US 7735018

I'll verify against live sources before summarizing.

Let me verify the abstract and claim set, since the fetched full text is truncated before the claims.

Let me pull the actual claim text for the issued patent (67 claims) and check for any '018-specific PTAB/CAFC proceedings.

Verification note

I ran live searches against Google Patents/patentimages (the patent PDF itself), Justia, FreePatentsOnline, PatSnap litigation intelligence, CAFC oral-argument records, and IP Watchdog coverage. Two things to flag before the summary:

1. Date discrepancy. Your prompt states a current date of April 26, 2026, but my system date is September 13, 2026, and the results I retrieved include events dated July 6, 2026 and August 31, 2026. I report proceedings through mid‑September 2026.
2. The "full patent text" you supplied is truncated — it ends in the middle of the detailed description and contains no claim set and no abstract. I therefore had to verify the abstract and claim count from the patent PDF independently (both confirmed below). I could confirm the number of claims and the family structure of the independent claims, but not the verbatim text of the granted claims, which I flag explicitly rather than reconstruct.

I searched the specific number 7735018 and did not substitute similar numbers. Results below are for US 7,735,018 B2 only.

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US 7,735,018 B2 — bibliographic data

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7735018/en ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f9/bb/a0/7a380614cd78e9/US7735018.pdf ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2007/0070066.html

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Abstract (verbatim, from the granted patent PDF)

"Methods and systems are provided for providing an improved three-dimensional graphical user interface. In one embodiment, the method generally comprises: receiving an input from an end user, and capturing computing output from at least one computer source in response to the received end-user input. The computing output can be presented as two or more objects within a three-dimensional virtual space displayed to the end user. In one embodiment, the method further comprises generating a timeline that includes an icon for each object presented within the virtual space. In another embodiment, the method further comprises providing a database for storing and categorizing data regarding each object presented within the virtual space."

The same abstract appears in the pre-grant publication US 2007/0070066 A1, so the abstract was not amended during prosecution.

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Independent claims — plain-language overview

Uncertainty disclosure: I could not retrieve the verbatim text of claims 1–67 as granted in US 7,735,018. What I can state with confidence is (a) the granted patent contains 67 claims, and (b) the pre-grant publication of the same application listed 66 claims — i.e., claims were added/renumbered during prosecution, so the publication's claim numbering cannot be assumed to match the granted patent. The claim families below are derived from the patent's own "Summary of the Invention," which is worded to mirror the claim set. Treat these as faithful paraphrases of the disclosed claim families, not as quotations of the granted claims.

The specification's summary discloses five parallel claim families, each with a base independent claim plus dependent claims adding the timeline and/or database (compass) features:

1. Method claims (the lead family, corresponding to granted claim 1). A method for providing a 3D GUI comprising three steps: (i) receiving an input from an end user; (ii) capturing computing output from at least one computer source in response to that input; and (iii) presenting that captured output as at least two objects within a three-dimensional virtual space displayed to the end user. In plain terms: rather than having new output replace what is on screen, the system captures output from elsewhere (a webpage, an application, a document, a desktop) and stages it as objects in a 3D scene.

2. System claims. A system comprising a display screen, an input device for receiving end-user input, a processor module coupled to the display and input device, and a memory module coupled to the processor. The memory holds executable code causing the processor to capture computing output from at least one computer source in response to the input and present it as at least two objects within a 3D virtual space on the display.

3. Network/server system claims. A system comprising a server connected to a computer network and a user-interface application executing in association with the server, providing the same three functions (receive input → capture output → present as ≥2 objects in a 3D virtual space). This is the client/server variant, where the 3D GUI functionality is delivered from a server rather than running locally.

4. Multi-server network system claims. A computer-server network of multiple servers in communication with each other, at least one display screen coupled to the network, at least one end-user input device coupled to the network, and a software module accessible by one or more of the servers for providing screen displays to the user. The software module directs the servers to capture computing output from at least one network source and present it as ≥2 objects in a simulated 3D Cartesian space.

5. Computer-readable recording medium claims. A computer-readable medium storing a program that makes a computer execute the same three-step method (receive input → capture computing output → present as ≥2 objects in a simulated 3D Cartesian space).

Feature layers recited across these families (as dependent limitations), per the summary:

• Timeline: generating a timeline containing an icon for each object presented in the virtual space, with icons organized in linear chronological order according to when the objects were presented, and displaying that timeline within the virtual space. The specification describes these icons as hyperlinks that jump the viewpoint back to the visual event they represent, and describes the timeline as a replay mechanism letting a later viewer re-experience an author's session by clicking icons left to right.
• Database module / "compass": providing a database module that stores and categorizes data regarding each object in the virtual space, provides a hyperlink within the database module to the respective viewpoint of each object, and displays that data alongside the virtual space. The "compass" stores named x,y,z viewpoints, can act as a "combination lock" opening a stored viewpoint via a sequence of names across dials, and can index viewpoints across local files, network files, or web-hosted 3D files.

Related-file corroboration of the claim architecture (from the '018's own continuation, application 12/751,879 → US 8,881,048, published as US 2011/0029907 A1) shows the same five-family structure with independent claims at 1, 42, 58, 60 and 63 — consistent with, but not proof of, how the 67 claims of the '018 are organized. Source: https://patents.justia.com/patent/20110029907

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Litigation and CAFC 2026 docket status

On the '018 patent itself, I found no CAFC 2026 appeal and no PTAB trial. Two distinct tracks involve this family:

a) District court — the '018 is asserted, but not yet adjudicated on the merits. US 7,735,018 was one of four asserted patents in SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple, Inc., W.D. Tex. (Waco Div.) Case No. 6:22-cv-00149, filed February 10, 2022, alongside US 9,304,654, US 8,881,048 and US 9,696,868. After 462 days the case was transferred (not decided) to the Austin Division and reopened as Case No. 1:23-cv-00553-ADA-DH, with no merits ruling, claim construction order, or invalidity finding recorded before transfer. Google Patents also lists a second family suit in the Texas Eastern District, Case No. 2:22-cv-00049 (the record I retrieved does not identify the defendant in that case). Sources: https://www.patsnap.com/resources/blog/litigation/spacetime3d-v-apple-3d-gui-timeline-patent-transfer-patsnap/ ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US7735018/en

b) CAFC 2026 — the appeals involve the '018's continuations, not the '018. Two appeals were argued July 6, 2026 before Judges Stark, Prost and Reyna, and decided August 31, 2026 (both nonprecedential, authored by Judge Stark):

• Apple Inc. v. SpaceTime3D, Inc., No. 2025-1022 — affirmed the PTAB as to US 8,881,048: claims 1–13 survived, claims 14–18 held obvious. The pivot was claim 1's "the rendered first webpage," construed as "the rendered version from which the corresponding image was captured" — i.e., returning to the previously rendered static page rather than rendering a live new one. That saved claims 1–13. SpaceTime3D lost its bid to give claim 14 ("the first webpage") the same scope.
• SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Google LLC, No. 2025-1083 — affirmed that all challenged claims of US 9,304,654 and US 9,696,868 were obvious.

Sources: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/2026/07/06/ ; https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/08/31/spacetime3d-mixed-results-federal-circuit-appeals-apple-google-iprs/ ; https://www.vitallaw.com/news/patent-fed-cir-ptab-ruling-on-patent-challenged-by-apple-and-google-is-affirmed-by-federal-circuit/ipm0198d7e65996d34450b220bbdba7c3f3fa

c) PTAB. The earlier Samsung IPRs (IPR2020-01417/‑01418/‑01419) targeted the '048 and '868 patents, not the '018; the '018's prosecution history was submitted as an exhibit (Patent Owner Exhibit 2003) in those proceedings and in the LG/Google IPR2023-00577/578 involving the '868. Source: https://gaeflexstaging-dot-docketupdate.appspot.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2023-00577/LG_Electronics_Inc._v._SpaceTime3D_Inc/

Family lineage (from the patent's own cross-reference, confirmed in later filings): Provisional 60/717,019 (Sep. 13, 2005) → application 11/531,676 (Sep. 13, 2006) → US 7,735,018 → 12/751,879 → US 8,881,048 → 14/503,142 → US 9,304,654 → 14/614,708 → US 9,696,868, plus later published applications 2020/0089390 and 2021/0357099–57101.

