US 5670730

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

Let me search for the specific litigation and reexamination history of this patent number.

US Patent 5,670,730 — Summary

Search scope note (uncertainty flagged up front): I searched for the exact identifier "5670730" (US 5,670,730). I found no CAFC 2026 docket, opinion, or order involving this patent. The CAFC activity associated with this patent number in the record is a 2017 appeal (docket 17‑1491), not a 2026 matter — and the patent has been expired since 2015, so it is not a live assertion target. What follows is grounded in the full patent text and the prosecution/assignment/reexamination record for this exact number, plus one news report of a jury verdict. I could not directly query USPTO PatentCenter or the CAFC docket in real time, so status fields below carry the usual caveat that they are the record's statements, not legal conclusions.

Bibliographic data (as recorded)

Family check: the other filings under this number are the 1996 foreign counterparts (EP, CA, JP, KR, TW, MX) all claiming the 1995‑05‑22 US priority. I did not treat any similar-but-different number as this patent.

Abstract (verbatim substance)

A protocol for labeling various types of data on a "music chip." The protocol uses a hierarchical arrangement of headers. A global header at the very start of memory specifies what is needed to decode the chip's contents — e.g., the bit rate and the specific PAC encoding algorithm. Each chip also has a table of contents section covering play times, song titles, music category and artist, with individual track selections listed as individual headers. Each individual header contains a music-category field (classical, jazz, country, rock, etc.), an artist field, and an address field for locating the track. Header information is self-registered (auto-downloaded) when a chip is loaded into a player/jukebox, enabling selection by type of music, by artist, or combinations. The patent also claims a method of segmenting memory in such a chip by storing encoding parameters in a global header and coding general description data fields for individual tracks in at least one individual header.

(Note on a drafting quirk in the document: the acronym "PAC" is expanded in the text both as "Perceptual Audio Coding" and, in one instance, as "Personal Audio Coding." I report both as they literally appear rather than harmonizing them.)

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — "Data format" (the container/record-structure claim).
A data format for an audio system where pre-recorded music is digitally encoded in the memory of an IC music chip and played back by an associated audio player. Individual tracks live at designated memory locations. The format has two things:

1. a first header holding parameters the player uses to decode the encoded music; and
2. at least one second header containing selectable categorical information about the individual tracks.
   In short: one header for "how to decode," plus per-track header(s) carrying category-type descriptors.

Claim 18 — "Data protocol" (the same architecture framed as a protocol for storing audio).
A data protocol for storing pre-recorded audio in an IC chip used with an audio player, comprising:

1. a global header whose stored parameters correspond to the encoding technique used to store the audio and are used by the player to decode it; and
2. at least one individual header with multiple data fields holding general description information about individual tracks.
   In short: global header = codec/encoding parameters; individual header = descriptive metadata per track.

Claim 31 — Method claim (memory segmentation).
A method of segmenting memory in an IC chip used in an audio player where pre-recorded audio is already stored, comprising the steps of:

1. storing in a global header parameters corresponding to the encoding techniques used to store the audio; and
2. coding in at least one individual header data fields indicative of general description information for individual tracks.
   In short: the same hierarchy, but claimed as steps of arranging/segmenting the chip's memory.

Dependent-claim highlights (for scope color): bit rate in the first/global header (2, 19, 32); algorithm specified in the first header (3); category field (4, 20, 33); artist code, including a binary-coded abbreviation (5, 10, 21, 34); addressing info (6, 22, 35); begin and end addresses (7, 16); fixed-width fields with only an end address so begin address is implied (8, 17, 23); distribution info in the first header (9); song titles and play times (12, 27); enumerable categories "CLS, CTY, GOS, JAZ, POP, RAP, REG, RNB, ROC" (13); automatic download on power-up (14, 24); field ordering category→artist→address (15, 26); audio placed immediately after the individual header(s) (25); graphics/album art (28); song lyrics (29); global header with bit rate plus record label and copyright info (30).

Litigation / enforcement (context, not current status)

• US District Courts (from the patent's own litigation record): E.D. Pa. 5:11‑cv‑04751 (listed as "critical"); E.D. Tex. 2:06‑cv‑00079 and 2:15‑cv‑00239; E.D. Cal. 3:11‑cv‑02709; N.D. Cal. 3:09‑cv‑02737, 5:09‑cv‑02737, 3:15‑cv‑04525, 3:16‑cv‑00451.
• CAFC: docket 17‑1491 appears in the litigation record for this patent number. The parties are not identified in that record, so I cannot state with confidence what that appeal concerned — flagging this as an uncertainty rather than guessing.
• Reported jury outcome: a press account reports that a jury found Sony willfully infringed US 5,670,730 (PlayStation Portable, mylo Personal Communicator, and Network Walkman products) and awarded Agere roughly $18.5 million, with Sony having argued invalidity. This is a news report, not a court document I verified, so treat the figure and product list as reported rather than confirmed.
• Reexamination interplay: because the 2012 reexamination certificate confirmed claims without amendment (claims 1–6, 12–13), the intervening-rights/amended-claim analysis that would follow a substantive claim change is generally not triggered — but that is an observation about the record, not legal advice.

What I could not confirm

1. No CAFC 2026 docket for 5670730 was found. Given the patent expired 2015‑05‑22 and the last appeal record is 2017, a 2026 appeal involving this patent would be unusual; I found no evidence of one.
2. The patent's "current assignee" is reported inconsistently across the record (Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd vs. Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.), and there are AT&T Corp. merger records dated 1995 but entered in 2015. I did not attempt to resolve the true present owner.
3. The CAFC 17‑1491 parties and outcome are not identified in the sources I could reach.

If you want, I can next try to pull the CAFC 17‑1491 docket and the E.D. Tex. 2:06‑cv‑00079 / E.D. Pa. 5:11‑cv‑04751 filings specifically tied to this number.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 5670730. Let me start with several searches.

Let me search for more specific case details.

Based on my research (including the litigation data attached to the Google Patents record for US 5670730, court records via CourtListener/RECAP, and press coverage), here is what I can confirm and what remains unverified. Note that I interpret the patent number literally as US 5670730.

Confirmed Litigation

1. Agere Systems Inc. v. Sony Corporation et al.

• Plaintiff: Agere Systems Inc.
• Defendants: Sony Corporation; Sony Electronics, Inc.; Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc.
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Marshall Division)
• Case No.: 2:06-cv-00079 (listed on the Google Patents record as E.D. Tex. 2:06-cv-00079)
• Filed: March 1, 2006
• Outcome/Status: Terminated January 6, 2009. A jury verdict in November 2008 found Sony liable for willful infringement of the '730 patent, awarding $18.5 million in damages. Sony was cleared of infringement on seven of the eight asserted patents (due to a prior licensing agreement with Agere's predecessor, Lucent Technologies), leaving the '730 patent as the sole patent tried. The accused products included Sony PSP, mylo Personal Communicator, and Network Walkman devices. (Sources: Ars Technica, "Sony gets $18.5M wrist slap for PSP patent infringement," Nov. 2008; CourtListener docket 4808158; FJC IDB record; NPE Litigation Database.)

Cases Listed in the Google Patents Litigation Data (Not Independently Verified)

The Google Patents record for US 5670730 lists the following additional "Family has litigation" entries. I was not able to confirm the parties, outcomes, or details for these within my research, so I present them strictly as listed:

Possible correlation (unconfirmed): A Barnes & Noble 10-Q filing references a suit in which "LSI and Agere" asserted eleven patents against Barnes & Noble, Inc. and barnesandnoble.com llc. This could correspond to the E.D. Pa. case (5:11-cv-04751), but I could not verify that the '730 patent was among the patents asserted or that the case numbers match. Treat this as a lead, not a confirmed fact.

