US 5247700

I'll verify the patent details against live sources and check for any litigation activity.

Let me run one more targeted check on litigation/agency activity specifically for this patent.

US Patent 5,247,700 — Verification Summary

I ran targeted searches against Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia, Unified Patents, and general docket/web sources. Note one caveat on scope up front: I could not access the USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or CAFC docket systems directly (no authenticated API access in this session), so the litigation/agency portions below rest on secondary sources rather than a first-party docket pull. Everything else is confirmed against multiple independent sources, and the full patent text you supplied is treated as authoritative.

1. Bibliographic data (confirmed)

Note on a date discrepancy: Unified Patents' portal lists a priority date of 1990-11-15 and expiration 2010-11-15, while Google Patents lists 1990-11-16. The § 102/§ 120 significance is nil, but I flag it because I am instructed not to silently reconcile conflicting identifiers/dates. The application number 07/614,302 is consistent across sources.

2. Abstract (as published)

A compact and unitary cellular/pager. The cellular/pager includes a cellular antenna for receiving UHF cellular and paging signals. The cellular/pager also includes a VHF paging antenna. Every paging signal is sent to a paging receiver. The paging receiver uses the same circuitry to process either the UHF or VHF page. This is accomplished by setting a voltage controlled oscillator (VCO) to one of two frequency ranges. The chosen frequency is either added or subtracted to the incoming signal in order to match a constant intermediate frequency. The resultant signal is demodulated and a bit rate is selected by a decoder, under the control of a microprocessor. Therefore, the paging receiver can choose a band, a channel and a bit rate. Cellular signals are sent to a cellular block. Cellular location information is utilized by the cellular/pager to form an internally updated roaming pager. That is, the cellular location information is automatically conveyed by the cellular block, under the control of the microprocessor, to a paging service. The paging service then knows the location of the paging receiver, consequently the paging service can direct the pager to await for a page at a single frequency, thereby eliminating frequency scanning by the pager or manual updates by the user.

3. Claims — structure

This patent has exactly one claim (claim 1). There are no dependent claims. Claim 1 is therefore both the sole independent claim and the only claim. This is important for any invalidity/infringement analysis: the entire right is coextensive with claim 1.

Plain-language overview of claim 1

Claim 1 is drafted in classic 1990-era "means-plus-function" style and covers a single, compact, unitary handheld device that is at once a cellular phone and a dual-band pager. Its elements, in plain terms:

(A) First receiver — VHF paging. A first means for receiving VHF paging signals (the VHF paging antenna in the spec).

(B) Second means — UHF cellular transmit/receive, plus UHF paging. A second means that receives and transmits UHF cellular signals. Critically, this block must include (i) a triplexer and (ii) a cellular block, and it must also include means for receiving UHF paging signals. In other words, the cellular antenna path is shared with paging.

(C) A microprocessor — the central controller.

(D) A summing network that combines the VHF paging signals from (A) with the UHF paging signals from (B) and feeds the combined result onward.

(E) A paging receiver coupled to that summing network, which itself contains three sub-elements:

• (E)(1) A single circuit that processes both the VHF and UHF paging signals. That circuit includes a local oscillator controlled by the microprocessor, which is set either to a first frequency from a first range or a second frequency from a second range — with the first frequency being added to the VHF signals and the second frequency being subtracted from the UHF signals (i.e., high-side/low-side injection against a constant IF).
• (E)(2) A demodulator.
• (E)(3) A decoder, also microprocessor-controlled, so that the apparatus can select band, channel, and bit rate.

(F) Location determination and "self-updating roaming." Means for processing and using the UHF cellular signal to determine the device's location, and using the cellular transmit/receive means to report that location to a paging system — whereupon the paging system sends back a paging signal (received by the paging receiver) that defines a single frequency for the paging receiver to tune to. This is the claim's fourth distinct functional thrust and the point of novelty the spec stresses most for energy savings (no frequency scanning).

(G)–(K) The user-interface and support electronics: an audio processor coupled to a microphone and earphone; a keyboard coupled to the microprocessor; a display coupled to the microprocessor; a serial port coupled to the microprocessor; and memory coupled to the microprocessor.

(L) A stored program in that memory, whereby the microprocessor conveys information from the program on the display. (In the spec, this is the hook for the context-sensitive on-line help and the stored name/number directory that enables caller identification and auto-dialing.)

(M) A compact housing enclosing elements (C) through (L). Notably, (A) and (B) — the antennas and RF front ends — are not required to be within the housing, while the microprocessor, summing network, paging receiver, audio chain, keyboard, display, serial port, and memory all must be.

Practical takeaway on claim scope: Claim 1 is a single, long, hardware-heavy combination claim. Because it is the only claim, there is no fallback narrower claim, and every one of (A)–(M) — including commercially incidental items like the serial port and the compact housing — is a required element. Reading the prosecution-era art cited (Focarice et al., Statutory Invention Registration H610, "Cellular Pager," Mar. 7, 1989, is the most on-point reference) suggests the claim was deliberately drafted to distinguish the combined pager/telephone-plus-location-reporting architecture from prior cellular-pager hybrids.

4. Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket search — result

I found no evidence of any 2026 CAFC docket activity, IPR/PGR, ITC investigation, or district court case involving US 5,247,700.

• The patent lapsed in 2001 for non-payment of maintenance fees (4th-year fee paid 1997-03-18; reminder mailed 2001-04-17; lapse 2001-09-23), with a final status entry dated 2018-01-27 confirming expiration under 37 CFR 1.362. An expired patent cannot be asserted, which is consistent with the absence of litigation.
• My searches returned no CAFC case number, PTAB proceeding, or complaint naming 5,247,700. Search hits containing the string "5247700" were unrelated (e.g., a CourtListener financial-disclosure investment record ID 5247700, and a 2026 French trademark application numbered 5247700 for the mark "A ce prix je vis" — neither has anything to do with this patent).
• Uncertainty flag: Because I could not query the CAFC docket or Docket Navigator/PatentCenter directly, I cannot state with certainty that zero proceedings ever existed. What I can say is that no public source I reached shows one, and the fee lapse makes 2026 appellate activity implausible.

5. Sources consulted

• Full patent text (authoritative, supplied): https://patents.google.com/patent/US5247700/en
• Google Patents record (bibliographic, status, citations): https://patents.google.com/patent/US5247700
• FreePatentsOnline (claims text, cited references, attorney of record): https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5247700.html
• Justia Patents (description and claim text): https://patents.justia.com/patent/5247700
• Unified Patents portal (inventors, examiner, dates): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-5247700-A
• Patent PDF (front page/abstract): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e1/02/ae/d8d08ff3dfabda/US5247700.pdf
• Cited as prior art in EP 1 020 040 B1 (Motorola), reference [0006] — a downstream citation confirming the patent's use as a pager-priority-message citation

Bottom line: US 5,247,700 is a 1993 Universal Cellular patent (filed 1990-11-16, issued 1993-09-21) to Wohl et al. for a unitary cellular-phone-plus-dual-band-pager. It has exactly one claim, covering the combined hardware architecture plus the cellular-location-driven paging-frequency update. It expired in 2001 for failure to pay maintenance fees, and I found no 2026 CAFC docket activity for it.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5247700 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search additional litigation-specific sources.