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Explicit uncertainties

• Granted claim text not obtained. I did not retrieve verbatim claims 1–67 of US 7,735,018. The independent-claim overview above is derived from the specification's Summary of the Invention (which mirrors the claims) and from the structurally parallel continuation US 8,881,048. Do not cite it as quoted claim language.
• Independent claim numbering unknown. I can confirm 67 claims total, but not which claim numbers are independent. Do not assume the numbering matches the 66-claim pre-grant publication.
• "Adjusted expiration 2029-03-09" and "Active – Reinstated" are reported literally from Google Patents' legal-status field and are itself labelled an assumption, not a legal conclusion. I note a tension worth verifying: a 20-year term measured from the September 13, 2006 filing date would run to about September 13, 2026, so a 2029-03-09 adjustment implies substantial patent term adjustment. I could not independently verify the PTA award. A patent whose term expired in September 2026 would also need to be checked against the listed 2029 date. Verify against USPTO PatentCenter before relying on it.
• Assignee chain. The '018 record shows SpaceTime3D, Inc. as assignee, but the later family member US 9,696,868 lists the applicant/inventor as "Ezra Eddie Bakhash, Palo Alto, CA." Current ownership of the '018 as of 2026 is not established by what I retrieved.
• E.D. Tex. Case No. 2:22-cv-00049 — defendant not identified in the sources retrieved.
• I did not access PACER directly; the district court information comes from third-party aggregation (PatSnap, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents) and Google Patents' litigation data, all of which disclaim accuracy.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7735018 across patent litigation databases.

Let me dig deeper into the specific litigation entries tied to the '018 patent.

Let me check the Stanford NPE database and the Samsung case for the '018 patent specifically.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,735,018

Patent identity check (as instructed, interpreted literally): U.S. 7,735,018 B2, titled "System and method for providing three-dimensional graphical user interface," application no. US 11/531,676, filed 2006‑09‑13, priority date 2005‑09‑13, granted 2010‑06‑08, inventor E. Eddie Bakhash, current assignee SpaceTime3D, Inc. Google Patents records it as "Active – Reinstated," adjusted expiration 2029‑03‑09. All of the litigation below is tied to that patent family (the SpaceTime3D / Bakhash 3D GUI family: '018, '048, '654, '868).

I found two district court cases in which the '018 patent is reported as asserted, plus related PTAB and Federal Circuit activity on sibling patents. I did not find any judgment, verdict, settlement, or consent judgment on the merits of the '018 patent itself.

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1. SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc.

Grounded sources:

• Google Patents family/litigation data for US 7,735,018 lists "US case filed in Texas Western District Court" (portal.unifiedpatents.com/case/6:22-cv-00149) — the docket is the Apple case.
• PatSnap's case record (patsnap.com, "SpaceTime3D v. Apple") states the four asserted patents expressly include US7735018B2 and that the recorded Basis of Termination is "Case Transferred," with the verbatim order: "Case transferred from TXWD has been received and opened in Western District of TX District, Austin Division as case number 1:23-cv-00553-ADA-DH."
• Docket entry detail: Dockets.Justia and CourtListener confirm filing date 02/10/2022, Judge Albright, 35 U.S.C. § 271. The Markman order in that case is dated March 19, 2023 (cited in Apple's IPR exhibit lists as "Markman Order (Case 6:22-cv-00149-ADA) (03/19/2023)"). An earlier order denying Apple's motion to stay pending intra-district transfer is dated February 2, 2023.
• The court's November 10, 2022 opinion (No. 6-22-CV-00149-ADA) denied Apple's motion to dismiss SpaceTime3D's post-suit willful and indirect infringement claims; pre-suit indirect and willful claims were dismissed by joint agreement, without prejudice.

Caveat: The publicly indexed merits decisions I located in this case (the motion-to-dismiss opinion and the claim-construction briefing) are framed around the '048 patent. I did not locate a document that confirms the '018 patent survived to trial or was dropped/electively narrowed in this action. That should be verified on the live PACER docket for 1:23-cv-00553-ADA-DH.

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2. SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) et al.

Grounded sources:

• Google Patents lists "US case filed in Texas Eastern District Court" (portal.unifiedpatents.com/case/2:22-cv-00049) in the '018 litigation record.
• IPR2023-00577, LG Electronics Inc. v. SpaceTime3D, Inc. (P.T.A.B., filed Feb. 10, 2023; terminated June 13, 2024) — docket shows the petitioner's Joint Motion to Terminate (May 9, 2023) and a Corrected Settlement Agreement (Exhibit 1056), with the "Board Final Written Decision" and status "Final Written Decision – Appealed."
• The IPR2023-00242 Mandatory Notice (Dec. 7, 2022) lists SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. LG Electronics Inc. et al., 2:22-cv-00049 EDTX 2022-02-10, as Active at that time, and SpaceTime3D Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., 2:19-cv-00372 EDTX 2019-11-14, as Terminated.
• Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for US 9,696,868 lists SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. LG Electronics Inc. et al., 2:22-cv-00049, E.D. Tex.

Caveat (important): The indexed analysis of the LG complaint I retrieved characterizes the asserted patents as the '048, '654, and '868 patents and discusses the Android "recent apps"/Chrome tab functionality. I did not independently retrieve the LG complaint itself to confirm whether the '018 patent appears in a count. The '018's inclusion rests on the Google Patents family-litigation listing for this specific patent number. Treat as "reported, verify against the complaint/pacer."

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3. SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. [Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20Co.%2C%20Ltd.%20et%20al.) (likely NOT an '018 case)

• Court: E.D. Tex.; Case No. 2:19-cv-00372-JRG (Judge Rodney Gilstrap); filed November 14, 2019; Terminated.
• A Markman order issued December 7, 2020.
• I could not confirm that U.S. 7,735,018 was asserted in this case. The Google Patents litigation record for the '018 patent does not list the Samsung case (it lists only the two 2022 cases), and the '048 IPR papers discuss Samsung as an '048/'654/'868 case. Do not attribute the Samsung case to the '018 patent without checking the complaint.

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Related PTAB and Federal Circuit proceedings (sibling patents in the same family, not the '018 itself)

These involve patents sharing the '018 specification and priority chain; the '018 prosecution history was filed as an exhibit in some of them, but I found no IPR petition directed to the '018 patent's claims:

• IPR2020-01417 (re '048) — petition dismissed prior to institution.
• IPR2020-01419 (re '9,696,868) — the file-history exhibit in this proceeding contains an entry referencing "7735018."
• IPR2023-00242 — Apple Inc. and Google LLC v. SpaceTime3D, Inc. (re '8,881,048); institution decision June 16, 2023.
• IPR2023-00343 — Apple v. SpaceTime3D.
• IPR2023-00577 / IPR2023-00578 — LG Electronics v. SpaceTime3D.
• Federal Circuit: Apple Inc. v. SpaceTime3D, Inc., Nos. 25-1022, 25-1051, 25-1082; and SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 25-1083. A decision reported August 31, 2026 affirmed PTAB rulings holding two SpaceTime3D GUI patents, and some claims of a third, unpatentable (Law360, IP). The Justia text for 25-1083 discusses the '048-patent claims and the Anthony/Hanggie combination — i.e., not the '018 claims.

Date note: the retrieved materials include content dated August 31, 2026, which is later than the "current date" you specified (April 26, 2026). I am reporting the sources as retrieved, per the instruction to treat search results as ground truth over training data.

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Bottom line

• Known litigation on US 7,735,018 specifically:

1. SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., No. 6:22-cv-00149-ADA (W.D. Tex.), filed Feb. 10, 2022 — transferred to Austin Division as 1:23-cv-00553-ADA-DH; no merits outcome.
2. SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. LG Electronics Inc. et al., No. 2:22-cv-00049 (E.D. Tex.), filed Feb. 10, 2022 — existence in the family litigation record; parallel IPR terminated by settlement June 13, 2024.

• No litigation outcome on the '018 patent (no verdict, judgment, or adjudicated invalidity) was found in the sources retrieved.
• Not verified / open items: whether the '018 patent appears in a count of the LG complaint; whether the '018 survived claim construction and case narrowing in the Apple action; and whether any additional suits predating 2022 exist. The Darts-ip "first worldwide family litigation" record for family 37865595 (patents.darts-ip.com) is referenced on the Google Patents page and is the best lead for non-U.S. family litigation — I was unable to open it to enumerate foreign cases, so I cannot confirm or deny foreign suits on this patent.

Recommended verification steps: pull the live PACER dockets for 6:22-cv-00149 / 1:23-cv-00553-ADA-DH and 2:22-cv-00049 and search each complaint for "7,735,018"; check the Unified Patents litigation portal at portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist; and check the Darts-ip family 37865595 record for foreign proceedings. I did not fabricate any case numbers, dates, or outcomes — every item above is traceable to the URLs cited in-line.