Additional Related Proceedings (Patent Office, not court litigation)

• Ex parte reexamination: A request for reexamination was filed (effective date April 26, 2011), and a reexamination certificate (B1) issued March 20, 2012, confirming the patentability of claims 1–6 and 12–13; claims 7–11 and 14–35 were not reexamined.
• Declaration of invalidity proceedings in Europe: The EP counterpart (EP 0755056) is noted as "Withdrawn"; the Canadian counterpart (CA 2176982) is noted as "Expired – Fee Related." These are prosecution/status events, not litigation.

Important Caveats

• Per the strict rule, I have not auto-corrected any identifier. Note that UTS 5670730 (the U.S. patent) is distinct from unrelated foreign registrations such as JP-5670730-B2 (a Japanese patent on "Method and apparatus for inspection of substances") — these are separate documents and I have excluded the latter.
• The Google Patents "litigation" entries are aggregator data (sourced from Unified Patents / Darts-IP) and do not themselves state parties or outcomes. For the seven district court dockets and the CAFC appeal listed above, PACER docket records would be needed to confirm plaintiff, defendant, and disposition; I was unable to retrieve that detail within this session.

Bottom line: The one fully documented, adjudicated case is Agere Systems Inc. v. Sony Corporation et al., 2:06-cv-00079 (E.D. Tex.), which resulted in a $18.5M willful-infringement verdict for Agere on the '730 patent and terminated January 6, 2009. Several other matters are listed on the patent's litigation record but could not be verified here.

I'll verify the structured data — which reports no AIA trials — against public sources before writing this up.

Let me run additional targeted searches for any AIA trial activity, including the 2017 CAFC appeal and Unified Patents involvement.

Interesting lead — an ASUS/EDTX claim-construction exhibit references the '730 patent. Let me chase that and check for any AVAGO v. ASUS PTAB filings.

PTAB / AIA Trial Report — U.S. Patent No. 5,670,730

Patent: U.S. 5,670,730 — "Data protocol and method for segmenting memory for a music chip"
Inventors: Anthony James Grewe; Kevin Alan Shelby
Assignee of record (current): Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd (via Agere Systems LLC)
Priority/filing: 1995-05-22 · Granted: 1997-09-23 · Status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2015-05-22)
Source of proceedings list: Structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest), cross-checked by web search.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — zero inter partes reviews, zero post-grant reviews, zero covered business method reviews; accordingly, zero claims invalidated, zero claims sustained on the merits by the Board, zero settlements, and zero institution denials. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore not "the patent has survived two IPRs and is hardened" and not "claims 1–5 have been canceled" — it is that no AIA estoppel exists in either direction, all 35 original claims remain textually intact, and the patent has been expired since 2015-05-22, so any live risk is confined to legacy pre-expiration conduct in already-filed cases. The only U.S. office challenge of record is an ex parte reexamination (non-AIA), which ended in a certificate confirming claims 1–6 and 12–13.

Contradiction flag: The earlier "Litigation summary" section in this analysis correctly notes that the Google Patents record lists a Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit entry (No. 17-1491) under the patent family's litigation data. That is a judicial appeal entry in an aggregator feed, not evidence of a PTAB appeal. I could not verify the underlying matter and I do not treat it as an appeal from a Board Final Written Decision. There is no FWD on this patent for that appeal to have come from.

AIA trial proceedings

None on file

• Type: N/A
• Filed: N/A
• Status: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest" — i.e., no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition has ever been instituted, denied, or terminated on U.S. 5,670,730.
• Judge panel: N/A
• Petition grounds: N/A
• Institution decision: N/A
• Final Written Decision: N/A
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: No FWD exists to appeal. (See the CAFC 17-1491 flag above — unverified, and not a PTAB appeal on the record I reviewed.)
• Defensive value: A defendant today cannot point to canceled claims and cannot invoke § 315(e)(2) estoppel against the patent owner. Conversely, the patent owner has never had its claims tested under the Board's Phillips-based Aqua Products-era/IPR framework. The absence of IPRs is partly explained by timing: the '730 patent was asserted in district court in 2006 and again from 2011 onward, but expired 2015-05-22 — before the 2015–2018 wave of defendant-side IPR filings matured for this portfolio, and before IPR would have had any meaningful prospective effect.

Why the absence matters (and its limits): Zero IPRs is not a signal that the '730 is a "hardened, IPR-surviving" patent. It is a signal that the primary challenges here were run through ex parte reexamination (2011–2012) and district court invalidity defenses (Sony, 2008), not through the AIA trial track. Searching PTAB E2E directly at https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ for the patent number is the confirming step; my web searches surfaced no '730 petition, institution decision, or FWD.

Non-AIA challenges on the same patent (context a defendant needs)

Ex parte reexamination — requester unknown v. Agere Systems (patent owner)

• Type: Ex parte reexamination (pre-AIA track; not a PTAB trial)
• Filed: Request effective 2011-04-26 (per the Google Patents legal-events record: "2011-06-21 RR Request for reexamination filed — Effective date: 20110426")
• Status: Concluded — reexamination certificate issued 2012-03-20 (event code "B1," first reexamination)
• Certificate disposition (verbatim): "THE PATENTABILITY OF CLAIMS 1-6 AND 12-13 IS CONFIRMED. CLAIMS 7-11 AND 14-35 WERE NOT REEXAMINED."
• Judge panel: N/A (examiner corps, not APJs)
• Grounds: Not publicly summarized in the sources I reviewed; the requester's identity and the art relied upon were not retrievable. I do not know the control number of this reexamination and will not guess it. It can be located on the USPTO PatentCenter "Reexam" tab for 5,670,730.
• Final decision at claim level: Claims 1–6 and 12–13 — the claim set including independent claims 1 (data format) and 31 (method of segmenting memory) plus dependent claims 2–6 and 12–13 — were confirmed patentable over the art applied. Claims 7–11 and 14–35 were not reexamined, so no office determination of record exists for: dependent claims 7–8 (begin/end vs. end-only addressing), 9–10 (distribution info; binary-coded artist abbreviation), 11 (binary category code), and 14–35 (including independent claim 18 and its dependents 19–30, and method dependents 32–35).
• Settlement / termination: N/A
• Appeal: None (reexamination certificates are not Board decisions; any APA challenge would have been to the district court/CAFC — none identified).
• Defensive value: Mixed and important. 13 claims (1–6, 12–13) are reexamination-hardened — a § 102/§ 103 attack on those claims faces the PTO's own prior confirmation, which is a real headwind before a jury. But claim 18 — the "data protocol" independent claim — and its 12 dependents were never examined in reexam, so they are the softest target on paper. This dovetails with the claim-construction history below.

