US 7058356

I'll verify the patent details and check for any litigation or docket activity.

Let me look for the actual claim language and any CAFC activity.

US Patent 7,058,356 — Analyst Summary

Sourcing note: I was able to work primarily from the authoritative full text of the patent (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7058356](/patent/US7058356)/en), plus corroborating secondary listings. Where a field below was not verifiable from authoritative text, I flag it.

Bibliographic data

Family: A long continuation chain descends from this patent, including US 7,496,328; 7,856,204; 8,131,208; 8,432,340; 8,442,427; 8,620,208; 8,666,308; 8,718,539; and 9,357,335.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A telephone device is used to establish two-way communication with a remotely located entity, or to transfer content from a display screen of the telephone device to a nearby display screen for full viewing of the content. The two-way communication is initiated by an object emitting a signal containing a telephone number to the telephone device, which, in turn, automatically dials the telephone number. Alternatively, the object emits a signal containing an electronic address to a telephone device, which, in turn, automatically goes to the electronic address. Transfer of content also is achieved by transmitting an electronic address of content shown on a telephone device display screen to a nearby device which retrieves the content and then displays it on the nearby display screen."

Plain-language overview

The patent describes a wireless handset ("TV Phone") that merges three functions: a cordless/cellular telephone, a TV remote, and a one‑button auto‑dialer/auto‑browser driven by data broadcast or emitted by nearby objects.

• Data delivery. A phone number or web address rides along with the TV signal (e.g., in the vertical blanking interval, like closed captioning; also contemplated via cable, program guides, or HDTV spectrum), or is emitted by a non‑TV "real world object" — a billboard, sign, printed page, or kiosk — carrying a short‑range wireless transmitter (IR, Bluetooth, RF, etc.).
• The handset's action. The phone receives that number/address wirelessly, loads it into an auto-dialer, indicates availability via a light/beep/on‑screen display, and, on the press of a special button (or voice command), either dials the number itself (cell‑phone embodiment) or signals a set‑top box to dial (cordless/base‑station embodiment).
• Reverse‑direction calls. In variants, the set‑top box or a telemarketing service places the call to the user, addressing cost‑allocation/billing differences across regions.
• Handset‑to‑big‑screen transfer. Content (or merely a URL) displayed on the phone's small LCD is pushed by wireless to a nearby TV, WebTV‑type device, or kiosk, which retrieves and renders the full content on the larger screen — optionally gated by a payment module that authorizes the phone (e.g., by its phone number) and tracks usage fees.
• Additional features. Speech recognition for channel/command control; gyroscopic "3D mouse"/spatial pointer use; PDA‑type functions (address book, calendar, media playback, camera, pager); picture‑phone video; and GPS/triangulation for location‑based number selection.

Independent claims — plain-language overview

Caveat on claim text: The authoritative full text I retrieved contains the specification and drawings discussion but cuts off before the numbered claims. I therefore cannot reproduce or characterize the literal claim language with high confidence. What is reliably available is the specification's own six‑part "Overview of Present Invention," which maps one‑to‑one onto the patent's independent‑claim schemes (the statements are phrased in claim‑like preamble form). Treat the following as a faithful summary of the disclosed independent subject matter, not as verified claim wording:

1. Object‑emits‑number scheme (section I). A telephone device with (a) a button and (b) a wireless receiver: an object (or a device attached to it) emits a signal containing a telephone number; the receiver picks it up; pressing the button causes the phone to automatically dial and establish two‑way communication with the remote entity. Variations: billboard as the object; set‑top box as the object; cordless base‑station‑in‑set‑top‑box vs. cellular implementations; and "call‑me‑back" via user identity information.
2. Object‑emits‑address scheme (section II). Same architecture, except the emitted signal carries an electronic address (e.g., a web site URL), and pressing the button causes the phone to automatically go to that address; the phone's display shows the retrieved content.
3. Content push to a nearby screen (section III). A telephone device with a display screen, a button, and a wireless transmitter: stored content is shown on the phone, then transmitted to a local control device attached to a nearby (non‑connected) display screen, which renders it — optionally via a decoder, and optionally expanding a "portion of content" into the full image.
4. Address push to a nearby screen — scheme 1 (section IV). The phone stores content (or a portion) and its electronic address; on button press it sends the address to the local control device, which fetches the content over a network (Internet/website in the preferred embodiment) and displays it. Optional payment module/kiosk gating.
5. Address push to a nearby screen — scheme 2 (section V). The phone itself retrieves and stores only the electronic address (no content necessarily shown), displays the address, and on button press transmits it to the local control device for remote retrieval and display. Same payment‑module/kiosk option.
6. Set‑top‑box dialing scheme (section VI). A wireless phone plus a set‑top box that contains the phone's base station and connects to both a telephone system and a television: the set‑top box stores a number and causes telephone‑number information (number and/or a phone icon) to appear on the TV; pressing the phone's button signals the set‑top box to dial, establishing two‑way communication. Variants: prestored station‑to‑number lists, call forwarding, and user‑identity call‑back.

Bottom line: the independent coverage clusters into two families — (A) receiving an emitted number/address and auto‑acting on it (items 1, 2, 6), and (B) pushing content or a content address from a handset to a nearby larger display (items 3, 4, 5).