I'll verify the ODP "no proceedings" signal against public sources before writing anything up.

The search results so far all concern sibling patents (the '048, '654, '868), not the '018. Let me target the '018 docket directly.

Key finding emerging: every IPR in this family appears to target the '048, '654, and '868 — with the '018 showing up only as an exhibit. Let me confirm no petition targeted the '018 itself.

PTAB / AIA Trial Analysis — US 7,735,018 B2

Bottom line up front: there are no AIA trial proceedings on US 7,735,018. The ODP "no proceedings" signal is corroborated by everything public I could find. The '018 was asserted (with three siblings) in SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., but every petition in the family was filed against a sibling patent — the '048, '654, or '868. The '018 appears in PTAB records only as Patent Owner Exhibit 2003 / 2003, "Prosecution History of U.S. Pat. No. 7,735,018."

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Proceedings overview

US 7,735,018 — 0 AIA trial proceedings on file (0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denied). Defensive posture: the '018 itself is an untested patent — no PTAB claim construction, no FWD, no estoppel, and no Fintiv-driven denial history. But it sits inside a family where three sibling patents have now had every challenged claim invalidated, two of them affirmed by the Federal Circuit on 2026-08-31 — so a defendant inherits a rich, judicially-blessed invalidity record and a narrow claim-construction ruling that reads directly on the shared specification, without inheriting any of the petitioners' § 315(e)(2) estoppel.

Caveat on scope: ODP returned nothing, and my searches surfaced no petition, POP request, or FWD naming U.S. Pat. No. 7,735,018 as the challenged patent. I could not run an exhaustive PTAB E2E name search for the '018 directly. Treat "zero proceedings" as well-supported but not a substitute for a docket-level E2E confirmation before you rely on it in a brief.

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Family-adjacent proceedings (sibling patents — NOT US 7,735,018)

The following are included because they define the defensive landscape around the '018. None of these challenged 7,735,018. Each header is explicitly scoped.

IPR2023-00343 — Apple Inc. (joined by Google LLC) v. SpaceTime3D, Inc.

Challenged patent: US 9,304,654 ('654) — a continuation in the same disclosure family as the '018. Not the '018.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-12-13
• Status: Final Written Decision — all challenged claims unpatentable; affirmed on appeal 2026-08-31
• Judge panel: David C. McKone, Sheila F. McShane, Frederick C. Laney (opinion by McShane). Google joined as a party via its petition and motion for joinder in IPR2023-00579.
• Petition grounds: Claims 1–19, § 103 only.
  • Ground 1 — claims 1–5, 7–8, 10–13, 15–17, 19 obvious over Anthony (US 2005/0091596) in view of Hanggie (US 2005/0088447) ("HAC").
  • Ground 2 — claims 6, 9, 14, 18 obvious over HAC in view of Matthews (US 2006/0107229).
• Institution decision: Instituted under § 314; Google joined. (The Board also took briefing on § 325(e)/§ 325(d)-type discretion and on the term "replacing" before institution.)
• Final Written Decision: Entered 2024-07-02. "For the reasons set forth in this Final Written Decision pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 318(a), we determine that Petitioner has demonstrated, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1-19 of the '654 patent are unpatentable." Oral hearing 2024-03-18. All of independent claims 1, 10, and 19 fell, and every challenged dependent claim with them. No claim was held patentable.
• Settlement / termination: None. Apple Inc. and Google LLC each identified themselves as sole real party-in-interest; SpaceTime3D likewise.
• Appeal: SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Google LLC, Fed. Cir. No. 25-1083 (argued/decided 2026-08-31, nonprecedential, authored by Judge Stark, joined by Judges Prost and Reyna). SpaceTime3D challenged the Board's constructions of limitations [1c-2] (ordering by "last time the user performed one of" three enumerated open/interact events) and [1d-2] (replacing 3D images with the corresponding object in 2D space). Affirmed. The court held that SpaceTime3D's construction "disaggregates each enumerated event into two separate actions and then requires an independent timing determination for both," contrary to the claim's "one of" language. Opinion: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/25-1083/25-1083-2026-08-31.html
• Defensive value: Every challenged claim of the '654 is dead and the Federal Circuit has now ratified the Anthony/Hanggie/Matthews theory. If your accused feature set is a 3D window manager with a chronological timeline, the '654 is off the table for SpaceTime3D.

IPR2023-00578 — [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) / LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc. / Google LLC v. SpaceTime3D, Inc.

Challenged patent: US 9,696,868 ('868) — same family as the '018. Not the '018.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2023-02-10
• Status: "Final Written Decision - Appealed" (docket); all challenged claims unpatentable; affirmed 2026-08-31
• Judge panel: David McKone, Frederick Laney, Sheila McShane, Hubert Lorin, Minn Chung (panel change noticed 2023-05-23; Lorin authored the FWD)
• Petition grounds: Claims 1–20, § 103.
  • Ground 1 — claims 1–5, 9–14, 18–20 obvious over Anthony in view of Hanggie (HAC)
  • Ground 2 — claims 6–8, 15–17 obvious over HAC in view of Matthews
  • Ground 3 — claim 7 obvious over HAC + Matthews in view of Robertson
• Institution decision: Entered 2023-08-07 as a "Joined" institution decision.
• Final Written Decision: 2024-07-02. All challenged claims held unpatentable as obvious. The Federal Circuit affirmed in the same 2026-08-31 pair of opinions (SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Google LLC, No. 25-1083), which held "all challenged claims of U.S. Patent Nos. 9,304,654 and 9,696,868 were obvious."
• Settlement / termination: LGE terminated from the proceeding before institution on 2023-05-31 under 37 C.F.R. § 42.74, pursuant to a "SETTLEMENT AND LICENSE AGREEMENT" executed 2023-05-04. Per the joint motion, LGE and SpaceTime agreed "to dismiss with prejudice any litigation relating to the ['868] patent," and SpaceTime "voluntarily dismissed all claims in the LGE Litigation" on 2023-05-04. Terms confidential — the agreement was filed with a joint request to keep it "Separate," and the Board's refund order (2023-03-30 lineage) confirms pre-institution termination. Google remained and litigated to FWD.
• Appeal: SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Google LLC, Fed. Cir. No. 25-1083, decided 2026-08-31, affirmed.
• Defensive value: The '868's claims are canceled; any assertion of the '868 against a 3D/2D-switching UI is now very weak. The LGE outcome also shows SpaceTime3D will settle on a license rather than defend a merits loss — useful leverage data.

IPR2023-00577 — LG Electronics Inc. / LG Electronics U.S.A., Inc. / Google LLC v. SpaceTime3D, Inc.

Challenged patent: US 8,881,048 ('048) — parent/continuation relative in the same family as the '018. Not the '018.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2023-02-10
• Status: "Final Written Decision - Appealed"; split outcome — claims 1–13 survived, claims 14–18 canceled; affirmed 2026-08-31
• Judge panel: David McKone, Frederick Laney, Sheila McShane, Hubert Lorin, Minn Chung
• Petition grounds: Claims 1–18, § 103.
  • Ground 1 — claims 1–18 obvious over Robertson (US 6,414,677) in view of Gralla (How the Internet Works, 6th ed. 2002) and Gettman (US 2005/0086612)
  • Ground 2 — claims 1–18 obvious over Sauve (US 2006/0230356) in view of Tsuda (US 6,577,330)
• Institution decision: Instituted 2023-08-07.
• Final Written Decision (2024-06-13): Claims 1–13 — Petitioner failed to show unpatentability. Claims 14–18 — unpatentable as obvious. The pivot was the limitation "the rendered first webpage." The Board construed it as "the rendered version from which the corresponding image was captured," i.e., the system must restore the previously rendered page rather than re-render it. Robertson/Gettman rendered on selection; Sauve was not shown to display the same version used to create the thumbnail.
• Settlement / termination: LGE terminated 2023-05-31 pre-institution on the same 2023-05-04 Settlement and License Agreement (see "Decision Settlement Prior to Institution of Trial," Paper 12/13, covering IPR2023-00577/-00578/-00579). Google stayed. Terms confidential.
• Appeal: Apple Inc., Google LLC v. SpaceTime3D, Inc., Fed. Cir. No. 25-1022 (cross-appeals; SpaceTime3D appealed the claims 14–18 holding). Decided 2026-08-31, nonprecedential, Judge Stark writing, joined by Prost and Reyna. Affirmed in full. The court:
  • Upheld the "the rendered first webpage" construction: "The use of the definite article 'the' refers back to the earlier rendering step and identifies the particular version from which the image was captured."
  • Rejected Apple's reply-stage browser-caching theory, which would have supplied the missing limitation: "a petitioner must have a reasonable opportunity to respond to a claim construction first proposed after institution, but 'a petitioner may not in reply rely on new prior art to teach a claim limitation.'" Apple added new references and expert testimony at reply; the Board "reasonably concluded that Apple's reply crossed that line."
  • Rejected SpaceTime3D's bid to read "the first webpage" (claim 14) identically to "the rendered first webpage" (claim 1) — which is why claim 14 fell while claim 1 survived.
  • Appeal brief excerpt: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73575988/21/apple-inc-v-spacetime3d-inc/
  • Background: https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/08/31/spacetime3d-mixed-results-federal-circuit-appeals-apple-google-iprs/
• Defensive value: This is the single most useful ruling for a defendant facing the '018. Claims 1–13 of the '048 survived only because of a narrow construction of a specific past-tense limitation. If the '018's claims contain a comparable "rendered"/antecedent-basis limitation, the same construction will likely be pressed in district court and gives you a non-infringement escape hatch. If they do not, that limitation was the only thing standing between the petitioner and a win — which cuts the other way.

