US 7116438

I'll verify the current status through targeted searches before summarizing.

Let me check for any appellate activity and the reexamination outcome specifically.

Let me check for any appeal of the reexamination decision and any 2026 appellate activity.

US Patent 7,116,438 B2 — "Terminal for information processing"

Verification note: Searches targeted the literal number 7116438. It resolves consistently to US 7,116,438 B2 (app. 10/747,267), which is how the courts and PTO style it (e.g., "'438 Patent"). No conflicting hits for a different patent number were found.

Bibliographic data

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7116438/en

Abstract (as issued)

An electronic notice-board system for allowing information to be contributed to an electronic notice board. A first short-distance communication device carries out communication with the mobile terminal located in a predetermined communication range and a second communication device exchanges data with the mobile terminal after the user of the mobile terminal has been authenticated. Similarly, the mobile terminal also has a short-distance communication device for carrying out communication with the electronic notice board located in a predetermined communication range and a second communication device for exchanging data with the electronic notice board after the user of the mobile terminal has been authenticated. Since users of the electronic notice board must be close by, it is possible to avoid improper use of the electronic notice board by any user located a long distance away from the electronic notice board.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

There are four claims in independent form: 1, 4, 6, and 7 (claims 2–3 depend from 1; claim 5 depends from 4; claim 7 depends from 5).

Claim 1 — the mobile/handheld terminal. An information-processing terminal (embodiment: mobile phone or PDA, with a camera) comprising: (a) an input unit for user input; (b) a first short-distance communication unit (embodiment: infrared or radio LAN) for short-range communication with a display apparatus; and (c) a second communication unit for communicating with that same display apparatus over a network (embodiment: mobile radio network → gateway → Internet). The gating logic is the point of the claim: the short-distance unit, using the user input, performs an authentication process to obtain permission to use the display apparatus; the network unit exchanges data with the display apparatus only if authentication is affirmed, and does not exchange data if it is not affirmed. In substance: a proximity handshake (IR/radio-LAN login with user ID and password) is the precondition for the terminal's network channel to the display being usable at all.

Claim 4 — the display apparatus (mirror image). A display apparatus for presenting information to users surrounding the display apparatus, comprising a first short-distance communication unit for short-range communication with an information-processing terminal and a second communication unit for communicating with that terminal over a network. The authentication gating is the same: the short-distance unit carries out an authentication process; the network unit exchanges data only if authentication is affirmed, and not if it is not. (Note the literal claim language: "an authentication process for allowance to use said information-processing terminal." Read literally it is the reverse of the spec's narrative, where the display apparatus authenticates the user seeking to use the display apparatus. Flagging this as written.)

Claim 6 — the notice-board system. An electronic notice-board system including a display apparatus according to claim 4, wherein the display apparatus is an electronic notice board. This is the system-level wrap-around of the claim-4 apparatus.

Claim 7 — the notice-board system with cross-path identity binding. An electronic notice-board system including a display apparatus according to claim 5 (and therefore claim 4), wherein the display apparatus is an electronic notice board. The added substantive requirement comes from claim 5: a process that associates information on the establishment of the short-distance communication with information on the establishment of the network communication — i.e., tying the two sessions together so the display can verify that the same terminal is on both paths (specifically the session ID 602 for short-distance and the web session ID 604 for the network, per FIG. 6).

Dependent claims for context. Claim 2: the terminal has both a function of contributing data to the display apparatus and a function of adding a comment to contributed data. Claim 3: means for selecting an object displayed on the display apparatus.

Prosecution, claim construction, and litigation history

• Claim construction (earlier case). In Maxell Ltd. v. Huawei Device U.S. Inc., 297 F. Supp. 3d 668 (E.D. Tex. 2018), the court construed '438 terms: "using said input" (claim 1) = plain and ordinary meaning; "an authentication process for allowance to use said display apparatus" (claim 1) = "a process that authorizes the user to use the display apparatus"; "means for selecting an object displayed on said display apparatus" (claim 3) = means-plus-function, function: selecting an object displayed on said display apparatus, structure: input/output unit 103 and associated software. https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[7329083](/patent/7329083)/maxell-ltd-v-huawei-device-us-inc/
• District court. The '438 patent was among the patents asserted in Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., No. 5:19-cv-00036-RWS (E.D. Tex., complaint filed Mar. 15, 2019). The case settled in March 2021 before trial. https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/5--19-cv-00036/Maxell_Ltd._v._Apple_Inc/
• IPR. Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., IPR2020-00201 (P.T.A.B., filed Dec. 19, 2019) — not instituted. https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/[ptab](/ptab)/case/IPR2020-00201
• Ex parte reexamination. Control No. 90/014,678, filed Feb. 12, 2021 by third-party requester Apple (targeting claims 1–2 and 4, with all of claims 1–7 ordered for reexam on Mar. 4, 2021; Art Unit 3992, AIA-FITF status "No"). Per the Google Patents legal-events record, the reexamination certificate on Dec. 26, 2023 cancelled all claims (effective date Dec. 22, 2023, kind code C1). https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/5--19-cv-00036/Maxell_Ltd._v._Apple_Inc/docs/649/1.pdf

CAFC 2026 docket check — what I did and did not find

I searched for Federal Circuit activity keyed to 7116438 / 7,116,438 and to Maxell in 2026. I found no CAFC 2026 docket, appeal, or opinion involving this patent. What my searches surfaced instead:

• Optoma Technology, Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd., No. 2025-1659 (Fed. Cir., oral argument audio posted July 7, 2026) — a Maxell appeal, but not on this patent. https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/07-07-2026-2025-1659-optoma-technology-inc-v-maxell-ltd-audio-uploaded/
• Various 2025–2026 Maxell v. Samsung PTAB and district court activity (e.g., IPR2024-00828, and the E.D. Tex. $112M verdict later overturned) — different patents, not the '438 patent.

Explicit uncertainty / caveats:

1. I could not query PACER, the CAFC CM/ECF docket, or USPTO PatentCenter directly, and my search tooling was capped mid-session. My "no 2026 CAFC activity" finding is a search-based negative, not a docket-confirmed negative. If an appeal of the 90/014,678 reexamination certificate exists, it would most plausibly have been filed in early 2024 (i.e., a 2024 docket number), not 2026 — I did not find such an appeal either, but I cannot rule it out.
2. The reexamination certificate cancelling all claims is reported from the Google Patents legal-events record of the patent page; the underlying PTOL/reexam certificate document was not retrieved in full. The Google Patents status line still reads "Expired – Lifetime, expires 2024-07-03," which is a term/expiration field and may not be updated to reflect the claim cancellation. Treat "all claims cancelled" as the operative substantive status unless confirmed otherwise in PatentCenter.
3. The assignee chain reflects recorded assignments; Maxell, Ltd. is listed as current assignee. I did not independently verify current ownership of any surviving rights.

Bottom line

US 7,116,438 claimed a proximity-gated architecture for interacting with a public display/electronic notice board: a short-range link (IR/radio LAN) performs the authentication that unlocks a separate wide-area network channel to the same display, and (in claims 5/7) the two communication establishments are correlated so the display can confirm the same handheld is on both paths. Originally Hitachi's, it passed to Maxell. It was asserted against Apple in E.D. Tex. (settled 2021) and against Huawei/ZTE earlier, was construed in the Huawei Markman, survived a denied IPR (IPR2020-00201), but was then wiped out claim-by-claim in Apple-requested ex parte reexamination 90/014,678, with a certificate cancelling all claims issued in December 2023.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7116438. Let me run several searches.

