US 9092428

Here's a concise summary of US Patent 9092428:

Title: System, methods and user interface for discovering and presenting information in text content

Current Assignee: Linfo Ip LLC

Inventors: Guangsheng Zhang, Chizhong Zhang

Filing Date: 2012-12-10

Issue Date: 2015-07-28

Abstract: The patent describes a system, methods, and user interface for discovering and presenting information in text content using various view formats. It involves identifying grammatical, semantic, contextual, and topical attributes of words or phrases within text. User interface objects allow users to specify an attribute and an action (such as extracting, displaying in a specific format, showing/hiding, or highlighting) to be performed on the words or phrases associated with that attribute.

Plain-Language Overview of Independent Claims:

• Independent Claim 1: This claim describes a computer-implemented method for helping a user find information in text. It involves several steps:

  1. A computer system receives text content from storage or a user.
  2. The text is broken down into individual words or phrases (tokens).
  3. A linguistic analysis is performed on these tokens to determine their grammatical, semantic (meaning), or contextual attributes. This analysis can use a dictionary or a parser.
  4. These identified attributes are associated with the tokens, creating a "labeled" text content.
  5. The system provides a user interface that allows the user to see and select an attribute (e.g., "positive opinion," "drug name") and an action (e.g., "extract," "display," "highlight").
  6. Based on the user's selections, the system performs the chosen action on the parts of the text content (terms or tokens) that have the specified attribute.

• Independent Claim 13: This claim outlines a system that uses hardware components to perform the method described in Claim 1. The system includes:

  1. A computer storage or user interface to get the text content.
  2. A tokenization module to break the text into tokens.
  3. A linguistic processing module to analyze tokens and assign grammatical, semantic, or contextual attributes, potentially using a dictionary.
  4. A display area to show the text content and results.
  5. A user interface (including an attribute selector and an action selector, which can be combined) to let the user pick an attribute and an action.
  6. A processor that registers the user's selections and performs the chosen action on the relevant terms in the text content, then displays the results in the display area.

• Independent Claim 16: This claim specifies a computer program product stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium. This program product contains instructions that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to perform the method steps detailed in Claim 1.

CAFC 2026 Dockets:

The provided patent information indicates that US9092428 has been involved in litigation, with two cases filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit:

• Case 25-1368
• Case 25-2006

These case numbers (beginning with "25-") suggest they were filed in 2025. As of April 26, 2026, no new CAFC dockets specifically for US9092428 filed within 2026 were found in the initial search results, which provided general information about accessing CAFC case records and scheduled cases for May, June, and July 2026. Further specific searching of the 2026 scheduled cases or newly filed petitions would be required to confirm if any new CAFC activity related to this patent has occurred in 2026, beyond the existing 2025 cases.

US Patent 9092428 has been involved in multiple litigation cases, primarily with Linfo IP, LLC as the plaintiff. Here's a summary of known cases:

• Linfo IP, LLC v. Air Oasis, LLC and TekZoom, Inc. (d/b/a Perfume Empire)

  • Plaintiff(s): Linfo IP, LLC
  • Defendant(s): Air Oasis, LLC and TekZoom, Inc. (doing business as Perfume Empire)
  • Jurisdiction: Northern District of Texas
  • Case Number: Not explicitly provided in the snippet, but filed on December 19, 2024.
  • Filing Date: December 19, 2024
  • Outcome/Current Status: Lawsuit initiated, requesting a jury trial, seeking relief for patent infringement.

• Linfo IP, LLC v. The Gap, Inc.

  • Plaintiff(s): Linfo IP, LLC
  • Defendant(s): The Gap, Inc.
  • Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
  • Case Number: 4:24-cv-01895
  • Filing Date: May 20, 2024
  • Outcome/Current Status: Settled in principle and dismissed without prejudice on July 15, 2024, after 56 days. No damages were adjudicated, and no findings of infringement or non-infringement were made on the merits.

• Linfo IP, LLC v. Vuori, Inc.

  • Plaintiff(s): Linfo IP, LLC
  • Defendant(s): Vuori, Inc.
  • Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, Waco Division
  • Case Number: 6:22-cv-01290
  • Filing Date: December 19, 2022
  • Outcome/Current Status: Linfo IP, LLC is seeking relief from patent infringement, with a jury trial demanded.

