances/persons, such as the tax authorities."

• Claim 1 (first authenticator from a closed list — magnetic‑stripe card, voucher, alphanumeric sequence, RFID tag, smart card, memory card, handheld w/ RF or IR, magnetic/optical diskette — plus a biometric authenticator, associated with a player, used with a reader at a game device): WO '416 discloses the card (an information carrier; claim 11 a smart card) and the biometric authenticator and the game‑device reader pair. The only element requiring supplementation is the association of the two authenticators in a record.
• Supplementing reference: US 6,234,900 (Cumbers, "Passive biometric customer identification and tracking system") — examiner‑cited on the '928 face; family member US 6,554,705 (priority 1997‑08‑22) is described as teaching an account file plus a biometric (facial image) file that is scanned and compared to identify the player at a slot machine. That supplies the "means for associating" and the DB‑lookup function of claims 1 and 4 ("means for using the first authenticator to find the associated second authenticator; means for checking…; means for indicating").
• Claim 2 (enrollment system where the initial authenticator is expressly not biometric): the card of WO '416 is a non‑biometric‑derived initial authenticator used to locate the player's record. DE 199 52 692 A1 (Bally Wulff Automaten, priority 1999‑11‑02, publ. 2001‑05‑03) describes this literally — "each player … a personal identifier card with finger print and/or stored identification data for one or more finger prints to authorize play when inserted." ⚠️ Borderline: qualifies only if the critical date is the 2001‑06‑20 provisional or later.
• Fingerprint mechanics (claims 1/4 "biometric data"): US 5,802,199 (Pare Jr. et al., 382/115, 1998) and US 5,902,983 (Crevelt — described in the background of US 8,506,406 as teaching "a gaming machine configured to perform EFT transactions… limited to preset amounts," using "a fingerprint imaging device, and retinal scans for verifying a player's identity").

Motivation to combine: WO '416's single carrier‑resident biometric has an evident practical defect in a casino — the biometric rides on a card that can be lost or swapped, and it does not scale to roaming multi‑machine play. Moving the biometric into a central per‑player account record indexed by the card (Cumbers) is the predictable use of a known database technique; the '333 itself identifies multi‑machine roaming, EFT and W2G as the objectives. KSR prong (a)+(b).

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3. Ground 2 — Claims 1, 2, 4, 8–10: IGT's biometric gaming terminal + access‑control art

Primary: EP 1 120 757 A2/A3 (IGT; Wells, Wilder, Mattice, Griswold), U.S. counterpart US 8,243,929 B2, U.S. app. 09/491,899 filed 27 Jan 2000 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/17/4d/7d/93b38b1131a452/EP1120757A3.pdf ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3f/a5/01/5a5f712b861871/US8243929.pdf

This reference is squarely in the same art and — being a U.S. patent granted on an application filed before the '333's earliest possible critical date — is available as pre‑AIA § 102(e) prior art as of 2000‑01‑27 (the later EP publication date of 2001‑08‑01 is irrelevant to its § 102(e) date, but I flag that the EP document itself is not prior art if the critical date is 2001‑02‑15).

It discloses a gaming terminal/system with biometric (fingerprint) identification, reference biometric data stored on a portable card (smart card/PCMCIA) read and compared in the gaming terminal against measured biometric data, to implement cashless gaming — i.e., it performs the claim‑4 function chain (read first authenticator → read biometric → locate reference data → compare → indicate) and the claim‑1 association function.

Its EPO search report cites WO 94/10658 A1 (Cons21 Ltd / Green, publ. 11 May 1994, "Secure access control system") as X (single‑reference) against all of claims 1–20 of that application, and WO 94/16416 as X against the same claims — direct third‑office evidence that card‑plus‑biometric gaming access was fully in the art by 1994.