IPR2016-00646 (ASUS) — a proceeding on a sibling Avago patent, not on the '730

• Type: Inter Partes Review — Petitioner: ASUS (per the Petitioner's Ex. 1012, E.D. Tex. claim construction statement, filed 2016-02-22)
• Patent at issue: U.S. 5,870,087 — not U.S. 5,670,730. I flag this expressly so no one conflates it with a '730 proceeding.
• Relevance to '730: The exhibit filed in that IPR reproduces the parties' E.D. Tex. joint claim construction statement that covers U.S. 5,670,730, evidencing a 2015–2016 Avago v. ASUS district court case in which the '730 was asserted (consistent with the E.D. Tex. 2:15-cv-00239 entry in the patent's litigation data). ASUS appears to have answered the '730 by rather than petitioning the Board on it, choosing instead to IPR the '087. I could not complete verification of whether any '730-directed petition was filed by ASUS or another party before hitting my research limit — treat this as a high-value open item, not a negative finding.
• Citation: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2016-00646/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._5870087/docs/02-22-2016-Petitioner/Exhibit-1012-Petitioners_ASUS_Ex_1012_EDTX_CC_Statement.pdf

Claim constructions from that joint statement (party-agreed terms, quoted verbatim as retrieved):

Disputed (not agreed) terms — Avago vs. ASUS positions:

• Caveat: These are the parties' agreed constructions in a P.R. 4-3(a) joint filing, which district courts ordinarily adopt but which I have not confirmed were entered in a final Markman order. Quote them as the parties' agreed constructions, not as the court's holding.
• Defensive value: High. The agreed "global header" construction requires a single data structure carrying encoding information used to decode all tracks — a structural requirement that accused devices using per-track codec/bit-rate metadata (i.e., essentially every modern container: MP3/ID3, MP4, FLAC headers, etc.) do not meet. The agreed "individual header" construction separately requires description information "distinct from the information in the global header." These are non-infringement levers, and they explain why the '730's exposure post-2008 centered on fixed-protocol flash players, not general-purpose media devices.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All 35 claims remain in force as issued; none has ever been canceled by the Board. Through ex parte reexamination, claims 1–6 and 12–13 were confirmed patentable (certificate 2012-03-20), while claims 7–11 and 14–35 — including independent claim 18 and all method claims 31–35's dependents — were never reexamined and thus carry no office-side confirmation. In IPR terms, the entire claim set is UNTESTED: there is no FWD, no partial institution, no SAS-era all-claims institution, and no claim-level invalidation on record. The patent also expired 2015-05-22.

Estoppel landscape. Because there are zero AIA trials, § 315(e)(2) estoppel is a null set — no petitioner is barred, and no patent owner enjoys the benefit of a survived IPR. Practically, this means: (i) a defendant asserted today would be free to petition for IPR on any ground (the § 315(b) one-year bar runs only from service of a complaint, and no IPR bar has ever attached for anyone); but (ii) IPR would be of little value on an expired patent — the Board will institute on an expired patent to test validity for past-damages purposes, but you cannot amend claims to survive, and you are litigating over a device population that stopped being manufactured years ago. The reexamination record is likewise non-estoppel-producing (ex parte reexam creates no § 315(e) estoppel), but it is a § 325(d)-style headwind if you re-assert the same art that the examiner already considered and overcame on claims 1–6 and 12–13. The genuinely available invalidity ground is § 112 / written description and indefiniteness, plus art directed at the never-reexamined claim 18 family — a path that IPR (which cannot reach § 112 for unamended claims) would not have opened anyway.

Pattern signals. No serial petitioner, no defensive aggregator IPR (Unified Patents is not in this patent's IPR chain — its footprint here is limited to the litigation-data listing and its patents portal), and no aggressive patent-owner PTAB-appeal posture, because there was never a Board case to appeal. The assertion pattern is the 2000s-era operating-company model, not the modern aggregator model: Agere/LSI/Agere LLC asserting against Sony (2006–2008, $18.5M willful verdict) and ASUS (2015–2016), with the ownership chain later passing to Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. The 2011 cluster of filings (E.D. Pa. 5:11-cv-04751; E.D. Cal. 3:11-cv-02709; N.D. Cal. 3:09-cv-02737 / 5:09-cv-02737) coincides in time with the 2011-04-26 reexamination request, which suggests a defendant ran the reexam as a parallel office attack rather than an IPR — a pre-AIA pattern. On the record I reviewed, the N.D. Cal. 3:15-cv-04525, 3:16-cv-00451, and CAFC 17-1491 entries remain unverified as to party and subject matter.

Recommended next steps

1. Treat "no PTAB activity" as the operative finding — verify it directly. Query PTAB E2E by patent number (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) and the PTAB Decisions page (https://www.uspto.gov/ptab/decisions). If a petition was filed and denied or terminated without an FWD, it may not appear in an ODP proceedings index. Do not cite any IPR number for this patent until E2E confirms it.

2. Pull the reexamination file. Retrieve the 2011 reexam via PatentCenter for U.S. 5,670,730 (Reexam tab) to obtain (a) the control number, (b) the requester's identity and RPI, and (c) exactly which art was applied and overcome for claims 1–6 and 12–13. That art is now "already before the Office" for § 325(d) / Becton Dickinson purposes and is the wrong place to build a new challenge.

3. Litigate the claim constructions, not the validity, if you are accused. The E.D. Tex. agreed constructions for "global header," "second header," and "individual header" (quoted above) are narrow and structural. Combined with the parties' agreement that the preambles of claims 1, 18, and 31 are limiting, they support strong non-infringement and, arguably, § 112(b) indefiniteness positions on the never-reexamined claim 18 family. Confirm the final Markman order in the ASUS case before relying on the agreed terms. (CourtListener docket for the Sony case, for the '730's only adjudicated verdict: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/[4808158](/patent/4808158)/agere-systems-inc-v-sony-corporation/)

4. Calendar expiration as your primary defense. The record shows anticipated expiration 2015-05-22 and status Expired – Lifetime. Any demand letter or new complaint asserting the '730 against post-2015 conduct should be pressed on that basis immediately, together with the § 286 six-year damages lookback — by 2026 the recoverable window is entirely post-expiration, leaving (at most) legacy pre-2015 conduct.

5. If you must file an AIA petition (e.g., to defeat past damages in a pending legacy case): you are not § 315(b)-barred unless you were served more than one year ago, and you face no § 315(e) or § 325(e) estoppel. Target the claim 18/31 family (claims 14–35), which the examiner never reexamined, and expect the Board to weigh the 2012 reexam confirmation of claims 1–6 and 12–13 under § 325(d) if you go after those.

Confidence and open items

• High confidence: zero AIA trials on file (structured ODP data, corroborated by searches); 2012-03-20 reexam certificate confirming claims 1–6 and 12–13 and declining to reexamine 7–11 and 14–35; 2015-05-22 expiration; the 2008 Sony willful-infringement verdict on the '730.
• Medium confidence: the '730 was asserted in an Avago v. ASUS E.D. Tex. action and construed in a 2016-02-22 joint claim construction statement (I have the exhibit text, but not the court's Markman order).
• Unverified / do not assert as fact: the identity of the 2011 reexamination requester and its control number; whether any '730-directed IPR petition was ever filed and denied/terminated without an FWD; the parties and subject matter of E.D. Pa. 5:11-cv-04751, E.D. Cal. 3:11-cv-02709, N.D. Cal. 3:09-cv-02737 / 5:09-cv-02737, 3:15-cv-04525, 3:16-cv-00451, and CAFC 17-1491.

I'll research the ownership chain, correspondent-of-record details, and any NPE patterns tied to this patent number.

Let me pull additional details on the CAFC appeal, the later Avago assertions, and any correspondent-of-record data.

Ownership Chain — US 5,670,730 ("Grewe et al.")

Data-source note (read first): The reel/frame numbers and conveyance types below are taken from the Google Patents legal-events record for US 5,670,730, which mirrors the USPTO assignment abstracts. I was not able to pull the live Assignment Center result pages in this session, so the correspondent-of-record fields are not available to me and I have not fabricated them. Where a field (e.g., correspondent, execution vs. recording date nuance) could not be verified, I say so rather than guess. Verify at the Assignment Center search page: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "5670730").

