US 5710557

I'll search for authoritative information on US patent 5710557, including any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

Let me search specifically for litigation and any 2026 Federal Circuit activity.

Let me run a few more targeted searches for any 2026 appellate activity and for the record.

Search scope and result

I searched for the specific identifier 5710557 (US patent) and for any 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket activity involving it.

• USPTO / patent-office-side data: confirmed. Consistent bibliographic records across Google Patents, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, and uspto.report for US 5,710,557.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: No results found. I could not locate any Federal Circuit docket, opinion, or 2026 order involving US 5,710,557, CVPS, or Kai Schuette. I want to be explicit: this is a negative search result, not a confirmed absence — my searches may not have reached a complete CAFC docket index, so treat "no 2026 appellate activity" as unverified.
• Identifier caveat (interpreting literally): the bare number "5710557" also resolves to JP 5710557 B2, a Japanese patent (Sharp Corporation, registered 2015‑03‑13). That is a different document in a different jurisdiction and is not the US patent discussed below. Do not conflate the two.

US 5,710,557 — bibliographic summary

Abstract (as issued): "A computerized valet parking system. The parking system includes a first data transceiver for inputting and retrieving a first set of vehicle identification data, and a second data transceiver located at a vehicle parking facility remote from the first data transceiver for inputting and retrieving a second set of vehicle identification data. A central processor includes a file memory for storing the first and second sets of vehicle identification data. The second data transceiver outputs vehicle pick-up data for vehicle identification and location purposes in response to a vehicle retrieval command from the central processor. The system of the present invention also includes remote vehicle retrieval and personalized valet service features."

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 (system). A valet parking system built around four elements: (1) a ticket with unique electronically readable indicia tied to the vehicle; (2) a data transceiver that inputs/retrieves a first set of vehicle ID data including that indicia; (3) a key station physically located at the parking facility, remote from the data transceiver, that inputs/retrieves a second set of vehicle ID data; and (4) a central processor with file memory storing both data sets. The key station prints/outputs pick-up data when the central processor issues a vehicle retrieval command.

Claim 12 (method — park and retrieve). A systematic park-and-retrieve workflow: receive the vehicle; associate an electronically readable ticket with it; enter vehicle ID data plus the indicia into a central database; park the vehicle; after parking, enter vehicle location data into the database at the key station; receive a retrieve command; output retrieval data derived from the previously stored ID and location data at the key station; and retrieve the vehicle.

Claim 20 (system — reporting-centric). A valet system with a handheld data transceiver (first data set) plus a second transceiver at the remote parking facility (second data set, entered after parking); a central processor with file memory; remote retrieval means allowing pickup from a site remote from the handheld unit; a server linking all components; a printer at the second transceiver that prints pick-up data when a retrieval command originates from either the handheld unit or the remote retrieval means; and means for generating financial and employee-performance reports from a third data set derived from the first two.

Claim 21 (method — retrieval-time estimate). In a system with a retrieval request station remote from the staging area: receive the retrieval request at that station; compute a vehicle retrieval time window yielding average retrieval time over a predetermined period; and display the expected retrieval time at the station. (Dependent claims 22–23 add a sliding window and periodic updating — the moving-average feature described in the spec.)

Claim 24 (method — personalized greeting). First-time enrollment: enter license plate data (first data set) and customer name data (second data set) and store them. On the vehicle's later return, entering the license plate data causes automatic retrieval of the name/customer data, enabling the attendant to identify and greet the driver by name. Claim 25 adds automatic retrieval of additional vehicle/driver data.

Claim 26 (system — multi-site retrieval). A ticket with unique indicia; a data transceiver entering a first vehicle ID data set including the indicia; a central processor with memory; a vehicle retrieval device remote from the data transceiver that lets the vehicle be retrieved from one of a plurality of retrieval sites based on a retrieval command associated with the indicia; and a server linking transceiver, processor, and retrieval device. (Claim 27 adds that the transceiver is handheld at the staging area and wirelessly coupled via the server.)

