US 5657376

I'll search for this specific patent number across the requested sources.

Let me search more specifically for litigation and CAFC docket activity.

Let me check for any litigation, PTAB proceedings, and current ownership of this specific patent.

US 5,657,376 — Summary

Bibliographic data

Uncertainty note on assignee: the Google Patents page lists Glenayre Electronics Inc as both original and "current" assignee, with the standard disclaimer that no legal analysis of ownership was performed. I could not independently verify any later chain of title (Glenayre's corporate lineage changed over time), so treat "current assignee" as the register listing, not a verified ownership conclusion.

Abstract (as issued)

"An improved architecture for providing high capacity capability to voice message systems is disclosed. The system includes a plurality of stand-alone voice message processors (VMP), each of which are communicatively connected via a high-speed local area network. Each of the voice message processors are communicatively connected to a network interface module (NIM) that receives all incoming calls from a public switched telephone network (PSTN). A control module is connected to the NIM and also interfaces with each of the VMPs over the local area network. As each incoming call is received, the control module routes the call to the appropriate VMP assigned to the subscriber to whom the call is designated. A terminal server is also connected to the local area network. The terminal server receives calls from subscribers utilizing a personal computer. In this manner, a subscriber can access his or her voice mailbox account."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — the system (apparatus) claim.
A voice messaging system for storing voice/data messages for many subscribers and connecting a PSTN calling party to a desired subscriber, comprising four cooperating elements:

1. A plurality of voice message processors (VMPs) — each with multiple ports, and each assigned to handle a predetermined subset of the subscribers (i.e., the subscriber base is partitioned across processors rather than served by one box).
2. A network interface module (NIM) — receives PSTN calls via network ports, and is connected to each VMP through that VMP's ports.
3. A control module — directs interconnection of the calling party to the VMP assigned to the desired subscriber; contains a database mapping each subscriber to one VMP; and is operative to direct the NIM to initiate an "alerting call" to the desired subscriber on the request of the VMP.
4. A local area network — communicatively connects the NIM, the VMPs, and the control module.
   The claim's final clause captures the core architectural point: the NIM (not the VMP) connects the alerting call (the subscriber) to the calling party, and the VMP releases the ports associated with the calling party and the alerting call — i.e., the two parties are joined at the switch fabric so the VMP's ports are freed for other calls.

Claim 5 — the method claim. Steps for connecting a PSTN calling party to a called subscriber in the same architecture:

• receive the call at a receiving port of the NIM;
• determine which VMP is assigned to the called subscriber;
• route the call to a port of that assigned VMP;
• have that VMP generate an alerting call to the subscriber through (i) one of the VMP's ports and (ii) an outward calling port of the NIM;
• await the subscriber's answer; and
• connect the subscriber to the calling party by interconnecting the NIM's outward calling port and inward calling port.

Dependent claims (for context)

• Claim 2: adds a terminal server on the LAN with modems so subscribers can dial in (e.g., via PC) and be routed to their assigned VMP.
• Claim 3: the LAN is a TCP/IP-compatible network.
• Claim 4: the telephone number used for the alerting call depends on the time at which the calling party calls.
• Claim 6: releasing the VMP ports associated with the calling party and the alerting call once the two are connected.
• Claim 7: determining the call's arrival time and selecting the alerting call's telephone number based on that time.

Technical gist / significance

The patent's stated problem: in prior "meet-me" voice-mail systems (e.g., the commonly assigned US 5,307,399 to Dai et al. and application Ser. No. 08/302,682), a completed conversation tied up both an incoming trunk port and an outgoing port of the VMS, so a ~100-port system could support only ~50 simultaneous meet-me connections. The disclosed fix is a front-end NIM/control-module/LAN architecture that fans in to many standalone VMPs and, critically, hands the calling party and the alerted subscriber off to the NIM so the VMP ports are released mid-call — raising the ceiling on concurrent connections. The specification also describes a CT-2 cordless-telephone embodiment (pager integrated into the handset, autodial call-back) and shared application resource module (speech recognition/fax) features.

Judicial / CAFC status — important caveats

• No CAFC 2026 docket activity matching 5657376 was found. My searches for a 2026 Federal Circuit docket or appeal tied to this patent number returned nothing. I cannot affirmatively state that no such proceeding exists; I simply have no authoritative hit, so treat this as "not found," not "confirmed absent."
• Do not conflate with the well-known Glenayre litigation. Searches surfaced Glenayre Electronics, Inc. v. Jackson (N.D. Ill., 1:02-cv-00256; related CAFC appeal decided ~2006), a $12M jury verdict later remitted to ~$2.65M. That case concerns US 4,596,900 (Philip Jackson's reexamined "phone-line-linked, tone-operated control device" patent) — not 5,657,376. There is no indication in these results that 5,657,376 was ever asserted in that or any other suit.
• One third-party search-result artifact is worth flagging: a PTAB exhibit (IPR2022-00948, Apple Inc., Exhibit 1006) contains the string "5657376" inside a prior-art search query list — that is a patent-number citation in a search string, not a validity challenge to this patent.
• The Google Patents record reflects possible references to US 5,195,110 (Boston Technology) and US 5,475,748 (Boston Technology) as cited prior art; the truncated citation block lists Boston Technology's "Integrated services platform for telephone communication system" among the references.

Overall uncertainty

Everything in the bibliographic, abstract, and claim sections above is grounded in the authoritative patent text supplied (Google Patents full text, plus corroborating Justia/EveryPatent listings and uspto.report). The elements I could not confirm with authoritative sources are: (a) any post-issuance litigation, PTAB proceeding, or 2026 CAFC docket involving this specific patent number; and (b) the verified current owner. Both should be treated as open items.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 5657376.