Docket / litigation check (USPTO and CAFC 2026)

I searched for litigation, PTAB, and Federal Circuit activity tied specifically to 7,058,356. Findings and limits:

• No CAFC 2026 docket entry for patent 7,058,356 was located. Several 2026 Federal Circuit–adjacent matters involving Amazon Technologies surfaced in search (e.g., Amazon/InterDigital UPC‑related orders dated March 2026; Amazon–DivX district court willfulness ruling; IPR2026‑00195 on U.S. 10,250,877), but none of these reference 7,058,356. That patent number does not appear in any of the docket materials returned.
• The patent number appears in search‑result hit lists only as a cited reference in other patents' prior‑art tables (e.g., U.S. 8,867,571; 8,964,220; 8,050,973), not as an asserted patent.
• Consistent with the expired‑lifetime status, I found no indication of active enforcement. I cannot state with certainty that no litigation ever touched this patent — my searches were not exhaustive of PACER/CAFC archives — so I flag this as unverified rather than a definitive negative.

Uncertainty flags: (1) literal independent‑claim language is unverified — the retrieved text omitted the claims; (2) assignee is listed as Amazon Technologies, Inc. per Google Patents but "may be inaccurate" by Google's own disclaimer; (3) litigation/docket status is a negative search result, not an affirmative confirmation of no activity.

I'll search for litigation involving US Patent 7,058,356 across litigation-tracking sources.

Let me dig deeper into litigation-specific sources.

Let me search litigation databases and the Slotznick patent family specifically.

Summary of Findings

I was unable to identify any litigation in which U.S. Patent No. 7,058,356 has been asserted. Based on my searches of litigation-tracking sources (including the Unified Patents litigation portal, Justia/patent case repositories, PTAB filings, and general case references), I found no district court complaint, ITC investigation, or other court/agency proceeding that names US 7,058,356 as an asserted patent.

Important caveat

My search tools were limited, and the sources I reached (Unified Patents portal search pages, Justia, PTAB petition PDFs, Google Patents) mostly returned similar patent numbers rather than this exact patent. Because absolute negation is hard to prove, treat "no litigation found" as a negative result from these searches rather than a definitive, exhaustively verified fact. CourtListener/RECAP and PACER docket searches for the exact number would be the appropriate next verification step.

Why "similar-number" hits are NOT this patent (do not auto-correct)

Several results contain patent numbers ending in "356" that are different patents and must not be conflated with 7,058,356:

• U.S. Patent No. 4,763,356 ("the Day patent," Touch Screen Form Entry System) — the AT&T/Lucent patent at issue in Lucent Technologies, Inc. v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.) / v. Dell, Inc. (S.D. Cal. case No. 07-cv-2000; Fed. Cir. Nos. 2008-1485, -1487, -1495). Jury found Microsoft infringed; $357,693,056.18 award; Fed. Cir. affirmed liability but vacated/remanded damages. This is not US 7,058,356.
• U.S. Patent No. 7,555,357 — asserted by Stratasys against Bambu Lab (E.D. Tex., 2024–2026). Not this patent.
• The PTAB petition referencing "the '835 patent" (IPR concerning TCL/Hisense/ZyXEL litigation, ~2021) concerns a different patent ending in 835, not 7,058,356.

Patent (7,058,356) background gathered

• Title: "Telephone device with enhanced audio-visual features for interacting with nearby displays and display screens"
• Inventor: Benjamin Slotznick
• Application: US 09/880,168; filed 2001-06-13; priority to Provisional 60/211,596 filed 2000-06-15; granted 2006-06-06
• Current/last recorded assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (reassignment recorded 2013, from inventor Slotznick); originally assigned to the individual
• Status per Google Patents: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2024-02-28)
• Part of a continuation family, including US 7,496,328; 7,856,204; 8,131,208; 8,438,240; 8,442,427; 8,620,208; 8,666,308; 8,718,539; 9,357,335
• Cited as prior art in later patents (e.g., US 8,050,973; US 8,867,571)

Bottom line

• No known litigation involving US 7,058,356 was found. I found no evidence of any plaintiff (including Amazon Technologies or Slotznick) enforcing this specific patent, and no PTAB/IPR proceeding referencing it.
• If you need certainty, I recommend a direct PACER/CourtListener search on "7,058,356" (and the related family numbers above) and a Unified Patents portal case-list query, since my access to those specific result pages was incomplete.

I would rather report this as "no litigation identified with the searches performed" than assert that none exists anywhere — I do not have high-confidence, exhaustive coverage of all federal dockets.

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

PTAB / AIA Trial Activity — U.S. Patent No. 7,058,356

Patent: U.S. 7,058,356 B2, "Telephone device with enhanced audio-visual features for interacting with nearby displays and display screens" (Slotznick). Priority 2000-06-15 (Prov. 60/211,596); filed 2001-06-13 (App. 09/880,168); granted 2006-06-06; statutory/terminal status: Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2024-02-28. Current assignee of record: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (assignments recorded 2013-08-27 and 2013-11-22).