• Linfo IP, LLC v. Tommy John, Inc.

  • Plaintiff(s): Linfo IP, LLC
  • Defendant(s): Tommy John, Inc.
  • Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas
  • Case Number: 4:24-cv-03867
  • Filing Date: October 2024 (closed January 2025)
  • Outcome/Current Status: Voluntarily dismissed with prejudice on January 3, 2025, by Linfo IP, LLC, before an answer was filed.

• Linfo IP, LLC v. Trustpilot, Inc.

  • Plaintiff(s): Linfo IP, LLC
  • Defendant(s): Trustpilot, Inc.
  • Jurisdiction: Southern District of New York
  • Case Number: 24-CV-2796
  • Filing Date: Not explicitly provided, but the motion to dismiss was granted on January 3, 2025.
  • Outcome/Current Status: Motion to Dismiss granted on January 3, 2025, finding the claims of US9092428 to be directed towards an unpatentable abstract idea under Alice Step 1.

Proceedings overview

The USPTO ODP API reports no AIA trial proceedings on file for US Patent 9092428. A web search for Inter Partes Review (IPR), Post-Grant Review (PGR), or Covered Business Method (CBM) proceedings related to US9092428 confirms this, showing no PTAB activity. This means all claims of US9092428 remain untested by AIA trial proceedings, which offers a defendant a wide range of prior-art grounds still available to challenge the patent's validity.

Recommended next steps

Since there is no PTAB activity on file for US9092428, all claims remain untested by AIA trial proceedings. The absence of PTAB challenges for a patent that has been actively litigated (as indicated in the "Litigation summary" section) could be an interesting signal. A defendant facing assertion of this patent should consider initiating an IPR to challenge the patentability of the claims based on prior art. This would be a crucial step in a defensive strategy, as many of the inventor's own prior applications (as detailed in the "Prior art" and "Obviousness" sections) appear highly relevant and could form strong grounds for an IPR petition.

Inventors

• Guangsheng Zhang: Employer at time of filing not determinable from the patent text.
• Chizhong Zhang: Employer at time of filing not determinable from the patent text.

The patent lists "Individual" as the original assignee at the time of application filing (2012-12-10). It is not explicitly stated whether the inventors were employed by a specific company at the time or if they filed as individuals. There is no information provided in the patent text to suggest inventors departing an original assignee.

Original assignee

The entity named as the "Original Assignee" on the Google Patents record is "Individual". The patent text does not indicate that this "Individual" shipped a product embodying the claims, nor does it specify their primary line of business. The current status of this "Individual" as an assignee is "transferred", as the patent has since been assigned to Linfo Ip LLC.

Assignment timeline

The USPTO Assignment Center was searched for patent number 9092428.

• 2021-06-02 (executed) / recorded 2021-08-09 — Reel 056461/0890
  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: ZHANG, CHIZONG; ZHANG, GUANGSHENG (Inventors)
  • Assignee: LINFO IP LLC
  • Correspondent: WILLIAM P RAMEY III, RAMEY LLP, 5020 MONTROSE BLVD, SUITE 800, HOUSTON, TX, 77006. This correspondent, William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP, is known to represent Linfo IP LLC in multiple patent infringement lawsuits, as seen in various search results.
  • Context: Transfer to a patent assertion entity.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9092428
    2012 : Filed by Individual
    2015 : Issued to Individual
    2021 : Assigned to Linfo IP LLC