Litigation Search — U.S. Patent No. 5,247,700

Bottom line: I found no litigation (district court, Federal Circuit, ITC, or PTAB) involving U.S. Patent No. 5,247,700 ("Cellular telephone with pager," Universal Cellular, Inc.).

What I searched and what came back

Why the negative result is plausible (not just a database gap)

• The patent lapsed early for non-payment of maintenance fees. Per the USPTO legal-events record, the maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2001-04-17; lapse for failure to pay was recorded 2001-09-23; the patent lapsed effective 2001-09-21 ("Lapsed due to failure to pay maintenance fee"). It was never reinstated, and the later 2018-01-27 entry simply confirms expiration ("PATENT EXPIRED DUE TO NONPAYMENT OF MAINTENANCE FEES UNDER 37 CFR 1.362"). A patent that went abandoned in 2001 would have essentially no window for the type of late-1990s/NPE-era litigation that would still show up in modern dockets.
• Owner was a small, now-defunct entity. Original/current assignee is Universal Cellular, Inc. (a California corp.). No successor-in-interest assertion campaign is documented.
• No IPR/PGR/CBM or reexam is reflected in the record (the '700 patent's 1990 priority and 2010 nominal expiry largely predate the AIA trial regime, and the early lapse foreclosed it anyway).

Answer in the requested format

• Plaintiff(s): None identified.
• Defendant(s): None identified.
• Jurisdiction: N/A.
• Case number: N/A.
• Filing date: N/A.
• Outcome/status: N/A — no known litigation.

Confidence and caveat

I have moderate-to-high confidence in this negative finding, but I cannot certify it as exhaustive. Public litigation databases are incomplete for pre-2000 federal cases, and any suit filed and resolved quietly in the 1990s might not be indexed in the free sources I could reach (Unified Patents, Docket Alarm, CourtListener/RECAP, Google Patents). If you need a definitive clearance, the authoritative checks would be a Westlaw/Lexis KeyCite litigation-history search on the patent, a PACER docket search across all districts naming "Universal Cellular," and a USPTO Patent Assignment Search to confirm no post-2001 transfer to an asserting entity. I did not find — and am not asserting — any of those records.

I also want to be explicit: several search results contained similar but different numbers (e.g., the FR trademark "5247700," JP5247700B2, the UTM coordinate "5247700.0," US patent 5,148,473 pager/radiotelephone, and US H610 "Cellular pager"). None of those are U.S. Patent 5,247,700, and I have excluded them from the litigation count.

PTAB / AIA Trial Landscape — US 5,247,700 ("Cellular telephone with pager")

Patent snapshot (from the authoritative full text and the ODP record): filed 1990-11-16 (App. 07/614,302), granted 1993-09-21, original assignee Universal Cellular, Inc. (Anaheim, CA), inventors Wohl, Naugler, Hendershot, Lloyd, and Adams. Exactly one claim (claim 1) — a single omnibus apparatus claim (elements (A)–(M)). Pre-AIA patent. Legal status per ODP: Expired – Fee Related; 4-year maintenance fee paid 1997-03-18; maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2001-04-17; lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees 2001-09-23, effective 2001-09-21; anticipated expiration 2010-11-16.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBMs; therefore zero institutions, zero final written decisions, zero settlements, and zero Federal Circuit appeals arising from a PTAB trial. The ODP-structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block reports none, and independent web searching surfaced no IPR/PGR/CBM petition, institution decision, or FWD naming US 5,247,700. Because the patent lapsed in 2001 and the AIA trial regime did not exist until 2012-09-16, there was effectively no window in which a live patent could have been challenged at the PTAB — the defensive posture is not "hardened by surviving IPRs," it is "the patent is dead, so validity never had to be fought." A demand letter citing US 5,247,700 is citing a patent whose enforceable term ended on 2001-09-21 for failure to pay maintenance fees.

(Constraint note: I was instructed to build the per-proceeding entries only from the structured PTAB block and to not invent proceeding numbers. With a null set, there are no ### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} entries to write. Rather than fabricate placeholder trials, the sections below document the null result and why it is the null result.)

Why there are no proceedings (verification trail)

• No AIA trial vehicle ever fit cleanly. The application was filed 1990-11-16, so the patent is pre-AIA for § 102/§ 103 purposes. Post-Grant Review requires an effective filing date on or after 2013-03-16 and was categorically unavailable. Covered Business Method review extended to certain pre-AIA patents, but only for patents claiming a method or apparatus for performing data processing or other operations used in the practice, administration, or management of a financial product or service — a handheld cellular/pager with a triplexer, dual-range VCO, and roaming-registration feature is not a financial-services business method. That leaves IPR as the only realistic vehicle, limited to § 102/§ 103 grounds on patents and printed publications.
• The IPR window barely overlapped with an enforceable patent. AIA trials became available 2012-09-16. This patent's maintenance-fee lapse took effect 2001-09-21 and its 20-year term would have ended 2010-11-16. Even if the patent had been kept alive, the practical assertion window preceded the AIA. As it stands, the patent was already expired-and-lapsed for ~11 years before the first IPR could ever have been filed. IPRs are permitted against expired patents, but they yield no injunctive value and are rarely filed absent co-pending damages exposure — and there was none here.
• No reissue or ex parte reexamination is reflected in the public record I could retrieve, and no US continuation/divisional family is listed (the only family members are foreign counterparts: AU 90886/91 — abandoned, and WO 1992/009178 A1 — ceased).
• Do not be misled by look-alike records. Two items in the file history are prior art, not proceedings: (i) the statutory invention registration H610 (Focarice et al., 1989-03-07, "Cellular Pager"), cited against this patent; and (ii) US 5,058,052-class "mobile telephone device with low power consumption" art. Separately, the 2014 SkyTel/GPNE v. Apple pager litigation in Texas involves different patents (GPNE's Wong paging patents) and has nothing to do with US 5,247,700. The patent appears as a cited reference in later documents (e.g., EP 1 020 040 B1, WO 1995/007595 A1) — being cited by others is not evidence of a PTAB attack.
• Defensive aggregator check: Unified Patents maintains a public profile page for US-5247700-A (portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-5247700-A), but no Unified Patents-filed challenge appears in it. Presence in an aggregator's database is a monitoring artifact, not a proceeding.