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: ZERO (0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied). The USPTO Open Data Portal block supplied with this task is the canonical source and returns no AIA trial proceedings; my independent web checks (PTAB dockets, PTAB E2E/PTACTS decision text, Google Patents prosecution/legal-events tab, Unified Patents portal, CourtListener) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming U.S. 7,058,356 as the challenged patent. The defensive posture this creates is unusual and cuts both ways: there is no PTAB invalidity record to hand a court — the claims are entirely untested before the Board — but the patent expired on 2024-02-28, so the practical defense for a defendant is the damages window, not a Black-letter "claim 1 is dead" IPR win. This is a citation-heavy legacy patent (cited by later wireless-display and Flexiworld-family art), not a claim asserted against a defendant pool that drew IPRs.

⚠️ Do not conflate — two different "705" patents. Public filings from K.Mizra LLC v. Google (W.D. Tex., Case 6:22-cv-…, briefing filed on CourtListener) refer to a "'705 Patent" directed to network quarantine / trusted platform modules. That is not U.S. 7,058,356. Likewise, PTAB papers referring to a "'705 patent" whose claims 10–12 and 15–17 were treated as never having been part of the patent (institution papers in the IPR2021-… series concerning a vending/payment patent) are a different patent. If you find an IPR citing "'705" and quarantine or vending subject matter, it is irrelevant to a 7,058,356 defense and should not be cited.

Per-proceeding entries

None. There is no proceeding number to report, and I will not manufacture one. Per the operating constraints, the absence is the finding. The relevant public anchors confirming the absence:

Adjacent activity that is NOT a proceeding on this patent (flagged for completeness)

• Unified Patents PATROLL contest on U.S. 7,137,127 (Slotznick). Unified ran a crowd-sourced prior-art contest targeting a different Slotznick patent (user-generated embedded information transfer) and paid a $1,000 award (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights?offset=1590789327062). Relevance: a defensive aggregator has previously looked at this inventor's portfolio, but not at 7,058,356.
• Unified Patents portal entry for the publication US2001/0055951 A1 (the pre-grant publication of 7,058,356): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-20010055951-A1 — the portal is an automated defensive-monitoring listing, not evidence of a Unified challenge. Do not represent it as one.
• Third-party IPRs using Slotznick art (U.S. Pub. 2005/0282582 A1 and the 7,058,356 specification, Figs. 3 and 1B). E.g., Petitioner briefing in TCL Industries Holdings Co. v. Maxell, Ltd., IPR2025-00135, relies on "Slotznick" against Maxell's U.S. 10,219,020 — see the Patent Owner Preliminary Response summary at https://cases.arcticinvent.com/us/patent/us/patent-owners-preliminary-response-to-petition-for-inter-partes-review/ipr2025-00135/. Here 7,058,356-family material is prior art being used to attack someone else's patent — the inverse of an IPR against 7,058,356. It is genuinely useful to a defendant as a map of the closest art and how the Board reads it, but it is not a proceeding on this patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all claims UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim of 7,058,356 has been canceled, confirmed, or even instituted upon in an AIA trial. There is therefore no FWD to quote and no claim-level disposition to report; every claim — independent and dependent — remains as issued (never reexamined or amended). The only narrowing of this family came from prosecution, not post-grant practice: the continuation chain (11/212,450 → 7,496,328; 12/372,385 → 7,856,204; 12/973,039 → 8,131,208; 13/412,664 → 8,718,539; 13/563,207 → 8,442,427; 13/563,190 → 8,620,208; 13/563,211 → 8,666,308; 13/563,195 → 8,433,240; 14/267,744 → 9,357,335), much of which ended in terminal disclaimers to obviate non-statutory double patenting.

Estoppel landscape: empty. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted on 7,058,356, there is no § 315(e)(2) petitioner-side estoppel and no § 325(e)(2) parallel estoppel binding anyone. A defendant today is free to raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, before the Board or in district court, unconstrained by prior IPR art that "reasonably could have been raised." The flip side: you cannot free-ride on someone else's win, and there is no IPR estoppel running against the patent owner either. Note also that the assignee chain now runs to Amazon Technologies, Inc. — check current ownership/adverse-license posture before assuming a small-entity patent-owner dynamic.

Timing and eligibility filter. The patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2024-02-28). That does not legally bar an IPR (the Board has instituted on expired patents where claims remain subject to challenge), but it materially changes the calculus: no amendment is available to the owner, no prospective injunction, and the recoverable damages window is closed as of 2024-02-28 (plus up to six years of look-back constrained by the expiration). Practically, an IPR on this patent would be an expensive exercise with limited defensive payoff relative to simply proving the expiration date and the pre-2024-02-28 damages boundary. Infringement theories built on post-expiration conduct are non-starters.

Pattern signals. No repeat-petitioner pattern exists on this patent (there is no petitioner at all). The patent owner/inventor has not pursued PTAB appeals on this patent; the only appellate activity in the Slotznick portfolio I could verify is a prosecution appeal, In re Slotznick (Fed. Cir., decided 2012-02-13, nonprecedential, affirmed — https://www.cetient.com/case/in-re-slotznick-[622737](/patent/622737)), arising from application 10/888,081, not from a PTAB trial. The presence of a Unified Patents PATROLL contest on the sibling '127 patent suggests defensive-aggregator attention to the inventor, but no aggregator challenge to 7,058,356 is on record.

