US 9338274

I have gathered the available information from the authoritative patent text you supplied, corroborated by Google Patents, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, and the EPO Global Patent Index. My targeted searches for a CAFC 2026 docket involving patent 9338274 returned no specific results (only generic IP-news listings mentioning Malikie/BlackBerry matters unrelated to this patent number). I note that uncertainty below.

Concise Summary — U.S. Patent No. 9,338,274 B2 (US9338274B2)

Abstract

A method of interacting with electronic devices in a locked state, and a handheld electronic device configured to permit interaction when in a locked state are provided. In accordance with one embodiment, there is provided a handheld electronic device, comprising: a controller; a display screen connected to the controller; an input device connected to the controller; a communication subsystem connected to the controller for communication over a wireless network; a notification element connected to the controller; wherein the controller is configured for: initiating a locked state on the device in response to detection of a trigger condition; monitoring for one or more predetermined inputs via the input device when the device is in the locked state; and generating a notification via the notification element in response to detection of a predetermined input when the device is in the locked state.

What the patent is about (plain language)

A BlackBerry-era handheld-device technique allowing a user to obtain user-initiated notifications (e.g., new e-mail, text messages, or upcoming calendar events, or device state such as battery level) while the phone is locked and/or the display screen is turned off — without unlocking the device or powering on the (power-hungry) display. The user performs a predetermined input (a special key, key combination, touchscreen swipe gesture, or accelerometer-detected motion gesture) and the device responds via a low-power notification element (LEDs, speaker, buzzer/vibrator). Distinct inputs map to distinct event types, and in the issued claims different-colored LEDs are flashed to indicate whether events of a given type have occurred.

Plain-language overview of each independent claim (claims 1, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23)

Claim 1 (apparatus — locked state + deactivated display). A handheld electronic device having a controller, display screen, an input device, a wireless-communication subsystem, and a notification element that is a buzzer, vibrator, light, tone generator, speaker, or any combination. The controller is programmed to: (i) enter a locked state upon a trigger condition; (ii) deactivate the display screen; (iii) while locked, monitor for one or more predetermined inputs; and (iv) with the display off, generate a notification about a new event and/or device state via the notification element when a predetermined input is detected. The notification element specifically includes a first LED of a first color and a second LED of a second color: a first predetermined input causes the first LED to flash in the first color if one or more first-type new events occurred, and a second predetermined input causes the second LED to flash in the second color if one or more second-type new events occurred.

Claim 15 (method — locked state + deactivated display). The corresponding method: initiate a locked state; deactivate the display; monitor for predetermined inputs while locked; and, with the display deactivated, generate a new-event/device-state notification through the notification element upon detection of a predetermined input. Same dual-LED limitation as claim 1 (first input → flash first LED for first-type events; second input → flash second LED for second-type events).

Claim 18 (apparatus — display-deactivated embodiment, not requiring locked state). Same device components and notification-element definition as claim 1, but framed around display power management rather than device locking: deactivate the display screen in response to a trigger condition; monitor for predetermined inputs while the display is deactivated; and, with the display off, generate the new-event/device-state notification in response to a predetermined input. Same dual-LED first-input/second-input flashing limitation.

Claim 19 (computer-readable medium — locked-state method). A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a handheld electronic device to perform the locked-state method of claim 15: initiate locked state, deactivate display, monitor for predetermined inputs while locked, and generate the notification via the notification element with the display deactivated — including the dual-LED flashing behavior for first- and second-type events.

Claim 22 (method — display-deactivated embodiment). The method counterpart to claim 18: deactivate the display in response to a trigger condition; monitor for predetermined inputs while the display is deactivated; with the display deactivated, generate the notification in response to a predetermined input; with the same first-LED/second-LED flashing in response to the first and second predetermined inputs.

Claim 23 (computer-readable medium — display-deactivated method). A non-transitory machine-readable medium storing instructions for performing the claim 22 method (display-deactivation-based notification generation with the same dual-LED flashing limitation).

Dependent-claim highlights (for context)

• Claims 2–4: predetermined inputs may be touchscreen gestures, accelerometer motion-based gestures, or keyboard/keypad keys or key combinations.
• Claim 5: an input other than the predetermined input causes the display to be re-activated and a password-entry unlock prompt to be shown.
• Claims 7–10: notifications concern new events in respect of an application; first-type events = new electronic messages; second-type events = upcoming calendar events within a predetermined time from the second input.
• Claim 11: LED flash count may reflect the number of new events.
• Claims 12–13: first/second inputs may be horizontal vs. vertical swipe gestures, or horizontal vs. vertical tilt/swing motion gestures.
• Claim 14: first LED is red and second LED is green (in one embodiment).

Uncertainties / search notes

• CAFC 2026 docket: I found no evidence of any 2026 Federal Circuit appeal or docket involving patent 9338274. My searches for the patent number in CAFC/docket contexts returned no matching case. If such a proceeding exists, it is not indexed under the patent number in the sources I could reach.
• USPTO database: I could not directly query the USPTO Patent Center/assignment database; assignment and maintenance-status details above are taken from Google Patents' legal-status timeline and Justia, which are secondary aggregations. The Google listing carries the disclaimer that assignee information may be inaccurate.
• Maintenance fee status (paid/lapsed) could not be confirmed from available search results and is not asserted here.
• "Expires 2033-10-26" reflects Google's adjusted expiration estimate (including patent-term adjustment), not a USPTO statutory-expiration computation I verified independently.

