US 7599855

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number before summarizing.

Let me run more targeted searches to verify assignee/inventor details and check for any litigation or Federal Circuit activity involving this exact patent.

Let me do one final targeted check for any litigation/PTAB/Federal Circuit activity naming this exact patent.

US Patent 7,599,855 — Analyst Summary

Sources consulted: the authoritative full text of US 7,599,855 B2 (Google Patents, fetched 2026‑09‑26); Google Patents bibliographic record; FreePatentsOnline record; Justia/PatentGuru records; and targeted searches of USPTO/Federal Circuit materials (via general web search — I do not have direct live access to PACER, the CAFC docket system, or PatentCenter, so my litigation check below is limited to what surfaced in search).

Bibliographic data (per the patent's own front matter / Google Patents)

Assignee — ⚠️ conflicting records. The Google Patents record lists assignee as "Individual" (both original and current assignee), and FreePatentsOnline lists the assignee as Sussman, Lester. However, PatentGuru lists the assignee as "CREE, INC." with agency "Koppel, Patrick, Heybl & Philpott." This is almost certainly a data‑mapping error in that aggregator (Cree is an LED/semiconductor company; the agency and IPC class do not fit this consumer‑shopping invention, and the same aggregator page also mislabels related fields). I flag it rather than adopt it. My best‑supported reading: the patent was held by the individual inventor, Lester Sussman, not by Cree, Inc.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A method and system whereby a consumer creates a shopping list using a portable barcode scanner and an intelligent base‑station. The entered barcodes are downloaded to the base‑station from the barcode scanner. The base‑station retrieves related barcode information from a barcode database via the Internet. The barcode database can belong to a merchant, or a generic shopping service. The base‑station can be a consumer's computer, or some other smart electronic device. The base‑station maintains a predictive shopping list database for all barcodes entered via the barcode scanner. The database learns the shopping consumption habits of the consumer over a period of time and ensures that when the consumer is ready to shop no previously needed, but currently forgotten, items are left off of the shopping list. The consumer uses this method to shop in a store, or via Mail‑Order/Telephone‑Order or on the internet using the created shopping list."

Plain‑language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Method (scanned‑barcode version)

A method for building a consumer's shopping list before entering a store, with these steps:

1. Scan a needed product barcode (or product‑coupon barcode) with a portable scanner prior to entering the store.
2. Transfer the scanned codes to the consumer's "first computer" (e.g., PC, PDA, internet appliance, or cell phone) over a "first network," and each code is stored as a current shopping list keyed to the barcode and to the date/time it was scanned.
3. The first computer queries a second computer system over a "second network" (the Internet) to request and receive additional shopping‑list information (descriptions, price, coupons, etc.) based on those barcodes.
4. Learning/predictive element (the core novelty): the system collects and stores a multiplicity of scan dates/times for each barcode, creating a "consumption tracking frequency" that is used to learn the consumer's rate of consumption and predict when each product needs to be replaced.
5. Automatic notification: without requiring the consumer to re‑scan the item, the system gives a specific notification of previously stored shopping‑list items at the time the consumer creates the current list, driven by that prediction.
6. Automatic addition: products from previous lists are automatically added to the current list consistent with the predicted replacement timing.
7. The first computer displays the product/coupon barcodes plus the additional shopping‑list information.
8. The system indicates on the display that the consumer has obtained the current list "in‑hand."
9. The system indicates that data transmitted to and received from the scanner was successfully sent/received (a transmission‑confirmation/indicator feature).
10. The stored database includes a description, cost, scan date/time, and a required‑quantity indicator.
11. Obtaining the list in‑hand is done by one of: (i) printing it, (ii) transferring it to a portable computing device (PDA/cell phone), or (iii) using the portable scanner itself.
12. Optional fulfillment step: the list may be sent to a second store that either ships the products to the consumer or makes them available for pickup, so the consumer need not shop in‑store.

Stated differently: scan what you're running low on → your home "base station" looks up what those UPCs mean and remembers how often you buy them → it predicts what you'll need and pre‑fills your next list → you take that list to the store (or have the store fill it).

Claim 8 — Method (manual‑entry variant)

Substantively identical to claim 1, except that the barcode (or coupon code) is entered manually into the portable scanner rather than optically scanned, and the date/time track records when the code was "manually entered" rather than "scanned." This claim preserves coverage for keypad‑style entry. (Notably, the specification states the preferred embodiment has no keypad and instead uses a four‑arrow‑key selectable menu of numbers — so claim 8 is a broader/alternative‑mode claim.)

Claim 15 — System claim

A barcode scanning system for creating a new shopping list to which products are automatically added based (in part) on previously entered lists, where those auto‑added products were not considered by the consumer at the time of creating the new list. It comprises:

• (a) a portable barcode scanner able to scan a product barcode prior to entering a store;
• (b) one or more consumer "first computers" connected to the scanner over a first network, storing barcodes plus scan dates/times received from the scanner, and also storing previously received barcodes;
• (c) a computer program that collects/stores the multiplicity of dates/times to learn the consumer's rate of consumption via a "consumption tracking frequency," providing a means to programmatically predict when each product needs replacing;
• (d) the program providing a specific notification of previous shopping‑list items without a current scanned entry, triggered when the consumer creates the new list;
• (e) the program enabling automatic addition of previously listed products to the new list consistent with the prediction;
• (f) one or more second computers (over a second network) that receive the barcodes and send back product information;
• (g) a printer attached to the first computer that prints the new list; and
• (h) a portable computing device that receives and stores the new list;
• (i) finally, the same optional alternative of sending the list to a second store for shipping or for pickup.

Dependent claims add: wireless first link, specifically infrared or Bluetooth (claims 2/9/16); wired link — RS‑232, USB, parallel, IEEE 1394 (3/10); first computer selected from PC, PDA, internet appliance, cell phone (4/11/17); second network = the Internet (5/12/18); portable device = PDA or cell phone (6/13); and shopping‑list subject matter categories including beauty aids, books, clothing, computer hardware/software/supplies, drugs, footwear, groceries, gifts, health aids and music (7/14).

Litigation / Federal Circuit check (2026)

No CAFC 2026 docket, IPR, or district‑court action naming US 7,599,855 surfaced in my searches. The searches returned the patent only as a bibliographic citation in unrelated patents/aggregators (e.g., cited on the face of later Google/ExBiblio documents and in an unrelated patent's IDS), not as an asserted patent. I cannot rule out proceedings that exist only in PACER/PatentCenter, to which I lack direct access — so treat "no litigation found" as absence of evidence in my searchable sources, not a certified negative.

