US 9185151

I'll search for the specific patent number and related litigation/docket information.

Let me dig deeper into the patent's litigation history and the specific patent number.

US Patent 9,185,151 — Verification Summary

Search scope note: I searched for the literal identifier 9185151 / US 9,185,151 and its litigation footprint. I did not find any Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket involving patent 9,185,151. The only CAFC 2026 material my search surfaced (e.g., Woodway v. LifeCORE Fitness, No. 25-1431) concerned unrelated treadmill patents and is not about this patent. I also did not retrieve the raw USPTO PatentCenter/assignment record directly; bibliographic data below is drawn from the Google Patents record you supplied plus court documents. Where sources conflict I flag it.

⚠️ Date anomaly: Your prompt states the current date is April 26, 2026, but retrieved docket documents include an order signed June 2, 2026 and a filing dated June 3, 2026. I am reporting the documents as retrieved without reconciling the dates.

Bibliographic Data (from the authoritative patent text)

On the reissue: The E.D. Tex. opinion states the '151 patent "reissued on April 22, 2025 as RE50,398, the '398 Patent." The Google Patents record lists the reissue publication as USRE50398E1 with a 2017-05-14 filing date and an expiration of 2030-02-09. These are consistent with a reissue application filed in 2017 that granted in April 2025. I have not independently verified the reissue grant date from the USPTO record.

Abstract (as published)

There is provided a method device and system for streaming media content to a media presentation appliance. There may be provided an appliance specific media stream generator adapted to derive an appliance specific stream from a multicast media stream. The generator may convert a multicast media stream addressed to a set of media presentation appliances into either (1) one or more unicast media streams, wherein each unicast media stream is addressed to a separate media presentation appliance; or (2) a multicast media stream addressed to a subset of the set of media presentation appliances. In both cases, the media content within the derived media stream may be substantially identical to the media content of the original multicast media stream. The generator may also introduce content (e.g. advertising) into the derived media stream(s).

Independent Claims — Plain-Language Overview

The patent has 24 claims; the independent claims are 1, 15, and 24.

Claim 1 (device). A device that retransmits a received IP media stream broadcast. It has (a) a communication module that receives a request from a media presentation appliance (e.g., a set-top box) for a given IP media stream, and (b) a stream generator that, in response to that request, converts one single appliance-specific version of the requested stream from multicast to unicast, and retransmits that unicast version with a delay to the requesting appliance. Two key limitations: the delay time is determined to reduce zap-time (channel-change latency) and is based at least partly on a timing parameter of the request; and the content of the unicast version is substantially identical to the content of the multicast version. The claim also requires an appliance-specific media stream generator that can derive, from a first multicast stream, either one or more unicast streams or a second multicast stream, and requires the device to track the status of those derived streams.

Claim 15 (method). The method counterpart: receive a request for a given IP media stream from an appliance; determine a delay time at least partly based on a timing parameter of the request; convert one single appliance-specific version of the requested stream from multicast to unicast; and provide a delayed version of that unicast stream to the appliance, where the delay is set to reduce zap-time and the unicast content is substantially identical to the multicast content. It carries the same additional elements as claim 1: deriving unicast stream(s) or a second multicast stream from a first multicast stream, and tracking the derived stream's status.

Claim 24 (method). Builds on claim 15's steps (receive request with timing parameter; determine delay based on that parameter; convert one single appliance-specific version from multicast to unicast; provide the delayed unicast stream to reduce zap-time). It then adds limitations: the delayed unicast version is provided only during specific operational phases of the appliance; those phases include when the appliance is transitioning from a first multicast stream to a second multicast stream; and the delayed unicast version is based on the second multicast stream. It also recites the derive-and-track limitations.

Notable claim-drafting quirk: Claim 14 (dependent) reads that "a first one of the converted unicast ... versions retransmitted to a first one of the corresponding media appliances and a second one ... retransmitted to a first one of the corresponding media appliances have the same content but different delays." Taken literally, both are directed to "a first one," which appears to be a drafting error (likely intended "a second one"). I flag this rather than silently correcting it, per the literal-interpretation rule.

Litigation (E.D. Tex., not CAFC)

• Case: Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., No. 2:25-cv-01038-JRG (E.D. Tex., Marshall Division), Judge Rodney Gilstrap.
• Filed: October 9–10, 2025.
• Patents asserted (five): U.S. 9,185,151 (reissued as RE50,398); 6,891,855; 7,336,605; 7,660,234; 7,032,135.
• Procedural posture: Cisco moved to dismiss the indirect/willful infringement claims (Dec. 19, 2025); EDS filed a First Amended Complaint (Jan. 16, 2026); Cisco renewed its motion (Jan. 30, 2026). The court denied the motion to dismiss in a Memorandum Opinion and Order (Doc. 48), signed June 2, 2026.
• Accused technology (from the complaint analysis): Cisco ASR 1000 Series Routers, particularly "Cisco Multicast Service Reflection" (alleged multicast-to-unicast retransmission) and IEEE 1588v2 Precision Time Protocol (alleged to supply the timing parameter used to set a zap-time-reducing delay).
• No CAFC appeal docket found for this patent as of my search.

Sources: the Google Patents record you supplied (authoritative for patent text/bibliography); E.D. Tex. Doc. 48 (via GovInfo, CourtListener, Justia); Unified Patents litigation portal; Dockets.Justia.

Uncertainty: I could not confirm from a primary USPTO record (a) the exact RE50,398 grant date, (b) whether the '151 patent itself has been formally surrendered via the reissue, or (c) whether any other litigation involves only the '151/RE50,398 patents. Those should be verified in USPTO PatentCenter/Assignment and PACER before being relied upon.

I'll search litigation databases for US patent 9185151.

Let me search more specifically for litigation databases and the patent owner.

Found a key case. Let me search for additional cases and related defendants.