I found strong leads. Let me dig deeper into the specific cases and check whether the '438 patent was asserted against other defendants.

Summary

Based on the sources retrieved (Google Patents' litigation panel for US 7,116,438, Docket Alarm/Unified Patents docket data, CourtListener/PACER records, and the E.D. Tex. filings themselves), US 7,116,438 ("Terminal for information processing," Hitachi → Maxell) has been asserted in one confirmed US district court case — Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., No. 5:19-cv-00036 (E.D. Tex.) — and was also included in an earlier E.D. Tex. case against Huawei. It was also the subject of one PTAB IPR petition (Apple, IPR2020-00201, not instituted) and one USPTO ex parte reexamination (90/014,678) that ultimately cancelled all claims. The last two are PTO proceedings, not court litigation, but they arose directly out of the Apple dispute and are essential to the patent's status.

Note on identifiers: I am reporting patent numbers exactly as they appear in the sources. The patent is U.S. Patent No. 7,116,438 (some sources format it "7116438"). The '438 shorthand below refers only to that number.

Litigation involving U.S. 7,116,438

1. Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc. — primary case

Grounding: Google Patents' litigation panel links "US case filed in Texas Eastern District Court … case/5:19-cv-00036" as the case associated with this patent. Apple's partial-motion-to-dismiss summary states Maxell's complaint was filed March 15, 2019, with 7,116,438 among the asserted patents (docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/5--19-cv-00036/Maxell_Ltd._v._Apple_Inc/docs/68/1.pdf). Maxell's Amended Complaint pleads infringement of "claims 1-7 of the '438 Patent" (CourtListener docket 14722224, Doc. 111). The 2021 consolidated-trial-witness filing lists "Infringement and Validity of U.S. Patent No. 7,116,438" (archive.org, gov.uscourts.txed.188434, Doc. 676).

2. Maxell, Ltd. v. Huawei Device USA Inc., et al. — earlier assertion

Grounding: Docket Alarm Doc. 29 in 5:19-cv-00036 lists the related cases and states "Maxell, Ltd. v. Huawei Device USA Inc., et al., C.A. No. 5:16-CV-178-RWS. The case included the '438 Patent." The Markman opinion 297 F. Supp. 3d 668 construed '438 claim 1 ("using said input"; "an authentication process for allowance to use said display apparatus") and claim 3 (means-plus-function "means for selecting an object displayed on said display apparatus").

Caveat: Google Patents' litigation panel for the patent lists only case 5:19-cv-00036, so the 2016 Huawei matter is documented in the court filings rather than the patent page. It is possible the '438 patent was not separately adjudicated to judgment in Huawei before that case closed.

Related PTO proceedings (not court litigation, but directly on this patent)

3. Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd. — PTAB Inter Partes Review

• Case No.: IPR2020-00201
• Petitioner: Apple, Inc.
• Patent: U.S. 7,116,438
• Filed: December 19, 2019
• Outcome: Not instituted. Google Patents labels it "Not Instituted - Merits," and the PTO's reexamination order confirms: "There was a prior inter partes review petition, i.e., IPR2020-00201, which was denied institution of Inter Partes Review."

4. Ex parte reexamination 90/014,678

• Patent under reexamination: U.S. 7,116,438
• Request filed: February 12, 2021 (third-party requester; correspondence via Banner & Witcoff; Erise IP, P.A. also appears)
• Granted: March 4, 2021 (Examiner Yuzhen Ge, Art Unit 3992)
• Final outcome: Reexamination decision cancelled all claims. A Reexamination Certificate (kind code C1) was issued with a filing date of 20210212 and effective date of December 22, 2023 ("REEXAMINATION CERTIFICATE … Reexamination decision cancelled all claims").

Grounding: Order Granting Ex Parte Reexamination (90/014,678), and Apple's Notice of Patent Office Institution (5:19-cv-00036, Doc. 649-1), which lists "U.S. Patent No. 7,116,438 — EPR No. 90/014,678 — Institution Date 3/4/2021."

Important caveats and things I could not confirm

• No district-court final judgment on the '438 patent was verified. The sources document the case through the 2021 activity summarized above; I did not retrieve a verdict, judgment, or dismissal order specifically adjudicating the '438 claims in Maxell v. Apple. Do not treat the Apple case as "won/lost on the merits of '438" based on this report — the '438 claims were separately cancelled by the PTO reexamination in December 2023, which would have effectively ended that portion of the dispute.
• The patent is expired. Google Patents' status is "Expired – Lifetime," with an adjusted expiration of 2024-07-03 (patent term tied to the 2003-05-22 priority / 2003-12-30 filing).
• Foreign family litigation: The Google Patents page shows a Darts-ip "first worldwide family litigation filed" pointer (family ID 33447524) but does not name the foreign cases; I did not verify any specific foreign suits on this patent, so I make no claim about them. (Maxell has filed numerous foreign actions on other patents in its portfolio — e.g., Samsung UPC/Tokyo actions — but I found no source tying those to U.S. 7,116,438.)
• Do not confuse with other Maxell cases. The many other Maxell suits surfaced in these searches (ASUS 5:18-cv-00136; VIZIO 2:21-cv-6758; Samsung; Lenovo 6:21-cv-01169; CORETRONIC 5:24-cv-00088; Optoma 3:24-cv-08147) assert different patents and do not involve U.S. 7,116,438.

If you need the definitive Apple-case disposition on the '438 patent, the next step would be to pull the full PACER/RECAP docket for 5:19-cv-00036 (E.D. Tex.) and check the final judgment/Stipulation of Dismissal entries, plus the reexamination certificate 90/014,678 for the exact claim-cancellation text.

I'll verify the PTAB and reexamination details before writing the analysis.

Let me verify the reexamination outcome and check for any other PTAB filings on this patent.

Let me pin down the institution-denial reasoning and the Federal Circuit appeal outcome.

PTAB / post-grant analysis — US 7,116,438 ("Terminal for information processing")

Threshold caveat on the source data: the structured block says the USPTO ODP returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is only half the story. Google Patents' own family/litigation record for US 7,116,438 carries the flag "PTAB case IPR2020-00201 filed (Not Instituted - Merits)" and links a Petitioner "Apple, Inc." in the Board's legal-events table for a IPR filing on 2020-01-21 citing TRIAL NO: IPR2020-00201 … Opponent name: APPLE, INC. … Effective date: 20191219. So there is one AIA petition; it simply never matured into an instituted trial, which is the most likely reason an ODP "trial proceedings" feed returns nothing. Flagging the discrepancy rather than resolving it silently.

Proceedings overview

AIA trials: one petition, zero instituted trials, zero final written decisions, zero claims cancelled by the PTAB — IPR2020-00201 (Apple, Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.) was filed 2019-12-19 and institution was denied; separately and far more consequentially, all seven claims of the '438 patent (claims 1–7) were cancelled in ex parte reexamination 90/014,678 (request filed 2021-02-12, certificate issued 2023-12-26, effective 2023-12-22). Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a hardened patent — it is a dead one. Every claim a demand letter could cite has been cancelled by the Office, and the patent's own adjusted expiration date (2024-07-03) has also passed.

