US 7979307

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number and its litigation history.

Let me refine with more targeted searches on the patent and its litigation/PTAB history.

Let me search specifically for Federal Circuit activity in 2026 involving this patent and the PTAB proceedings.

US Patent 7,979,307 — Analyst Summary

Important framing note: I searched for this exact number (7979307 / 7,979,307) and did not auto-correct it. The results below are the specific hits for this patent; I flag where I could not confirm something authoritatively.

Bibliographic data

Minor source discrepancies (noted, not resolved): Unified Patents' portal lists the priority date as 1999-12-12, application date 2008-08-05, grant date 2011-07-11, and expiration 2021-06-05 — one day offsets from the Google Patents/face-of-patent values. I report both literally rather than harmonizing them.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7979307/en ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Delaware_District_Court/1--19-cv-00247/AlmondNet_Inc._et_al_v._Oath_Holdings_Inc/docs/102/2.pdf ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-7979307-B2

Abstract (verbatim)

"A descriptive-profile mercantile method, for use at a juncture in a data-communications topology having associated therewith a maintained databank of partial profiles, is disclosed. The method includes the steps of: from a user, receiving a transaction having therein a first partial profile; using the first partial profile, searching a databank having a plurality of second partial profiles, wherein is included in said databank at least one null profile so that said searching will always yield at least one proximate second partial profile to the first partial profile; and between the user and the databank, contracting: (I) for the databank to own or represent a right to a first mutually agreed portion of the first partial profile, and substantially thereafter said databank incorporating the agreed portion of the first profile into at least one second partial profile; or (II) for the user to own or represent a right to a second mutually agreed portion of at least one said proximate second partial profile, and substantially thereafter the databank transmitting to the user the second mutually agreed portion of the second profile. The present invention operates best on a brokerage representation model; and thereby provides a means for making viable the economic commerce in information attributes."

Note the mismatch worth flagging: the abstract describes the original mercantile/brokerage invention, whereas the granted claims are directed to a narrower Internet-profile-accumulation method (see below). This is a common characteristic of this family.

Independent claims — plain language

Per the patent's claim set (10 claims), the independent claims are claim 1 (method) and claim 9 (tangible, non-transitory data storage medium). I note a caveat below regarding claim 10.

Claim 1 — "Automated method of collecting profiles of Internet-using entities"

1. A programmed computer system connected to the global computer network receives, from a server of one of several unaffiliated third-party website operators, a partial profile of a user entity visiting that site — containing at least one profile attribute — and stores it.
2. The receipt of that partial profile is achieved by automatic electronic URL redirection from part of the website's page that the user's computer is accessing.
3. The system automatically adds the received partial profile to a maintained profile believed to relate to the same entity.
4. The system automatically generates and stores an electronic record of which third parties contributed which specific profile attributes to the maintained profile (i.e., source attribution/provenance tracking).
5. The maintained profile (including the added partial profile) comprises data used in targeting third-party advertisements to the user's computer over the network.

In short: claim 1 covers the "collect visitor data at a third-party site → redirect that visitor to a central server with partial profile data → merge into a persistent profile → keep a record of which site contributed which attribute → use it for ad targeting" pipeline.

Claim 9 — "tangible, non-transitory data storage medium" (stored-program version)
Repeats the substance of claim 1's steps as instructions on a non-transitory storage medium (the "stored program" branch of the title). The text supplied to me is truncated at sub-step (a), so I cannot quote (b)–(e) verbatim; based on the parallel structure of the patent and on the PTAB records (below), it tracks claim 1's limitations.

Claim 10 does not appear in the claim text I was given (truncated after claim 9). PTAB records indicate a statutory disclaimer was filed against dependent claims 8 and 10, so any independent status for claim 10 (if it had one) would no longer be enforceable. Confidence on this point: moderate — it rests on the CBM2017-00049 preliminary-response description, not on the full claim set.

Dependent claims 2–8 add: recording which contributor's attributes were used in targeting (2); determining whether the received partial profile contains attributes not previously in the maintained profile (3); a credibility rating associated with an attribute (4); the credibility rating being reflected in a price (5); selecting attributes based on source (6); reading a cookie previously stored on the entity's computer as a result of the URL redirection (7); and, per a predetermined arrangement, using the contribution record to compute a payment amount due to the third party for use of its contributed attribute in targeting ads (8).

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7979307/en ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555162](/patent/1555162)/download-documents (CBM2017-00049 decision)

Litigation and PTAB history I could confirm

The '307 patent has been heavily litigated and challenged. Confirmed items:

• CBM2017-00049 — Yahoo! Inc. v. AlmondNet, Inc., filed May 11, 2017, challenging claims 1–3 and 6–8 under § 101. Institution denied (Nov. 28, 2017): the Board held the patent did not qualify as a covered business method patent. During that proceeding, AlmondNet indicated claims 8 and 10 were statutorily disclaimed. https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/CBM2017-00049
• IPR2024-00413 — FreeWheel Media, Inc. v. AlmondNet, Inc., filed March 1, 2024, challenging claims 1–7 and 9 (Herz+Bezos and Hagel+Bezos obviousness grounds). Instituted, then terminated on July 17, 2025 due to settlement (35 U.S.C. § 317); related district court case dismissed with prejudice. https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00413/.../Termination_Decision...pdf
• IPR2024-00414 and IPR2024-00415 — co-pending FreeWheel petitions against the '307 patent; both listed as not instituted (procedural). RPIs included FreeWheel Media, Beeswax.io, and Comcast entities. https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555160](/patent/1555160)/...
• District court suits asserting the '307 patent include: AlmondNet v. Yahoo!/Oath Holdings (1:19-cv-00247, D. Del.); AlmondNet v. Amazon (6:21-cv-00898, 6:22-cv-01204, W.D. Tex.); AlmondNet v. Microsoft (6:21-cv-00897 / 6:22-cv-01206); AlmondNet v. Samsung (6:21-cv-00891, 4:22-cv-07515); AlmondNet v. Meta (6:21-cv-00896, 6:22-cv-01205, 4:22-cv-08911); AlmondNet v. Roku; AlmondNet v. LinkedIn (1:23-cv-01373); AlmondNet v. Viant (1:23-cv-00174); AlmondNet v. FreeWheel (1:23-cv-00220). A 2026 Snap Inc. case asserting the '307 patent (among others) was transferred from W.D. Tex. to N.D. Cal. https://legalnewsfeed.com/2026/05/22/texas-judge-transfers-patent-lawsuit-against-snap-to-california-for-streamlined-proceedings/

CAFC 2026 dockets — what I found and what I did not

I did not find any 2026 Federal Circuit docket specifically captioned to US 7,979,307. What I did find for the same patent owner in 2026:

• AlmondNet, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 2024-1834 — Rule 36 judgment affirmed April 13, 2026 (per curiam, Lourie/Dyk/Taranto). Critically, this appeal arises from PTAB No. IPR2022-01436, not from an IPR against the '307 patent itself; the PTAB listing identifies IPR2022-01436 as involving a related patent in the same family. https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1834.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.4-13-2026_2674964.pdf
• Law360 coverage dated April 13, 2026 ("Fed. Circ. Affirms Meta's Win Over AlmondNet Ad Tech Patent") also ties to that same outcome.

Caveat / honesty statement: The IPR2024-00413 termination due to settlement (July 2025) removes the most likely vehicle for a '307-specific appeal; the 00414/00415 petitions were not instituted. If a 2026 CAFC docket on the '307 exists, my searches did not surface it, and I am not aware of one with high confidence. My search of the Federal Circuit's published 2026 scheduled-cases and opinion lists turned up no case numbered to this patent.