Known Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 9,185,151

Bottom line: My searches identified one confirmed federal district court case asserting U.S. Patent No. 9,185,151 — Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc. in the Eastern District of Texas. I found no other district court cases, ITC investigations, or PTAB proceedings specifically against the '151 patent. Below is the detail, followed by important caveats about the limits of what I could verify.

1. Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc.

Patents asserted (five total):

• U.S. Patent No. 9,185,151 — the patent at issue here, "Device, method and system for media packet distribution" (reissued on April 22, 2025 as RE50,398)
• U.S. Patent No. 6,891,855 (the "'855 patent")
• U.S. Patent No. 7,336,605 (the "'605 patent")
• U.S. Patent No. 7,660,234 (the "'234 patent")
• U.S. Patent No. 7,032,135 (the "'135 patent")

Alleged infringing functionality: The complaint targets Cisco's ASR 1000 Series Router, pointing to "Multicast Service Reflection" (alleged multicast-to-unicast conversion) and IEEE 1588v2 Precision Time Protocol (PTP) (alleged use of a timing parameter to determine a delay that reduces zap-time). The complaint cites Fig. 13 of the patent diagramming "Multicast-to-Unicast Destination Translation."

Procedural history captured in search results:

Outcome as pleaded: The motion to dismiss EDS's indirect- and willful-infringement allegations was denied, with the court (Judge Gilstrap) finding the pleadings sufficient on pre-suit knowledge and specific intent. The case remains open; no final judgment or settlement is reflected in the sources retrieved.

2. Relevant Ownership / Standing Context

Google Patents' record for US9185151 shows a chain of transfers that explains who is now asserting the patent:

• Original assignee: Orckit Corrigent Ltd (later renamed Orckit-Corrigent Ltd; assignment from Corrigent Systems Ltd. recorded 2011-03-09)
• Orckit IP, LLC — assignment recorded 2016-05-04
• Enhanced Data Streaming LLC — assignment recorded 2025-08-15 (i.e., shortly before the Cisco suit)
• WYE IP Capital LLC — patent security agreement recorded 2025-09-29

Google Patents also flags the family with a "Family has litigation / First worldwide family litigation filed" indicator (Darts-IP family ID 40567890).

3. What I Did Not Find (Important Caveats)

• No other district court case asserting U.S. 9,185,151 appeared in my searches. Only the Cisco action is confirmed. I could not complete an exhaustive PACER/Docket Alarm sweep, and my searches were terminated early, so additional EDS filings against other defendants may exist but were not surfaced.
• No PTAB proceeding against the '151 patent was found. Note a search-result trap: a petition referencing Headwater Research LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., 2-23-cv-00641 (E.D. Tex.), concerns U.S. Patent No. 9,647,918 — a different patent. I am not counting that as litigation involving the '151 patent.
• Reissue effect: Because the '151 patent reissued as RE50,398 on April 22, 2025, the '151 patent itself is shown as Ceased, and the asserted rights now effectively reside in the reissue (adjusted expiration 2030-02-09). Litigation on the '151 patent family should be tracked under RE50,398 going forward.
• Date anomaly to flag: My instructions set the current date as April 26, 2026, but the retrieved docket text shows an order signed June 2, 2026. I am reporting the search results verbatim rather than correcting them; you should verify the docket directly (PACER/Justia Docket No. 48, E.D. Tex. 2:25-cv-01038) to reconcile the date before relying on the outcome.

Sources Consulted

• Unified Patents litigation portal — Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems Inc, E.D. Tex., 2:25-cv-01038: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A25-cv-01038
• Justia Dockets (Filing 48, Memorandum Opinion and Order, Judge Gilstrap): https://docs.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2025cv01038/[241096](/patent/241096)/48/
• CourtListener (opinion text): https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[10893882](/patent/10893882)/enhanced-data-streaming-llc-v-cisco-systems-inc/
• Google Patents record for US9185151B2 (assignments, reissue RE50,398, "Family has litigation" flag): https://patents.google.com/patent/US9185151/en

If you need a definitive negative statement for other jurisdictions/cases, the next step would be a direct PACER docket search and a Darts-IP / Lex Machina family check under family ID 40567890.

I'll start by verifying the structured "no PTAB activity" signal with targeted searches for any AIA trial proceedings that ODP may not have indexed.

Let me run a few more targeted searches to confirm the absence and check for related litigation/appeal activity.

No PTAB proceedings surfaced. Let me check the reissue patent (RE50,398) and whether any IPR has been filed by the current litigation defendants.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 9,185,151: zero (0). The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block returned no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent searches for a PTAB challenge returned nothing — no petition, no institution decision, no Final Written Decision, no appeal. Breakdown by status is therefore trivial: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a "hardened by PTAB" patent — it is an untested one. Unlike its Orckit/Cisco cousins that have been through the Board (e.g., Arista v. Orckit, IPR2024‑01239; Juniper v. Orckit, IPR2024‑00037), the '151 patent's claims have never been adjudicated on the merits by the PTAB. The claims are untested, which cuts both ways: there is no estoppel and no adverse claim construction, but also no roadmap of what the Board thinks of the art.

⚠️ Important caveat — the patent you would actually be sued on may no longer be the '151 patent. US 9,185,151 reissued on 2025-04-22 as RE50,398 (reissue application 15/594,612, filed 2017-05-14). In the live litigation, the patent owner pleads the '151 patent "which reissued on April 22, 2025 as RE50,398." A reissue surrenders the original claims and substitutes the reissue claims, so any future invalidity challenge would be an IPR against RE50,398, not against '151. I could not complete the check for PTAB filings against the reissue before my search budget ran out — that is the one gap you should close first (see Recommended next steps). Treat the reissue as the operative target.

(No proceeding to list)

There are no PTAB proceeding numbers to report. I will not invent any. The relevant non-PTAB facts that bear on defensive posture are set out below.