Strategic summary

Claim status. There is only one claim, claim 1. It was never canceled, never amended, and never adjudicated by the PTAB — it simply lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2001-09-21. So the taxonomy is: CANCELED — none; SUSTAINED (by PTAB) — none; UNTESTED — claim 1, which is moot because it is no longer enforceable. Any infringement theory today would have to rest on pre-2001-09-21 conduct that is long past the § 286 six-year damages lookback and, in most realistic scenarios, long past any limitations period. Note also that the surviving family members — if any rights ever vested in them — are foreign: AU 90886/91 was abandoned and WO 1992/009178 ceased. This is, in short, a dead patent family.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is not implicated at all, because no petitioner ever filed, was instituted, or received an FWD. That cuts both ways: a defendant today has no estoppel burden, but also has no PTAB cancellation to lean on. The correct defensive posture is not "invoke the FWD" — it is "this patent is expired and lapsed; there is nothing to invalidate." If someone nonetheless asserts it (e.g., against a legacy product line, or in a licensing shakedown aimed at a company that does not check maintenance-fee status), the first three sentences of your response should be: (1) the maintenance fee lapsed 2001-09-23 effective 2001-09-21; (2) ODP lists the patent as Expired – Fee Related; (3) the AIA trial statistics for this patent are a null set, consistent with a patent nobody bothered to challenge because nobody could enforce it.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed anything, let alone multiple petitions (no General Plastic / serial-petition issue). The patent owner (Universal Cellular, Inc. of Anaheim — a 1990s-era entity, not a modern assertion vehicle) has never pursued a PTAB appeal, which is expected given there was never a PTAB case. No defensive aggregator is in the chain. The patent is best understood as a prior-art citation generator: it is cited in later wireless/paging patents (e.g., EP 1 020 040 B1, WO 1995/007595 A1) and in subsequent prosecution, which is the real residual significance of US 5,247,700.

Recommended next steps

• If you received a demand letter citing US 5,247,700: Do not file an IPR — you cannot, and you should not need to. Send a short response citing the USPTO PatentCenter/ODP maintenance-fee lapse (lapse effective 2001-09-21) and the patent's 20-year term end (2010-11-16). Verify current status yourself at USPTO Patent Center for App. 07/614,302 before responding; a live reinstatement of a lapsed patent is theoretically possible only via petition for unintentional delay under 37 C.F.R. § 1.378, and the deadline for that (generally within 2 years of the lapse, with a limited 5-year window upon petition) expired long ago.
• If you nonetheless want a paper record of invalidity (e.g., you need an agreed judgment or a covenant not to sue is unavailable), note that IPR on an expired patent is legally permissible and would be your only AIA vehicle, since PGR is barred by the 1990 filing date and CBM is barred by subject matter. Grounds would be confined to § 102/§ 103 over patents and printed publications. There is no statutory trial-deadline arithmetic to track here because nothing is on file — no institution decision deadline, no oral hearing, no 1-year FWD clock is running.
• If you are running diligence on a portfolio containing this patent: treat US 5,247,700 as a zero-value asset. Its only monetizable features were real in 1993 (single-circuit dual-band paging, triplexer with a high-impedance third band-pass filter, dual-synthesizer cellular transmit/receive treated as one by the microprocessor, cell-derived automatic roaming registration with the paging system, and context-sensitive on-line help) and they read on essentially every modern smartphone — but the claims have been unenforceable for a quarter century.
• Plain statement of the null result: there is no PTAB activity on file for US 5,247,700. I searched for IPR/PGR/CBM petitions, institution decisions, FWDs, and CAFC appeals arising from any of them and found none. If a recently filed, not-yet-indexed proceeding surfaces later, the ODP ingest and PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions would be the places it would appear first — but nothing in the record as of 2026-09-27 suggests one exists or could meaningfully exist against this expired patent.

I'll verify the assignment record and the original assignee's status before writing.

Good context on the original assignee. Now checking for post-issuance assignments, litigation, and the company's fate.

Let me check for any later assignee, litigation history, and the company's fate.

Inventors

Pattern notes.

• The inventive team is geographically dispersed (Beverly Hills, Seal Beach, Arroyo Grande, Fremont, Riverside) rather than co-located at a single R&D campus. That is consistent with a 1989-vintage 25-employee Anaheim startup using contract/consulting engineers, and is not evidence of anything suspicious on its own.
• All five inventors assigned to the company within roughly three months of the 1990-11-16 filing date (execution 1991-02-04 to 1991-02-06). That is a routine confirmatory post-filing assignment, not a fire-sale precursor.
• No evidence found of any inventor departing Universal Cellular within 12 months of filing. I could not confirm departure dates for Naugler, Hendershot, Lloyd or Adams at all — treat that as a data gap, not a clean bill of health. Wohl was still CEO as of the October 1991 LA Times coverage.

Original assignee

UNIVERSAL CELLULAR, INC. A CORP. OF CALIFORNIA (Anaheim, CA; business address 3365 Miraloma Ave., Anaheim, CA 92806).

• Primary line of business: developer and would-be manufacturer of the "PagerPhone," a 13-ounce integrated cellular phone + alphanumeric pager. Founded early 1989 by James P. Wohl as a privately held company with ~25 employees; the LA Times described it as a "start-up cellular equipment company." It also launched a companion service, "Universal Paging," in partnership with National Dispatch Center (trademark U.S. Serial No. 74127336, first use in commerce 1991-02-05).
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Partly — and this is the crux. A physical PagerPhone existed and was exhibited: it was unveiled at the January 1991 Consumer Electronics Show and demonstrated to press, and Universal Cellular booked a reported $95 million in orders. But the company repeatedly ran out of cash before volume manufacturing; as of October 1991 it had just closed a long-delayed $2 million investment and a manufacturing agreement with an unidentified Ohio firm, with volume production still "three to six months" away. There is no evidence in the record I reviewed that the PagerPhone ever reached meaningful commercial volume.
• Current status: apparently defunct/wound down — not acquired, and no bankruptcy proceeding identified. Three independent indicators point the same way: (a) the patent's 4-year maintenance fee was paid 1997-03-18, the next reminder issued 2001-04-17, the patent lapsed for non-payment 2001-09-23 (effective 2001-09-21), i.e., the owner of record stopped paying to keep its flagship asset alive; (b) the UNIVERSAL PAGING trademark registration was cancelled under Section 8 as of 2003-03-22 for failure to maintain; (c) the PCT and Australian family members went dead (WO1992009178A1 "Ceased"; AU9088691A "Abandoned"). I found no record of a Chapter 7/11 filing, no acquisition announcement, and no successor entity. Google Patents still lists Universal Cellular Inc as current assignee — consistent with nothing ever being recorded out of it.

Assignment timeline

The patent has exactly one recorded assignment. Google Patents' legal-events table for US 5,247,700 (the mirror of the Assignment Center index available to me) shows no Merger, Change of Name, Security Agreement, License, Release, Correction, or subsequent Assignment entry. The chain is one link long, and it is the original inventor→company assignment.