Uncertainty flags

1. Claim 9 and claim 10 text — the authoritative full text I was given truncates in the middle of claim 9(a) and omits claim 10. Treat my description of claim 9 as reliable in scope but not verbatim-complete, and claim 10 as unverified beyond the disclaimer record.
2. Date offsets between Google Patents / the patent face and the Unified Patents portal (priority, filing, grant, expiration each differ by one day). I have not resolved which is correct.
3. No confirmed 2026 CAFC docket for the '307 patent — I state this affirmatively rather than guessing.
4. Litigation outcome summary — current procedural postures of the various district court cases (stays, transfers, dismissals) are drawn from 2023–2026 filings and a May 2026 news report; I have not independently verified each docket as of today's date.

Primary sources cited: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7979307/en ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-7979307-B2 ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/CBM2017-00049 ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00413/ ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1555160 ; https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1834.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.4-13-2026_2674964.pdf

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7979307 using available sources.

Let me gather more specifics on these cases and their outcomes.

Known Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,979,307 ("the '307 patent")

Summary: U.S. Patent 7,979,307 (application 12/186,918; filed 2008‑08‑06; granted 2011‑07‑12; priority 1999‑12‑13; assignee AlmondNet, Inc.; inventor Roy Shkedi) has been asserted by AlmondNet, Inc. and its affiliates (Intent IQ, LLC and Datonics, LLC) in a substantial wave of district‑court suits against major advertising platforms, plus several post‑grant proceedings at the PTAB. It is a "portfolio patent" — in most suits the '307 patent was one of many AlmondNet patents asserted, and it was not the patent that produced the headline Amazon verdict (that verdict was on U.S. 7,822,639 and 8,671,139). The '307 patent's adjusted expiration was 2021‑06‑06 (status: Expired – Fee Related), which is relevant to damages periods.

Note on sourcing: I could not query PACER directly in this session; the details below are drawn from secondary docket aggregators (Unified Patents' litigation/PTAB data mirrored on Google Patents, Docket Alarm, Stanford NPE Database, PatSnap) and from court documents quoted in those sources. Case numbers/dates should be verified against PACER before being relied on.

District court litigation

Related Roku and newer cases (numbers/patents not fully confirmed):

• AlmondNet, Inc. v. Roku, Inc., W.D. Tex. No. 6:21‑cv‑00731 (and/or 6:21‑cv‑00876) — resolved by joint motion and order for dismissal filed 2025‑06‑18 (AlmondNet's claims with prejudice; Roku's defenses/counterclaims without prejudice).
• AlmondNet, Inc. et al. v. Amazon.com, Inc. et al., W.D. Tex. No. 7:25‑cv‑00165 (filed 2025) — a newer Amazon action; the claims pleaded in the document reviewed concerned the '445 and '904 patents, not '307.
• AlmondNet litigation against Oracle was reported as pending as of mid‑2024; no case number confirmed here.

Post‑grant proceedings at the PTAB (USPTO)

Although not district‑court "litigation," these are the known adversarial proceedings specifically directed at U.S. 7,979,307:

(The Google Patents record for this family also flags a May 2025 IPR‑related docket, IPR2025‑01317, with a refund notice in January 2026; its relationship to the '307 patent is not confirmed.)

Key caveats

1. '307 is a portfolio patent. In nearly every suit above it was asserted alongside the '639, '582, '586, '139, '146, '249, '260, '398, '878, '164, '198, '015, and other AlmondNet family patents. The widely reported June 2024 Amazon jury verdict (~$122M) was on U.S. 7,822,639 and 8,671,139, not on the '307 patent.
2. Outcomes were predominantly settlements/license agreements, several with asymmetric stipulations (plaintiff's claims dismissed with prejudice; defendant's counterclaims without prejudice). No publicly reported merits adjudication of the '307 patent's validity or infringement appears in the sources reviewed.
3. Expiration. The '307 patent's adjusted expiration was 2021‑06‑06, and its status is "Expired – Fee Related." This caps recoverable damages to the pre‑expiration period and limits forward‑looking relief against unlicensed users.
4. Number disambiguation. Several search hits returned superficially similar identifiers (e.g., U.S. 7,971,260; U.S. 7,861,260; a Brazilian municipal act "7979307"). Those are not U.S. 7,979,307 and are excluded here.
5. Verification. Because PACER and the Federal Circuit docket were not queried directly, treat the case numbers, dates, and statuses as aggregator‑reported and confirm against PACER / CourtListener / the Federal Circuit before relying on them in a filing.

I'll start by pulling everything the web has on the PTAB proceedings listed in the patent's structured data.

Now let me get details on the two companion IPRs and the settlement.

Let me nail down the instituted IPR's panel, its termination, and whether any earlier IPR targeted this patent.

Proceedings overview

Four PTAB proceedings have been filed against US 7,979,307 — one CBM (institution denied on eligibility) and three parallel IPRs (one instituted on all claims and all grounds, then terminated by settlement before any Final Written Decision; the other two institution-denied); net result: zero claims canceled by the PTAB, so this patent's challenged claims have never been tested on the merits and remain live enforcement tools against a new defendant.

Two threshold caveats before the detail:

1. The structured block and the ODP note are in tension. The header states ODP returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, but the patent-page structured data (Google Patents / Unified Patents litigation feed) lists four PTAB cases, and each of those four is independently corroborated by PTAB documents I retrieved (institution-denial decisions, a termination decision, and petition papers). I therefore treat the four below as on file, and flag that the ODP AIA-trial endpoint appears stale/incomplete for this patent.
2. No Final Written Decision (FWD) exists in any proceeding on the '307 patent. Nothing in the record I found cancels a claim via PTAB. The only canceled claims are claims 8 and 10, and those were killed by a statutory disclaimer under 37 C.F.R. § 1.321(a), not by the Board — a fact the Board relied on in 2017 and that the 2024 petitioner conceded in its petitions.

IPR2024-00413 — FreeWheel Media, Inc. (et al.) v. AlmondNet, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-03-01
• Status: "Settlement" (structured data). Plain English: instituted, then terminated by settlement on 2025-07-17 before any FWD. Third-party docketing reports status as "Terminated–Settled."
• Judge panel: Justin T. Arbes, Nabeel U. Khan, and Scott B. Howard, APJs (per the public termination decision; the caption of the institution-stage paper should be confirmed on PTAB E2E).
• Petition grounds: challenged claims 1–7 and 9 on § 103 obviousness grounds. The petition (Ex. 1 to FreeWheel's stay appendix in D. Del. 1:23-cv-00220) is public via the district court. As described by the Board in the companion 00415 decision, the instituted 00413 trial "will involve eight references and twenty grounds" — I did not find a reliable, complete list of the 00413 reference combinations in the sources retrieved, so I am not going to name individual references for this petition. Petitioner expressly noted "Claims 8 and 10 have been disclaimed."
• Institution decision: Instituted 2024-09-05 (Paper 10) on all claims and all grounds. The panel rejected Patent Owner's requests for discretionary denial: it declined to deny under the Board's parallel-petition practice (three petitions, 00413/00414/00415, filed the same day) and rejected the § 312(a)(3) particularity objection. The same-day institution of this one and denial of the other two is the Board's standard "one petition is enough" ranking outcome — 00413 was ranked first by Petitioner.
• Final Written Decision: None. No FWD was ever issued, so there is no claim-level verdict from the Board on this patent.
• Settlement / termination: Joint motion to terminate based on a release agreement resolving all underlying disputes between the parties (35 U.S.C. § 317; 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.72, 42.74). The Board granted termination on 2025-07-17 and "terminate[d] the instant proceeding without rendering any further decisions." The settlement agreement (Exhibit 1059) was filed under seal and the request to treat it as business-confidential information under § 317(b) / § 42.74(c) was granted in part — terms are confidential. The parties represented that the related district court case "has been dismissed with prejudice pursuant to settlement and no further litigation between the [p]arties is contemplated."
• Appeal: None. There is no FWD and therefore nothing appealable under 35 U.S.C. § 319; a settlement termination is not an appealable final decision.
• Defensive value: This is the one proceeding where a defendant got past the institution threshold — and it bought its way out before the Board reached the merits. That means no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attached to anyone (statutory estoppel requires a FWD), so the 00413 grounds are not burned and remain available to a third-party petitioner. It also means the Board's merits view of the Rosenberg/Herz/Hagel-era art on this claim set is unknown.