Related matters that matter (not PTAB proceedings, but dispositive for your planning)

District court — Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc.

• Court / Docket: E.D. Tex., No. 2:25-cv-01038-JRG (Judge Rodney Gilstrap)
• Filed: complaint 2025-10-10 (docket stamp; some trackers list 2025-10-09)
• Asserted patents: U.S. 9,185,151 (reissued as RE50,398), 6,891,855, 7,336,605, 7,660,234, and 7,032,135
• Accused products: Cisco ASR 1000 Series Routers, with the '151/RE50,398 theory built on "Cisco Multicast Service Reflection" (multicast→unicast retransmission) plus IEEE 1588v2 PTP timing to satisfy the "reduce zap-time ... based on a timing parameter of the request" limitation.
• Procedural posture: Cisco's Rule 12(b)(6) motion to dismiss the indirect/willful counts was DENIED on 2026-06-02 (Memorandum Opinion and Order, Doc. 48). Case remains open.
• Plaintiff status: Enhanced Data Streaming LLC is tracked as an NPE by Unified Patents; the patent has moved Orckit Corrigent → Orckit IP, LLC → Enhanced Data Streaming LLC (2025-08-15), now encumbered by a security agreement to WYE IP Capital LLC (2025-09-29).
• Sources: CourtListener opinion · Justia Doc. 48 · Unified Patents docket

The Orckit IPR wave has not touched this patent

The post-bankruptcy Orckit portfolio (transferred to Orckit IP in 2016, then subdivided into entities like Quicker Connections) has been heavily IPR'd by the large networking defendants — Cisco, Arista, Juniper — across patents such as 7,545,740, 10,652,111, and others. Public records from those petitions describe 36 of ~70 Orckit patents as litigated. None of the identified Orckit IPRs name the '151 patent. That is a meaningful asymmetry: the very defendants with the incentive and the war chest to challenge Orckit patents have not challenged this one at the Board.

Strategic summary

Claim status: entirely untested. No claim of 9,185,151 (or, so far as I could verify, of its reissue RE50,398) has been canceled, confirmed, or even subjected to a PTAB institution decision. There is no list of "surviving claims narrowed through IPR" because there has been no IPR. Every claim — the independent device claim 1, independent method claims 15 and 24, and all dependents (2–14, 16–23) — remains presumptively valid in the PTAB sense. The only prior Office treatment of this family that I can see is the 2017-filed reissue itself, which (a) shows the patent owner was willing to go back to the Office to fix claim scope, and (b) is the mechanism by which the operative claims now live in RE50,398.

Estoppel landscape: a blank slate. Because no petitioner has ever been party to an IPR on this patent, § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds no one. A defendant sued today can raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, including art that a prior hypothetical petitioner "reasonably could have raised." Conversely, there is no petitioner-side benefit to inherit and no PTAB claim-construction record to leverage. The flip side of the untested status is timing: the patent has a 2007-10-16 priority date, so the prior-art universe is rich, and the accused Cisco theory turns on mapping general-purpose features (Multicast Service Reflection; PTP clock sync) onto the claim's request-driven, zap-time-specific limitations — which is exactly the kind of claim-scope fight that often favors a petitioner. Note the litigation complaint itself flags that "a central question may be whether the accused … feature … performs the specific function of converting a stream 'in response to' a user's channel-change request … not triggered dynamically by an end-user request."

Pattern signals. (1) Same-petitioner multiplicity: not applicable — no petitioner has ever filed on this patent. (2) Patent owner's PTAB aggressiveness: the family has traveled through Orckit's bankruptcy and multiple assignment hops (Orckit Corrigent → Orckit IP → Enhanced Data Streaming → WYE IP security interest), and this assertion against Cisco is a newly filed 2025 campaign, which plausibly explains why no IPR exists yet — the § 315(b) one-year clock has only just started. (3) Defensive aggregators: no Unified Patents/IPR-funder IPR appears in the record for this patent (the Unified Patents portal entry is the litigation tracker, not an IPR). Because the patent is now in an active NPE campaign with an NPE-friendly plaintiff, this is a candidate for a third-party-filed IPR.

Recommended next steps

1. Re-run the PTAB check against RE50,398, not '151. This is the single most important gap. A challenge must target the reissue claims; confirm whether any RE50,398 petition has been filed (and whether any challenge to '151 was dismissed/mooted by the reissue). Search PTAB E2E / Patent Center under application 15/594,612 and "RE50,398." I could not complete this search within my tool budget — do not rely on my earlier partial search for it.

2. Calendar the § 315(b) clock. EDS served its complaint on/around 2025-10-10. A defendant served in that action has until roughly 2026-10-10 (one year from service) to file an IPR without § 315(b) time-bar risk. If you are that defendant, the window is closing this fall. Note the reissue's own intervening rights and claim-scope differences must be reviewed before drafting grounds.

3. If you are a defendant and there were invalidated claims to cite — there are none. There is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to quote. Do not build a Rothschild/§ 315(e) argument; there is no estoppel and no PTAB disposition. If a demand letter asserts claims 1–24 of '151, all 24 are live and untested. Your invalidity story must be built from scratch in district court and/or a new IPR.

4. Watch the reissue angle closely. A reissue patent's claims are enforceable and challengeable, but the reissue prosecution history (2017–2025) may contain claim amendments, narrowing, or recapture issues that are themselves good invalidity/§ 251 arguments, and that history is not reflected in the '151 prosecution record. Pull the 15/594,612 file wrapper.

5. Absence of PTAB activity is itself a signal, and here it is explained by timing, not by strength. The patent sat in a bankrupt Orckit portfolio and passed through two assignee hops before a 2025 assertion campaign. No defendant has yet had a one-year § 315(b) window elapse on it. Expect an IPR against RE50,398 to be filed in the 2026–2027 window; if you are weighing whether to file first, the lack of any prior estoppel means you have a clean field.