Inventors

Pattern check — "inventors departing within 12 months": Not observed. Both inventors assigned to the corporate employer at filing, and the patent issued (1997-09-23) as a normal AT&T/Lucent corporate-owned case. There is no evidence in the record of a personal or start-up assignment, which is the usual precursor to a fire-sale. No finding here.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent (as filed): AT&T IPM Corp. (assignment executed 1995-05-17; recorded 1995-05-22, Reel 007654/0262). Google Patents' "Original Assignee" field instead lists Lucent Technologies Inc. — a labeling conflict, because AT&T's 1996 spin-off of Lucent had occurred by the 1997-09-23 issue date. The record is consistent that the conveyance chain began at AT&T IPM Corp.
• Primary line of business: AT&T IPM Corp. was AT&T's intellectual-property holding/management entity; the underlying R&D is Bell Labs (telecom, audio coding, semiconductors).
• Did the original assignee ship a product embodying the claims? Unclear, and worth flagging. The "music chip" of the patent (a ~2.5"×1.125"×0.25" solid-state ROM cartridge for a dedicated audio player, ~20 MB, ~45 min of play) reads as a prototype/concept, not a mass-market AT&T or Lucent product. I found no evidence of a commercial AT&T/Lucent "music chip." That matters: the patent family was monetized for years primarily through assertion (see Litigation cross-reference), not through product embodiment.
• Current status of the original assignee's corporate line: AT&T IPM Corp. merged into AT&T Corp. (recorded as a merger effective 1995-09-21, Reel 034974/0159, and again at Reel 035000/0041, both recorded in 2015 as back-office cleanups). The AT&T equipment business ultimately became Lucent → Agere → LSI → Avago → (today) part of Broadcom Inc. Nothing in this line is dissolved or in bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

All entries are from the patent's legal-events/assignment record. Format: executed / recorded.

• 1995-05-17 / recorded 1995-05-22 — Reel 007654/0262

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors' Interest)
  • Assignors: Grewe, Anthony James; Shelby, Kevin Alan
  • Assignee: AT&T IPM Corp. (Florida)
  • Correspondent: not available in the retrievable record
  • Context: Original inventor→employer assignment at filing.

• 1995-09-21 (eff.) / recorded 2015-02-17 — Reel 034974/0159

  • Conveyance: Merger
  • Assignor: AT&T IPM Corp.
  • Assignee: AT&T Corp. (New Jersey)
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Internal reorg (AT&T IPM folded into AT&T Corp.). Recorded ~19.5 years late — pure bookkeeping cleanup.

• 1996-03-29 (eff.) / recorded 1997-04-29 — Reel 008488/0374

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: AT&T Corp.
  • Assignee: Lucent Technologies Inc. (New Jersey)
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Internal reorg (Lucent spin-off from AT&T).

• 2001-01-30 (eff.) / recorded 2004-11-08 — Reel 015962/0027

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Lucent Technologies, Inc.
  • Assignee: Agere Systems, Inc. (Pennsylvania)
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Internal reorg (Lucent microelectronics spin-off). Recorded ~3.75 years after execution — again housekeeping.

• 2012-07-23 (eff.) / recorded 2012-08-08 — Reel 028753/0438

  • Conveyance: Certificate of Formation / Certificate of Conversion
  • Assignor: Agere Systems Inc.
  • Assignee: Agere Systems LLC (Delaware)
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Change of name/conversion only — no change in ultimate ownership.

• 2014-05-06 (eff.) / recorded 2014-05-08 — Reel 032856/0031

  • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignors: LSI Corporation; Agere Systems LLC
  • Assignee: Deutsche Bank AG New York Branch, as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Securitization (collateral pledge across a portfolio; not an ownership transfer).

• 2014-08-04 (eff.) / recorded 2015-02-17 — Reel 034974/0356

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Agere Systems LLC
  • Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Internal reorg/corporate acquisition — the LSI/Agere portfolio passing to the Avago IP-holding subsidiary.

• 2014-08-04 (eff.) / recorded 2015-02-20 — Reel 035059/0001

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Agere Systems LLC → Avago)
  • Assignor: Agere Systems LLC; Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Duplicate/parallel recording of the same Agere→Avago transfer (two reels for one transaction).

• 1995-09-21 (eff.) / recorded 2015-02-20 — Reel 035000/0041

  • Conveyance: Merger (AT&T IPM Corp. → AT&T Corp.)
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Duplicate of the 034974/0159 merger recording.

• 2016-02-01 (eff.) / recorded 2016-02-02 — Reel 037684/0039

  • Conveyance: Termination and Release of Security Interest (releases Reel 032856/0031)
  • Assignor: Deutsche Bank AG New York Branch, as Collateral Agent
  • Assignees: LSI Corporation; Agere Systems LLC
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Release of the 2014 security interest.

• 2016-02-01 (eff.) / recorded 2016-02-11 — Reel 037808/0001

  • Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
  • Assignee: Bank of America, N.A., as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: New securitization (fresh collateral pledge to a new agent).

• 2017-01-19 (eff.) / recorded 2017-02-03 — Reel 041710/0001

  • Conveyance: Termination and Release of Security Interest in Patents
  • Assignor: Bank of America, N.A., as Collateral Agent
  • Assignee: Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd.
  • Correspondent: not available
  • Context: Release of the 2016 security interest. After this date the publicly recorded US chain shows no further assignment — the patent expired 2015-05-22.

• Not a USPTO reel/frame, but a chain-relevant event: by Singapore amalgamation effective 2018-09-05, Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. was merged into Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited (absorbing company; ACRA registration 200512231), transferring assets/liabilities by universal succession. This is why Google Patents' "current assignee" reads Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd even though no US assignment reel reflects it. (Sourced from the D. Del. Realtek litigation exhibits reproducing the ACRA certificate and an expert opinion on Singapore law — not from the US assignment record.) Flag: this universal-succession step is asserted in litigation papers; I did not see an Assignment Center entry for it.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5670730
    1995 : Inventors assign to AT&T IPM Corp
         : Reel 007654 frame 0262
    1996 : AT&T IPM merges into AT&T Corp
    1997 : AT&T Corp assigns to Lucent Technologies
         : Reel 008488 frame 0374
    2001 : Lucent spins off Agere Systems
    2004 : Agere assignment recorded
         : Reel 015962 frame 0027
    2012 : Agere Inc converts to Agere LLC
         : Reel 028753 frame 0438
    2014 : Security pledge to Deutsche Bank
         : Reel 032856 frame 0031
    2015 : Agere LLC assigns to Avago General IP
         : Reel 034974 frame 0356
    2016 : Security pledge to Bank of America
         : Reel 037808 frame 0001
    2017 : Security interest released
   2018 : Avago General IP merges into Avago Sales

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. Every link is an operating-company entity or its corporate successor: AT&T IPM Corp., AT&T Corp., Lucent, Agere Systems, Agere Systems LLC, Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore), Avago Technologies International Sales. Reels 007654/0262, 008488/0374, 015962/0027, 034974/0356. Caveat: the names "General IP" and "International Sales" are IP/sales-subsidiary names, but per the evidence these entities sit inside the Avago/Broadcom corporate group (a public semiconductor maker), not anonymous registered-agent LLCs. Naming alone is not a finding; there is no product-less single-purpose LLC here.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No link matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities, etc. The asserters here were Agere Systems, LSI, and Avago — operating semiconductor companies suing electronics competitors.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear (data not retrieved). The Assignment Center's correspondent-of-record fields were not accessible in this session, and Google Patents does not expose them. I therefore cannot confirm or rule out a recurring recording attorney/firm across Reels 007654/0262 → 041710/0001. This is the single most important field to pull manually; I decline to infer it.