IPR2024-00415 — FreeWheel Media, Inc. (et al.) v. AlmondNet, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-03-01
• Status: "Not Instituted - Procedural" (structured data). Gloss: denied institution on 2024-09-05 as a discretionary denial under § 314(a) and the Board's parallel-petition practice — not a merits ruling.
• Judge panel: Lynne H. Browne, Charles J. Boudreau, and Scott B. Howard, APJs (decision authored by Judge Browne).
• Petition grounds: challenged claims 1–7 and 9. Grounds as recited in the decision: § 103 over Herz (US 2013/0097664) in view of Bezos (US 6,029,141) for claims 1–7, 9; § 103 over Hagel (1999 publication) in view of Bezos for claims 1–3, 6–7, 9; plus a further Hagel/Bezos/Herz combination for claims 4–5. The missing element Petitioner attacked was the "automatic electronic URL redirection" limitation; Bezos supplied the redirect teaching.
• Institution decision: Denied 2024-09-05. Reasoning, in substance: this was the third of three concurrently filed petitions against the same eight claims; the Consolidated Trial Practice Guide says "one petition should be sufficient," none of the recognized exceptions applied, Patent Owner **stipulated it would not attempt to antedate or disqualify **the art, and "Petitioner's desire to triple the available word count is an insufficient justification for a second or third petition." The Board added that adding these three grounds/three references to the instituted 00413 trial "would create an 'unnecessary burden.'" The panel therefore exercised discretion under § 314(a).
• Final Written Decision: None (institution denied).
• Settlement / termination: None — the case ended by denial.
• Appeal: None. Denial of institution is non-appealable under § 314(d).
• Defensive value: The Herz/Hagel/Bezos combination is now publicly road-mapped in a PTAB denial — but it is untested and unburned. Because there was no institution, no estoppel arises; any defendant can file a fresh petition on that art (or on the Rosenberg-family art) and the Board's denial says nothing about its merits.

IPR2024-00414 — FreeWheel Media, Inc. (et al.) v. AlmondNet, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2024-03-01
• Status: "Not Instituted - Procedural" (structured data). Gloss: denied institution 2024-09-05 on the same discretionary, parallel-petition rationale as 00415. Petitioner then filed a Request for Refund of Post-Institution Fees (2024-10-11), itself a confirmation that no trial was instituted.
• Judge panel: Charles J. Boudreau, Lynne H. Browne, and Scott B. Howard, APJs (per the public docket record).
• Petition grounds: challenged claims 1–7 and 9; I did not locate the specific ground-by-ground reference mapping in the sources retrieved, and I will not infer it from the 00413/00415 papers. Confirm on PTAB E2E.
• Institution decision: Denied 2024-09-05 — same parallel-petition reasoning; docket shows a Board notice entered 2024-10-22.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: None (denied; terminated 2024-09-05).
• Appeal: None; denial is non-appealable.
• Defensive value: Minimal independent value, but it completes the picture: FreeWheel threw three petitions at claims 1–7 and 9 and got exactly one trial, which it then settled. For a defendant today, that is evidence the art exists but is not yet a proven winner.

CBM2017-00049 — Yahoo! Inc. v. AlmondNet, Inc.

• Type: Covered Business Method review (AIA § 18) — the CBM program is now sunset (statutory window closed 2020-09-16), so this vehicle no longer exists.
• Filed: 2017 (exact filing date not recovered in the sources retrieved — verify on PTAB E2E). Corrected Petition filed as Paper 5.
• Status: "Not Instituted - Merits" (structured data). Gloss: institution denied 2017-11-28 because the '307 patent does not qualify as a CBM patent — a § 18(d)(1) eligibility failure, i.e., a threshold merits-adjacent ruling, not a § 101 patentability ruling.
• Judge panel: Michael W. Kim (author), Justin T. Arbes, and Thomas L. Giannetti, APJs.
• Petition grounds: a single ground under 35 U.S.C. § 101 against claims 1–3 and 6–8, attacking CBM eligibility and patentability.
• Institution decision: Denied 2017-11-28. Two independent reasons:
  1. Statutory disclaimer. Patent Owner "indicate[d] that a statutory disclaimer has been filed with respect to dependent claims 8 and 10." The panel held that disclaimed claims "cannot provide the basis for eligibility for a covered business method patent review," because whether a patent "is" a CBM patent "is based on what the patent 'claims' at the time of the institution decision" (Facebook v. Skky, CBM2016-00091, Paper 12 (PTAB Sept. 28, 2017) (informative)). Claim 8 (challenged) and claim 10 (unchallenged but relied on by Petitioner) were therefore unavailable.
  2. No "financial activity" element. Petitioner's financial-activity theory rested entirely on its proposed constructions of "unaffiliated third parties" and "third-party advertisements." The panel refused both: it held "unaffiliated third parties" "is not limited to profile buyers and sellers and does not require any further construction," and construed "third party advertisements" as "third party announcements." With those constructions, the panel was "unpersuaded that Petitioner has shown sufficiently that either claim term is a financial activity element," so "Petitioner has not met its burden of demonstrating that the '307 patent is eligible for a covered business method patent review."
• Final Written Decision: None — no CBM trial was instituted.
• Settlement / termination: None.
• Appeal: None. The denial is non-appealable (§ 324(e)); the Federal Circuit has no jurisdiction over a refusal to institute.
• Defensive value: Two takeaways. First, the § 101/CBM door is permanently closed — the program is dead, and this panel held the '307 patent doesn't even qualify. Second, and more useful to a defendant, the denial is not a § 101 holding on the merits: the Board never reached whether claims 1–7 and 9 are patent-eligible. A defendant's Alice challenge in district court is unaffected and untested. The one durable win here belongs to Patent Owner: claims 8 and 10 were disclaimed in 2017 and are gone.

Context for that 2017 campaign (all Yahoo!, all filed together, all denied on the same CBM-eligibility ground): CBM2017-00046 ('639), -00047 ('586), -00050 ('249), -00051 ('904), -00052 ('582), -00056 ('146), -00058 ('139). Note that eBay/AlmondNet's later $122M Amazon jury verdict (W.D. Tex., June 2024) was on the '639 and '139 patents — not the '307 — so that verdict does not validate the '307 claims.

Strategic summary

Claim status of the '307 patent. The patent issued with 10 claims. Claims 8 and 10 are canceled — by Patent Owner's own statutory disclaimer under 37 C.F.R. § 1.321(a), not by any PTAB decision. That disclaimer was noted in CBM2017-00049 and confirmed by Petitioner in the 2024 IPRs ("Claims 8 and 10 have been disclaimed"). Claims 1–7 and 9 are neither canceled nor sustained — they are untested. No FWD on this patent ever issued. Claim 1 (the method claim) and claim 9 (the tangible, non-transitory storage-medium claim) both survive, as do dependents 2–7. Anyone who tells you "the PTAB invalidated the '307 claims" is wrong; anyone who tells you "the PTAB upheld the '307 claims" is equally wrong.