Caveat on completeness: my searches were cut short by tool limits, so I cannot rule out a very recently filed petition not yet indexed in ODP. The structured ODP block is the canonical list and reports no proceedings; treat "zero" as accurate as of the ODP ingest date and re-verify against PTAB E2E before relying on it.

I'll research this patent's assignment chain, litigation history, and NPE signals before drafting the report.

Strong signals emerging. Let me dig into the assignee entities, correspondence, and the Orckit IP LLC / Realtime Adaptive Streaming connection.

Let me pin down the recorded reel/frames and the correspondence of record for the key transfers.

I've gathered enough to reconstruct the chain. Note I hit the tool-call limit before retrieving every reel/frame and correspondent name, so I'll flag those gaps explicitly rather than invent them.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 9,185,151 B2

Patent: US 9,185,151 B2 — "Device, method and system for media packet distribution"
Appl. No.: 12/738,080 (PCT/IL2008/001377) | Filed: 2008-10-22 | Priority: 2007-10-16 | Issued: 2015-11-10
Reissue: US 9,185,151 reissued as RE50,398 E1 on 2025-04-22 (Reissue appl. 15/594,612, filed 2017-05-14)
Current assignee (Google Patents): Enhanced Data Streaming LLC

⚠️ Data-integrity note. Reel/frame numbers and recording-attorney ("correspondent") names were only partially retrievable within the research budget. Where I have a reel/frame, I cite it; where I do not, I say so rather than fabricate one. The conveyance events themselves are corroborated by Google Patents legal events and by assignment text reproduced in USPTO/PTAB filings for sibling patents in the same recorded batch.

Inventors

All four are named on the patent face. They appear to be in-house R&D staff of the Israeli assignee (Corrigent Systems Ltd., later renamed Orckit-Corrigent Ltd.). David Zelig recurs across the Orckit portfolio (he is a named inventor on sibling Orckit patents such as US 7,545,740), which is consistent with a core engineering team rather than a one-off filing group.

Unusual patterns: Not determinable from available records. I found no evidence of inventors leaving within 12 months of filing, and I found no inventor-side re-assignment beyond the initial 2011 assignment to the company. Google Patents shows no pre-issuance inventor-to-third-party transfers. Caveat: employment records are not public; "likely employer" is an inference from the assignee of record and portfolio overlap, not a documented fact.

Original assignee

Corrigent Systems Ltd., an Israeli company; renamed Orckit-Corrigent Ltd. effective 2014-04-01 (Change of Name, per Google Patents legal events). The issued patent is associated with Orckit Corrigent Ltd as original assignee.

• Line of business: Telecom networking hardware. Per the Orckit-Corrigent Executive Summary reproduced in a PTAB/IPR petition (IPR2024-00026, Ex. 2013, via docketalarm), the company was "a pioneer in telecommunications," with revenues in some years exceeding $500M, selling to tier-1 carriers, and developing DSL, Packet Transport Networks (PTN), Carrier Ethernet, PWE, and Resilient Packet Ring (RPR, IEEE 802.17) technology.
• Did it ship products? Yes, but for the packet-transport portfolio (CM-4000 PTN family — CM-4140 / CM-4206 / CM-4314T; CM-401x switches — CM-4011/4012/4013). Whether those commercial products embodied the IPTV media-distribution claims of the '151 patent specifically is not established — the '151 claims (multicast→unicast zap-time reduction) are IPTV-middleware oriented, not PTN. I would not assert that Orckit-Corrigent shipped an embodying product for this patent without evidence.
• Current status: Insolvent / defunct. The company entered debt restructuring / bankruptcy proceedings in Israel in 2012 (recited in USPTO petition filings for related Orckit patents). The 2016 assignment agreement describes Orckit Communications Ltd. as "an Israeli limited liability company (under Creditors' Arrangement)," with the estate represented by a trustee ("Lior Dagan, Adv. (Trustee)"). All patents were sold off in 2016.

Assignment timeline

The following events are recorded on the Google Patents legal-events tab for US 9,185,151, with reel/frame corroboration where available from USPTO/PTAB documents for the same recorded batch.

• 2011-03-09 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved (for this patent)

  • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of assignor's interest)
  • Assignor: Leon Bruckman; Eli Aloni; David Zelig; Gal Mor (individually)
  • Assignee: Corrigent Systems Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Standard inventor-to-company employment assignment. [Google Patents legal events; execution date not shown]

• 2013-03-18 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Orckit-Corrigent Ltd.
  • Assignee: Hudson Bay IP Opportunities Master Fund, LP
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Securitization / secured lending. The company pledged its IP as collateral to a distressed-debt fund two years after the assignment above and in the run-up to its 2012–2013 restructuring. A distressed IP-collateral pledge, not an operating transfer.

• 2013-07-26 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release of Security Interest
  • Assignor: Hudson Bay IP Opportunities Master Fund LP
  • Assignee: Orckit-Corrigent Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Release — the security interest was discharged (consistent with a restructuring that recapitalized or extinguished the Hudson Bay position).

• 2014-04-01 (recorded) — Reel/frame 032579/0201 (corroborated on sibling Orckit patent US 7,545,740 file history; assignment of same corporate action)

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (name change only)
  • Assignor: Corrigent Systems Ltd.
  • Assignee: Orckit-Corrigent Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Internal reorg / change of name only. No change in beneficial ownership. (Note: the same reel/frame family appears in the '740 chain; treat as the same corporate action rather than a per-patent recording.)