90/014,678 — ex parte reexamination (Apple Inc. as third-party requester) — all claims cancelled

(Listed first because it is the claims-invalidating event. It is a Central Reexamination Unit proceeding, not an AIA trial, and is not counted in the "one AIA petition" tally above.)

• Type: Ex parte reexamination, 35 U.S.C. §§ 302–307 (third-party requester: Apple Inc.). Not an IPR/PGR/CBM.
• Filed: 2021-02-12 (request); reexamination granted 2021-03-04 (substantial new question of patentability found). Central Reexamination Unit, Art Unit 3992; examiner of record Yuzhen Ge.
• Status: Certificate issued — Google Patents legal events record 2023-12-26 FPB1 … REEXAMINATION CERTIFICATE … Reexamination decision cancelled all claims, kind code C1, effective 2023-12-22, filing date shown as 2021-02-12. Docket Alarm's file for 90/14,678 shows the proceeding status as "Decision on Appeal Rendered by Board," i.e., Maxell appealed the examiner's rejection to the PTAB under § 134(b) and the Board decided the appeal adversely to Maxell before the certificate issued.
• Claims at issue: all seven claims (1–7) — claims 1–3 (information-processing terminal), claims 4–5 (display apparatus), claims 6–7 (electronic notice-board system).
• Outcome at claim level: claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 — cancelled. The certificate's own machine-readable disposition is "cancelled all claims," so no claim of the '438 patent survives. I could not retrieve the PTAB appeal decision text itself (appeal number not verified); the disposition I can verify is the certificate, not the panel's reasoning.
• Why it happened: Apple filed this reexam only after the Board refused to institute the parallel IPRs — Apple told the E.D. Tex. court that it "filed the first of those requests on December 10, 2020 and the last of them on February 12, 2021," and that "[t]he Patent Office has now found substantial new questions of patentability as to the currently-asserted claims…" Apple's 2021-03-08 notice in Maxell Ltd. v. Apple Inc., No. 5:19-cv-00036 (E.D. Tex.), confirms "U.S. Patent No. 7,116,438 — EPR No. 90/014,678 — 3/4/2021" (https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14722224/649/maxell-ltd-v-apple-inc/).
• Defensive value: Decisive. A cancelled claim is treated as if it never existed in its original form; there is nothing left of the '438 patent to infringe. Any assertion built on claims 1–7 today is facially untenable and invites Rule 11 / § 285 exposure.

IPR2020-00201 — Apple Inc. v. Maxell, Ltd.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319).
• Filed: 2019-12-19 (Google Patents' legal-events table lists the AIA trial date as 2020-01-21, effective date 2019-12-19).
• Status: Institution denied — Google Patents tags the family disposition "Not Instituted - Merits"; Docket Alarm records the case status as "Institution Denied." No trial was ever instituted, so there is no Final Written Decision, no claim construction in a final decision, and no appealable merits ruling.
• Judge panel: John A. Hudalla, Kevin C. Trock, and Minn Chung (per Docket Alarm's panel listing). Tech Center 2800, Art Unit 2835.
• Petition grounds: Not verified. I could not retrieve the IPR2020-00201 petition or decision text, so I will not state which claims, which references, or which statutory basis (§ 102 / § 103) Apple advanced. Do not assume it tracked the '438 invalidity contentions in the district court.
• Institution decision: denied; date and exact reasoning not verified. Context that is verified: in the same Apple-v.-Maxell campaign, the Board denied institution in IPR2020-00203 (2020-07-06) and IPR2020-00407/-00408/-00409 (2020-08-11) as a discretionary exercise under 35 U.S.C. § 314(a) applying the Fintiv factors because of the advanced E.D. Tex. litigation, while instituting IPR2020-00200 (2020-07-15) and IPR2020-00204 (2020-06-19) where issue overlap was absent. Given that pattern, a § 314(a) discretionary denial is the plausible explanation for IPR2020-00201 as well — but the "Merits" tag on Google Patents cuts the other way, so treat the denial basis as unconfirmed. This matters: a merits-based denial is a mild quality signal for the patent; a Fintiv denial is no quality signal at all.
• Final Written Decision: none. Nothing was cancelled, confirmed, or held patentable by the Board in this proceeding.
• Settlement / termination: no IPR settlement — the case terminated at the institution stage. The underlying district court case settled instead: Maxell and Apple notified Chief Judge Schroeder of a settlement on 2021-03-22, just as jury selection began in Maxell Ltd. v. Apple Inc., No. 5:19-cv-00036 (E.D. Tex.); terms were not disclosed (Law360, 2021-03-23: "The companies also called off a proceeding at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board" — that cancelled argument concerned the two instituted IPRs on other Maxell patents, not the '438).
• Appeal: Apple did appeal the Board's non-institution decisions in the Maxell campaign to the Federal Circuit — consolidated Nos. 2020-2132, -2211, -2212, -2213, and 2021-1033, dismissed 2020-10-30 by a panel of Judges Dyk, Wallach, and Taranto for lack of jurisdiction under § 314(d), with Apple's combined petition for panel rehearing and rehearing en banc drawing Maxell's opposition on 2021-02-03. I could not confirm that IPR2020-00201 was one of those five appealed dockets — on the face of the briefing the appealed set appears to be IPR2020-00203, -00407, -00408, -00409 and -00597, which would leave -00201 unappealed (consistent with a merits denial, which § 314(d) also shields from review).
• Defensive value: Neutral-to-positive, and mostly academic now. The Board never reached the merits of the '438 patent, so IPR2020-00201 provides no claim-level ammunition — no cancellation, no adverse claim construction, no patentability finding you can point to. Its real significance is historic: it is the reason Apple pivoted to ex parte reexamination, which is what actually killed the patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status. The '438 patent issued with seven claims. Claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are CANCELED by reexamination certificate 90/014,678 (C1, effective 2023-12-22). SUSTAINED claims: none. UNTESTED claims: none — there is no surviving claim, original or amended, for any defendant to design around or attack. The patent also shows an adjusted expiration of 2024-07-03, so even the original term has run. (For completeness: no IPR or PGR petition by Huawei, ZTE, LG, Samsung, Coreptronic/Optoma or a defensive aggregator against the '438 patent surfaced in my searches; I found no evidence of any second AIA challenge to this patent, but I cannot rule one out from the sources retrieved.)

Estoppel landscape — favorable, but irrelevant in practice. Because no IPR was ever instituted against the '438 patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel never attached to Apple or to anyone else. There is no "grounds raised or reasonably could have been raised" bar constraining a current defendant's invalidity case, and no PGR estoppel under § 325(e). Ex parte reexamination likewise creates no litigant estoppel against third parties. In other words, a defendant asserting invalidity would have a completely unencumbered prior-art runway — but the runway is moot, because there is no live claim to invalidate. The only estoppel-adjacent fact worth knowing is the district court claim construction the '438 claims picked up in Maxell Ltd. v. Huawei Device U.S. Inc., 297 F. Supp. 3d 668 (E.D. Tex. 2018) (e.g., "an authentication process for allowance to use said display apparatus" construed as "a process that authorizes the user to use the display apparatus," and "means for selecting an object displayed on said display apparatus" treated as § 112 ¶ 6 with structure = input/output unit 103 and associated software). Those constructions now attach to cancelled claims — historically interesting, legally inert.