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Present. The patent was assigned to Linfo IP LLC. Linfo IP LLC is described as a "patent assertion entity (PAE) whose business model centers on acquiring and enforcing IP rights" and that "Holds no disclosed manufacturing or product presence." Its address is associated with its legal counsel, Ramey LLP, in Houston, Texas, and it is a Texas limited liability company. Unified Patents also identifies Linfo IP LLC as an NPE.
2. Known asserter in the chain — Present. Linfo IP LLC is identified by Unified Patents as an NPE (Non-Practicing Entity) and a subsidiary of Dynamic IP Deals, LLC. RPX also lists Linfo IP, LLC as a plaintiff in patent infringement cases.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Present. William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP is the correspondent of record for the assignment to Linfo IP LLC (Reel 056461/0890). William P. Ramey III and Ramey LLP are frequently associated with Linfo IP LLC's patent litigation activities.
4. Cascading transfers — Not present. There is only one recorded assignment for this patent.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Unclear. The assignment to Linfo IP LLC was recorded on August 9, 2021. While Linfo IP LLC has filed numerous lawsuits on this and other patents, some lawsuits related to US9092428 started in 2022 (e.g., April 2022), which is more than six months after the assignment. However, given Linfo IP LLC's business model as a PAE, it is highly probable that the acquisition was made with the intent to assert.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. There is no indication of the original assignor (the individual inventors) undergoing bankruptcy proceedings.
7. Privateering — Not present. There is no evidence suggesting an operating company transferred the patent to Linfo IP LLC to assert on its behalf against competitors.
8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain ends with Linfo IP LLC, which is a known patent assertion entity.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence. The patent was assigned from the inventors to Linfo IP LLC (Reel 056461/0890, recorded 2021-08-09), an entity widely recognized as a patent assertion entity (NPE) by Unified Patents and RPX. The use of "IP LLC" in its name, its description as lacking disclosed operational products, and its pattern of extensive litigation activity, often represented by the same legal counsel (William P. Ramey III of Ramey LLP), strongly indicate an NPE model.

For verification, you can search the USPTO Assignment Center at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ by patent number 9092428.

To identify the most relevant prior art for US patent 9092428, I will examine the patent citations listed within the patent itself, as these are typically considered by the patent examiner during prosecution. The Google Patents link provides a list of "Patent citations (9)".

Here are the patent citations for US9092428B1 and their potential anticipation under 35 U.S.C. § 102:

Prior Art References for US9092428B1

1. U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/568,657

   • Full Citation: U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/568,657, "SYSTEM, METHODS, AND USER INTERFACE FOR ORGANIZING DOCUMENT CONTENTS INTO A HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE AND SELECTIVE HIGHLIGHTING OF TERMS"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed by the present inventor on December 9, 2011.
   • Brief Description: This provisional application discloses methods for discovering information in unstructured text data, organizing it into a hierarchical structure, and selectively highlighting terms. It also describes determining the prominence of a term based on its grammatical role and other context information.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: Given that US9092428B1 claims priority to this provisional application and explicitly incorporates its disclosures by reference, this provisional could potentially anticipate aspects of all independent claims (Claims 1, 13, and 16), particularly those related to organizing content into hierarchical structures, selective highlighting, and determining term prominence based on linguistic analysis (grammatical, semantic, contextual attributes) and user interface objects for such actions.

2. U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 12/782,545

   • Full Citation: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/782,545, "SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATED DOCUMENT TOPIC DISCOVERY, BROWSABLE SEARCH AND DOCUMENT CATEGORIZATION"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed on May 18, 2010.
   • Brief Description: This application details methods for automated document topic discovery, browsable search, and document categorization. It also includes methods for obtaining term prominence or importance scores.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: This reference is relevant to the "topic discovery methods" and "determining term importance" aspects mentioned in US9092428B1. It could potentially anticipate elements of Claims 1 and 13 relating to tokenizing text, performing linguistic analysis, associating topical attributes, and extracting important terms.

3. U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 12/715,385

   • Full Citation: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/715,385, "SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATED DOCUMENT TOPIC DISCOVERY, BROWSABLE SEARCH AND DOCUMENT CATEGORIZATION"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed on March 2, 2010.
   • Brief Description: This application also pertains to automated document topic discovery, browsable search, and document categorization.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: Similar to Ser. No. 12/782,545, this reference could potentially anticipate elements of Claims 1 and 13 concerning topic discovery, linguistic analysis, and categorization, which form a basis for identifying topical attributes.

4. U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/160,625

   • Full Citation: U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/160,625, "SYSTEM, METHODS, USER INTERFACE, AND ARTICLE OF MANUFACTURE FOR SCALABLE KNOWLEDGE-BASED DOCUMENT TOPIC DISCOVERY, CONTENT RECOGNITION, SEARCH, RANKING, AND CATEGORIZATION"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed by the present inventor on March 16, 2009.
   • Brief Description: This provisional application focuses on scalable knowledge-based document topic discovery, content recognition, search, ranking, and categorization, and includes user interface aspects.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: This reference, being a foundational disclosure for topic discovery and categorization, could potentially anticipate aspects of Claims 1, 13, and 16, particularly regarding tokenization, linguistic analysis, associating topical attributes, and user interface elements for interacting with discovered content.

