US 8281336

I'll search for authoritative information on US 8,281,336 and any related 2026 litigation activity.

Let me search for more recent 2025–2026 litigation and Federal Circuit activity.

Let me try to retrieve the actual claim language of US 8,281,336.

US 8,281,336 B2 — Analyst Summary

Scope note: I queried for the specific patent number 8281336 (and its application/publication identifiers). I did not find any 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket in which US 8,281,336 itself is the patent on appeal. The 2026 CAFC activity I found involving this patent's owner concerns other members of the same family (details in §4). I flag this explicitly rather than implying a 2026 appellate docket for '336.

1. Bibliographic data (authoritative, from the patent text and USPTO records surfaced)

Family (partial): 7,861,260 (parent) → 8,281,336 (12/860,666) → 8,695,032 (13/097,885) → 8,677,398 (13/167,605) → 9,369,779 → 9,813,778 → 10,178,442 → 10,715,878 → 11,303,973 → 11,564,015 → 11,589,136 → 11,805,300 → 11,974,025 → 12,212,818.

2. Abstract (verbatim from the patent)

"In a method for delivering targeted television advertisements based on online behavior, IP addresses indicating online access devices and IP addresses indicating television set-top boxes are electronically associated for a multitude of users. Using user profile information derived from online activity from one of the online access IP addresses, a television advertisement is selected, such as by using behavioral targeting or demographic information, and automatically directed to the set-top box indicated by the set-top IP address associated with that online access IP address. Preferably neither the user profile information nor the electronic association of online access and set-top box IP addresses includes personally identifiable information."

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Important caveat on precision: the issued claims of '336 (105 total) are renumbered relative to the claims as prosecuted, and I could not retrieve the verbatim issued independent-claim set for '336 in this session. The following is grounded in (a) the examiner's Reasons for Allowance and the claim text in the file history of the parent/sibling applications in the same family, and (b) the '336 face abstract. Treat the substance as reliable and the exact independent-claim numbering of the issued '336 as unverified.

Common core of the independent claims (the "association + targeting" invention):

• Step (a) — build the link: a programmed computer system electronically associates, for each of a multitude of users, that user's online access IP address with that user's set-top box IP address, where the association is based on a common IP address — i.e., the IP address to which network traffic is routed for both the online user interface device (computer/mobile) and the television set-top box (typically the cable/DSL modem or router's IP address).
• Step (b) — target the ad: using user profile information derived from online activity originating from a first one of those online access IP addresses (e.g., a search request, a page view, a click, a purchase, demographic attributes supplied online), the computer system automatically causes a television advertisement to be directed to the set-top box indicated by the set-top box IP address associated with that first online access IP address — chosen selectively from among multiple possible ads based on that profile.

Representative dependents (illustrative of claim scope): no personally identifiable information (PII) in the profile or the association; search-request-based profiles; demographic/behavioral attribute targeting; matching the ad to the television content being viewed; storing and updating the IP-address associations; determining the common IP address by matching an online access IP address with an STB IP address used by a uniquely identified STB both before and after the online activity; use of STB identifiers (serial number, MAC address, username/pseudonym/confirmation number, cookie/tag); periodic or intermittent reporting by the STB; different ads to different households based on differences in their online activities; the computer system operating independently of the television service provider and without transmitting online behavioral profile data to that provider; and revenue-sharing claims (receiving a revenue amount from an advertiser/profile provider in exchange for directing the targeted TV ad, including per-use or revenue-triggered payments).

Multiple independent claims: the parent application (11/736,544) was allowed with four independent claims — claims 1, 30, 69 and 134 — all characterized by the examiner as the same invention but written from different actor perspectives (e.g., the computer system/CAS that performs the associating and directing; a party that delivers profile information to such a server; and identifier-based variants). The '336 continuation carries materially the same claim architecture.

4. Litigation / docket status

Asserted in district court (this patent is named in the pleadings):

• AlmondNet, Inc. et al. v. LinkedIn Corporation, No. 1:23-cv-01373 (D. Del., filed Dec. 1, 2023; Judge Maryellen Noreika). Asserted patent set included 8,281,336 together with 7,822,639, 7,861,260, 7,979,307, 8,244,582, 8,244,586, 8,671,139, 8,677,398, 8,775,249, 8,959,146 and 10,715,878. The case was closed by stipulated dismissal with prejudice (Dkt. 20).

Related PTAB activity (family, not necessarily '336 itself): IPR2022-01315 and IPR2022-01505 (Roku and Samsung, challenging US 9,369,779 / 10,715,878-family claims); IPR2022-01436 (Meta). In prosecution file histories, '336's claims 1-105 were used as the nonstatutory double-patenting reference against later family claims.

2026 Federal Circuit activity involving the same owner (NOT shown to involve '336):

• AlmondNet, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 2024-1834 — Fed. Cir. judgment April 13, 2026, nonprecedential, per curiam (Lourie, Dyk, Taranto): AFFIRMED under Fed. Cir. R. 36, upholding the PTAB's decision in IPR2022-01436 invalidating the challenged AlmondNet claims. (Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[10841919](/patent/10841919)/almondnet-inc-v-meta-platforms-inc/ and https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1834/24-1834-2026-04-13.html) — the patent on appeal is not identified in the judgment as '336.
• AlmondNet v. Amazon appeal at the Federal Circuit was voluntarily dismissed under Fed. Cir. R. 42(b) with no merits ruling; the asserted patents there were 8,671,139 and 7,822,639. On April 7, 2026, AlmondNet/Intent IQ/Datonics announced a settlement and license agreement with Amazon resolving all asserted patents. (Source: https://www.globenewswire.com/fr/news-release/2026/04/07/[3269306](/patent/3269306)/0/en/...)
• Separately, the Federal Circuit reinstated AlmondNet's district-court infringement suit against Meta on Sept. 3, 2025 (claim-construction procedure issue), remanding.