Let me try more targeted litigation databases and searches.

Let me check specific litigation databases with targeted searches.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 5,657,376

Important caveat on search quality: I was able to run several targeted searches (Google Patents, general web, patent-litigation aggregator content, and PTAB/docket sources), but I could not directly query the paywalled/structured litigation databases (e.g., Lex Machina, Docket Navigator, PACER full-text, RPX/Unified litigation caselist) that would authoritatively confirm the presence or absence of every case. My conclusion below rests on what was retrievable and should be verified against those databases before being relied upon.

Finding: No litigation identified

I found no district court, Federal Circuit (CAFC), PTAB, or ITC litigation that asserts or otherwise involves U.S. Patent No. 5,657,376 ("Architecture for voice messaging systems," Glenayre Electronics, Inc., filed Oct. 13, 1995, issued Aug. 12, 1997, expired lifetime as of the Oct. 13, 2015 anticipated expiration).

Specifically:

• The Google Patents page for US5657376A lists no "Litigation" section or asserted-in-court entries among its family/related data. Its "Cited By" list (28 references) and "Citations" (2 references: US5193110 to Boston Technology and US5475748 to Boston Technology) reflect patent-document citations only — not lawsuits.
• The only Glenayre Electronics litigation surfaced in my searches concerned unrelated patents. For example, Glenayre Electronics, Inc. v. Jackson and PMJ Family Ltd. Partnership, No. 2005-1168 (Fed. Cir. Mar. 20, 2006), involved U.S. Patent No. 4,596,900 — not the '376 patent. A drugpatentwatch party page for "GLENAYRE ELECTRONICS, INC." showed a single N.D. Illinois declaratory-judgment case (filed 2002), associated with a different patent number, and is not evidence of '376 litigation.
• No case caption, docket number, plaintiff, or defendant tied to patent number 5657376 appeared in any retrievable source.

Summary table

Why this is plausible

The patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees / at the end of its statutory term around October 13, 2015 (Google Patents shows "Anticipated expiration" on 2015-10-13 and "Expired - Lifetime"), and its assignee, Glenayre Electronics, Inc., was an operating company (voice-messaging/paging equipment) rather than a patent-assertion entity. Both factors make litigation on the '376 patent unlikely.

Recommended verification steps

Because my searches were limited, if a definitive negative is required for a legal opinion, you should confirm against:

• Unified Patents litigation portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) — no entry for 5657376 was locatable via search.
• PACER / CourtListener (RECAP) docket search using the patent number and "5,657,376" variants.
• PTAB (IPR/PGR/CBM) and USPTO Assignment records.
• Commercial databases (Docket Navigator, Lex Machina, RPX) for exhaustive district-court coverage.

Bottom line: Based on the information I could retrieve, there is no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 5,657,376. I could not confirm this against all authoritative litigation databases, so treat the negative finding as provisional rather than conclusive.

PTAB Proceedings on US 5,657,376

Proceedings overview

There are no AIA trial proceedings on file for US 5,657,376 — zero IPRs, zero PGRs, zero CBM reviews. The USPTO Open Data Portal structured block ("PTAB proceedings on file") returns an empty set as of the most recent ingest, and my independent web checks surfaced no petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal referencing this patent number. The bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant is therefore unusual and worth stating precisely: this patent has not been hardened by surviving IPRs, and it has not been narrowed by them either — it is simply untested at the PTAB, and it carries all seven original claims (1–7) intact as issued. Equally important, the record shows no evidence the patent was ever asserted in district court, and it expired on 2015-10-13 (anticipated expiration per Google Patents). A demand letter citing this patent today is a demand letter citing an expired, judicially untested patent whose entire claim set is available to attack — but there is no FWD to hand you a ready-made invalidity story.

No proceedings to list. Because there is no institution decision, FWD, panel, or appeal to report, the per-proceeding subsections below are intentionally omitted rather than filled with speculation.

Verification trail (what I searched, and what it returned)

One artifact worth flagging (carried forward from the prior section)

A third-party PTAB exhibit from IPR2022-00948 (Apple Inc., Ex. 1006) contains the string "5657376" inside a prior-art search-query list. That is a number appearing in a search string in someone else's exhibit, not a validity challenge to this patent. Do not read it as an IPR on 5657376. To confirm it is unrelated you would pull Ex. 1006 in IPR2022-00948 from PTAB E2E / P-TACTS, but there is no reason to think it challenges this patent — IPR2022-00948 is an Apple petition, and Apple has never (on any record I found) asserted against or petitioned on a 1995 Glenayre voice-messaging patent.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all seven claims are UNTESTED, not canceled, not sustained. Claims 1 and 5 (the two independents — system and method) have never been through an AIA trial. Claims 2–4 and 6–7 (dependents) are likewise untouched. Contrast this with the usual PTAB-tested posture a defendant expects: here there is no FWD, no certificate of cancellation, no claim amendment, no statutory disclaimer on the record. If a demand letter cites "claims 1–5" or the full set, nothing in the PTAB record undercuts it — but nothing in the PTAB record rescues it either. The invalidity fight, if it ever happens, would be a first-impression fight at the district court or a fresh IPR.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, no petitioner or privy is estopped from raising any prior-art ground. A defendant today faces no estoppel bar — it can run the full prior-art playbook (§ 102/§ 103, and § 112 indefiniteness/enablement on the soft "operative to initiate an alerting call" and "released by said voice message processor" language in claim 1). Note, however, that this cuts both ways: the patent owner is likewise not estopped, but there is also no petitioner-favorable claim construction from a prior trial to leverage.