IPR2020-01417 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. / [[Samsung Electronics America](/litigations/by-defendant/Samsung%20Electronics%20America), Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.) v. SpaceTime3D, Inc.

Challenged patent: US 8,881,048 ('048). Not the '018.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-08-04
• Status: Terminated-Settled (pre-institution) — docket label; terminated 2021-03-15
• Judge panel: Brian McNamara, Jennifer Meyer Chagnon, Terrence McMillin
• Petition grounds: Claims 1–18, § 103. Ground 1 over Miller (US 6,229,542) + Miramar (Light & Miller, "Miramar: A 3D workplace," Sept. 2002) + Hennings (US 2004/0215664) + Holecek (US 8,341,541); Ground 2 over claims 2–4, 9–11, 16–18. Petition also mounted a full Fintiv § 314(a) / § 325(d) showing, with an extensive district-court schedule exhibit set.
• Institution decision: Never reached — settled first. The record is dominated by SpaceTime3D's Fintiv sur-reply (2021-01-14) urging denial because the E.D. Tex. trial date (and the Board's projected FWD deadline of 2022-03-17) made institution wasteful.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Board Termination Decision, "Settlement Prior to Institution of Trial," 2021-03-15 (37 C.F.R. § 42.74). Petitioner refund requested 2021-03-16; refund approved 2021-03-30. Terms confidential.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Low — nothing was decided, so no estoppel attached and no claim was adjudicated. Note the exhibit-set detail useful to you: SpaceTime3D filed Exhibit 2003, the Prosecution File History of U.S. Patent No. 7,735,018 — meaning the '018's prosecution record was used as intrinsic-evidence support for the '048's construction fight. Prosecution-history estoppel in the '018 file may therefore already have been characterized on the record by SpaceTime3D itself.

IPR2020-01418 — Samsung v. SpaceTime3D

Challenged patent: US 9,304,654 ('654) per the Board's own statement in IPR2023-00343. Not the '018.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-08-04
• Status: Terminated-Settled (pre-institution) — docket; terminated 2021-03-15
• Judge panel: Brian McNamara, Jennifer Meyer Chagnon, Terrence McMillin
• Petition grounds / FWD / appeal: None reached. The IPR2023-00343 FWD confirms: "The '654 patent was involved in IPR2020-01418, in which the petition was dismissed prior to institution. See IPR2020-01418, Paper 12."
• Settlement / termination: Settlement prior to institution, 2021-03-15 (37 C.F.R. § 42.74); refund approved 2021-03-30. Terms confidential.
• Defensive value: Low. Historically important only as evidence of Samsung's 2020 settlement cluster (three petitions resolved together before institution).

IPR2020-01419 — Samsung v. SpaceTime3D

Challenged patent: appears to be US 9,696,868 ('868). Not the '018.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-08-04 (same day as -01417/-01418)
• Status: Unverified. Docket paths associate IPR2020-01419 with U.S. Pat. No. 9,696,868, and a Samsung filing of 2020-08-04 exists, but I could not confirm the disposition. Note a documented caption inconsistency in the record itself: the Board in IPR2023-00343 stated that Petitioner identified the '654 as the subject of IPR2020-01419, while Patent Owner identified -01418. Do not rely on this entry without pulling the -01419 docket.
• Judge panel, grounds, FWD, appeal: Not verified.
• Defensive value: Assume it was part of the same August 2020 Samsung cluster that was resolved by the March 2021 settlements. Verify before citing.

IPR2023-00579 — Google LLC v. SpaceTime3D, Inc.

Challenged patent: US 9,304,654 ('654). Not the '018.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2023-02-10 (same day as -00577 and -00578)
• Status: Google joined as a party to IPR2023-00343 (Board order 2024-01-14 lineage; joinder order Paper 14). LGE was terminated pre-institution on 2023-05-31 under the same settlement decision covering -00577/-00578/-00579.
• FWD / appeal: Adjudicated through the IPR2023-00343 FWD (2024-07-02), then Fed. Cir. No. 25-1083 (affirmed 2026-08-31).
• Defensive value: Duplicative of IPR2023-00343. Its only analytical significance is as evidence of serial/parallel petition strategy: Apple, Google, and LGE each filed against the same family within weeks of one another.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 7,735,018: entirely UNTESTED. Not one claim of the '018 has been adjudicated at the PTAB, and there is no PTAB or CAFC claim construction of any '018 claim. Every favorable- and unfavorable-looking number in this report belongs to a sibling patent. That distinction matters enormously for a defendant: the '018 is the earliest-issued member of the SpaceTime3D family (priority 2005-09-13 via provisional 60/717,019; filed 2006-09-13; issued 2010-06-08; adjusted expiration 2029-03-09), and its disclosed subject matter — capturing computing output, staging it as objects in a simulated 3D Cartesian space, and generating a chronological icon timeline — is the common ancestor of the '048, '654, and '868 claims that have now been narrowed or destroyed.

What the family record gives you, even though the '018 is untested:

1. A disposal roadmap for the timeline claims. The '018's Summary of the Invention recites generating "a timeline that includes an icon for each object presented within the virtual space, wherein the icons are organized in linear chronological order." That is functionally the same concept the Board held obvious over Anthony + Hanggie (+ Matthews) in the '654 and '868, and the Federal Circuit affirmed on 2026-08-31. Anthony/Hanggie/Matthews are published patent documents — public art, still fully available to any new petitioner.
2. A disposal roadmap for the 3D-object/page-mapping claims. The '018's Summary likewise recites presenting captured computing output "as at least two objects within a three-dimensional virtual space." That concept was attacked over Robertson + Gralla + Gettman and Sauve + Tsuda in the '048. The Board credited those theories enough to cancel claims 14–18 — claims 1–13 survived only on the "rendered first webpage" construction.
3. A construction that is now locked in on the shared specification. The Federal Circuit squarely held that "the rendered first webpage" means the page as rendered earlier, not a freshly rendered/live page. Because the '048 and the '018 share the same specification lineage, SpaceTime3D will have a hard time arguing the '018's parallel terms mean something broader. If the '018 claims an antecedent-basis "rendered"/"said" limitation tied back to a prior rendering step, you have a strong non-infringement position; the asserted products must reveal the previously rendered instance, not re-render the URL.
4. The claim 14 lesson. The Board and CAFC reached opposite outcomes for adjacent claims based purely on whether the claim said "the rendered first webpage" (claim 1 — survived) or "the first webpage" (claim 14 — canceled). Read the '018's claims word-by-word against the '048's claim 1 and claim 14 text before you decide how hard to fight.

Estoppel landscape — mostly favorable to a new defendant. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel is patent-by-patent and petitioner-by-petitioner. Apple (IPR2023-00343, -00577, -00578, -00579), Google (all four 2023 proceedings), and LGE (nominal petitioner, but terminated pre-institution on -00577/-00578/-00579 before any FWD, so no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attached to LGE) are the relevant parties. None of that estoppel reaches US 7,735,018, because no FWD ever issued on the '018. Practical consequences:

• A defendant facing the '018 is not estopped from anything.
• SpaceTime3D is not estopped from litigating '018 validity in district court either — no IPR FWD on the '018 means no § 315(e) safety net for you, and no IPR-based estoppel against SpaceTime3D.
• Samsung's Fintiv fights (IPR2020-01417) and the LGE settlements left zero estoppel on any patent in the family. Consistency: the 2020 Samsung cluster produced no adjudications, the 2023 Apple/Google/LGE cluster produced three FWDs plus one joinder — but only on siblings.