Pattern signals. (1) Apple's campaign was systematic and escalating: IPR petitions against all ten originally asserted Maxell patents in late 2019/early 2020; the Board denied institution on six of ten (largely on Fintiv/§ 314(a) grounds); Apple then filed twelve ex parte reexamination requests against ten Maxell patents between 2020-12-10 and 2021-02-12 — including 90/014,678 on this patent. That reexam-and-outlast strategy is exactly what produced the 2023 certificate. (2) Maxell litigates its portfolio aggressively and repeatedly — Maxell v. Apple (E.D. Tex. 5:19-cv-00036, settled); Maxell v. Huawei; Maxell v. ZTE; Maxell v. LG (E.D. Tex./N.D. Cal.); and Maxell is still opposing IPRs in 2025 (e.g., Coretronic Corp. v. Maxell, IPR2025-00475, discretionary denial). (3) No defensive aggregator on this patent. The Unified Patents reference in the Google Patents record is a data-source attribution for the PTAB/litigation flags, not evidence that Unified filed anything here; the '438 reexam was an Apple-funded, party-driven effort.

• Primary source links: IPR2020-00201 docket record — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00201/Apple_Inc._v._Maxell_Ltd/ ; Apple's institution notice in E.D. Tex. (identifying EPR No. 90/014,678, granted 2021-03-04) — https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14722224/649/maxell-ltd-v-apple-inc/ ; Federal Circuit consolidated appeal briefing — https://fedcircuitblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/AppleMaxell_Response.pdf ; reexam file — http://ocr.docketalarm.com/patentapps/US/90-14,678/Reexamination_of_Patent_No._7116438_TERMINAL_FOR_INFORMATION_PROCESSING/ ; certificate disposition — https://patents.google.com/patent/US7116438/en (Legal Events, 2023-12-26 FPB1).

Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and a demand letter, complaint, or licensing pitch cites US 7,116,438, quote the certificate back at them. The Office's own disposition is "Reexamination decision cancelled all claims" (Reexamination Certificate C1 for Control No. 90/014,678, effective 2023-12-22, disposition recorded in Google Patents Legal Events at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7116438/en). Claims 1–7 are cancelled; there is no issued claim left to infringe, so any infringement theory is not merely weak — it is unsupported by an existing claim. Preservation letters for Rule 11 / § 285 are the appropriate response.
2. Confirm currency before you rely on this. The reexamination certificate and the absence of instituted AIA trials should be re-verified in USPTO PatentCenter (reexam 90/014,678) and PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions (search IPR2020-00201 and any 2020–2026 AIA filings naming the '438 patent) on the day you file, and the expiration/reinstatement status checked. My searches surfaced no post-2023 AIA filing on this patent, but I did not exhaustively query every 2024–2026 docket, and the ODP/Google records are snapshots.
3. If you need the IPR2020-00201 denial rationale or the reexam PTAB appeal decision, pull the primary documents rather than relying on this summary: I was unable to retrieve either decision text, and I have deliberately flagged — not guessed — (i) the grounds and claims challenged in IPR2020-00201, (ii) whether its denial was merits-based or Fintiv-based, (iii) whether it was among Federal Circuit Nos. 2020-2132/-2211/-2212/-2213/2021-1033, and (iv) the panel on the reexam appeal. Those four gaps are the only material unknowns, and none of them changes the operative fact: all seven claims are cancelled.
4. No trial-stage milestones to track. There is no active PTAB proceeding on this patent, so no institution deadline, no oral hearing, and no § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD clock running. If any party files a new petition on the '438 patent today, the discretionary-denial and § 315(b) time-bar analyses would dominate — and would be an unusual thing to file, given the cancelled claims.

I'll ground this in the assignment data I already have from the patent record, then cross-check a few points with live search.

Good — I found a correspondent of record for one link. Let me pin down that firm and check the remaining links and assertion history.

Ownership & Assignment Reconstruction — US 7,116,438 B2

Patent: Terminal for information processing — Appl. No. 10/747,267, filed 2003‑12‑30, priority JP 2003‑144259 (2003‑05‑22), granted 2006‑10‑03. Family includes CN 1573763B (granted 2012‑08‑22). Statutory term adjusted expiration 2024‑07‑03; status Expired – Lifetime.

Data-integrity note up front: the USPTO Assignment Center does have recorded assignments for this patent — six events. I was able to retrieve the actual reel/frame for all six (they appear in the Google Patents legal-events record, which mirrors the USPTO assignment index), but I could only retrieve a correspondent of record for one of the six links (reel 045142/0208). The other five correspondents are marked not retrieved rather than guessed. Where the record is silent, I say so.

Inventors

Observations: All five executed their assignment of interest to Hitachi, Ltd. in a single window (signing dates 2003‑11‑21 to 2003‑12‑03, per reel 017659/0468) — i.e. before the 2003‑12‑30 U.S. filing date. This is the ordinary pre-filing corporate assignment, not a departure event. There is no evidence of an inventor exodus within 12 months of filing: Shinya Iguchi, for example, later appears as an inventor on US 2009/0222798 A1 ("Information Processing Apparatus," filed 2008), which cites this patent — consistent with continued R&D employment rather than a fire-sale precursor. I found no record of inventors leaving to form a competing or asserting entity.

Original assignee

Hitachi, Ltd. (Tokyo, Japan) — named on the issued patent and original assignee of record.

• Primary line of business: diversified industrial/electronics conglomerate (heavy industry, IT, rail, automotive systems, consumer electronics).
• Product embodying the claims: No Hitachi product was identified that practices claims 1–7 (a mobile terminal plus a short-distance-authenticated, network-coupled electronic notice board). The invention presents as a research/portfolio asset — the specification's "electronic notice-board system" is a described embodiment, and I found no commercial Hitachi signage/notice-board implementation. I could not confirm a shipping embodiment; treat this as unverified, not affirmatively negative.
• Current status: Operating. Hitachi, Ltd. is a large publicly traded Japanese corporation. The patent, however, left Hitachi's ownership in 2013 and now sits with Maxell, Ltd. — see the chain below.

Assignment timeline

All six events below are the complete set of post-issuance + pre-issuance assignment records surfaced for Appl. 10/747,267 / Pat. 7,116,438.

• Executed 2003‑11‑21 → 2003‑12‑03 / recorded 2006‑05‑22 — Reel 017659/0468

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST — SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)
  • Assignor: Maeoka, Jun; Morimoto, Yoshiaki; Satoyama, Motoaki; Doi, Koji; Iguchi, Shinya (jointly, as inventors)
  • Assignee: HITACHI, LTD., Japan
  • Correspondent: not retrieved from the sources available to me.
  • Context: Ordinary inventor-to-employer vesting, filed in bulk after grant (recorded 2006‑05‑22, ~3 weeks before the 2006‑10‑03 grant); not a distress transfer.
  • Note the 2.5‑year gap between execution and recording — consistent with a housekeeping/bulk recording, not a transaction.

• Executed 2013‑06‑07 / recorded 2013‑06‑12 — Reel 030802/0610

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: HITACHI, LTD.
  • Assignee: HITACHI CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CO., LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization — Hitachi hives off its consumer‑electronics‑facing IP into a dedicated subsidiary.