• 1991-02-04 to 1991-02-06 (executed) / recorded 1991-02-11 — Reel 005991 / Frame 0268
  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF INTEREST")
  • Assignor: WOHL, JAMES P.; NAUGLER, W. EDWARD, JR.; HENDERSHOT, JAMES; LLOYD, GRAHAM P.; ADAMS, ERICH B.
  • Assignee: UNIVERSAL CELLULAR, INC. A CORP. OF CALIFORNIA
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable — data gap. The Assignment Center's per-record correspondent/attorney field for reel 005991/0268 was not exposed in any source I could reach; Google Patents' legal-events mirror does not publish it either. I will not guess at it. One adjacent but distinct data point: the patent's prosecution attorney/agent of record is William S. Galliani (USPTO Reg. No. 33885), now Senior Counsel at Cooley LLP, 3175 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304 (previously Pennie & Edmonds and Flehr Hohbach Test Albritton & Herbert). Galliani is a large-firm prosecution lawyer for operating companies — his current top applicants are Memjet Technology, 24M Technologies, RefleXion Medical and Magnolia Medical — not an NPE-side recording filer. His name appearing there is a prosecution credit, not an assignment correspondent, and it is a single appearance; the recurrence test cannot be run on a one-link chain. No NPE correspondent signal.
  • Context: Ordinary confirmatory assignment — the five inventors conveyed their rights to the employer/startup that funded the work, executed ~3 months after the 1990-11-16 filing date. No acquisition, fire-sale, securitization or transfer-to-asserter character.

For completeness, the only other recorded events in the patent's lifecycle are maintenance-fee events, not assignments: fee payment for year 4 on 1997-03-18; maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2001-04-17; lapse for failure to pay 2001-09-23 (effective 2001-09-21); final "patent expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362" entry 2018-01-27. Anticipated expiration 2010-11-16.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5247700
    1989 : Universal Cellular founded in Anaheim
    1990 : App filed by five inventors
    1991 : Inventors assign to Universal Cellular
         : Reel 005991 frame 0268
         : PagerPhone shown at CES Las Vegas
    1993 : Patent issues as US 5247700
    1997 : Year 4 maintenance fee paid
    2001 : Patent lapses for unpaid fees
    2003 : Universal Paging mark cancelled
    2010 : Nominal term would have expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. There is no post-issuance assignment of any kind, so the patent was never moved to a licensing entity. No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" assignee appears anywhere in the record. The sole assignee, Universal Cellular, Inc., is a California operating corporation with a named product (PagerPhone), a physical Anaheim address, employees, and its own service trademark — the opposite of a registered-agent shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. Universal Cellular, Inc. matches none of the listed NPEs (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities), and I found no Unified Patents or RPX listing of it as a high-frequency plaintiff. Caveat on the source: US 5,247,700 does appear in the Unified Patents patent portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-5247700-A), but that portal indexes patents generally — appearance there is a database entry, not an assertion or a litigation record.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not present (single-link chain; and the field is a data gap). With one recorded assignment there is no second link against which recurrence could be measured. I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for reel 005991/0268 at all, so this signal is best characterized as unclear for lack of data, not affirmatively cleared. The prosecution attorney data point (Galliani / Cooley) is single-appearance and, per his firm profile, is operating-company work.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. One assignment, executed 1991-02-04/06, recorded 1991-02-11. No chained LLCs, no transfers inside 24 months, no shared correspondent addresses, because there is no second transfer in 35 years of record.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. I found no infringement suit of any kind naming US 5,247,700, so there is no litigation against which a "within 6 months" transfer could be measured. The patent's litigation history appears to be empty; its visible footprint is as cited prior art (169 citing publications, including EP1020040B1 which cites it in its description) — being cited by others is evidence of technical relevance, not of assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present / unclear. No Chapter 7 or Chapter 11 proceeding for Universal Cellular was found, and critically, the patent was not sold — it was simply allowed to lapse for non-payment in 2001. A fire-sale would have produced a recorded assignment to a buyer; there is none. "Unclear" only in the narrow sense that I could not locate a definitive corporate dissolution record.

7. Privateering — not present. No NPE ever asserted this patent on Universal Cellular's behalf, and Universal Cellular is not a large operating company whose patents could be leveraged against competitors. No SEC filings exist to cross-reference — the company was privately held (backers included an unnamed Japanese investor and, per the LA Times, undisclosed venture capital).

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. It terminates at the original operating assignee by operation of maintenance-fee lapse.

Verdict

Insufficient data — in the rubric's specific sense of "only the original assignment."

The record contains a single recorded link: a 1991-02-04/06 confirmatory assignment from the five inventors to UNIVERSAL CELLULAR, INC. A CORP. OF CALIFORNIA, recorded 1991-02-11 at reel 005991/frame 0268, with no correspondent retrievable. Every one of the eight NPE signals comes back negative or (for the missing correspondent field) unavailable, and the evidence affirmatively points away from monetization: no post-issuance assignment, no litigation, the PCT and AU family members abandoned/ceased, and the patent lapsed for unpaid maintenance fees effective 2001-09-21 — an owner of record that let its flagship asset die rather than sell it. Worth stating plainly: this is a clean operating-company chain, not a suspected NPE chain, and the correct output is "no NPE pattern," not "NPE — low confidence." The residual uncertainty is on the original assignee's corporate fate (acquisition vs. simple wind-down), for which I found no definitive record.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search patent 5247700): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events for the record I relied on: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5247700/en
• USPTO Patent Center / PEDS for the file: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/

One accuracy caveat you should carry forward: the correspondent-of-record field for reel 005991/0268 is the single most valuable datum in your template and I could not retrieve it from any source available to me. I have flagged it as a gap rather than substituting the prosecution attorney's name (Galliani) — those are different roles and conflating them would have produced a false "correspondent" finding in a chain that has no recurrence to measure anyway. If you have Assignment Center API or authenticated UI access, pull that field directly and confirm there is no second reel; my reconstruction rests on the Google Patents legal-events mirror showing exactly one assignment.

I'll verify the cited prior-art references against live sources before analyzing anticipation.

Let me verify a few more of the most relevant cited references.

I've reached my tool-call limit, so here is the completed prior-art analysis based on the authoritative full patent text (which contains the complete examiner citation list) plus the LIVE verification searches I was able to complete.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 5,247,700 ("Cellular telephone with pager")

Scope, method, and standing caveats

Record verified. US 5,247,700 A, application 07/614,302, filed 1990-11-16, granted 1993-09-21, Universal Cellular, Inc., inventors Wohl / Naugler / Hendershot / Lloyd / Adams. Confirmed against the Google Patents full text (USPTO-sourced), FreePatentsOnline, Justia, Unified Patents, and the patent PDF front page. I could not pull the USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR record directly in this session, so the citation list below rests on the full-text record you supplied (authoritative) cross-checked against the mirrors I reached. Note the mirror discrepancies already flagged in the summary section (priority 1990-11-15 vs 1990-11-16; grant 1993-09-20 vs 1993-09-21) — these do not affect § 102 analysis.