• Claims 8–10 (fingerprint as the biometric; multiple/backup biometric authenticators): the alternatives are enumerated in the '333's own specification ("hand geometry, face geometry, iris scan, or retinal scan") and in DE 199 44 140 A1 claims 3–4 (fingerprint and eye/face camera and voice, claims 2–4, 11). DE 199 44 140 A1 (Schulze Löwen Automaten/Novomatic, filed & priority 1999‑09‑14, publ. 2001‑03‑28) — https://patents.google.com/patent/DE19944140A1/en — discloses a coin‑operated gaming machine with a biometric detector, a comparator, stored comparison data, and activation of the usage authorization on a match (claim 1), with comparison data stored locally (claim 12) or on a central computer on a network (claim 19). ⚠️ Borderline on publication date (same provisional‑support issue) — but note its claims are essentially the claim‑1/claim‑4 function set.

Motivation: both IGT/Wells and DE '140 are directed to the same problem the '333 recites (assuring the person at the machine is the authorized person; enabling cashless/EFT play; avoiding attendant monitoring). Substituting the '333's card/reader/database structures for those disclosed requires no change in the principle of operation, and the '333 concedes the fingerprint sensing hardware was off‑the‑shelf. KSR prong (b) — predictable result.

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4. Ground 3 — Claims 3, 6, 7, 12: the routine details

• Claim 3 (three or more authenticators with a "search‑sequence indicator" defining the order they are tried): purely a sequence/ordering convention. DE '140 claims 2–4 and 11 already stack finger, face and voice modalities; ordering their lookup is an administrative choice with no technical consequence.
• Claim 7 (failure if zero or more than one match): this is the problem statement of the '333's own background section ("a fingerprint read having 80 correlation points may produce, in a large database … more than one match"). Claiming the recognition and rejection of the ambiguity is not a technical advance over the admitted art; multi‑match/rejection logic is standard pattern‑matching behavior (see Pare, US 5,802,199).
• Claim 12 and claim 6 (additional/backup biometric; entity handling): routine fallback selection.

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5. Ground 4 — Claim 11 (age verification gating play)

Primary: DE 199 52 692 A1 (card + stored fingerprint "to authorize play when inserted") and WO 94/16416 (game released for a game only upon positive identification).

Claim 11 requires only: associate a first authenticator with the player's age; associate a biometric second authenticator with the first; read both at the game device; compare; and enable play only if the biometric data matches. The only novel‑sounding element, "age," is not a technical element — it is a stored data field. The legal‑age‑verification problem and its data (date of birth from a driver's license) were explicitly the incumbent manual practice the '333's background describes ("an attendant checks ID for admission"). Automating a manual ID/age check by storing the verified attribute and gating a machine on a biometric match is the canonical KSR "automation of a known human process" case. DE '140's claim 1 (activation of the usage authorization on biometric match) supplies the gating function.

Additionally, this is a limitation the later IGT/CFPH filings claimed as their own (e.g., US 8,506,406, filed 2002, reciting "biometric input … used to prevent unauthorized gaming activity … underage gaming"), which is evidence of how conventional the concept had become.

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6. Ground 5 — Claim 15 (and 16–17): automated W2G form generation with biometric verification

Claim 15 requires: a DB entry with a first authenticator and at least the player's name; a biometric second authenticator associated with the first; association of the player using the game device with the entry; identification of a form‑generation event; generation of an at least partially completed form from the entry; and biometric verification of the form.