5. Explicit uncertainties

1. No CAFC 2026 docket naming US 8,281,336 was found. The 2026 appellate activity I can cite (24-1834 Meta; the dismissed Amazon appeal) concerns other family patents. If '336 was on a 2026 CAFC docket, I do not have authoritative confirmation of it from the sources retrieved.
2. Exact issued independent-claim numbering/text for '336 is unverified. I confirmed 105 claims and the substantively identical claim architecture from the family file history, but I did not retrieve the issued '336 claims verbatim, so the §3 descriptions are substance-level, not quote-level.
3. Assignee chain nuance: the face of the patent/records show AlmondNet, Inc. as original assignee with a recorded transfer to Intent IQ, LLC; Google Patents lists Intent IQ LLC as current assignee and once as "Intenti IQ LLC" (apparent typo left uncorrected per instruction to interpret identifiers literally).
4. The double-patenting rejection quoted in the family's file history is a prosecution reference to '336's claims — it is not a judicial invalidity holding against '336.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 8281336.

Let me search for more specific litigation cases involving this patent and its owner.

Let me search specifically for cases where the '336 patent itself was asserted.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 8,281,336

Bottom line: Based on my searches of patent-litigation dockets (Docket Alarm, PACER Monitor, RPX Insight, PTAB records), the only U.S. district-court case in which U.S. Patent No. 8,281,336 appears as a patent-in-suit is AlmondNet, Inc. et al. v. LinkedIn Corporation (D. Del.). I found no IPR/CBM proceedings naming the '336 patent itself as the challenged patent. I flag my confidence level and caveats below, consistent with the strict "don't fabricate" rule.

The '336 Patent — Identifying Facts

Note: the '336 is the parent of the Intent IQ family that includes U.S. 8,677,398 (a continuation of the '336) and U.S. 10,715,878. Many AlmondNet/Intent IQ cases assert family members but not the '336 itself.

Case Identified as Involving the '336 Patent

AlmondNet, Inc. et al. v. LinkedIn Corporation

Important Caveats (Please Read)

1. Assertion vs. docket listing. The comma-delineated patent string above is the patent field associated with the LinkedIn docket (as returned by Docket Alarm). Docket patent fields can reflect patents listed in the complaint or otherwise associated with the case. I could not, within my search budget, pull the LinkedIn Complaint (Doc. 1) count-by-count to verify that a separate count was pled on the '336 specifically (as opposed to it being named as part of the family/portfolio). Treat the '336's role in LinkedIn as reported but not independently count-verified.

2. Family-member cases are NOT '336 cases. The large AlmondNet/Intent IQ campaign (Roku, Samsung, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, Oracle, Viant, FreeWheel, LiveIntent, Mediaocean, Snap, etc.) asserts patents such as the '398, '878, '639, '586, '582, '139, '822, '146, '615, '164, '198, '100, '857, and '069 — not the '336. Those "related case" lists appear on family dockets because of the common specification/priority chain, but the '336 itself was not the asserted patent in those matters per the sources reviewed. I did not include them as '336 litigation.

3. PTAB. I found no IPR/CBM directly challenging the '336 patent. The '336's prosecution history was submitted only as an exhibit (Ex. 1005) in Microsoft Corp. et al. v. Intent IQ, LLC, IPR2022-01420 (which challenged the '398 patent and was denied institution). That is not a proceeding "on" the '336.

4. Pre-grant timing. Because the '336 did not issue until Oct. 2, 2012, any AlmondNet enforcement from earlier years (e.g., AlmondNet v. Microsoft, No. 3:10-cv-00298 (W.D. Wis.); AlmondNet v. Yahoo!, 1:16-cv-01557 (E.D.N.Y.)) cannot have asserted the '336.

Summary

• One case located naming U.S. 8,281,336: AlmondNet, Inc. et al. v. LinkedIn Corp., 1:23-cv-01373-MN (D. Del.), filed Dec. 1, 2023; terminated June 6, 2024 by dismissal with prejudice.
• No IPR/CBM on the '336 patent itself was identified; no other district-court case asserting the '336 itself was identified.
• If you need certainty on whether a distinct infringement count was pled on the '336 in LinkedIn, the authoritative step is to retrieve the Doc. 1 Complaint (and any amended complaint) from PACER/CourtListener for D. Del. 1:23-cv-01373 and check the "COUNT" sections — I was unable to do that count-by-count within this session.

Sources consulted: Docket Alarm (docketalarm.com) case records for AlmondNet v. LinkedIn, 1:23-cv-01373; PACER Monitor case summaries for the Intent IQ docket family; RPX Insight litigation documents; PTAB petition/exhibit records (Microsoft v. Intent IQ, IPR2022-01420, Ex. 1005).

I'll verify the canonical "no PTAB activity" default against live sources before writing.

Let me specifically hunt for any IPR/PGR/CBM naming the '336 patent, since the results so far concern sibling patents in the same family.

Let me search specifically for PTAB proceedings naming the '336 patent (as opposed to its siblings).

PTAB Proceedings — US 8,281,336 B2 ("Targeted television advertisements based on online behavior")

Canonical source check: The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returns zero AIA trial proceedings for this patent. I ran independent web searches for any IPR/PGR/CBM naming 8,281,336 / 8281336; I found none. The ODP default holds, and I am flagging nothing as a proceeding on this patent. Everything below is written against that fact pattern.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 8,281,336: 0 — no IPR, no PGR, no CBM, no joinder, no FWD, no appeal. The patent has never been the subject of a PTAB challenge, so it sits in a posture that is the mirror image of the usual "hardened by IPR" story: not one claim has been tested, narrowed, canceled, or confirmed — claims 1–105 (the count recited in the prosecution record of the '336 patent as reproduced in sibling IPRs) are all presumptively valid, unadjudicated, and fully available to the patent owner. For a defendant, that means there is no IPR record to lean on, no cancelled claim to attack a demand letter with, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to inherit — but it also means the patent is an old patent facing a radically harder institution regime, and it expires within months. Both facts cut in your favor; neither is a validity holding.

Because there are no proceedings, the per-proceeding templates below are unused. I refuse to pad the list with IPRs against sibling patents and label them as challenges to this patent.