Estoppel landscape. This is the most important point for a defendant weighing an IPR: no § 315(e) estoppel attaches to this patent by anyone. Statutory estoppel under § 315(e)(1)/(e)(2) is triggered by a final written decision, and there is none. IPR2024-00413 was terminated by settlement after institution but before FWD — the Board expressly terminated "without rendering any further decisions" — and 00414/00415 never instituted. Consequence: the Rosenberg-family art (with Zeff, Sterne, Kurtzman, Coleman, Merriman, Farber), the Hagel/Herz/Bezos art, and the 2017 Yahoo! § 101 ground are all still available to a new petitioner, and even the FreeWheel/Comcast real parties are not statutorily barred. The practical limit is discretionary: a second bite at art the Board has already seen in a denied or settled petition invites a § 325(d) / General Plastic / parallel-petition objection, so a new petition should lead with art and claim-mapping the Board has not already evaluated, and should be supported by real § 112 indefiniteness/§ 101 positions in district court (IPR cannot reach those).

Pattern signals. (1) AlmondNet is a serial, active enforcer — the '307 patent has been asserted in at least a dozen district court actions (Yahoo!/Oath, Roku, Samsung, Meta/Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, LinkedIn, Viant, FreeWheel/Beeswax), and the family includes a $122M Amazon jury verdict on sibling patents. (2) The challengers are big-tech defendants, not a defensive aggregator. The 2024 petitioner is FreeWheel Media with Comcast Corporation, Comcast Cable Communications LLC, and Comcast Cable Communications Management LLC named as real parties in interest — i.e., a coordinated defendant-group filing (Banner & Witcoff), not Unified Patents. Unified Patents appears only as the data source behind the patent-page litigation feed; the PTAB cases themselves (IPR2024-00413/00414/00415) are FreeWheel's. A settlement followed roughly ten months after institution — a licensing exit, not a validity win. (3) FreeWheel filed three parallel petitions on the '307 (00413/414/415), three more on the related '249 (00416/417/418), and additional sets (00419, 00421, 00422) — a mass-filing campaign. The Board's response was disciplined: institute one, deny the rest as duplicative. Do not file two or three parallel petitions against this patent. File one, well-prioritized petition.
(4) Patent Owner is not an aggressive PTAB appellant — there is nothing for it to appeal here, since it lost nothing and won every institution decision.
(5) Term reality check: the patent page reports the '307 patent as expired — fee related, adjusted expiration 2021-06-06 (Unified Patents portal lists 2021-06-05). The 2024 IPRs were therefore run against an expired patent, and any 2026 assertion can reach only pre-expiration conduct within the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback — no prospective injunction, no ongoing royalty. Verify the expiry and maintenance-fee status on Patent Center before relying on it, but if correct it materially caps exposure.

Recommended next steps

1. Pull the actual institution decision for IPR2024-00413 (Paper 10, 2024-09-05) from PTAB E2E at https://ptab.uspto.gov (or the PTACTS public-information viewer at https://ptacts.uspto.gov). I could confirm the outcome — "we therefore institute inter partes review on all claims and all grounds," and rejection of Patent Owner's parallel-petition and § 312(a)(3) particularity arguments — but I did not recover a reliable, complete reference-by-reference ground list for 00413 from the sources retrieved, so do not build a § 325(d) argument on a guessed ground list. The petition itself is public as Exhibit 1 to FreeWheel's motion-to-stay appendix, D. Del. 1:23-cv-00220, D.I. 63 (filed 2024-07-03).
2. IPR2024-00413 termination decision (2025-07-17) — quote it and link it. Docket & PDF. The operative disposition: "we determine that it is appropriate to terminate the instant proceeding without rendering any further decisions," and the settlement agreement (Ex. 1059) was sealed as business-confidential under § 317(b) / § 42.74(c) — granted in part. No merits finding, no estoppel. The related district court case (D. Del. 1:23-cv-00220) was dismissed with prejudice as to Plaintiffs' claims on a Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(ii) stipulation (2025-06-24); that dismissal is res judicata only against FreeWheel/Beeswax, not against you.
3. IPR2024-00414 and IPR2024-00415 institution denials (2024-09-05). The 00415 decision is public: FreeWheel v. AlmondNet, IPR2024-00415, Decision Denying Institution; dockets at 00414 and 00415.
4. CBM2017-00049 institution denial (2017-11-28) — Kim, Arbes & Giannetti, APJs; the decision text (Yahoo! v. AlmondNet, Patent 7,979,307 B2) is in the PTACTS document bundle at this artifact, and is separately of record as Exhibit 3 to the declaration filed in D. Del. 1:23-cv-00220 (D.I. 15). Use it to foreclose any CBM-style § 101 argument and to establish that claims 8 and 10 were disclaimed.
5. No PTAB activity is pending. Both 2024 proceedings that were denied terminated 2024-09-05; IPR2024-00413 terminated 2025-07-17. There is no institution-decision deadline, no oral hearing, and no FWD due date to calendar. If you want a PTAB track, you control the clock — but budget for a § 315(b) one-year bar from your own service date, and note the FRCP 42 / discretion risk of re-running art the Board has already seen.
6. Do not assume the patent is dead. It is expired (fee-related) and has no PTAB-sanctioned validity ruling either way; claims 1–7 and 9 (minus disclaimed 8 and 10) are presumptively valid under § 282 against you, and AlmondNet's willingness to settle a fully instituted IPR rather than take an FWD is the behavior of a licensor protecting a revenue stream — not of a patent owner who expects the claims to fall.

Confidence notes: claim outcomes (no FWD; claims 8 and 10 disclaimed) and all four proceeding numbers/dates above are corroborated by primary PTAB documents. The 00413 ground list and the CBM2017-00049 filing date are the two items I could not pin down from the retrieved sources — treat both as open and verify on PTAB E2E before filing anything that depends on them.

I'll start by pulling what the record shows and cross-checking against public assignment/litigation sources.

Let me dig into the assignment record specifics and the Almondnet/Intent IQ corporate relationship.

Now let me try to pin down the actual recorded reel/frame metadata and correspondent of record.

I could not pull every field from the Assignment Center itself (the tool set available to me returned Google Patents legal events, PTAB/court exhibits, and third-party indexes rather than the Assignment Center UI). Everything below is labeled by source, and I flag explicitly where a field is unverified rather than filling it in.

Inventors

Notes on the inventor pattern:

• The inventor is the assignee. Shkedi founded the AlmondNet Group in 1998 (subsidiaries Intent IQ and Datonics) and relocated to the US in 2000 (IAM interview, Aug. 2024, ptacts.uspto.gov/.../1558243). He signs USPTO papers on behalf of AlmondNet personally — e.g. the 37 CFR 1.321 statutory disclaimer for the '139 patent signed "Roy Shkedi for AlmondNet, Inc., 37‑18 Northern Boulevard, Suite 404, Long Island City, New York 11101," Sept. 6, 2017.
• The classic "inventors departed within 12 months of filing" fire-sale tell is absent — the inverse is true. Shkedi never left; he was CEO at the 2024 Amazon jury trial and Chairman of Intent IQ/Datonics at the April 2026 settlement announcement (GlobeNewswire, 2026‑04‑07). There is therefore no inventor-departure risk and no third-party inventor royalty obligation to disturb title.
• Single-inventor, long continuation chain. The '307 patent is a division of 11/099,861 (now 7,428,493), itself a continuation of 09/593,993 (now 6,925,440), which claims priority to Israel Application 133,489, filed 1999‑12‑13. Related AlmondNet family members do have co-inventors (e.g. Ronen Shlomo, Dror Ben-Yishai), but the '307 patent does not. Note that the asserted family was extended by repeated filings tied to this application (Google Patents shows five continuations filed 2011‑05‑25 and 2013‑07‑23 claiming priority back to US12/186,918).

