US 9219982

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number, including litigation/docket activity.

Let me check specifically for any Federal Circuit (CAFC) 2026 appeal activity involving this patent.

US Patent 9,219,982 — Summary

Note on identifier: Results below are for US 9,219,982 B2 specifically (application 14/730,866), not related family members (US 8,903,067 / US 9,084,084), which the docket record sometimes confuses.

Bibliographic data

Assignment chain (per USPTO assignment records): TP Lab, Inc. → LOCAL INTELLIGENCE, LLC (recorded 2017-09-19) → TP LAB, INC. (recorded 2019-11-15 and 2019-11-18) → LAB TECHNOLOGY LLC (2024).

Abstract (verbatim)

"Methods and apparatus for refreshing a display of a telephone. A telephone apparatus includes a telephone having a display panel and function by which a user can access a plurality of communication services provided over a communication network. The function may represent a given set of conditions associated with a user, such as static and variable conditions. The function is typically associated with one or more commonly used communication services that would be used by a user under a given set of conditions. A method for automatically refreshing a screen on a display panel of a telephone based on a function change includes displaying on a telephone display a first screen based on a function, the display representing a commonly used communication service associated with the function, and selecting a function based on information."

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 (apparatus). A telephone with a display panel, a processor, and a datastore. The datastore holds at least one "function" that includes information about (a) the phone's current location and (b) the user of the phone. Each function is tied to at least one communication service. The phone can connect to a communication network, and the processor is able to: connect to a location server to obtain the phone's current location; pick a function out of the datastore; and refresh the display screen to show the communication service(s) tied to the selected function, based at least in part on the phone's current location. (This maps to Figs. 3 and 5 — the "function selector" + "location server" embodiment.)

Claim 13 (method). The method counterpart of claim 1 with the same substantive elements: a telephone with display panel, processor, and datastore holding at least one location-and-user-based function associated with at least one communication service; the steps being (i) obtain the phone's current location using a location server, (ii) select a function from the datastore, and (iii) refresh the screen to include the communication service associated with the selected function, based at least in part on the current location.

Dependent claims add: refresh on change of location (claims 2, 14), obtaining the changed location from the location server (3, 15), the phone being movable between locations — via vehicle/train/ferry (5, 17), within a city/street/neighborhood/building (6, 18), or to locations such as a mall, hospital, airport, office, cube, floor, room (7, 19); functions that also relate to current time (8, 20; and 21, refresh on change of location or time); refresh on change of user (10, 22); and a function selector component that obtains the location from a location server and matches it to a stored function (11, 12).

Litigation / enforcement picture (as found)

Owner Lab Technology LLC is an active NPE asserting this patent. Google Patents' litigation feed and third-party databases show a long-running campaign; the family has been asserted against Samsung, HTC America, LG, Verizon, and others.

• Local Intelligence, LLC v. HTC America (N.D. Cal. 2018) — §101 motion to dismiss denied; the court (relying on Core Wireless v. LG) held the claims patent-eligible, treating claim 1 of the '067 sibling patent as representative.
• Lab Technology v. Samsung Electronics, 2:24-cv-00324 (E.D. Tex.) — voluntarily dismissed without prejudice (Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i)).
• Lab Technology v. Lyft, 6:24-cv-00333 (W.D. Tex.) — dismissed without prejudice.
• Lab Technology v. Everbridge, 1:25-cv-01355 (D. Del.) — dismissed without prejudice.
• Lab Technology v. LifeStation, 1:25-cv-09284 (S.D.N.Y.) — dismissed Feb 2026 after settlement in principle.
• Lab Technology v. Solera Holdings, 4:26-cv-00297 (N.D. Tex., filed 2026-03-12) — pending per the complaint docket summary.
• Lab Technology v. Greenlight Financial Technology, 1:25-cv-01356 (D. Del.) — a decision reported as July 23, 2026 held the '982 claims invalid under §101 at Alice step one/two (abstract idea of filtering content by location on generic components) and dismissed with prejudice. Note: this date is later than the "current date" given in your instruction (April 26, 2026), so treat it as a forward-dated search hit rather than a settled fact.
• Unified Patents Patroll ran a prior-art bounty on at least claim 1 of US 9,219,982 B2 (June–Aug 2024), confirming active third-party validity challenge.

CAFC 2026 docket — explicitly searched, nothing found

I ran targeted searches for a Federal Circuit appeal in 2026 involving "9219982" or "Lab Technology." No CAFC 2026 appeal docket for this patent was retrievable. This is a negative result, not proof that none exists — CAFC dockets are indexed slowly and I could not query the CAFC docket system directly. Given the July 2026 adverse §101 ruling in the Greenlight case and the near-term expiration (2026-06-22), a notice of appeal from Lab Technology is plausible but unconfirmed.

Uncertainties and conflicts to flag

1. Date inconsistency: Your prompt states the current date is April 26, 2026, and the source snapshot header says 2026-09-11; search results reference a July 2026 ruling and a July 30, 2026 article. I am reporting the search results as found rather than reconciling them.
2. One third-party summary (PatSnap) mischaracterizes the patent: it describes US 9,219,982 B2 as covering "voice call switching methods" and attributes "automatic telephone display refresh" to US 8,498,388 B1. That contradicts the authoritative patent text and every other source; I treat the PatSnap characterization as an error and rely on the patent itself.
3. Claim-scope catch: the Google Patents "Definitions" extraction describes a function selector that "connects to a datastore including at least one function" and to a location server — consistent with the spec — but note the issued claims (1 and 13) require the function to encode both a current location of the telephone and a user of the telephone, a narrower recitation than the spec's general "function represents a set of conditions."
4. Terminal disclaimer: one complaint analysis states the asserted patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer (consistent with the three-member continuation family sharing a 2006-06-22 priority date and a common 2026-06-22 expiration).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 9219982.

Good — I found the patent's litigation docket listing and a Patroll entry. Let me get specifics on each case.

Litigation involving US 9,219,982 B2

Short answer: Yes — this patent has been, and is being, actively asserted. The Google Patents record for US 9,219,982 lists a "Family has litigation" section with 16 docket entries, and I was able to identify parties for several of them. Note there is a date inconsistency in the materials given to me: the user prompt says today is April 26, 2026, while the patent record I was provided was fetched 2026-09-11 and contains docket events dated July 2026. I flag this rather than silently resolve it.

Current and recent Lab Technology LLC campaign (2024–2026)

Earlier campaign — Local Intelligence, LLC / Dominion Harbor (2017–2019)

The Unified Patents Patroll page confirms the patent "has been asserted against Samsung, HTC America, LG, and Verizon."

Additional 2025–2026 dockets on the Google Patents list where I could not confirm parties

These were filed under the patent but I did not verify plaintiff/defendant before hitting my search limit:

• E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00323 and 2:24-cv-00324 — identified above
• N.D. Tex. 4:26-cv-00297 — identified above
• D. Del. 1:25-cv-01355 and 1:25-cv-01356 — identified above
• D. Del. 1:18-cv-00271 — identified above (as probable Local Intelligence v. LGE)
• E.D. Tex. 2:17-cv-00716 — identified above (as probable Local Intelligence v. Samsung)
• S.D.N.Y. 7:26-cv-00374 AND S.D.N.Y. 1:26-cv-00374 — listed separately by Google Patents with different office codes; these appear to be the same case, but I am not treating them as identical without confirmation
• W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00173 — parties unknown
• W.D. Tex. 6:24-cv-00333 — parties unknown
• S.D. Fla. 0:25-cv-60940 — parties unknown
• D. Colo. 1:25-cv-01233 — parties unknown
• N.D. Ill. 1:25-cv-04239 — parties unknown
• S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-09284 — parties unknown
• N.D. Nev. 2:26-cv-00284 — parties unknown

Related (non-litigation) context

• Unified Patents Patroll prior-art contest for US 9,219,982 (claim 1): ran June 6 – Aug 30, 2024; $2,000 prize; winner announced. This is a defensive prior-art bounty, not a lawsuit, but it signals the patent is viewed as a validity target.
• Ownership chain (relevant because different plaintiffs = different campaigns): TP Lab, Inc. → Local Intelligence, LLC (recorded Sept. 19, 2017) → back to TP Lab (Nov. 2019) → Lab Technology LLC (recorded June 25, 2024, effective Jan. 15, 2024). Current assignee of record: Lab Technology LLC (New Mexico).
• A complaint analysis reference also mentions a prior §101 ruling involving USAA dated Jan. 30, 2026 as relevant to this patent's eligibility history — I could not confirm the case number or parties. Treat as unverified.