• Executed 2016-04-25 / recorded 2016-05-04 — Reel/frame 038541/0984 (primary) and 038453/0840 (companion recording on sibling patents)

  • Conveyance: Assignment (assignment of assignors' interest)
  • Assignor: Orckit Communications Ltd. and Orckit-Corrigent Ltd. (and, per the recording text, Corrigent Systems Ltd.), acting through trustee Lior Dagan, Adv.
  • Assignee: Orckit IP, LLC — a Delaware LLC, address 874 Walker Road, Suite C, Dover, DE 19904-2778; mailing address 831 Beacon Street #307, Newton, MA 02459
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Bankruptcy fire-sale. US 9,185,151 is expressly listed among the 13 property numbers in this assignment agreement. The patents were sold out of the Israeli creditors' arrangement to a newly formed Delaware IP-holding vehicle. The Dover, DE address is a registered-agent/commercial mail-drop address.

• 2025-08-15 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Orckit IP, LLC
  • Assignee: Enhanced Data Streaming LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Transfer-to-asserter. Sold to a litigation vehicle ~7 weeks before the first infringement suit naming this patent (Cisco, filed 2025-10-09/10).

• 2025-09-29 (recorded) — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Enhanced Data Streaming LLC
  • Assignee: WYE IP Capital LLC
  • Correspondent: not retrieved.
  • Context: Litigation-financing / securitization. A patent-backed pledge of the asserted collateral to a capital provider, three weeks before suit — a monetization-funding structure typical of assertion vehicles.

Correspondent gap. The instructions correctly flag the recording attorney as the highest-value tell. I did not recover the named correspondent/recording attorney for any of these seven entries within the research budget, so I cannot either confirm or rule out the "repeat correspondent across the chain" signal. This is the single largest evidentiary hole in this report and should be closed via a direct Assignment Center lookup (see verification link below).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9185151
    2007 : Priority provisional filed
    2008 : US and PCT filing by Corrigent
    2011 : Inventors assign to Corrigent Systems
    2012 : Israeli insolvency of Orckit Corrigent
    2013 : Hudson Bay security interest recorded
         : Security interest released
    2014 : Corrigent renamed Orckit Corrigent
    2015 : Patent issues as US 9185151
    2016 : Portfolio sold to Orckit IP LLC
    2017 : Reissue application filed
    2025 : Reissue issued as RE50398
         : Sold to Enhanced Data Streaming LLC
         : Security pledge to WYE IP Capital
         : Cisco suit filed in EDTX

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
The patent moved from the operating/insolvent assignee into Orckit IP, LLC, a Delaware entity at 874 Walker Road, Suite C, Dover, DE — a commercial registered-agent address — with a Newton, MA mail-drop (831 Beacon Street #307). Its stated purpose in the 2016 agreement was purely to acquire "the United States Patents," "Foreign Patents," and "US Patent Applications" en masse (13 properties in this batch). It then transferred assets to Enhanced Data Streaming LLC (2025-08-15). Orckit IP, LLC in fact went on to be named as an applicant on continuation applications (e.g., US 10,652,111, issued 2020), confirming it is a holding/prosecution vehicle, not an operating company. [Reel 038541/0984; 2025-08-15 event.]

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (via NPE-directory classification).
Enhanced Data Streaming LLC is the current assignee (2025-08-15) and the plaintiff in Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., No. 2:25-cv-01038 (E.D. Tex.), asserting US 9,185,151 (as RE50,398) plus US 6,891,855, 7,336,605, 7,660,234, and 7,032,135. Unified Patents lists the plaintiff as "NPE (Patent Assertion Entity)" (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation). This is a directory classification backed by the filing itself, not a naming inference. I could not independently confirm an Orckit-IP→Realtime Adaptive Streaming link (Realtime Adaptive Streaming LLC / Realtime Data d/b/a IXO is a separate, well-known assertion family that surfaced in the searches), so I do not assert that connection.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR.
No correspondent/recording-attorney name was recovered for any entry. Cannot confirm recurrence; cannot exclude it. Do not treat as a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT (partial).
Corrigent Systems → Orckit-Corrigent (name change, 2014-04-01) → Orckit IP, LLC (2016-04-25) → Enhanced Data Streaming LLC (2025-08-15) → pledge to WYE IP Capital (2025-09-29). The final two steps occur within ~6 weeks of each other, immediately around the Cisco complaint. The long 2016→2025 dormancy between Orckit IP and EDS weakens a strict "<24 months chained-LLC" reading, but the 2025 cluster is a textbook cascade. [Reel 038541/0984; 2025 events.]

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT.
Assignment to Enhanced Data Streaming LLC 2025-08-15; first suit naming the patent filed 2025-10-09/10 in E.D. Tex. before Judge Gilstrap — ~7–8 weeks, well inside the 6-month window. The chain was plainly arranged to place clean title in the asserting entity before filing. [2025-08-15 event; 2:25-cv-01038.]

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — PRESENT.
Original assignee Orckit-Corrigent Ltd. entered Israeli debt-restructuring/bankruptcy proceedings in 2012; the 2016 agreement recites Orckit Communications Ltd. as being "under Creditors' Arrangement" and is executed by a court trustee (Lior Dagan, Adv.). The portfolio (including US 9,185,151) was sold out of the proceedings on 2016-04-25. [Reel 038541/0984 and assignment text reproduced in Orckit patent PTAB filings.]

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR / weak.
The operating company (Orckit-Corrigent) was already insolvent when the patents left its hands, so this is better characterized as a bankruptcy fire-sale than classic privateering (where a solvent operating company feeds an NPE to sue competitors). Note, however, that the broader Orckit estate was split across multiple assertion vehicles — a related Orckit Corporation asserted a different Orckit patent set against Cisco in 2:22-cv-276 (E.D. Tex., 2022) — indicating deliberate distribution of the portfolio into separate monetization channels. No SEC filing evidences an Orckit "privateering" sponsorship because the company was in insolvency. [2016-04-25 agreement; 2:22-cv-276 docket.]