The controlling threshold point for § 102: This patent has exactly one claim (claim 1) and no dependent claims (Google Patents: "Claims (1)"; confirmed on the PDF and FPO). Claim 1 is a single, very long means-plus-function combination claim requiring all of elements (A)–(M):

• (A) VHF paging receive means
• (B) UHF cellular transmit/receive means, including a triplexer and a cellular block, and also including UHF paging receive means
• (C) a microprocessor
• (D) a summing network combining (A) and the UHF paging signals from (B)
• (E) a paging receiver having (1) a single circuit for both VHF and UHF paging using a microprocessor-controlled local oscillator set to one of two ranges, the first frequency added to VHF and the second subtracted from UHF; (2) a demodulator; (3) a decoder giving band/channel/bit-rate selection
• (F) means for using the UHF cellular signal to determine location and report it to a paging system, which returns a page defining a single frequency to tune
• (G)–(K) audio processor + mic + earphone; keyboard; display; serial port; memory
• (L) stored program conveying information to the display
• (M) a compact housing enclosing (C)–(L)

Consequence for the question asked: Because there is only one claim, the only claim any reference could "potentially anticipate under § 102" is claim 1. More importantly — and this must be stated plainly — the examiner allowed this case over the references below. That is dispositive evidence that no cited reference was found to disclose every element of claim 1. Genuine § 102 anticipation requires a single reference to teach all of (A)–(M) arranged as claimed. My analysis confirms none of the cited references does. They are best characterized as § 103 obviousness references, and the ones cited for the "microprocessor + synthesizer + scanning" sub-combinations are the §§ 102/103-relevant art for elements (C), (E), and (F) individually.

The list below is the patent's own "Cited by examiner" set: 45 U.S./foreign references (the second table lists 46 because it separates US4597104A and its EP counterpart EP0145171A1), plus the statutory-invention-registration non-patent citation H610.

TIER 1 — The most relevant prior art (deep dive)

1. US H610 H — Focarice et al., "Cellular Pager" (statutory invention registration)

• Full citation: Statutory Invention Registration H610, Focarice et al., "Cellular Pager," published March 7, 1989 (cited on the face of US 5,247,700 as: "H610, Focarice et al., Mar. 7, 1989, 'Cellular Pager'"). Also listed in the patent's "Family Cites Families" as USH610H.
• Dates: Published 1989-03-07 — more than one year before the 1990-11-16 filing → § 102(b) printed publication.
• Brief description (verified): A pager unit that operates in the AMPS cellular system, using the cellular set-up/control channels as paging channels. The unit scans the designated set-up channels, stores the two strongest frequencies in memory, acquires word synchronization, reads the serving-system identity and paging-channel set, then monitors the chosen paging channel and can be instructed by control information to switch to another designated channel. Hardware (FIG. 1, verified): antenna 105 → amplifier 107 → mixer 108 fed by a local oscillator section 109 comprising a VCO 110, phase detector 111, synthesizer phase-locked loop 112, and prescaler 113 → IF via crystal filter 114 → demodulator 116 → microprocessor 118, with RSSI via A/D converter 117.
• Elements of claim 1 overlapped: (C) microprocessor; (E) paging receiver with local oscillator/VCO/synthesizer and demodulator; and conceptually (E)(1)/(E)(3) channel selection under microprocessor control; and part of (F)'s "location/channel" theme (the pager adapts to location by scanning and being told a channel).
• § 102 assessment vs. claim 1: Does not anticipate. H610 is the closest reference and is plainly why the claim was drafted to recite the triplexer, summing network, dual-band single-circuit paging receiver (add/subtract LO against constant IF), and the specific cellular-location-to-paging-system reporting loop. H610 has no VHF paging path, no triplexer, no summing network, no audio processor/mic/earphone, no keyboard, no display, no serial port, no compact-housing requirement, and no paging-system instruction returning a single tune frequency based on cellular-derived location. It is a strong § 103 reference, not an anticipatory one.
• Discrepancy flag (not auto-corrected): the patent text and Google Patents render the inventor name "Focarice"; Justia's citation table renders it "Focarile." I am reporting both literally.

2. US 4,747,122 — "Mobile paging call back system and related method"

• Full citation: US 4,747,122, assignee Mobile Communications Corporation of America, "Mobile paging call back system and related method," filed 1986-10-27, issued 1988-05-24.
• Dates: Issued 1988-05-24 → § 102(b).
• Brief description (verified): Integrates a radio pager (16), memory (20), indicator (22), control switch (24), and automatic dialer (28) with a mobile radio telephone (30) under a control unit/logic circuit (42, may be a microprocessor). Validates a received telephone number, stores it, alerts the user, then on switch closure auto-dials the number through the mobile telephone; also supports manual dialing via headset/manual dialer (44). Vehicle/dashboard-mounted (uses the AM/FM antenna via coupler/splitter 12). Includes display and keyboard in the FIG.-5 embodiment.
• Elements of claim 1 overlapped: (C) microprocessor; (H) keyboard; (I) display; (K) memory; (L) stored program conveying information to the display and enabling auto-dial of the received number — and the general "pager + radiotelephone in one system" concept underlying claim 1's preamble.
• § 102 assessment vs. claim 1: Does not anticipate, but this is the most important § 103 reference for the caller-ID/directory/auto-dial thrust of (L) and for combining pager and telephone controls. It lacks the entire RF architecture (triplexer, summing network, single dual-band LO circuit), the location-reporting feature (F), and the compact unitary handheld housing (it is a vehicle-dashboard system).

3. US 4,849,750 — "Paging receiver with dynamically programmable channel frequencies and functionality"

• Full citation: US 4,849,750, Campana & Andros, assignee Telefind Corp., priority 1987-10-19, granted 1989-07-17.
• Dates: Granted 1989-07-17 → § 102(b) (and § 102(a) as to the 1990 applicant).
• Brief description (verified): A paging receiver that is dynamically programmable to change its channels and functionality via channel-programming commands decoded from received pages, supporting national/regional/local paging. It uses multiple tuning means each covering a different frequency band, with only one activated at a time to conserve power (claim 13), a controller/CPU (24) driving a PLL (28) and VCO (30), an IF processor, and a display (64); related continuations (US 5,012,235; US 5,077,834) tune VHF/UHF bands 149–162/278–290/449–462 MHz.
• Elements of claim 1 overlapped: (E)(1)/(E)(3) — microprocessor-controlled band and channel selection; (E)(2) demodulation; and the energy-conservation purpose that motivates claim 1 element (F).
• § 102 assessment vs. claim 1: Does not anticipate. Strong § 103 art for the "select the band, the channel, and the bit rate under microprocessor control" limitation of element (E). It is a receive-only pager — no cellular transmit/receive, no triplexer, no summing network, no dual-band single mix-down circuit using additive VHF / subtractive UHF injection, and no location-report-to-paging-service loop.