Important caveats

1. Some outcomes/statuses above are from secondary sources (Mondaq, PatSnap, VitalLaw, Docket Alarm) rather than the primary PACER docket. For anything you rely on, pull the PACER docket and the actual order.
2. Filing dates for the 2024 cases were not independently confirmed; the "2024" values are derived from the case numbers and the May 31, 2024 Mondaq article. The docket listing provided shows these as Texas Eastern District Court filings.
3. Not every entry in the Google Patents "Family has litigation" list is a separate case — the two 2026 S.D.N.Y. entries may be duplicates.
4. The '982 patent has been held ineligible under §101 in D. Del. (Greenlight, July 23, 2026). That is the most consequential merits development to date and materially affects the value of the remaining dockets.

If no litigation were known, I would say so — but that is not the case here. This patent has an extensive assertion history spanning at least 2017–2026 across multiple plaintiffs and at least nine federal districts.

Because I hit my tool-step limit, I could not individually pull the eight unidentified 2025–2026 dockets. I'd recommend running each case number directly on PACER, Docket Alarm, or the Unified Patents litigation portal to fill in the plaintiff/defendant fields for: W.D. Tex. 7:25-cv-00173 and 6:24-cv-00333, S.D. Fla. 0:25-cv-60940, D. Colo. 1:25-cv-01233, N.D. Ill. 1:25-cv-04239, S.D.N.Y. 1:25-cv-09284, D. Nev. 2:26-cv-00284, and S.D.N.Y. 1:26-cv-00374.

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" signal against live sources before writing.

Let me check for any recently-filed IPRs tied to the lab-technology/TP Lab campaign and the asserted litigations.

Targeted follow-ups: any IPR/PGR filings on the '982 itself, and whether Unified's campaign touched this patent via reexamination.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 9,219,982: 0. The structured USPTO ODP block returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my web checks surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal naming the '982 patent as the challenged patent. Breakdown by status is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated in AIA trial 0 / claims sustained in AIA trial 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. Bottom line for a defendant: the PTAB route is completely untested and completely open — all of claims 1–22 stand as issued, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds anyone. But the patent's real defensive vulnerability is not at the PTAB: on 2026-07-23 a Delaware district court held the '982 claims ineligible under § 101 and dismissed the asserting case with prejudice (Lab Technology LLC v. Greenlight Financial Technology, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01356-JCB (D. Del. Jul. 23, 2026)). That is a district-court ruling, not an AIA outcome, and it is not self-executing against other defendants — so treat it as a strong but non-binding asset.

I found no proceeding numbers to report. Rather than invent any, below are the proceedings that actually exist and what they mean.

No AIA trials — nothing to rank

There is no IPR/PGR/CBM to list "most impactful first." The absence is itself the headline: Lab Technology has asserted the '982 patent in at least a dozen district court cases (see the litigation entries in the structured block, plus 1:25-cv-09284 (LifeStation, SDNY) and 4:26-cv-00297 (Solera, N.D. Tex.)), and Unified Patents has actively worked the patent family — yet no defendant has filed an AIA petition against the '982. That is a policy choice by defendants, not a sign the patent is strong (see the § 101 ruling below).

Non-AIA challenges to the '982 and its family (context, not AIA trials)

Unified Patents PATROLL crowdsourcing contest — US-9219982-B2, claim 1

• Type: Prior-art bounty (PATROLL), not a PTAB filing. No proceeding number exists.
• Dates: 2024-06-06 to 2024-08-30. Prize $2,000.
• What it targeted: "at least claim 1 of US-9219982-B2."
• Why it matters: Unified was scouting art on claim 1 with an eye toward a validity challenge; winning art was published 2024-12-04. The follow-through on a sibling patent was a reexamination request, not an IPR — see below.
• Links: https://patroll.unifiedpatents.com/contests/43roByfA3aj4KsECY ; https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2024/12/4/4000-awarded-for-lab-technology-communication-patents-prior-art
• Defensive value: The art exists and is public. Any defendant can pick it up and either file the IPR Unified didn't, or use it in district court.

Ex parte reexamination of US 8,498,388 (sibling patent, same Lab Technology campaign)

• Type: Ex parte reexamination (Central Reexamination Unit) — not an AIA trial.
• Control number: 90/019,749 (per Unified's portal).
• Status: Request granted 2025-01-15; CRU found substantial new questions of patentability on all challenged claims of the '388 patent.
• Relevance to '982: This is a different patent ('388, audio announcements). Do not conflate it with the '982. But it shows Unified's playbook against this portfolio: reexam, not IPR, and it shows the family's claims have drawn successful SNQ findings.
• Links: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/exparte/90019749 ; https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights/2025/1/15/lab-technology-audio-announcement-patent-challenge-instituted
• Defensive value: A granted reexam on a sibling is a template; the same art/approach may reach the '982, though reexam cannot be used for § 101.

§ 101 invalidation — Lab Technology v. Greenlight Financial Technology (D. Del.)

• Type: District court Rule 12(b)(6) invalidity ruling — not a PTAB proceeding.
• Case: No. 1:25-cv-01356-JCB (D. Del.), Judge Barker, opinion/order dated 2026-07-23.
• Holding: Claim 13 taken as representative ("Considering the dependent claims add only conventional steps, claim 13 of the ′982 Patent is representative for purposes of §101 eligibility"). Alice step one: claims directed to the abstract idea of "displaying different content on a telephone based on that telephone's location." Alice step two: no inventive concept — "merely claims the abstract idea of filtering content on a set of generic computer components." Prosecution-disclaimer argument rejected (the court found the applicant distinguished the remote "location server" from self-contained prior-art location tracking). Leave to amend denied as futile; dismissed with prejudice.
• Collateral point: The same opinion notes the earlier N.D. Cal. denial of HTC's Alice motion to dismiss (Judge Davila), i.e., the § 101 question has split across courts. A complaint summary also references a 2026-01-30 eligibility ruling involving USAA; I could not independently verify that from a primary source, so treat it as unconfirmed.
• Links: https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/delaware/dedce/1:2025cv01356/91091/35/ ; https://www.vitallaw.com/news/patent-d-del-infringement-case-dismissed-after-patent-for-youth-banking-app-ruled-invalid/ipm0107526d0680f64e55bab66a8737e642b2
• Defensive value: This is the single most useful fact for a defendant today — a reasoned, citable § 101 invalidation of claim 13 as representative of all claims, in a case dismissed with prejudice. Caveat: it is a district court decision with no binding effect on another judge, and I do not know whether it has been appealed to the Federal Circuit. Verify the appeal status (and any stay of the judgment) before relying on it.