Recommended next steps

1. State the absence plainly in any opinion or defense memo. "No AIA trial proceeding has ever been instituted on U.S. 7,058,356" is a verifiable, citable fact drawn from the USPTO ODP block; there is no FWD to link and no disposition to quote. Do not accept a demand letter that asserts an IPR "invalidated" or "narrowed" this patent — no such record exists.
2. Lead with expiration, not invalidity. Confirm the adjusted-expiration entry (2024-02-28) at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7058356B2/en and against USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR, then map any asserted damages period to before that date and apply the § 286 six-year bar. For pre-expiration conduct, the § 282 burden stays on the defendant — and with no IPR record, you carry the full invalidity case yourself.
3. If you want a PTAB vehicle, verify standing/eligibility first. Consider whether an IPR on an expired patent is worth filing given no prospective relief; more often the better path is a § 101/§ 112 and prior-art challenge in the district court case, using the extensive prosecution history and the third-party art already mapped in IPR2025-00135 (available via the PTAB E2E docket at https://ptacts.uspto.gov and the Arctic Invent summary linked above).
4. Watch for family-member assertions. Because 7,058,356 expired but the continuation family (7,496,328; 7,856,204; 8,131,208; 8,433,240; 8,442,427; 8,620,208; 8,666,308; 8,718,539; 9,357,335) includes later-expiring claims, run a fresh check on those numbers in PTAB E2E and CourtListener before concluding the portfolio is dormant. A demand letter citing "7,058,356" sometimes rides on a sibling patent's live claims.
5. Confidence caveat. I could not query PTAB E2E interactively from this environment, and third-party trackers (Unified portal, Docket Alarm, CourtListener) index inconsistently for very old filings. My conclusion — no PTAB activity on 7,058,356 — is consistent across the canonical ODP data and every public source I reached, but treat it as "no proceeding on file" rather than a negative-clearance opinion until a direct E2E/PatentCenter docket pull confirms it.

I'll research the assignment record before writing. Let me pull what I can from public sources.

Found a lead — Flexiworld Technologies v. Amazon. Let me dig deeper on the assignment record and litigation.

Let me try to pull the actual USPTO assignment records and the Amazon acquisition details.

Ownership & Assignment Report — US 7,058,356 B2

"Telephone device with enhanced audio-visual features for interacting with nearby displays and display screens"
App. No. 09/880,168 · Filed 2001-06-13 · Issued 2006-06-06 · Priority 2000-06-15 (Prov. 60/211,596) · Now Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2024-02-28)

Data caveat (read first). I was not able to retrieve the USPTO Assignment Center records for this patent in this session — the live Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov search did not return reel/frame images or correspondent fields to me. Everything below is built from (a) the authoritative patent text you supplied, whose embedded Google Patents legal-events block records the post-issuance transfers, and (b) the family pages on the Unified Patents portal. Reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and correspondents of record are therefore reported as "not retrieved." I have not invented them. Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 7058356).

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Inventors

• No "inventor departure" pattern applies. There was never a corporate original assignee for the inventor to depart from — this is a classic lone-inventor patent, which removes the most common fire-sale precursor (all inventors exiting the original assignee within 12 months).
• Slotznick remains an active independent inventor: the same Pennsylvania address appears on a long series of later applications (videoconferencing, camera auto-focus, microphone localization) running through 2026-02-24 (patents-review.com inventor profile 180159). So he is an individual serial filer, not an employee-inventor.
• Same sole inventor on the entire continuation family: US 7,496,328; 7,856,204; 8,131,208; 8,433,240; 8,442,427; 8,620,208; 8,666,308; 8,718,539; 9,357,335.

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Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Individual — Benjamin Slotznick (per the Google Patents bibliographic block: "Original Assignee: Individual"). There was no company at issuance.
• Primary line of business: none — an individual inventor.
• Product embodying the claims: No evidence of a commercial product. The specification is written in prospective/first-person framing ("the TV Phone," "prototypes," "the commercial viability of the present invention may depend on who is charged for the call") — i.e. a concept-and-architecture disclosure, not a shipping product's description. This is a conception-stage patent that was later monetized/transferred, which is the honest characterization.
• Current status of the original assignee: the individual is active and filing (through at least 2026). The patent itself has since left him (see below).

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Assignment timeline

The patron record shows exactly two recorded post-issuance transfers, both to the same assignee, from the same assignor with no intervening NPE, shell, or aggregator link.

• Execution date: not retrieved / recorded 2013-08-27 — Reel not retrieved / not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (reassignment)
  • Assignor: Benjamin Slotznick (individual)
  • Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc. (Reno, NV — Amazon.com, Inc.'s IP-holding subsidiary)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — repeat-correspondent check not possible on this record
  • Context: Outright acquisition / strategic portfolio purchase by an operating company (Amazon) roughly one year before the November 2014 Echo launch.

• Execution date: not retrieved / recorded 2013-11-22 — Reel not retrieved / not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (reassignment) — second recording to the same assignee within ~3 months
  • Assignor: Benjamin Slotznick
  • Assignee: Amazon Technologies, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Confirmatory / companion recording for the same transaction. A second same-party recording this close to the first typically reflects either a confirmatory assignment or a single deal papered in two lots (e.g. issued patent + pending continuations). Not an NPE-to-NPE hop.

No other assignments are recorded. Specifically, there is no Acacia / Marathon / Intellectual Ventures / IPNav / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Round Rock / Spangenberg-type link anywhere in this chain. That absence is itself the primary finding.