I'll search for litigation involving US Patent 9,338,274 across multiple litigation databases and sources.

Both searches returned no results. Let me try different search formulations and specific litigation databases.

The general searches aren't surfacing patent-specific litigation. Let me search targeted litigation databases and Malikie/BlackBerry patent enforcement campaigns.

I have reached the search limit, so I'll compile the answer from the results gathered.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 9,338,274 B2

Bottom line: I found no litigation specifically involving U.S. Patent 9,338,274 B2. None of the searches I ran returned this patent number in any complaint, docket, PTAB proceeding, or Federal Circuit matter.

What I searched

• General web searches combining the exact numbers "9,338,274" and "9338274" with terms like "litigation," "lawsuit," "docket," "defendant," and "infringement" — no results (queries returned empty or only the Google Patents record for the patent itself).
• Searches for Malikie/BlackBerry enforcement campaigns, since the patent's current assignee is Malikie Innovations Limited (successor to BlackBerry's portfolio after the May 2023 sale).
• Searches of litigation-oriented coverage (Unified Patents-referenced news, Finnegan/Lexology SEP roundups, Justia dockets, CourtListener, PatSnap).

Litigation found involving related Malikie/BlackBerry patents — but NOT the '274 patent

The search surfaced several Malikie/BlackBerry cases, none of which list 9,338,274 among the asserted patents:

The news coverage of Malikie's campaign (against Acer, ASUSTek, D-Link, Sophos, Nintendo, etc.) describes WiFi/SEP, charging, display, and parental-control patents — none matching the locked-state/LED-notification subject matter of the '274 patent. BlackBerry's earlier 2018 actions against Facebook et al. (e.g., Facebook, Inc. v. BlackBerry Limited et al., filed Sep. 4, 2018) were also surfaced, but nothing in the results indicates the '274 patent was asserted there.

Honest caveats

• I could not directly query the sites you flagged (Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER, or CAFC docket databases) — those require login or were not accessible through the search interface available to me.
• My searches were limited to what public web search could index. A case asserting the '274 patent could exist in PACER/CAFC without being indexed in the sources I reached, so absence of evidence here is not proof of no litigation.
• The earlier patent-summary work for this file likewise found no evidence of any 2026 Federal Circuit docket involving patent 9,338,274.

Recommendation

To close the gap definitively, a direct query of:

1. PACER (U.S. district court dockets, full-text search for "9338274" and "9,338,274"),
2. Unified Patents portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), and
3. CAFC docket search
   is advisable before relying on a "no litigation" position in any substantive filing.

Based on the canonical PTAB proceedings block supplied in the prompt and my web-search corroboration, I can report the following. (Note: I hit my search-step limit; the searches I completed returned only unrelated Malikie/BlackBerry matters on other patent numbers — e.g., Nintendo IPRs on US 8,610,397 / 7,529,305 / 9,313,065, Unified Patents reexaminations of US 10,779,156 and 10,778,989, and a CBM on a 7,933,827 — a different patent — plus Malikie's non-PTAB district-court/UPC campaigns. Nothing indexed under 9,338,274.)

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 9,338,274 B2: 0 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs, by any petitioner, in any status (none active, none settled, none institution-denied, none with claims invalidated or sustained). The USPTO Open Data Portal ingest shows no AIA trial activity for this patent, and web searches surfaced no PTAB petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal tied to this patent number. The bottom-line defensive posture: this patent is completely PTAB-untested — all 23 claims remain in force, and no estoppel, claim cancellation, or panel reasoning exists to lean on; a validity defense would have to be built from scratch, but equally, no prior petitioner has hardened or narrowed the patent.

Proceeding detail

There are no proceedings to detail. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." My searches (USPTO/PTAB contexts, "IPR + 9338274," "Malikie + 9338274," CourtListener, Unified Patents portal, and IP-law press) corroborated that finding — I found no PTAB proceeding, reexamination, or CAFC appeal referencing US 9,338,274.

Defensive value of the (non-existent) record: Neutral, with a slight warning. There is no canceled claim to weaponize, but there is also no adverse FWD or sustained-claims decision that a patent owner could cite to make an IPR defense look futile. This patent's claims (locked-state/display-off, gesture-triggered, LED-color-coded event notifications) have simply never been stress-tested before the Board.

Strategic summary

Claims CANCELED vs. SUSTAINED vs. UNTESTED. All 23 claims of US 9,338,274 (independent claims 1, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23 and dependents 2–14, 16–17, 20–21) are UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim has been canceled, no claim has been sustained in an IPR/PGR/CBM, and the patent has not been through ex parte reexamination either (at least none surfaced). It remains enforceable as issued, subject only to ordinary § 282 validity challenges in court. Any defendant must also remember the patent is the parent of two live continuations — US 10,169,620 B2 and US 11,113,426 B2 (both "Method of interacting with an electronic device while the display screen is deactivated") — so an assertion campaign may cite the family, not just this grant.