Strategic summary

Claim status. No claim of US 9,219,982 has been canceled, narrowed, or confirmed by the PTAB, because no AIA trial has ever been filed. All of claims 1–22 remain in force as issued, with claim 1 (apparatus) and claim 13 (method) as the operative independents — the two claims Lab Technology actually asserts (claim 13 in Greenlight; claims 1 and 13 in the Verizon and Solera complaints). The only judicial narrowing is the Greenlight § 101 ruling treating claim 13 as representative and invalidating the claims as a class. That is a judgment of invalidity as to the '982 claims, but it binds only the parties before Judge Barker, and its practical reach depends on the appeal outcome.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is not triggered against anyone. There is no petitioner, no instituted trial, and no FWD, so no defendant and no privy is barred from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground. Practically, that means a defendant facing assertion today has: (1) the entire prior-art field open at the PTAB, including the art surfaced by Unified's 2024 PATROLL contest; (2) no Fintiv-style complication created by an earlier-filed IPR; and (3) a free hand to run § 101 in district court, following Greenlight. The flip side: because no one has financed an IPR, the patent has no PTAB record to attack — you would be building the invalidity case from scratch, which is exactly the cost Lab Technology's early-settlement campaign (LifeStation resolved in 110 days) is designed to exploit.

Pattern signals. Lab Technology (New Mexico, counsel largely Rabicoff Law LLC and Silverman, McDonald & Friedman) is running a volume assertion campaign across a TP Lab-origin portfolio — the '982, '388, '973, '570, '032, '388 — against Samsung, Verizon, Amazon, Google, Everbridge, Greenlight, LifeStation, Solera and others, after the portfolio passed through Local Intelligence, LLC (Dominion Harbor) and back to TP Lab. No defendant has filed an IPR against the '982. Unified Patents is the defensive aggregator in the chain, but its investment has been ex parte reexamination and PATROLL contests, not AIA trials — a softer, lower-cost lever that produced a grant on the sibling '388 but has not touched the '982. I found no Federal Circuit appeal on the '982; and no patent-owner PTAB appeal activity exists because the patent owner has never been in a PTAB trial.

Recommended next steps

1. If you have a demand letter citing claim 13 (or all claims): lead with the Greenlight ruling. Quote the disposition — the court held the claims "directed to a patent-ineligible abstract idea" and that the patent "merely claims the abstract idea of filtering content on a set of generic computer components," and it dismissed with prejudice (D. Del. opinion, Doc. 35). Confirm on the docket within the last week whether it was appealed by ~2026-08-22 and whether the judgment was stayed — that is the one fact that could change your leverage.
2. If you need an IPR: the runway is clear. There are no pending proceedings, no estoppel, and no institution decision to piggyback on. A statutory trial deadline of 12 months from institution applies once you're in; check PTAB E2E and the USPTO PTAB Decisions pages for any petition filed after the ODP ingest date — my searches found none, but a fresh filing would not yet be indexed.
3. If you're considering the Unified-style route: the '388 reexam (control no. 90/019,749) is a working precedent for a cheap CRU challenge, and the PATROLL art on claim 1 is published. Note the limits: reexam cannot reach § 101, so it complements — rather than replaces — a Greenlight-style motion.
4. Do not rely on the "no PTAB activity" fact as reassurance. Zero IPRs after 20 years of issuance and multiple assertion campaigns most plausibly reflects defendants settling early, not patent strength — and the one court to reach the merits on eligibility killed the claims.

Confidence notes: The zero-AIA-proceeding conclusion rests on the structured ODP block plus live searches returning no petition or decision for US 9,219,982; I cannot rule out a very recent filing not yet indexed. I did not find, and have not invented, any proceeding number, judge panel, FWD, settlement, or CAFC docket for this patent. The § 101 dates and quotes are from the published Delaware opinion and secondary reports dated 2026-07-23 through 2026-07-30.

I'll research the assignment chain, the parties, and the correspondence of record before drafting.

Strong leads. Let me dig into the correspondents of record, the Dominion Harbor link, and the Lab Technology entity.

Inventors

Pattern note. US 9,219,982 is a single-inventor patent. Its parent, U.S. 8,903,067 (Ser. No. 11/472,613), and the sibling continuations in this family share the same sole inventor. This is unusual for the wider TP Lab portfolio: many other TP Lab patents list Chi Fai Ho as a co-inventor — and Mondaq identifies Chi Fai Ho as the founder and CEO of TP Lab. So the company's principal is a co-inventor everywhere else in the portfolio but not on the '982 line.

Departure pattern: not present. I found no evidence of inventors leaving TP Lab within 12 months of filing. If anything, the inventor retained a continuing relationship with TP Lab through the 2019 buy-back of the family (below), which is the opposite of a pre-fire-sale exit. I could not verify Chiu's current employer — treat that as unknown rather than as a finding.

Original assignee

TP Lab, Inc., Palo Alto, California (listed as "TP Lab Inc" in the assignment record; "TP Labs, Inc." appears in some third-party indexes).

• Primary line of business: A small telecom/R&D and IP-holding lab. Public indexes show only a modest granted-patent footprint (roughly 2 published applications / 2 grants under the "TP Labs" assignee ID, versus a larger TP Lab, Inc. portfolio spread across family members — patents-review.com, onscope.com). Its filings cluster in telephony, VoIP, emergency caller location, and interactive TV.
• Product embodying the claims: No evidence found of a shipped commercial product. I found no product literature, no SEC filings (TP Lab is private), and no marketing materials tying any commercial telephone or service to the '982 claims. This is a negative finding based on absence of evidence, not proof of absence.
• Current status: Appears to still exist as an entity. It reacquired patents from Local Intelligence in Nov 2019 (reel 051019/0819 and 051033/0529) and then transferred them out again in 2024 (reel 067830/0076). No bankruptcy docket, dissolution, or acquisition of TP Lab surfaced. Status = operating/IP-holding, not dissolved — but I could not confirm whether it has any active commercial business. Chi Fai Ho is identified by Mondaq as founder and CEO.
• Record-keeping anomaly worth flagging: Mondaq (2024-05-31) states that "Currently available USPTO records do not reflect the assignment of any of these three patents away from TP Lab (to Local Intelligence earlier or to Lab Technology more recently), but Lab Technology pleads ownership." That comment concerns a set of three patents in suit, not necessarily the '982 specifically, and predates the 2024-06-25 recording — but it is a documented instance of pleaded ownership running ahead of the recorded chain in this family.

Assignment timeline

Sourcing caveat, stated plainly: I could reconstruct the assignor, assignee, conveyance type, execution/recordation dates, and reel/frame numbers from the Google Patents legal-events record for US 9,219,982 (which mirrors the Assignment Center entries). I could not retrieve the "correspondent of record" (recording attorney/agent) field for any of these four recordings — Google Patents does not publish it and my searches did not surface it. I am therefore not listing correspondent names. Those fields must be pulled directly from the Assignment Center abstract for each reel/frame. I am flagging this rather than filling the gap with the litigation-counsel names, which are a different data field.

Four post-issuance assignments are recorded, in this order:

• 2024-01-15 (executed) / recorded 2024-06-25 — Reel 067830/0076

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: TP Lab, Inc. (California)
  • Assignee: Lab Technology LLC (New Mexico)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable — verify at Assignment Center. (Note: Lab Technology's litigation counsel is Isaac Rabicoff, Rabicoff Law LLC, per the Zoom and 3CX dockets. That is litigation counsel, not confirmed as the assignment correspondent. Do not conflate.)
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter / pre-litigation monetization — the receiving entity begins filing infringement suits in the same year.

• 2019-11-18 (recorded) / executed 2019-11-13 — Reel 051033/0529

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Local Intelligence, LLC
  • Assignee: TP Lab, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable — verify at Assignment Center.
  • Context: reversal of the 2017 monetization transfer — assets flowing back from the NPE affiliate to the originator.

• 2019-11-15 (recorded) / executed 2019-11-13 — Reel 051019/0819

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Local Intelligence (recorded without the "LLC" suffix in the legal-events feed — appears to be the same party; treat the suffix discrepancy as a recording artifact, not a separate entity)
  • Assignee: TP Lab, Inc. (California)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable — verify at Assignment Center.
  • Context: same transaction as reel 051033/0529 — see note below.