Family corroboration (not a substitute for reel/frame): the continuation members of this family are listed on the Unified Patents portal with Original Assignee: Amazon Technologies Inc. and Parent Company: Amazon Com Inc (e.g. US 8,433,240 B2, app 13/563,195; US 2009/0149125 A1, app 12/372,385). That is consistent with one 2013 Amazon acquisition sweeping the whole family, but the portal's "original assignee" field is assignment-derived, so treat it as corroboration, not independent proof.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7058356
    2000 : Provisional filed by Slotznick
    2001 : Non-provisional filed as individual
    2006 : Patent issued to inventor personally
    2013 : Assigned to Amazon Technologies Inc
         : Second same-party recording
    2014 : Amazon Echo launches
    2024 : Patent expires

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

On the Flexiworld coincidence. US 7,058,356 appears in the docket of Flexiworld Technologies, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. (W.D. Tex. 6:20-cv-00553, transferred to W.D. Wash. 2:21-cv-01055). Flexiworld is an NPE asserting 91 claims across 10 patents against Amazon — but those are the William Ho Chang wireless-output family, not Slotznick's. Flexiworld does not own '356; Amazon does. So the '356's presence in that case is best read as Amazon-side use of its own acquired patent as prior art (Slotznick's 2000 priority predates Flexiworld's Nov-2001 filing). The US-7058356-$.DID string surfacing in a PTAB petition bundle is consistent with that reading. I flag this as suggestive, not confirmed — I could not isolate the exhibit.

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Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting.

Justification. The entire recorded chain is two same-party assignments — executed-to-issuance 2006, then recordings of 2013-08-27 and 2013-11-22 moving US 7,058,356 from the individual inventor Benjamin Slotznick to Amazon Technologies, Inc. — with no shell LLC, no NPE, no aggregator, no bankruptcy, and no <24-month cascade (so signals 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7 all read not present). The terminal owner is an operating company that ships products squarely in the claimed space (Echo/Fire TV/Alexa, launched ~15 months after the acquisition) yet has never asserted this patent, and the patent expired 2024-02-28 — the practical effect is a neutralized, held asset. Nuance: Amazon is not a formal defensive aggregator, so this label reflects the observed posture (acquired for defensive/prior-art leverage, never asserted) rather than a literal RPX/AST-style terminal owner. The one material gap is reel/frame and correspondent of record, which I could not retrieve — if the Assignment Center shows a correspondent other than Amazon's own in-house/IP counsel, signal 3 would need re-testing.

Confirm at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — search patent number 7058356; index page: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

I'll search for the patent and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the actual cited references section from US7058356B2 itself.

Let me look for the Justia/freepatentsonline listing for this specific patent's cited references.

I hit my tool-call budget while drilling into the patent's face page, so I'll report exactly what I was able to verify — and be explicit about what I could not. I did not auto-correct any patent number.

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Prior-art analysis — US 7,058,356 B2

1. Patent identified (verified)

No similar number (e.g., 4,763,356 "Day," 7,555,357 Stratasys/Bambu, or the "835" IPR patent) was substituted.

2. Sourcing caveat on the citation list — read this first

The authoritative text supplied to me (the Google Patents full text) cuts off before the printed claims and before the "(56) References Cited" face-page list. I therefore could not directly read 7,058,356's own front-page citations within my step budget.

What I did verify is the "(56) References Cited" list printed on the granted continuation US 8,442,427 B2 (Slotznick), in the same family and sharing the identical specification — the PDF at
https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/93/85/69/d136a46a6ee4ef/US8442427.pdf (its cross-reference section states it is a continuation of "No. 7,058,356").

Because US 8,442,427 is a continuation of 7,058,356, its cited-art list closely tracks (and is a strong proxy for) the art considered in the 7,058,356 prosecution — but it is a proxy, not the face page of 7,058,356. I flag this rather than present it as certain. Where I am unsure of a reference's subject matter, I say so instead of guessing.

3. Cited references (as verified on the family face page)

Note on dates: because the family's effective filing date is 2001-06-13 (priority 2000-06-15), references 8–13 were all granted after that date and can only be § 102(e) art if their own U.S. filing dates precede 2001-06-13. I could not verify those filing dates within budget — treat as unconfirmed.

4. § 102 anticipation analysis (mapped to the six disclosed schemes I–VI)

Using the scheme numbering from the earlier-generated sections:

• Ref. 3 — US 5,410,326 (Goldstein), 1995. The most plausible single-reference § 102 candidate is against the remote-control aspect of the TV Phone (the handset operating the TV, and the general "remote with display" concept). It does not appear to disclose the emitted-number/address auto-dial (Schemes I, II, VI) or handset→nearby-screen content push (Schemes III–V). Best characterized as § 103 background art, not a clean § 102 anticipation of any independent scheme.
• Ref. 6 — US 6,040,829 (Croy), 2000-03-21. A "personal navigator" handheld is relevant to the handheld-device-with-display structure of Schemes III–V, but I could not confirm it discloses the wireless push of content/address to a nearby, non-connected larger screen that is the core of Schemes III–V. Potential § 103 art; § 102 anticipation unconfirmed.
• Refs. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7–13. I cannot responsibly map these to specific claims because I could not confirm their subject matter. Listing them against a specific independent scheme would be fabrication. They should each be pulled and read before any § 102 position is stated.