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at a plaintiff NPE (Enhanced Data Streaming LLC) with a security pledge to WYE IP Capital LLC.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence

The chain shows (i) a bankruptcy fire-sale out of the Orckit-Corrigent Israeli proceedings into a bare Delaware holding vehicle, Orckit IP, LLC (Dover registered-agent address; Reel 038541/0984, executed 2016-04-25), (ii) a pre-litigation assignment to Enhanced Data Streaming LLC on 2025-08-15 only ~7 weeks before it sued Cisco in E.D. Tex. on 2025-10-09 asserting this patent as reissue RE50,398, and (iii) a patent security pledge to WYE IP Capital LLC on 2025-09-29, three weeks pre-suit — a litigation-financing structure. Unified Patents independently classifies Enhanced Data Streaming LLC as an NPE (Patent Assertion Entity), giving two-plus strong, evidenced signals beyond naming.

Verification: USPTO Patent Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 9185151; secondary index at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9185151/en. Litigation: Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., 2:25-cv-01038-JRG (E.D. Tex.).

Open items to close: (1) the recording-attorney / correspondent on each of the seven entries — the decisive specificity check for signal #3; (2) exact reel/frame for the 2011 inventor assignment, 2013 Hudson Bay pledge and release, and both 2025 records; (3) confirm the registered-agent identity behind 874 Walker Road, Dover, DE and the principals of Enhanced Data Streaming LLC / WYE IP Capital LLC.

I'll start by searching for the specific patent and its citation records.

Let me run more targeted searches.

Let me try to access the patent's front page citation data directly.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 9,185,151 B2

Search performed: USPTO / Google Patents records for patent number 9185151 (US 9,185,151 B2), including attempts to retrieve the patent's own "References Cited" (front-page citation) section and the corresponding PCT search report.

Important limitation up front (please read before using this): I was unable to retrieve the authoritative list of examiner-cited prior art for US 9,185,151 from the sources available to me. The full text of the patent that was supplied in this session truncates before the front-page "References Cited" block, and my searches did not return that block, the PTO-892, or the International Search Report for the parent PCT. Per the operating rules I am bound by, I will not invent citations or claim-by-claim § 102 mappings that I cannot ground in a retrieved document. Everything below is either (a) verified from the supplied record / search results, or (b) explicitly flagged as an unverified candidate.

1. Identification of the patent (verified)

Claim 1 (as granted) is directed to a device with a communication module + stream generator that converts one single appliance-specific version of a requested media stream from multicast to unicast and retransmits it with a delay, the delay being determined to reduce zap-time based at least partly on a timing parameter of the request, with content substantially identical to the multicast version, plus an appliance-specific stream generator and tracking of the status of the derived stream. Claim 15 is the method counterpart; claim 24 adds the "specific operational phases / transitioning from a first multicast stream to a second multicast stream" limitations.

2. "Citations" appearing in the record — and what they are NOT

The only citation-type data I could actually retrieve for 9185151 is the "Cited By" (forward-citation) table and the "Families Citing this family" list. Neither of these is prior art to US 9,185,151 — forward citations are later documents that cite this patent, and a § 102 analysis cannot rely on them.

2.1 Forward citations ("Cited By (2)")

Reference 1 — US 2017/0214946 A1

• Full citation: US 2017/0214946 A1, "System and method for generating media content in evolutionary manner," Treepodia Ltd.
• Priority date: 2016-01-21 · Publication date: 2017-07-27
• Description: Evolutionary/adaptive generation of media content.
• § 102 relevance to 9185151: None. Its priority date (2016) post-dates 9185151's 2007 priority date by nine years; it cannot be § 102(a), (b), (d) or (e) prior art. It is relevant only as evidence of the field.

Reference 2 — US 2023/0224475 A1

• Full citation: US 2023/0224475 A1, "Preserving Image Quality in Temporally Compressed Video Streams," Comcast Cable Communications, LLC
• Priority date: 2011-07-14 · Publication date: 2023-07-13
• Description: Handling temporally compressed video (e.g., GOP/IDR alignment) without quality loss.
• § 102 relevance to 9185151: None as prior art (2011 priority > 2007 priority). Conceptually adjacent (video sequence alignment), but not citable against these claims.

2.2 "Families Citing this family (22)"

Documents such as US 8,156,204 B2; US 8,630,419 B2; US 8,844,018 B2; US 2012/0320757 A1 (Ericsson); US 8,549,583 B2 (EchoStar); CN 102143130 B (Huawei, "rapid channel switching" key-information acquisition); US 10,038,493 B2; US 2013/0080486 A1 (General Instrument); US 9,363,540 B2 (Comcast); JP 5979483 B2 (Panasonic); US 2015/0271541 A1 (Time Warner Cable); US 10,375,452 B2 (Time Warner Cable). These are later filings/claims that cite the Orckit family (many are true continuations-in-spirit of the zap-time-reduction art). They are not § 102 prior art to 9185151.

2.3 Family / sibling documents (not prior art)

• US 2009/0165067 A1 (from US 12/143,944), same 2007-10-16 priority — commonly-owned, same family, cannot be § 102 prior art (same effective date; not "by another").
• USRE50398E1 — reissue of the same disclosure; same priority.

3. What I could NOT obtain (the core gap)

To answer your question properly I needed any of the following, none of which my searches returned:

1. The front-page "References Cited / U.S. PATENT DOCUMENTS / FOREIGN PATENT DOCUMENTS / Other Publications" block of US 9,185,151. (The supplied full text omits it; the Google Patents rendering supplied also omits the "Citations" section, jumping from the abstract/description straight to "Cited By.")
2. The PTO-892 / IDS in the file wrapper of US 12/738,080 (USPTO PatentCenter).
3. The International Search Report and Written Opinion for PCT/IL2008/001377 (WO 2009/050714 A2) — the national-phase parent, whose ISR categories (X/Y/A) would be the best proxy for the examiner's prior art and for § 102 vs. § 103 placement. The EP counterpart is EP 2212757 A4.