What is not a proceeding on '336 (family context — do not conflate)

AlmondNet / Intent IQ's '336 patent is the middle of a long continuation chain. Per the prosecution history reproduced in Roku's IPR2022-01315 exhibit — "12/860,666 08/20/2010 PAT 8281336 which is a CON of 11/736,544 04/17/2007 PAT 7861260" — the '336 patent descends from the '260 patent and is the parent of the '032 → '779 → '442 line. Its sibling and descendant patents have attracted heavy PTAB fire; the '336 patent itself has not. Highlights, with the caveat that these are not proceedings on US 8,281,336:

CBM2017-00056 (Yahoo!) also appears on a family patent's challenge record. Sources: PTAB E2E / PTACTS, Docket Alarm PTAB dockets, and the Amazon IPR2023-00227 institution decision (via bannerwitcoff.com PDF). I am not asserting any of these are proceedings on the '336 patent; they are not.

The one place the '336 patent surfaces in PTAB filings is as prior art / double-patenting reference, not as the challenged patent. Example, verbatim from a family prosecution history reproduced in Roku's IPR2022-01315 exhibits: "Claims 52-80 rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-105 of U.S. Patent No. 8281336." That is the '336 patent being used as a sword against a later AlmondNet application — evidence of family breadth, not of any challenge to '336.

Strategic summary

Claim status — all untested, none cancelled, none sustained. With zero proceedings, there is no claim-level PTAB verdict to report, and I will not manufacture one. The '336 patent issued 2012-10-02 with 105 claims on the 2007-04-17 priority date; none has been cancelled, disclaimed in a PTAB proceeding, or confirmed in an FWD. If a demand letter cites any claim of '336, you cannot respond with "that claim is dead" — that argument exists only for the family's '398 patent claims 36–37 (Meta IPR instituted, then settled before FWD, so even those were never invalidated) and whatever FreeWheel obtains against the '260/'015 patents. The '336 patent's claims are live and presumptively valid. There is also no PTAB-created prosecution history disclaimer or adverse claim construction to mine.

Estoppel landscape — essentially empty. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is claim- and patent-specific: it binds a petitioner (and its RPI/privies) only as to claims that reached an FWD in an IPR of that patent. No IPR of '336 means no estoppel attaching to its claims from any source. Conversely, if you file, you inherit no one else's estoppel either — but note the reverse trap: Amazon's and Meta's and Roku's § 315(b) clocks and any stipulations bind only those parties. The relevant unilateral bars for you are your own: (1) § 315(b)'s one-year clock from service of a complaint asserting '336 — the LinkedIn action (AlmondNet v. LinkedIn, 1:23-cv-01373, D. Del., filed 2023-12-01) listed 8281336 among the asserted patents, so anyone served in that period is now well outside a year; and (2) § 315(a)(1)'s DJ bar if you filed a declaratory-judgment count first. All prior-art grounds against '336 remain available on the merits, subject only to those bars and to PTAB discretion.

Pattern signals. The patent owner (AlmondNet / Intent IQ, assignee Intent IQ, LLC) is a serial enforcer with a very strong institution-defense record — a string of denials against Yahoo!, Roku, Samsung, Microsoft, and Amazon, including one § 315(b) time-bar kill. Petitioners respond by volume: FreeWheel filed four ranked petitions against the '260 patent alone (IPR2024-00421 through -00424), and Roku tried to join Meta's '878 IPR with a copycat petition. Meta was the only petitioner to get a real foothold, and it settled out from under the trial. New 2025 filings (Viant, and apparently Zesty.AI) show the campaign is ongoing but shifting targets to younger family members. I found no Unified Patents or other defensive-aggregator involvement in this family. The litigation backdrop is a mixed record: AlmondNet announced a 2026-04-07 license/settlement with Amazon after a W.D. Tex. trial and "numerous IPR wins," and its FreeWheel/Beeswax claims were dismissed with prejudice (2025-06-24) — a res judicata bar for those defendants only.

The two facts that actually matter for a defendant today. First, age + the 2025 institution regime. The '336 patent has a 2007 priority date and issued in 2012. Under the Director's 2025 practice changes — Director-controlled institution, the "settled expectations" doctrine, mandatory denial where a claim was previously upheld, and the 2025 NPRM requiring petitioners to surrender parallel § 102/103 defenses — institution against a 14-year-old patent is now materially harder, and PTAB institution rates against NPEs collapsed in 2025 (see Unified Patents, 2025 in Review). An IPR on '336 in 2026 is a low-probability, high-cost play. Second, the patent expires 2027-04-17 (anticipated expiration per the structured front-page data — roughly six and a half months from today, 2026-09-28). Pre-suit damages are capped by § 286's six-year lookback and post-expiry conduct is unactionable. These two points — not any IPR outcome — are your leverage.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not plead an IPR-based invalidity story that assumes a PTAB win. There is no FWD on '336 to quote and no cancelled claim to link. If opposing counsel has told you "the PTAB already killed this family," verify the patent number — the '398 and '878 proceedings exist, but on other patents, and even the Meta '398 IPR terminated by settlement without a validity verdict.
2. Run the § 315(b)/§ 315(a)(1) gate first. Anything that looks like a pre-suit DJ count can permanently bar your IPR under § 315(a)(1). Calendar the service date of any '336 complaint; if service occurred before 2025-09-28, you are already outside the one-year window.
3. If you are inside the window and want to challenge, front-load the petition. With Director-controlled institution and the "settled expectations" doctrine, the realistic path is a compelling-merits, single-petition showing against non-cumulative art — and be prepared to make the Sotera-type stipulation abandoning parallel § 102/103 defenses, which the 2025 NPRM treats as a precondition. Check whether your art was already before the Examiner (the family history shows the Examiner repeatedly worked § 101 and double-patenting issues on these applications), because § 325(d) Advanced Bionics is now a live denial risk.
4. Value the case on the clock, not on validity. Expiration 2027-04-17 means a short royalty tail and a shrinking damages base; that arithmetic usually dominates PTAB strategy. Obtain the file history for application 12/860,666 (the '336 patent) and confirm the terminal disclaimer / double-patenting chain within the family, since those disclaimers and the 20-year date govern the enforceable term.
5. Monitor the family, not this patent. The live risk indicators are the FreeWheel IPRs against '260 and '015, Meta's instituted '878 IPR, and the 2025 filings by Viant and Zesty.AI. If a sibling claim is invalidated, that is not a holding about '336 — but the claim-construction and prior-art reasoning may be portable as persuasive material in district court or in a new petition.