On the two core families:

• Family A — object emits number/address → handset auto-dials/browses (Schemes I, II, VI): I found no verified single reference that discloses the complete combination (broadcast/blanking-interval number → wireless receiver in handset → one-button auto-dial).
• Family B — handset pushes content or a URL to a nearby non-connected display (Schemes III–V): likewise no verified single-reference anticipation; the closest art is § 103 material.

5. Additional highly-relevant art in this technology space (NOT confirmed on 7,058,356's face)

Surfaced via the related ARRIS US 8,823,880 listing (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[8823880](/patent/8823880).html) and a forward-citation page (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-20010055951-A1). These are field-relevant but I did not confirm they are cited on 7,058,356, so they are flagged separately:

• US 6,094,741 (Allport et al., 2000-08-01) — "System for dual-display interaction with integrated television and internet content"
• US 6,104,334 (Allport et al., 2000-08-15) — "Portable internet-enabled controller and information browser for consumer devices"
• US 6,130,726 (Darbee et al., 2000-10-10) — "Program guide on a remote control display"
• US 5,671,267 (August et al., 1997-09-23) — "Interactive system for communications between a cordless telephone and a remotely operated device"
• US 5,710,605 (Nelson et al., 1998-01-20) — TV/VCR remote with display
• US 5,262,860 (ref. surfaced as a co-citation with 7,058,356 in a later patent's family listing)

US 5,671,267 (August) and US 6,094,741 (Allport) are, on their face, the most conceptually proximate references to the cordless-phone-as-TV-remote and handheld-controlling-TV-internet-content concepts, and would be the first documents I would read for a § 102/§ 103 position against Schemes I/VI and III respectively.

6. Uncertainty flags & recommended next step

1. The § 3 reference list is sourced from the continuation US 8,442,427, not directly from 7,058,356's face page. Verify against the 7,058,356 "References Cited" on USPTO Patent Center (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov, application 09/880,168) or the granted PDF front page before relying on it.
2. Refs. 1, 2, 4, 5, 7–13 are unverified as to subject matter — no § 102 claim mapping should be quoted from this memo for those items.
3. Filing dates for refs. 8–13 are unverified, which governs whether they are even § 102(e) art.
4. The printed claims of 7,058,356 were not available in the supplied text; the analysis above maps to the specification's six-part "Overview" schemes (I–VI), consistent with the earlier-generated sections, not to verified claim numbers.

I would rather report these as "proxies and candidates, verification pending" than assert a definitive prior-art set I could not read off the patent itself.

I'll research the prior art that the examiner actually relied on for this patent, rather than guessing.

Key lead found: a family member lists "Patent Citations (18)" and a highly relevant reference, US6580422B1. Let me pull the actual citation lists and claim language.

Let me try to retrieve the actual "References Cited" / citations list and the claims.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,058,356 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)

Builds on the "Patent summary" and "Litigation summary" sections above. Does not repeat bibliographic or docket content except where needed to frame the legal analysis.

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0. Scope, source basis, and evidence-grade legend

Governing statute. The application was filed 2001‑06‑13 with a priority date of 2000‑06‑15, so pre‑AIA § 103(a) governs, together with pre‑AIA §§ 102(a)/(b)/(e). The critical date for prior art is June 15, 2000 (provisional 60/211,596); art published after that date can still qualify under pre‑AIA § 102(e) only if it was filed before that date.

What I could and could not retrieve. The "Prior Art" section of the Google Patents record for this patent furnishes: prior‑art date 2000‑06‑15, and the prior‑art keyword set "telephone / phone / remotely located / telephone device / top box." I was also able to confirm that the family's citation tables include at least one examiner‑cited reference, US 6,580,422 B1. I was not able to retrieve the full 18‑item "Patent Citations" list for '356 in this session; searches were rate‑limited before the list could be pulled.

Evidence‑grade legend used throughout:

Honesty flag. I will not fabricate patent numbers. Where I am confident of a reference number, I say so; where I am only confident of the category of art, I say that instead. The combination theories below are robust regardless of which specific member of each art category an examiner would ultimately cite — the categories are populated with well‑known, pre‑2000 art.

Practical stake. Per the section above, '356 expired 2024‑02‑28. The live question is therefore the continuation family (US 7,496,328; 7,856,204; 8,131,208; 8,432,340; 8,442,427; 8,620,208; 8,666,308; 8,718,539; 9,357,335), which shares this specification and priority. Any ground that invalidates '356's independent subject matter generally carries over to the family, subject to claim‑specific differences I could not verify.

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1. Legal framework applied

• Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope and content of the prior art; differences between prior art and claims; level of ordinary skill; secondary considerations.
• KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): the combination need not be taught expressly; a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" or a "design incentive/market force" suffices. "[I]f a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious."
• MPEP §§ 2141–2143: the seven enumerated motivation‑to‑combine rationales (A)–(G), plus the requirement of articulated reasoning with a rational underpinning (see also In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977 (Fed. Cir. 2006)).
• MPEP § 2129 / Constant v. Advanced Micro‑Devices: statements in the specification's Background characterizing the state of the art are admissions usable as prior art without further corroboration.
• Analagous art: In re Bigio, 381 F.3d 1320 (Fed. Cir. 2004) — same field of endeavor (consumer telephony, TV/set‑top‑box control, and handset data services) or reasonably pertinent to the problem addressed.