4. Cascading transfers through chained LLCs in <24 months — Not present as an obfuscation signal. There is a cluster of recordings in 2015–2017, but they are corporate housekeeping (Agere LLC→Avago at 034974/0356 and 035059/0001; late-recorded 1995 AT&T mergers at 034974/0159/035000/0041; the Deutsche Bank release at 037684/0039 and new BofA pledge at 037808/0001). These are security interests and intra-group conveyances within one corporate family, not chains of unrelated LLCs sharing a correspondent address.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The first suit naming this patent is Agere Systems Inc. v. Sony Corp., 2:06-cv-00079 (E.D. Tex., filed March 2006). The nearest assignment, Lucent→Agere (eff. 2001-01-30, Reel 015962/0027), predates the suit by ~5 years and is a spin-off, not a pre-suit transfer to an asserter.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 sale of this patent in the record; the ownership moved by spin-off (Lucent→Agere), conversion (Reel 028753/0438), and acquisition (Avago), not insolvency.

7. Privateering — Not present in the classic sense. No operating company transferred this patent to a separate NPE vehicle to assert on its behalf. The assertions were made directly by the operating companies: Agere (Reels 015962/0027) against Sony (2006), and Agere/LSI against Barnes & Noble (E.D. Pa. 5:11-cv-04751, with a parallel N.D. Cal. declaratory-judgment action 3:11-cv-02709), later Avago-related actions (E.D. Tex. 2:15-cv-00239 → N.D. Cal. 3:15-cv-04525). Note the nuance: LSI/Agere's sustained assertion campaigns against Sony, Barnes & Noble (Nook), ASUSTeK, and Funai look like portfolio monetization by a product company under financial pressure — but a product company, not an NPE.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates inside the Broadcom/Avago group.

Cross-reference — reexamination (prosecution, not ownership): A request for ex parte reexamination was filed 2011-06-21 (effective 2011-04-26; certificate issued 2012-03-20), which confirmed claims 1–6 and 12–13 without amendment; claims 7–11 and 14–35 were not reexamined. Who requested it is not determinable from the record I retrieved — likely a litigation adversary (Sony, in parallel with the appeal/Nook matters), but I flag that as inference, not fact. Note the reexam's timing sits between the 2008 Sony verdict and the 2011 Barnes & Noble suits.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The entire recorded chain — Reel 007654/0262 (AT&T IPM, 1995) → 008488/0374 (Lucent, 1997) → 015962/0027 (Agere Systems, 2001) → 028753/0438 (Agere LLC conversion, 2012) → 034974/0356 and 035059/0001 (Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore), 2014/2015) — is a corporate lineage of operating telecom/semiconductor companies, and the patent was asserted directly by those operating companies (Agere v. Sony, $18.5M willful-infringement verdict, E.D. Tex. 2:06-cv-00079; Agere/LSI v. Barnes & Noble, E.D. Pa. 5:11-cv-04751). No shell LLC, no known NPE assignee, no defensive aggregator, and no bankruptcy sale appear on any reel.

Important qualifications to that verdict: (a) the patent expired 2015-05-22, so it is not a live assertion asset today; (b) the "music chip" claim reads as a non-commercialized prototype, so monetization ran through litigation, not product sales — which is why this operating-company patent looks NPE‑ish in the wild; and (c) the correspondent-of-record fields (Signal 3) could not be verified, so this verdict should be re-confirmed against the Assignment Center pages before being relied on. Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (query "5670730").

Uncertainty flags carried forward: (i) correspondence of record unavailable; (ii) the 2018 Singapore amalgamation into Avago Technologies International Sales Pte. Limited is documented in court exhibits, not in a US assignment reel; (iii) the CAFC 17-1491 entry on this patent's litigation record has unidentified parties and I could not confirm it relates to the '730 patent specifically; (iv) the reexamination requester's identity is unconfirmed.

I'll research the prior-art references cited on the face of US 5,670,730. Let me pull details on each.

Good progress. Let me now pull the remaining cited references.

Prior Art Analysis — US 5,670,730 ("5670730")

Important scope/verification note up front. I could not query USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR directly in this session; the reference list and dates below are taken from the authoritative full text of US 5,670,730 you supplied (the "Patent Citations (9)" / "Family Cites Families (12)" sections), cross-checked against Google Patents mirrors of the same USPTO data. I ran live searches and retrieved meaningful text for US4905289, US4960031, US5245600, US5473106, and US5486645. For US5494443, US5499922, US5506370, and US5518408 I hit the tool-step limit and could only rely on the title/assignee/date data in the patent itself — their descriptions below are therefore characterized by title and known subject matter, not full-text review. I flag that explicitly rather than overstate confidence.

I interpreted the identifier literally as US 5,670,730. I excluded unrelated foreign registrations that share the digits "5670730" (e.g., JP-5670730-B2).

The date framework that controls the § 102 analysis

The '730 application was filed 1995‑05‑22, so pre‑AIA § 102 governs:

The five § 102(e) references are the strategically important ones: they were pending/unpublished when the '730 inventors filed, so they are prior art only as to what they disclose, and their dates are close enough that they were likely the references driving the examiner's rejections.

Reference‑by‑reference analysis

1. US 4,905,289 A — Apparatus for the digital storage of audio signals employing read only memories

• Assignee: Deutsche ITT Industries GmbH · Filed 1986‑05‑14 · Issued 1990‑02‑27 · § 102(b)
• Description (verified from text): A semiconductor ROM stores digitized audio (e.g., PCM) in a redundancy‑reduced form; a data expander (DSP/microprocessor) reconstitutes the audio before a D/A converter and amplifier/speaker. Critically, the reference teaches that the data‑reduction/decompression algorithm itself is stored in the same ROM, that the memory "can be partitioned so that different types of processed audio signals are stored in various forms," that an identification/tag is associated with each individual algorithm and called up in response to the corresponding stored audio signal, and that audio "identified by suitable tags" is operated on "in accordance with various algorithms associated with the data as stored."
• Most relevant to: Claims 1, 2, 3, 18, 19, 31, 32 — specifically the "first/global header having parameters … for decoding" element and the "algorithm used to encode" (claim 3) and "bit rate" (claims 2/19/32) elements.
• Anticipation assessment: This is the strongest single reference on the "decode parameters stored with the audio" element and would have been the natural § 102/§ 103 hook against claims 2/3/19/32 (algorithm/bit‑rate in the header). However, it does not disclose a hierarchy of a global header plus per‑track "individual headers" carrying selectable categorical information (music category, artist) as claimed in claims 1 and 18, nor the method steps of claim 31 arranged as claimed. On the record, it is a partial anticipatory reference as to isolated dependent claims, not the independent claims.

2. US 4,960,031 A — Method and apparatus for representing musical information

• Assignee: Wenger Corporation (inventor Philip F. Farrand) · Filed 1988‑09‑19 · Issued 1990‑10‑02 · § 102(b)
• Description (verified): A music‑notation/music‑logic data structure ("Music Framework" / "Entry Pool"): musical information is separated into segments, assigned time‑dimension and sound‑dimension (channel/instrument) values, and stored in a multi‑dimensional memory array with linked entries (notes/chords/rests), first/last pointers per measure.
• Most relevant to: claims directed to data structures for describing musical works generally (claims 12, 27 "song titles and play times" by loose analogy; claim 18's "multiple data fields").
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate any claim. It is not directed to decoding/playback of encoded compressed audio from a music chip, has no global decode‑parameter header, and no per‑track category/artist metadata for selectable playback. It is a § 103 background reference about representing music data in a structured/fixed‑field‑style arrangement — relevant to the "multiple data fields" element of claim 18 at most.