• 2017-08-16 (executed) / recorded 2017-09-19 — Reel 043628/0373

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: TP Lab, Inc.
  • Assignee: Local Intelligence, LLC (Texas)
  • Correspondent: not retrievable — verify at Assignment Center.
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter. Per Mondaq, Local Intelligence, LLC is "an affiliate of Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC" — a Dallas IP-monetization firm. Same article notes the entire 12-patent emergency-caller-location family was "transferred from TP Lab to Dominion's Local Intelligence back in August 2017," matching the 2017-08-16 execution date exactly.

The double-recordation tell. Two separate assignment recordings — reel 051019/0819 and reel 051033/0529 — share the same execution date (2019-11-13) and the same parties and direction of transfer, filed three days apart. This is the signature of an original recording followed by a corrective/re-recorded instrument (typically to fix a party-name defect, a missing signature, or a chain-of-title gap). Two reel/frame citations for one transaction is itself a documentation-quality flag on the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9219982
    2006 : Filed by TP Lab Inc
    2014 : First continuation filed
    2015 : Patent US 9219982 granted
    2017 : Assigned to Local Intelligence LLC
         : First Local Intelligence suits
    2019 : Assets returned to TP Lab Inc
    2024 : Assigned to Lab Technology LLC
         : Lab Technology assertion wave

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT (partial)

• Reel 043628/0373 (executed 2017-08-16): TP Lab → Local Intelligence, LLC, a Texas LLC with no products, no commercial activity, and an admitted affiliation to Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC — an IP-monetization firm (Mondaq, https://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/patent/[1472650](/patent/1472650)/).
• Reel 067830/0076 (executed 2024-01-15): TP Lab → Lab Technology LLC, a New Mexico LLC. Lab Technology is classified "Non Practicing Entity" by Stanford's NPE Litigation Database (https://npe.law.stanford.edu/case/[300355](/patent/300355)) and "NPE (Patent Assertion Entity)" by Unified Patents (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2:24-cv-00409).
• Marked "partial" because I could not verify the registered-agent service address or single-member status for either LLC from a primary source. The NPE classification is independent evidence, not naming inference.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT

• Local Intelligence, LLC — expressly identified as a Dominion Harbor Enterprises, LLC affiliate. Dominion Harbor is a high-frequency patent-monetization firm and is not on the enumerated list in the brief, but it is a repeat-player asserter in the RPX/Unified ecosystem.
• Lab Technology LLC — a high-volume 2024–2026 filer. Dockets show Lab Technology suits against Amazon, Samsung, Verizon, LG Electronics, Mitel, 3CX, Sangoma, Zoom, Trimble, u-blox, EXFO, ETA Transit, Solera Holdings, Bitrix/Alaio, Greenlight Financial, among others. Unified Patents opened an ex parte reexamination against Lab Technology's U.S. 8,498,388 on 2024-11-27 (https://www.unifiedpatents.com/insights) — a direct, filed-by-Unified response to the campaign.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNRESOLVED / cannot be assessed

I was unable to retrieve the correspondent-of-record field for any of the four recordings. This signal is the one the brief cares most about and it is precisely the one I cannot honestly mark. Action required: pull the correspondent from:

• Reel 043628/0373 (2017, TP Lab → Local Intelligence)
• Reel 051019/0819 and 051033/0529 (2019, Local Intelligence → TP Lab)
• Reel 067830/0076 (2024, TP Lab → Lab Technology)

Comparative note, flagged as inference only: Lab Technology's litigation counsel of record is Isaac Rabicoff (Rabicoff Law LLC), appearing on the Zoom (D. Colo. 1:24-cv-01711) and 3CX (S.D. Fla.) dockets, and Terry Marcus Sanks (Beusse Sanks PLLC) on 3CX. If either name also appears as correspondent on reel 067830/0076, that converts this signal to PRESENT with a clean citation. I am not asserting that link without the reel data.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT

Four recorded conveyances in ~7 years, with a round-trip: TP Lab → Local Intelligence (Aug 2017) → back to TP Lab (Nov 2019, twice-recorded) → Lab Technology (Jan 2024). The 2017→2024 legs each run originator → licensing-only LLC. The 2019 reacquisition is the unusual feature — it means the 2017 monetization did not stick, and the portfolio was warehoused at TP Lab for ~4 years before being re-monetized under a new LLC. Two reel/frame citations (051019/0819 and 051033/0529) for a single 2019 transaction reinforce this.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (2024 leg); LIKELY (2017 leg)

• 2024 leg: Lab Technology assignment executed 2024-01-15; the Amazon complaint was filed 2024-06-03 (E.D. Tex. 2:24-cv-00409) — ~4.6 months later, inside the 6-month window. The assignment was not recorded until 2024-06-25, i.e. 22 days after the first suit was filed. Execution-before-suit with recordation-after-suit is a textbook clean-standing/venue arrangement.
• 2017 leg: assignment executed 2017-08-16; the E.D. Tex. case at 2:17-cv-00716 and the D. Del. case at 1:18-cv-00271 bracket that date. Mondaq confirms Local Intelligence asserted the '982 against Samsung (E.D. Tex.), HTC (N.D. Cal.), and LG Electronics (D. Del.) in its pre-2020 campaign. The precise complaint dates would need docket confirmation; the pattern is consistent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT

No Chapter 7/11 filing by TP Lab, Local Intelligence, or Lab Technology was found. This chain is monetization-driven, not insolvency-driven. The 2019 reacquisition further rules out a distressed liquidation.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT (on the available record)

Privateering requires an operating company funding an NPE to assert against its own competitors. TP Lab has no identified competing product line and no SEC disclosure, so there is no funder-competitor relationship to establish. The 2024 campaign (Samsung, Verizon, Amazon, Zoom, Trimble, u-blox…) is redistributive across unrelated industries, which reads as broad monetization rather than targeted privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT

The chain terminates at Lab Technology LLC, an actively litigating NPE. It does not end at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The opposite: Unified Patents is adverse to this chain (ex parte reexam against sibling patent 8,498,388, filed 2024-11-27). This is the strongest possible inverse reading — the defensive community is attacking the portfolio, not absorbing it.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence (2+ strong signals)

Four independent signals are documented above, each tied to a specific reel/frame. (a) Known-asserter chain: reel 043628/0373 moved the patent to Local Intelligence, LLC, an express Dominion Harbor Enterprises affiliate (Mondaq), and reel 067830/0076 moved it to Lab Technology LLC, classified an NPE/PAE by both Stanford's NPE database and Unified Patents. (b) Pre-litigation transfer: the Lab Technology assignment was executed 2024-01-15 — roughly 4.6 months before the 2024-06-03 Amazon complaint — while the assignment itself was not recorded until 2024-06-25, after the suit was on file. (c) Cascading round-trip transfers across 043628/0373 → 051019/0819 & 051033/0529 → 067830/0076, including a double-recorded 2019 back-transfer. (d) Assertion volume: Lab Technology has sued Samsung, Verizon, Amazon, LG, Zoom, Trimble, u-blox, Mitel, 3CX, Sangoma and others, prompting a Unified Patents ex parte reexamination of a sibling patent in November 2024 — all while no product embodying the claims has been identified from either LLC or from TP Lab.

The one signal I could not score is repeat correspondence of record (signal 3), because the correspondent field was not retrievable from the sources available to me. I have left it explicitly unresolved rather than guessed. If you pull that field and the same attorney recurs on 043628/0373 and 067830/0076, the Dominion-Harbor-to-Lab-Technology continuity would be nailed down with a single citation and the confidence assessment would not change — only the mechanism would become provable.

Verify the chain directly: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 9219982; the entries to open are reels 043628/0373, 051019/0819, 051033/0529, and 067830/0076 — and capture the correspondent field on each, which is the open item in this report).

Sourcing note per operating rules: Google Patents legal events were treated as authoritative where they conflicted with web results; I did not auto-correct any patent number, party name, or date. The correspondent-of-record gap is stated as a gap, not filled by inference.

I'll research the specific prior-art references cited on the face of US 9,219,982. Let me run targeted searches to verify each reference's bibliographic data.