Uncertainty notes

1. Assignee: Google Patents/FreePatentsOnline say Individual/Sussman; PatentGuru says "CREE, INC." I regard the Cree attribution as a likely aggregator error, but I cannot definitively resolve it without the USPTO Assignment record. Treat the assignee as unconfirmed, with inventor Lester Sussman certain.
2. Litigation status: no confirmed CAFC 2026 or district‑court activity for this exact number in available sources.
3. Legal status: Google Patents reports "Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2021‑09‑25 — a maintenance‑fee lapse designation that Google itself flags as an assumption, not a legal conclusion.
4. All patent numbers (e.g., cited references 5,483,472 / 5,424,524 / 5,884,281 / 6,129,276 / 6,370,513 / 6,204,763) are reported as they appear literally in the document; note that the specification text refers to "'276 from Jelen, et al." while the face‑of‑patent citation lists US 6,129,276 to Telxon Corporation.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7599855. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me refine with more targeted searches, keeping careful watch to exclude similar-number results (e.g., 7,599,985 and 7,075,585).

Bottom line

Based on my searches, I found no litigation — district court, ITC, PTAB, or Federal Circuit — in which US Patent No. 7,599,855 ("System and method for a complete and convenient shopping experience," inventor Lester Sussman, filed Feb. 13, 2001, granted Oct. 6, 2009) was asserted or challenged. I cannot report plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case-number/filing-date/outcome for any case, because no such case surfaced.

Caveat on completeness: I was cut off by a tool step limit mid-research. I was not able to retrieve the Unified Patents litigation caselist or PACER/Docket Alarm dockets directly for this patent, so this is "no litigation found" rather than a verified negative. A docket-level confirmation (Unified Patents portal, Docket Alarm, PACER) is still advisable.

Similar-number "hits" I expressly excluded

Your instruction not to return similar numbers matters a great deal here, because generic searches for "7599855" are heavily polluted. These results matched digits but are different patents and must not be attributed to US 7,599,855:

Google Patents' own page for US 7,599,855 shows no litigation section and no PTAB/reexamination entries, and its legal status is "Expired – Fee Related" (adjusted expiration 2021-09-25). That status is consistent with a patent that was never asserted and, by 2021, was no longer being maintained. Google Patents

The one adjacent artifact worth flagging (not litigation against '855)

In the IPR docket Maplebear Inc. d/b/a Instacart v. Consumeron, LLC, IPR2023-00865, Petitioner's Exhibit 1039 (the file history of a Consumeron "…/779" application) contains a patent-database search-query log that includes the literal string "7599855" alongside assignee queries for "CONSUMERON near3 LLC." Ex. 1039

Two important limits on what this means:

• This is a search-string occurrence inside a prior-art/file-history exhibit, not an assertion of the '855 patent and not a case caption naming it.
• I have not verified any assignment of US 7,599,855 or its division US 8,950,660 to Consumeron, LLC. Google Patents lists the current assignee of '855 as "Individual." I would not assert ownership by Consumeron without a recorded-assignment check (USPTO Assignment Search).

Related family member

US 7,599,855 is the parent of US 12/538,181 → US 8,950,660 ("…using product print catalogs or print advertisements"), a division filed Aug. 10, 2009, claiming the Feb. 13, 2001 priority date. My searches likewise turned up no litigation or PTAB proceeding on US 8,950,660. If you are assessing the family's enforcement history, that sibling is worth a separate docket check, since an NPE suit would more likely name the later-issued division.

Recommended verification steps (since I couldn't complete them)

1. Unified Patents litigation caselist — search "7599855" and "8950660": https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
2. PACER / CourtListener RECAP docket search for "7,599,855" and patent case-type filters
3. USPTO Assignment Search for reel/frame transfers out of Lester Sussman
4. PTAB API / Docket Alarm for IPR/PGR/reexam tied to 7,599,855

Confidence assessment: High confidence that no prominent published decision or IPR involves US 7,599,855 (it would have surfaced as a caption). Moderate-to-good confidence that no district-court suit exists, given the patent's lapsed status and the absence of any litigation listing on its Google Patents page — but not high enough to be certain, given I could not complete direct docket-database queries.

I'll verify the ODP "no proceedings" result against public sources before finalizing.

The initial sweep turned up no PTAB records for '855 (only lookalike patents like 7,599,881 and 7,200,855). Let me run targeted checks on the assertion side and PTAB E2E.

PTAB Proceedings Report — US 7,599,855

Note on scope: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt reports that the USPTO Open Data Portal returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 7,599,855. I treated that as canonical, then ran open-web verification searches to catch anything ODP might not have indexed (older CBM filings, recently instituted trials, Federal Circuit dockets). Those searches surfaced no proceeding of any kind — only similarly-numbered patents, which I flag below so nobody transposes them into the file.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,599,855: zero — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBM reviews; the patent has never been tested at the PTAB, and the defensive posture for a defendant is therefore "untested and unhardened, but also expired — the real fight, if any, is a backwards-looking damages fight, not an injunction fight."

Breakdown by status: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials.

Per the task instructions, there are no proceeding entries to write up. The absence is the finding, and it is material.

Number-transposition warning (do not copy these into the file)

My searches repeatedly surfaced proceedings on differently numbered patents that are easy to confuse with '855. None of these is US 7,599,855:

• US 7,200,855 — IPR2020-00789, petitioned by Comcast entities against Rovi in the Rovi/Comcast ITC and C.D. Cal. dispute. Different patent, different owner.
• US 7,599,881 — subject of a covered business method review petition (claims 21, 23, 31, 32 challenged under § 101). Different patent.
• US 9,280,689 — asserted by Wolverine Barcode IP, LLC (an NPE entity of Pueblo Nuevo LLC) against Kroger, Albertsons, Starbucks, Macy's and others; Unified Patents has publicly flagged it for prior-art charting and ex parte reexamination. Different patent, different owner (not Sussman), different subject matter (offline commerce User ID barcodes).

Strategic summary

Claim status. All of claims 1–18 are UNTESTED. Nothing has been canceled, nothing has been confirmed, nothing has been narrowed by amendment or by a PTAB claim-construction. Independent method claims 1 and 8, independent system claim 15, and dependents 2–7, 9–14, and 16–18 all stand exactly as they issued on 2009-10-06. There is no FWD to quote and no panel reasoning to lean on — which cuts both ways: a defendant gets no free invalidity roadmap from the PTAB, but also faces no stare decisis-style hardening of the claims.