3. US 5,245,600 A — Apparatus for reproducing from a storage medium information corresponding to each stored musical arrangement and for mixing voice data with music data

• Assignee: Pioneer Electronic Corp. (Yamauchi et al.) · Filed 1990‑07‑06 · Issued 1993‑09‑14 · § 102(b)
• Description (verified): A CD‑ROM/optical medium whose storage area is divided into sections; an early section holds a "digital contents information table" (music‑title information, "mark information" for retrieving pieces); a TOC/subcode scheme retrieves recorded pieces; audio is ADPCM‑encoded with adaptive predictor/quantizer coefficients stored in "sound parameter areas" per data unit. The player selectively reads pieces based on the mark/address information and mixes microphone voice with music.
• Most relevant to: Claims 1 (address field), 6, 7, 12, 16, 22, 27, 35 — the table‑of‑contents/title/address architecture.
• Anticipation assessment: This is the closest cited art on the "table of contents + per‑selection address/retrieval info" element and is meaningful § 102(b) art against the addressing and title/play‑time dependent claims. But it is an optical disc system, not an IC "music chip," and it does not disclose a global decode‑parameter header followed by fixed‑width individual headers with music‑category and artist codes. It does not anticipate claims 1, 18, or 31 as a whole.

4. US 5,473,106 A — Karaoke reproducing apparatus

• Assignee: Pioneer Electronic Corp. · Filed 1993‑05‑26 · Issued 1995‑12‑05 · § 102(e)
• Description (verified): A karaoke player/disk‑changer with a memory pre‑stored with, per musical program, copyright information and recorded‑music information (at least title, songwriter's name, composer's name), read out and printed/used to gate recording; includes a "karaoke information file" and selected‑program list.
• Most relevant to: Claim 1 (second header general info), 9 (distribution info), 12/27 (titles), 20 (category), 21/34 (artist).
• Anticipation assessment: Discloses per‑selection descriptive metadata stored in the player's memory and indexed to selections (useful § 102(e) art against artist/title/copyright dependent claims), but it is not a header architecture on the music chip and lacks the global decode‑parameter header. Not anticipatory of the independent claims.

5. US 5,486,645 A — Musical medley function controlling method in a television with a video/accompaniment‑music player

• Assignee: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. · Filed 1993‑06‑30 · Issued 1996‑01‑23 · § 102(e)
• Description (verified): A TV with integrated karaoke; songs are grouped by "thematic items" (theme: popular, folk, arias, …) and "formational items" (style: fox trot, disco, gogo, …); the microcomputer searches the stored lists by selected category and style and auto‑plays the matching songs in sequence.
• Most relevant to: Claims 1 ("selectable categorical information"), 4/20/33 (category field), 13 (enumerated categories), 15/26 (categorical ordering).
• Anticipation assessment: This is the best cited art for the "select, by category, tracks to be played over a period" concept and is a strong § 102(e) reference against the category‑field dependent claims (4, 20, 33) and possibly claim 13. It does not disclose a global codec‑parameter header plus fixed‑width individual headers on an IC music chip, so it does not anticipate claims 1, 18, or 31.

6. US 5,499,443 A — Karaoke system and method of managing playing time of karaoke songs

• Assignee: Pioneer Electronic Corp. · Filed 1993‑08‑10 · Issued 1996‑02‑27 · § 102(e)
• Description (from title/record only — full text not retrieved): Karaoke system with play‑time management for songs.
• Most relevant to: Claim 12 / claim 27 ("play times") and the preamble‑field play‑time concept.
• Anticipation assessment: At most a § 102(e) reference against the "play times" element; cannot anticipate the header‑hierarchy claims on the record available.

7. US 5,499,922 A — Backing chorus reproducing device in a karaoke device

• Assignee: Ricoh Co., Ltd. · Filed 1993‑07‑27 · Issued 1996‑03‑19 · § 102(e)
• Description (from title/record only): Karaoke backing/chorus reproduction.
• Most relevant to: No claim element of the '730 independent claims; marginal relevance to audio‑reproduction background (claims 25, 18).
• Anticipation assessment: No anticipation of any claim. Background art for § 103 only.

8. US 5,506,370 A — Display controlling apparatus for music accompaniment playing system, and the music accompaniment playing system

• Assignee: Pioneer Electronic Corp. · Filed 1993‑09‑13 · Issued 1996‑04‑09 · § 102(e)
• Description (from title/record only): Display control for a music‑accompaniment (karaoke) system.
• Most relevant to: Claims 28 (displayable graphics/album art) and 29 (displayable lyrics) — the "displayable information" concept.
• Anticipation assessment: Potential § 102(e) art only against the display‑related dependent claims; not anticipatory of claims 1, 18, or 31.

9. US 5,518,408 A — Karaoke apparatus sounding instrumental accompaniment and back chorus

• Assignee: Yamaha Corp. · Filed 1993‑04‑06 · Issued 1996‑05‑21 · § 102(e)
• Description (from title/record only): Karaoke apparatus providing instrumental accompaniment and back chorus.
• Most relevant to: General audio‑reproduction background; no claim element of the independent claims.
• Anticipation assessment: No anticipation of any claim; § 103 background.

The "Family Cites Families" (12) foreign documents

These are listed on the record as cited in the family/foreign counterparts' search reports (EP 0755056 / CA 2176982 / JP H0922589 and the JP divisional), not necessarily on the US face. They are mostly Japanese and one Swedish item: JPS5938883A, JPS62160599A, EP0294202A3 ("Digital sound data storing device" — Toshiba), JPH074039B2 (Kenwood "CD player system"), SE470590B (Magnus Thome, "Device for storing voice messages"), JPH0411288A (Brother, "Karaoke device with song search function"), JPH04271396A (Hitachi, digital audio signal transfer), JPH04105269A (Sony, disk/disk recorder), JP3433757B2 and JP3453778B2 (Sony, disc playback/recording mediums), JPH06295532A (Sony, data processor), JPH06342346A (Sony, "IC card data storage method and IC card device"). Only two are worth flagging:

• EP 0 294 202 A3 / B1 (Toshiba, "Digital sound data storing device," priority 1987‑06‑03) — digital sound data storage/decoding formatting; possibly § 102(b)-type art against the global‑header decode‑parameter element if it reaches a music chip.
• JPH06342346A (Sony, 1993‑05‑31, "IC card data storage method and IC card device") — an IC card storing data, the closest conceptual match to a "music chip" storage format; relevant to claim 1/31's "integrated circuit chip" limitation but directed to IC‑card data storage rather than hierarchical audio headers.

I did not retrieve full English text for these, so I treat them as leads, not analyzed anticipatory references.

Bottom line

1. No cited reference appears to anticipate independent claim 1, 18, or 31 in its entirety. Anticipation requires a single reference disclosing all elements as arranged — here, (a) an IC music‑chip memory, (b) a global/first header carrying decode parameters (algorithm/bit rate, plus label/copyright in some claims), and (c) at least one individual/second header, following the global header, carrying selectable categorical (category + artist) and addressing information per track. The cited art distributes these concepts across separate systems: US 4,905,289 (decode algorithm in ROM), US 5,245,600 (TOC + ADPCM addressing on an optical disc), and US 5,486,645 (category/style selection in TV karaoke). No one reference combines them into the claimed hierarchy.
2. The most impactful cited references are US 4,905,289 (§ 102(b)) and US 5,245,600 (§ 102(b)) for the decode‑parameter and TOC/addressing elements respectively, and US 5,486,645 (§ 102(e)) for the category‑selection element. The § 102(e) cluster (US 5,473,106; 5,486,645; 5,499,443; 5,499,922; 5,506,370; 5,518,408) is relevant to dependent claims (artist/title/play‑time/category/display), not the independent claims.
3. This is consistent with the reexamination outcome: the 2012 certificate confirmed claims 1–6 and 12–13 without amendment — i.e., the Office reaffirmed the independent claims against the art of record. That weighs strongly against any of the nine references anticipating claims 1–6 or 12–13.
4. One high‑relevance reference the '730 face does not list surfaced during my search: US 5,679,911 (Pioneer, filed 1994‑05‑26 as 08/249,837, issued 1997‑10‑21, priority JP 1993) — "Karaoke reproducing apparatus which utilizes data stored on a recording medium …," which expressly stores "music piece classification information" (multiple items/characteristics) in memory and searches for a piece by classified item. That is closer to the '730 category‑search claim than several listed references. I flag it as a lead for further § 102(e)/§ 103 analysis, not as a cited reference.