Let me verify the two remaining cited references and confirm the patent's own bibliographic record.

1. Patent Identification (verified)

Because the effective filing date (2006-06-22) precedes March 16, 2013, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs, i.e. § 102(b) (publication/patent more than one year before the 2006-06-22 date) and § 102(e) (patents/applications filed before the applicant's invention date).

Methodology / caveats. I pulled the seven references from the "Patent Citations" list on the face of US 9,219,982 and independently verified bibliographic data and subject matter for US 7,386,279 / US 2004/0259598, US 6,377,810, US 6,983,313, US 2002/0194359, and US 7,565,175. My verification search for US 7,500,198 B2 was cut off, so the description of that one reference rests on the patent's own citation listing plus my prior knowledge — treat it as lower-confidence. No search result contradicted my training data, and I did not auto-correct any identifier.

2. Reference-by-Reference § 102 Analysis

Ref 1 — US 6,983,313 B1 (Nokia) — the "location server" reference

• Full citation: US 6,983,313 B1, Korkea-Aho et al., "Collaborative location server/system," International Business Machines… no — assignee Nokia Corporation, filed 1999-06-10, granted 2006-01-03.
• Description: A collaborative location server that stores, retrieves and publishes location information keyed to a plurality of geographical points (e.g., a restaurant with type, access-rights and comment information). It is a server-side location-information repository, not a telephone UI.
• Potential § 102 coverage: Element-level only. It discloses a "location server" storing location data that can be queried, which maps onto the "location server" limitations of claim 1, claim 12 ("obtain a location of the telephone from a location server") and claims 3/15. It contains no telephone display, no datastore of "functions," no "communication service," and no screen refresh, so it cannot anticipate claims 1, 13, 2, 14, or 21; at most it is § 103 fodder for the location-server element.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e) (filed 1999; grant date 2006-01-03 is within one year of the 2006-06-22 priority, so § 102(b) does not apply to the grant itself).
• Source: https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[6983313](/patent/6983313) ; https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_6983313_Collaborative_location_server%2Fsystem-EKYKJ9P

Ref 2 — US 6,377,810 B1 (Motorola) — the "mobile-device location" reference

• Full citation: US 6,377,810 B1, Geiger & Jackson, "Method of operation of mobile wireless communication system with location information," Motorola, Inc., filed 1999-06-11, granted 2002-04-23.
• Description: Generates and manages location information for a mobile device (base-station identity, triangulation, or GPS) and delivers it from a location server to a requesting entity, with signed/attribute-certificate access control (time- and geography-limited permissions).
• Potential § 102 coverage: Element-level only. Directly discloses "a location server" that accumulates device location and supplies it on request — relevant to claims 1, 3, 12, 13, 15. It has no telephone display refresh, no "function"/datastore selection, and no communication-service listing, so it does not anticipate the independent claims; § 103 combination material for the location-acquisition elements.
• Statutory basis: § 102(b) (granted 2002-04-23, >1 year before 2006-06-22).
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6377810B1](/patent/US6377810B1)/en

Ref 3 — US 2002/0194359 A1 (IBM) — the "automatic refresh" reference

• Full citation: US 2002/0194359 A1, Little et al., "System and method for client refresh mode selection," International Business Machines Corporation, filed 2001-06-14 (priority 2001-06-13), published 2002-12-19. Same family granted as US 6,973,623 B2 on 2005-12-06.
• Description: User-selectable screen-refresh modes — manual, manual-override and automatic — with configurable triggers (task completion, time interval, user inactivity, percentage-of-change/severity of change) that cause a client to re-fetch server data and re-render the display.
• Potential § 102 coverage: Weakest of the set for § 102. It discloses the generic concept of automatically refreshing a display from a server, but no telephone, no location, no location server, no "function" datastore and no communication-service presentation. It cannot anticipate claims 1, 13, 2, 14 or 21; relevant only as a § 103 teaching for the "refresh a screen" step.
• Statutory basis: § 102(b) (published 2002-12-19, >1 year before); the grant US 6,973,623 would additionally be § 102(e).
• Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20020194359 ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/[6973623](/patent/6973623)

Ref 4 — US 2004/0259598 A1 (Sun Microsystems) — publication of the "context-based main screen" reference

• Full citation: US 2004/0259598 A1, Wagner et al., "Context based main screen for mobile device," Sun Microsystems, Inc., filed 2003-04-02 (provisional 60/460,052, filed 2003-04-02), published 2004-12-23.
• Description: A context-based mobile-device main screen that predicts a set of services the user is expected to use within a predefined period from user profile / context-aware information, and displays service icons in primary/secondary/tertiary positions. Informational labels and ticker content change with the user's context (e.g., weather in the morning, headlines in the afternoon), and the system learns usage patterns (e.g., a hockey report viewed at 7:30 a.m. three days running).
• Potential § 102 coverage: Closest art on the "function → predicted commonly used services → main screen" concept. It maps well onto the datastore/"function"-associated-services and "refresh the screen to include the service" limitations of claims 1 and 13, and onto the function-selector aspects of claims 11–12. Its disclosure of context-driven timing ("weather in the morning, headlines in the afternoon") is relevant to claims 8, 9, 20, 21. However, the record I retrieved emphasizes user profile / context, and I did not confirm a disclosure of "connect to a location server to obtain a current location of the telephone," so on a strict all-elements § 102 basis it likely does not anticipate independent claims 1/13; it is the lead § 103 reference. (Publication 2004/0259598 and grant 7,386,279 are the same application.)
• Statutory basis: § 102(b) (published 2004-12-23, >1 year before).
• Source: https://uspto.report/patent/app/20040259598 ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7386279.html

Ref 5 — US 7,386,279 B2 (Sun Microsystems) — grant of Ref 4

• Full citation: US 7,386,279 B2, Wagner et al., "Context based main screen for mobile device," Sun Microsystems, Inc., US filing 2004-03-24 (provisional 60/460,052 filed 2003-04-02), granted 2008-06-10.
• Description: Substantively identical disclosure to Ref 4 (claim language of record: primary service icon = service most likely to be utilized within a predefined period based on user profile information; smaller secondary icons for other likely services; tertiary icons for remaining services; informational icon labels and animated state indicators).
• Potential § 102 coverage: Same mapping as Ref 4 — strongest on the predict-services-on-main-screen limitations of claims 1, 11, 12, 13; not a full anticipation of claims 1/13 absent a clear location-server disclosure.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e) (application filed 2004/2003, before the applicant's 2006 invention date). Its 2008 grant date is after the 2006-06-22 priority, so § 102(b) does not apply to the grant itself.
• Source: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/dd/71/45/9bd36cc71d116e/US7386279.pdf ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9304673](/patent/US9304673) (forward-citation listing)

Ref 6 — US 7,500,198 B2 (Motorola) — the "skin/theme screen modification" reference (lower-confidence)

• Full citation: US 7,500,198 B2, "Method and apparatus for modifying skin and theme screens on a communication product," Motorola, Inc., filed 2003-04-25, granted 2009-03-03.
• Description: Modification/substitution of the skin and theme "screens" presented on a communication product's display (screen-level customization of a communication device).
• Potential § 102 coverage: Element-level only, and the least probative. It touches the "display panel / screen" and "refresh a screen" vocabulary of claims 1 and 13, but it is a customization/personalization teaching, not a location-, time-, or user-context-driven selection of communication services. It does not anticipate any independent claim; § 103 background only.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e) (filed 2003-04-25, before the 2006 invention date).
• Caveat: description unverified by retrieval (search cut off); based on the citation listing and general knowledge.
• Source: US 9,219,982 patent-citation listing, https://patents.google.com/patent/US9219982/en

Ref 7 — US 7,565,175 B2 (Microsoft) — the "location change → automatic display refresh" reference (examiner-cited)