Claim 32 (method — fetch-on-demand). The core operational loop: (a) give the customer an electronically readable ticket; (b) store the indicia plus vehicle identification information in computer memory; (c) park the vehicle; (d) store the parking location in memory; (e) receive a retrieval request generated by reading the ticket indicia; (f) before retrieval, fetch the stored vehicle ID and parking-location information keyed to that indicia.

Literal-reading note: in the printed claim 32, the step sequence runs "(a) … storing the electronically readable indicia … (c) parking …". The "(b)" label is absent from the text — a drafting artifact. That the omitted step is in fact (b) is confirmed internally by claim 34, which recites "wherein step (b) further comprises …" referring to that storing step.

Notable context / uncertainty flags

• Assignee identity. The record lists original assignee HTV, Inc. with recorded reassignments to U.S. Pro Parking Systems, Inc., then HTV, Inc., then CVPS, Inc. (as a name change), and shows CVPS Inc as current assignee. The Google Patents listing cautions that listed assignees "may be inaccurate" because no legal analysis of the assignment chain was performed.
• Enforceability window. The patent's anticipated expiration is 1996‑07‑25 + 20 years = 2016‑07‑25, matching the "Expired – Lifetime" status. Any 2026 dispute could not concern infringement liability of this patent itself (though it could conceivably concern a related continuation or a different patent in the same family, e.g., the digital-camera valet-lane line associated with the inventor's later work).
• Litigation history I could confirm is limited to the 2009 E.D. Mich. suit against Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC. Google Patents also shows a "First worldwide family litigation" link via Darts‑IP (family ID 24759510) that I did not open, so additional family litigation outside the US may exist.
• Validation history. A 2008 CVPS press release states that during prosecution of a separate application (patent #6630893) the examiner considered attempts by others to invalidate #5710557 and found no merit; that is a party's characterization in a press release, not an authoritative USPTO or court finding.

Bottom line: US 5,710,557 is a 1998-issued, now-expired patent to Kai Herman Schuette (originally HTV, Inc., ultimately CVPS, Inc.) covering a networked valet parking system with bar-coded tickets, remote key stations, a central database, remote/kiosk vehicle retrieval, retrieval-time estimation via a sliding average, personalized greeting via license-plate lookup, and financial/employee-performance reporting. I found no evidence of 2026 CAFC docket activity for this patent number; if you need that point verified definitively, a direct query of the CAFC docket (appeal) system or PACER/RECAP for the patent number and for "CVPS, Inc." as a party would be required.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 5710557. Let me run several targeted searches.

Let me dig into the specific case referenced on the patent page and related litigation.

Let me verify the patent asserted and the case outcome, plus look for any other suits.

Litigation Report — U.S. Patent No. 5,710,557

Patent: US 5,710,557 ("Computerized valet parking system"), inventor Kai Herman Schuette, filed July 25, 1996, issued January 20, 1998. Original assignee HTV, Inc.; later assigned to CVPS, Inc. (recorded Aug. 15, 2001). Legal status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration July 25, 2016).

Below is what my searches actually returned. I want to be transparent about the limits of this search, because the answer is close to "one known case."

Known litigation

1. CVPS, Incorporated v. Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC

Sourcing: This case is the litigation link attached to the patent record itself — Google Patents lists "US case filed in Michigan Eastern District Court" pointing to portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Michigan Eastern District Court/case/2:09-cv-11054, and the docket is confirmed at https://dockets.justia.com/docket/michigan/miedce/2:2009cv11054/237890 (which shows case number, March 20, 2009 filing, Eastern District of Michigan, patent nature of suit, and AVPM counterclaims), with the same case appearing in docket search listings for Michigan patent cases (https://dockets.justia.com/search?nos=830&...&court=miedce).