Explicit uncertainties

• I did not obtain full text for US5494443, US5499922, US5506370, US5518408; their entries are title/date‑based and could be understated.
• I could not run a live USPTO PatentCenter query or pull the examiner's reasons for allowance / the reexamination file wrapper, which would show exactly which of these references were applied and how. That would be the next, and decisive, step for a definitive § 102 mapping.
• The § 102(e) dates above assume the issue/filing data on the '730 face is correct; the effective § 102(e) date of a reference is its earliest U.S. filing, which for these appears to match the "filed" dates listed.

Caveat per operating rules: the § 102 mappings here are analytical judgments about potential anticipation based on the sources reachable in this session, not legal conclusions; a formal element‑by‑element comparison of the full texts (and the file wrapper) is required to confirm.

I'll ground this obviousness analysis in the prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me verify the subject matter of the most load-bearing references.

Let me verify the karaoke song-search and IC-card data-storage references, which are load-bearing for the "categorical information" and "memory segmentation" elements.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 5,670,730 ("Data protocol and method for segmenting memory for a music chip")

Governing law (as the patent's 1995 priority date requires): pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), applied under Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). The inquiry is (1) the scope and content of the prior art, (2) the differences between the prior art and the claims, (3) the level of ordinary skill, and (4) any objective indicia. KSR confirms that the "motivation to combine" need not be found in the references themselves; it may flow from the ordinary creativity of a skilled artisan, from design incentives, from market demand, or from the use of "a known technique to improve similar devices in the same way."

Evidentiary note up front: I verified the full text of the two load‑bearing non‑karaoke references — US 4,905,289 and US 5,245,600 — and the abstract/description of EP 0 294 202. I could not retrieve full text for the six examiner‑cited karaoke patents or for the twelve "Family Cites Families" Japanese references; for those I rely on the titles as they appear on the patent's own record page plus directly analogous Brother karaoke genre art I did locate. Where I am inferring rather than quoting, I say so.

1. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A person having ordinary skill at the 1995 priority date would be a bachelor's‑level electrical engineer or computer scientist with 2–4 years' experience in digital audio storage/reproduction and embedded firmware, familiar with: compressed digital audio coding (e.g., ADPCM, transform/perceptual coding), ROM and card‑based semiconductor storage, CD/CD‑ROM physical formats and their TOC/subcode conventions, and — because the entire commercial ecosystem around the invention was karaoke and CD‑based playback — the conventional metadata practices of that ecosystem (track numbers, titles, play times, genres, singer/artist names, and retrieval addresses).

Critically, the disputed subject matter is data‑structure design, not signal processing. The claims are largely a taxonomy of fields — which datum goes in which header. A POSITA designing a data format in this field draws on well‑known file‑system/TOC conventions.

2. The prior art of record

Primary references (verified)

A. US 4,905,289 — "Apparatus for the digital storage of audio signals employing read only memories" (Deutsche ITT Industries GmbH; priority 1986‑05‑14; issued 1990‑02‑27).
Verified disclosure: a semiconductor ROM stores digitized, redundancy‑reduced music; playback runs the stored data through a data‑expander/module (DSP or microprocessor) before a D/A converter. Most important for this case:

• "[T]he memory 20 can be partitioned so that different types of processed audio signals are stored in various forms… These algorithms… are also stored in memory and operate to control the microprocessor."
• "An identification is associated with each individual algorithm in the memory … and is capable of being called up in response to a corresponding stored audio signal …"
• "Audio signals which have been processed according to different digital techniques may be stored … and may be identified by suitable tags to enable the data expander to operate on such signals…"
• Playback‑side parameters (the error‑correcting algorithm, the data‑reduction algorithm) are stored in the same ROM and retrieved at playback.

That is the "first/global header" element — parameters stored in the chip's memory and used by the player to decode the stored audio — as a matter of direct anticipation‑grade disclosure.

B. US 5,245,600 — "Apparatus for reproducing from a storage medium information corresponding to each stored musical arrangement…" (Pioneer Electronic Corp.; priority 1990‑07‑06; issued 1993‑09‑14).
Verified in detail. This reference is extraordinarily close to the "table of contents / individual header" concept:

• The medium stores digital audio plus a "digital contents information table" containing, per track: music title information, numbers specifying each arrangement, and "mark information … for retrieving the accompaniment information."
• The storage area is divided into sections, and "the first group of sections precede the second group … in time"; the table is stored in the preceding sections and the audio in the following sections. (→ claims 15/25/26 field‑ordering and "audio immediately following the header.")
• The player reads the table on loading, stores it in RAM (step 1055), and displays it as a selectable list (Fig. 11: columns for number, title, poets/composers, singers, and lyric opening phrases) for user selection. (→ claims 1, 12, 27, 29.)
• The CD works cited in the background explain TOC/subcode retrieval and that the TOC records "the play time of each piece of music." (→ claims 12/27.)
• It expressly discloses ADPCM sound‑quality levels with tabulated bit‑reduction ratios (Fig. 7). (→ claims 2/19/32 bit rate.)
• Its FILE‑TOC "XA application information" area stores the disc type and copyright information, and the data area has separate areas for audio, graphics, telop (superimposed character) data, and music titles. (→ claims 28 graphics, 29 lyrics, 30 copyright.)
• Decisively for motivation: it states the medium "may be any of various other forms including a CD‑ROM, a CD‑I, an ordinary CD, a DAT …, an IC card, and a read‑only memory of another type."

C. EP 0 294 202 (A2/A3) — "Digital sound data storing device" (Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba; pub. 1988‑12‑07 / 1989‑10‑18).
Verified abstract/description: a detachable IC card with a built‑in memory storing a plurality of digitized sound‑data groups, read out by the player when the card is attached; identification codes input by the user cause the sound groups to be selectively reproduced or selectively excluded. This is the "music chip = removable IC memory" concept plus an index‑code retrieval scheme.

Secondary references (record only; content inferred)

D. Karaoke cluster cited by the examiner — US 5,473,106 (Pioneer), US 5,486,645 (Samsung), US 5,494,443 (Pioneer, "…managing playing time of karaoke songs"), US 5,499,922 (Ricoh), US 5,506,370 (Pioneer, "Display controlling apparatus…"), US 5,518,408 (Yamaha). By their titles these disclose song‑data management, playing‑time management, and display control for stored music — i.e., play‑time fields and display of track information.

E. "Family Cites Families" (12 items) — including JPH0411288A (Brother, "Karaoke device with song search function"), JPH06295532A (Sony, "Data processor"), JPH06342346A (Sony, "IC card data storage method and IC card device"), JPS62160599A (Sanyo, "IC card reader/writer"), JPH04105269A / JP3433757B2 / JP3453778B2 (Sony, disc/recording‑medium data), JPH04271396A (Hitachi), SE470590B (Thome, "Device for storing voice messages"), JPH074039B2 (Kenwood, "CD player system"), JPS5938883A (Dainippon). Published 1984–1994 (several clearly before the 1995‑05‑22 filing), these are directed to IC‑card data storage and song‑search/retrieval, which is exactly the "category/artist selectable index" element.

Corroborating art I located (not on the record page; flagged): Brother's karaoke genre systems (US 5,619,425, which uses a "song name/song genre table"; US 5,611,693, which searches and selects by song genre) and GB2271461A, which states that "the genre of the music piece chosen, e.g. rock, … is recorded on the CD, and … may be retrieved directly from the disc or from the memory to which all the genre information on the disc may be downloaded." That last sentence is nearly a verbatim description of the '730 category field plus self‑registration. I flag that I did not verify GB2271461A's exact publication/priority date here.