Threshold observation. This patent's specification is unusually self‑defeating on § 103. Its Background and "Background" paragraphs expressly describe, as existing technology: WebTV, TiVo® and Replay® players, Palm Pilot/HandSpring PDAs, the Qualcomm combination cell‑phone/PDA, cell phones with Internet access and with short‑text web pages, cell phones used to pay vending machines by credit‑card charge, closed captioning and non‑caption VBI data, gyroscopic "3D mice" (Diamond Multimedia GyroMouse), Bluetooth, WAP, and FCC‑mandated E911 triangulation. Those are [AAPA] and do most of the heavy lifting in Grounds 1–5 below.

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2. Person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer science, or equivalent, plus 2–3 years of experience in one or more of: consumer telephony handset design (cordless/cellular), television or set‑top‑box hardware/software, or interactive‑TV data services. Such a person would be familiar as a matter of course with: VBI/teletext and line‑21 data carriage; IR and RF remote‑control protocols (and the emerging Bluetooth/WAP standards); DTMF autodialers and stored‑number dialing; caller ID; URL/browser client design; and short‑range wireless display/print peripherals. All the motivation rationales below are framed to this level.

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3. Prior art landscape (organized around the record's own prior‑art keywords)

The record's prior‑art keywords — telephone, phone, remotely located, telephone device, top box — map cleanly onto the four claim clusters. Organizing the art accordingly:

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4. Proposed grounds of rejection

Below, each ground is stated as a combination with an explicit motivating rationale keyed to MPEP § 2143's categories. References in brackets are placeholders for the specific member of the category an examiner would cite.

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Ground 1 — Object emits a telephone number; handset auto‑dials it

Targets: Section I / the "remotely located entity + button + wireless receiver" cluster, and Section VI's set‑top‑box variant.

Motivation (AAPA + (D) + (G)). The specification itself states the problem the invention solves: TV advertising "has tried to get TV viewers to pick up a telephone and call a phone number displayed on the TV," and viewers find it burdensome. That is the articulated problem, and the solution — pre‑loading the number into an autodialer so one button press connects — is the application of a known technique (autodial) to a known device (a wireless handset) ready for improvement, to yield predictable results.

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Ground 2 — Add the TV‑remote function to the handset

Targets: the "TV Phone" as remote + auto‑dialer (FIGS. 1C, 3).

Combination: Ground 1's handset + universal/programmable remote‑control art + cordless‑handset art.

Motivation ((A) + (F)). Consolidating a remote control and a cordless handset into one housing is the paradigm of combining known elements according to known methods for predictable results; the market incentive (fewer devices on the coffee table, one device the user is already holding) is expressly the design incentive in the specification's own framing. Notably, the spec concedes that in one alternative embodiment the "TV Phone does not operate as a TV remote control" — i.e., the remote function is treated as an optional add‑on, which is strong evidence the combination was a design choice rather than an inventive step.

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Ground 3 — Put the cordless base station in the set‑top box; STB dials

Targets: Section VI (prestored numbers, on‑screen number/icon, STB dials).

Combination: set‑top box with telephony capability (PPV ordering over a phone line, WebTV dial‑up modem) [AAPA] + cordless base station [DOMAIN] + on‑screen display of the number/icon.

Motivation ((A) + (F)). The STB already sat next to the TV and already had a telephone line for upstream ordering/data; housing the cordless base station there eliminates a wall phone, avoids a second line run, and lets the STB originate the call using the number it already extracted from the VBI. The "telephone icon on screen" limitation is a simple substitution of an on‑screen graphic for a printed telephone number — the spec itself calls this "Similar to closed captioning for the deaf," confirming the mechanism was known.

Secondary variant — STB prestores a station→number table and dials the station, which forwards. This is a known technique (call forwarding / ACD routing) applied to a known device (STB with stored numbers) — rationale (D).

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Ground 4 — Object emits an electronic address; handset auto‑browses

Targets: Section II.

Combination: Ground 1 architecture (wireless reception of an emitted identifier) + WebTV‑type browser appliance [AAPA] + the well‑known substitution of a URL for a telephone number as the "identifier to act on."

Motivation ((B) + (F)). By 2000 the "click‑to‑act" identifier was a recognized design choice with two interchangeable forms — a telephone number (dial) and a URL (fetch). Substituting a URL for a phone number in an otherwise identical receiver‑plus‑action‑button architecture is a simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain a predictable result. The specification reinforces this by describing the same hardware pipeline (VBI → STB → wireless transmitter → handset) carrying either data type.

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Ground 5 — Push content (or an address) from the handset to a nearby display ← strongest ground

Targets: Sections III, IV, and V (the three "nearby display" schemes).

Primary reference: US 6,580,422 B1 [VERIFIED as cited in the family citation table] discloses, in a single document, essentially every structural element of these schemes:

Motivation is express in the reference ((D)): the reference itself states that once the user is "back in the office or home environment … small video display dimensions are a product liability" — an explicit teaching to move the display output to a nearby large screen. The '356 specification's stated benefit ("display that information on a much larger screen than is possible on a cell phone") is the same motivation.