Estoppel landscape (§ 315(e)(2)). Because no IPR/PGR/CBM has ever been instituted on this patent, there are no petitioners and no privies bound by estoppel. For a defendant currently being asserted against, every prior-art ground — § 102 anticipation and § 103 obviousness combinations using any qualifying prior patent or printed publication predating the 2009-10-02 priority date — remains fully available, whether raised in district court or in a new petition. The only practical constraint is procedural: under § 315(b), an IPR petition must be filed within one year of service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent, so the clock starts running on day one of any litigation.

Pattern signals. There is no repeat-petitioner pattern on this patent because there are no petitioners at all. The broader context, however, is informative: the current owner, Malikie Innovations Ltd. (the Key Patent Innovations entity that acquired ~32,000+ BlackBerry patents in 2023), is an aggressive NPE litigant (district-court campaigns against D-Link, Nintendo, Core Scientific, MARA, Hisense/TCL, Abbott, etc., plus UPC actions against Xiaomi/OPPO). Malikie's other ex-BlackBerry patents have attracted PTAB/reexam challenges — e.g., Nintendo IPRs, Unified Patents ex parte reexaminations of US 10,779,156 (instituted 2025-11-10) and US 10,778,989 (denied 2026, citing Malikie's pre-order paper) — which signals that Malikie's portfolio is being systematically attacked, and that this particular patent may simply not yet have been reached or been cited in a suit that triggered a challenge. The absence of IPR activity on 9,338,274 likely reflects that it has not been the load-bearing claim in Malikie's visible litigation, not that it is strong.

Recommended next steps

• Confirm the absence before relying on it. Run the patent number through the USPTO PTAB End-to-End (E2E) search and the Patent Center file wrapper for US 12/572,632 to confirm no pending or terminated AIA proceeding and to check for any ex parte reexamination (control numbers are separate from IPR numbers and would not appear in the ODP AIA feed). If you are facing a demand letter citing this patent, also check the continuations (US 10,169,620 / US 11,113,426) for PTAB activity — a petition against a family member does not automatically cover the parent's claims.
• If you are the defendant and the patent has been asserted against you: there is no FWD to quote — the opportunity is wide open. Commission a prior-art search targeted at the claim limitations that will actually matter: (i) locked state / deactivated display; (ii) monitoring for predetermined inputs (special key, key combo, touchscreen swipe, accelerometer gesture); (iii) notification via a non-display element (LED/speaker/buzzer) while the display stays off; and (iv) the dual-LED color-flash mapping (first input → first-color LED for first-type events; second input → second-color LED for second-type events). Pre-2009-10-02 mobile-device UI and notification literature (BlackBerry, Symbian, Palm, Windows Mobile prior art) is the likely hunting ground. Any petition must be filed within one year of service (§ 315(b)).
• No active PTAB proceeding means no PTAB deadlines to track. If a petition is later filed, the statutory milestones would be: institution decision due within ~3 months of the patent owner's preliminary response (or due date), then a Final Written Decision due within 12 months of institution (extendable up to 6 months for good cause). None of that is running today.
• Treat the "no PTAB activity" finding as a signal, not a conclusion. Well-asserted patents in Malikie's portfolio have attracted IPRs and reexaminations within months of assertion. If this patent is the one cited against you, expect that the absence of prior challenges means your invalidity case will be the first — higher effort, but also no adverse Board precedent to overcome. Conversely, if Malikie's demand cites only the continuations, verify the exact patent number in the demand before spending on a 9,338,274-specific petition.

Confidence caveat: I have high confidence that the ODP AIA feed contains no trial for this patent and that web-indexed sources surface none. I could not query the USPTO E2E/Patent Center databases directly or exhaustively review every docketing service, so a very recent filing (within the last several weeks) or a proceeding indexed only under a child application number could conceivably exist without appearing in my searches. Verify against PTAB E2E before making any filing decision.

Inventors

Unusual patterns: None determinable from available sources. Both inventors assigned their rights to Research In Motion Limited (recorded 2010-03-26 per the USPTO/Google Patents legal-event timeline), which is the normal employer-assignment pattern for RIM employees. I have no evidence either inventor departed RIM/BlackBerry within 12 months of the 2009 filing, and I will not speculate.

Original assignee

Research In Motion Limited (Waterloo, Ontario) — this is the entity to which the inventors' interest was recorded on 2010-03-26, before the application published (US 2011/0081889 A1, 2011-04-07) and before issuance. Google Patents' "Original Assignee: BlackBerry Ltd" is a normalized display name; the entity of record in 2009–2010 was RIM. RIM formally changed its name to BlackBerry Limited (recorded 2016-02-05).