Pattern signals: none that would matter to a defendant. No repeat petitioner, no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX) in the chain, no patent-owner PTAB-appeal history. The patent shows up in Google Patents' "Cited By" list 28 times (e.g., US 5,953,394 NEC, US 6,191,418 Alcatel) — it is cited as prior art by others, which is the opposite of the assertion-risk signal you look for. A patent that is heavily cited but never asserted and never petitioned almost always means the owner never saw a monetization case worth building, and the 2015-10-13 expiration closed the window for a damages claim on post-expiration conduct (pre-suit damages are time-barred six years back from any complaint under § 286, and the patent's enforceable life ended in 2015).

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and were cited this patent:

• State the threshold point first: US 5,657,376 expired on 2015-10-13. There is no live patent to infringe for any conduct after that date, and § 286 bars pre-2015 damages beyond six years before any hypothetical complaint. Any demand premised on current infringement is on very thin ice.
• Because no FWD exists, do not expect a ready-made invalidity summary. If you need one, you would have to build it: the specification itself concedes the prior art (US 5,307,399 to Dai et al. and application Ser. No. 08/302,682, both commonly assigned), and the two "References Cited" on the face are US 5,195,110 and US 5,475,748 (both Boston Technology "Integrated services platform for telephone communication system") — a natural starting set for a § 103 combination against claim 1's "control module … direct[s] said network interface module to initiate an alerting call" + "ports … released by said voice message processor" limitations. Treat this as a research task, not a citation to an existing decision.
• Correct any confusion with the Glenayre v. Jackson line (CAFC 04-1568; district court N.D. Ill. 1:02-cv-00256). That is a different patent (US 4,596,900) and a different posture. If a demand letter, a claim chart, or a docket summary conflates the two, flag it.

If you are evaluating assertion risk / freedom to operate:

• Treat the patent as low-risk but not formally adjudicated. The absence of any PTAB activity across 30 years is itself a strong signal that no one with standing ever thought an IPR was worth filing — which usually correlates with the patent not being asserted. But say so plainly as an inference, not a finding: I found no record of any lawsuit or PTAB challenge, which is not the same as proving none exists in some unindexed forum.

If you are the patent owner hoping to assert:

• The PTAB path is closed off in the sense that there is nothing to appeal, but the expiration date caps your exposure. Any enforcement theory would have to rest on pre-2015 conduct, and you would be litigating claims 1–7 with an intact but unvetted claim set and a specification that openly characterizes the asserted Dai/′682 approach as prior art.

Limitations on this analysis (stated explicitly)

• I could not affirmatively prove a negative. The USPTO ODP structured block is treated as canonical and reports no proceedings, and multiple independent searches corroborated that. But an AIA petition that was filed and never indexed, or one terminated before public docketing, would not be visible to me. The corrective step is a direct P-TACTS lookup by patent number at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/ (search "AIA review #" and "Patent # = 5657376"). I did not have credentials/direct API access to run that query in this session.
• I did not invent any proceeding number, petition, panel, filing date, or FWD. Where the requested per-proceeding fields could not be populated, I left them out rather than fabricate.
• Date formats above are YYYY-MM-DD. The 2015-10-13 expiration is the "anticipated expiration" listed on Google Patents and is labeled there as an assumption, not a legal conclusion — but it is consistent with a 20-year term from the 1995-10-13 filing.

I'll research the assignment chain and corporate lineage for this patent.

Let me dig into the Glenayre messaging business sale and any USPTO assignment records.

Wi-LAN appears to have acquired a "Glenayre Patents" portfolio. Let me verify whether this patent was in that transfer and find the record.

Assignment-chain analysis — US 5,657,376 ("Architecture for voice messaging systems")

Scope note before the findings. I was not able to open the Assignment Center record page itself (the tooling available to me returns search results, not form submissions to assignmentcenter.uspto.gov). Everything below is built from (a) the authoritative full-text legal-events record for this patent supplied in the source packet, and (b) independent corporate-lineage evidence from SEC filings, contemporaneous trade press, and a recorded IP-assignment exhibit involving the same assignor. Where I do not have a reel/frame number I say so rather than supply one. This matters because the task explicitly asks for reel/frame + correspondent, and neither is present in the source packet for this patent.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — no signal. Both inventors assigned to the corporate assignee on the filing date, which is the ordinary "I was an employee and signed a pre-filing assignment" pattern. I found no evidence that either inventor left Glenayre within 12 months of filing, and no evidence of an inventor-retained license-back. (There is a different Glenayre case in the record — Glenayre Electronics, Ltd. v. Complex Systems — involving seven employees who left and a trade-secret/Omega Gold dispute, including a "Joel Sandahl" and "Michael Tanner." That is a paging-hardware trade-secret matter from the early 1990s and is not connected to either inventor here. Do not conflate them.)

Original assignee

GLENAYRE ELECTRONICS, INC. — named on the issued patent and on the sole recorded assignment (1995-10-13).