Links for verification: US 8,281,336 on Google Patents · USPTO PTAB E2E / PTACTS · CourtListener · the Darts-IP family-litigation record flagged on the patent's front page (family=39872105). I could not confirm, and therefore do not vouch for, the patent numbers underlying IPR2025-01163 or IPR2025-01317.

I'll research the assignment record for US 8,281,336, focusing on reel/frame numbers, conveyances, and correspondents.

Let me dig for the specific reel/frame records and correspondent details.

Assignment / Ownership Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,281,336 B2

Data-integrity note up front: I was able to retrieve the conveyances, dates, and parties for the '336 chain from Google Patents' legal-events/assignment records (source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8281336/en). I was not able to retrieve the corresponding reel/frame numbers or the recorded correspondent for the '336 records specifically. Per the operating rules I will not guess those; they are flagged as [not retrieved] below. Where I cite a reel/frame, I say explicitly that it belongs to a sibling family member and is context, not a '336 record.

Inventors

• Roy Shkedi — sole named inventor on the '336 ("Targeted television advertisements based on online behavior"). Residence of record New York, NY (family filings use New York, NY; related members list Forest Hills, NY).
• Employer at time of filing: AlmondNet, Inc. — Shkedi is the founder/CEO of the AlmondNet Group (founded 1998), and the family filings route his correspondence "c/o AlmondNet, Inc., 134 Spring Street, Suite 302, New York, NY 10012." The '336 is a single-inventor patent; unlike some family members (e.g., U.S. 9,271,024, which names Shkedi and Dror Ben-Yishai), no co-inventor appears here.
• Unusual-pattern check: Not present. Shkedi did not depart the assignee — he remained AlmondNet's CEO and is still, per the April 7, 2026 AlmondNet/Intent IQ/Datonics press release, "AlmondNet CEO and Chairman of Intent IQ and Datonics." There is no inventor-exodus/fire-sale pattern. (Source: https://www.globenewswire.com/fr/news-release/2026/04/07/[3269306](/patent/3269306)/0/en/...)

Original assignee

• First assignee of record: AlmondNet, Inc. — a Delaware corporation, per the recorded "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST" from Roy Shkedi dated/recorded 2010-08-20, the same day continuation application 12/860,666 was filed. (The pre-grant publication US 2010/0325659 A1, December 2010, is likewise in the name of Almondnet, Inc.)
• Note on the face-of-patent field: Google Patents lists the '336's "Original Assignee" as "Intenti IQ LLC" (the page repeatedly prints the apparent typo "Intenti IQ, LLC"; I leave it uncorrected per instruction). That field reflects the later intra-group transfer, not the first assignee — the recorded chain begins with AlmondNet, Inc. This is a contradiction with the assignment record and I flag it: the legal original assignee (from the recorded 2010-08-20 assignment and the 2010 pre-grant publication) is AlmondNet, Inc.; the patent's printed/indexed assignee field shows Intent IQ, LLC because the AlmondNet→Intent IQ transfer was recorded (Sept. 2011) before the patent issued (Oct. 2, 2012).
• Business / product status: AlmondNet, Inc. was a genuine operating ad-tech company (founded 1998) that developed behavioral-targeting and profile-based-bidding products. Per its own complaints, it is "currently focused on R&D and the licensing of its patents," while its subsidiaries (Intent IQ, Datonics) "continue to offer services." Current status: operating (privately held), no bankruptcy filing found. Address of record in recent litigation: 37-18 Northern Blvd., Suite 404, Long Island City, NY 11101 (earlier: 134 Spring Street, Suite 302, New York, NY 10012).

Assignment timeline

The USPTO assignment records do exist for this patent (three recorded events are reported in the authoritative patent text's legal-events block). Chronologically:

1. 2010-08-20 (recorded) / execution date [not retrieved] — Reel/Frame [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
   • Assignor: Shkedi, Roy (sole inventor)
   • Assignee: AlmondNet, Inc. (Delaware)
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — the recurring family patent attorney of record is Louis J. Hoffman (identified as the filer "Louis J. Hoffman/Donald Hertz" on AlmondNet's sibling continuations, and "Attorney, Agent, or Firm — Louis J. Hoffman; David S. …" on U.S. 10,009,636), but I could not confirm Hoffman is the correspondent on this specific '336 recording.
   • Context: Standard inventor-to-company assignment; recorded the same day the continuation (12/860,666) was filed, locking the '336 chain to the 2007 parent (11/736,544).

2. 2011-09-22 (recorded) / execution date [not retrieved] — Reel/Frame [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest
   • Assignor: AlmondNet, Inc.
   • Assignee: Intent IQ, LLC
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Internal reorganization — the parent moved the television-targeting family to its (majority-owned) subsidiary Intent IQ, LLC.

3. 2011-09-22 (recorded) / execution date [not retrieved] — Reel/Frame [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: License
   • Assignor: Intent IQ, LLC
   • Assignee: AlmondNet, Inc.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Grant-back license — the same day title moved to Intent IQ, Intent IQ licensed rights back to the parent so AlmondNet retained operating/enforcement rights. Both events share the 2011-09-22 recordation date; the logical order is assignment (2) then license-back (3).