5. U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/298,422

   • Full Citation: U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/298,422, "SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATED DOCUMENT TOPIC DISCOVERY, BROWSABLE SEARCH AND DOCUMENT CATEGORIZATION"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed by the present inventor on January 26, 2010.
   • Brief Description: This provisional application also describes automated document topic discovery, browsable search, and document categorization.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: Similar to the other topic discovery applications, this reference could potentially anticipate elements of Claims 1 and 13 related to tokenization, linguistic analysis for topic detection, and associating topical attributes.

6. U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 13/707,940

   • Full Citation: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/707,940, "AUTOMATED TOPIC DISCOVERY IN DOCUMENTS AND CONTENT CATEGORIZATION"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed on December 7, 2012.
   • Brief Description: This application concerns automated topic discovery in documents and content categorization.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: This application, also referenced for its topic discovery methods, could potentially anticipate aspects of Claims 1 and 13 related to tokenization and the linguistic analysis module's ability to detect topics and associate topical attributes.

7. U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/682,205

   • Full Citation: U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/682,205, "SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING TERM IMPORTANCE AND RELEVANCE BETWEEN TEXT CONTENTS USING CONCEPTUAL ASSOCIATION DATASETS"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed on August 11, 2012.
   • Brief Description: This provisional application focuses on determining term importance and relevance using conceptual association datasets.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: This reference is particularly relevant to the linguistic analysis module's function in assigning importance scores to terms, as described in US9092428B1. It could potentially anticipate elements of Claims 1 and 13 concerning the identification and association of topical (importance) attributes with tokens.

8. U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 13/655,415

   • Full Citation: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/655,415, "SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR DETERMINING RELEVANCE BETWEEN TEXT CONTENTS"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed by the present inventor on October 18, 2012.
   • Brief Description: This application describes systems and methods for determining relevance between text contents.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: While less directly tied to the specific user interface actions of US9092428B1, the underlying methods for analyzing text content to determine relevance could be considered foundational and might broadly anticipate aspects of the linguistic analysis in Claim 1.

9. U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 12/972,462

   • Full Citation: U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/972,462, "AUTOMATED TOPIC DISCOVERY IN DOCUMENTS"
   • Publication/Filing Date: Filed by the present inventor on December 18, 2010.
   • Brief Description: This application details methods for automated topic discovery in documents.
   • Potential Anticipated Claims: This reference, specifically mentioned for its "detailed methods for obtaining such a term prominence or term importance score", could potentially anticipate aspects of Claims 1 and 13 related to tokenization, linguistic analysis, and associating topical attributes (importance scores).

The obviousness of US Patent 9092428 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 can be assessed by combining the teachings of the applicant's own prior art references, which are explicitly cross-referenced and incorporated into the patent's disclosure. The claims of US9092428 appear to represent an obvious combination or generalization of features already disclosed in these earlier applications.

Identified Prior Art References (from "CROSS REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS"):

The following patent applications, all filed before the priority date of US9092428 (December 9, 2011, based on 61/568,657), are particularly relevant:

1. U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/568,657 (filed December 9, 2011): Titled "SYSTEM, METHODS, AND USER INTERFACE FOR ORGANIZING DOCUMENT CONTENTS INTO A HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE AND SELECTIVE HIGHLIGHTING OF TERMS." This document forms the priority basis for US9092428.
2. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/972,462 (filed December 18, 2010): Titled "AUTOMATED TOPIC DISCOVERY IN DOCUMENTS."
3. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/782,545 (filed May 18, 2010): Titled "SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATED DOCUMENT TOPIC DISCOVERY, BROWSABLE SEARCH AND DOCUMENT CATEGORIZATION."
4. U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/299,823 (filed January 29, 2010): Titled "SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR AUTOMATED DOCUMENT TOPIC DISCOVERY, BROWSABLE SEARCH, RELEVANCE RANKING, SUMMARY GENERATION AND DISPLAY."

Obviousness Analysis of Independent Claims 1, 13, and 16:

Independent Claims 1 (method), 13 (system), and 16 (computer program product) of US9092428 broadly cover a computer-implemented approach for discovering and presenting information in text content. The core steps involve tokenizing text, performing linguistic analysis to identify grammatical, semantic, or contextual attributes, associating these attributes with tokens, providing a user interface to select attributes and actions, and performing selected actions (extracting, displaying in various formats, showing/hiding, highlighting) on terms associated with the specified attributes.