Original assignee

AlmondNet, Inc. — a Delaware corporation (the 2001-recorded sibling assignment recites "ALMONDNET, INC., DOVER, DE"; the '307 front page recites "New York, NY"; later filings use 37‑18 Northern Boulevard, Suite 404, Long Island City, NY 11101).

• Primary line of business: online advertising / behavioral targeting. Founded 1998. Per its own April 2026 corporate statement, the parent "is focused on R&D and the licensing of its extensive portfolio of enabling technology and Intellectual Property"; the operating products sit in subsidiaries Intent IQ LLC (identity resolution / device graph) and Datonics (data monetization). AlmondNet is privately held; I found no acquisition, Chapter 7/11 filing, or dissolution record.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Partially — historically yes, currently no. Shkedi's own account is that AlmondNet built and marketed behavioral-targeting ad technology in the 2000s and, facing near-financial ruin in 2013, took a licensing deal with Google to keep the team (IAM interview). Today AlmondNet is a portfolio-holding and licensing entity; the shipped products are in the subsidiary entities.
• Current status: operating, private, and highly litigious — named plaintiff in roughly twenty district-court actions and owner-side respondent in four PTAB proceedings involving this patent or its family (Google Patents "Family has litigation" section, fetched 2026‑09‑28). The '307 patent's own statutory term ran out 2021‑06‑06 (20 years from the 2000‑06‑14 parent filing plus 357 days PTA, per the front page and Google Patents "Adjusted expiration"), so the 2022–2024 complaints that still attach the '307 patent are necessarily past-damages/look-back assertions.

Assignment timeline

Record retrievability caveat, stated plainly: for US 7,979,307 the only assignment event I can verify is the 2008‑08‑06 transfer from Shkedi to AlmondNet, Inc. surfaced in the Google Patents legal-events ("reassignment") feed:

2008‑08‑06 — "Assigned to ALMONDNET, INC. / ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS). Assignors: SHKEDI, ROY, MR."

The reel/frame for that 2008‑08‑06 record, and the correspondent of record who filed it, are not exposed by any source I could reach. I am not supplying a number for them. They must be read off the Assignment Center abstract of title for application 12/186,918 / patent 7,979,307. Two other reels in the same AlmondNet portfolio appear in PTAB and court exhibits and are verified — they are context, not part of this patent's chain:

• 2001‑05‑01 (executed) / recorded 2001‑05‑18 — Reel 011817 / Frame 0170
  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignor: Shkedi, Roy
  • Assignee: AlmondNet, Inc., Dover, DE
  • Correspondent: not shown in the exhibit
  • Context: formation-stage founder-to-company assignment — but this record is on US 6,832,207, a sibling/related Shkedi patent (CBM2017‑00047 Ex. 1005, Yahoo! v. AlmondNet), not confirmed to cover the '307 patent.
• Reel 028338 / Frame 0707 (reel series ≈ 2013)
  • Cited in AlmondNet's own 37 CFR 1.321(a) statutory disclaimers as the record establishing that the declarant is "100% owner and assignee of record" (e.g. disclaimers for US 8,671,139 and 8,244,586, signed by Roy Shkedi, Sept. 2017 and later).
  • Conveyance/assignor/correspondent: not determinable from the exhibits. Context: portfolio-level confirmatory chain-of-title recording. Open item: verify on the Assignment Center whether Reel 028338/Frame 0707 also covers 7,979,307, since it is the reel AlmondNet relies on for ownership across the family.

Chain summary

1999-12-13  priority application IL 133,489 (Shkedi)
2000-06-14  09/593,993 filed → US 6,925,440
2005-04-06  11/099,861 filed → US 7,428,493
2008-08-06  Shkedi → AlmondNet, Inc. (assignment of record per Google Patents)
2008-08-06  12/186,918 filed; applicant of record = AlmondNet, Inc.
2011-07-12  US 7,979,307 issues, assignee AlmondNet, Inc., New York, NY
2011-06-06  statutory term adjusted to expire 2021-06-06
— no further recorded assignment surfaced; AlmondNet, Inc. remains owner of record

No post-issuance assignment is recorded on this patent's visible record. There is no transfer to a licensing LLC, no securitization lien, no asserter acquisition, and no defensive-aggregator transfer. AlmondNet, Inc. appears as patent owner in every PTAB and district-court caption through 2024 (e.g. FreeWheel Media, Inc. v. AlmondNet, Inc., IPR2024‑00413, and the 2024 Oracle complaint, W.D. Tex. 6:24‑cv‑00303).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7979307
    1999 : Priority filing in Israel
    2000 : Parent application filed
    2005 : Parent division filed
    2008 : Shkedi assigns to AlmondNet Inc
         : Divisional application filed
    2011 : Patent issued to AlmondNet Inc
    2016 : First suit filed against Yahoo
    2017 : Yahoo CBM review denied
    2021 : Statutory term ends
    2024 : Amazon jury verdict for AlmondNet
    2026 : Amazon settles and takes license

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only recorded movement is Shkedi → AlmondNet, Inc., a Delaware corporation that is the operating parent of Intent IQ LLC and Datonics, on 2008‑08‑06. AlmondNet's own address of record is a commercial office (37‑18 Northern Boulevard, Suite 404, Long Island City, NY 11101), not a registered-agent mail drop, and it is the same entity that pays the bills, employs the inventor, and appears as patent owner in every caption. No "IP Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" hop exists in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — UNCLEAR, leaning not present on the enumerated lists. AlmondNet, Inc. does not appear among the named entities in the brief (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi‑LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, DGC, Spangenberg), and I found no record of it in those directories. Two independent data points cut away from a "known NPE" finding: (a) the Stanford NPE Litigation Database entry for AlmondNet, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, 4:23‑cv‑00438, records "NPE Status: Practicing Entity" and lists both defendants-side patent asserters AlmondNet, Inc. and Intent IQ, LLC as "Product company" (npe.law.stanford.edu/case/269881); (b) Unified Patents' own patent page for US‑7979307‑B2 lists "Parent Company: Almondnet Inc" with no NPE tag. Against that, AlmondNet is unquestionably a high-frequency filer — Unified Patents' litigation data attached to this patent page shows ~20 district-court actions (E.D.N.Y. 1:16‑cv‑01557; D. Del. 1:19‑cv‑00247, 1:23‑cv‑00174, 1:23‑cv‑00220, 1:23‑cv‑01373; W.D. Tex. 6:21‑cv‑00891/00896/00897/00898, 6:22‑cv‑01204/01205/01206; N.D. Cal. 4:22‑cv‑07515) — and it is precisely that volume that makes the call "unclear" rather than clean.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — NOT PRESENT as a chain finding; one portfolio-level recurrence worth recording. There is only one assignment link, so recurrence across links cannot exist. However, Louis J. Hoffman (with Donald Hertz) is the recurring attorney filer for this family across many years: the 2008‑08‑06 filing-fee transmittal for application 12/186,918 was filed by "Louis J. Hoffman/Donald Hertz" under customer number 26362, docket "14‑DP‑DIV," and the same customer number and 14‑xx docket convention (14‑TV1‑CON2, 14‑EP‑CON3, 14‑EP‑CON7) recurs throughout the AlmondNet Shkedi filings into the 2010s. The printed '307 patent's attorney field is reported inconsistently across mirrors (FreePatentsOnline renders it as "ALMONDNET, INC. (LONG ISLAND CITY, NY, US)"; a scanned court exhibit shows "(74) Attorney, Agent, or Firm — Louis J. …" truncated). I have not confirmed Hoffman as the correspondent on the assignment record itself, and I found no appearance of him on a Unified Patents / RPX / Patent Progress NPE assertion list. One recurring prosecution firm is not a shell-network tell.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Zero chained LLC transfers. One assignment in 2008 and nothing recorded for the following ~13 years through term expiry. This is the single strongest anti-NPE datum in the ownership record.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. Assignment dated 2008‑08‑06; the first suit naming the patent is AlmondNet, Inc. v. Yahoo! Inc., 1:16‑cv‑01557 (E.D.N.Y., filed 2016). That is roughly an eight-year gap, not the sub-6-month window that signals chain-arrangement for venue or standing. AlmondNet also gave pre-suit notice years in advance (2015/2016 and 2016–2019 portfolio correspondence pleaded in the W.D. Tex. complaints), which is the opposite of a rushed pre-filing transfer.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 record for AlmondNet. Shkedi's testimony describes near-ruin in 2013 resolved by a Google license, not an insolvency sale; no assignment event results from it.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no upstream operating-company transferor. AlmondNet has held this patent from the start (assignee of record 2008, family assignment trail back to 2001 per Reel 011817/Frame 0170 on the sibling '207 patent) and sues in its own name, not through an intermediary.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. The direction of travel is inverted: Unified Patents is on the attacking side, having filed IPR2024‑00413, ‑00414 and ‑00415 against this patent (‑00413 settled 2025‑07‑17; ‑00414 and ‑00415 not instituted), and FreeWheel/Comcast, Yahoo, Meta, Roku, Samsung and Microsoft have all filed PTAB challenges against this family.

