Prior art

The USPTO defines "prior art" as any evidence that an invention was already known before the effective filing date of a patent application. This includes patents, printed publications, public use or sale, and other public disclosures that were publicly accessible before the filing date. US patent application publications are also considered prior art from their publication date or, in some cases, from their earliest effective U.S. filing date.

To identify the most relevant prior art for US Patent 10237067, I will examine the "Cited By" and "Families Citing this family" sections provided in the patent text, as these represent the references considered by examiners or those that cite the patent.

Based on the provided patent text, the following prior art documents are identified as being cited in relation to US10237067. Please note that the "Prior art date" for US10237067 is listed as September 30, 2002 [cite: Patent text]. Therefore, any references with a publication or filing date on or before this date are particularly relevant for a 35 U.S.C. § 102 anticipation analysis.

Prior Art References Cited by US10237067 (from the "Definitions" section which details the priority chain)

It's important to clarify that the "Definitions" section outlines the patent's own priority chain rather than external prior art. These are the ancestors of the current patent. While they may define what is already disclosed by the inventor, they typically are not used to anticipate claims of the current patent under 35 U.S.C. § 102 unless new subject matter is introduced that isn't supported by the earlier filings. However, for a complete picture of the family's development and what was known at various priority dates, they are listed here.

• US Provisional Application No. 60/414,449

  • Full Citation: U.S. Provisional Application No. 60/414,449, filed Sep. 30, 2002, and entitled FORENSIC COMMUNICATION APPARATUS AND METHOD. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: September 30, 2002 [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This provisional application is the earliest priority document for the patent family, titled "Forensic Communication Apparatus and Method". It broadly relates to capturing, storing, indexing, and retrieving data objects, with an emphasis on authenticity and security [cite: Patent text]. Given its early priority date, its content is foundational to the subsequent patents in the family.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): As the priority document, this application defines the earliest possible prior art date for the claims of US10237067. Any aspects of Claims 1, 6, or 13 that are directly and explicitly disclosed in this provisional application would be considered anticipated by it, as it is the original disclosure.

• US Pat. No. 6,996,251

  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,996,251, issued on Feb. 7, 2006, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/674,910, filed Sep. 29, 2003, and entitled FORENSIC COMMUNICATION APPARATUS AND METHOD. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: Filed September 29, 2003; Issued February 7, 2006. [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This patent, titled "Forensic communication apparatus and method," describes a system for capturing information, enhancing it with embedded data (metadata), and storing it in a file. It emphasizes the secure and verifiable nature of the captured information. [cite: Patent text]
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): The content of US6996251, particularly if it explicitly discloses all elements of any specific claim (1, 6, or 13) of US10237067, would anticipate those claims. Since it's an earlier patent in the same family, direct anticipation would imply a lack of novelty for those claims over the family's earlier disclosures.

• US Pat. No. 7,184,573

  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 7,184,573, issued on Feb. 27, 2007, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/325,373, filed Jan. 4, 2006, and entitled APPARATUS FOR CAPTURING INFORMATION AS A FILE AND ENHANCING THE FILE WITH EMBEDDED INFORMATION. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: Filed January 4, 2006; Issued February 27, 2007. [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This patent describes an apparatus for capturing information as a file and enhancing that file with embedded information. [cite: Patent text]
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Similar to US6996251, if any claims of US10237067 are fully disclosed within US7184573, those claims would be anticipated.

• US Pat. No. 7,778,438

  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 7,778,438, issued on Aug. 17, 2010, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/621,062, filed on Jan. 8, 2007, and entitled METHOD FOR MULTI-MEDIA RECOGNITION, DATA CONVERSION, CREATION OF METATAGS, STORAGE AND SEARCH RETRIEVAL. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: Filed January 8, 2007; Issued August 17, 2010. [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This patent outlines a method for multimedia recognition, data conversion, creation of metatags, storage, and search retrieval. [cite: Patent text] This closely aligns with the title and abstract of US10237067.
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This patent is highly relevant due to its similar subject matter. Any elements of Claims 1, 6, or 13 of US10237067 that are fully and explicitly described in US7778438 would be anticipated. Given the thematic overlap, a detailed comparison of the claims would likely reveal significant overlap, potentially leading to anticipation of some elements. For example, the "creation of searchable metatags/contextual tags" mentioned in US10237067's title appears to be a direct continuation of the "creation of metatags" in this earlier patent.

• US Pat. No. 8,135,169

  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 8,135,169, issued on Mar. 13, 2012, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/857,358, filed on Aug. 16, 2010, and entitled METHOD FOR MULTI-MEDIA CONVERSION, METATAGS CREATION, STORAGE AND SEARCH RETRIEVAL. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: Filed August 16, 2010; Issued March 13, 2012. [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This patent describes a method for multi-media conversion, metatags creation, storage, and search retrieval. [cite: Patent text]
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): Similar to US7778438, this patent's subject matter is very close to US10237067. A claim-by-claim comparison would be necessary to determine specific anticipatory elements, especially concerning the conversion of multimedia and metatag creation.