Family-level corroboration (context only — NOT a '336 record): A sibling member of the same family, U.S. 9,271,024, carries a re-recorded set of exactly these three transactions on reel 037136 — 037136/0116 (inventors → AlmondNet), 037136/0118 (AlmondNet → Intent IQ), 037136/0151 (Intent IQ → AlmondNet LICENSE), with backdated effective dates of 2011-08-21 / 2011-09-14. This confirms the same AlmondNet→Intent IQ→license-back structure the '336 legal events describe. I did not locate the '336's own reel/frame set, and the 037136 reel belongs to the '024 member, so it must not be cited as the '336's record.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 8281336
    2007 : Priority date Apr 17
         : Parent 11736544 filed
    2010 : Continuation 12860666 filed
         : Shkedi assigns to AlmondNet
    2011 : AlmondNet assigns to Intent IQ
         : Intent IQ licenses back to AlmondNet
    2012 : Patent issues Oct 2
    2023 : Asserted v LinkedIn
    2024 : LinkedIn suit dismissed

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT (weak/ambiguous). The 2011-09-22 transfer moved the patent from the operating parent (AlmondNet, Inc.) to a Delaware LLC (Intent IQ, LLC), which superficially resembles the pattern. But Intent IQ is not a bare licensing shell: it has an operating identity-resolution product line ("Dynamic Device Map") and a real staff/R&D presence (NYC HQ; Herzliya, Israel R&D), and the transfer is parent → majority-owned subsidiary, i.e., an internal reorganization. Tells such as a registered-agent-only address or a single-purpose LLC with no operations are not evidenced. Reel/frame not retrieved; dated 2011-09-22.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT (as to public NPE lists). Neither AlmondNet, Inc. nor Intent IQ, LLC appears on the canonical NPE rosters (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, MPHJ, Round Rock, etc.). However, the family is tracked by NPE-monitoring services — e.g., Unified Patents' portal carries the family (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-[9369779](/patent/9369779)-B2), and RPX indexes the group's litigation — which means third parties treat the AlmondNet Group as a high-frequency plaintiff even without a classic troll-list match. Basis: Unified/RPX portal listings, not a reel/frame.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR. The family's prosecution/assignment agent of record is consistently Louis J. Hoffman (Hoffman filings across the 2008, 2011, and 2012 AlmondNet continuations; attorney-of-record on U.S. 10,009,636). But (a) I could not retrieve the correspondent on the '336's own assignment records, and (b) a single recurring patent prosecutor for a legitimate portfolio is not itself an NPE tell. Signal rated unclear pending the reel/frame correspondent data.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. Only the three events above occur, all within one corporate family and within a ~13-month window (2010-08 to 2011-09), with no chain of unrelated LLCs sharing a correspondent address or common principals. This is a single internal restructuring, not a cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The last transfer (2011-09-22) precedes the only district-court assertion I could locate for the '336 itself — AlmondNet, Inc. et al. v. LinkedIn Corp., No. 1:23-cv-01373-MN (D. Del., filed Dec. 1, 2023) — by more than 11 years, far outside the 6-month window.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding by AlmondNet/Intent IQ was found. Shkedi's 2024 IAM interview describes a 2013 near-financial-ruin episode resolved by a Google licensing deal, not an insolvency sale; he explicitly chose licensing over letting the company fail.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. AlmondNet/Intent IQ assert their own patents by right of title; there is no evidence of an operating company funding an NPE to sue its competitors, and no SEC-filing disclosure of such an arrangement (AlmondNet is private).

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. It ends at Intent IQ, LLC, an active plaintiff in the family's licensing campaign (e.g., LinkedIn 2023; LiveIntent 2024; Mediaocean/Innovid).

Verdict

NPE — moderate confidence.

Justification (with the caveat that reel/frame and correspondents were not retrievable): The '336 is owned by Intent IQ, LLC, a Delaware LLC that (i) does not make the accused ad-serving/TV-targeting products at issue, (ii) receives the patent via an intra-group transfer recorded 2011-09-22 out of its parent AlmondNet, Inc. (which self-describes as "focused on R&D and the licensing of its patents"), and (iii) is enforced broadly by AlmondNet and Intent IQ as co-plaintiffs (e.g., LinkedIn, 1:23-cv-01373-MN, filed 2023-12-01; LiveIntent, 2024). That is the functional profile of a patent-monetization/PAE-style owner. The confidence is moderate, not high, because the classic high-signal tells are absent: this is a parent→subsidiary reorganization (not an operating-company-to-shell transfer), the licensing entity retains genuine operating subsidiaries and R&D, the founding inventor remains the group's CEO, and there is no known-troll-list match, cascade, pre-suit transfer, bankruptcy, or privateering.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 8281336); mirror index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html; underlying legal events at https://patents.google.com/patent/US8281336/en.

Explicit data gaps (please resolve against Assignment Center directly): the reel/frame numbers and correspondent of record for each of the three '336 recordings, and the execution dates (distinct from the recordation dates 2010-08-20 and 2011-09-22) were not available in the sources I retrieved, and I have not inferred them.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 8,281,336 specifically. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me pull the actual "References Cited" section and the IPR prior-art record specific to this patent and its family.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,281,336 B2

Methodology note (read first). I attempted to pull the verbatim "References Cited" block printed on the face of US 8,281,336 (application 12/860,666) directly from the USPTO/Google Patents record. My searches returned the family members' cited-reference lists and the post-grant-challenge art, but I hit my tool-step limit before retrieving the '336 face-copy image itself. The U.S. 8,281,336 is a continuation of application 11/736,544, now U.S. 7,861,260, and it shares a substantially identical specification with its parent and siblings (U.S. 8,695,032; 9,369,779; 10,178,442; etc.). Because those family members print materially the same "References Cited" list (verified from the issued copies of '260, '032, '779, and '442 surfaced in PTAB exhibits), I use that list as the best available proxy for the '336's own face citations — but I flag it as a proxy, not a verified transcription of the '336 face. Where a reference is asserted with high confidence, I say so; where it is a proxy or IPR-derived reference, I say that too.

Also important: the '336 carries 105 claims and, per the earlier summary section, four independent claims (the parent's are 1, 30, 69, 134). A § 102 anticipation can only be asserted against a claim whose every limitation is met by a single reference; the vast majority of the references below are § 102(a)/(b)/(e) references of record that in practice function as § 103 obviousness art. I mark this distinction explicitly.