Additional ownership-relevant event not covered by the eight signals: claims 8 and 10 were statutorily disclaimed under 37 CFR 1.321(a) (AlmondNet Preliminary Response, CBM2017‑00049, at 22–23), and the family is riddled with terminal disclaimers (e.g. application 13/167,605, filed 2011‑06‑23). These reduce, but do not change, the ownership record.

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

The ownership record itself is clean: exactly one recorded assignment, Shkedi → AlmondNet, Inc. on 2008‑08‑06, with the assignee unchanged at issue (2011‑07‑12) and unchanged today, and the '307 patent's term ending 2021‑06‑06. Nothing in the chain — no shell LLC, no cascade, no pre-suit transfer, no asserter acquisition, no carve-out to a defensive aggregator — supports a high-confidence troll finding, and Stanford's NPE Litigation Database affirmatively classifies AlmondNet as a "Practicing Entity"/"Product company" (npe.law.stanford.edu/case/269881). The moderate call rests on concrete, non-naming evidence: the assignee self-describes as a licensing vehicle ("focused on R&D and the licensing of its extensive portfolio"), Unified Patents' litigation data attached to this very patent page reflects ~20 district-court actions against Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, Samsung, Roku, Yahoo, LinkedIn, Viant and Lotame — none of which are competitors selling AlmondNet's ad-targeting product — and the '307 patent continued to be attached to 2022–2024 complaints after its statutory term expired, which is monetization rather than product-defense behavior. Verdict confidence is deliberately held at moderate rather than high because the assignee chain contains no NPE-structural signals and at least one authoritative source classifies the owner as a practicing entity.

Verify at the USPTO Assignment Center, searching property number 7979307 (application 12/186,918): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/. Open items to resolve there, which I could not verify: (i) the reel/frame and correspondent for the 2008‑08‑06 Shkedi→AlmondNet record; (ii) whether Reel 028338/Frame 0707 — the reel AlmondNet cites for 100% ownership across the family — also covers the '307 patent.

I'll research the prior art cited for US 7,979,307 and the references used in its PTAB challenges.

Let me dig into the specific references cited on the face of the patent and the prior-art grounds in the IPRs.

I have the IPR grounds. Now let me pin down the individual references (Herz, Roth, Jaye, Minor, Rosenberg) and the front-page citation list.

Prior Art Analysis — US 7,979,307 B2

Scope note / method. I searched for the literal number 7979307 / 7,979,307 and did not auto-correct it. This analysis is built from (i) the reference list printed on the face of the patent as reproduced in district-court filings, and (ii) the prior art actually asserted against this patent in the PTAB. I flag below where I could not verify a reference's identity this session rather than guessing. Where a source contradicts my training data, the source wins.

Cross-reference to previously generated sections. The earlier summary correctly identified the claim set (independent claims 1 and 9; claims 8 and 10 statutorily disclaimed) and the CBM/IPR/post-grant history. This section adds the prior-art dimension and does not repeat that history. One point to build on: the earlier summary noted that the examiner allowed the claims after overcoming Acxiom — that matters for the §102 analysis below.

Threshold issue that governs the whole §102 analysis: the effective date of the claims

Claim 1 and claim 9 are directed to collecting partial profiles from servers of unaffiliated third-party websites via automatic URL redirection, merging them into a maintained profile, recording which third party contributed which attribute, and using the profile to target third-party ads.

• The patent's disclosure claims priority to IL 133,489, filed Dec. 13, 1999 (via App. 09/593,993, filed Jun. 14, 2000 and App. 11/099,861, filed Apr. 6, 2005; the '307 was filed Aug. 6, 2008).
• FreeWheel expressly argued in IPR2024-00415 that Herz is §102(e) art that "predates the '307 patent's earliest possible priority date because of Herz's priority to a provisional application," and that this "raises potential priority issues (e.g., under Dynamic Drinkware)." (Ranking paper, IPR2024-00413/-00414/-00415, Paper 3, Mar. 1, 2024 — https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555160](/patent/1555160)/...)

Consequence I must flag: whether any given reference is §102 art at all depends on the effective filing date the claims are ultimately accorded. I cannot resolve that here, and I did not find a final adjudication of it. So the §102 designations below are conditional ("could anticipate if the claims are not entitled to the 1999/2000 priority").

A. U.S. patent documents cited on the face of US 7,979,307

These are the "patent citations for 7979307" as printed under (56) References Cited. Dates are as printed on the front page (some OCR discrepancies in the source documents are noted). Because the granted claims are narrowly drawn to URL-redirect profile collection with source attribution, and because the examiner allowed the claims over these references, none of these is a strong §102 anticipation of claims 1 or 9 standing alone; their §102 relevance is to individual limitations or to dependent claims.

Honest limitation: for the entries marked "not verified" I could not confirm titles/subject matter within this session, and I am deliberately not supplying titles from memory where my confidence is low. The numbers and dates are as literally printed in the source documents.

Sources for the list: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Western_District_Court/6--22-cv-01204/AlmondNet_Inc._et_al_v_Amazon.com_Inc._et_al/docs/1/5.pdf ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Delaware_District_Court/1--19-cv-00247/AlmondNet_Inc._et_al_v_Oath_Holdings_Inc/docs/109/16.pdf ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-7979307-B2 (lists "Patent Art (33)")

B. Foreign patent documents cited on the face

Note the WO 98/59481 v. 98/59841 discrepancy across source documents — I flag it rather than harmonizing.

C. Non-patent literature cited on the face

• "Acxiom," www.acxiom.com archived via www.archive.org, date range Feb. 24, 1999 – Nov. 14, 1999. This is the reference the parties agree the examiner relied on to allow the claims — FreeWheel argued that "the examiner allowed the claims based on overcoming a different reference (Acxiom) which was argued to lack URL redirection." (IPR2024-00415 analysis — https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00415/doc/1240). This makes the Acxiom archive the single most prosecution-relevant printed publication, and the closest thing to a §102(b) reference for the profile-aggregation core of claim 1 — with the caveat that the applicant successfully distinguished it on the URL-redirection element (1(b)).
• Barrett, Jennifer, "Databases in the 90s: data and what we're doing with it!" Direct Marketing, v58, n4, p. 40, Aug. 1, 1999 — direct-marketing data practices. §102(b) printed publication (Aug. 1999).
• "'Their Time Has Come,' Direct, v11, n8, p. 1+, Jun. 1999. §102(b) printed publication.
• Brody, R., "The Conditions and Consequences of Profiling in Commercial and Governmental Settings," IEEE, 1998 — profiling practices. §102(b) printed publication; relevant to the "profile" concept, not the claimed architecture.
• IntelliQuest–24/7 Media "tech household database" news items (clickz.com / findarticles.com, Oct. 1999-era) and 24/7 Real Media Form S-1A (SEC, filed Apr. 14, …) — commercial profiling/database-merging activities around the priority date. Potentially §102(b) prior-use/printed-publication evidence for data aggregation and monetization.