• Primary line of business / product embodying the claims: Yes, clearly. The specification names the assignee's own shipping products as the claimed "VMP": the GL3000 and the MVP® voice-messaging platforms (the MVP explicitly includes the "Meet Me" and "Find Me" services that map onto the claimed meet-me architecture — see the Glenayre MVP System product sheet at insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/2538473, also the "Constant Touch" one-number service). Glenayre was a carrier-grade voice-mail/enhanced-services vendor to mobile and wireline operators, later branding the line Versera.
• Corporate form: Colo. corporation. In a recorded 1 Nov 1999 IP assignment (Exhibit 10.29, filed with the Western Multiplex divestiture), Glenayre Electronics, Inc. is described as a Colorado corporation and, under the Glenayre Omnibus Intellectual Property Agreement effective 31 Dec 1994, was "designated as sole owner of all present and future intellectual property" of Glenayre Technologies, Inc. and its subsidiaries. That agreement is why the inventors assigned to the operating subsidiary rather than to the parent.
• Parent: Glenayre Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: GEMS). Note the lineage: N-W Group Inc. (a Delaware shell successor to bankrupt Nu-West) bought Glenayre Electronics Ltd's telecom business in Nov 1992 for ~$100M cash + stock + assumed liabilities (techmonitor.ai), took the Glenayre name, and became Glenayre Technologies.
• Current status: Effectively dissolved as a messaging company. On 31 Dec 2006 Glenayre Technologies sold substantially all assets comprising the Messaging business for $25M cash to IP Unity, which renamed itself IP Unity Glenayre (10-K FY2006; rcrwireless.com, whig.com, venturebeat.com). The parent renamed itself Entertainment Distribution Company (EDC) and exited telecom entirely. Within three years EDC — a CD/DVD replicator whose only real customer was Universal Music — reported a $9.8M nine-month loss and an accumulated deficit of ~$268M (ENTERTAINMENT DISTRIBUTION CO INC 10-Q, Sept 2007). I could not confirm with an authoritative source whether/when EDC filed for bankruptcy protection; treat "EDC in bankruptcy" as unverified.

Important distinction the record forces on us: the 2006 messaging-business sale went to IP Unity, and I can show that at least some sibling Glenayre voice-messaging patents went with it — e.g. US 7,457,876 shows a recorded chain Glenayre Electronics, Inc. → IP UNITY PEACH, INC. (reel 019084/0961, effective 2006-12-30), then change of name → IP UNITY GLENAYRE, INC. (reel 025788/0064, eff. 2006-12-29), then → MOVIUS INTERACTIVE CORPORATION (reel 025788/0392, eff. 2008-02-05), followed by SVB and Opus Bank security interests (reels 034691/0807; 035958/0638; 036048/0629) and a maintenance-fee lapse. US 5,657,376 shows none of those events — a genuine, load-bearing distinction, not a bookkeeping artifact I can wave away.

Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments for US 5,657,376 in the authoritative full-text record: exactly one. It is listed below; I do not have its reel/frame from the source packet, so I am not going to invent one.

• 1995-10-13 (executed and recorded) — Reel not available in source packet

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventor → company), "SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS"
  • Assignor: EspEUT, Donald B.; BETTIS, Sonny R.
  • Assignee: GLENAYRE ELECTRONICS, INC.
  • Correspondent: Not retrievable. No correspondents appear anywhere in the record I can access. I therefore cannot run the "repeat correspondent" test the task asks for, and I will not guess a name.
  • Context: Original employment/ownership assignment, contemporaneous with filing — the ordinary pre-issue case.

• 1995-10-13 (filing) / 1997-08-12 (issue) — no conveyance; patent granted to Glenayre Electronics, Inc.

• 2015-10-13 — anticipated term expiration (20 yrs from filing). Google Patents legal status: Expired – Lifetime.

Post-issuance conveyances: none recorded.

One high-priority unverified lead that would change this entire report if confirmed. On 2011-06-29 Wi-LAN Inc. (TSX:WIN / NASDAQ:WILN) announced it had acquired the "Glenayre Patents" from Glenayre Electronics, Inc. for $8M cash — "60 issued U.S. patents plus foreign counterparts," characterized as covering "mobile messaging and wireless data transmission and reception." Source: Wi-LAN press release as reproduced at investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=64727584 (Quarterhill/WiLAN board). This is the single most troll-relevant fact I found, because Wi-LAN is a named entity on the NPE list in the task brief. However:

1. I could not confirm that US 5,657,376 is one of the 60 patents, and
2. the fact that Google Patents' reassignment block for this patent contains no post-1995 entry while the sibling patent US 7,457,876 does show its 2006/2008/2010/2012/2015 recordings is evidence — weak but real — pointing the other way.

Bottom line: if the Wi-LAN portfolio list includes US 5,657,376, a reel/frame in the 2011 range exists and this becomes an NPE chain. If it does not, this patent likely never left the Glenayre residue entity and simply lapsed. Resolve this with one direct Assignment Center query for patent 5,657,376 — it is a 30-second check and it is outcome-determinative.

Also flag for a cross-check: a 2012-05-25 Silicon Valley Bank security-interest recording (reel 034691/0807) and a 2015-06-30 Opus Bank recording appear in the sibling's chain; if an equivalent 2011–2015 lien shows up against 5,657,376, that confirms it travelled with the portfolio.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5657376
    1992 : NW Group buys Glenayre Electronics
    1994 : Glenayre Omnibus IP Agreement
    1995 : Patent filed by Glenayre Electronics
         : Inventors assign to Glenayre
    1997 : Patent issued
    2006 : Messaging assets sold to IP Unity
         : Parent renamed EDC
    2011 : Glenayre patents sold to Wi-LAN unverified
    2015 : Term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data (no records beyond the original assignment).

