Invalidity dossier
US 8977680
Systems and methods for shared access to gaming accounts
Current assignee: Vegas com LLC
Added 9/23/2026, 4:26:11 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 8,977,680 B2
Title: Systems and methods for shared access to gaming accounts
Patent number / application: US 8,977,680 B2; Application US 13/365,110; pre-grant publication US 2013/0204923 A1.
Inventors: James Gibson, Bryan Allison, John Samuel Painter.
Assignee: Vegas.com LLC (original assignee Vegas.com, LLC).
Key dates (per the supplied source): Priority and filing date 2012-02-02; publication of application 2013-08-08; patent granted/publication 2015-03-10; adjusted expiration listed as 2032-06-15; status listed Active.
Classifications: G07F 17/32 and 17/3225 (coin-freed apparatus for games/amusements; data transfer within a gaming system); G06Q 30/02 (marketing); G06Q 40/02 (banking/account maintenance); G07F 17/3244 (payment aspects of a gaming system).
Purpose and plain-language scope: The disclosure "relates to a system and method for providing shared access to user profiles and gaming accounts to facilitate on-line gaming." A host server "allows users to establish user accounts which include profile, financial, and log-in information," after which "the accounts may be accessed by systems supporting and participating in the gaming platform." Users (102) connect via computing devices (104) — personal computers, laptops, smartphones, PDAs, set-top boxes, multimedia appliances — running a web application (106) over a network (160); the host web server (110) includes a communication interface, processor, memory, storage media, I/O devices, and a data storage module (122) storing user accounts (124). Gaming web services are described as online gambling activities offering "the incentive of winning money or other redeemable value as permitted by law." FIG. 1 depicts a system (100) for online shared accounts for gaming web services; FIG. 2 depicts a networked-computer system providing shared access to user profiles and gaming accounts. Asset security interests and other assignments appearing in the source are omitted here per instructions.
What the excerpt does not establish: It contains only the abstract/front-matter and partial description, not the claims, full specification, or prosecution history. Therefore claim scope, claim language, dependent-claim structure, and the specific mechanisms by which shared access is implemented or limited cannot be determined from the provided text.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:50:53 PM
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Litigation summary
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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
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.