• Full citation: US 7,565,175 B2, Pell & Friedman, "Mobile information services," Microsoft Corporation, application 10/xxx US 2005/0227758 filed 2005-09-15; priority provisional 60/477,410 filed 2003-06-09 (and 10/715,944 filed 2003-11-18); granted 2009-07-21.
• Description: Displays contextually relevant information on mobile devices using customizable "lens templates" keyed to a user's presence, status, identity, location and time of day. Claim 1 of record expressly recites "detecting a change in current physical location and, in response, automatically selecting a mobile device template corresponding to the current physical location of the mobile device," obtaining content from remote servers, and displaying it.
• Potential § 102 coverage: This is the most on-point reference for the location-triggered refresh core of the patent. It maps onto claim 1 (mobile device/display; location-responsive selection; refresh of displayed items), claim 2 / claim 14 ("refresh the screen … when there is a change of the current location"), claims 4–7 / 16–19 (device moving between locations, geographies, venues), and claims 20–21 (time/context). Gaps versus claims 1/13: a "datastore comprising at least one function comprising information relating to a current location of the telephone and a user" and "connect to a location server to obtain a current location." So it is a strong § 103 combination reference and a potential § 102 reference for the narrower location-change claims, but likely not a standalone anticipation of claims 1/13.
• Statutory basis: § 102(e) (application filed 2005-09-15 / 2003, before the 2006 invention date; grant 2009-07-21 is after the priority date, so § 102(e), not § 102(b)).
• Note: This is the reference flagged (asterisk) as cited by the examiner in the Google Patents record.
• Source: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/claims?CC=US&NR=[7565175B2](/patent/7565175B2) ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US7565175

3. Summary Mapping Table

4. Conclusion — Most Relevant Prior Art

1. US 7,386,279 B2 / US 2004/0259598 A1 (Sun Microsystems) — most relevant to the inventive core: automatically presenting a predicted set of services on a mobile device's main screen based on user profile/context. This is the closest art to independent claims 1 and 13 and to the function-selector claims 11–12.
2. US 7,565,175 B2 (Microsoft, examiner-cited) — most relevant to the location-change-triggers-display-refresh limitation of claim 2 / claim 14 and the mobility claims 4–7 / 16–19; its claim 1 language about "detecting a change in current physical location and, in response, automatically selecting a mobile device template corresponding to the current physical location" is nearly verbatim on that point.
3. US 6,378,810 B1 (Motorola) and US 6,983,313 B1 (Nokia) — supply the "location server" and mobile-location infrastructure underlying the "obtain a current location of the telephone" limitations of claims 1/3/12 and 13/15.
4. US 2002/0194359 A1 (IBM) and US 7,500,198 B2 (Motorola) — background on automatic screen refresh and on replacing/modifying communication-product screens, respectively; weakest for § 102.

Bottom line on anticipation: On the record available, no single cited reference appears to anticipate independent claims 1 or 13 in their entirety under § 102, because each independent claim requires the combination of (a) a datastore storing a "function" that carries both current-location and user information, (b) connection to a location server to obtain the telephone's current location, and (c) refresh of the screen to present the communication service(s) associated with the selected function. Sun (Refs 4–5) supplies (a)/(c) via service prediction but not (b); Microsoft (Ref 7) supplies the location-driven refresh but recites templates/content rather than a location server and function datastore; Motorola/Nokia (Refs 1–2) supply (b) only. The references are therefore best characterized as § 103 combination art, which is consistent with the patent having issued over them.

Non-patent citations (not prior art): the seven listed items are prosecution papers — Office actions in U.S. Appl. No. 11/472,613 dated Jun. 8, 2010; Nov. 9, 2010; Jun. 28, 2011; Nov. 10, 2011; Aug. 30, 2013; Jan. 9, 2014, and an Office action in U.S. Appl. No. 14/525,638 dated Feb. 18, 2015 — useful for prosecution-history/estoppel analysis but they are not § 102 references.

One contextual note beyond the prior-art question: the Google Patents record lists this family in numerous U.S. district court litigations (e.g., Texas Eastern, Delaware, Illinois Northern and others), which is consistent with the current assignee being a non-practicing entity.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page, then verify their disclosures.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,219,982 B2

Subject: "Apparatus and method for automatically refreshing a display of a telephone"
Assignee of record: Lab Technology LLC (assignment recorded 2024-06-25; effective 2024-01-15) — originally TP Lab Inc.
App. No. 14/730,866 (filed 2015-06-04), continuation of 14/525,638 (now US 9,084,084), continuation of 11/472,613 (now US 8,903,067), all claiming priority to 2006-06-22
Inventor: Shin Cheung Simon Chiu
Analysis date: April 26, 2026

Scope note. Per instruction, this analysis uses only the references appearing in the Prior Art section of the patent page (the "Patent Citations (7)" and "Citations (6)" lists) plus the recorded prosecution documents. I did not commission any new prior-art search. Two of the listed references (US 2002/0194359 A1 and US 7,500,198 B2) could not be full-text verified within my search budget; they are treated below as secondary/corroborating references only, and I flag that limitation explicitly where it matters. All statements about the remaining references are grounded in the sources cited inline.

1. Governing law and the applicable version of § 103

Because every application in the family claims priority to June 22, 2006, the claims are entitled to a pre-AIA effective filing date. Pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) therefore controls, and the critical date for prior art is June 22, 2006 (with pre-AIA § 102(b)'s one-year bar reaching back to June 22, 2005). All seven listed references predate that date as patents or publications:

Note that US 2004/0259598 A1 and US 7,386,279 B2 are the publication and grant of the same Sun disclosure (application 10/808,824, priority 60/460,052, filed 2003-04-02). They must be treated as a single reference for combination purposes, not as two independent teachings. Treating them as two references would improperly inflate the prior-art count — a point worth policing in any written opinion.

The controlling legal standard is KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), applied together with Graham v. John Deere. Under KSR, "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill." The Federal Circuit's post-KSR line (In re ICON Health & Fitness; Intel Corp. v. Qualcomm Inc., 2026) continues to hold that a "motivation to combine" need not be found in a single reference or be the applicant's own reason — any reasonable motivation apparent from the field, from market forces, or from the references themselves suffices.

2. The claimed invention, decomposed

Claim 1 and claim 13 (the only independent claims) reduce to eight elements:

Two observations frame everything that follows:

1. Claim 1 is narrower than it first appears in one respect, and much broader in another. It requires the function to store both location and user information (E2) — that conjunctive requirement is the genuine limiting feature. But it does not require time-based selection (that is claim 8), does not require the refresh to be triggered by a change (claim 2), does not require a "function selector" (claim 11), and does not require the services to be "commonly used" (contrast specification ¶ re services 207 — "commonly used" appears only in the description, not in the claims).
2. The claim covers a single, static selection as well as an automatic refresh. "Refresh a screen … to include the at least one communication service associated with the selected function" is met by redrawing the display with the location-appropriate service. Given that the patent's stated advance is automatic selection without menu navigation (see Description, Background), claim 1's breadth relative to that alleged advance matters for the § 103 analysis.

3. What each prior-art reference actually teaches

3.1 US 7,386,279 B2 / US 2004/0259598 A1 — Sun Microsystems, "Context based main screen for mobile device"

(https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[7386279](/patent/7386279).html; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/dd/71/45/9bd36cc71d116e/US7386279.pdf)

This is the closest art, and it is close.

• Display of predicted services on a mobile device main screen, with the primary service icon in a primary position and "a plurality of secondary service icons representing services likely to be utilized by a user within a predefined period of time … based on user profile information."
• The display is explicitly context dependent: "the information displayed on the context-based display 300 may be dependent on, for example, the time of day, location of the user, usage patterns, and preferences."
• Icon labels are automatically updated as the state of the service changes: "the text comprising each informational icon label 310 can be automatically updated as the state of that particular service changes as it applies to the particular user."
• Selection is driven by a stored, per-user record: "the carrier provider can store profile information regarding individual subscribers" plus "service and application usage patterns … what services the individual uses, when they use each service, and how often."
• The ticker display changes with context: "a particular user may have the day's weather displayed in ticker tape display 402 in the morning, while current headlines may be displayed … in the afternoon."
• The system is implemented on a mobile device in communication with a carrier network, i.e., a communication network (E4), using a context module 618 and ranker filterer 616.

