Invalidity dossier
US 7472187
Communications and information resource manager
Current assignee: Meta Platforms Inc
Added 9/21/2026, 10:46:57 AM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US 7,472,187 B2
Title: Communications and information resource manager
Patent number: US 7,472,187 B2
Inventor: Dale W. Malik
Original assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (assignment recorded 2004-11-24 to BellSouth Intellectual Property Corporation from inventor Malik, Dale)
Current assignee (per listing): Meta Platforms Inc
Priority date: 2001-09-28 (claimed from US 09/966,703; also a 2002-03-29 priority from US 10/109,909)
Filing date: 2004-11-24 (application US 10/997,305)
Publication date: 2008-12-30 (earlier publication US 2005/0076338 A1, 2005-04-07)
Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration 2021-09-28
Purpose and plain-language scope (as reflected in the supplied text):
The patent relates to a "communications and information resource manager" (CIR manager). Its classifications indicate subject matter covering unified messaging (interactions among e-mail, instant messaging, or converged IP messaging), mailbox-related aspects such as synchronization, store-and-forward and real-time user-to-user messaging, call detail recording, and screening incoming calls by evaluating call characteristics before deciding whether to answer. Prior-art keywords listed are: user, information, cir manager, entry, message.
Source URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7472187/en
What the excerpt does not establish:
The supplied text is a bibliographic/classification excerpt only; it contains no claims, abstract, or detailed description. It does not establish the specific claimed invention, claim scope, embodiments, or figures. The listed assignees and legal status are expressly noted in the source as assumptions/not legal conclusions. Ownership transfers reflected in the reassignment records (e.g., AT&T entities, Facebook, Inc., Meta Platforms, Inc.) are recorded as bibliographic events, not analyzed here. No litigation, validity, or prior-art conclusions are drawn, and none should be inferred.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:01:07 PM
Cases on file (0)
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Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.