D. The most relevant prior art — as actually asserted (post-grant challenges)

The strongest prior art against this patent is not the examiner's list; it is the art asserted by FreeWheel Media in three parallel IPRs filed March 1, 2024. Per the petitioner's own ranking paper, the grounds were (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555161](/patent/1555161)/...):

D.1 Merriman et al., US 5,948,061 — the primary reference

• Full citation: Merriman, D.A. & O'Connor, K.J., "Method of delivery, targeting, and measuring advertising over networks," US 5,948,061 B1; assignee DoubleClick, Inc.; filed Oct. 29, 1996; issued Sep. 7, 1999 (reissued as US RE44,724 E and US RE44,899).
• Description: An advertisement server (19) sits as a node on the network. Affiliate web pages embed a reference (<img> tag) to the ad server; the user's browser then requests the ad object directly, passing IP address, a cookie, the page substring key, and MIME/HTTP-header data. The ad server maintains a database (Fig. 3A) with a USER ID and a "PAGES ADS SEEN ON" field, and selects ads based on the user profile.
• §102 mapping: Merriman is a §102(b) printed publication/patent relative to a 1999/2000 priority. It discloses claim 1 elements (a) partially, (c), and (e), and claim 9's mirror thereof. It does not disclose (b) automatic URL redirection of the user from a portion of the third party's page, nor a clean (d) record of which unaffiliated third party contributed each attribute (its PAGES ADS SEEN ON field was argued to be the closest). Petitioner itself relied on Merriman only in §103 combinations (with Jaye or Minor). Claims 2–3, 7, 9 and 4–6 (with Coleman) were charted against these combinations.
• Sources: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1555160/... ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/76/37/d4/694a8f625e3288/[USRE44899](/patent/USRE44899).pdf

D.2 Bezos et al., US 6,029,141 — the URL-redirection reference

• Full citation: Bezos, J.P., et al., "Internet-based customer referral system," US 6,029,141; assignee [Amazon.com, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Amazon.com%2C%20Inc.); issued Feb. 22, 2000. (I did not verify the filing date this session; FreeWheel relied on it as §102(a) or §102(e) art.)
• Description: An "associate" website embeds a URL hyperlink to a merchant site carrying a unique product ID and an associate/commission ID. Clicking it automatically redirects the customer to the merchant, where the merchant reads a cookie, parses the URL string, and records which associate referred the customer — used to compute associate commissions and to update the customer's shopping cart.
• §102 mapping: Discloses claim 1 element (b) squarely, and supplies element (d) (recording which third party contributed / referred), and claim 8 (payment amount due to the contributing third party) by analogy to associate commissions. It does not disclose (a)/(c)/(e) in a profile-accumulation-for-ad-targeting sense. Used as a secondary reference only.
• Source: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00415/doc/1240

D.3 Herz, US 2013/0097664 A1 — the aggregation/attribution reference

• Full citation: Herz, F.S., "Secure Data Interchange" (SDI) system, U.S. Patent App. Pub. No. 2013/0097664 A1. (Petitioner relied on Herz's provisional application for §102(e) priority — the specific provisional number/date was not captured in my searches.)
• Description: A central "SDI server" acts as intermediary across "a vast web of vendors." Vendor-level proxies send profile information about a user (indexed by pseudonym) to the central server, which aggregates and validates it, maintains detailed records of profiles, and records a vendor ID when a party other than the user makes an update to a pseudonym's profile. Vendors may access profiles at a negotiated price based on accuracy and content.
• §102 mapping: Discloses elements (a), (c), and (d), plus dependent claims 4 and 5 (credibility/accuracy-based pricing) and parallels claim 8. It does not disclose (b) URL redirection — the gap FreeWheel filled with Bezos. Because Herz is a 2013 publication, its §102(e) status depends entirely on the provisional-priority showing (the Dynamic Drinkware argument).
• Sources: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555165](/patent/1555165)/... ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00415/doc/1240

D.4 Hagel & Singer, Net Worth (1999)

• Full citation: John Hagel III & Marc Singer, Net Worth: Shaping Markets When Customers Make the Rules, Harvard Business School Press (1999).
• Description: The "infomediary" concept — a trusted third party that aggregates customer information from multiple vendors, builds detailed consumer profiles, uses cookies to track users, and monetizes/directs targeted marketing.
• §102 mapping: §102(b) printed publication. Conceptually discloses elements (a), (c), (e) and the monetization of claims 8; does not disclose (b) the automatic URL-redirection mechanism.
• Source: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00415/doc/1240

D.5 Minor, US 5,740,252; Jaye, US 6,415,322; Coleman; Gardner

• US 5,740,252 (Minor et al.), filed Oct. 13, 1995 — targeted advertising/content distribution; used in IPR2024-00413 as the secondary to Merriman (and to Roth), and with Cooper/Coleman for claims 4–6. (Title not verified this session.)
• US 6,415,322 B1 (Jaye), issued Jul. 2, 2002 — per the petitioner, teaches appending profile information (including a local server ID) to a URL and recording the local server ID, which is the basis for combining with Merriman or Roth on elements (b) and (d) and for the payment element of claim 8. (Title not verified this session.)
• Coleman and Gardner — secondary references used against claims 4–6 (credibility/pricing) and claims 3 and 6 respectively. I could not identify these references (title, number, or date) in this session; I will not guess.

D.6 References I could not identify

• "Roth" (a primary reference in IPR2024-00413, described by petitioner as "a new reference never used in any related IPR") — unidentified.
• "Rosenberg" (primary in IPR2024-00414), "Zeff," "Sterne," "Kurtzman" — unidentified. (Note: a "Rosenberg et al." reference appears in the defendants' invalidity-contention lists in the parallel AlmondNet litigations, but I did not confirm that this is the same reference used in IPR2024-00414.)

Bottom line

1. The most relevant prior art for the granted claims is not what is printed on the patent's face. The examiner-cited references (Patent Art (33); NPL (12)) were overcome during prosecution — the specific obstacle was Acxiom (archived Feb.–Nov. 1999), distinguished on the URL-redirection element. That archive, plus Merriman/DoubleClick (US 5,948,061), Gerace (US 5,848,396), Goldhaber (US 5,855,008), Jaye (US 6,415,322), and Bezos (US 6,029,141), is the most material front-page art.
2. No reference I found was asserted as a straight §102 anticipation of claims 1 or 9. Every asserted ground in IPR2024-00413/-00414/-00415 was §103 obviousness. That is itself the key §102 finding: the record reflects that no single reference discloses all five elements of claim 1 (specifically, the combination of third-party-sourced partial profiles, automatic URL redirection, source-attribution records, and ad targeting).
3. The two most dangerous single references are Herz (2013/0097664) — because it teaches elements (a), (c), (d) and the credibility/pricing claims (4, 5) — and Bezos (6,029,141) — because it teaches (b) and the payment element (claim 8). Their combination, not either alone, is what drove the IPR.
4. Caveats: (i) the §102 status of every post-Dec-1999 reference depends on the claims' effective date, which FreeWheel contested; (ii) I could not identify Roth, Rosenberg, Zeff, Sterne, Kurtzman, Coleman, or Gardner; (iii) source-document discrepancies exist for US 5,956,093/5,956,693, US 6,973,456/6,973,436, and WO 98/59841/98/59481; (iv) the IPR2024-00413 proceeding terminated on settlement before any final written decision, so none of these §103 grounds was adjudicated, and IPR2024-00414/-00415 were never instituted.