4. US 4,775,999 — "Registration of radiotelephones in networked cellular radiotelephone systems"

• Full citation: US 4,775,999, Motorola, Inc., "Registration of radiotelephones in networked cellular radiotelephone systems," priority/issue dates per the citation list: 1986-10-31 → 1988-10-04.
• Dates: Issued 1988-10-04 → § 102(b).
• Brief description: Cellular radiotelephone location registration across networked cellular systems — i.e., the mobile's registration/identify-location signaling to the network.
• Elements of claim 1 overlapped: the raw concept behind element (F) — deriving the device's location from cellular signaling.
• § 102 assessment vs. claim 1: Does not anticipate. Relevant § 103 art only for the "use cellular signals to determine location" idea; it says nothing about a paging receiver, a summing network, a triplexer, or conveying location to a paging system that then commands a single tune frequency.

5. US 5,054,052 — "Mobile telephone device with low power consumption"

• Full citation: US 5,054,052, Mitsubishi Denki Kabushiki Kaisha, "Mobile telephone device with low power consumption," priority 1989-04-03, granted 1991-10-01. (Corresponding reissue: US RE36,056 E, priority 1989-04-03.)
• Dates / § 102 posture: Granted 1991-10-01, i.e., after the 1990-11-16 filing, so it is not § 102(a)/(b) art on its face; it is available only as pre-AIA § 102(e) art (a U.S. patent granted on an application filed before the applicant's invention date). Flagging this because the dating is easy to misread.
• Brief description: Low-power-consumption mobile telephone architecture (intermittent receive/power-management of a cellular handset).
• Elements of claim 1 overlapped: (C) microprocessor control and the general cellular-handset power-management context; supports the "standby / pager / call" power modes described in the spec.
• § 102 assessment vs. claim 1: Does not anticipate. It is a telephone, not a combined pager; it lacks every paging-related and dual-band element.

6. US 4,178,476 — "Automatic nationwide paging system" (Frost)

• Full citation: US 4,178,476, Frost (Edward G.), "Automatic nationwide paging system," priority 1978-05-26, issued 1979-12-11.
• Dates: Issued 1979-12-11 → § 102(b).
• Brief description: Nationwide paging where the system tracks/locates the subscriber and routes pages accordingly — the "system knows where the pager is" concept.
• Elements of claim 1 overlapped: the purpose behind element (F) (a paging system that knows the pager's location and can direct a page to a specific frequency/zone).
• § 102 assessment vs. claim 1: Does not anticipate; § 103 relevance only for (F)'s system-side concept. No dual-band receiver, no cellular transceiver, no triplexer/LO architecture.

7. US 4,644,347 — "Multiple frequency message system" (Motorola)

• Full citation: US 4,644,347, Motorola, Inc., "Multiple frequency message system," priority 1983-08-10, issued 1987-02-17.
• Dates: Issued 1987-02-17 → § 102(b).
• Brief description: Multi-frequency paging/messaging where a receiver operates on more than one frequency.
• Elements of claim 1 overlapped: (E)(1)/(E)(3) multi-frequency paging reception.
• § 102 assessment vs. claim 1: Does not anticipate. § 103 art for multi-frequency pager operation only.

TIER 2 — Remaining cited references (citation, date, description, claim implicated)

All are § 102(b) art unless noted. Because the patent has one claim, the "Claim potentially implicated" column reads "1" throughout — but as explained above, none discloses all of (A)–(M), so none is a true anticipatory reference; each is a candidate § 103 reference.

Non-patent citation: H610, Focarice et al., Mar. 7, 1989, "Cellular Pager" — the Tier 1 #1 reference above (listed twice in the record: once under Non-Patent Citations and once under Family Cites Families as USH610H).

Note on the 45-vs-46 count: the patent's first citation table lists 45 entries; the second ("Patent Citations (46)") splits US 4,597,104 A (Uniden) and EP 0 145 171 A1 (Uniden) into two rows rather than one. This is a formatting artifact, not a substantive difference.

§ 102 conclusion

1. Only claim 1 exists, so the entire § 102 question is whether any single reference discloses all of elements (A)–(M) of claim 1 in the claimed arrangement.
2. No cited reference does. The references fall into four families that each map to a subset of claim 1:
   • Cellular-paging / location systems — H610 (Focarice), US 4,178,476 (Frost), NZ 197,059, US 4,775,999 (Motorola registration) → element (F) concepts and part of (B)/(E).
   • Pager + telephone auto-dial combinations — US 4,747,122, US 4,490,579, US 4,072,824 → elements (C), (H)–(L).
   • Frequency synthesis / scanning / multi-band pager control — US 4,849,750, US 4,149,125, US 4,180,776, US 4,276,654, US 4,280,104, US 4,303,893, US 4,314,208, US 4,388,596, US 4,464,638, US 4,434,504, WO 82/01268 (Motorola) → element (E).
   • RF filtering / duplexer / cellular front ends — US 4,397,037 (RCA diplexer), US 4,556,760 (ITT hand-off filter), WO 88/06830 (Rodrigues) → element (B).
3. The claim-defining novelties that defeated all of this art are: (i) the triplexer with a third band-pass filter that is high-impedance at the cellular transmit frequency; (ii) the summing network merging VHF and UHF paging signals; (iii) the single dual-band paging circuit using a two-range LO where the first range is subtracted from UHF and the second added to VHF to hit a constant IF; and (iv) the closed loop in (F) where cellular-derived location is reported to a paging system that returns a single tune frequency. No cited reference teaches any of (i)–(iv), and certainly not all of them together with the (G)–(M) user-interface/housing elements.
4. Bottom line: the answer to "which claim does reference X anticipate under § 102" is, for every reference, "potentially claim 1, but none actually anticipates claim 1." H610 (Focarice et al., "Cellular Pager," 1989-03-07) is the single most relevant reference and the primary basis on which the claim was likely narrowed; US 4,747,122 and US 4,849,750 are the strongest secondary § 103 references; and the § 102(e)-only US 5,054,052 is the least probative because of its post-filing grant date.

Sources consulted

• Full patent text (authoritative, supplied): https://patents.google.com/patent/US5247700/en
• Patent PDF (front page, H610 citation, examiners Eisenzopf/Urban, and the one-claim structure): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e1/02/ae/d8d08ff3dfabda/US5247700.pdf
• FreePatentsOnline (citation list with inventor names, attorney of record): https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[5247700](/patent/5247700).html
• Justia Patents (description and claim text; H610 listed as "Focarile et al."): https://patents.justia.com/patent/5247700
• Unified Patents portal (bibliographic/date cross-check): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-5247700-A
• USH610 ("Cellular Pager"), Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/USH610H/en — and the SIR PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a0/f9/c4/ea08a91af11442/USH610.pdf
• US 4,747,122 (Mobile paging call back system), Google Patents PDF: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/de/b1/f5/40785cfa291f8d/US4747122.pdf
• US 4,849,750 (Paging receiver with dynamically programmable channel frequencies), Google Patents: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4849750A](/patent/US4849750A)/en — and US 5,012,235 / US 5,077,834 continuations for the VHF/UHF band detail
• US 5,054,052 and reissue US RE36,056 E (Mitsubishi low-power mobile telephone), per the patent's citation list
• WO 90/08446 (AT&E) for the paging-band context (VHF/UHF/900 MHz)

Uncertainty flag: Because I could not open the USPTO PatentCenter docket directly, the exact § 102(a)/(b)/(e) categorization of each reference above is my legal analysis of the dates, not a USPTO designation. Inventor names for US 4,747,122 were not verifiable from the authoritative text you supplied and are given by assignee/title only.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis in the patent's own cited prior art. Let me verify the key references in the "References Cited" section, starting with the examiner's most on-point art.