• Product embodying the claims: Yes. RIM/BlackBerry shipped BlackBerry smartphones throughout the relevant period; the claimed locked-state/display-off, user-initiated LED notification behavior with distinct inputs maps to shipping BlackBerry device functionality (convenience/space keys, trackpad/navigation input, multi-color LED notification).
• Primary line of business: Enterprise handheld communications devices and services (original); today, cybersecurity and IoT software.
• Current status: Operating — BlackBerry Limited (NYSE: BB) still trades, but exited the handset hardware business years ago and in 2023 sold "substantially all" of its non-core, non-standard-essential patents (≈32,000 assets; ~9,700 US assets per IAM Q2-2023 transaction data) to the Key Patent Innovations / Malikie group. The assignee-of-record chain now terminates at Malikie Innovations Limited, an Irish monetization vehicle.

Assignment timeline

Important caveat: I could not directly query the USPTO Assignment Center (assignment.uspto.gov / assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) in this session, and the secondary indexes I reached did not expose reel/frame numbers or correspondents of record for this patent. The entries below are the recorded conveyances shown in the USPTO-derived legal-event timeline (as mirrored by Google Patents) for US 9,338,274 / application 12/572,632. Reel/frame numbers and correspondent names are NOT available from the sources reached and are not fabricated here. Verify reel/frame and correspondent at the USPTO Assignment Center by patent number before relying on this chain for litigation standing.

• Executed ~2009 (date not retrievable) / recorded 2010-03-26 — Reel/frame: not retrievable

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest (employee assignment)
  • Assignor: Dapeng Gao; Brian Alexander Oliver
  • Assignee: Research In Motion Limited
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Standard employee-inventor assignment to the corporate applicant — the original acquisition of rights, not a monetization event.

• Executed (change of name) / recorded 2016-02-05 — Reel/frame: not retrievable

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Research In Motion Limited
  • Assignee: BlackBerry Limited
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Pure corporate rename (RIM → BlackBerry Limited), effective years before; internal/administrative only.

• Executed 2023-05-11 (deal closing per IAM / KPI reporting) / recorded 2023-06-16 — Reel/frame: not retrievable

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: BlackBerry Limited
  • Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: The BlackBerry → KPI/Malikie portfolio sale closing (≈32,000 patents/applications; US$170M upfront + US$30M over 3 years + tiered royalty to BlackBerry up to US$700M). This is the transfer-to-asserter event.

• Executed (nunc pro tunc) / recorded 2023-06-19 — Reel/frame: not retrievable

  • Conveyance: Nunc Pro Tunc Assignment
  • Assignor: BlackBerry Limited
  • Assignee: Malikie Innovations Limited
  • Correspondent: not retrievable
  • Context: Corrective/backdated cleanup record filed three days after the primary assignment — consistent with a large-portfolio closing where a supplemental or corrective conveyance is recorded to perfect the chain.

One secondary index (a Korean patent-transaction aggregator) shows assignment ID 23585711 — assignee Malikie Innovations, executed 2023-05-11, recorded 2023-06-16, covering 1,998 US assets, and a second, larger ID 23569586 (7,669 assets, executed 2021-11-03, recorded 2022-03-01, assignee shown as Malikie Innovations). Those rows are garbled and internally inconsistent (Malikie did not exist in Nov 2021), so I treat them as unreliable and do not rely on them beyond corroborating that the June-2023 Malikie record exists at scale. The 2021-11-03/2022-03-01 dated entry likely reflects the earlier, abandoned BlackBerry → Catapult IP Innovations sale (announced Jan 2022, terminated Mar 2023 for lack of financing), which never closed for this patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 9338274
    2009 : Filed by Research In Motion
    2010 : Inventors assign to RIM
    2011 : Application published
    2016 : RIM renamed BlackBerry Limited
         : Patent issued May 10
    2023 : Sale to Malikie Innovations
         : Nunc pro tunc assignment
    2024 : Malikie assertion campaign starts

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Present. The patent moved (2023-06-16/19 records) from operating company BlackBerry Limited to Malikie Innovations Limited, a newly formed (2023) subsidiary of Irish monetization firm Key Patent Innovations Limited. Malikie ships no products; it is publicly described by Unified Patents as "an NPE and entity of Key Patent Innovations Limited," and by KPI's own materials as a patent-investment/assertion vehicle. The name alone is not the finding — the absence of products plus the KPI structuring and the ensuing litigation campaign are.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Present. Malikie Innovations Limited is a high-frequency plaintiff. It filed Eastern District of Texas suits against Acer (2:24-cv-00179) and ASUSTek (2:24-cv-00178) in early 2024, sued Nintendo in W.D. Wash. (2:24-cv-01490) with Key Patent Innovations in Oct 2024, and has pursued Vantiva, D-Link, Sophos, and others. Unified Patents has filed multiple reexaminations against Malikie patents and maintains a "district court litigations by Malikie" tracker. Note: I found no specific evidence that US 9,338,274 itself is asserted in any of those cases — the NPE signal is about the chain's terminus, not this patent's litigation docket.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not retrievable. I could not obtain correspondent-of-record names or firms for any entry from the sources available in this session. No finding is made. (The task's premise — that the correspondent is the best shell-LLC tell — is sound, but the underlying data was not reachable here.)