The dominant defensive fact is expiration, not PTAB history. Google Patents records the '855 patent's legal status as Expired – Fee Related, with an adjusted expiration of 2021-09-25. As of today (2026-09-27) the patent has been dead for roughly five years. Two consequences follow. First, no prospective relief: there is no live patent to enjoin, so any assertion of '855 against a current product is aimed at historical damages only. Second, the § 286 six-year lookback measured from a complaint filed today only reaches back to approximately 2020-09-27, which means the entire recoverable window for the '855 patent is roughly the twelve months running to its 2021-09-25 expiration. A demand letter that cites '855 as if it were a live patent is either careless or deliberately misleading. The sibling continuation US 8,950,660 (from application US12/538/181, filed 2009-08-10, claiming priority to the same 2001-02-13 date) is likewise recorded as Expired – Fee Related, so it is not a fallback vehicle either.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue here: it attaches only to petitioners who reach a final written decision, and no one did. For a defendant currently being asserted against, every prior-art ground is still available — before the PTAB, in district court, or both. There is no petitioner-privity problem to work around, no General Plastic multi-petition risk from a prior filer, and no § 325(d) "same or substantially the same art" argument for the patent owner to deploy, because the Office has never considered any art against these claims in a post-grant forum. If anything, the practical constraint is now § 315(b): a defendant served with a complaint would have one year from service to petition, and an expired patent is generally still eligible for IPR, so the window is open — but the declining commercial value of an expired patent will usually make the cost-benefit calculus turn on the size of the damages exposure rather than on freedom to operate.

Pattern signals. There is no pattern to report. No petitioner has filed even once against '855, so there is no repeat-filer story; the patent owner (inventor Lester Sussman, original and current assignee listed as Individual) has never had a PTAB appeal to pursue and therefore has no appellate track record on this patent; and no defensive aggregator — not Unified Patents, not RPX, not AST — appears anywhere in the chain. My searches also turned up no public district court or ITC assertion of US 7,599,855, which is consistent with the total absence of PTAB activity: patents that are never asserted do not attract IPRs. I should be explicit about the confidence level here — that negative finding rests on the searches I ran rather than an exhaustive PACER/RPX docket sweep, so treat "never asserted" as a strong working assumption rather than a verified fact.

One structural observation worth preserving: '855 issued in G06Q30/06 and was classified in the commerce/electronic-shopping art, and it would have been a plausible CBM candidate (financial/business-method claims, pre-CBM-sunset availability). No one ever filed. CBM review was only available for petitions filed before 2020-09-16, so that door is permanently closed. The absence of a CBM filing during the entire eight-year window is itself an indicator of low commercial salience.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant: do not treat "no PTAB history" as the headline. The headline is expiration on 2021-09-25. Open by demanding the plaintiff identify (a) the specific dates of alleged infringement, and (b) how those dates survive the § 286 six-year lookback and the patent's expiration. A well-constructed demand letter built on '855 should not exist in 2026 without that showing.
• Verify the file directly before relying on this report. I could not query PTAB E2E programmatically; the ODP block was the authoritative source and my web searches corroborated it but did not substitute for a direct docket pull. Confirm at USPTO PTAB E2E — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ — searching by patent number 7,599,855, and cross-check the assignment record at USPTO Assignment in case '855 was transferred to an NPE after issuance (the Google Patents "Current Assignee: Individual" entry may be stale).
• Check for non-AIA office proceedings I could not rule out. My searches found no ex parte or inter partes reexamination of '855, but the ODP block covers AIA trials only. A reexamination certificate could have narrowed or canceled claims without appearing in any AIA trial count; confirm via the patent's USPTO PatentCenter "Transactions" tab.
• If a live assertion exists, the PTAB path is real but probably not the cheapest one. Because no estoppel has attached and all art remains available, an IPR on claims 1/8/15 is procedurally clean. But against an expired patent with at most a one-year damages window, a § 101/§ 103 motion or an early damages-scope motion is likely to resolve the case faster and cheaper than a 12-month IPR trial.
• Monitor the Wolverine Barcode campaign as a watch item only. US 9,280,689 is a different patent with a different owner; if plaintiff's counsel in your matter also represents Wolverine or Pueblo Nuevo, that overlap is worth noting, but do not conflate the two patents in any filing.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7599855 before drafting.

Let me dig into the assignment records, the continuation patent, and any litigation involving this family.

Inventors

Notes on pattern:

• Single-inventor, no corporate assignee. The application was filed without an assignment to any employer, which is itself the reason there is no pre-issuance assignment link to trace. This is the inverse of the "all inventors depart the assignee within 12 months" fire-sale precursor — there was never a corporate assignee to depart from.
• The same inventor appears on a sibling family: the divisional US 12/538,181 (filed 2009‑08‑10, issued as US 8,950,660 B2) and a separate television/remote-control advertisement family (e.g., US 8,291,465 B2, filed 2003‑10‑06). This looks like an independent inventor prosecuting a small personal portfolio, not an employee-inventor pipeline.
• Data-integrity caveat: one third-party aggregator (PatentGuru) renders US 7,599,855 B2 with "Assignee: CREE, INC." and a separate row for US 8,291,465 B2 with "Central Glass Company, Limited / Crowell & Moring LLP." Both are implausible on their face (an LED manufacturer as assignee of a consumer‑shopping‑list patent) and appear to be row‑misalignment artifacts in scraped data. Google Patents' bibliographic record (derived from USPTO ODP/PEDS) lists the assignee as "Individual." Do not rely on the PatentGuru assignee field without independent confirmation.

Original assignee

None — the patent issued to the inventor personally. The USPTO-derived record reproduced on Google Patents shows:

• Original Assignee: Individual
• Current Assignee: Individual ("The listed assignees may be inaccurate…")

Consequences for this analysis:

• There is no operating company to assess for product shipment, line of business, or acquisition/bankruptcy status. The "assignee" is the natural person Lester Sussman.
• No product embodying the claims has been identified. The specification is a business-method/system disclosure (portable barcode scanner → base station → UPC lookup → predictive reordering → delivery/pickup), with named commercial examples in the background (Qode, Webvan, Peapod, BarPoint, Symbol scanners) — but those are third-party prior-art/commercial context, not products of the assignee.
• Current status of the "assignee": not applicable as a corporate entity. The patent status is Expired – Fee Related, with an adjusted expiration of 2021‑09‑25. That label indicates the patent lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees at/near end of term — a strong indicator that no one was actively monetizing it.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Center has no post-issuance assignment records for US 7,599,855 that I could retrieve or that are reflected in any indexed source, and the prosecution file was never assigned away from the inventor. Accordingly there is no reel/frame chain to reconstruct.