• Executed 2014‑08‑26 / recorded 2014‑09‑08 — Reel 033694/0745

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: HITACHI CONSUMER ELECTRONICS CO., LTD. (recorded twice in the assignor string — a clerical duplication on the cover sheet, not a second assignor)
  • Assignee: HITACHI MAXELL, LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Internal reorganization — consolidation of the consumer IP into the Hitachi Maxell subsidiary.

• Executed 2017‑10‑01 / recorded 2018‑01‑25 — Reel 045142/0208

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST)
  • Assignor: HITACHI MAXELL, LTD.
  • Assignee: MAXELL, LTD., 1 Koizumi, Oyamazaki, Otokuni‑gun, Kyoto, Japan
  • Correspondent: NADEEN NSOULI, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606 (Reg. No. 76859; now listed at Cooley LLP, 110 N. Wacker Drive, Chicago). Single appearance in this chain — no recurrence, and her practice is general corporate/IP transactional work (life-sciences and clean-tech applicants dominate her docket), not NPE recording. On this record she is a conventional transactional filer, not an NPE agent. I retrieved no correspondent for the other five links, so the recurrence test cannot be run.
  • Context: Change of corporate name executed as a formal assignment — Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. became Maxell, Ltd., which is why the recorded conveyance reads "assignment" rather than "change of name." This is the same reel/frame used for a 141‑page bulk recording covering many Hitachi Maxell patents, i.e. a portfolio-wide housekeeping record.

• Executed 2021‑10‑01 / recorded 2021‑11‑29 — Reel 058255/0579

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: MAXELL, LTD.
  • Assignee: MAXELL HOLDINGS, LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Internal holding-company reorganization (merger of the operating company into a new holding structure).

• Executed 2021‑10‑01 / recorded 2021‑12‑03 — Reel 058666/0407

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: MAXELL HOLDINGS, LTD.
  • Assignee: MAXELL, LTD.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Pure name change — the holding company renamed itself Maxell, Ltd. Net economic effect: the chain round-trips to the same operating entity name (Maxell, Ltd.) that took the patent in 2017. No third-party acquirer is ever introduced.

One discrepancy to flag (do not auto-correct): Maxell's own pleadings (e.g. Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., W.D. Tex. 6:20‑cv‑00646, ¶4) describe the reorganization as "in 2009 Hitachi assigned … to Hitachi Consumer Electronics … Then, in 2013, Hitachi Consumer Electronics … assigned … to Hitachi Maxell." The recorded dates are 2013‑06‑07 and 2014‑08‑26 respectively. I report the recorded reel/frame dates as controlling.

No assignment record exists after 2021‑12‑03. Maxell, Ltd. is the current owner of record (confirmed as assignee in its own infringement pleadings: "Maxell is the owner by assignment of the '317 Patent and possesses all rights …", and Maxell, Ltd.'s complaint venue narrative for the same portfolio).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7116438
    2003 : Inventors assign to Hitachi Ltd
         : Application filed 30 Dec 2003
    2006 : Patent granted 3 Oct 2006
         : Inventor assignment recorded 22 May
    2013 : Hitachi to Hitachi Consumer Electronics
         : Recorded 12 Jun 2013
    2014 : Hitachi Consumer Electronics to Hitachi Maxell
         : Recorded 8 Sep 2014
    2017 : Hitachi Maxell to Maxell Ltd executed
    2018 : Recorded 25 Jan 2018
    2019 : Maxell sues Apple in E D Tex
    2020 : Apple IPR institution denied
    2021 : Ex parte reexam filed 12 Feb
         : Maxell merger into Maxell Holdings
         : Holding company renamed Maxell Ltd
    2023 : Reexam cancels all claims
    2024 : Patent expires 3 Jul 2024

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. Every assignee in the chain is a named operating Japanese corporation: Hitachi, Ltd.; Hitachi Consumer Electronics Co., Ltd.; Hitachi Maxell, Ltd.; Maxell, Ltd.; Maxell Holdings, Ltd. (reels 017659/0468, 030802/0610, 033694/0745, 045142/0208, 058255/0579, 058666/0407). No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Ventures" suffix appears anywhere, no Delaware/Texas single-member LLC is introduced, and no registered-agent service address appears. The 2021 pair of filings (reels 058255/0579 merger + 058666/0407 change of name, both effective 2021‑10‑01) is a holdco reorganization that ends at the same name it started with, which is the opposite of an anonymizing shell structure.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (on the enumerated lists), with a caveat. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, or any Spangenberg entity. The current owner, Maxell, Ltd., is a genuine manufacturer (recordable media, lithium‑ion micro‑batteries, alkaline batteries, projectors/lenses, wireless charging, flash drives — per its own W.D. Tex. complaint ¶¶1–4) that runs a licensing-and-litigation monetization program alongside product sales. Flag this honestly: Maxell is an aggressive serial licensor/assertor of a large legacy Hitachi portfolio, and it is the kind of "operating company that behaves like a licensor" that RPX/Unified track — but it is not an entity that was formed to hold patents, and its assertions are on its own paper as the product company.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (insufficient retrieval). I obtained exactly one correspondent: Nadeen Nsouli, 71 South Wacker Drive, Chicago, IL 60606, on reel 045142/0208 (executed 2017‑10‑01, recorded 2018‑01‑25). She has one appearance in this chain, on a 141-page bulk portfolio recording, and her overall practice is ordinary corporate/IP transactional work for life-sciences and clean-tech clients (Reg. No. 76859). One appearance is not a finding. Because I could not retrieve correspondents for reels 017659/0468, 030802/0610, 033694/0745, 058255/0579 or 058666/0407, I cannot run the recurrence test — and I will not infer recurrence from the fact that five of six fields are blank.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. The six transfers are spaced 2013 → 2014 → 2017/2018 → 2021, i.e. roughly 1, 3 and 3 years apart. No two consecutive assignments land inside a 24‑month window, no LLC-to-LLC hop occurs, and every assignee is a member of the same Hitachi/Maxell corporate family. The single ~14‑month gap (2013‑06‑07 → 2014‑08‑26) is between two Hitachi subsidiaries, not chained shells.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The last third-party-facing transfer (reel 045142/0208, recorded 2018‑01‑25) precedes the first suit naming this patent (Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., E.D. Tex. 5:19‑cv‑00036, filed 2019‑03‑15) by ~14 months — outside the 6‑month window. The 2021 merger/name-change records (reels 058255/0579 and 058666/0407, recorded 2021‑11‑29 and 2021‑12‑03) post-date the Apple suit and post-date the 2021‑02‑12 reexamination request, so they cannot have been arranged to enable assertion of the '438. There is no transfer into a litigation vehicle at all.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding, no court-supervised patent sale, no §363 sale order. The chain is explained entirely by Hitachi's consumer-electronics divestiture and subsequent Maxell holdco/name reorganizations.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT (weak/unclear at the margins). Maxell asserts on its own behalf, not on Hitachi's, and there is no SEC-filed or EFF/Patent Progress-surfaced arrangement under which Maxell asserts patents for Hitachi against Hitachi's competitors. The defendants (Apple, and previously Huawei/ZTE/ASUS per Maxell's Apple complaint ¶13) are Maxell's own competitors in mobile/storage. One item deserves a neutral flag: Maxell set up Maxell Research and Development America, LLC in Marshall, Texas and pleaded continuous Texas business since 2014 (E.D. Tex. 5:19‑cv‑00036 ¶6) — a well-known venue-oriented structuring tell. But the asserting entity is the operating parent, not a rented shell, so this is a venue fact, not a privateering finding.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. It terminates at Maxell, Ltd., an asserting owner.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