The H610 abstract reveals it's a multichannel cellular paging receiver with channel selection and off-hook signaling. Let me pin down the remaining key references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,247,700 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Note on scope. This analysis uses the references in the "References Cited / Citations (45)" and "Family Cites Families" sections of the patent record, i.e., the examiner-cited art. I verified the most important of those references against live sources (links below). Several were verified only by title/bibliographic record because I hit the tool-call limit mid-session; those are flagged inline. Where the previously generated sections of this analysis characterize the art, I flag one nuance below.

1. Legal framework and the person of ordinary skill

Obviousness is assessed under the Graham v. John Deere factors as refined by KSR Int'l v. Teleflex: scope and content of the prior art, differences between the art and the claims, level of ordinary skill, and secondary considerations. Under KSR, a combination is obvious where the elements were known, the combination is a predictable variation of prior-art elements according to known methods, and there was a known reason/design incentive to combine — including "a finite number of identified, predictable solutions."

PHOSITA (as of the 1990-11-16 filing date): a person with a B.S. in electrical engineering (or equivalent) and roughly 2–4 years' experience designing RF communication devices — specifically superheterodyne receivers, PLL frequency synthesizers, and duplexer/filter front-ends — with working familiarity with both AMPS cellular radiotelephones and the then-current paging standards (VHF POCSAG at ~150 MHz, and the then-emerging 931 MHz UHF service).

Threshold point: the patent has one claim only (claim 1, independent; no dependents). There is no narrower fallback claim, so the entire right rises and falls with the full (A)–(M) combination. That cuts both ways: a single unmet limitation defeats § 103, but conversely there is no re-drafted narrower claim to retreat to — the whole claim must be patentable over the art.

2. The closest prior art: H610 (Focarile et al.), "Cellular Pager"

Status: Statutory Invention Registration H610, published March 7, 1989 (filed Aug. 17, 1987), inventors Focarile, Kunkee, Saizan and Sengupta, assigned to AT&T / AT&T Information Systems. For a 1990-11-16 filing, an SIR published 1989-03-07 is § 102(b) art (more than one year before filing).
Sources: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/a0/f9/c4/ea08a91af11442/USH610.pdf ; https://patents.justia.com/patent/H610

Citation spelling note: the '700 patent lists this reference as "Focarice et al." The published SIR and Justia list the inventor as "Focarile." Per the no-auto-correction rule I flag both spellings rather than silently reconciling them; the reference is the same document (SIR H610, "Cellular Pager," Mar. 7, 1989).

What H610 actually discloses (this is where I must refine the earlier characterization):

• A pager operating in the AMPS cellular radio system, using the special set of geographically dispersed cellular signaling/control channels to configure itself to receive pages — i.e., paging carried over UHF cellular-band channels. H610 expressly states the pager "operates in the cellular radio system without the need for specialized communications facilities by making use of call processing operations available in the AMPS system."
• Scanning / channel determination by received signal level: "means for scanning a preselected group of channels … means for determining the selected channel … comparing the received signal level of the digital data stream of each of the preselected group of channels." The two best channels are stored in memory and recalled in descending signal strength (claims 1–4).
• Monitoring the data stream and providing an alert indication (claims 1, 3, 7, 9); periodic re-scan when signal level drops (claim 4).
• A receiver "separable from the mobile telephone" that can serve as a backup for cellular calls to an associated mobile telephone, including off-hook cancellation of the alert when the associated mobile telephone goes off-hook (claims 5–6, 11–12). EP 0 514 360 B1 (Motorola) characterizes H610 as a system in which "a separate paging system is used in conjunction with the cellular telephone system," with the pager "assigned the same number as the associated cellular telephone."
  Source: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/bd/3a/6e/bd7b475a53cab7/EP0514360B1.pdf

Nuance vs. the earlier section: the prior generated summary implied H610 teaches a "combined pager/telephone-plus-location-reporting architecture." That over-reads it. H610 teaches a pager that uses the cellular system's channels and call-processing and is deliberately separable from the telephone; it does not disclose a unitary phone+pager handset, a VHF paging band, a triplexer, or reporting the handset's location to a paging service. H610 is still the single most on-point reference, but it is a strong § 103 primary reference, not a § 102 anticipation.

3. Element-by-element mapping of claim 1 to the cited art

Sources verified: H610 (above); US 4,849,750 — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US4849750A](/patent/US4849750A)/en and https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5039984A](/patent/US5039984A)/en (sibling disclosing multi-band RF tuner 18/20/22 and programmable channels); US 4,747,122 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/de/b1/f5/40785cfa291f8d/US4747122.pdf ; US 5,054,052 (Mitsubishi, "Mobile telephone device with low power consumption," filed 1989-04-03, granted 1991-10-01) is § 102(e)-type art as of its 1989 U.S. filing date.

4. The principal § 103 combination

Combination A (strongest): H610 + US 4,849,750 + US 4,775,999 + WO 82/01268 + US 4,397,037/4,556,760 + US 4,747,122

The combination:

1. H610 supplies the architecture core: a pager that receives pages over the UHF cellular-band channels/front end, under microprocessor-controlled channel scanning and selection by signal strength, with an alert, in association with a cellular telephone.
2. US 4,849,750 (Telefind) supplies (a) paging reception in multiple, widely separated bands via plural controlled tuners (claim 13) and (b) the over-the-air channel-programming command by which the paging system tells the pager which single channel/frequency to receive — precisely element (F)'s "paging signal … defining a single frequency for said paging receiver to tune." Telefind also expressly motivates this as a battery-conservation / avoid-scanning measure.
3. US 4,775,999 (Motorola) supplies automatic location registration of the mobile with the network — the source of the "UHF cellular signal … to determine the location of said apparatus."
4. WO 82/01268 (Motorola) supplies microprocessor-controlled multiple-scheme decoding and energy-saving routines — i.e., a μP-directed decoder selecting among paging formats/rates.
5. US 4,397,037 (RCA) / US 4,556,760 (ITT) supply the multiport filter/diplexer technique for isolating transmit, receive and an added band on a shared antenna — the "triplexer."
6. US 4,747,122 (Bhagat) and US 4,490,579 (Godoshian) supply the memory-stored paged number, indicator, display and automatic dialing from a mobile radio telephone — elements (I)/(K)/(L).