What the record does show:

• 2001‑02‑13 — Application US 09/781,698 filed by Lester Sussman. No assignee named. No assignment executed at filing.
• 2009‑08‑10 — Divisional US 12/538,181 filed (also in Sussman's name; later issues as US 8,950,660 B2).
• 2009‑10‑06 — US 7,599,855 B2 issues. Assignee of record remains Individual. No assignment recorded at issue.
• 2021‑09‑25 — Adjusted expiration; legal status Expired – Fee Related (maintenance-fee lapse).

No Assignment, Security Agreement, Merger, Change of Name, License, Release, or Correction conveyance appears anywhere in the indexed record for this patent number. Because the chain is empty beyond issuance, no correspondent of record can be captured — and therefore the "repeat correspondent" tell cannot be evaluated for this patent (see signal 3 below). If you need a definitive negative, the authoritative check is a patent-number query at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html); a "no records" result there is itself the finding.

Per your instruction, the section above is a plain "no assignment records" finding. I am continuing below because the surrounding family and status data still bear on the NPE assessment, and I would rather give you the negative signals explicitly than leave them unmarked.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7599855
    2001 : Filed by inventor Lester Sussman
         : No assignee named at filing
    2009 : Divisional filed 10 Aug 2009
         : Patent 7599855 issues 6 Oct 2009
         : Assignee of record remains Individual
    2021 : Term ends after fee lapse

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment at all to any "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity. Assignee of record is the natural person (Google Patents / ODP bibliographic field: "Individual"). There is no reel/frame to cite.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No recorded assignee, so no match against Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or Spangenberg entities. No Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff entity appears.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present / not evaluable. With zero recorded assignments, there is no correspondent of record in the Assignment Center chain, and therefore no recurrence test is possible. (The "Crowell & Moring LLP" string that appears next to a different Sussman patent in aggregator data is a prosecution-firm field on an unrelated TV-remote family, not a recording correspondent on the '855 chain — do not treat it as a finding.)

4. Cascading transfers — not present. No consecutive assignments within 24 months or at any other interval; the only intra-family event is the 2009‑08‑10 divisional filing, which is an internal continuation practice, not a transfer.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No assignment dated within 6 months (or any period) before a first infringement suit, because no suit naming US 7,599,855 was located.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present / unclear. No bankruptcy proceeding, 10‑K/8‑K asset sale, or §363 sale involving this patent was located. Note that the inventor is a natural person, so a corporate Chapter 7/11 is not the applicable frame.

7. Privateering — not present. No operating company → NPE transfer exists to characterize; nothing in SEC filings or third-party coverage was located.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent simply lapsed.

Inverse indicator worth recording: the Expired – Fee Related status (adjusted expiration 2021‑09‑25) means the owner allowed the patent to lapse rather than pay maintenance fees. Assertion-driven NPEs rarely let a patent they intend to monetize go abandoned for non-payment; this cuts against both NPE and operating-company-assertion theories.

Verdict

Insufficient data — no recorded assignments beyond issuance.

Justification: the USPTO-derived record shows no assignment chain whatsoever — the patent issued to, and remained with, the sole inventor Lester Sussman as "Individual" (no reel/frame entries exist to cite), and the patent's legal status is Expired – Fee Related with an adjusted expiration of 2021‑09‑25, i.e., it lapsed for non-payment rather than being acquired and asserted. With no transfer, no correspondent, and no litigation located on US 7,599,855, none of the eight NPE signals can be marked present on evidence; the correct call is a negative finding rather than a "moderate confidence" NPE inference. Verify the negative directly at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7599855); a "no records found" result confirms that the original (individual) owner still held title through lapse.

Caveats: (a) I was unable to execute a live query against the Assignment Center within this session, so the "no records" conclusion rests on the patent's ODP-derived assignee fields and the absence of any indexed reel/frame — re-check before relying on it. (b) If a maintenance-fee lapse occurred at the 3.5‑ or 7.5‑year window rather than at end of term, the "Fee Related" label would instead reflect an earlier abandonment, which would strengthen — not weaken — the negative verdict.

I'll research this systematically. Let me start by confirming the patent record and the cited references.

Good progress. Now let me research the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,599,855 B2

Target confirmed (USPTO/Google Patents): US 7,599,855 B2, "System and method for a complete and convenient shopping experience," Inventor Lester Sussman, App. No. 09/781,698, filed/priority 2001‑02‑13, granted 2009‑10‑06, pre‑grant pub. US 2002/0161658 A1. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7599855/en. This is the only number matching the request; no similar-number substitution was used.

Scope note: "Prior art for US 7,599,855" here means (i) the 11 references on the face of the patent ("Patent Citations (11)"), (ii) the references the specification itself discusses in "Background of the Invention," and (iii) the non‑patent literature the specification relies on. I analyze each against the § 102 requirement that a single reference disclose every element of a claim, arranged as the claims are written (independent claims 1, 8, 15; all dependents fall under them).

⚠️ Verification status: References 1–4 below were confirmed against primary full‑text/PDF sources. References 5–11 could not be independently retrieved before my search budget was exhausted; for those, the citation data (numbers, dates, titles, assignees) is taken verbatim from the patent's own face and my descriptions are from background knowledge — treat those descriptions as unconfirmed and verify against the original documents.

A. The 11 examiner‑cited U.S. patent references

1. US 5,483,472 — Overman — "Portable electronic food shopper"

• Dates: App. No. 08/058,780, filed 1993‑05‑10; granted 1996‑01‑09. Inventor Anthony J. Overman (individual).
• Disclosure (confirmed): Pocket‑calculator‑style electronic shopping list with display, keyboard, microprocessor, RAM/ROM storing standard and custom lists, an input/output port for external devices, item quantity, price/unit comparison, memory for item characteristics, and a print function. No barcode scanner; no network lookup of product data; no consumption tracking. (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5483472A](/patent/US5483472A)/en)
• § 102 potential: Anticipates no claim. It lacks the portable barcode scanner (claims 1/8(a)), the first/second network architectures, and the date/time‑based consumption prediction (1(c)(iv)–(vi)). Relevant only as background for "electronic shopping list" and the "print the list" option in element (f)(i).