4. Cascading transfers — Partially present (weak). The chain itself is short (inventors → RIM 2010; RIM → BlackBerry 2016 name change; BlackBerry → Malikie 2023) — not the classic multi-LLC cascade in <24 months. However, the two BlackBerry → Malikie records three days apart (2023-06-16 assignment; 2023-06-19 nunc pro tunc) plus the earlier failed Catapult escrow arrangement indicate a large, professionally structured portfolio transfer with corrective filings — the mechanics typical of a monetization sale, not an organic corporate event.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Present (with a timing caveat). The transfer to Malikie was recorded 2023-06-16, and Malikie's first infringement complaints followed in early 2024 (Acer/ASUS, EDTX, ≈7–8 months later). That is just outside a strict 6-month window, and this specific patent (9,338,274) has not been shown to be among the asserted assets, so the "arranged to enable this suit" inference is weaker for this patent than for the portfolio generally. The acquisition-to-assertion sequence is nonetheless clearly established.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. BlackBerry is not and was not in bankruptcy; the 2023 transfer was a strategic divestiture of non-core assets with a royalty clawback, not a Chapter 7/11 liquidation (contrast Kodak, Nortel, etc.).

7. Privateering — Present in the monetization sense, with a caveat. BlackBerry transferred substantially all non-core patents to KPI/Malikie while retaining a tiered royalty (8% of the first US$500M of Malikie patent profits, escalating to 50%) and keeping ~2,000 standard-essential patents. That is out-sourced, arms-length monetization of an operating company's patents rather than classic privateering against direct competitors (BlackBerry no longer sells phones, so there are no handset competitors for Malikie to attack on BlackBerry's behalf). Prior former-BlackBerry patents were also litigated by Fundamental Innovation Systems International (FISI), a related pattern.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN; it terminates at an assertive monetization entity.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The chain terminates at Malikie Innovations Limited, a product-less, newly formed subsidiary of Irish monetization firm Key Patent Innovations Limited (recorded 2023-06-16 and 2023-06-19), which Unified Patents and the trade press document as an NPE running a multi-defendant assertion campaign (Acer, ASUSTek, Nintendo, Vantiva, D-Link) — two strong, independent signals (known asserter in the chain; shell/licensing-entity transfer) plus a transfer-to-assertion sequence. The one material gap is that reel/frame numbers and correspondents of record could not be retrieved in this session, so the "repeat correspondent" signal is unconfirmed rather than negative; verify the exact records at the USPTO Assignment Center before relying on this chain.

Verification link: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 9338274, or application 12/572,632)

I'll research the prior art citations for US Patent 9,338,274. The authoritative patent text you supplied does not include the "References Cited" section (the fetched text truncates before the patent-citations listing), so I need to retrieve that from external patent databases. Let me search.

The initial searches returned only the patent text itself, not the examiner-cited references. Let me try targeted sources that list "Patent Citations" for this patent.

The Google Patents page structure places "References Cited" (the examiner citations) near the end, which was truncated in the fetched text. Let me try aggregator sites that present the citation list separately.

I have to stop searching at this point, so I'll give you a complete, transparent answer based on what is — and is not — verifiable from the sources I could reach.

1. USPTO database search — result and limitation

I attempted to retrieve the examiner-cited prior art ("References Cited") for US 9,338,274 B2 through Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, and related aggregations. I could not retrieve the official "References Cited" list for this patent from any source I reached.

Two specific reasons:

• The authoritative Google Patents snapshot you supplied (fetched 2026-09-03) truncates before the "References Cited" / "Patent Citations" section — it breaks off mid-way through the forward-citation list ("Families Citing this family (225)").
• My targeted web searches for the backward-citation list returned only the patent's own full text and other patents that cite 9,338,274 — not the references cited by it. I could not directly query the USPTO Patent Center/PatFT database.

I will not fabricate an examiner citation list. Any list of "references cited" below that I could not verify would be invented, which would be worse than useless for a § 102 analysis. If you need the ground-truth list, it must come from one of: (a) the USPTO Patent Center file wrapper for Application 12/572,632 (the "References Cited" and PTO-892 forms), (b) the full Google Patents page rendered in a browser (the section that was truncated in the text fetch), or (c) the printed patent PDF page 1 / "References Cited" page from the USPTO.

2. What IS verifiable from the face of the patent (forward citations — NOT § 102 prior art)

The patent text you supplied lists three references under "Cited By (3)" (all marked "* Cited by examiner," i.e., cited by examiners in later cases). These are forward citations — they post-date 9,338,274's Oct. 2, 2009 filing date and May 10, 2016 issue date — so none of them can anticipate any claim under 35 U.S.C. § 102, because § 102 requires the reference to have been publicly available before the invention's critical date:

Also verifiable: the full text you supplied lists a partial run of the 225-member family forward-citation table (e.g., Apple's US 8,677,377; US 8,973,725; US 9,310,810; US 10,201,789; Z124's US 9,146,585; Varia Holdings' US 8,843,222). Those, too, are all forward citations and cannot be § 102 prior art against 9,338,274.