Contemporaneous party account: A CVPS press item ("Computerized Valet Parking Systems, Inc. (CVPS) Files Suit Against AVPM for Patent Infringement," lawlink.com document 692) confirms CVPS filed an infringement action against AVPM. Note the press release characterizes the enforcement action as targeting "CVPS' patents involving the process of capturing the pre-existing physical condition of a vehicle in order to determine the origin of damage." That description points to the damage-capture family — U.S. Patent 6,630,893 (broader reissue/continuation) and 7,342,511 ("Digital camera valet gate," CVPS Inc.) — rather than to the '557 valet-system patent. I could not confirm from the returned sources whether the '557 patent was among the specifically asserted patents in this suit; the linkage of the '557 patent to this case comes from the patent-record litigation annotation.

Other items that are NOT '557 litigation (flagged to avoid confusion)

• IPR / reexamination-style challenges: CVPS's 2008 press release (prweb.com PDF; also republished at parking.net) states that during prosecution of the broadening application, the USPTO "examined several claims by others, seeking to invalidate the original patent (i.e. patent #5710557 'Computerized Valet Parking System')" and found no merit. This describes patentability challenges during prosecution of a related application, not a court case.
• Additional CVPS litigation over related patents: CVPS/Service Tracking Systems and the '893/'511 damage-imaging patents were involved in further disputes (e.g., press coverage of the CVPS imaging patent enforcement). These are different patent numbers and should not be reported as '557 cases.
• Unrelated hits for the numeral "5710557": Web searches for "5710557" also returned JP 5710557 B2 (a Sharp Corporation Japanese patent), a Lithuanian registry notice number, and a food-ingredient reference — none related to U.S. Patent 5,710,557. I have excluded these.

Important caveats

1. My search was not exhaustive. I was unable to complete queries against PACER directly, the CAFC docket, and the full Unified Patents case list (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) within this session. A docket-level PACER pull for 2:09-cv-11054 is the definitive next step to establish the disposition (consent judgment, stipulated dismissal, or settlement) and to confirm which patents were asserted.
2. I did not independently confirm the '557 patent was the asserted patent in the Michigan action; I am relying on the patent record's own litigation annotation plus a confirming docket. If you need this for a validity/enforceability opinion or an infringement clearance analysis, treat that link as a lead to be verified, not as established fact.
3. No other lawsuit involving US 5,710,557 was identified in the sources returned. On the present record, the single known litigation is CVPS, Incorporated v. Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC, 2:09-cv-11054 (E.D. Mich., filed Mar. 20, 2009), with a currently unconfirmed outcome.

If you can authorize PACER/courtlistener access or a Unified Patents portal pull, I can complete the case-history verification (asserted claims, claim-construction activity, judgment, and any appeal to the Federal Circuit).

I'll verify the structured default ("no PTAB activity on file") against the public record before writing anything up.

No PTAB hits so far, which is consistent with the structured default. Let me pressure-test it against the enforcement history and any CBM/IPR naming the patent owner.

The picture is consistent: no AIA trial filings surface. Let me check two last angles — a possible ex parte reexamination (the patent owner's press release hints at one) and any Unified Patents involvement.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 5710557: 0 — 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The USPTO ODP structured block states the API "returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest," and independent web checks (Google Patents family litigation tab, PTAB/decision aggregators, and patent-owner press materials) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming US 5710557, its inventor Kai Herman Schuette, or its owners (HTV, Inc. / CVPS, Inc.). The bottom line for a defendant is therefore not "the patent is hardened by PTAB wins" — it is "the patent's claims are entirely untested at the PTAB." Claims 1–40 stand as issued; nobody has canceled or even challenged a single one in an AIA trial.

Because there are zero proceedings, the per-proceeding template has nothing to populate. What follows is (a) the reason that absence matters, and (b) the adjacent non-AIA record a defendant should actually care about.

No proceedings to report — and why that is the finding

There is no IPR####-#####, PGR####-#####, or CBM####-##### number to cite, and I will not invent one. For the record, the checks performed:

• USPTO ODP (structured block, canonical): no AIA trial proceedings.
• Google Patents "Family has litigation" panel: lists only US case filed in Michigan Eastern District Court (the 2:09-cv-11054 docket) and a Darts-IP "first worldwide family litigation" link — no PTAB litigation entry.
• Web searches on the patent number, "CVPS," "Computerized Valet Parking Systems," and Schuette: returned litigation, corporate, and press materials, but zero PTAB petitions, institution decisions, or final written decisions.