Because I cannot verify the cited references, I will not assert which references "anticipate" which claims.

4. Candidate prior art for a § 102 analysis — UNVERIFIED, FLAGGED

The following were surfaced in my searches within the same technical space (IPTV multicast-to-unicast conversion, zap-time/I-frame alignment, per-subscriber stream derivation). I could not confirm that any of them is an of-record citation of US 9,185,151, and the snippets in which several of them appeared came from a different international search report (WO 2009/095081 A1, PCT/EP2008/051187 — a P2P/media-injector channel-change case), not from the Orckit file. Treat the § 102 mapping column as a hypothesis to test, not a finding.

Honest bottom line on § 102: on the record I can actually verify, I cannot state that any single reference anticipates claims 1, 15 or 24 of US 9,185,151. Claim 1's combination — multicast→unicast conversion of "one single appliance specific version," in response to the request, with a delay computed from a request timing parameter to reduce zap-time — is a relatively specific combination, and the candidates above each appear to address only a subset (zap-time generally; repacketization generally; local replication generally).

5. How to close the gap (recommended next steps)

To produce the citation-by-citation § 102/§ 103 table you asked for, retrieve, in this order:

1. Google Patents → US9185151B2 → "Citations" section (patents.google.com/patent/US9185151B2/en) — this is the front-page "References Cited" list and the single fastest source.
2. USPTO PatentCenter → application 12/738,080 → "Documents & Transactions" → the PTO-892 Notice of References Cited and the IDS, which show exactly what the examiner considered.
3. WO 2009/050714 A2 / EP 2212757 A4 — the international/regional search report (X/Y/A categories tell you which references are § 102-grade vs. § 103-grade).
4. Reissue file US 15/594,612 (USRE50398E1) — the reissue prosecution often re-cites and re-characterizes the same art, which is directly useful for a § 102 mapping.

I did not fabricate any of the data in steps 1–4; if you can supply the front-page citation block or the PTO-892 (or authorize a further search round targeted at those specific documents), I will map each cited reference to claims 1–24 with § 102(a)/(b)/(e) vs. § 103 designations.

I'll research the prior art landscape for this patent before constructing the § 103 analysis.

Let me verify the identity and dates of the references from the international search report and the US file history.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,185,151 B2 ("Device, method and system for media packet distribution")

Prepared: April 26, 2026 · Legal basis: 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA, application filed 2008‑10‑22, claiming priority to 2007‑10‑16) · POSITA: an engineer with ~3–5 years' experience in IP video distribution / multicast & unicast networking (MPEG‑2/H.264 transport, IGMP, DSLAM/PON access) — consistent with the level described in the '151 specification itself.

I. Threshold issue: what the "Prior Art" section of this page actually contains

The Google Patents page for US 9,185,151 B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US9185151/en) does not contain a backward‑citation (references‑cited) list. Its prior‑art/related‑art area contains only forward citations:

Conclusion on this point (stated plainly): constraining the analysis to the items literally listed in the page's prior‑art section, no valid § 103 combination can be constructed. Every listed document has a priority date later than 2007‑10‑16 (most are later than the 2008‑10‑22 filing date). They are therefore not "prior art" under pre‑AIA § 102(a), (b) or (e), and § 103 combines only prior art. Using them as § 103 references would be a legal error (and a "cannot be combined because it isn't prior art" argument would dispose of the ground at the threshold, regardless of technical content). Notably, applying a later‑filed application that cites the patent back against the patent is also circular — e.g., CN 102143130 B (Huawei, "Method, device and system for acquiring key information in rapid channel switching") appears to have learned the concept from this very family.

Accordingly, Part II supplies the references that are prior art and is the substantive analysis. I flag this rather than silently substituting references.

II. Prior art of record that is available against the '151 claims

The International Search Report on the parent PCT (PCT/IL2008/001377, published as WO 2009/050714 A3) applied:

The ISR's X/Y designations are themselves strong evidence of the § 103 posture: the ISA regarded the independent claims as met by Cuijpers alone, with the localized‑content and stream‑status claims supplied by Eldering.

(I could not retrieve the U.S. file history of 12/738,080 with confidence, so I make no representation about what the U.S. Examiner cited or considered.)

III. Mapping of the independent claims

Claim 1 (device): communication module receiving an appliance request for a given IP media stream; a stream generator converting one single appliance‑specific version of the requested stream from multicast to unicast and retransmitting it with a delay; the delay time is set to reduce zap‑time at least partly on a timing parameter of the request; the unicast content is substantially identical to the multicast content; plus an appliance‑specific stream generator deriving either unicast streams or a second multicast stream from a first multicast stream, and tracking the status of the derived streams.

Claims 15 and 24 (methods) recite the same steps and, in claim 24, the additional "specific operational phases" limitations of claims 11–13 (transition from a first to a second multicast stream; delayed version based on the second stream). Cuijpers' burst‑join/leave sequence (Fig. 5/Fig. 6: client joins the new burst, plays it, then joins the steady‑state multicast and departs the burst) is literally a transitional phase between two multicast streams, with the interim stream derived from the new (second) channel.

IV. Grounds of rejection and the motivation to combine

Ground 1 — Cuijpers in view of Eldering

Claims 1, 5–15, 17–24. Cuijpers teaches every functional element of the zap‑time‑reduction core (delayed retransmission, request‑responsive delay, replicated/identical content, tracking next‑intra‑frame status), but its interim streams are multicast; Eldering teaches the complementary, explicitly interchangeable step of re‑addressing a program stream to a subgroup — including a subgroup of one set‑top or household — at a unicast address, which is precisely the "appliance‑specific … multicast to unicast" conversion.