The authoritative record contains exactly one recorded conveyance for US 5,657,376 — the inventor-to-Glenayre Electronics, Inc. assignment dated 1995-10-13, the filing date — and Google Patents lists no post-issuance reassignment, with legal status "Expired – Lifetime" at the 2015-10-13 term end. On the four corners of the record, the original operating assignee still owns a patent that has simply lapsed; that is not an NPE chain, and I will not manufacture one from a company name.

That said, I want to be explicit about the residual risk rather than hide it behind the label: Wi-LAN Inc.'s 2011-06-29 purchase of a 60-patent "Glenayre Patents" portfolio from Glenayre Electronics, Inc. for $8M is a live, unresolved lead, and the reason I cannot close it is a retrieval limitation, not an absence of evidence. Recommended next step: query https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (legacy index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html) for patent 5,657,376 and read off any reel/frame in the 2011 range plus its correspondent. If a Wi-LAN (or Quarterhill) recording exists, the verdict flips to NPE — moderate confidence on the strength of signals 2 + 4-and-6-adjacent conduct; if the record still shows only the 1995 entry, Insufficient data stands as final.

Contradiction check against the previously generated section: none. That section flagged the "current assignee = Glenayre Electronics Inc" listing as an unverified register entry and warned against conflating this patent with Glenayre Electronics, Inc. v. Jackson (US 4,596,900). Both cautions hold, and the absence of any recorded post-1995 assignment is consistent with — indeed explanatory of — Google Patents continuing to show Glenayre Electronics, Inc. as assignee.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 5,657,376 and related references.

Let me verify the second citation's details and check the European family member's search report for additional prior art.

Prior Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 5,657,376

Reference date of this analysis: April 26, 2026. Statutory framework: the '376 patent has a filing/priority date of Oct. 13, 1995, i.e., before the AIA first-to-file change, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102 governs.

1. What the USPTO record actually cites

Following the strict-instruction rule, I relied on the authoritative patent text you supplied. The "Citations" block on the Google Patents record for US5657376A lists exactly two (2) references — the same two reproduced in the full text:

US5193110A (1990-10-09 / 1993-03-09, Boston Technology) — "Integrated services platform for telephone communication system"
US5475748A (1992-09-18 / 1995-12-12, Boston Technology) — "Automatic telephone system with function for multiple ou[dialed calls per caller]" (truncated in the source)

That is the entire examiner-cited set. There are no foreign patent documents and no non-patent literature in the '376 citation list (contrast: the family-member platform in US 5,193,110 itself cites EP 237834, EP 309993, and ~9 NPL items). Anyone asserting a larger '376 prior-art set from the Google Patents "Citations (2)" entry is over-reading the record.

Caveats on method: I could not query PACER/PTAB/file-wrapper or the commercial databases; my confirmation is from the authoritative text plus public patent repositories (Google Patents, uspto.report, patents.searchlight.law). A USPTO PatentCenter "References Cited" pull should be treated as the final word on what the examiner actually considered.

2. Summary table

3. Reference-by-reference

3.1 US 5,193,110 — Boston Technology (Jones et al.)

Full citation. U.S. Patent No. 5,193,110, "Integrated services platform for telephone communication system," inventors Scott A. Jones, Allen T. Arumainayagam, Amitava Mukherjee, Donald F. Picard, Richard E. Cohen; assignee Boston Technology, Incorporated (Wakefield, MA); Application No. 07/594,648; filed Oct. 9, 1990; issued Mar. 9, 1993; 19 claims; primary examiner Dwyer. Related to Ser. No. 07/393,270 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,029,199).

Brief description. A distributed "integrated services platform" for a central office / large corporate user. A master control unit (MCU) and a high-speed digital switch (DSS) sit between the central office (via T-1/ISDN PRI, multi-line hunt group, channel bank) and a multiplicity of application processing units (APUs) — including voice processing units (VPUs) and facsimile processing units (FPUs) — coupled over an internal bus/network 32, preferably Ethernet, using TCP/IP. The MCU:

• receives call-arrival + SMDI/DID routing info;
• looks up the mailbox database and determines the subscriber's "home" VPU, then instructs the DSS to connect the call to that home VPU, or to a remote/non-busy VPU if the home unit is blocked, transferring the subscriber's personal data over the bus;
• runs an outdial process for scheduling outbound deliveries (illustrated with fax delivery), where the MCU seizes an outgoing line and connects it to the appropriate FPU port.

Potential § 102 relevance to the '376 claims.

• Claim 1 (system): US 5,193,110 discloses a plurality of processing units each effectively assigned a predetermined portion of subscribers (the "home VPU" concept), a front-end switching/network element connected to the PSTN and to each unit's ports (the DSS), and a control module with a database mapping subscribers to units (the MCU + mailbox database), all joined by a LAN (Ethernet/TCP-IP internal bus 32). It therefore discloses most of the architectural elements of claim 1. However, it does not disclose the claim's characterizing final clause — that the control module directs the network interface to initiate an alerting call to the desired subscriber at the VMP's request, that the NIM (not the VMP) connects the alerted subscriber to the calling party, and that the VMP ports are released. US 5,193,110's outdial is a message-delivery mechanism, not a meet-me alerting/handoff mechanism. Conclusion: not a § 102 anticipation of claim 1 as issued; strong § 103 material for claim 1 in view of the meet-me art below.
• Claim 3 (LAN is TCP/IP compatible): the reference expressly states the APU↔MCU interface is "automatically supported by the TCP/IP protocol" and the internal bus is preferably Ethernet. This element is squarely disclosed → claim 3 is potentially anticipated under § 102.
• Claim 2 (terminal server with modems): the reference contemplates subscriber access and administration but does not describe a discrete terminal-server-plus-modem-bank for PC dial-up; § 103 rather than § 102.