Pattern signals:

• Repeated-petitioner concentration. Apple filed four 2023 petitions in this family (lead petitions in -00343 and -00577, plus its Google-joined posture in -00578/-00579). Google is a co-petitioner or joiner in effectively all of them. LGE was a co-petitioner that exited by license. This is a coordinated defensive effort by the platform defendants, not a lone challenger.
• No defensive aggregator. I found no Unified Patents (or comparable RPX-style) IPR on any SpaceTime3D patent. The litigation flag on the Google Patents page points to Unified's litigation-data portal as a data provider only — do not read that as Unified participation. Every petitioner identified was a commercial defendant or its affiliate.
• Patent owner fights hard, then settles. SpaceTime3D litigated the 2023 proceedings through FWD and through two Federal Circuit appeals argued and decided together on 2026-08-31 — one as cross-appellant, one as appellant. But it also licensed out to LGE and dismissed the LGE litigation with prejudice on 2023-05-04, before institution. Expect a licensing posture rather than a bare-knuckle one, particularly in the '018's remaining ~2.5-year life.
• Declining runway. The '018 expires 2029-03-09 (adjusted; statutory 20-year would have been 2026-09-13). Any damages case against the '018 is a short-tail case, which weakens SpaceTime3D's settlement leverage.

---

Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the null result directly. Before relying on "no PTAB activity on the '018" in any filing or opinion you give a client, run the patent number in PTAB E2E / Patent Center and in the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's End-to-End docket (https://ptab.uspto.gov/). The ODP ingest and newspaper coverage both lag; a recently filed petition against the '018 would not necessarily appear in either.

2. Get the two Federal Circuit opinions into your file. Both are dated 2026-08-31 and both are nonprecedential:

   • Apple Inc., Google LLC v. SpaceTime3D, Inc., No. 25-1022 — the '048 split; source of the "rendered first webpage" / reply-stage-new-art holdings. Docket: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73575988/21/apple-inc-v-spacetime3d-inc/
   • SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., Google LLC, No. 25-1083 — the '654 and '868 affirmances; source of the Anthony/Hanggie/Matthews obviousness affirmance. Opinion: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/25-1083/25-1083-2026-08-31.html
   • Practitioner summary: https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/08/31/spacetime3d-mixed-results-federal-circuit-appeals-apple-google-iprs/

3. Pull the actual FWDs, not the summaries. The IPR2023-00343 FWD is available in full (e.g., via the docket file at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2023-00579/LG_Electronics_Inc._v._SpaceTime3D_Inc/docs/07-02-2024-Board/). The IPR2023-00577 FWD (2024-06-13) and IPR2023-00578 FWD (2024-07-02) are public at USPTO PTAB Decisions. Quote the claim-level dispositions directly from the FWDs before putting anything in a brief — my claim-level granularity for the '654 and '868 rests on the FWD's own summary sentence and the CAFC opinions, and I did not independently verify every individual dependent claim in the '868 FWD.

4. Do a claim-mapping exercise between the '018 and the '048's claim 1 vs. claim 14. This is the highest-value hour you can spend. If the '018's independent claims mirror claim 1 of the '048 — antecedent-basis "rendered" limitation and all — the CAFC's 25-1022 construction is your best non-infringement argument and the Robertson/Gralla/Gettman combination is largely foreclosed on the merits. If the '018's claims mirror claim 14 — "the first webpage" with no rendering step — then the Board has already held that formulation obvious, and an IPR on the '018 should be straightforward.

5. If you file, build the petition without the trap that killed Apple's '048 case. Apple lost claims 1–13 partly because browser-caching evidence ("a webpage previously rendered and stored in cache") appeared for the first time in its reply, along with new references and new expert testimony. The Federal Circuit held there is "a reasonable opportunity to respond" requirement, but "a petitioner may not in reply rely on new prior art to teach a claim limitation," and it found no abuse of discretion. Put any caching/restore-the-rendered-version theory in the petition, not the reply.

6. Calendar the real deadlines. Because there are no active proceedings, there is no statutory 1-year clock running and no institution-decision deadline to watch on the '018. If that changes, the § 314(b) clock is one year from institution to FWD, and the § 315(b) one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement of the '018 — SpaceTime3D's current live assertion of this family is in W.D. Tex., Austin Division, No. 1:23-cv-00553-ADA-DH (transferred from Waco Division, No. 6:22-cv-00149), and separately in E.D. Tex., No. 2:22-cv-00049 (LG). Check when the '018 was first served in those cases; that date governs your § 315(b) window.

---

Source honesty notes

• I did not retrieve the text of any claim of US 7,735,018. The claim-scope descriptions above are paraphrases of the patent's own Summary of the Invention and definitional sections, not verbatim claim language. Do not quote them as claims.
• I could not directly verify the exact priority chain connecting US 11/531,676 (the '018) to US 12/751,879 (the '048) and its continuations. The '048 and '654 FWDs establish that the '142 application is a continuation of 12/751,879, and the whole family claims benefit of provisional 60/717,019 — which is also the provisional SpaceTime3D filed as Patent Owner Exhibit 2002 in IPR2023-00577. Treat "same family / shared specification" as well-supported; treat "the '018 is the direct parent of the '048" as unverified.
• IPR2020-01419's challenged patent and disposition are unverified and internally inconsistent across the record. Do not cite it without pulling the docket.
• I hit my search-request ceiling before I could exhaustively rule out an unnumbered or very recently filed petition, a POP request, or a PGR/CBM against the '018. The structured ODP block says none exists; that is the canonical answer, and I found nothing contradicting it.

I'll research this patent's ownership chain using the sources specified.

Let me dig for the actual USPTO assignment records and entity details.

I could not retrieve the Assignment Center reel/frame records directly in this session (the tool budget was exhausted before I could query the assignment index), so the chain below is reconstructed from the Google Patents legal-events record for US 7,735,018, PTAB litigation documents, and entity filings. I flag exactly where the record is thin rather than filling gaps.

Inventors

• Sole-inventor patent. No co-inventors to trace.
• No departure pattern to report. Because there is a single inventor who is also the founder of the assignee, the usual "all inventors exit within 12 months" tell is inapplicable — there was no inventor team to disperse. Nothing in the record shows Bakhash assigning to a third party; his only recorded conveyance is the 2006 assignment to his own company.
• Note for accuracy: I found no evidence he left SpaceTime3D. The company continues to litigate the family, and press accounts (2022 Apple suit coverage) describe Bakhash as SpaceTime3D's founder personally demonstrating the technology to Apple.

Original assignee

SpaceTime3D, Inc. — named on the issued patent, and still the record assignee per Google Patents' legal-events tab, which lists no post-issuance change of owner.

• Line of business: 3D graphical-user-interface software. The company built SpaceTime (a/k/a SpaceTime3D), a Windows 3D tabbed-stack web browser that loaded search results as stacks of pages. Public beta 2007-06-04; release candidate RC1 signed 2010-06-10; demonstrated at CES 2008. Trademark US 78,735,286 ("SpaceTime"), held by SpaceTime3D, Inc.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — historically. SpaceTime/RC1 was a real shipped product, and press coverage of the 2022 complaint recites that Apple learned of the technology via CES 2008 press (San Jose Mercury News, TechCrunch). That is unusual for an NPE and cuts against a pure-troll read of the original assignee.
• Current status: operating posture is enforcement-dominant, product discontinued. No public evidence of dissolution, bankruptcy, or acquisition. The corporate entity is alive because it is the named plaintiff in pending litigation (SpaceTime3D, Inc. v. Apple Inc., W.D. Tex. 6:22-cv-00149, transferred and reopened as 1:23-cv-00553-ADA-DH, Austin Division) and because it owns the four-patent family. I found no evidence of an active consumer product after the 2010 release candidate; treat that as a negative finding, not a confirmed shutdown.

Assignment timeline

One recorded assignment exists on the public record for this patent. Recorded 2006-12-08 — Google Patents legal events log a single reassignment entry:

• Executed date: not stated in the source retrieved (Google Patents logs the recording date of 2006-12-08) / recorded 2006-12-08 — Reel/Frame not obtained (see disclaimer below)
  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: BAKHASH, E. EDDIE
  • Assignee: SPACETIME3D, INC.
  • Correspondent: not determinable from the sources retrieved this session. I could not query the Assignment Center hit detail, which is where the correspondent of record is exposed. I am not going to guess at an attorney name.
  • Context: founder-to-company assignment — the inventor assigned the pending application (filed 2006-09-13) to his own startup roughly three months post-filing. This is the ordinary "assign to employer/operating entity" step, not a fire-sale, not a securitization, not a transfer-to-asserter.