2. US 5,424,524 — Ruppert et al. (Fish) — "Personal scanner/computer for displaying shopping lists and scanning barcodes to aid shoppers"

• Dates: App. No. 08/082,257, filed 1993‑06‑24; granted 1995‑06‑13. Inventors Ruppert & Fish.
• Disclosure (confirmed): Portable barcode scanner + microprocessor + display/touchscreen + bidirectional comm port (modem, IR transceiver LAN); user selects/creates a shopping list; downloads the store price list and a coupon/discount list; scanning an item compares the code to the list, marks items as scanned, keeps a running total, and later flags "forgotten" items not scanned; can download scanned data back to the store computer. (https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5424524](/patent/5424524))
• § 102 potential: This is the closest single reference to the "scan → list → retrieve info" architecture, but it does not anticipate claims 1, 8, or 15. It is missing: scanning prior to entering the store (Ruppert scans in‑store); storing each barcode "under control of a date and time… when… scanned" for consumption tracking (1(c)(ii)); the multiplicity‑of‑dates/times → consumption‑tracking‑frequency → replacement prediction (1(c)(iv)); the specific notification without a current scan (1(c)(v)); and automatic addition of prior items (1(c)(vi)). Its "forgotten items" feature is a same‑trip cross‑check, not learned‑consumption prediction. Its date handling (block 117 stores a date with a stored price list) is not per‑item scan‑date tracking for prediction. Best characterized as § 103 art, and it directly reads on much of element (c)(ii)/(iii) and element (f)(ii)/(iii) contexts.

3. US 5,884,281 — Smith (Martin) — "Electronic grocery lister"

• Dates: App. No. 08/715,622, filed 1995‑09‑19; granted 1999‑03‑16. Inventors Smith & Martin.
• Disclosure (confirmed): "Mr. Grocery Lister" electronic notepad storing grocery names by category, scrollable menu; three embodiments — portable; non‑portable with a printer; and with a modem for on‑line grocery shopping; a green light (message) and a red light signaling "predetermined time to go shopping." (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5884281A](/patent/US5884281A))
• § 102 potential: Anticipates no claim. No barcode scanner, no barcode‑driven network lookup, no quantity/cost fields keyed to barcodes. The red "time to shop" reminder is a fixed‑schedule indicator, not a learned consumption tracking frequency. Relevant to element (f)(i) (printing) and (g) (on‑line ordering).

4. US 6,129,276 — Jelen & O'Hagan — "Shopping cart mounted portable data collection device with tethered dataform reader"

• Dates: App. No. 09/364,436 filed 1999‑07‑30 (continuation of 08/770,690 filed 1996‑12‑19, itself a CIP of 08/744,109 filed 1996‑11‑05 and 08/668,343 filed 1996‑06‑26); granted 2000‑10‑10. Assignee Telxon Corporation (later family members show Symbol Technologies). (https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[6129276](/patent/6129276).html; PDF https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/d1/ef/1f/c50e265c9257eb/US6129276.pdf)
• Disclosure (confirmed): A user terminal with a UPC barcode scanner compiles a shopping‑list database by scanning products/coupons or by direct input; the database is selectively transmitted to a base unit at a retailer via a wide‑area network such as the Internet; the central system returns competitive‑product info, coupons, alternative packaging sizes, complementary products and recipes.
• § 102 potential: The most substantive prior art and the reference the patentee expressly distinguishes. It reads on claims 1/8 elements (a), (b), (c)(i)–(iii), (d), (e) and the "Internet" dependent claims 5/12/18. It does not, however, anticipate claims 1/8/15 because it lacks: storing each scan under control of a date and time (1(c)(ii)); the multiplicity of scan dates/times → consumption‑tracking‑frequency → prediction (1(c)(iv)); the specific notification without a current scan (1(c)(v)); automatic addition to a new list (1(c)(vi)); the display indications of "obtained in‑hand" and successful send/receive (1(c)(viii)/(ix)); and the ship/pickup option (g). Note the tension flagged in the earlier section: the specification criticizes '276 because the consumer "must connect to a central site," yet Sussman's own claims independently require querying a second computer — so the distinction is narrow, and '276 is a strong § 103 starting point.

5. US 6,370,513 B1 — Kolawa et al. — "Method and apparatus for automated selection, organization, and recommendation of items"

• Dates (from face of patent): priority/filed 1997‑08‑08; granted 2002‑04‑09. Assignee Parasoft Corporation. (Description unconfirmed.)
• Disclosure (from title/my knowledge): automated organization of items and recommendation of items to a user based on prior selections/history — a recommendation engine.
• § 102 potential: Anticipates no claim (no portable scanner, no first/second network as claimed). Potentially relevant as § 103 art to the learning/prediction elements (c)(iv)–(vi), since it addresses recommendation from history — but it does not teach a "consumption tracking frequency" of physical products predicting replacement.

6. US 2003/0061113 A1 — Petrovich — "Portable electronic terminal and data processing system"

• Dates (from face): priority 1998‑05‑29; published 2003‑03‑27. (Description unconfirmed.)
• § 102 potential: Portable‑terminal/data‑processing art; likely § 103 background for the portable‑terminal element only. No apparent teaching of the claimed consumption‑prediction or auto‑add. Anticipates no claim on the face shown.

7. US 2003/0105682 A1 — Dicker et al. — "User interface and methods for recommending items to users"

• Dates (from face): priority 1998‑09‑18; published 2003‑06‑05. (Description unconfirmed.)
• § 102 potential: Recommendation‑of‑items art. Relevant only as § 103 background for "recommending items to users" — no anticipation of claims 1/8/15 (no barcode‑scan‑to‑list, no replacement prediction).

8. US 6,129,274 — Suzuki — "System and method for updating shopping transaction history using electronic personal digital shopping assistant"

• Dates (from face): filed 1998‑06‑09; granted 2000‑10‑10. Assignee Fujitsu Limited. (Description unconfirmed.)
• Disclosure (from title): updating a shopping transaction history via a PDA shopping assistant.
• § 102 potential: Relevant to storing shopping history (supports § 103 for elements (c)(ii)/(iv)) but no anticipation — it lacks the pre‑store scanning, the second‑network product‑info request, the consumption‑frequency prediction, and the auto‑add/notification features.

9. US 6,204,763 B1 — Nagai et al. — "Household consumable item automatic replenishment system including intelligent refrigerator"

• Dates (from face): filed 1999‑03‑22; granted 2001‑03‑20. Assignee Jujitsu Limited. (Description unconfirmed.)
• Disclosure (from title): a household automatic replenishment system (intelligent refrigerator) that tracks consumable items and reorders them.
• § 102 potential: Most relevant single reference to the novelty core — the "learn consumption / predict replacement / automatically (re)order" concept (claims 1(c)(iv)–(vi) and (g)). But it does not disclose the claimed portable‑barcode‑scanner‑plus‑base‑station architecture or the date/time‑of‑scan storage, so it does not anticipate claims 1/8/15; it is prime § 103 art for the predictive‑replenishment limitation. Note the specification itself acknowledges appliance‑embedded scanners (GE smart refrigerator) and separately discusses replenishment, which narrows the distance.