Two timing facts make the absence unsurprising rather than suspicious:

1. The patent expired. Filing date 1996-07-25; "Anticipated expiration" 2016-07-25; legal status "Expired - Lifetime." The 20-year term ran out before the AIA trial regime was heavily used against older mechanical/business-method patents of this vintage at scale.
2. The only known assertion settled fast. CVPS, Inc. v. Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC, No. 2:09-cv-11054 (E.D. Mich., filed 2009-03-20, Judge Cook; defendant counterclaimed). The parties announced a settlement with cross-licenses, ending the dispute cooperatively. A quick, cross-licensed settlement removes the usual trigger for a defensive IPR — which is precisely why none was ever filed.

Note on expired-patent IPRs: expiration does not legally foreclose an IPR petition. Under Sony Corp. v. Iancu, 924 F.3d 1235 (Fed. Cir. 2019), the Board has authority to review expired patents. So the door is not closed as a matter of law — it simply was never walked through here.

Adjacent record worth flagging (not an AIA proceeding)

• Possible ex parte reexamination — unverified. A CVPS press release dated 2008-03-12 states that during prosecution of the related camera-valet patent (#6,630,893), "the U.S. Patent office also examined several claims by others, seeking to invalidate the original patent (i.e. patent #5710557 'Computerized Valet Parking System'). The examiner found no merit and voided claims of prior art." That language is consistent with a third-party ex parte reexamination request against the '557 patent that ended in a certificate confirming the claims — but this is patent-owner marketing copy, not a USPTO record, and I could not confirm a reexamination certificate or F.18 request number in any search. Treat it as a lead, not a fact, and pull the '557 file wrapper (PatentCenter) if it matters. If a reexam certificate exists and confirmed the claims, that is materially adverse to an invalidity attack and should be read before filing anything.
• Settlement / license history: the 2009 Michigan action against Automated Valet Parking Manager ended in a cross-license. Assume there may be existing licensees and/or covenants in this space; a defendant should run a chain-of-title and license search on CVPS/Service Tracking Systems before assuming it is the only party in the field.

Strategic summary

Claim status — no narrowing, and no PTAB test. All 40 claims of US 5710557 remain as issued. Nothing is CANCELED, nothing is PTAB-SUSTAINED, and everything is UNTESTED at the PTAB. The independent claims a defendant will most likely see asserted are claim 1 (system: ticket with electronically readable indicia + data transceiver + remote parking-lot key station + central processor + key-station output of pick-up data on a retrieval command), claim 12 (method of systematically parking/retrieving), claim 20 (handheld transceiver + remote transceiver + remote retrieval means + server + printer + financial/employee-evaluation report means), claim 21 (remote retrieval station with a computed retrieval-time window and displayed expected time), claim 24 (personalized valet: license-plate keyed auto-retrieval of customer name for greeting), claim 26 (ticket indicia + remote retrieval device + server), and claim 32 (valet method with indicia + location storage + retrieval fetch). There is no claim-level disposition to work from; every one is a live target.

Estoppel landscape — the cleanest possible slate. Because there are zero IPRs, there is zero § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone. No petitioner, and no privy of any petitioner, is barred from raising any ground in district court. Compare the counterfactual: had a prior defendant run an IPR and lost on a reference, that art would be off the table for it and its privies. That did not happen here. The residual constraints are procedural, not estoppel-based:

• § 315(b) one-year bar: if your client was served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '557 patent more than one year ago, a new IPR petition is time-barred. If inside the window, an IPR remains available — subject to the § 325(d)/§ 315(e) practical risks and the note below.
• § 315(a)(1) bars IPRs by a party that already filed a DJ action of invalidity.
• CBM is gone regardless: the AIA transitional CBM program sunset on 2020-09-16, and the '557 patent (filed 1996) is only reachable by IPR on § 102/§ 103 grounds over patents and printed publications — no § 101 or § 112 theories at the PTAB.
• Given expiration on 2016-07-25, any damages theory is confined to past infringement within the § 286 six-year lookback; there is no prospective injunctive exposure.