No subsequent assignment, security agreement, merger, change of name, license, or release appears in the Google Patents legal-events record. That absence is itself the key finding: SpaceTime3D, Inc. is both the original and the current owner — there is no LLC chain, no holding company, and no asserter entity interposed between 2010 and the 2019/2022 lawsuits.

⚠️ Disclaimer on reel/frame: I did not obtain the reel/frame number or the correspondent of record, because I could not reach the Assignment Center detail page within this session. Do not treat the timeline above as a verified reel/frame citation. Verify at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "7735018") or https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html before relying on it in any filing.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7735018
    2005 : Priority provisional filed
    2006 : Application filed by E Eddie Bakhash
         : Assignment recorded to SpaceTime3D Inc
    2007 : SpaceTime browser public beta ships
    2010 : Patent issued Jun 8
         : SpaceTime RC1 released
    2019 : First suit filed v Samsung
    2020 : Samsung IPRs dismissed
    2022 : Suits filed v Apple and others
    2023 : Apple case moved to Austin

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. There is no transfer from an operating assignee to a licensing-only LLC. The only recorded assignment runs toward the operating entity (Bakhash → SpaceTime3D, Inc., recorded 2006-12-08), and Google Patents still lists SpaceTime3D, Inc. as current assignee. No entity with an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix appears anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — present (qualified). SpaceTime3D, Inc. does not match any of the listed NPE registries (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). However, Unified Patents' PTAB case list explicitly classifies the patent owner as "NPE (Small Company)" across IPR2023-00242 (’048), IPR2023-00343 (’654), IPR2023-00344 (’868), IPR2023-00577 (’048), IPR2023-00578 (’868), and IPR2023-00579 (’654) — six petitions filed by Apple, Google, and LG between 2022-11-22 and 2023-02-10, all instituted 2023-08-07. Caveat: Unified's tag is a third-party classification, and the same patent family drew an "Operating Company" label in a competing litigation database (exparte.ai) for the Samsung case.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. Structurally there can be no recurrence: the chain contains exactly one assignment, so a repeat correspondent is impossible to demonstrate here. I also could not retrieve the correspondent of record (see disclaimer). This signal is unresolved, not negative — absence of evidence here is an artifact of my data gap, not a clean bill of health.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. No consecutive assignments at all, let alone chained LLCs in under 24 months. Total chain depth: one link, in 2006.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The only assignment (recorded 2006-12-08) predates the first infringement suit (SpaceTime3D v. Samsung, E.D. Tex. 2:19-cv-00372, filed 2019-11-14) by roughly 13 years. The chain was not arranged to enable assertion; the plaintiff is the original owner.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 record for SpaceTime3D, Inc. surfaced, and no sale-in-bankruptcy conveyance is recorded.

7. Privateering — not present. SpaceTime3D asserts the family in its own name as record owner. There is no operating-company grantor hiding behind it, and no SEC-filing or Patent Progress/EFF coverage surfaced indicating a backer directing the suits. Counsel of record is Susman Godfrey LLP (Y. Gloria Park), a general commercial litigation firm — that is litigation counsel, not an assignment-chain participant, and is not the same thing as a correspondent of record.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. To the contrary, Unified Patents is aligned with the defendants — its member-facing IPR filings (LG, Apple, Google) and its "NPE (Small Company)" tag put it on the opposite side of this patent. The patent is not neutralized: Apple and LG obtained Final Written Decisions in 2024, but the W.D. Tex. case continues in Austin.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence (one strong signal, several weak/neutral ones).

Justification: The assignment chain itself is exceptionally clean — a single 2006-12-08 founder-to-company assignment (Bakhash → SpaceTime3D, Inc.) with no shell LLCs, no cascading transfers, no pre-litigation transfer, and no defensive-aggregator endpoint, so the classic strong signals are simply absent. What drives the NPE call is post-issuance conduct rather than the chain: a small software company whose SpaceTime product line stopped at a 2010 release candidate has since 2019 asserted this family against Samsung, LG, Apple, and Google — filing suit in W.D. Tex. roughly 13 years after issuance and four years after its first campaign — while Unified Patents classifies the owner as "NPE (Small Company)" in IPR2023-00242, -00343, -00344, -00577, -00578, and -00579. The historical product (CES 2008 demo) is why this is moderate rather than high confidence, and why "operating-company assertion" is not the right label either — there is no evidence SpaceTime3D currently ships a product practicing the claims.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7735018)
• USPTO Assignment Search UI: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7735018/en
• Litigation docket referenced on the patent page: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/6%3A22-cv-00149

Open items you should close before relying on this: (a) pull the reel/frame and correspondent of record for the 2006-12-08 assignment; (b) confirm whether any unrecorded license or covenant-not-to-sue exists (invisible in the assignment index); (c) confirm SpaceTime3D, Inc.'s current corporate status in New York (active vs. dissolved) — a dissolved plaintiff would change the standing analysis materially.

I'll research US patent 7735018 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the complete citation list for this patent.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 7,735,018 B2

Retrieval attempted: USPTO / Google Patents record for US 7,735,018 B2, date of analysis April 26, 2026.

1. What the search confirmed (verified)

2. Important limitation on the citation list — please read before relying on anything below

I could not verify US 7,735,018's own (backward) citation list from the sources returned. The authoritative full text supplied for this patent is truncated before the "Patent Citations" block, and the web results I retrieved did not expose that block for US 7,735,018 B2 itself. Google Patents typically renders it as "Patent Citations (N)" under "References Cited." I am therefore not in a position to hand you a verified, complete citation set, and I will not present one as if it were verified.

What the search did return was a citation table headed "Patent Citations (27)" appearing on a different document's page — US 2009/0172557 A1 ("GUI screen sharing between real PCs in the real world and virtual PCs in the virtual world") — in which US 7,735,018 B2 itself appears as a cited reference. That list is not US 7,735,018's citation list; US 7,735,018 is a member of it. I am flagging it explicitly so it is not mistaken for the backward-citation set you asked for.

3. References observed in that other document's table (unverified as citations of US 7,735,018)

Treat the following strictly as candidate art worth checking, not as confirmed citations of US 7,735,018. Bibliographic data is as returned by the search tool; dates in the tool output were labeled as priority dates in some rows.

The table as returned was truncated after a row beginning "US 2…", so the list above is incomplete even as a record of that other page's table.

4. Forward citations and family (context — not prior art)

Patents/documents citing US 7,735,018 B2 (observed): US 2011/0029907 A1, US 2015/0149965 A1, US 2015/0128059 A1, US 9,696,868 B2, US 9,304,654 B2, US 8,881,048 B2, US 2020/0089390 A1, plus third‑party documents such as US 2012/0124265 A1, US 2009/0132952 A1, US 2009/0172557 A1, US 9,037,997 B2. These are forward citations and therefore carry no § 102 weight against US 7,735,018; they matter only for family/continuation exposure.

5. Why I cannot complete the § 102 mapping yet

Two inputs are missing, and neither can be responsibly inferred:

1. The verified list of references cited on the face of US 7,735,018 (the "References Cited" / "Patent Citations (N)" block). Without it, any § 102 assignment would be speculation.
2. The claim text of US 7,735,018 B2. The authoritative text supplied to me stops in the description (mid-sentence around the audio/music helper application) and does not include the claims. The definitions section confirms the claimed subject matter concerns: (a) capturing computing output from at least one computer source responsive to end‑user input; (b) presenting that output as at least two objects in a 3D virtual space; (c) generating a timeline with an icon per object in linear chronological order; and (d) a database module ("compass") storing/categorizing per‑object data with hyperlinks to respective viewpoints. Those four functional pillars are what any § 102 reference must disclose, element by element, in a single reference.

6. If you want to proceed

Either (a) paste the "References Cited"/"Patent Citations" block and the claims from US 7,735,018 B2, or (b) authorize a direct fetch of the Google Patents / USPTO PatentCenter / EPO register pages for US 11/531,676. Once I have the verbatim citation list and claim 1, I can produce the requested table — full citation, publication and filing date, brief description, and the specific claim(s) each reference potentially anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102 — with an explicit anticipation chart for the independent claims and a note on any reference that is § 102(e)/102(a) art only by virtue of its filing date.

Nothing in Section 3 above should be used in an invalidity contention without first confirming, on the face of US 7,735,018 B2, that each reference is actually cited there.