10. US 2002/0008621 A1 — Isogon Corporation — "Method and system for determining the inventory and location of assets"

• Dates (from face): filed 2000‑01‑06; published 2002‑01‑24. (Description unconfirmed.)
• § 102 potential: Inventory/asset‑location tracking. Marginal § 103 background at most; no anticipation of any claim (fails the scanner, shopping‑list, prediction and notification elements).

11. US 6,493,110 B1 — Roberts — "System and method for bar code rendering and recognition"

• Dates (from face): filed 2000‑04‑05; granted 2002‑12‑10. (Description unconfirmed.)
• § 102 potential: Enabling art for generating (rendering) and recognizing barcodes — relevant to the specification's requirement that catalogs/advertisements/web pages carry scannable UPCs. Anticipates no claim; possible § 103 support for the "scan a catalog UPC 15" aspect only.

B. References discussed in the specification's Background (not front‑page citations)

C. Non‑patent prior art expressly relied on in the specification

These are candidates for § 102(b)/§ 103 art and, given the 2001‑02‑13 filing, all are potentially § 102(b) (published/known >1 year before filing) where predating Feb. 2000:

• Qode Inc. "Qoder" (www.qode.com) — portable UPC scanner + keyboard‑port base station; uploads to Qode's site for deals/nearest stores. The specification distinguishes it (must connect to a central site; OS‑specific drivers). Directly material to claims 1/8/15's scanner‑plus‑base‑station concept.
• BarPoint.com (www.barpoint.com) — UPC‑based search engine for product/price info; "patent pending."
• Cybiko "Grocery List" (www.cybiko.com) and PDA To‑Do lists (Palm, Handspring, Psion) — portable list maintenance.
• GE Appliances, "GE Appliances Reveals Consumer Benefits of Concept Smart Appliances," PRNewswire, Apr. 6, 2000 — refrigerator with embedded barcode scanner (fixed scanner).
• "Smart Cardboard"/BiStatix (Motorola + International Paper), TechWeb article Nov. 3, 2000 — alternative product‑ID tags.
• Bluetooth (www.bluetooth.com); Ericsson Bluetooth SDK; Lucent Bluetooth Transceiver Module; Toshiba Bluetooth PC Card — the wireless first‑network (claims 2/9/16).
• Uniform Code Council (UCC) (www.uc‑council.org) — candidate for the "Central UPC Database 27" (claim 1(c)(iii)/claim 5).
• Business Week, "Penny‑Pincher's Paradise," Jan. 22, 2001 — e‑coupon statistics; NetValue Oct. 2000 report; US Census Bureau release Aug. 11, 2000; WSJ, Jan. 25, 2001 (Webvan losses) — market/background context; not claim‑level art.

D. Bottom‑line § 102 / § 103 assessment

No cited reference – singly or as shown – anticipates independent claims 1, 8, or 15, and therefore none anticipates the dependent claims (2–7, 9–14, 16–18), all of which incorporate their independent claim.

The reason is consistent across the art: the claims' point of novelty is the combination of

1. scanning prior to entering a store,
2. storing each scan keyed to the barcode and the scan date/time,
3. accumulating a multiplicity of scan times → "consumption tracking frequency" → prediction of replacement (1(c)(iv)),
4. a specific notification without a current scan (1(c)(v)), and
5. automatic addition of previously needed products (1(c)(vi)),

and the strongest cited references disclose only the front half (scanner → list → remote lookup) or only the prediction concept in isolation:

Most relevant prior art, ranked:

1. US 6,129,276 (Jelen et al., Telxon) — closest to the claim architecture; the patentee's own distinguished reference.
2. US 5,424,524 (Ruppert et al.) — scanner + bidirectional link + list + price/coupon download + "forgotten items."
3. US 6,204,763 (Nagai et al., Jujitsu) — predictive automatic replenishment (the novelty's heart).
4. US 6,370,513 (Kolawa, Parasoft) and US 2003/0105682 (Dicker) — item recommendation from prior behavior.
5. US 5,884,281 (Smith) / US 5,483,472 (Overman) — non‑scanner electronic grocery listers; printing/modem.
6. US 6,129,274 (Suzuki, Fujitsu) — shopping‑history storage.
7. US 6,493,110 (Roberts) — barcode rendering/recognition (enabling print/web scan).
8. US 2002/0008621 (Isogon) and US 2003/0061113 (Petrovich) — peripheral inventory/terminal art.

Prosecution significance: The learning/consumption‑frequency‑prediction‑plus‑auto‑add limitation (claim 1(c)(iv)–(vi); claim 15(c)–(e)) is the element no cited reference discloses, which is what carried allowance. Anticipation (§ 102) never attached to a cited reference; the cited art's proper role is obviousness (§ 103) — e.g., Jelen '276 or Ruppert '524 (scan/list/network) in view of Nagai '763 or Kolawa '513 (predictive recommendation). Note that several references qualify as § 102(b) (all published before Feb. 2000: '472, '524, '281, '274, '276) and the later‑published applications ('513 filed 1997‑08‑08; '763 filed 1999‑03‑22; and the 2003‑published applications with 1998–2000 U.S. filing dates) as § 102(e) art as of their U.S. filing dates under pre‑AIA practice.

Caveats

• References 5–11 (Kolawa '513, Petrovich '003, Dicker '001, Suzuki '274 's exact disclosure, Nagai '763's exact disclosure, Isogon, Roberts) were listed from the patent's own front page but could not be independently retrieved before my search budget ran out — descriptions are from background knowledge and are unconfirmed; verify against the originals (e.g., Google Patents / USPTO PatentCenter) before relying on them for a § 102/§ 103 conclusion.
• I have no direct PACER/PatentCenter/P-TACTS access; "no anticipation" here reflects the face‑of‑patent art and the claim language, not a certified search of all art. A full novelty search should also canvas the 40 "Cited By" and 97 "Families Citing" documents on the Google Patents page (several, e.g., Kroger/Sunrise R&D and IBM shopping‑checkout filings, postdate this patent and are not § 102 art against it, but are useful for family/landscape context).
• Per operating rules, all alphanumeric identifiers above are reproduced literally; note the specification's internal reference to "'276 from Jelen, et al." matches U.S. Pat. No. 6,129,276 (inventors Jelen & O'Hagan, assignee Telxon Corporation) — not a numbering error, though the same family later shows Symbol Technologies as assignee.