3.2 US 5,475,748 — Boston Technology

Full citation. U.S. Patent No. 5,475,748, "Automatic telephone system with function for multiple out-dialed calls per caller," assignee Boston Technology, Inc.; filed Sept. 18, 1992; issued Dec. 12, 1995. (US 5,657,376's own text cites it as "Automatic telephone system with function for multiple ou…" — truncated in the source record.)

Brief description. An automated call-processing system that locates a called party on behalf of an incoming caller. It receives a "search indication" that the caller needs special handling; then performs a plurality of outdialing operations (simultaneous or in a predefined sequence, in sets) calling corresponding numbers; terminates unsuccessful outdials; and connects the incoming caller to whichever outdial succeeds. Critically for the '376 patent, it teaches: "automated call routing to a subscriber of an information service in which different phone numbers are called depending upon the time of day at which an incoming call is received for the subscriber", with the manner of calling modifiable by time of day or caller identification; the caller is kept informed of progress. It expressly builds on an "integrated services platform" (it cites U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,029,199 and 5,193,100 — note: "5,193,100" appears literally in the reference text; given the context this would normally be US 5,193,110, but per the strict rule I am not auto-correcting it).

Potential § 102 relevance to the '376 claims.

• Claim 4 (alerting-call telephone number depends on the time at which the calling party calls) and claim 7 (determining call arrival time and selecting the alerting-call number based on that time): the reference's express time-of-day-dependent number selection reads directly on these limitations. Claims 4 and 7 are potentially anticipated under § 102(e) (its 1992-09-18 filing predates the '376 filing).
• Claims 1 and 5: these references disclose the alerting/outdial-to-contact-the-subscriber concept and caller-to-called-party connection, but they do not disclose the multi-VMP + NIM + control-module + LAN architecture or the specific "interconnect the NIM's outward calling port to the inward calling port / release the VMP ports" mechanism. § 103, not § 102, for claims 1 and 5.

Important statutory nuance: because US 5,475,748 issued Dec. 12, 1995 — after the '376 filing date of Oct. 13, 1995 — it cannot be § 102(b) art (it is neither "more than one year before" the filing nor a pre-filing publication). Its only § 102 footing is § 102(e) (granted US patent whose application was filed before the '376 filing date). Any assertion of it as a printed publication or § 102(b) reference would be legally wrong.

4. Prior art the examiner did NOT cite, but which is material

These appear in the '376 specification as background rather than in the "Citations" list, and are the references I would expect a validity challenge to pair with the Boston Technology art:

4.1 US 5,307,399 to Dai et al. (same assignee)

Citation: "Paging system that allows caller/subscriber interconnection," inventors Dai et al., assignee Glenayre Electronics, Inc. (the '376 assignee); filed Mar. 6, 1992; issued Apr. 26, 1994. The '376 text cites it as "U.S. Pat. No. 5,307,399 to Dai et al. and assigned to the same assignee." (The public record shows US 5,307,399 as Dai et al., Glenayre.)
Description: parks a caller on hold while a page is broadcast to a CT-2 subscriber's handset; the subscriber autodials back on a private number; the paging terminal then connects the caller to the subscriber; the VMP/paging-system internals (DID cards 42, VSB 46, CPT card 47, VME bus 54, DAC bus 56, switch card 58, PCM highway 64) are described with hardware identical to that in the '376 patent's FIG. 2.
§ 102 relevance: arguably the closest disclosure of the meet-me feature (alerting the subscriber and connecting caller↔subscriber). Because it issued 1994-04-26, it is § 102(b) art (more than one year before the '376 filing). It does not, however, disclose the claimed architecture (plurality of VMPs with partitioned subscriber assignment + NIM front end + control module + LAN), so it does not anticipate claims 1 or 5 standing alone. Note also that its common ownership with the '376 patent would bear on any pre-AIA § 103(c) combination argument against claims 1/5, but not on a § 102 ground.

4.2 Co-pending application Ser. No. 08/302,682 (incorporated by reference)

The '376 specification expressly incorporates "commonly assigned co-pending application Ser. No. 08/302,682 … describ[ing] in detail a method of connecting a calling party to a called party." Open item: I could not confirm in this session the patent number or publication date that this application matured into. If it published or issued, it is a candidate § 102(a)/(e) reference. Because it is incorporated by reference and commonly owned, a § 103 attack using it would also implicate pre-AIA § 103(c). This should be resolved from the '376 file wrapper.

4.3 US 5,029,199 (Jones et al., Boston Technology)

The parent platform reference (App. 07/393,270, filed 1989-08-10; issued 1991-07-01), "voice mail message system having multiple voice processing units." It is not in the '376 citation list but underlies both cited Boston Technology references and is the earliest disclosure of the "multiple VPUs, home-VPU assignment, MCU + digital switch" architecture. Potential § 102(b) art for the architectural subcombination.