I'll research the prior art of record and the surrounding 3D-GUI art before building the §103 combinations.

Now let me get the full granted claim set and the prior art of record.

Scope note before the analysis

Two things from the earlier sections must be carried forward, and one of them changes the analysis materially.

1. The previously-generated "Independent claims — plain-language overview" is contradicted by the granted claim text. That section assumed the '018's claims mirror the specification's broad Summary of the Invention (five claim families at roughly the level of "receive input → capture output → present as ≥2 objects in a 3D space"). That assumption is wrong for the granted claims. The granted claim 1 of US 7,735,018 B2 (as reported in RPX Insight's claim-1 field for US7735018B2) is far narrower — it is a search-result / render-capture-texture / click-remap claim, and the granted patent's own claim 27 and claim 48 (visible in the granted patent PDF) recite the same narrow subject matter:

Claim 1 (as reported by RPX Insight): "1. A method for providing a three-dimensional (3D) graphical user interface, comprising: receiving a search query input from an end user; capturing a computing output from at least one computer source in response to the search query, wherein the computing output is a search result that identifies a plurality of websites related to the search query; displaying at least a portion of the computing output on at least two windows within a 3D space, comprising; rendering a first one of the plurality of websites; capturing a first image of the rendered first one of the plurality of websites; and texturing the first image on a first one of the at least two windows, the first one of the at least two windows being displayed in a foreground of the 3D space and a second one of the at least two windows being displayed in a background of the 3D space; displaying at least one navigation icon, wherein the at least one navigation icon can be interacted with to at least move the second one of the at least two windows to the foreground of the 3D space; and displaying additional information on the first one of the at least two windows, comprising; receiving an interaction by the end user at a particular location on the first image; mapping the location of the interaction to a corresponding location on the rendered first one of the plurality of websites, the location corresponding to one link of a plurality of links embedded in the first one of the plurality of websites, the link corresponding to the additional information; rendering the additional information; capturing a third image of the rendered additional information; texturing the third image on the first one of the at least two windows, the third image thereby replacing the first image on the first one of the at least two windows."
Source: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US7735018B2

Corroborating granted-claim text from the patent PDF itself:

Claim 27: "A method for providing a three-dimensional (3D) graphical user interface, comprising: receiving a search query from an end user…"
Claim 45: "The method of claim 27, wherein the information from a first one of the plurality of websites is selected from a list consisting of a web page, an image file, a video file, a PDF file, a flash file, a document file, a PowerPoint file, a 3D file, and a music file."
Claim 46: "…the second one of the plurality of windows is moved from the background … to the foreground … and the first one … to (i) the background … and (ii) the left of the second one … if the end user interacts with the forward arrow, and the first one … is moved from the background … to the foreground … and the second one … to (i) the background … and (ii) the right of the first one … if the end user interacts with the backward arrow."
Claim 50: "…displays the search results on the plurality of windows by at least (i) rendering at least a portion of the first one of the plurality of files using a native application, (ii) capturing a bitmap of the at least a portion …, and (iii) texturing the bitmap on the first one of the plurality of windows within the 3D space."
Claim 51: "…further displays a timeline that includes a first icon corresponding to the first one of the plurality of windows in the 3D space."
Claim 52: "…further displays a database that includes information corresponding to the first one of the plurality of windows…"
Source: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/f9/bb/a0/7a380614cd78e9/US7735018.pdf

So the operative independent claims for §103 are 1, 27, and 48 (method, method, system), and the timelines/database features that the earlier section treated as the core invention appear in the '018 as dependent limitations (e.g., claims 51–52) rather than as the independent point of novelty. I could not read claims 2–26 or 53–67 verbatim in this session; anything I say about them is flagged.

2. Date discrepancy (still live). The prompt states April 26, 2026; my system date is September 13, 2026 and retrieved sources include events dated July 6, 2026 and August 31–September 3, 2026. Per instructions I report sources as retrieved.

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Obviousness analysis of US 7,735,018 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

A. Governing law and the prior-art date window

The '018 has a filing date of 2006-09-13 and claims priority to provisional 60/717,019 (2005-09-13). It is therefore governed by pre-AIA §§ 102/103 (application filed before 2013-03-16). The critical date is 2005-09-13.

• Art published before 2005-09-13 is § 102(a)/(e) prior art (and § 102(b) only if published before 2004-09-13).
• Art published after 2005-09-13 is prior art only under § 102(e) (i.e., its underlying U.S. filing date must precede 2005-09-13), which matters for one of the references below.

The KSR framework controls: a claim is obvious where the differences between the claim and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious to a POSITA, and the analysis must consider whether a motivation to combine existed (including market forces, design incentives, "known technique to improve similar devices," and "obvious to try"), and whether there was a reasonable expectation of success. KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).

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B. The prior-art arsenal

Sources for the PTAB treatment of Anthony/Hanggie/Matthews/Robertson: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2023-00579/doc/1001 ; https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/ptab/IPR2023-00343/doc/summary/2 ; https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/ptab/IPR2023-00578/doc/summary/4 ; https://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IPR2023-00343.pdf

Gap to disclose honestly: I could not retrieve the '018's own front-page "References Cited"/"Referenced By" lists in this session (the fetched full text is truncated before the claims and lacks the references section). So I cannot state what the examiner considered during prosecution of the '018, nor whether the allowed claims were amended over a specific reference. Note the family record indicates the '018 granted with 67 claims while the pre-grant publication had 66, and IPR petitioners in the sibling cases asserted that "the examiner did not issue any prior art rejections during prosecution" (https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/ptab/IPR2023-00343/doc/summary/2). That contention is about the siblings, not necessarily the '018, and should be verified against the '018 file wrapper. This gap matters both to the strength of the obviousness case and to any § 325(d) argument.

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C. Ground 1 — Anthony + Hanggie ("HAC"): the core combination

Proposed: Claims 1, 27, 48, and dependents 45–47, 49–52 obvious over Anthony in view of Hanggie (or vice versa).

Mapping:

Motivation to combine: Both are Microsoft-filed applications in the same field (3D desktop/user-interface computing), targeting similar computer architectures and the same graphics stacks (Direct3D/OpenGL), addressing the same problem (managing proliferating windows/content and navigating among them). Petitioners in the sibling IPRs expressly articulated the rationale: implementing Hanggie's well-understood interactive 3D application windows within Anthony's organizational chronology yields an "intuitive and organized method for managing multiple applications," a predictable improvement in UI efficiency rather than a change in principle of operation.

Expectation of success: High — both disclose compatible rendering architectures and both rely on common 3D graphics APIs; combining a known organizational paradigm (timeline) with known UI elements (application windows) is a classic KSR "arrangement of old elements" yielding predictable results.

Weakness: HAC alone is thin on "search query" → "search result that identifies a plurality of websites." Anthony's objects are data objects (files/folders), not a live search-result page. Ground 1 is strongest against the system wrapper claim 48's structural limitations and against the timeline/database dependents, weaker against claim 1's opening search limitations. That gap is addressed in Grounds 3–4.

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D. Ground 2 — HAC + Matthews

Proposed: Claims 1, 27, 48 and dependents obvious over Anthony + Hanggie + Matthews (essentially Grounds 1A/2A and 1B/2B of IPR2023-00343 and IPR2023-00579, applied to the '018's claim language).

Why Matthews adds value:

1. It teaches a 3D transform applied to a work area that includes "an image of a desktop" — i.e., an explicit image of already-rendered content being transformed in 3D, which maps onto claim 48's "second one of the plurality of windows including information from a second one of the plurality of files … displayed in the background," and onto the general "capture then texture" concept.
2. It names Internet Explorer as the application — supporting the "website" content and the browser-control implementation.
3. Express motivation: Matthews cross-references Hanggie's application number, an unusually strong articulated reason to combine (the IPR petitioners called this "exceptionally strong").

Residual gap: Matthews still does not supply a search-result front end. See Ground 3/4.

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E. Ground 3 — HAC/Matthews + a browser/offscreen-render-and-capture teaching (for claims 1, 27, 48, 50)

The '018's most distinctive requirements are (i) rendering a website, (ii) capturing an image of the rendered page, (iii) texturing that image onto a 3D window, (iv) mapping a click on the texture back to the corresponding location on the still-rendered page, and (v) re-capturing and replacing the image after the mapped-affordance is activated. Claim 50 narrows this to "rendering … using a native application, capturing a bitmap … and texturing the bitmap."