I'll verify the key secondary references (the ones that carry the predictive/recommendation limitations) before building the claim charts.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,599,855 Under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on scope. Per your instruction, this analysis is built on the prior art appearing in the "Prior Art" section of the US 7,599,855 B2 record — i.e., the eleven Patent Citations (the examiner/third‑party references of record) and the Cited By material on that page. I verified the disclosure content of the three load‑bearing secondary references ('763, '513, '682) and the primary reference ('276) by direct lookup; where I rely on the '855 specification's own characterization of a reference, I say so. I have not re‑read every reference end‑to‑end in this session, and I have not reviewed the '855 prosecution history (file wrapper) or its IDS.

1. Framework and the critical date

• Priority / filing date: 2001‑02‑13 (US 09/781,698). No provisional or earlier foreign priority is claimed on the face of the patent. All § 103 analysis keys off 2001‑02‑13.
• Governing law: The application was filed before 2013‑03‑16, so pre‑AIA § 103 applies, with pre‑AIA § 102(e) (U.S. patents and published U.S. applications effective as prior art as of their earliest effective U.S. filing date).
• Graham/KSR: Obviousness turns on (1) scope and content of the prior art, (2) differences between the prior art and the claims, (3) level of ordinary skill, and (4) secondary considerations. Under KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), a combination of familiar elements according to known methods is obvious when it yields predictable results; a known technique applied to improve a similar device in the same way is obvious; and a finite number of identified, predictable solutions is "obvious to try."

Which of the cited references qualify, and how

Critical filtering point: the 40 "Cited By" documents and the 97 "Families Citing this family" documents are forward citations — they postdate the '855 priority date and are therefore not prior art to the '855 claims (the lone exception candidates, e.g., Gropper US 8,601,022 with a 1999 priority, are directed to unrelated subject matter). Any obviousness case must be built on the eleven references of record above, not on the forward‑citation lists.

Side note resolving a flag from the prior summary: I confirmed that US 6,129,276 is indeed "Jelen et al.," originally assigned to Telxon Corporation (later assigned to Symbol Technologies). The '855 background's reference to "'276 from Jelen, et al." is therefore accurate and consistent with the face‑of‑patent citation — there is no contradiction there.

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA)

A bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer science, or equivalent, plus roughly 2–4 years of experience in one or more of: point‑of‑sale/portable data‑collection systems, barcode scanning, consumer e‑commerce, or networked inventory/replenishment systems — or equivalent work experience. The '855 specification itself treats the following as admitted prior art: the Symbol CS 1504 / CSM 150 scanners, PDAs (Palm, Handspring, Psion), the Qode "Qoder" and its keyboard‑port base station, BarPoint.com, WebVan/Peapod, SSL/SET, Bluetooth (including the entire Bluetooth consortium and the 10‑meter piconet), and even the fixed refrigerator/trash‑can scanner (GE press release, Apr. 6, 2000). This admitted art substantially narrows the field.

2. Construction notes that matter for § 103

1. "prior to entering to said store" (claim 1(b)) — the scanning step is at‑home/pre‑trip. Telxon '276 expressly discloses compiling the shopping‑list database by "scanning previously obtained products," i.e., off‑site, before going to the retailer. This directly meets the preamble limitation.
2. "means to predict when each said product needs to be replaced" (claim 1(c)(iv)) — functional/result‑oriented language. It is a known result in the replenishment art (thresholding on consumption), not a specific algorithm. That weighs in favor of obviousness: the claim recites the what, not a novel how.
3. "specific notification … without needing a current scanned entry" (claim 1(c)(v)) and "adding automatically" (1(c)(vi)) — this is the alleged point of novelty. It maps onto known replenishment/recommendation behavior.
4. Claim's own critique cuts against it. The '855 background criticizes Qode and '276 for "forcing the consumer to connect to a central site to obtain a list of the scanned in bar codes and their description." Yet claim 1(c)(iii) requires exactly that — communicating with a second computer over a second network to "request and to receive additional shopping list information based on each said product barcode." The asserted advantage over the prior art is therefore not reflected in the claim scope; the claim reads on the very architecture it disparages.

3. Primary obviousness combination — independent claims 1, 8 and 15

Combination A: US 6,129,276 (Jelen/Telxon) in view of US 6,204,763 (Jujitsu) and US 6,370,513 (Parasoft) and/or US 2003/0105682 (Dicker), optionally further in view of US 5,884,281 (Smith), US 5,424,524 (Ruppert) and US 6,129,274 (Fujitsu) for the dependent/sub‑features.

Claim 1 chart

Claim 8 (manual‑entry variant) — the closest thing to anticipation

Claim 8 differs from claim 1 only in that the barcode is manually entered into the portable scanner rather than optically scanned. Telxon '276 expressly covers this: "The user complies, via the user terminal, a shopping list database by scanning previously obtained products, manufacturers coupons, or using direct user input via an interface such as a keyboard or mouse." Smith '281 (selecting from a predetermined list) and Overman '472 (calculator‑style entry) provide further support. The remaining limitations are supplied by the same combination as claim 1.

Claim 15 (system) chart

(a) scanner — '276; (b) first computer storing barcodes + dates + previously received barcodes — '276/'274; (c)–(e) program that collects a multiplicity of dates/times to learn consumption rate and programmatically predict replacement, then notify and auto‑add — '763 + '513 + '682; (f) second computer over second network returning product info — '276; (g) printer — '281; (h) portable computing device — '274; (i) optional ship/pickup — '281/WebVan‑type admitted art.

4. Motivation to combine (the KSR rationales)

Because the examiner presumably found no single anticipatory reference, the § 103 question is whether the combination is proper. Several independent rationales apply:

1. Same field and analogous art. All references are in portable consumer shopping/data‑collection or household consumable replenishment. '763 and '276 were both before the same POSITA working on "make shopping convenient" systems.
2. Art recognized the very problem the '855 patent solves, and pointed to the solution. The '855 background concedes that "one of the greatest hassles in shopping is remembering what you must buy," and that people forget to add items written on a fridge list when the item is stored elsewhere (washing powder in the basement). '763 was directed to precisely that problem for the same goods — automatically making a replenishment list so the consumer never forgets. Combining '763's automatic, consumption‑triggered list generation with '276's barcode‑derived, network‑enriched shopping list yields the '855 result (a forgotten item reappears on the next list) as a predictable consequence.
3. The references themselves suggest the combination. '276's merchant database already returns alternative/competitive products and packaging options based on the scanned UPCs — i.e., "additional shopping list information" — and '276 repeatedly frames itself as automating shopping‑list creation. '763 supplies the complementary "when do I need it again?" intelligence. '513 and '682 supply recommendation mechanisms that flag items the user did not explicitly ask for in the current session — literally claims 1(c)(v)–(vi).
4. Known technique applied to improve a similar device in the same way (KSR). Threshold/frequency‑based replenishment ('763) is a known technique; applying it to the known barcode shopping list ('276) is the paradigm KSR scenario.
5. "Obvious to try" over a finite, predictable design space. Once a POSITA has a dated purchase/scan history ('276, '274, '682 all store dates), predicting restock timing by threshold or frequency was one of a small number of conventional choices (compare '763's threshold and '682's recency‑weighting).
6. Design incentive / market forces. The '855 "Objectives" recite convenience and choice of fulfillment (delivery/pickup) — market‑driven enhancements, not technical breakthroughs. The patent's own objective statement supplies the "reason to modify."
7. No unexpected results. The specification describes the predictive feature only at a high level ("the system tracks the frequency… once an ordering pattern has been established, the base station can be configured to either (a) order, or (b) print out the regular items"). A thin, result‑only description is evidence the feature was a routine implementation of known replenishment logic, not an unpredictable advance.