3. What the likely § 102 prior-art universe would be (analytical, NOT verified as cited-on-face)

If you need a working hypothesis for the most relevant anticipatory art while you obtain the true PTO-892, the prosecution window (filed Oct. 2, 2009; issued May 10, 2016 — a ~6.5-year prosecution with multiple restriction/continuation events) suggests the examiner would have looked at mobile-device lock-screen and notification art available before Oct. 2, 2009. The claims' key limitation — user-initiated, display-off notification via a low-power indicator (LED), with distinct inputs mapped to distinct event types and colored-LED flash responses — points to these art clusters (again, candidates only, none confirmed as actually cited):

1. Lock-screen "at-a-glance" indicators on feature phones / PDAs (LED notification for missed calls/messages while keypad-locked) — pre-2009 Nokia, Motorola, and RIM/BlackBerry patents.
2. Touchscreen swipe-to-unlock / locked-state gesture art (e.g., the 2005–2007 Neonode/Apple slide-to-unlock lineage).
3. Motion/accelerometer gesture control (2005–2008 accelerometer-gesture patents by Apple, Sony Ericsson, and others).
4. Power-saving display-off "always-on" notification art (2005–2009).
5. Emergency/limited-function access while locked (e.g., US 8,244,231, cited by third-party documents in association with this family's subject matter — a Sept. 30, 2009-filed RIM application for disambiguating an emergency call during password entry, which is pre-critical-date but has an overlapping assignee).

I am explicitly not representing any of the above as the patent's actual cited references — I could not verify them against the USPTO record.

4. Bottom line

• Verified as on the face of 9,338,274: only forward citations (Section 2 above), which cannot be § 102 prior art.
• Not retrievable in this session: the official backward "References Cited" list (PTO-892) — due to (a) truncation of the authoritative text and (b) search-tool limitations on the USPTO database.
• Recommended next step: pull the PTO-892 / "References Cited" page for Application 12/572,632 from USPTO Patent Center, or render the complete Google Patents page for US9338274B2 in a browser and read the "Patent Citations" section that follows the "Families Citing this family" table. I can then perform the claim-by-claim § 102 anticipation analysis you requested against the true list.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 9,338,274 B2 (US9338274)

Preliminary note on sources (read first)

Your instruction was to use the results from the "Prior Art section of this page," but no Prior Art section was actually included in the material you supplied. The supplied material consists of (i) the full patent text of US9338274, (ii) the previously generated patent summary, and (iii) the litigation summary. I therefore supplemented with live web searches for prior art. Because I could not retrieve the actual USPTO "References Cited" list or the prosecution history for US9338274, the analysis below is my independently constructed § 103 framework based on the closest art I could identify in public search results — not a reconstruction of the rejection(s) actually made during prosecution.

Identifier caveat (per your strict rule): I have not auto-corrected numbers. Where search results conflicted, I flag it. In particular, the Hon Hai reference appears in search results as both "US2009289916 (A1)" (Espacenet) and "US20090289916A1" (Google Patents). Both renderings likely denote the same document (published 2009-11-26, priority 2008-05-23), but I cannot confirm the exact publication number from the snippets available; treat it with caution before citation in a filing.

Applicable law: The application was filed October 2, 2009, i.e., pre-AIA. Obviousness is governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103 and the Graham factors, as elaborated by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). A reference is available as prior art if it qualifies under pre-AIA § 102(a) (published before Oct. 2, 2009) or § 102(e) (U.S. application with effective filing date before Oct. 2, 2009, regardless of publication date). Several of the references below were filed in 2007–2008 and published in 2009–2010, so they qualify under § 102(e).

1. Person of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A PHOSITA at the priority date would be a designer/engineer (B.S. or equivalent in electrical engineering, computer engineering, or computer science, plus roughly 2–3 years of practical experience) working on handheld/mobile device software and hardware — familiar with device lock/unlock state machines, touchscreen gesture recognition, accelerometer input, event/message notification frameworks, LED indicator design, and display power management. The person would be comfortable combining application-layer UI logic with low-power peripheral control on a phone-class embedded platform (the sort of device depicted in FIGS. 1–2 of the patent).

2. The relevant claim scope (what must be proved obvious)

Independent claims 1 (apparatus/locked state), 15 (method/locked state), 18 (apparatus/display-deactivated), 19 (medium/locked state), 22 (method/display-deactivated), and 23 (medium/display-deactivated) share a common core, best exemplified by claim 1:

Claims 18/22/23 omit the locked state (limitation B) and frame the same scheme around display deactivation alone. Claims 15/19 are the method/medium counterparts of claim 1. The dispositive features for obviousness are therefore: (i) locked/display-off monitoring of "predetermined inputs," (ii) user-initiated notification without display activation, and (iii) the two-LED/two-input/two-event-type flashing scheme.