Why this is obvious on this record:

• The applicant's own specification concedes the mechanism is conventional. The '018 describes its core technique as using the operating system's existing web browser control rendered off-screen: "the 3D GUI program … [opens] one 2D HTML page of the homepage of the chosen search engine … drawn off screen (hidden) through the operating system's web browser control … as a child window within the 3D GUI," and calls the whole cycle "a workaround or manual procedure implemented in order to overcome a shortcoming of the operating system." It further states the OS "can incorporate this feature or similar to it with one simple API call in the future." An applicant's admission that a claimed mechanism is a workaround for an OS deficiency using existing OS components is powerful § 103 evidence: the components (offscreen rendering, screen/window bitmap capture, texture mapping, input remapping) were all known; only their arrangement is asserted as new, and the arrangement follows directly from the stated design goal.
• Hanggie supplies the interactive-3D-window architecture. As the PTAB reasoned in the '654 IPR: "[w]e agree with Petitioner's arguments that the disclosures of the '654 patent support the claimed interactivity of the images in the 3D space… the Specification provides support that the images in 3D are interactive and function in a similar manner to those as corresponding objects in 2D." (https://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/IPR2023-00343.pdf) That reasoning rests on shared specification language that the '018 also contains — so the same logic applies, mutatis mutandis, to the '018's "receiving an interaction … mapping the location … to a corresponding location on the rendered … website."
• Bitmap capture of a natively rendered window (claim 50) is a routine, well-documented desktop technique (BitBlt/PrintWindow-style capture of a window's framebuffer), and the '018 itself describes a "contingency … to periodically capture the on-screen output of an operating system control or output (e.g., window) as a bit map from the frame buffer, video driver, operating system graphics API or video memory by blit."
• Project Looking Glass (Sun, 2004–2005) independently demonstrates live 2D application windows mapped onto 3D surfaces, movable/rotatable/flippable in 3D while remaining interactive — an independent, pre-critical-date corroboration that texturing live, interactive window content onto 3D geometry was within the ordinary skill level by 2005.

Motivation: The '018's own stated problem — that "in navigating to new windows, the new windows replace the display of the current window" and that a finite 2D desktop forces overlapping windows — supplies the design incentive. A POSITA seeking to (a) avoid destroying the previously rendered page and (b) let users manipulate multiple search results simultaneously would naturally (i) render pages off-screen, (ii) snapshot them as images, (iii) place the snapshots in a 3D workspace, and (iv) route pointer events back to the hidden live renderer to preserve full interactivity. That is "applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield predictable results."

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F. Ground 4 — Above + search-visualization / retained-page art (for the "search query → plurality of websites" limitations)

The remaining claim-1 elements are the search front end and the retained-page paradigm:

I flag the search-visualization tools (e.g., KartOO, Grokker, TouchGraph-style spatial result maps) as leads requiring verification of exact dates and disclosures — I did not confirm them in this session and will not assert them as grounded references.

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G. Motivations to combine — consolidated (KSR rationales)

1. Same field, same problem, same architecture. Anthony, Hanggie and Matthews are Microsoft filings in 3D desktop UI and window/desktop management; they share graphics stacks (Direct3D/OpenGL), window-object data structures, and the identical problem of diminishing effective desktop space. Combining them is "the mere arrangement of old elements, each performing the function it was known to perform." KSR, 550 U.S. at 417.
2. Express incorporation. Matthews expressly references Hanggie's application — the strongest form of articulated motivation.
3. Design incentive / market pressure. Windows clutter, "replace rather than retain" navigation semantics, and the desire for a "visual computing history" were recognized problems; the '018 identifies them in its own Background.
4. Predictable result. Rendering a window off-screen, capturing its pixels, texturing them onto 3D geometry, and routing input back is an aggregation of known techniques with a predictable outcome and no change in principle of operation.
5. Obvious to try. With finite 2D desktop space as the constraint, a POSITA had a finite number of identified, predictable solutions (z-stacking, carousels, 3D rooms, thumbnails, off-screen mirrors), and the '018's selection is one of them.

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H. Where an obviousness challenge is genuinely vulnerable

I will not overstate the case. The following limitations are the ones a Patent Owner would attack, and the family's own litigation record shows these arguments have teeth:

1. The "rendered first webpage / rendered first website" limitation saved sibling claims in a Federal Circuit-affirmed PTAB outcome. In Apple Inc. v. SpaceTime3D, Inc., No. 2025-1022, the Federal Circuit (Aug. 31, 2026) affirmed the PTAB as to US 8,881,048 with claims 1–13 surviving while claims 14–18 were held obvious. The pivot was the construction of "the rendered first webpage" — construed as "the rendered version from which the corresponding image was captured," i.e., returning to the previously rendered static page rather than rendering a live new one. The '018's claim 1 recites "mapping the location of the interaction to a corresponding location on the rendered first one of the plurality of websites" — the same architectural concept (a maintained, live mirror of the rendered page behind the captured texture). That is directly relevant: the strongest good-faith argument against an '018 obviousness case is that HAC (and Matthews) composite live window surfaces rather than maintain a separately rendered page from which an image is captured and to which clicks are re-mapped. A challenger must either (a) prove Hanggie's compositing is the claimed capture/remap, or (b) supply a reference teaching the explicit render-→capture-→remap round trip. Sources: https://ipwatchdog.com/2026/08/31/spacetime3d-mixed-results-federal-circuit-appeals-apple-google-iprs/ ; https://www.vitallaw.com/news/patent-fed-cir-ptab-ruling-on-patent-challenged-by-apple-and-google-is-affirmed-by-federal-circuit/ipm0198d7e65996d34450b220bbdba7c3f3fa
2. The forward/backward-arrow shuffling of claims 46–47 (window moves left on forward-arrow, right on backward-arrow, and moves further on repeat interaction) is highly specific choreography that the Microsoft references do not plainly teach. This is the best candidate for a "non-obvious specific implementation" argument.
3. Claim 50's "native application" rendering-then-bitmap-capture is close to routine, but the "native application" qualifier may be argued to exclude browser-control/embedded-render approaches.
4. § 325(d) / prosecution-history asymmetry. Because Anthony/Hanggie/Matthews were never substantively considered during the family's prosecution (per petitioners), they are available — but this cuts both ways: if the '018's own examiner did consider 3D-desktop art (unverified here), a discretionary-denial or "cumulative art" argument becomes available to the Patent Owner.
5. Objective indicia. Any secondary-considerations record (licensing, litigation-driven adoption, industry praise) for the '018 specifically has not been established in the materials I retrieved; the family's IPR history shows Patent Owner attempted objective-indicia arguments in the siblings.

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I. Bottom line

• Claim 48 (system) and claims 49–52 are the most vulnerable: Anthony + Hanggie + Matthews read on the structural architecture (display, input device, processor/memory code, 3D-space window display, navigator, timeline icon, database), with motivation supplied by shared field/assignee, compatible rendering stacks, and Matthews' express cross-reference to Hanggie.
• Claim 1 and claim 27 (method) are vulnerable but contestable. Anthony + Hanggie + Matthews covers the 3D window arrangement, navigation, interaction-with-3D-rendered-window, and (via claim 50-type capturing) the texture pipeline; the search front end is conventional; the remaining battleground is the render → capture → remap-to-the-still-rendered-page sequence, where the Federal Circuit-affirmed '048 outcome shows the Patent Owner has a viable construction argument.
• Claims 46–47 (specific left/right arrow choreography) are the claim(s) I would expect to survive a § 103 challenge on the art I can currently ground.

Verification steps I could not complete in this session (do not treat as settled):

1. Retrieve the verbatim text of claims 2–26 and 53–67 of US 7,735,018 (I only have claims 1, 27, 45–52); the independent-claim count and the exact set of timeline/database dependents must be confirmed.
2. Retrieve the '018's front-page references and full file wrapper (USPTO PatentCenter) to determine what the examiner considered and whether the narrowing language was added by amendment.
3. Confirm the exact publication dates and § 102(e) filing dates for Anthony (2005/0091596), Hanggie (2005/0088447) and Matthews (2006/0107229) — Matthews in particular is available only under § 102(e).
4. Verify the disclosures and dates of the non-patent references (WebBook/Web Forager CHI '96; Task Gallery CHI 2000; Data Mountain UIST '98; Project Looking Glass 2004) before relying on them in a filing.
5. Confirm whether U.S. 6,414,677 ("Robertson") teaches what Ground 3 of IPR2023-00578 attributed to it.

I did not fabricate any reference, claim number, date, or quotation; every assertion above is traceable to the in-line URLs, and the uncertain items are labelled as such.