Suggested fallback combinations / alternative primary references

• Combination B: Ruppert '524 (portable scanner/computer with shopping list) as primary, + '763 (auto‑replenishment prediction) + '276 (second‑network lookup and merchant/central UPC database) + '281 (print/transmit list to grocer, pickup).
• Combination C: '763 as primary (consumption → replenishment list → vendor ordering via modem/Internet) + '276 (add scanning interface and second‑network product‑info lookup) + '513/'682 (notification/recommendation and insertion into the list). This may be the cleaner attack for claims 1(c)(iv)–(vi), because '763 already discloses automatically adding items to a list to be replenished and ordering them from a vendor, and '276 supplies the barcode+network architecture.
• Combination D (claim 15): Combination A + '274 (PDA as the "portable computing device") + '281 (printer).

5. Dependent claims

6. Anticipated patentee rebuttals and how they fare

1. "No reference teaches predicting replacement from scan dates." This is the strongest resistance point and the only limitation not squarely disclosed in a single reference. It is defeated by '763 (threshold/consumption‑driven replenishment) combined with the dated histories of '276/'274/'682, with predictable results. The patent's own abstract ("learns the shopping consumption habits… over a period of time") confirms the feature is an aggregation‑over‑time function of the stored dates — exactly what '763's "compare actual inventory to desired inventory" accomplishes by other sensing means.
2. "'763 uses weight/presence sensors, not barcodes; the references are non‑analogous." Rejected: '763's title, abstract, and claims are expressly about household consumable items — the same goods and the same user problem (a KSR-type analogous‑art analysis; and patents are presumed analogous to the problem the inventor faced). Substituting a barcode keying step for a weight sensor is a predictable substitution of one known identification/quantification mechanism for another.
3. "Qode/'276 require connection to a central site, which the invention avoids." Factually contradicted by claim 1(c)(iii), which requires the second‑network lookup — and the '855 system's own architecture (merchant database 26 / Central UPC Database 27) does the same.
4. Teaching away. None identified. The '855 spec criticizes fixed scanners (fridge/trash‑can) but expressly "envisages consumers using fixed appliance barcode scanners as well," and criticizes Qode's keyboard drivers while adopting the same central‑lookup model. No reference disparages the combination or teaches away from consumption‑based replenishment.
5. Secondary considerations. None of record. There is no evidence of unexpected results, licensing, or commercial success in the specification; the patent's lapsed status ("Expired – Fee Related," adjusted expiration 2021‑09‑25) is at least consistent with — though not proof of — limited commercial significance. A nexus between any such evidence and the claimed combination would also be difficult to establish given the crowded prior art.

7. Honest limitations of this analysis

• No file‑wrapper review. These eleven references are the ones of record, and the patent nonetheless issued, so at least one examiner evidently distinguished them (likely on the "predict/auto‑add" limitation). Without the Office actions and any applicant remarks/amendments, I cannot evaluate the exact grounds of allowance or whether a later reference was considered.
• Reference text reliance. For '276, '763, '513, and '682 I verified quotations directly. For '524, '472, '281, '274, '110, '113, and '621 I relied substantially on their titles, assignees, dates, and the '855 specification's own characterizations, plus the '855 description of the '276 system. A full invalidity contention should chart each reference's spec paragraph‑by‑paragraph.
• § 102 vs. § 103. No single reference appears to disclose the full combination, so § 102 anticipation of claims 1/15 is unlikely on this record; § 103 is the proper vehicle. Claim 8 comes closest to anticipation because '276 expressly covers manual data entry.
• Separate § 112 issues (e.g., the functional "means to predict" language and the thin written description of the predictive algorithm) are outside the § 103 question but would likely arise in any validity challenge and, as noted, tend to support obviousness by casting the feature as a routine implementation of known techniques.
• Supplementary, non‑of‑record art worth noting (not in the '855 prior‑art section, verify dates before use): US 2002/0161652 A1 (Paullin, household consumable inventory monitoring using smart containers) explicitly describes "predict[ing] when a user is going to run out … based on their rate of use of that product in the past" and having items "automatically arrive at their door, or be picked up"; and the Beverage‑Works family (US 2004/0217124 A1, divisional of an application filed June 8, 2000) tracks consumption and automatically orders. These are highly probative of the predictability of the claimed prediction/replenishment feature, but they are forward‑citing or uncited material and I have not confirmed their § 102(e) qualification here — they should be independently date‑verified before being asserted.

8. Bottom line

On the references of record, claims 1, 8 and 15 of US 7,599,855 are reasonably vulnerable under § 103 as a combination of familiar elements: (i) Telxon/Jelen '276 (portable scanner → shopping‑list database → Internet/second‑network product‑info lookup → transmission to retailer), (ii) Jujitsu '763 (automatic, consumption‑triggered replenishment list and vendor ordering), and (iii) Parasoft '513 and/or Amazon/Dicker '682 (history‑driven notification and automatic addition/recommendation of items without a current user action) — with Smith '281, Ruppert '524, and Fujitsu '274 supplying the print/portable‑device/dated‑history sub‑features. The motivation to combine is supplied by the references' common field and shared problem, the '855 specification's own admitted problem statement and objectives, and KSR's predictable‑results and design‑incentive rationales. The only genuinely contestable limitation is the consumption‑rate‑based prediction and auto‑add (claim 1(c)(iv)–(vi)), which is the single point on which a patentee would focus its defense — and which is squarely met by the '763/'513/'682 combination.

Confidence: Moderate‑to‑high that a prima facie § 103 case can be made over '276 + '763 + '513/'682. Lower that it succeeds without additional art, given the issued‑patent presumption and the absence of post‑allowance litigation/PTAB testing in which the combination would have been adjudicated.