1. Tier 1 — The references that actually mattered (post-grant challenges to this family)

These are the references the asserted family's challengers actually used in PTAB proceedings (Roku IPR2022-01315; Samsung IPR2022-01505; Meta IPR2022-01436; FreeWheel IPR2024-00422). Because the '336 shares the '260/'878 spec, these are the most probative prior art against the '336's core "associate online-access IP address ↔ STB IP address, then target" invention.

(Source for the Baig/Costa/Zwicky and Baig/Costa/Banga690/Howcroft mappings: IPR2024-00422 (FreeWheel Media Inc. v. Intent IQ LLC) petition-analysis record, https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/ptab/IPR2024-00422/doc/summary/2. Descriptions of Baig/Costa/Banga are given at the subject-matter level from the petition context; I could not open the full petitions to quote them verbatim.)

2. Tier 2 — Face-cited U.S. patent references (from the '260/'336 family face copies)

The following "U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS" appear on the face of the parent U.S. 7,861,260 (verified from the issued PDF, patentimages US7861260.pdf) and are reproduced in the sibling family members. They are the classics of pre-2007 online/interactive advertising and TV-ad-selection art, and are the references a § 102/§ 103 challenge would start from. Dates below are issue dates.

Foreign/grant references also on the family faces: JP 2007-274246 (Oct. 2007) and other JP/KR documents; other publications: Lueuing, E., "Free ISP NetZero beefs up ad services," CNET News.com (Jan. 2, 2002).

(Caveat: because these are drawn from the '260/sibling faces rather than a verified '336 face, treat individual line items as high-confidence for the family but unconfirmed for the '336 specifically.)

3. Candidate single-reference § 102 "anticipation" analysis (substance-level)

Because exact issued '336 claim text was not retrieved (consistent with the uncertainty flagged in the prior summary), the following maps the strongest single references onto the invention's core elements. Note that no single reference of record appears to disclose every element of the broadest independent claims — especially the combination of (i) the common-IP-address association between an online-access device and an STB with (ii) targeting the TV ad by the online behavior observed from that online-access IP address. That combination is what distinguished the family. Accordingly:

• Against the broad "targeting/behavioral-profile" dependents (profiles from searches, page views, clicks, purchases; demographic targeting): Merriman (US 5,948,061) and Gerace (US 5,848,396) are the closest § 102(b) anticipatory references.
• Against the broad "targeted ad to a set-top/TV terminal" dependents: Hendricks (US 6,160,989) and Eldering (US 6,216,129) are the closest § 102(b) references.
• Against the "common IP address / router-modem" limitations: Zwicky, Building Internet Firewalls (2000) supplies the NAT/common-address teaching (used exactly this way in the family IPRs).
• Against any claim that does not require the cross-device association: the combination of a behavior-targeting reference (Merriman/Gerace) with a TV-ad-selection reference (Hendricks/Eldering), optionally plus Zwicky, is the classic § 103 combination — and is precisely the combination the PTAB challengers ran against the '260 in IPR2024-00422 (Baig + Costa + Zwicky / + Banga690 / + Howcroft), which is the strongest evidence that the '336's closely related independent claims face the same § 103 exposure.

No Tier-1 or Tier-2 reference, standing alone, is a clean full-claim § 102 anticipation of the '336's flagship independent claims on the record I retrieved — the art of record is best characterized as § 103 material and as § 102 art against narrower dependent claims.

4. Explicit uncertainties (do not treat as verified)

1. I did not retrieve the '336's own printed "References Cited" list in this session. Tier 2 is a family proxy (drawn from U.S. 7,861,260 and siblings), because '336 is a continuation of '260 with the same specification. If a verified § 102/§ 103 opinion is needed, pull the '336 front page (PDF, patentimages) and confirm line-by-line.
2. Descriptions/dates for Baig, Costa, Banga, Howcroft are stated at the subject-matter level from the IPR2024-00422 summary and should be verified against the actual petition (Ex. list) before being relied on as § 102 art; I could not open the full petitions.
3. Anticipation vs. obviousness: most listed references are § 102(a)/(b)/(e) references of record; I assign them to § 102(a)/(b) only where the single-reference disclosure plausibly reads on a claim. Actual challenges to this family have predominantly been § 103.
4. Claim numbering: per the earlier summary, the '336's issued independent claims are unverified; the parent's allowed independents were claims 1, 30, 69, 134. My claim mapping is therefore element-level, not claim-number-level for the '336.
5. No IPR naming the '336 itself was located (consistent with the prior litigation summary); the Tier-1 art is from IPRs against sibling patents (7,861,260; 9,369,779; 10,178,442; 8,695,032).

Recommended next step: open the US 8,281,336 front page image (patentimages) and USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper for application 12/860,666 to transcribe the exact "References Cited" and any examiner's § 102/§ 103 rejections, then reconcile against Tier 1 above.

I'll pull the prior-art citations and related references for US 8,281,336 before analyzing.

I have the reference lists. Let me pull the specific prior-art references and the IPR ground references.

Let me pin down a few more of the key references' disclosures.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 8,281,336 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. Sourcing and date note (read first)

What I used as "the Prior Art section." The patent-text dump supplied in this session contains the '336 specification, claims-listing, classifications and legal-status data — but the Google Patents "Prior Art / Cited By / Similar Documents" block was not populated in that dump. I therefore reconstructed the prior art from (i) the "References Cited" printed on the face of the '336 itself, as captured in the patent's own printed copy submitted as Exhibit 1055 in IPR2022-01315, Roku, Inc. v. Intent IQ, LLC, and (ii) the §103 ground references actually asserted against the same-specification family members in the PTAB petitions (IPR2022-01315; IPR2022-01420; IPR2022-01505; IPR2024-00420 FreeWheel Media v. Intent IQ). I flag artifacts I could not fully verify.

Two date flags.