Sun maps to E1, E2(b) (user profile info), E3, E4, E6, E7, E8 (in part, via "location of the user"), and supplies a natural locus for the "function" datastore. What Sun does not plainly disclose is E5 — a location server interrogated ("connects the telephone to") to obtain the device's current location. Sun treats location as one input to a context determination; it does not describe the network-side location-determination machinery.

3.2 US 6,377,810 B1 — Motorola, "Method of operation of mobile wireless communication system with location information"

(https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6377810B1](/patent/US6377810B1)/en)

• Discloses a location server 21 that "maintains location information for each individual mobile user i.e., it maintains a table correlating device or user identification numbers with location information."
• Discloses how the location is obtained — base-station identity, triangulation, or GPS receiver 17 in the mobile device — and that "the controller 20 delivers the location information to a location server 21."
• Critically, it discloses that the requesting entity that queries the location server may be the handset itself: "The requesting entity 25, and location server 21 of FIG. 1 are software components. They may reside in any computer with access to the mobile communications network including, but not limited to, residing within the mobile device 15, the controller 21 or any computer connected via the gateway 22."
• The location server authenticates the requester and returns the location (step 66: "the location server 21 sends the location information to the requesting entity 25").

Motorola maps squarely to E5 — including the "connects the telephone to a location server" permissive form, because the requesting entity may sit inside the mobile device. It also discloses location change triggering (movement between base stations, and the time/geography-limited attribute certificates), relevant to claims 2–3.

3.3 US 6,983,313 B1 — Nokia, "Collaborative location server/system"

(https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[6983313](/patent/6983313))

• "A collaborative location server for storing, retrieving and publishing location information with respect to a geographical point … storage and retrieval apparatus, responsive to a storage and retrieval request including positioning information, for storing and retrieving location information concerning a geographical point corresponding to the positioning information."
• Discloses typed, semantically rich location descriptors (e.g., title = "Chez Marcel," type = "restaurant," access rights, comments) — this matters because it shows that a server-supplied location can be returned in semantic form (restaurant, office, mall), which is exactly the granularity the '982 patent's dependent claims 5–7 recite.

Nokia is a cumulative/alternative reference to Motorola for E5, useful to show that location-server retrieval of semantically meaningful location was a well-known, well-developed field by 1999–2000 — i.e., the "location server" element was not a point of novelty in 2006.

3.4 US 7,565,175 B2 — Microsoft, "Mobile information services"

(https://patents.google.com/patent/US7565175; https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/claims?CC=US&NR=[7565175B2](/patent/7565175B2))

This reference is arguably the single most dangerous piece of art in the list, because its granted claims recite the change-triggered refresh almost verbatim.

Granted claim 1 requires, among other things:

"in the display templates including each of a user location, a user interest, and a user defined category … identifying at least two display templates … detecting a change in current physical location and, in response, automatically selecting a mobile device template corresponding to the current physical location of the mobile device … obtaining, from one or more remote servers, content for each of the content items in the identified mobile device template … and displaying the identified at least two display templates."

And claim 12:

"at the mobile device, determining a current physical location of the mobile device; at the mobile device, determining which of a plurality of alternative, geographically specific mobile device templates corresponds to the current physical location … and selecting the corresponding mobile device template for display … the selected presentation format including a list of different content items … and sending, to one or more remote servers, a request for information, the requested information corresponding to content items of the selected mobile device template."

The specification adds the user-condition and time-condition dimensions: the presented information "is contextually based upon the location of the mobile communications device, the identity of the user, the time of day the information is accessed, suggestions based upon aggregated … usage statistics, personal and other related status and presence information"; presence "can refer to both a physical location as well as a temporal state (e.g., time of use)"; and "the mobile communications service can automatically update lenses based upon contextual status and presence information." Lenses are "specialized for different venues, such as sporting venues, recreational venues, educational venues, work venues, national parks, amusement parks," and "geographic lenses can be based on communities, cities, states, nationalities."

Microsoft maps to E1, E2 (user identity + location), E3, E4, E6, E7, E8, and to claims 2, 3, 8, 9, 10. It is weak only on the literal "location server" of E5 — its claim 12 has the mobile device itself determine its location. That gap is precisely what Motorola '810 fills.

3.5 US 7,500,198 B2 — Motorola, "Method and apparatus for modifying skin and theme screens on a communication product"

(verified only by title/date/assignee from the patent page; full text not retrieved)

Cited as teaching modification of the skin/theme screens of a communication product. Its likely relevance is to E7 ("refresh a screen") — establishing that re-rendering a communication product's screen in response to a changed condition was known. I would not rely on this reference as a primary teaching without full-text verification.

3.6 US 2002/0194359 A1 — IBM, "System and method for client refresh mode selection"

(verified only by title/date/assignee from the patent page; full text not retrieved)

Cited as teaching selection among refresh modes for a client. Likely relevance is to the "refresh" concept and to claim 11's "function selector" as an analogue of a mode-selector. Same caveat: secondary/corroborating only.

4. Grounds of obviousness

Ground 1 — Sun in view of Motorola '810 (and optionally Nokia '313)

Rejection: Claim 1 (and claims 4–7, 11 by extension) are obvious over US 7,386,279 / US 2004/0259598 in view of US 6,377,810.

• Sun supplies every element except the location-server retrieval of E5.
• Motorola supplies E5, and does so in the exact permissive form the claim uses: the requesting entity that queries the location server "may reside … within the mobile device."
• Motivation to combine: (i) Sun expressly names "location of the user" as one of the context inputs that determines what is displayed, creating a direct, express teaching to obtain a location determination for the very system Sun discloses. (ii) Sun's service management system is already distributed between the handset and the carrier network ("carrier service management software 212 located within the carrier network 204"); Motorola's location server 21 is a component of that same carrier network, so combining requires no new architectural class of device — only use of an existing network resource. (iii) KSR: network-based mobile location was a well-known, mature technique (base-station ID from 1999; GPS; triangulation — Motorola), and its predictable use to feed a known context-aware display would have been obvious to a POSITA. (iv) Design/engineering motivation: using the network's location server instead of adding GPS hardware (or relying on it) reduces handset cost, size, power draw, and indoor-GPS coverage gaps — the ordinary cost/benefit calculus KSR treats as sufficient.

Ground 2 — Microsoft '175 in view of Motorola '810 (and optionally Nokia '313)

Rejection: Claim 1, and independently claims 2, 3, 8, 9, 10, 12, are obvious over US 7,565,175 in view of US 6,377,810.

• Microsoft '175 supplies E1–E4, E6–E8, and the automatic change-triggered refresh of claim 2 ("detecting a change in current physical location and, in response, automatically selecting a mobile device template").
• Microsoft discloses that information is presented based on location, user identity, and time of day — meeting the E2 conjunctive "location and user" requirement and claims 8/9/10.
• Motorola supplies E5.
• Motivation to combine: Microsoft expressly contemplates that the device "determines a current physical location" but is silent as to how. Motorola teaches a network-based alternative. A POSITA seeking to locate a handset in a system Microsoft already describes as exchanging content with "one or more remote servers" would naturally query the network's existing location server. Additionally, because Motorola teaches that the location server can return location on demand with per-user authorization constraints, the combination also addresses Microsoft's presence/privacy framework — an added, articulated reason to look to Motorola.

Ground 3 — Three-reference combination (belt-and-braces)

Rejection: Claim 1 (and claims 2–12) are obvious over Sun '279/'598 + Microsoft '175 + Motorola '810.