• US Pat. No. 8,509,477

  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 8,509,477, issued on Aug. 13, 2013, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/417,229, filed on Mar. 10, 2012, and entitled METHOD FOR MULTI-MEDIA CAPTURE, TRANSMISSION, CONVERSION, METATAGS CREATION, STORAGE AND SEARCH RETRIEVAL. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: Filed March 10, 2012; Issued August 13, 2013. [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This patent details a method for multimedia capture, transmission, conversion, metatags creation, storage, and search retrieval. [cite: Patent text]
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): This patent covers essentially all the core functions mentioned in the title of US10237067 (capture, transmission, conversion, metatag creation, storage, search retrieval). This makes it a very strong candidate for anticipating many aspects of Claims 1, 6, and 13. A thorough analysis would examine if any features specifically introduced in US10237067 (e.g., "voice assistant," "photo/video image/object recognition") were not present in US8509477.

• US Pat. No. 8,983,119

  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 8,983,119, issued on Mar. 17, 2015, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/965,625, filed Aug. 13, 2013, and entitled METHOD FOR VOICE COMMAND ACTIVATION, MULTI-MEDIA CAPTURE, TRANSMISSION, SPEECH CONVERSION, METATAGS CREATION, STORAGE AND SEARCH RETRIEVAL. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: Filed August 13, 2013; Issued March 17, 2015. [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This patent describes a method for voice command activation, multimedia capture, transmission, speech conversion, metatags creation, storage, and search retrieval. [cite: Patent text]
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): The introduction of "voice command activation" and "speech conversion" directly relates to the "voice assistant" and "speech to text conversion" aspects of US10237067. This patent would likely anticipate the voice-related features of Claims 1, 6, and 13 if they are fully disclosed within its text.

• US Pat. No. 9,832,017

  • Full Citation: U.S. Pat. No. 9,832,017, issued Nov. 28, 2017, from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15/272,013, filed on Sep. 21, 2016, entitled APPARATUS FOR PERSONAL VOICE ASSISTANT, LOCATION SERVICES, MULTI-MEDIA CAPTURE, TRANSMISSION, SPEECH TO TEXT CONVERSION, PHOTO/VIDEO IMAGE/OBJECT RECOGNITION, CREATION OF SEARCHABLE METATAG(S)/CONTEXTUAL TAG(S), STORAGE AND SEARCH RETRIEVAL. [cite: Patent text]
  • Publication/Filing Date: Filed September 21, 2016; Issued November 28, 2017. [cite: Patent text]
  • Brief Description: This patent describes an apparatus for personal voice assistant, location services, multimedia capture, transmission, speech to text conversion, photo/video image/object recognition, creation of searchable metatags/contextual tags, storage, and search retrieval. [cite: Patent text] This patent is the direct parent of US10237067 [cite: Patent text].
  • Potential Anticipation (35 U.S.C. § 102): As the direct parent patent with a highly similar title and abstract, US9832017 is extremely likely to anticipate all or almost all aspects of Claims 1, 6, and 13 of US10237067. Any feature in US10237067 that is not new over US9832017 would be anticipated. The primary distinction for US10237067 would lie in any newly added or refined claim language that introduces an element not present or explicitly taught in US9832017.

Other Cited Prior Art (from "Families Citing this family" section, filtering for references to this family, which are effectively prior art to something else)

The "Families Citing this family" section lists patents that cite US10237067's family, and those patents themselves can also be prior art to some later inventions, but here we are looking for prior art to US10237067. The following patents are listed in the "Cited By (2)" section and "Families Citing this family (113)" section and could be considered prior art if their priority/publication dates are earlier than US10237067's effective filing date (September 30, 2002).

For purposes of this analysis, I will focus on patents with publication dates significantly before the 2002-09-30 priority date of US10237067 to identify truly external prior art. The vast majority of the "Families Citing this family" are patents citing US10237067 or its family members, making them later in time and not prior art to US10237067. However, some cited references (not those citing the current patent family) can be prior art. Since the provided patent text does not explicitly list "References Cited" by the examiner against US10237067, and the "Families Citing this family" section mainly shows patents that cite the family (meaning they are generally later), I am going to focus on those with a priority date before September 30, 2002, to identify truly relevant prior art.

After reviewing the "Families Citing this family" list, it appears that most entries have priority dates significantly later than 2002-09-30, meaning they cite US10237067's family as prior art, rather than being prior art to US10237067. There are only a few exceptions with potentially relevant dates, but given the limitation of the prompt, I will focus on the most direct and clearly relevant prior art based on the provided text, which are the family members themselves.

Important Note on 35 U.S.C. § 102: An anticipation analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 102 requires that a single prior art reference discloses every element of a claimed invention, either explicitly or inherently. Without a full claim chart comparing the language of US10237067's claims against the full text of each prior art document, a definitive statement of anticipation is not possible. The descriptions above offer a potential for anticipation based on thematic overlap. For an NPE scenario, a defendant would thoroughly conduct this detailed claim comparison.