1. This task states the current date is April 26, 2026; the session environment reports 2026‑09‑28. I use April 26, 2026 as instructed but note the discrepancy. Either way, nothing in the post-issuance record I can cite is a §103 adjudication of the '336 itself (see §7).
2. The '336 is a pre-AIA patent: application 12/860,666 filed Aug. 20, 2010, claiming continuation priority to Apr. 17, 2007 (11/736,544, now US 7,861,260). Pre-AIA §§ 102/103 govern. Art must therefore predate Apr. 17, 2007 (as §102(a)/(b) or, as a printed publication/issued patent, with the §102(e) filing-date benefit only for those references that qualify "by another").

1. The subject matter to be met

From the previously generated section §3 (substance-level, since I could not retrieve the verbatim issued claims), the '336 independent claims share this core:

Realistically, element B is the only element that is arguably not squarely in the art; A and C are conventional cross-device behavioral targeting.

2. Person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA at the Apr. 2007 priority date would have a bachelor's degree in EE/CS (or equivalent) plus ~2 years' experience in network-based advertising, IP networking (NAT/DHCP/IP addressing), and/or interactive television/set-top-box systems. (The Board-level POSITA definition used in the family IPRs — e.g., IPR2022-01315, §VII — is of this character.) This POSITA would know: (i) that residential routers use NAT so that a LAN's devices share one public IP address; (ii) that ISPs assign that address dynamically via DHCP; and (iii) that behavioral ad targeting based on cookies/observed online activity was routine.

3. Prior-art inventory

3(a) Art printed on the '336 face (patents)

Pirani 5,105,184; Shaw 5,809,242; Gerace 5,848,396; Goldhaber 5,855,008; Bull 5,901,287 (OCR in the retrieved exhibit shows "5,091,287" — apparent OCR error, flagged per the no-auto-correct rule); Angles 5,933,811; Merriman 5,948,061; Jones 5,978,013; Bull 5,995,943; Ullman 6,018,768; Brown 6,026,368; Gardenswartz 6,055,573; and (from the mirroring lists on the same-family patents) Hendricks 6,160,989; Alexander 6,177,931; Easty 6,189,008; Eldering 6,216,129; Haitsuka 6,366,298; Philyaw 6,377,986; Angles 6,385,592; Rosser 6,446,261; Calamera 6,463,533; Hendricks 6,463,585; Easty 6,490,587; Knudson 6,536,041; Eldering 6,684,194; Swix 6,718,551. Foreign: JP 2006‑324763; JP 2007‑274246.

3(b) Published applications on the '336 face (most probative)

• US 2007/0088603 A1 (Jouppi et al.) — a Google filing; appears on the '336 face. (Its §102(e) date = its filing date; I could not verify that date in this session, but its April 2007 publication date alone is after Apr. 17, 2007, so it would have to qualify via §102(e) as "by another." Flagged as unverified.)
• US 2006/0212350 A1 (Ellis et al.) — TV/EPG-side targeted advertising to a subscriber's receiver; relevant to element C on the television side.
• US 2005/0086112 A1 (Shkedi) — the inventor's own earlier publication; note that pre-AIA §102(a)/(e) require "by another," so self-art generally does not qualify (a pre-critical-date publication could be §102(b) art, but I do not build a ground on the inventor's own work).
• Others: 2004/0172650 Hawkins; 2004/0249726 Linehan; 2005/0076393 Sussman; 2005/0125289 & 2005/0125290 Beyda; 2005/0165638 Piller; 2005/0165643 Wilson; 2005/0165644 Beyda; 2005/0177420 Tanahashi; 2005/0187823 Howes; 2005/0229215 Schein; 2005/0246736 Beyda; 2006/0116924 Angles; 2006/0137015 Fahrny; 2006/0259357 Chiu; 2006/0271953 Jacoby; 2006/0287916 Starr; 2007/0027850 & 2007/0027901 Chan; 2007/0033269 Atkinson; 2007/0038516 Apple; 2007/0047568 Wang; 2007/0073585 Apple; 2007/0089127 Flickinger; 2007/0100690 Hopkins; 2007/0115389 McCarthy; 2007/0130015 Starr; 2007/0143786 Deitsch; 2007/0198327 Yazdani; 2007/0198532 Krikorian; 2007/0208619 Branam; 2007/0214048 Chan; 2007/0220553 Branam; 2007/0233571 Eldering.

3(c) Non-patent literature on the '336 face

Engage Technologies Form S‑1A (Jul. 19, 1999); Keegan, "The Man Who Can Save Advertising" (Nov. 1, 2004); "Visible World Targets Advertising Industry" (Feb. 20, 2005); "Venture Market Summary," VentureWire (Mar. 29, 2005); Olsen, TiVo/Google/Yahoo talks (Apr. 18, 2005); "This Ad's for You—Just You," BusinessWeek (Jun. 28, 2005); "Cable's Big Bet on Hyper-Targeting" (Jul. 4, 2005); "Comcast, Cox Buy Interactive TV Company" (Jul. 13, 2005); "TiVo Launches New Interactive Advertising Technology" (Jul. 18, 2005); Grant, "To Watch Hot New Competitors, Comcast Builds a Mini Internet," WSJ (Oct. 13, 2005); TiVo advertising-search items (Nov.–Dec. 2005, May 2006); TiVo/Brightcove (May 10, 2006); "BMW Uses TiVo Technology" (Jun. 21, 2006); Wingfield/Kaye TiVo Web-to-TV items (Nov. 2006); "NetZero and Juno's sophisticated targeting capabilities…" (2007). Together these establish that cross-media, addressable TV advertising was a recognized, crowded trend well before Apr. 2007 — the classic KSR "design incentive" evidence.

3(d) The §103 ground references used against the same specification in the family IPRs

4. Element-by-element mapping to the strongest ground: Madhavan + Park + Martinez (+ Kato)

Result: every element of the representative independent claim is disclosed or suggested by the combination; only element B, as such, is arguably absent from Madhavan alone — and that is precisely what Park/Baum/Sitaraman/Kato supply.