Justification: the entire chain is a sequence of internal Hitachi/Maxell reorganizations — Hitachi, Ltd. → Hitachi Consumer Electronics (reel 030802/0610, executed 2013‑06‑07), → Hitachi Maxell, Ltd. (reel 033694/0745, executed 2014‑08‑26), → Maxell, Ltd. (reel 045142/0208, executed 2017‑10‑01), round-tripping through a 2021 merger and name change (reels 058255/0579 and 058666/0407) — with no shell LLC, no NPE assignee, no repeat NPE correspondent, and no pre-litigation transfer. The current owner, Maxell, Ltd., is a real manufacturer of batteries, storage media and projectors that asserted this patent against Apple (E.D. Tex. 5:19‑cv‑00036, filed 2019‑03‑15) and previously against Huawei/ZTE/ASUS, i.e. actual competitors.

Two material caveats that any downstream user of this file must carry forward:

1. I could not confirm that Maxell ships a product embodying claims 1–7 of the '438 (an authenticated short-distance + network electronic notice-board system). Maxell's product line does not obviously practice the claims; the assertion pattern is portfolio-wide and licensing-driven, so the "operating-company" label rests on Maxell's status as a product manufacturer generally, not on demonstrated practice of this patent's claims.
2. The asset is dead. Ex parte reexamination 90/014,678 (request filed 2021‑02‑12, granted) terminated with USPTO event FPB1 on 2023‑12‑26: "Reexamination decision cancelled all claims" (kind code C1, effective 2023‑12‑22). Apple's parallel IPR2020‑00201 had already been denied institution (on the merits). Combined with the 2024‑07‑03 adjusted expiration, US 7,116,438 has no enforceable claims and is not a live assertion vector.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 7116438): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — alternate index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events and full assignment reel/frame list: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7116438/en
• Litigation docket (E.D. Tex. 5:19‑cv‑00036, Maxell v. Apple, filed 2019‑03‑15, dismissed with prejudice 2021‑04‑07): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/14722224/1/maxell-ltd-v-apple-inc/
• PTAB IPR2020-00201 (Apple v. Maxell, filing date 2019‑12‑19, institution denied): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00201/Apple_Inc._v._Maxell_Ltd/
• Ex parte reexam 90/014,678 order granting request (patent under reexamination 7,116,438): served as Ex. in E.D. Tex. 5:19‑cv‑00036 Dkt. 649‑1.

I'll research US 7116438 and each of its cited references. Let me start with several searches.

US 7,116,438 B2 — Prior-Art Analysis of Cited References

1. Target patent (searched by exact number, no similar-number substitution)

Claim skeleton used for the § 102 mapping below:

• Cl. 1 – information-processing terminal: input unit + first short-distance communication unit (to display apparatus) + second communication unit (to display apparatus over a network); short-distance unit performs the authentication process for allowance to use the display apparatus; the network unit exchanges data only if authentication is affirmed.
• Cl. 2 – terminal with contribution function + comment-adding function.
• Cl. 3 – means for selecting an object displayed on the display apparatus.
• Cl. 4 – display apparatus: first short-distance unit + second network unit; authentication performed at the display; conditional data exchange.
• Cl. 5 – associating the short-distance communication establishment with the network communication establishment.
• Cl. 6 / Cl. 7 – electronic notice-board system using the apparatus of claim 4 / claim 5.

2. References listed on the face of US 7,116,438

The patent cites four references (three flagged "cited by examiner"), plus one family-citation (DE 19819582 A1).

2.1 JPH11-119720 A — Electronic bulletin board remote control device

• Citation: JP H11-119720 A; applicant Fujitsu General Ltd.; priority 1997-10-20; publication 1999-04-30 (cited by examiner).
• Description: A remote-control device for operating/driving an electronic bulletin board — i.e., a handheld control unit that communicates with a large electronic display board rather than a fixed PC. (I could retrieve the citation record, but not the full Japanese text; the description below is limited to what the citation record and the family art establish.)
• § 102 relevance: Published ~3.5 years before the 2003-05-22 priority date → qualifies as pre-AIA § 102(b) art.
  • Potentially relevant to the broadest concept of claim 1 (a terminal having a remote/communication unit directed at a display board) and to claim 4 (the board/display side).
  • However, on the record available it does not appear to disclose the two-channel architecture central to the claims — a first short-distance channel used to perform the authentication/login, followed by data exchange over a second, network channel conditioned on that authentication. It is therefore better characterized as background art that anticipates at most the generic "remote control of a bulletin board" environment, not the conditional dual-path data exchange of independent claims 1 and 4.

2.2 JP2002-123466 A — Premises bulletin board system

• Citation: JP 2002-123466 A; applicant NEC Mobiling Ltd.; priority 2000-10-13; publication 2002-04-26.
• Description (full text retrieved): An on-premises ("構内") electronic bulletin-board system. Users at their office PCs connect to a server-hosted electronic notice board to view, rewrite, or newly register notices; when away from the office, users can reach the same server from a notebook PC or a mobile telephone / PHS / public telephone to view and update their whereabouts/contact entries. The stated problem is that a user who does not carry a notebook PC cannot reach the board while out.
• § 102 relevance: Published 2002-04-26, more than one year before the 2003-05-22 priority date → pre-AIA § 102(b) art.
  • Directly relevant to claims 6 and 7 (an "electronic notice-board system") as a system-level disclosure of a notice board accessed from mobile terminals.
  • Relevant background to claim 1 / claim 4 for the generic "mobile terminal ↔ notice-board server" data path.
  • Anticipation limit: the reference teaches access to the board only through the network path (PC/mobile/PHS); it does not teach a short-distance channel used to authenticate the user for a specific nearby board, nor conditioning network data exchange on that short-distance authentication. So it does not anticipatively meet the conditional limitation of claims 1, 4, 5.

2.3 WO 2004/100014 A1 — Webpage connecting service make use of phone-number

• Citation: WO 2004/100014 A1; inventor Chang Yong Jeon; priority 2003-05-07; publication 2004-11-18 (cited by examiner).
• Description: A service in which a webpage/connection is established by using a telephone number as the identifying key.
• § 102 relevance — caution: Its publication date (2004-11-18) is after both the 2003-05-22 priority date and the 2003-12-30 filing date of US 7,116,438. It therefore cannot be § 102(a)/(b) art. It could only be § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2)-type art if its international filing date preceded 2003-05-22 (pre-AIA) — the citation record gives only the 2003-05-07 priority date, and I could not confirm the international filing date. Treat the § 102 status as unconfirmed.
  • Topically relevant to identity/linking of a terminal via an identifier (phone number) — tangential to the authentication/session-association idea of claims 1, 4 and 5.