5. Bottom-line assessment

1. US 5,193,110 and US 5,475,748 are the only references the examiner cited against the '376 patent. Neither anticipates independent claim 1 or claim 5 as issued, because neither discloses the two-part mechanism the claims are built around: (a) the control module directing the NIM to initiate an alerting call to the subscriber at the VMP's request, and (b) the NIM connecting that alerted subscriber to the calling party with the VMP ports released.
2. US 5,193,110 potentially anticipates dependent claim 3 (TCP/IP LAN) on the express TCP/IP + Ethernet disclosure, and supplies the plurality-of-processors / home-unit-assignment / MCU-database / LAN architecture for a § 103 attack on claims 1 and 5.
3. US 5,475,748 potentially anticipates dependent claims 4 and 7 (time-of-day-dependent alerting-call number) under § 102(e) — and only § 102(e), because it issued after the '376 filing.
4. Claims 2 and 6 (terminal server with modems; releasing VMP ports on connection) appear to lack any single-reference anticipation in the cited set; they would be defended/attacked on § 103 grounds, with US 5,307,399 (Dai) being the most direct disclosure of the underlying meet-me/handoff concept and the strongest § 102(b) background reference.
5. Flag for cross-reference with the previously generated sections: the earlier summary described US 5,195,110 and US 5,475,748 as "Boston Technology" citations. The authoritative text confirms US 5,193,110 (not 5,195,110) — the earlier "US 5,195,110" figure appears to be a transcription slip and should be corrected. Everything else in the earlier sections is consistent with the record.

Open items (explicitly unresolved): (a) the identity/number of the incorporated-by-reference application Ser. No. 08/302,682; (b) whether the file wrapper lists any additional references not reflected in the public "Citations" block; (c) the literal reading of "U.S. Pat. No. 5,193,100" as it appears in US 5,475,748 (not auto-corrected to 5,193,110 per the instructions). A PatentCenter file-wrapper pull would close items (b) and (c).

I'll ground this §103 analysis in the actual prior art references cited on the patent's page, then search for their disclosure content.

Let me pull the content of the two cited references' key disclosures and the admitted prior art (Dai '399).

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 5,657,376 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. A cross-reference discrepancy to flag first (per operating rules)

The previously generated Patent summary section states the cited art as "US 5,195,110 (Boston Technology)." The authoritative full text supplied for this page lists the citation as "US5193110 … Boston Technology, Incorporated — Integrated services platform for telephone communication system." I am interpreting the identifier literally as US 5,193,110 and flagging that the earlier "5,195,110" appears to be a transposition; 5,193,110 and 5,195,110 are different numbers and must not be conflated. (This is the same failure mode I noted earlier: the preceding section also mis-stated the second citation's title truncation; the authoritative text reads "US5475748 … Automatic telephone system with function for multiple out[‑dialed calls per caller].")

A second, independent transposition artifact is worth logging: the full text of US 5,475,748 (as retrieved) says its platform is "the platform disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,029,199 and 5,193,100 both incorporated herein by reference." I am reading "5,193,100" literally as written in that patent; it is not the same string as 5,193,110, and I do not auto-correct it. (See https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5475748A](/patent/US5475748A)#1 )

1. Legal framework applied

• Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966): scope/content of the prior art; differences between prior art and claims; level of ordinary skill; objective indicia.
• KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007): a combination is obvious where there is an articulated reason with rational underpinning; predictable variation, "obvious to try," and design incentives/market forces count; the reference need not be physically combinable — what matters is whether the claimed combination was within the skill of the art.
• MPEP § 2143: motivation may come from the references themselves, the nature of the problem, or the knowledge of a POSITA; same-field, same-assignee, and express incorporation-by-reference are strong motivation evidence.

Level of ordinary skill (assumed): a B.S. in EE/CS or equivalent, plus 2–4 years in telephony/voice-messaging systems, familiar with T1/DID/PCM voice-processing platforms, SS7/ANI, paging terminals, and networked (Ethernet/Unix) call-routing architectures. This is consistent with the patent's own enablement (Motorola MVME187/Unix System V control module; Glenayre MVP/GL3000 VMPs; Exxon "LNX-2000" switch).

2. The two references from the "Prior Art" (Citations) section, and their qualifying dates

Corroborating/supplementary art (specification-admitted prior art, not on the Citations list): US 5,307,399 (Dai et al., Glenayre, issued 1994‑04‑26) and its CIP Ser. No. 08/302,682 → issued as US 5,559,859 (Dai et al., filed 1995‑03‑10). Both are expressly identified in the '376 specification as the "meet‑me" prior art being improved upon.

What each reference discloses (grounded)

US 5,193,110 (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US5193110A](/patent/US5193110A) ; abstract and text):

• A "plurality of application processing ports … for providing different types of information services" including "business voice messaging," i.e., multiple voice message processors, scalable to "a total of 1536 ports" and "approximately 100,000 subscribers."
• A "master control unit (MCU)" and a "high speed digital switch (DSS)" that "control processing of incoming phone calls to … recognize the type of service being requested by a subscriber … and route the call to the appropriate application processing port."
• A distributed architecture in which "the MCU coordinates the routing of calls … through the DSS 14 to voice processing units 16–24," with communication "over an internal network" (Ethernet is named in the Boston Technology family), and "subscriber related information such as the … home voice processing unit for each subscriber" held by the MCU.
• Out-dialing through the switch is disclosed: "If out-dialing of the message is necessary, such as when a pager needs to be activated, the master control unit connects the voice processing unit … to the central office through the digital switch and the unit places the desired call."
• Stated advantage: "maximum availability of message processing units by freeing a voice processing unit to handle another call."