5. Motivations to combine (the §103 core)

1. Same field / analogous art. Madhavan, Park, Martinez, Kato, Baum and Sitaraman are all in network-based content delivery and internet advertising — the very field of the '336. Madhavan and Martinez were even co-assigned (Yahoo!).
2. Addressing Madhavan's express shortcoming. Madhavan's cross-device targeting presumes the system can tell that two devices belong to the same user/household. Park supplies the everyday mechanism — a shared router with one public IP — and expressly teaches that this conserves scarce public IP addresses and reduces cost. The Petitioners framed this as the classic KSR "known technique applied to a known device ready for improvement to yield predictable results": put Park's NAT router into Madhavan's system so that the "device identifier" is the common public IP address.
3. Timestamps. Martinez teaches storing temporal data with each event so a profile can be built and refreshed — the natural way to make Madhavan's association workable over time (and to support the '336's time-and-date reporting dependents).
4. Device uniqueness / privacy. Kato teaches MAC-based identification of a device behind a shared IP, which both (a) resolves which STB is which, and (b) yields the "no PII" dependent claims (a MAC and a transient IP are not PII).
5. Predictable result. The combination yields better-targeted TV ads to the household's STB based on online behavior — the identical result Madhavan already sought, with more accurate device association. No new principle of operation is required.

Alternative / supplemental ground (Roku-Samsung line on the '878/'015 family): Madhavan + Baum + Damick, with Harrington/Rankin/Varghese as to STB reporting and ad selection, and Koran/Whitehead/Vallier as to ad insertion and viewing-habit targeting. Because US 10,715,878 and US 11,564,015 share the '336 specification, a POSITA grading those disclosures against the '878/'015 claims would necessarily find the same disclosures relevant to the '336's broader independent claims.

Note on the double-patenting record. During prosecution of later family members, claims 1–105 of the '336 were cited as the nonstatutory double-patenting reference against claims of application 15/179,356 (see the Feb. 6, 2017 Office Action, Art Unit 2425). That shows the family claims were treated as not patentably distinct over the '336 — but it is a prosecution reference to the '336, not a validity holding against it.

6. Secondary considerations

I found no evidence in the retrieved record of unexpected results, skepticism, or industry praise tied to the '336's claimed subject matter. The AlmondNet/Intent IQ assertion-and-settlement campaign (e.g., the Amazon settlement announced April 7, 2026, and the licenses/settlements noted in the previously generated §4) could be argued as commercial success, but the record I retrieved does not establish a nexus between that revenue and the claimed association + targeting combination, and much of the value may reflect the portfolio rather than the '336. This is a genuine limitation on the secondary-considerations defense.

7. Where the obviousness case is weakest — and the countervailing record

1. Element B must be established by combination, not by a single reference. The best single reference (Madhavan) targets ads across devices based on shared account/device identifiers, and the PTAB denied institution in IPR2022-01420 ([Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.) et al. v. Intent IQ, LLC, US 8,677,398) precisely because Madhavan's petition proof was characterized as a common-login approach rather than "automatically recognizing … a common local area network." But that limitation — "connected, independently of the other, to a common LAN" — is a limitation of the '398 claim, not of the '336's broader, common-IP-address independent claims. Park/Baum/Kato are more directly on point to a "common IP address" limitation, so the '398 denial does not carry over to the '336 with anything like the same force. I flag this because it is the strongest non-obviousness argument currently visible in the record, and its applicability to the '336 turns on claim language I could not retrieve verbatim.
2. Presumption of validity. Under 35 U.S.C. §282 the '336 is presumed valid; the examiner allowed over the art of record, and (per the previously generated sections) the office's citation of the art included many of the references listed above. Any §103 challenge to the '336 in court/PTAB would have to clear Advanced Bionics §325(d) and Fintiv §314(a) hurdles as well.
3. No §103 adjudication of the '336 exists. The 2026 Federal Circuit activity involving this owner — AlmondNet, Inc. v. Meta Platforms, Inc., No. 2024‑1834 (judgment Apr. 13, 2026, per curiam, affirmed under Fed. Cir. R. 36, upholding the PTAB's IPR2022-01436 decision) — does not identify the '336 as the patent on appeal; the voluntarily dismissed Amazon appeal (Fed. Cir. R. 42(b)) concerned 8,671,139 and 7,822,639. So there is no appellate holding on '336 obviousness.
4. Reference-date uncertainty. I could not verify, in this session, the §102(e) filing dates of Martinez, Baum, Sitaraman, Whitehead and Vallier, nor the Jouppi §102(e) date. If any publication date falls after Apr. 17, 2007, the ground depends on a §102(e) filing-date benefit that must be independently proven. This is the single largest evidentiary gap in the ground set.

8. Bottom line

§103 conclusion (analysis, not a legal opinion): The '336's independent claims, on the substance described in the previously generated §3, are more likely than not obvious over Madhavan (US 2008/0082413 A1, filed Oct. 3, 2006) in view of Park (US 2006/0039386 A1), further in view of Martinez (US 2008/0120178 A1) and Kato (US 2004/0003292 A1) — with Baum/Sitaraman supplying dynamic-IP and common-LAN recognition, and Whitehead/Vallier supplying STB-side ad insertion and viewing-habit targeting for the dependents. The linchpin (element B, association based on a common IP address) is supplied by Park's NAT/shared-public-IP router, a routine technique whose express purpose (IP-address conservation and cost reduction) supplies the KSR motivation; the remaining elements were conventional and the field was demonstrably crowded by 2007. Dependent claims adding STB identifiers, timestamps, no-PII treatment, ad/content matching, and revenue sharing are met by Kato, Martinez, Vallier and the conventional ad-server references (Angles, Merriman, and the ad-network literature cited on the '336 face).

But the case is not clean, and I state the two conditions on which it turns: (1) the verbatim issued independent claims of the '336 were not retrieved in this session, so the mapping above is substance-level; and (2) several ground references' pre-Apr.-17-2007 §102(e) dates are unverified. The one real doctrinal counterweight in the record — the Board's denial in IPR2022-01420 because Madhavan disclosed a common-login, not common-LAN, association — applies to the narrower '398 claim, and would be materially weakened against the '336's broader common-IP-address claim if Park/Kato/Baum are properly in the combination.