3. Closest prior art identified (all pre-dating the Oct. 2, 2009 priority date by filing)

From the live search results (principally the Espacenet "cited documents" list for GB2497231B and citation lists surrounding related lock-screen patents), the following are the most pertinent:

Two additional well-known facts the PHOSITA would carry into the analysis: (1) multi-color LED event indicators (e.g., red/green/blue LEDs flashed in patterns to signal e-mail, SMS, or calendar events) were ubiquitous on handheld messaging devices (BlackBerry, Nokia, Motorola) years before 2009, and the '274 patent's own background admits that locked handhelds conventionally "turn off" the display; and (2) gesture-to-function mapping on lock screens was the subject of a dense field of 2007–2009 art (Apple's locked-mode gesture work, Hon Hai's lock/unlock gestures, Microsoft's locked-device gesture handling, LG's unlocking references seen in the Unified Patents listing).

4. Primary combination: Verizon '995 + colored-LED notification art (+ gesture/key art for the two-input mapping)

4.1 Why Verizon '995 is the natural primary reference

The '274 patent's Background section states the problem it sets out to solve: within the locked state, "little if any interaction with the handheld electronic device is permitted apart from prompting and detecting performance of the predetermined action [password entry]." Verizon's "Interactive locked state mobile communication device" (filed Dec. 2008, nine months before the '274 priority date) addresses that identical problem — a locked device that nevertheless supports defined interactions. A PHOSITA reading Verizon '995 would already have:

• a handheld device with controller, display, input device(s), and wireless communication subsystem (limitations A);
• a locked state entered on a trigger condition (B);
• monitoring for user inputs while locked and executing permitted functions without full unlock (D);
• generation of a user-visible result of the permitted function in response to those inputs.

4.2 What the combination must add to reach the claim

Verizon '995 alone does not necessarily teach (i) keeping the display off during the notification, and (ii) the specific two-colored-LED, two-input, two-event-type flashing scheme (E–H). Each of those gaps is filled by conventional, well-documented art:

• Display-off while locked (C, and "with the display deactivated" in E): The '274 patent itself concedes this was old — conventional password locking "turned off" the display, and display deactivation for power saving is admitted prior behavior (Background; FIG. 4 process 300). Nokia '9380 and generic power-management practice taught that input monitoring could continue while the display was off. This element adds no inventive weight.
• Multi-color LED event notification: Colored/flashing LEDs indicating new messages, with flash count/pattern encoding event information, were standard on the very class of devices at issue (and the '274 specification describes a tricolour red/green/blue LED whose red = "new events exist," green = "none exist," and whose flash count encodes the number — an implementation of the pre-existing BlackBerry/Nokia LED idiom). The PHOSITA would supply LEDs as the "light" notification element as a matter of routine design choice to save battery, since the specification itself motivates LED/speaker notification precisely because "a significant amount of battery power is required to activate and sustain the display screen."
• Distinct predetermined inputs mapped to distinct functions (G, H): The notion that different gestures/keys trigger different device functions — including from a lock screen — is pervasive in the 2007–2009 art (e.g., Hon Hai's locked/unlocked gesture switching, Microsoft's locked-device messaging and glanceable-notification work, Apple's locked-mode gesture disclosures). Assigning a first gesture to "check e-mail" (first LED/first color) and a second gesture to "check calendar" (second LED/second color) is an unremarkable application of known input-mapping techniques to known event types. Claim 12 itself confirms the only claimed inputs are horizontal vs. vertical swipes, and claim 13 confirms horizontal vs. vertical tilt/swing — i.e., the claim adds no new input technology.

4.3 Element-by-element map (claim 1)

Claims 15, 19 (method/medium of the locked-state scheme) track claim 1 element-for-element and fall with it. Claims 18, 22, 23 drop the locked-state limitation entirely, making them easier to reach: they require only display deactivation (admitted conventional), continued input monitoring, and LED notification — all supplied by the same combination.

4.4 Motivation to combine and reasonable expectation of success

• Same problem, same field: Every primary reference operates on handheld locked devices and addresses user access to information without a full unlock — precisely the problem identified in the '274 Background. The combination is of known elements in a predictable way (KSR).
• Design need / market pressure: Battery life on handhelds made display-off operation desirable; LED indicators already existed to convey message state. A PHOSITA seeking to let a user "peek" at message/calendar state without the power cost of display activation would naturally route the output through the existing LED indicator rather than the display. This is the very rationale the specification advances (col. 3–4), and it is a motivation a PHOSITA would independently possess.
• No technical hurdles: The two-LED/two-color conditional flashing ("flash red if new e-mail, green if none") is simple state logic over data the device already tracks. Flash-count encoding of event counts is expressly pre-existing in LED-notification practice. Gesture-to-command mapping on lock screens was mature by 2008–2009.
• Predictable result: Combining an interactive locked-state engine (Verizon/Microsoft) with an LED event indicator produces exactly the claimed behavior; there is no surprising interaction or new capability beyond the sum of the parts.

5. Alternative combinations

Combination 2 — Microsoft-centric: Microsoft '10602 ("Messaging with a locked communication device," 2007) or Microsoft '46437 ("Glanceable animated notifications on a locked device," 2008) as primary, combined with the same LED-notification and gesture-mapping art. These references show that a single assignee was already pursuing both locked-device messaging and locked-device notifications before the '274 priority date, which reinforces that the claimed subject matter lay in a crowded, obvious design space.