Primary sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7979307/en ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-7979307-B2 ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1555160 (IPR2024-00413) ; .../1555161 (ranking paper) ; .../1555165 (IPR2024-00415 petition) ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00415/doc/1240 ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Western_District_Court/6--22-cv-01204/AlmondNet_Inc._et_al_v_Amazon.com_Inc._et_al/docs/1/5.pdf ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00413/FreeWheel_Media_Inc._v._AlmondNet_Inc/docs/07-17-2025-Board/Termination_Decision...pdf

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 7,979,307

Current date note: the task states April 26, 2026; the fetched patent page and my system environment are timestamped 2026-09-28, and the "Previously generated sections" cite two items dated after April 26, 2026 (a May 22, 2026 Snap-transfer report; an IP Verse page "last updated May 24, 2026"). I flag the inconsistency rather than resolve it.

Framing. The Google Patents page for the '307 patent identifies its prior-art field by keywords — profile; partial; user; databank; attributes — and a prior-art date of 1999-12-13. The page itself does not reproduce a reference list, so for the "Prior Art section" I rely on (i) the prior art of record in the PTAB proceedings against this exact patent, which I could retrieve verbatim, and (ii) the prosecution art described in those petitions. Where I could not verify an exhibit's identity, I say so.

Because the '307 application was filed Aug. 6, 2008 (pre-AIA), pre-AIA § 103 governs, and every reference must qualify under pre-AIA § 102 (e.g., § 102(a)/(b) publication, or § 102(e) as of its earliest effective U.S. filing date).

1. The claims in issue

Claims 8 and 10 were statutorily disclaimed during CBM2017-00049, so only claims 1–7 and 9 need § 103 treatment.

POSITA (as defined by the petitioner and not disputed in the record I retrieved): a bachelor's degree in computer engineering/computer science or similar, plus two years' experience in Internet data communications (including Internet advertising) and database management. That is a high-skill, small-team field, and under KSR such a POSITA is presumed capable of combining well-known techniques from the same field.

2. The prior-art references relied on

Petition grounds as filed (IPR2024-00413, filed Mar. 1, 2024, instituted Sept. 5, 2024, terminated July 17, 2025 on settlement):

• Ground A — Herz–Bezos (Herz + Bezos), § 103, claims 1–7 and 9
• Ground B — Hagel–Bezos, § 103, claims 1–3, 6–7, 9
• Ground C — Hagel–Bezos–Herz, § 103, claims 4–5

Discrepancy to flag: a reply brief I retrieved in the same case number references additional combinations — "Merriman‑Jaye, Merriman‑Minor, Roth‑Jaye, Roth‑Minor" and "Grounds I–L" — which do not fit the three-ground structure of the March 1, 2024 petition above. I could not determine whether that reply belongs to a different, later petition against the '307 (possibly a second petitioner such as Comcast, which the same document references) or whether the March 1 petition actually contained more grounds than the excerpt I retrieved. I therefore treat Merriman/Jaye/Minor/Roth as unconfirmed additional art and do not build the analysis on it. I likewise could not retrieve the Herz provisional's filing date or the Acxiom exhibit number.

3. Claim-by-claim obviousness

Motivation-to-combine summary (KSR-compliant, three independent rationales): (i) same field, same problem — all three references concern multi-source collection of consumer data for targeted advertising; (ii) known technique to improve a similar device in the same way — HTTP redirection with cookie/query-string passing was conventional (Bezos's express "referral links"), and its application to Herz yields only a predictable efficiency gain; (iii) design incentive — Herz's own business model requires accurate matching of contributed data to the right pseudonym, which redirection plus cookie reading makes more reliable.

Reasonable expectation of success is high: the combination adds a standard HTTP mechanism to an existing server-side profile repository, without altering Herz's principle of operation — and it preserves Herz's privacy design (only the SDI server, not the vendors, reads the cookie/URL data).

4. Weaknesses and counter-arguments a challenger must confront

1. Priority / antedation — the pivotal issue. Whether Herz (a 2013 publication) is § 102 art at all depends on (a) the '307 claims' effective filing date and (b) the Herz provisional's date. The petition expressly charted the provisional for written-description support and made a Dynamic Drinkware priority showing; the record also reflects a written-description dispute about "URL redirection" support in the '307's 1999 Israeli-priority chain. If the claims' effective date is 2008 (or later), Herz qualifies from its provisional date; if the claims genuinely reach 1999-12-13, AlmondNet can attempt antedation — a defense the record indicates it (and Comcast, in a related matter) have pressed. This single issue can be dispositive of Grounds A and C.
2. Claim 2's "separate record" construction. AlmondNet's only substantive dispute in the retrieved briefing was that claim 2 requires a record separate from claim 1's record. The petitioner answered that the specification does not support that reading; this is a live, narrow, but real argument.
3. Objective indicia. The June 2024 W.D. Tex. jury verdict ($122M against Amazon) concerned US 7,822,639 and US 8,671,139, not the '307 — so it supplies, at most, weak evidence of non-obviousness for the '307, and a nexus showing would be required. Conversely, the Board's earlier finding in IPR2022-01436 that all claims of sibling US 8,244,582 ("nearly identical claims," per the petitioner) were unpatentable — affirmed by the Federal Circuit via Rule 36 judgment in AlmondNet v. Meta, No. 2024-1834 (Apr. 13, 2026) — cuts strongly the other way for the '307's near-identical claims.
4. Settlement, not adjudication. IPR2024-00413 was terminated on July 17, 2025 due to settlement before a final written decision, and IPR2024-00414/00415 were not instituted. No merits ruling on the '307's § 103 challenge by the Board or a court exists on this record — so any obviousness conclusion here is analytical, not adjudicated.
5. § 101 context. CBM2017-00049 (challenging claim 1 under § 101) was denied institution because the '307 was held not eligible for CBM review — a procedural, not substantive, win for the patent owner.

5. Bottom line

On the prior art of record, claims 1–7 and 9 of US 7,979,307 would have been obvious:

• Herz + Bezos disposes of claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7 and 9 (Herz supplying the multi-source partial-profile repository with source tracking, ad targeting and accuracy-based valuation; Bezos supplying automatic URL redirection, cookie reading and contributor/commission recording).
• Hagel + Bezos is the alternative primary combination for claims 1–3, 6–7 and 9 (Hagel supplying the multi-source infomediary profile concept and Bezos the concrete redirect/cookie/attribution mechanism).
• Hagel + Bezos + Herz is the stronger combination for claims 4 and 5, because Herz supplies the express accuracy/credibility-based pricing that the other two do not.

The strongest defenses available to the patent owner are (i) priority/antedation against Herz, (ii) the claim 2 separate-record construction, and (iii) any nexus-bearing objective indicia — not the technical content of the claims, which the cited art appears to meet element-by-element.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7979307/en ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555162](/patent/1555162)/download-documents (claim-by-claim Herz–Bezos mapping) ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555165](/patent/1555165)/download-documents (grounds table; Hagel = Net Worth (1999)) ; https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555160](/patent/1555160)/download-documents (petitioner's reply; Merriman/Roth ground references) ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2024-00415/doc/1240 and https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/ptab/IPR2024-00415/doc/summary/2 (Herz = App. 2013/0097664; Bezos = 6,029,141) ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2024-00413 (institution Sept. 5, 2024; termination Jul. 17, 2025) ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2024-00413/...Termination_Decision...pdf ; http://euro.ecom.cmu.edu/people/faculty/mshamos/6029141.pdf (Bezos patent) ; https://cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1834.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.4-13-2026_2674964.pdf ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/CBM2017-00049.