Invalidity dossier
US 8032421
Added 9/23/2026, 12:09:52 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US 8,032,421 B1 — "Method and system to distribute online video"
Bibliographic data (from supplied text). Patent number US 8,032,421 B1; application US 11/743,558; inventors Chi Fai Ho and Shin Cheung Simon Chiu; original and current assignee TP Lab Inc.; priority and filing date 2007-05-02; publication (grant) date 2011-10-04; legal status listed as Active with an adjusted expiration of 2030-08-03. Classification: G06Q 30/06 and related e-shopping subclasses. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8032421/en
Stated purpose. Watching movies is described as popular entertainment, but online movie rental (NetFlix by post; Walmart.com, Amazon.com, iTunes downloads) presents inconvenience: a student finds uploading video to YouTube slow and awkward; a renter must copy a download to DVD to watch elsewhere; a downloaded movie on a hard-drive recorder cannot easily be watched in another room. The text states this illustrates a need for a system and method to distribute online video for easy personal access.
Plain-language scope. An online video distribution network includes an online video portal and an online video merchant. A subscribing consumer orders a video from the merchant and asks that it be delivered to the portal. Two mechanisms are described:
- Pick-up ticket (FIG. 2). The merchant gives the consumer a pick-up ticket containing the merchant identity (e.g., a URL or name) and a product identity (e.g., UPC, ISAN, ASIN, title). The consumer passes it to the portal, which stores it in the consumer's record, connects to the merchant, and supplies the product identity so the merchant retrieves and sends the video over a delivery session (HTTP, FTP/SSH, Web services, ebXML, etc.).
- Drop-off ticket (FIG. 3, per the summary text). The portal gives the consumer a drop-off ticket; the merchant uses the portal identity in it to connect and send the video plus a customer identity, and the portal files the video in the matching consumer record.
What the excerpt does not establish. The supplied text is explicitly an excerpt with omitted portions; full claim language is not reproduced, so the exact metes and bounds of the claims cannot be determined. It also does not establish FIG. 3's complete details, the specification's full description, or any priority/continuation relationships beyond the listed later applications US 13/211,294 and US 13/628,053.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:53:48 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.