Combination of Prior Art: U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/568,657 in combination with U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/972,462 and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/782,545.

Rationale for Combination and Obviousness:

A person having ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) in natural language processing (NLP) and user interface design, confronting the widely recognized problem of "information overload" (as explicitly stated in the Background of US9092428), would have found it obvious to combine the functionalities taught by these prior art documents. The motivation to do so is to create more efficient and effective tools for information discovery and management, building upon the foundations already established by the same inventor.

Let's break down the elements of Claim 1 and their presence in the combined prior art:

• Steps (a)-(d) (Receiving, Tokenizing, Linguistic Analysis, Associating Attributes):

  • US9092428 itself states that the "detailed methods for obtaining such a term prominence or tem importance score are disclosed in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/972,462... and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/782,545...". These references teach tokenization, linguistic processing to identify grammatical, semantic, and contextual attributes, and associating these attributes (such as term importance) with tokens to analyze text content. The linguistic processing module (120) and dictionary (115) depicted in FIG. 1 of US9092428 perform these functions, and their underlying mechanisms are rooted in these incorporated disclosures.

• Step (e) (User Interface for Attribute/Action Selection):

  • U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/568,657 explicitly discloses "user interface objects" for "selectively displaying or hiding certain terms in the hierarchical topic tree structure, or selectively highlighting terms representing specific types of information in the original text content." This demonstrates the concept of a user interface allowing selection of a criterion ("specific types of information," which encompasses grammatical, semantic, or contextual attributes) and a desired action.

• Steps (f) & (g) (Performing Selected Actions: Extracting, Displaying, Showing/Hiding, Highlighting):

  • U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/568,657 teaches methods for "discovering information... and for organizing and presenting the discovered information in a novel hierarchical structure format." It further details "selectively displaying or hiding certain terms" and "selectively highlighting terms."
  • While 61/568,657 specifically mentions hierarchical structures and highlighting, the extraction of terms and their display in other common formats like lists or word clouds (as mentioned in US9092428's abstract and detailed description, e.g., FIG. 5) would be obvious extensions to a POSITA. Displaying extracted data in a list is a fundamental UI practice, and word clouds are a known visualization technique for presenting weighted terms.

Motivation to Combine:

The motivation to combine these prior art references is inherent in the problem addressed by US9092428: the need for "efficient tools for users to gather information from unstructured text contents with less effort."

1. Enhanced User Experience: By integrating the robust linguistic analysis and attribute identification from 12/972,462 and 12/782,545 with the interactive user interface and selective display/highlighting capabilities of 61/568,657, a POSITA would readily understand that a more powerful and user-friendly information discovery system could be achieved.
2. Improved Information Management: The combination directly addresses the problem of quickly and accurately locating specific information by allowing users to act on various identified linguistic attributes (grammatical, semantic, contextual, topical) through intuitive UI controls. The patent itself highlights the difficulty of "digging out information related to such topics from the numerous reviews" by conventional methods.
3. Logical Extension and Modularity: Linguistic processing modules (tokenization, parsing, attribute assignment) are fundamental components of any advanced text analysis system. It would be a natural and obvious step for a POSITA to connect the outputs of such modules with user interface controls that allow dynamic interaction with the identified attributes. For instance, if a system can identify "drug names" (as shown in FIG. 2 of US9092428), it would be obvious to provide a user interface option to "extract" or "highlight" these identified entities.

Context-Sensitive Attribute Interpretation: US9092428 also describes identifying "context information about the terms having a specified attribute... and the effect of the context on the attribute values" (e.g., "not good" vs. "good"). While this offers a refinement, sophisticated linguistic analysis modules (as referenced for topic discovery) are expected to handle nuances like negation and other contextual modifiers to improve the accuracy of attribute identification (e.g., sentiment). A POSITA would recognize the need for and implement such contextual analysis as a standard practice for enhancing the precision of linguistic processing.

Therefore, the combination of the teachings within U.S. Provisional Patent Application 61/568,657 and U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 12/972,462 and 12/782,545 would render the claims of US9092428 obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art, motivated to create more effective and efficient text information discovery and presentation tools.