• The record‑with‑name‑and‑biometric element: US 8,243,929 (IGT/Wells, § 102(e) date 2000‑01‑27) expressly discloses acquiring "personal and/or financial information … such as name, address, social security or tax identification number, local hotel or other address, credit card or bank account information," together with reference biometric data and an account. This is the entire data substrate of claim 15 (and is the motivation for claim 17's "fully auto‑completed" form — the SSN/tax‑ID is the field that enables automation).
• The form‑generation‑event + form‑generation element: generating a required form from stored record data on the occurrence of a triggering event is standard data‑processing automation (the '333 concedes the process is a paper form completed by hand, and characterizes it as "a very annoying aspect"). Under KSR, automating a known clerical/regulatory process with a general‑purpose computer and stored data — with no new technical result — is obvious.
• Corroborating art on the same day‑to‑day problem: US 6,113,493 (Walker, examiner‑cited) discloses reading a player ID and retrieving player‑specific data from a database to configure a gaming device; US 5,902,983 (Crevelt) ties biometrics to EFTs at a gaming machine.
• ⚠️ Do not build this ground on the applicant's own co‑pending application Ser. No. 09/838,457 ("Data Entry System And Method For Gaming Devices"), which the '333 incorporates by reference. Same‑inventive‑entity/commonly‑owned co‑pending work is not "by another" and cannot be § 102(a)/(e) art absent different inventive entity. Cite it only as evidence of what the applicants themselves regarded as conventional on the filing date.

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7. Ground 6 — Claims 13 and 14 (biometric read before each play; single button integrating fingerprint reader and play initiator)

This is the most cleanly met limitation in the patent, because there is direct, specific prior art:

DE 199 44 140 A1, claim 6: the biometric detector is integrated "in einen Ein‑/Ausschalter (40) oder in einen Auswahlschalter (30) des Gerätes" — i.e., the recording device is built into the machine's on/off switch or selection switch (with claim 5 reciting the sensor as a camera or area sensor). Combined with claim 1 (activation of usage authorization on biometric match), this discloses the functional equivalent of the '333's FIG. 16 "combined play and authorize button" and the claim‑13/14 requirement that the biometric be taken as part of initiating game play.

The '333 itself treats FIG. 16 as a mere packaging/ergonomics variant ("a particular device that enables the process explained in FIG. 15 to work even more effectively"). A structural relocation of a known sensor into a known button is the archetypal obvious design modification.

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8. Motivation to combine — the affirmative case (KSR factors)

1. Same field, same problem, same solution space. All primary references (WO '416; WO '10658; DE '140; DE '52692; IGT/Wells; Cumbers) are in G07F 17/32 — the '333's own CPC class. The problem (verify that the person using a gaming device is the enrolled player; enable cashless/EFT play; exclude minors/banned players) is common and was expressly identified in the art (e.g., US 8,243,929: "unauthorized usage of such cards, such as use of stolen or lost cards").
2. Finite, identified, predictable options. Two‑factor authentication (something you have + something you are) was the standard ATM model; the '333's first‑authenticator list is framed by the applicants themselves as items "expected to be in use now or in the near future" — an admission of a known menu of options.
3. Design incentive / market pressure. Cashless gaming, player‑tracking, EFT, IRS Form W2G reporting above $1,200, and underage‑gambling enforcement were all existing commercial/regulatory pressures. Each reference independently motivates the combination.
4. Reasonable expectation of success. The '333's own architecture (readers coupled to the SMIB/RGC over the casino network; off‑the‑shelf AuthenTec readers) is disclosed in the IGT and DE references; nothing in the combination requires a new principle of operation.
5. Third‑office and litigation evidence that the combination was conventional. (a) The EPO cited US 6,709,333 B1 itself as a "Y" (obviousness‑in‑combination) document against claims 1–10 of EP 1 947 620 (search report dated 4 June 2008). (b) The PTAB instituted trial in IPR2019‑00320 on the premise that Bradford '928 — the '333's parent, same specification — discloses or renders obvious an IGT kiosk/gaming terminal with first‑authenticator reader, biometric reader, network verification and play authorization (https://www.ipwatchdog.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/William-Hill-00320.pdf), and in IPR2022‑00600 combined Bradford '928 with Foss for a card‑lookup enrollment step (https://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/Apple-Inc.-v.-Cpc-Pat.-Techs.-Pty-Ltd-No.-IPR2022-00600.pdf). In other words, the industry and the Board have treated this very disclosure as describing conventional subject matter.