US 5,475,748 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5475748A#1 ):

• An automated call-processing system for locating a called party that (i) receives "a search indication that an incoming caller requires special handling to reach a called party"; (ii) "initiat[es] … out-dialing operations" to contact the called party; (iii) "connect[s] the incoming caller to the called party contacted by the successful outdialing operation"; and (iv) "terminat[es] … each unsuccessful outdialing operation when the called party is unavailable."
• Expressly discloses time-of-day-dependent destination selection: "different phone numbers are called depending upon the time of day at which an incoming call is received for the subscriber," and "the manner in which the telephone numbers are called may be modified by time of day…."
• It is built on the same platform as US 5,193,110 and expressly incorporates that platform (the "5,029,199 and 5,193,100" incorporation sentence) — strong same-field, same-assignee linkage.

Admitted prior art (Dai '399 / '682→'859): disclose the complete meet‑me/"page‑connect" sequence — park the caller on hold, alert (page) the subscriber, have the subscriber call back in, then bridge caller and subscriber — but through the voice terminal's own DID/PCM resources (four PCM-highway time-slot interconnections per call; ports occupied for the call's duration). This is the very problem the '376 states it solves ("the maximum number of meet‑me connections would be fifty").

3. Independent claim 1 — element-by-element mapping

Result: every element of claim 1 is disclosed across US 5,193,110 + US 5,475,748, with the Dai admitted art supplying the "meet‑me/page‑connect on the VMP's request" flavor.

4. Claim 5 (independent method) — mapping

5. Motivation to combine — articulated under KSR/MPEP § 2143

1. Same problem, same field, same architecture family. Both references are Boston Technology, Inc. voice/telephony platforms; '748 is expressly written as a feature running on the '110 platform (it incorporates the platform by reference). One of ordinary skill would naturally look to '748's "locate the called party by outdialing" feature as a service to add to the '110 architecture.
2. The '376 specification supplies the design incentive. Its stated problem is that in the Dai-type terminal, "when a calling party and a subscriber are ultimately connected and in conversation, one incoming port … and one outgoing port of the VMS are occupied," capping a 100-port system at ~50 meet‑me calls. The predictable solution to a port-exhaustion problem is exactly the '110 design: front-end a scalable switch (DSS/NIM) in front of many processors, then let the switch perform the caller↔subscriber bridge so processor ports drop out. KSR ("design incentives … market forces"; "predictable variation").
3. Both references already point at the mechanism. '110 touts "freeing a voice processing unit to handle another call"; '748 already connects the caller to the party reached, which on a switch-centered platform necessarily happens at the switch rather than in the processor. The Boston Technology platform's automated-attendant sibling art makes the point explicitly — upon caller↔called-party connection, "the caller is directly connected … and all connection to the system providing the automated attendant service is severed," enabling "simultaneous connections for as many calls as supported by the central office." That is the reason to release the VMP ports, i.e., the very "wherein" clause of claim 1.
4. No teaching away / no unpredictable result. Nothing in '110 or '748 disparages holding a caller while an alert is outdialed, nor the switch bridging the two legs. The '376 asserts no new hardware or algorithm — merely a rearrangement of where the bridge occurs.

6. Dependent claims 2–4, 6, 7

7. Bottom-line § 103 conclusion

• Claim 1 — Obvious over US 5,193,110 in view of US 5,475,748 (the '110 platform supplies the plurality-of-VMPs / NIM-switch / MCU-database / LAN architecture; '748 supplies the controlled alerting outdial and the caller-to-called-party connection, which on '110's switch fabric entails releasing the processor ports). Adding the admitted Dai '399/'682 art strengthens the "on request of the voice message processor" limitation.
• Claim 5 — Obvious for the same reasons, in method form.
• Claims 4 and 7 — Obvious, and effectively disclosed outright by US 5,475,748 (time-of-day number selection).
• Claims 3 and 6 — Obvious (standard TCP/IP-over-Ethernet implementation; inherent/engineered port release tied to the switch-based bridge).
• Claim 2 — Obvious, but on the thinnest evidentiary footing of the set; a stronger secondary reference on dial-up subscriber access would be advisable.
• Overall: the '376 reads as a combination/arrangement patent — its novelty lies in where the caller↔subscriber bridge is performed (at the front-end switch, not the voice processor) — and that rearrangement follows directly and predictably from the two Boston Technology references plus the specification's own admitted problem. Objective indicia (long-felt need for meet‑me capacity, the express incorporation of the Boston platform, and same-field same-assignee motivation) reinforce rather than rebut obviousness.

8. Explicit uncertainty and verification notes

• Source scope. The claim mapping in §§3–6 is grounded in the abstract/text excerpts actually retrieved for US 5,193,110 and US 5,475,748 and in the authoritative '376 text supplied. I could not open the full specifications/claims of '110 or '748 in their entirety; the quantitative port-count and time-of-day disclosures are quoted from retrieved text, whereas claim citation precision (exact claim numbers of '110/'748 relied on) is inferred and should be confirmed against the full documents before it is used in a legal brief.
• EP 0 569 164 and EP 0 412 799 are Boston Technology family members referenced above as corroboration only; they are not on the '376 Citations list. Their publication dates (1993‑11‑10 and 1991‑02‑13 respectively) would also make them § 102(b) art against the '376, so they are legitimate backup references if a stricter "references-only" combination is required.
• The two transposition artifacts in §0 (5,195,110 vs 5,193,110; and '748's internal "5,193,100") are flagged, not corrected.
• Assignee/§102(e) nuance: US 5,475,748 is § 102(e) art only if its '376-relevant subject matter is supported by its pre-'376-filing disclosure; that support check requires the full '748 specification, which I did not retrieve. If '748's outdialing/connect subject matter were added after 1992‑09‑18 by amendment, its 102(e) date could shift — verify if this analysis is to be relied upon.