2.4 US 2005/0179938 A1 — Network terminal system

• Citation: US 2005/0179938 A1; inventor Makoto Kayashima (Hitachi); priority 2004-02-13; filed 2004-07-19 (US 10/893,251); published 2005-08-18 (cited by examiner).
• Description (full text retrieved): A network terminal system with network terminals embodying a liquid-crystal projector and a printer, connected via a network and a wireless LAN access point. Access is gated by a hardware token (a storage medium storing data used to access a remote computer). A display-unit interface switches a remote computer's screen output to either the projector unit or a local LCD, and the system addresses the risk of on-screen content being visually stolen (e.g., a printed confidential file). Inventors/assignee overlap with the 7,116,438 family (Hitachi).
• § 102 relevance — caution: All dates postdate 7,116,438. Priority 2004-02-13, US filing 2004-07-19, publication 2005-08-18 — each is after the 2003-05-22 priority date and after the 2003-12-30 filing date. It therefore cannot qualify as § 102 prior art to 7,116,438 on these dates (not § 102(a)/(b); not § 102(e), whose effective date is its own filing date).
  • It appears in the citation list (likely an examiner/IDS citation during the 2003–2006 prosecution or the 2021 reexamination), and is conceptually close to claim 1/claim 4 in that it involves terminal authentication (hardware token) + wireless/network connection to a display-capable network terminal — but on dates alone it cannot be used against the claims. If it is to be used at all, it would be as a § 102(e)/§ 103 combination only if an earlier effective date could be shown, which the record does not support.

2.5 DE 19819582 A1 — Location-dependent implementation of services of a cellular network

• Citation: DE 19819582 A1; Siemens AG; priority 1998-04-30; publication 1999-11-04 (family-cited reference — "Family Cites Families").
• Description: Provision of cellular-network services whose behavior depends on the location of the subscriber.
• § 102 relevance: Published 1999-11-04, well before the 2003-05-22 priority date → § 102(b) if it were applied.
  • Relevant to the motivation/rationale behind the patent (restricting board use to users physically present, i.e., location-dependent service enablement) and thus to the general concept underlying claims 1 and 4. It does not appear to disclose the specific short-distance-authentication-then-network-data-exchange architecture, so it is best treated as general-technical-background art rather than anticipatory art for any claim.

3. Bottom line

• Two references are clearly pre-priority-date § 102(b) art and are the most relevant prior art:
  1. JP 2002-123466 A (NEC Mobiling, pub. 2002-04-26) — strongest "electronic bulletin board reachable from mobile terminals" art; bears on claims 6–7 and on the general environment of claims 1 and 4 (but lacks the short-distance-authentication/conditional-network-exchange limitation).
  2. JPH11-119720 A (Fujitsu General, pub. 1999-04-30) — a remote-control device for an electronic bulletin board; bears on the generic terminal/display-board relationship of claims 1 and 4.
• DE 19819582 A1 (Siemens, pub. 1999-11-04) is pre-date § 102(b) subject matter on location-dependent service provision, but on the record only as background.
• WO 2004/100014 A1 and US 2005/0179938 A1 share the subject matter of authentication/identity linking and terminal-to-display access, but their publication and filing dates fall on or after US 7,116,438's 2003-05-22 priority date; on the dates shown they cannot anticipate under § 102, and their § 102 status is at best unconfirmed (for WO 2004/100014 A1, pending its international filing date).
• No single cited reference on the record appears to fully anticipate the conditional limitation common to independent claims 1 and 4 (short-distance channel performs authentication/allowance to use the display apparatus, and the network channel exchanges data only if that authentication is affirmed). The cited art is more naturally used in § 103 combinations than as § 102 anticipation.
• Important procedural fact: the record shows a reexamination decision dated 2023-12-26 cancelling all claims, and an earlier IPR2020-00201 (Apple) that was not instituted. The reexamination cancellation implies some prior-art combination did invalidate the claims, but the reexamination grounds are not in the material I retrieved — I cannot state which art was relied on.

Caveats on completeness

• I retrieved the full text of JP 2002-123466 A and US 2005/0179938 A1, and citation records for the others, but not the full text of JPH11-119720 A, WO 2004/100014 A1, or DE 19819582 A1. My claim-by-claim mapping for those three is therefore provisional and based on their titles, dates, and family records.
• All identifiers are reproduced literally as they appear (e.g., "US7116438", "JPH11119720A", "JP2002123466A", "WO2004100014A1", "US20050179938A1", "DE19819582A1"); no numbers have been normalized or corrected.

I'll analyze the prior art references listed on this patent's page. Let me first gather grounded details on each reference.

Good — I have the JP2002-123466 abstract. Let me gather the remaining references and the litigation/reexam record.

Now let me look for the IPR petition grounds and the remaining Japanese reference.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,116,438 B2

"Terminal for information processing" · Appl. No. 10/747,267 · Filed 2003‑12‑30 · JP priority 2003‑05‑22 · Granted 2006‑10‑03 · Inventors Maeoka et al. · Original assignee Hitachi, Ltd. (now Maxell, Ltd.)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7116438](/patent/US7116438)/en

1. Legal framework and effective filing date

Because the application was filed on 2003‑12‑30 (before the AIA first‑inventor‑to‑file provisions took effect), pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs, and the Graham v. John Deere framework applies: scope and content of the prior art → differences → PHOSITA level → secondary considerations.

Critical dates (per the patent page):

• U.S. filing date: 2003‑12‑30
• § 102(b) critical date: 2002‑12‑30 (one year before U.S. filing; the JP § 119 priority date does not move the § 102(b) bar date)
• JP priority: 2003‑05‑22

Claim scope (7 claims, all apparatus/system — no method claims):

Claim 3's "means for selecting" and the "unit" recitations raise pre‑AIA § 112 ¶ 6 construction questions, which affect how broadly the corresponding structure may be read against the art. Claims 1 and 4 are the only independent claims.

2. Prior-art qualification (from the Prior Art section of this page)

Bottom line: the only references on this page that are legally available as § 103 prior art are JPH11119720A, JP2002123466A, and DE19819582A1. Note also the examiner‑cited "行き先/スケジュール板" (destination/schedule board) from Oki Electric (JP appl. H6‑236761), cited within the JP2002123466A prosecution — a possible additional board‑update reference.

3. What each available reference discloses

JP2002123466A — NEC Mobiling, "Premises bulletin board system" (abstract via J‑GLOBAL, https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=200903004774126962)

• Problem: let each user access the electronic bulletin board of a premises bulletin‑board system via a small portable terminal and newly register (新規登録), reference (参照), and rewrite (書き換え) various board information; other users then reference the registered board information.
• Solution: an office center 200 holds the electronic bulletin board and is connected to a premises network 300 and, from there, to an external network 500. Users reach the board either through terminal equipment 110 on the premises network or through a portable terminal 410 connectable to the external network.
• Notably, the bulletin‑board host therefore has two distinct network access paths (premises network + external network reached by a mobile terminal).
• The '438 specification itself characterizes this document as disclosing "a notice‑board system capable of newly putting an item originated from an external network on a notice board and referencing as well as renewing an item already put on the notice board."