Motivation (KSR v. Teleflex; In re Keller):

1. Same field, same problem. Both address IP/multicast television delivery; the '151 specification identifies exactly two problems — channel‑zap delay and per‑user/geographically granular (targeted) ad insertion. Cuijpers targets the first; Eldering targets the second. Combining them addresses the stated art‑recognized needs, i.e., "a known problem for which there was an obvious solution."
2. Known technique improving similar devices in the same way. Narrowing a multicast stream to a smaller group/address (Eldering) applied to a zap‑reduction stream (Cuijpers) is the routine use of a known addressing/stream‑duplication technique for its established function, with predictable results (less wasted bandwidth where only one subscriber needs the interim stream; per‑household granularity).
3. Finite, identified, predictable solutions. Applying ad insertion at the network edge/access node (rather than at a central head‑end) while feeding only the requesting subscriber is one of only a few conventional options (central vs. local insertion — Eldering expressly frames the choice: "insertion … may occur at a centralized point (e.g., a server) or at a local point (e.g., at a client end)").
4. Design incentives / self‑evident benefits. Cuijpers itself notes the bandwidth cost of burst streams (nominal + excess rate); Eldering's per‑subgroup addressing mitigates precisely that cost — a reason the POSITA would have been motivated to combine.

Ground 2 — Cuijpers (alone, or with Eldering) for the "sub‑group closest to an intra frame"

Claims 5, 6, 17, 18. Claim 6 ("associate the media presentation appliance with a multicast distribution sub‑group which is temporally closest to transmitting an intra frame") is essentially a verbatim restatement of Cuijpers' disclosure that "the media server is responsible for determining which stream 306 is associated with the next most temporally proximate independent frame," with the bouquet supplying the multiple "delay segments … associated with a different multicast distribution sub‑group" of claim 5. This limitation, added for a "multiple delay segments" variant, is thus directly evidenced by the art of record.

Ground 3 — Cuijpers + Eldering for localized content signals

Claims 2–4, 16. Eldering discloses the ad‑insertion mux/demux, the updating of the embedded program map / splice points, and ad‑insert timing tables — i.e., detection of an ad avail and its triggering signal ("cue tone," "known digital code," "replacement of default ads"), which reads on "the insertion of content is triggered by a content insertion signal." Again, same field, same purpose (targeted/localized content in a streamed program), predictable combination.

Ground 4 (alternative secondary art, not relied on) — Cheng (US 2007/0214490 A1) and Barrett (US 2005/0081244 A1)

Both were of record as background ("A") art in the same family and were treated by the ISA as cumulative. I have not reviewed their full texts and therefore do not build a ground on them; they are noted as potential additional support for tracking stream status / unicast intra‑frame delivery if their content is confirmed.

Dependent‑claim map (summary)

V. Where the patent owner will push back (and how strong each point is)

1. "Cuijpers' burst streams are multicast; there is no multicast‑to‑unicast conversion." This is the strongest argument, and it is cured by Eldering's express teaching that the same derived presentation stream can be delivered "to a multicast group or … a unicast address" and that a subgroup may be a single set‑top/household. Expect the owner to argue the post‑filing amendment ("one single appliance specific version … from multicast to unicast") was the point of novelty — but the individual elements are each known, and the combination is a predictable aggregation, not a new principle of operation.
2. "The delay is pre‑set in Cuijpers (max client delay time), not computed from a timing parameter of the request." Weaker: Cuijpers' server selects the burst stream for each client based on the client's request and the streams' intra‑frame timing, which is inherently request‑timing dependent; moreover the '151 specification's own delay logic (FIG. 12A/12B: buffer a first packet at T₁, a second at T₂, transmit the second at Tₙ+T₂−T₁ — i.e., preserving inter‑packet arrival spacing) is a conventional rate‑smoothing exercise that a POSITA would apply as a matter of ordinary design choice.
3. Secondary considerations. None is apparent from the record. The family's litigation (Enhanced Data Streaming LLC v. Cisco Systems, Inc., No. 2:25‑cv‑01038‑JRG (E.D. Tex.), asserting the '151/RE50,398) and the fact that the '151 reissued as US RE50,398 E1 (per the page: US 15/594,612, "active," adjusted expiration 2030‑02‑09) reflect scope/ownership activity, not evidence of non‑obviousness. No unexpected results, no long‑felt need, no industry praise, and no teaching‑away appear in the specification.
4. Note (not a § 103 point): claim 1's recitation that "content in the unicast appliance specific version … is substantially identical to content in the multicast appliance specific version" lacks antecedent basis for the italicized term — a § 112 (b)/(¶ 2) issue worth flagging in parallel.

VI. Confidence and limitations

• High confidence: the dates and identities of Cuijpers (US 2007/0121629 A1, pub. 2007‑05‑31) and Eldering (US 2005/0193410 A1, pub. 2005‑09‑01) as pre‑critical‑date prior art, and the ISR's X/Y designations (source: the WO 2009/050714 A3 search‑report page text). The Cuijpers and Eldering quoted passages are drawn from the published documents retrieved during this analysis.
• Medium confidence: the exact 1:1 alignment of the ISR's claim numbers (1, 3‑6, 12, 14‑18 / 2, 7‑11, 13) with the granted U.S. claim numbering, since the U.S. claims were amended during prosecution; the mapping in Part III is therefore my own element‑by‑element analysis rather than the ISA's.
• Explicitly not verified: the U.S. prosecution history of application 12/738,080; the full text of US 2007/0214490 A1 (Cheng) and US 2005/0081244 A1 (Barrett); and the full (truncated) membership of the 22‑document "Families Citing this family" list. I have not characterized those documents.
• Strict reading observed: all patent/publication numbers above are reproduced as they appeared in the sources (including the ISR's OCR rendering "CUJIPERS"), and I have not corrected or renumbered any identifier.