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9. Where an obviousness attack is weakest (and how to answer it)

1. The strongest non‑obviousness argument is the "large‑database false‑positive" insight. The specification's core asserted insight is that single‑biometric identification fails at casino scale (multiple matches in a >100,000‑entry database), so a second, non‑biometric authenticator is used first to index the record, and the biometric is then used only for verification (a 1:1 comparison) rather than identification (1:N search). Rebuttal: (i) the claims as issued do not require 1:1 verification-only matching — claim 1/4 recite "means for using the first authenticator to find the associated second authenticator" and claim 7 separately covers the zero/multiple‑match case, showing the 1:N problem was handled by a reject‑and‑retry convention, not by architecture; (ii) the card‑indexes‑the‑record‑then‑verify‑biometric architecture is exactly what Cumbers and US 8,243,929 do; (iii) recognizing a problem is not inventive where the solution is the standard two‑factor pattern. The '333 never articulates an unexpected result — the stated benefit is greater assurance, which is the arithmetic consequence of requiring two independent factors.
2. Teaching away (the real risk). US 8,243,929 (IGT) affirmatively argues against central storage of reference biometrics on privacy and bandwidth/delay grounds, preferring storage on the player‑carried device. If a court found this to teach away from the "central player ID database with the biometric associated with the card record," grounds relying on that reference for the central‑database arrangement weaken. Answer: claim 4 does not require remote/central comparison (the specification expressly supports local caching, FIG. 3 standalone embodiments, and "only the second authenticator data associated with the current player would be cached"), so the claim reads on the IGT card‑resident‑biometric embodiment; and the teaching‑away is directed to a different trade‑off (privacy/bandwidth), not to the claimed card+biometric+reader combination.
3. Means‑plus‑function scope. A patentee may argue the prior art lacks the corresponding structure disclosed for each means. Expect the battle to be over the "means for associating" (the player ID database records with first/second authenticator fields) and the BDIM/RGC architecture. Both are described at a high level of generality in the '333 and are matched by Cumbers' account files and the IGT authentication/registration servers.
4. Secondary considerations — none found. I located no evidence of commercial success, licensing, copying, or industry praise with a nexus to these claims. The '333 expired 17 Jul 2021 and, per my earlier searches, I found no litigation, IPR or PGR asserting it, so there is no developed record of objective indicia to rebut obviousness.

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10. Bottom line per claim

Overall: the '333 is a high‑risk patent on § 103 grounds in its independent claims. Its disclosures are broad and functional, its specification concedes that the enabling hardware and biometric matching were known, and the card‑plus‑biometric gaming access combination was documented in the art by 1994 (WO 94/10658, WO 94/16416) and applied to gaming terminals specifically before the critical date (US 8,243,929, § 102(e) date 2000‑01‑27). The most defensible claims are 15/17 (W2G auto‑population), and they are defensible only to the extent the art lacks a name‑bearing record combined with a biometric-verified triggered form — a gap that US 8,243,929 largely fills.

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Uncertainties I am flagging rather than papering over: (1) the priority date is reported as both 2001‑02‑15 and 2001‑06‑20 across sources, which determines whether DE 199 44 140 A1 (publ. 28 Mar 2001), DE 199 52 692 A1 (publ. 3 May 2001) and DE 100 60 079 A1 (publ. 20 Jun 2002) are available as printed‑publication art; (2) I could not retrieve the '333's own front‑page citation list and used the parent '928's list as a proxy; (3) I have not read WO 94/10658 or WO 94/16416 in full — the characterizations above rest on their claims as reproduced in the search results and on the EPO's X‑categorization in EP 1 120 757 A3; (4) no PTAB or court has ever construed these means‑plus‑function limitations, so any § 112(f) construction is my own. All of these should be verified against the USPTO Image File Wrapper for 10/411,914 and the provisional(s) before relying on this analysis.