Pattern signals. No repeat petitioner, because there is no petitioner at all. The patent owner has never appealed anything to the Federal Circuit (no FWD to appeal). There is no Unified Patents or other defensive aggregator in the chain. The only pattern is a single, quickly cross-licensed district-court assertion in 2009 — the profile of a patent that was enforced once, monetized by agreement, and then aged out without a validity fight.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent that any claim is invalidated. No FWD exists. If an adversary or a client's file asserts "claims were canceled in IPR," that is false for this patent — there is no petition, no institution decision, and no final written decision to quote.
2. Verify the negative at the primary source before relying on it. Confirm on USPTO PTAB E2E / Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End and USPTO PatentCenter that no proceeding exists, and pull the '557 file wrapper to confirm or kill the possible ex parte reexamination lead above. A confirming reexam certificate would be the single most damaging document to an invalidity attack and the most valuable document to a patentee.
3. Exploit the empty estoppel field. With no prior IPR, every ground is available. Start the prior-art search from the two examiner-cited references — US 5,339,000 (Easy Park Ltd., 1994-08-16) and US 5,373,282 (Carter, 1994-12-13) — then work the heavily-cited-in-this-space corpus (e.g., US 5,940,481, Zeitman, filed 1996-07-21, priority just four days before the '557 filing) and the ~75 later publications Google Patents lists as citing the '557. The close 1996 priority dates mean § 102(e)/§ 102(a) art near the filing date is the highest-value vein.
4. Calendar the § 315(b) bar. Determine the date your client was served. If it is inside one year, an IPR petition is still on the table and — with no estoppel and no adverse PTAB precedent — carries unusually low downside. If outside one year, PTAB relief is likely foreclosed and the fight is a district-court invalidity case plus § 286 damages-window arguments.
5. Assume past-damages exposure only, but do not ignore it. The patent expired 2016-07-25, so the realistic threat is a back-damages demand, not an injunction. Check the licensing/cross-license trail from the 2009 Michigan settlement before assuming CVPS is asserting the '557 free of encumbrances.

Sources used: Google Patents, US5710557A (family litigation and legal-status panels) — https://patents.google.com/patent/US5710557/en; district-court docket, CVPS, Inc. v. Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC, No. 2:09-cv-11054 (E.D. Mich., filed 2009-03-20) — https://dockets.justia.com/docket/michigan/miedce/2:2009cv11054/[237890](/patent/237890); CVPS settlement announcement — https://www.parking.net/parking-news/cvps-and-automated-valet-are-pleased-to-announce-that-we-have-settled-our-litigation; CVPS press release dated 2008-03-12 (the unverified reexam lead) — http://ww1.prweb.com/prfiles/2009/03/24/[403174](/patent/403174)/PatentBrodeningRelease.pdf.

I'll reconstruct the assignment record for US 5710557. Let me start by pulling the primary sources.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 5710557 (Computerized valet parking system)

Sourcing note (read first): The chain below is reconstructed from the recorded-assignment events exposed on the Google Patents legal-events record for US 5710557 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5710557/en, fetched 2026-09-24), cross-referenced with litigation and corporate press records. I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record names in this session — the Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov search did not return retrievable results here. I am therefore reporting the conveyance sequence and dates with high confidence, and explicitly flagging reel/frame and correspondent as not retrieved rather than guessing. Verify those two fields at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search 5710557) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html before relying on this for an assertion chart.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check — NEGATIVE. The classic fire-sale tell (all inventors departing the original assignee within 12 months of filing) is not present. Schuette did not depart — he remained the founder/CEO of the company family that ended up owning the patent (CVPS / STS), was the named inventor on the related continuation-in-part US 6,630,893 ("Digital camera valet gate," also assigned to CVPS), and was still quoted as CEO of STS as late as the 2018 Amano McGann acquisition. This is an inventor-founder operating-company chain, not an inventor-abandonment chain.