Where the patentee argues that Sun does not teach automatic refresh upon a change and Microsoft does not teach a location server, the combined teachings close both gaps at once. Two references disclosing the same general approach (context-based service prediction on a mobile device with a location-conditioned display refresh) are strong evidence that the field was crowded and the approach conventional — the classic KSR "predictable variation" rationale: if the technique of automatically refreshing a mobile display based on location was known, applying it to the Sun main screen and sourcing the location from the network's location server is an obvious, predictable improvement.

Ground 4 — Dependent-claim chart (any of the above primary grounds)

The dependent claims offer essentially no independent patentable weight. They recite (a) triggering conditions that Microsoft '175 and Sun '279 already disclose, and (b) an enumerated list of places a phone can be carried that is drawn directly from the '982 specification's own exemplary disclosure — "It will be apparent to the skilled artisan the foregoing are merely exemplary." A claim to carrying a mobile phone to a mall, hospital, office, or conference room, and having the phone display venue-appropriate services, is the paradigm of a predictable variation of a known technique over a known range (KSR; In re ICON Health & Fitness, 496 F.3d 1374 (Fed. Cir. 2007)).

5. Anticipated patentee arguments and rebuttals

The file history is instructive: the parent application 11/472,613 drew six office actions (2010-06-08, 2010-11-09, 2011-06-28, 2011-11-10, 2013-08-30, 2014-01-09) and the first continuation 14/525,638 drew another (2015-02-18) — see the "Non-Patent Citations" section of the patent page. A claim set that survived eight rounds of prosecution almost certainly survived on a narrowing amendment, and the patentee will re-run those arguments. Expect:

(a) "None of the references teaches obtaining location from a location server."
Rebuttal: Motorola '810 does exactly that, and expressly contemplates the requester residing in the mobile device. Nokia '313 further shows location servers were routine. Sun supplies the express motivation (location as a context input). This argument fails on the combined teachings.

(b) "The references are service-prediction systems, not service-display-refresh systems."
Rebuttal: Sun's informational icon labels are "automatically updated … as the state of that particular service changes" — a display refresh. Microsoft's is literally "automatically selecting a mobile device template" and "displaying" it upon detecting a location change. The claim says "refresh a screen … to include the at least one communication service" — the patentee's own specification equates "refreshing" with "displaying a second screen … replacing or refreshing the first screen" (Description, FIG. 3 discussion). Under the broadest reasonable interpretation — the standard the patentee must live with — the references meet it.

(c) "Requiring the function to comprise both location and user information is a specific combination not suggested by the art."
Rebuttal: this is the patentee's best argument, and it should be taken seriously. Counter: (i) Sun's data structures are keyed to individual subscribers and its context inputs include location, so a stored record containing both is disclosed; (ii) Microsoft's templates expressly include "a user location" and "a user interest" themes, and its claim 1 requires identifying and displaying at least two templates simultaneously — i.e., a selection keyed to both location and user; (iii) the purpose of storing user-specific location-conditioned service sets on a handset is self-evident (personalization), and the combination of two known personalization axes (who the user is; where the user is) is a predictable, expected design choice with no new and unexpected result. KSR Foreword rationale applies.

(d) "No motivation to combine."
Rebuttal: motivation is supplied by (i) Sun's own express listing of location as a context input; (ii) the shared field and shared problem (reducing menu navigation on a mobile handset — Sun's stated problem, and the '982 Background's stated problem); (iii) architectural compatibility (both Sun and Motorola work within the carrier network); (iv) the recognized engineering tradeoffs of handset-side vs. network-side location. Note also that a motivation need not be stated in the references at all — Alcon Research v. Apotex; the post-KSR line uniformly rejects the argument that a combination is improper because the references come from different sub-specialties when the field of endeavor is the same.

(e) Presumed secondary considerations.
No nexus evidence appears on the face of the patent. Any commercial-success or licensing argument must be tied to the claimed combination rather than to the general demand for context-aware phones; widespread litigation by a non-practicing assignee (see § 6) is generally not probative of non-obviousness.

6. Procedural considerations relevant to a § 103 challenge

The patent page records active litigation across at least fifteen district-court cases (D. Del., E.D. Tex., W.D. Tex., S.D.N.Y., N.D. Ill., D. Nev., D. Colo., S.D. Fla., N.D. Tex.) and a Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" flag. Practical implications:

• IPR timing. IPR petitions under 35 U.S.C. § 311 are available (the patent issued 2015-12-22), but § 315(b) bars a petition filed more than one year after service of a complaint on the petitioner or real party in interest. With suits dating from 2017–2018 (E.D. Tex. 2:17-cv-00716; D. Del. 1:18-cv-00271) and a fresh 2025–2026 wave, the § 315(b) clock must be checked per petitioner, per case.
• Expiration. The patent page lists an "anticipated expiration" of 2026-06-22, roughly two months from the analysis date. Any IPR or litigation-based invalidity challenge must be weighed against a very short remaining term and the associated damages exposure on pre-lapse sales.
• Claim-set stability. The family members are all "Active," and the maintenance fees (4th yr. 2019, 8th yr. 2022) are paid. No disclaimer or certificate of correction appears in the Legal Events.
• The sibling patents matter. US 8,903,067 and US 9,084,084 share the specification but have different claim sets. A validity position built for '982 should be re-checked against the sibling claims, because a conclusion that '982's claims are obvious does not automatically dispose of the siblings' narrower claims — and an overlapping or inconsistent expert position across the three patents is a common impeachment risk.

7. Conclusion

Confidence: high that claim 1 is invalid under pre-AIA § 103 as obvious over US 7,386,279 B2 (Sun) in view of US 6,377,810 B1 (Motorola), and independently over US 7,565,175 B2 (Microsoft) in view of US 6,377,810. In each case the primary reference supplies a mobile telephone with a display that is automatically populated and re-populated with predicted, context-appropriate communication services based on the user and the current location; Motorola supplies the single missing element (retrieval of the device's current location from a network location server, with the option that the requesting entity reside in the handset); and the motivation is express in Sun's own identification of user location as a display-determining context input, reinforced by ordinary cost/coverage engineering tradeoffs.

Confidence: moderate-to-high that the dependent claims fall with the independent claims, on the strength of Microsoft '175's change-detection and user-identity teachings and Sun's time-of-day teachings. The venue/place enumerations of claims 5–7 are the weakest link in the patent's defense because the specification characterizes them as merely exemplary.

Open items / verification gaps I would not paper over:

1. Full text of US 2002/0194359 A1 (IBM) and US 7,500,198 B2 (Motorola) was not retrieved; both are treated as secondary only. Their actual disclosures may add or alter lines of argument in the "refresh mode" and "screen modification" spaces.
2. The exact claim amendments and examiner reasons for allowance across the seven office actions in 11/472,613 and the office action in 14/525,638 need to be pulled from the file wrapper before filing anything; the examiner's stated basis for allowance is the best predictor of the patentee's strongest non-obviousness narrative.
3. Whether any of the citing references — particularly US 10,341,937 B2 (Juhasz, "Dead zone for wireless communication device") or the location-based-services documents in the "Similar Documents" list — disclose the location-server + automatic-refresh combination more directly than the cited patents is worth a targeted follow-up search; I have not evaluated those documents on the merits.

Sources relied on: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9219982](/patent/US9219982)/en (full text, claims, and prior-art lists); https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7386279.html and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/dd/71/45/9bd36cc71d116e/US7386279.pdf (Sun '279); https://patents.google.com/patent/US6377810B1/en and https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[6377810](/patent/6377810) (Motorola '810); https://uspto.report/patent/grant/6983313 and https://wiki.golden.com/wiki/US_Patent_6983313_Collaborative_location_server%2Fsystem-EKYKJ9P (Nokia '313); https://patents.google.com/patent/US7565175 and https://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/claims?CC=US&NR=7565175B2 (Microsoft '175 claims); https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-20040259598-A1 (Sun publication).