The gap '356 must supply is the substitution of a telephone device for the PCD. That gap is closed by [AAPA]: the spec admits Internet‑enabled cell phones with tiny screens exist and that their screens "limit the amount and type of data that can be displayed. Pictures, graphics and large amounts of text are difficult to view and read." That admission is the motivation, verbatim.

Anticipation note. US 6,580,422 B1 is close enough to Sections III/V that a § 102 challenge is worth pleading in the alternative; the "telephone device" limitation is the only clear structural gap, which is why § 103 is the safer primary theory.

Scheme IV/V (address‑only handoff). Add to Ground 5 a WebTV‑type local device with a network connection [AAPA] and the known address/URL handoff technique (a first device passing an identifier to a second, better‑provisioned device that performs the retrieval — routine in browser/session‑transfer and bookmark‑sync design) [DOMAIN]. Motivation ((C) + (F)): bandwidth and storage are limited on the handset; the local device has the network link and the big screen, so sending the address rather than the payload is the natural, predictable optimization — the same bandwidth‑minimization rationale expressly given in US 6,580,422 B1 for sending graphics primitives rather than a bit stream.

Kiosk / payment‑module limitations. Combination with prepaid/kiosk billing art [AAPA + DOMAIN] — the spec itself concedes that automated buying may be "accomplished by automatically billing the item to the user's phone number, as with 900 numbers." Once billing‑by‑phone‑number is admitted, adding a payment module that (i) receives the handset's phone number as customer identity information and (ii) inhibits the display process until authorized is a known technique applied in a known way (rationale (C)) with a predictable result.

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Ground 6 — Ancillary limitations (speech, 3D mouse, location, picture phone)

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5. Claim‑by‑claim vulnerability assessment

Rank‑ordering for a validity challenge: Cluster 3 > Cluster 1 ≈ Cluster 2 > Cluster 4 ≈ Cluster 5 > Cluster 6.

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6. Rebuttal analysis — what the patentee would argue, and how it fares

1. "No reference teaches receiving a broadcast phone number and auto‑dialing on one button press." Weak. The motivation is supplied by the specification's own statement of the problem, and the mechanism (VBI data + autodial) is admittedly known. KSR forecloses requiring an express teaching of the combination.
2. "The references are non‑analogous (PCD/display art vs. telephony)." Weak. Under In re Bigio, portable‑computing‑display art is reasonably pertinent to the identical problem the '356 specification identifies (small screen → poor data legibility).
3. "US 6,580,422 is directed to graphics primitives, not telephony." This is the best technical argument, and it is why Ground 5 is pleaded as a § 103 combination rather than a standalone § 102 reference. The response is the express motivation in that reference plus the [AAPA] admission about phone screens.
4. Secondary considerations. The only objective evidence in the record of the earlier sections is Amazon Technologies' 2013 acquisition of the family. Acquisition alone does not rebut obviousness absent a nexus to the claimed features; and per the "Litigation summary" above, no assertion of this patent was identified, so there is no evidence of copying, industry praise, or failure of others in the record I could retrieve. Secondary considerations are therefore weakly developed here.
5. AAPA counter‑argument. The patentee may argue that specification Background statements are not "prior art." Under MPEP § 2129 and Constant, applicant admissions in the specification are usable. This is well settled and should not be a successful defense.

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7. Residual gaps and recommended verification

Flagging honestly rather than papering over:

1. [UNVERIFIED] The 18‑item "Patent Citations" list for '356. I confirmed the list exists (via the family table on US 8,442,427) and confirmed US 6,580,422 B1 is among the family's cited references, but I could not retrieve the complete examiner‑cited and applicant‑cited sets. The prior‑art categories above are robust; the specific reference identity for Grounds 1, 2, 3, 4, and 6 is not yet fixed. Pulling the file wrapper (USPTO PatentCenter for application 09/880,168) and the "References Cited" block of the '356 PDF is the single highest‑value next step.
2. [UNVERIFIED] Literal claim language. As flagged in the "Patent summary" above, my retrieved full text was truncated before the numbered claims. The clusters here are drawn from the specification's six‑part "Overview," which is claim‑like but is not verified claim wording. A limitation‑by‑limitation § 103 chart cannot be finalized until the issued claims are pulled.
3. [UNVERIFIED] Family continuations. US 7,496,328; 7,856,204; 8,131,208; 8,432,340; 8,442,427; 8,620,208; 8,666,308; 8,718,539; and 9,357,335 share this specification but may contain claim limitations (e.g., narrower payment‑module, kiosk, or address‑transfer recitations) that require supplemental art. Notably, US 9,357,335 (filed 2014‑05‑01) will not expire until the mid‑2030s and is the member with the most commercial significance, so any validity work should prioritize it.
4. § 101 / § 112 alternatives. Given the breadth of the "Overview" subject matter, a parallel Alice/§ 101 or written‑description challenge may be more productive than § 103 for the continuation members — worth scoping separately.

Bottom line. On the art available and verified, the independent subject matter of US 7,058,356 is more likely than not obvious under § 103(a), with the strongest ground being US 6,580,422 B1 in view of the specification's own admissions regarding web‑enabled cell phones with undersized screens (Section III content‑push), and the second‑strongest being the admitted combination of VBI/teletext number carriage + wireless‑handset autodial (Section I). The specification's Background functions as a large body of Applicant‑Admitted Prior Art, which materially lowers the burden of proof for any challenger.