Combination 3 — Hon Hai/Nokia lock-state art + LED idiom: Hon Hai '89916 (gesture-based locked/unlocked state switching) or Nokia '9380 (selective/input-aware locking) combined with multi-color LED event indicators yields the display-deactivated claims (18/22/23) with little more than routine implementation.

Combination 4 — single-reference near-miss: If Verizon '995 in fact discloses user-selected functions executed in the locked state with results conveyed by the device's existing indicator (as its title and abstract suggest), then only the two distinct LEDs paired to two distinct predetermined inputs (G–H) would need supplementation — a trivial design choice given the pre-existing idiom of color-coded LEDs per application (which the '274 specification itself describes as conventional in its temporal-color-pattern discussion).

6. Dependent claims

• Claims 2–4 (touchscreen gestures / accelerometer gestures / keyboard keys as the predetermined inputs): Each input modality is disclosed in the primary art or in contemporaneous lock-screen gesture art (Hon Hai '89916; Microsoft '10602; Apple/emoji locked-mode '785). No inventive depth.
• Claim 5 (re-activate display + password prompt on non-predetermined input): This is the conventional unlock path the '274 Background admits was the only prior-art behavior. Supplying it as a fallback for "other" inputs is the default design, not an invention.
• Claims 7–10 (notification re new events of an application; e-mail vs. calendar as first/second types): Event-type notification (new e-mail; upcoming calendar reminder) was standard PIM functionality, and the association of particular events with particular LED colors/patterns was pre-existing. "Upcoming calendar event within a predetermined duration" is a routine query over calendar data.
• Claim 11 (flash count encodes number of events): Expressly pre-existing in LED-notification practice (LEDs flashed N times to signal N messages), as the specification's own description implies.
• Claims 12–13 (horizontal vs. vertical swipe; horizontal vs. vertical tilt/swing): Mere selection from the known gesture vocabulary.
• Claim 14 (red first LED, green second LED): A trivially conventional color choice (red = problem/new item, green = none), expressly tied to the standard tricolour LED module described in the specification.
• Claims 16, 17, 20, 21 (display reactivation, password prompt, unlock): Conventional lock/unlock process, admitted prior art.

7. Counter-arguments and weaknesses in the obviousness case (balanced view)

• Claim construction risk on "when . . . have occurred": The "flashing the first LED . . . when one or more new events of a first type have occurred" language could be argued to require the LED not to flash when no such event exists (i.e., a conditional check rather than an unconditional status flash). If so, the combination must be shown to teach checking event state before flashing — but the LED "flash N times if N messages" idiom inherently conditions flashing on event existence, so this is unlikely to rescue the claims.
• "User-initiated" vs. "automatic" notification: If Verizon '995 / Microsoft '46437 are construed as automatic (device-initiated) notifications, the PHOSITA still would have had a clear motivation to make notification user-triggered: user-triggering avoids alert fatigue and gives the user control, and the '274 disclosure itself frames the predetermined-input trigger as a convenience. This is an obvious modification of the automatic schemes.
• Secondary considerations: I located no evidence of long-felt need, industry skepticism, unexpected results, or commercial success tied to the claimed LED scheme (the litigation search likewise surfaced no enforcement of this patent). If the patent owner produces such evidence, it would need to be weighed; based on the record assembled here, it appears weak.
• Prosecution history unknown: I could not retrieve the examiner's actual references or any arguments of record. If the claims were allowed over close art such as Verizon '995 or Microsoft '46437, the applicant's remarks (e.g., a demonstrated distinction on "display remains off" or on the two-LED conditional flashing) would inform — and could undermine — the combination analysis above. Before relying on this analysis in any filing, retrieve the file wrapper (USPTO Patent Center, application 12/572,632) and the patent's "References Cited" page.

8. Conclusion

On the record available, the independent claims of US9338274 (claims 1, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23) present a strong § 103 case. The claimed combination — a locked/display-off handheld that recognizes predetermined inputs and answers with color-coded LED flashes indicating whether particular new-event types exist — is assembled from (a) interactive locked-state devices that were the subject of multiple 2007–2008 filings (Verizon '995, Microsoft '10602/'46437), (b) the long-standing multi-color LED event-indicator idiom on the same class of devices, (c) display-off power management that the specification concedes was conventional, and (d) mature lock-screen gesture-to-command mapping. Each element performs its known function, the references lie in the same field and address the same problem the patent identifies, and the motivation (battery-conscious, glanceable, user-controlled access to event state without unlocking) is one a PHOSITA would naturally have had. The most likely surviving battlegrounds are the conditional "when . . . have occurred" flash logic and any prosecution-history disclaimer narrowing "predetermined inputs" or the display-off requirement — neither of which, on the present record, appears to add patentable weight sufficient to overcome the combination.

Key caveats repeated: (1) no Prior Art section was supplied with the task, so the analysis rests on publicly searchable art rather than the actual record; (2) verify the Hon Hai publication number and the Verizon '995 / Microsoft '46437 / Nokia '9380 disclosures against primary sources before citing; and (3) obtain the file wrapper to test the combination against the claims as actually argued and allowed.