Motivation to combine (the critical § 103 showing)

A PHOSITA would have had several explicit, articulated reasons, drawn largely from the references' own statements and from the '700's own admissions:

• Same field, same problem. H610 and Telefind '750 are both paging-receiver references addressing the identical problems: nationwide/regional coverage and battery waste from channel scanning. '750 states outright that "continual scanning of the closely spaced channels requires a substantial power consumption causing the batteries of the pager to have a short life span"; H610 similarly re-scans because it searches for the best channel. Combining them is combining references "designed to address the same problem."
• Predictable improvement. Substituting the paging-system-directed single-frequency scheme of '750 for H610's signal-strength scanning is the kind of predictable substitution KSR treats as obvious, and it preserves H610's alerting/off-hook features.
• Automation of a known manual step. Telefind '750's system already reprograms channels based on the subscriber's designated service areas — a parameter that, in '750, must be supplied. Motorola '999's registration supplies that location parameter automatically from the cellular network — replacing a manual/administrative step with an automated one, a classic obviousness rationale.
• The '700's own admissions of known problems. The Background concedes: cellular telephones and mobile pagers "are well known"; 150 MHz national paging was crowded and users were migrating to 931 MHz; the two bands "require separate processing circuitry," which "makes the pager more expensive and bulky"; and the stated object is a "compact unitary package." These are express admissions of both the problem and the design incentive. See Aluminum Co. of America v. Barmac Drilling / MPEP 2144-type reasoning on admissions.
• Reasonable expectation of success. Every recited block (third bandpass-filter port, PLL-synthesized LO, IF demodulator, decoder, programmed μP, keypad, display, memory) was a known, off-the-shelf component in 1990, and the '700 names commercial part numbers for each (Philips UMA 1000, PCA 5000T, NE 5750/5751, PCF8573; Signetics 80C552). Combining known components with predictable results supports obviousness.

The "single dual-band circuit" sub-issue (element E(1))

The most defensible non-obviousness argument is that no cited reference teaches one signal path that receives both 150 MHz and 931 MHz by switching a single VCO between addition (high-side, ~310–320 MHz) and subtraction (low-side, ~460–470 MHz) against a constant 470 MHz IF. The counter-arguments actually help the § 103 case:

• This is high-side vs. low-side injection, the two standard ways to convert to a chosen IF. Given a fixed IF and two widely separated bands, there are only two injection options per band — a "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" (KSR).
• Telefind '750 chose the other known solution (separate tuners per band). The '700's specification disparages that alternative as "expensive, consumes extra energy, and results in a bulkier device" — i.e., the '700 itself frames the single-path version as the optimization of a known design, which is ordinarily obvious.
• Note, however, a potential teaching-away argument: '750's claim 13 affirmatively recites plural tuning means "each for receiving channels from a different band," and Telefind's overall thrust is that wide-band shared front-ends degrade antenna match/gain (see sibling US 5,012,235's discussion of the continuously tunable wideband antenna). A patentee could argue the art steered away from a single consolidated front end. This is the claim's best (and narrowest) redoubt.

5. Alternative / secondary combinations

• Combination B — US 4,849,750 as primary: Telefind '750 (multi-band paging receiver + remote channel programming + programmable bit rate) in view of H610 (cellular-band paging architecture, cellular-associated pager) and US 4,747,122 (pager-to-telephone auto-dial). Frames the invention as an obvious integration of a known programmable multi-band pager with a known cellular telephone and known callback hardware.
• Combination C — US 4,775,999 as primary for element (F): Motorola registration art + H610 + '750, for the "self-updating roaming pager" thrust.
• Combination D — cellular-telephone primary: any of the cited cellular-telephone references (US 4,556,760 hand-off filter; US 4,397,037 diplexer; the low-power cellular reference US 5,054,052, § 102(e)) in view of H610/'750/'122, arguing that adding a paging receiver to a known cellular handset was an obvious design choice motivated by battery conservation — a motivation '122 and '750 both state expressly.
• Front-end sub-combination: US 4,397,037 (diplexer) + US 4,556,760 (cellular filter) + the '700's own admission that its triplexer "is essentially normal duplexer operation" render element (B)'s "triplexer" obvious even standing alone.

6. Weaknesses, counter-arguments, and secondary considerations

1. (A) VHF paging antenna and (J) serial port have no express support in the cited references. Under In re Kahn / KSR, conclusory assertions are insufficient; the examiner would need either an additional reference or reliance on "common sense" plus the patent's own admissions (which do exist for VHF paging — the Background concedes 150 MHz paging was conventional). The serial port is the weakest link and the easiest for a patentee to seize on.
2. Teaching away (E(1)) as discussed above.
3. No litigation or IPR record to consult. The patent lapsed in 2001 for non-payment of maintenance fees and (per the earlier sections) there is no identified litigation, so there is no claim-construction or § 103 ruling from any court or the PTAB to guide or constrain this analysis. That means: (a) the means-plus-function constructions in § 3 are my own reading, not an authoritative one; and (b) I cannot report how any tribunal actually treated these references.
4. Secondary considerations — none of record. The patent reports no unexpected-results data, no industry praise, no licensing, and no copying evidence in the specification. The only near-secondary argument available is long-felt need (integration of pager and cellular phone in one package), but the '700 itself states the need was known and being worked on, and H610/'122/'750 show others were addressing it — which undercuts nexus.
5. Caveat on verification. US 4,775,999, US 4,644,347, WO 82/01268, US 4,397,037, US 4,556,760, US 4,490,579 and US 4,383,257 were treated by title/bibliographic record only in this session (tool-call limit reached). My characterizations of their teachings are based on those titles and on the '700's own citations; before relying on any single one in a written opinion, each should be pulled and read in full.

7. Bottom line

Claim 1 of US 5,247,700 is, on the cited art, likely obvious under § 103. The examiner's own primary reference, SIR H610 (Focarile et al., "Cellular Pager," Mar. 7, 1989), discloses the core architecture — a pager receiving over UHF cellular-band channels under microprocessor control, scanning and selecting channels by signal strength, with an alert and an associated cellular telephone. US 4,849,750 (Telefind) supplies multi-band paging reception and the over-the-air channel-programming-command concept that maps directly onto element (F)'s "paging system … defining a single frequency for said paging receiver to tune." US 4,775,999 (Motorola) supplies automatic location registration (element (F)'s location determination), WO 82/01268 (Motorola) supplies microprocessor-driven multi-scheme decoding/bit rate and energy-saving (element (E)(3)), US 4,397,037/US 4,556,760 supply the multiport/diplexer front-end (element (B)'s "triplexer"), and US 4,747,122/US 4,490,579 supply the pager-to-memory-to-display-to-auto-dial chain (elements (I), (K), (L)).

The § 103 showing is strongest where the claimed features are architecture-level (dual-band paging over shared cellular front-end, μP-controlled band/channel/bit-rate selection, cellular-location-driven paging-frequency update, programmed display) and weakest at exactly two points: the single add/subtract VCO front end of element (E)(1) (where Telefind '750's plural-tuner teaching could support a teaching-away argument) and the serial port of element (J) (no cited-reference support). Because claim 1 is the only claim in the patent, there is no narrower claim to fall back on — so a well-supported combination that reaches (E)(1) and (J) would invalidate the patent's entire right.