DE19819582A1 — Siemens AG, "Location‑dependent implementation of services of a cellular network" (https://patents.google.com/patent/DE19819582A1/en; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/DE19819582A1.html)

• A cellular network in which location‑dependent services are available to subscribers logged into ("eingebucht") the network according to a location‑dependent service plan; location information for the actual location of mobile subscribers is correlated with the service plan to derive current, subscriber‑specific service profiles.
• A message describing the current subscriber‑specific service offer can be derived from the profile and sent to the subscriber and displayed on the subscriber terminal.
• Claim 5: services are performed depending on subscriber location at the beginning and at the end of use of the service (covered by the published file, per the claim listing).
• Essence: location of the subscriber is used as a gate for whether a network‑delivered service is available/performed, evaluated at service start.

JPH11119720A — Fujitsu General, "Electronic bulletin board remote control device"

• ⚠️ I was unable to retrieve the text or abstract of this document. My characterization rests solely on its title, assignee and 1999 publication date. Read literally, the title discloses a remote‑control device for an electronic bulletin board — a handheld input device that controls a bulletin‑board display. Whether it uses a short‑distance (infrared/RF) link, and whether it involves any authentication, is not verified and would need the Japanese‑language full text (§ 56 MPEP: a foreign‑language reference must be considered for what it fairly teaches, including translations).

4. Element‑by‑element mapping and proposed combinations

Ground 1 — Claims 1, 2, 3, 6, 7: JP2002123466A in view of DE19819582A1, further in view of JPH11119720A

Ground 2 — Claim 5: JP2002123466A in view of DE19819582A1

Claim 5 requires associating the communication establishment on the short‑range path with the communication establishment on the network path.

• JP2002123466A already contemplates the same user reaching the same board over two different paths (premises network 300 via terminal 110; external network 500 via portable terminal 410) — a single bulletin‑board system serving one user population across two access routes.
• DE19819582A1 is built on a single, persistent subscriber identity ("eingebucht" subscriber with one service profile) that is evaluated location‑dependently; the identity travelling with the subscriber across the network is exactly the datum that would be used to tie two sessions to one user.
• Motivation: a system administrator would want activity on the board attributable to one authenticated user across both paths (anti‑impersonation, consistent user profile, correct display‑time‑limit/notification routing). Tying session records to a common subscriber identifier is a predictable, known data‑management technique (KSR, known technique rationale; MPEP 2144.07).
• ⚠️ This is the weakest claim in the set. The listed references do not, in anything I could verify, expressly disclose generating a first‑path session token, then a second‑path token, and storing them in a common table as the '438 specification does (session ID 602 ↔ web session ID 604 in session‑management table 601). A challenger relying on only the four/five references on this page would face a genuine, non‑frivolous argument on claim 5.

5. Motivation to combine

Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and MPEP § 2143, the following rationales apply and can be stated with citation to the references themselves:

1. Same field, same problem. JP2002123466A and JPH11119720A are both directed to electronic bulletin boards — a portable terminal contributing/rewriting board content (JP2002123466A) and a remote‑control device for a board (JPH11119720A). Combining a board's remote‑control input path with its network contribution path is the combination of two references in the same field of endeavor, addressing the same device ("familiar elements according to known methods," KSR).
2. The problem the '438 patent itself acknowledges. The Background states that in the conventional system "it is possible to contribute a notice to the notice board from a terminal connectable to the Internet without regard to the physical location of the notice‑contributing user," so "an improper notice is contributed to the notice board sometimes," and that "the notice board must be specified from a menu displayed on a terminal." That is an admission of a known, recognized problem, and it supplies precisely the motivation to look to a location‑gating solution.
3. DE19819582A1 supplies the known solution to that recognized problem. It teaches, in an entirely conventional cellular context, that services are performed or withheld depending on subscriber location, evaluated at the start of service use. Applying the same location gate to a network‑delivered bulletin‑board service (JP2002123466A) is the application of a known technique to a known problem, yielding a predictable result.
4. Short‑range communication is an admitted design choice. The '438 specification lists "an infrared ray and a radio LAN" as mere examples of short‑distance communication means — confirming that proximity links were conventional. Using a short‑range link as the proximity detector (instead of DE19819582A1's network‑side cell ID/GPS positioning) is a finite, predictable set of known options with an expected advantage (the user physically near the board is verified directly rather than by coarse network positioning).
5. Predictable results / no unexpected properties. The '438 patent's own stated advantages — "the start of the use of a nearby electronic notice board can be specified intuitively as well as easily" and avoiding "improper use … by any user located at a long distance" — are exactly the results one would expect from combining a network‑contributed board (JP2002123466A) with location‑gated service execution (DE19819582A1). There is no teaching of any criticality, order‑of‑addition, or unexpected property.
6. Structural compatibility. JP2002123466A's office center 200 already bridges two networks (premises network 300 and external network 500), so adding a short‑range receiver (per JPH11119720A's remote‑control board) to that host requires no change in the principle of operation of either reference — only the predictable addition of a third, proximity interface used as an enable gate.

6. Counterarguments a patent owner would raise (and the responses)

7. Corroboration from the record — and its limits

The patent's own docket is the single most probative item, and it supports the unpatentability conclusion, though the ground is not stated on this page:

• Reexamination requested; decision 2023‑12‑22: "Reexamination decision cancelled all claims" (kind code C1, reexamination certificate; request effective 2021‑02‑12, decision posted 2023‑12‑26). All seven claims were cancelled. The page does not state whether the rejection was under § 102 or § 103, nor which references were applied.
• PTAB: IPR2020‑00201, petitioner Apple, Inc. — filed 2019‑12‑19, not instituted on the merits (per the page: "Not Instituted — Merits"). https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-00201
• Litigation: Maxell, Ltd. v. Apple Inc., E.D. Tex. Case No. 5:19‑cv‑00036 (per the page). https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/5%3A19-cv-00036
• Status: Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2024‑07‑03). The patent is expired and no claims remain in force as of the 2023‑12‑22 certificate.

Important caveat: because all claims were cancelled in reexamination, the ground actually applied was almost certainly broader than the four/five references listed on this page — reexamination requesters typically submit new art, and the coverage needed for claim 5's association limitation is not visible in the references listed here. I could not retrieve IPR2020‑00201's petition grounds (it was not instituted), so I cannot confirm whether the same references were at issue.

8. Conclusions

Overall: On the four/five references listed in this page's Prior Art section, a § 103 rejection is reasonably strong for claims 1–4, 6 and 7 and weak for claim 5, and it would rest on the KSR "known problem / known technique / predictable result" rationales rather than on any express teaching of the split‑path architecture. That the specification itself admits the location‑independence problem and lists infrared and radio LAN as conventional short‑distance media materially strengthens the motivation‑to‑combine showing. The reexamination certificate cancelling all claims confirms the claims did not survive, but I cannot tie that outcome to these specific references.

Verification gaps I want to flag explicitly rather than paper over:

1. JPH11119720A: I could not retrieve its text or abstract; its contribution to the "short‑distance communication unit" and "authentication" limitations is inferred from its title only and must be verified against the Japanese full text.
2. JP2002123466A: characterized from its published abstract (J‑GLOBAL), which is consistent with the '438 specification's own description.
3. WO2004100014A1 and US20050179938A1: I believe both are not available as prior art by date; the former needs its PCT international filing date confirmed, and the latter appears to be an erroneous/anomalous citation.
4. The specific ground applied in the 2023 reexamination, and the grounds in IPR2020‑00201, are not stated on this page and I did not obtain them.