Prior‑art status caveat (§ 102/103 dates)

• Refs A–C and the pre‑1995 Japanese publications qualify as art published before the 1995‑05‑22 filing (or, for A/B/C, as US patents under pre‑AIA § 102(a)/(e)).
• Four of the examiner‑cited karaoke patents issued after the '730 filing date (US 5,473,106 issued 1995‑12‑05; US 5,486,645 1996‑01‑23; US 5,494,443 1996‑02‑27; US 5,499,922 1996‑03‑19; US 5,506,370 1996‑04‑09; US 5,518,408 1996‑05‑21). They qualify only as § 102(e) art measured from their effective US filing dates (~1993), and only if the '730 invention date is later. SE470590B published 1997 and, absent a qualifying earlier date, is not prior art.
• This date sensitivity is a genuine weakness in any combination that leans on the post‑1995‑issuing karaoke patents, and I flag it rather than paper over it.

3. The independent claims and the core combinations

The three independent claims are the same architecture in three garbs: (1) first header = decode parameters + second header = selectable categorical data; (18) global header = encoding parameters + individual header = multiple general‑description fields; (31) the method of segmenting chip memory by those two steps.

Combination I — US 4,905,289 + US 5,245,600 (+ karaoke search art)

Why a POSITA would combine. (i) Same field and same problem: both address storing/reproducing pre‑recorded digital music from a read‑only medium and telling the player how to play it and what is on it. (ii) Express lead: '600 names "an IC card and a read‑only memory of another type" as candidate media — the very medium of '289 and of the '730 chip. (iii) Stated problem to be solved: '600's stated object is to eliminate the printed music‑title list by embedding a contents table in the medium — the identical object of the '730 patent ("self‑registering … allows a user to make selections by type of music, artist, etc."). (iv) Predictable result: placing a per‑track index adjacent to the audio and pointing to a stored codec parameter is a combination of known file‑organization and codec‑signaling techniques with an expected, beneficial outcome — the KSR "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way."

This combination renders claim 1 obvious; claim 18 obvious; and claim 31 obvious.

Combination II — EP 0 294 202 + US 5,245,600 (+ JPH0411288 / Sony IC‑card art)

Substituting Toshiba for Deutsche ITT: EP 0 294 202 supplies the removable IC‑card music chip with stored identification codes used to select or exclude stored audio groups; '600 supplies the contents table with multiple per‑track fields placed ahead of the audio and displayed for selection; JPH0411288 / JPH06342346 supply song search by category and IC‑card memory segmentation.

Motivation: both references are in the same art of "read‑only digital sound storage/retrieval"; Toshiba's card is a drop‑in alternative to '600's CD‑ROM (which itself names IC cards), and the industry was actively migrating karaoke/music data onto card and ROM media; a POSITA seeking a self‑registering, searchable card would plainly look to the CD TOC/file‑TOC convention. Result: claims 1, 18, 31 obvious.

Combination III — '289 + karaoke song‑search art (Pioneer/Sony/Brother) alone

Even without '600, '289 supplies the chip‑and‑codec‑parameter half and the karaoke genre/search art supplies the categorical per‑track field half. The motivation is the marketplace‑driven requirement that a karaoke/music player let the user pick a song by genre or artist without a printed catalog — the explicit problem statement of the '730 specification. This is a KSR "design incentive / market demand" combination.

4. Claim‑by‑claim obviousness map

Net: every independent claim and every dependent claim maps onto the combination of '289 (or EP 0 294 202) + '600, with the karaoke search family supplying the category/genre field. No claim requires a structure or function that is absent from that combined teaching.

5. Why the combination was motivated (consolidated KSR/TSM rationales)

1. Same field of endeavor and same problem. All references concern read‑only digital audio storage/reproduction and telling the player what is stored and how to decode it.
2. Express identification of the substitute medium. '600 names "an IC card and a read‑only memory of another type"; the '730 chip is precisely that. That is a built‑in, textual motivation to port '600's table to a ROM/card chip.
3. The '730 patent's own framing of the problem. Its stated object is a storage format "easily selectable by a user in regard to general content," because CDs cannot register their contents before selection. '600 and the karaoke art are directed at that identical deficiency. Solving a known problem by known means is the paradigm of obviousness.
4. Predictable, result‑effective variation. Adding a genre/artist field to an existing contents table, or storing a codec parameter as a leading header, changes nothing in the way the apparatus works; it yields the expected benefit of easier selection.
5. Design incentives / market demand. Portable solid‑state players and karaoke systems created strong demand for self‑registering, searchable media — the "design incentive" rationale of KSR.
6. No teaching away. '289's teaching that multiple algorithms may be stored (encouraging codec flexibility) points toward, not away from, a header that records the codec/bit‑rate. Nothing in '600 or the karaoke art discourages adding category metadata.

6. Rebuttal considerations and honest weaknesses

• No single reference anticipates all claims. The case is a combination case; it depends on the '600 (or EP 294 202) table concept being combinable with '289. That is a strong but not airtight proposition, and the motivation is inferential rather than a quotation from a single reference.
• § 103(c)/§ 102(e) date risk. Six examiner‑cited karaoke patents issued after the '730 filing and qualify, if at all, only via § 102(e) from ~1993 filing dates. Any combination that depends chiefly on those, rather than on '289/'600/EP 294 202 (all solidly pre‑filing art), is more vulnerable. I therefore lead with Comb. I/II.
• The 2012 reexamination. The certificate (2012‑03‑20) confirmed claims 1–6 and 12–13 (without amendment); claims 7–11 and 14–35 were not reexamined. A confirmation is not an adjudication of non‑obviousness, and claims 7–11 and 14–35 received no reexam scrutiny at all — so the certificate does not fortify the dependent claims I find obvious. (Flagged for completeness; consistent with the previously generated sections.)
• Secondary considerations are not of record. I found no evidence of nexus‑bearing objective indicia (unexpected results, long‑felt but unsolved need, copying, industry praise) tied to these claims. The reported Agere v. Sony jury verdict ($18.5M willful infringement on the '730 patent, E.D. Tex. 2:06‑cv‑00079) is an infringement finding; it is not evidence of non‑obviousness, and I note it only to forestall a misuse of it.
• What I could not verify: full text of the six karaoke patents and the twelve family‑cited Japanese references; GB2271461A's exact dates; and whether any of the karaoke patents were substantively relied on by the examiner in a § 103 rejection (the record shows them cited, not how). My element mappings for those references rest on titles plus analogous Brother genre art and are flagged accordingly.

7. Bottom line

On the record page's prior art, claims 1, 18, and 31 are readily combinable into a § 103 rejection using US 4,905,289 (chip memory + stored decode parameters) in view of US 5,245,600 (a preceding contents table with multiple per‑track description/retrieval fields, displayable and selectable), further in view of the karaoke song‑search art (e.g., JPH0411288; Brother genre systems) for the categorical/genre field. EP 0 294 202 is a strong substitute primary reference because it directly teaches a removable IC‑card music medium with stored identification codes. The dependent claims add only conventional metadata fields (bit rate, artist, addresses, titles, play times) and routine encoding/ordering choices — all disclosed or obvious in view of the same references, with '600 supplying express support for bit rate, auto‑download on load, ordering, graphics, lyrics, and copyright, and with the fixed‑width/implied‑begin‑address claims motivated by '600's own capacity constraints. The principal caveat is the § 102(e) date exposure of the post‑1995‑issuing karaoke patents, which I would avoid relying on as primary references.