Original assignee

Entity named on the issued patent: HTV, Inc. (Google Patents lists "Original Assignee: HTV Inc"). Note a discrepancy worth flagging: the earliest recorded assignment (1996-07-25) names U.S. Pro Parking Systems, Inc. as assignee, while the issued face of the patent names HTV, Inc. — consistent with U.S. Pro Parking Systems transferring to HTV, Inc. in Sept 1997, before the 1998-01-20 grant, so that HTV, Inc. was the assignee of record at issuance.

• Primary line of business: Valet-parking operations and parking-management technology (bar-coded ticket valet management software, kiosks, key-station hardware, later HD vehicle-imaging/valet-lane camera systems). The corporate family (HTV → CVPS → STS) is a parking-industry operating company, not a licensing vehicle.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. The CVPS application is a commercial product with, per company press releases, "over 350 installations in most major cities across the US, Canada and Australia," later "over 500" and "over 800 clients worldwide," deployed at casinos, hotels, airports, malls and MGM CityCenter/Las Vegas. The '557 system (handheld scanner, bar-coded ticket, key-station printer, remote retrieval kiosk) is the product that was actually installed.
• Current status: The patent expired 2016-07-25 (anticipated expiration; status "Expired – Lifetime"). The business did not die with it: the CVPS division of Service Tracking Systems, Inc. was acquired by Amano McGann, Inc. in February 2018 (asset purchase of "substantially all of the CVPS division assets from STS"), and continues as a standalone division. No post-expiration assignment of the patent itself is recorded.

Assignment timeline

Chronological recorded events (dates as shown in the Google Patents legal-events record; reel/frame and correspondent NOT retrieved — see sourcing note):

• 1996-07-25 (executed) / recorded date not retrieved — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (inventor→company)
  • Assignor: Kai Herman Schuette (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: U.S. Pro Parking Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (flag: verify)
  • Context: Initial employer/company assignment — inventor assigns to the operating entity on the filing date of application 08/687,210; not a shell or securitization transfer.

• 1997-09-25 (executed) / recorded date not retrieved — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: U.S. Pro Parking Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: HTV, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (flag: verify)
  • Context: Internal reorg / related-entity transfer within the same operating business (the assignee named on the patent at issuance); not an arm's-length sale.

• 2001-08-15 (executed) / recorded date not retrieved — Reel not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name (not an assignment of title)
  • Assignor: HTV, Inc.
  • Assignee: CVPS, Inc. (Computerized Valet Parking Systems, Inc.)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved (flag: verify)
  • Context: Change of name only — HTV, Inc. renamed to CVPS, Inc.; no change in beneficial ownership. CVPS, Inc. is a subsidiary of Service Tracking Systems, Inc.

• No further recorded assignments. Google Patents legal events show nothing between the 2001 change of name and the 2016-07-25 anticipated expiration. The 2018 Amano McGann deal was a division asset purchase from STS, and the patent had already expired two years earlier.

First recorded litigation: CVPS, Incorporated v. Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC, No. 2:09-cv-11054 (E.D. Mich.), filed 2009-03-20, nature of suit "Patent" (dockets.justia.com/docket/michigan/miedce/2:2009cv11054/237890). Because that is a court event and not a recorded assignment, it does not interrupt the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 5710557
    1996 : Filed by Kai Schuette
         : Assigned to US Pro Parking Systems
    1997 : Transferred to HTV Inc
    1998 : Patent granted
    2001 : HTV Inc renamed CVPS Inc
    2009 : CVPS sues Automated Valet Parking Manager
    2016 : Patent expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The patent never left the operating corporate family (U.S. Pro Parking Systems → HTV → CVPS, with the 2001 step recorded as a Change of Name, not a sale). There is no "IP / Holdings / Ventures" licensing LLC, no Delaware/Texas single-purpose vehicle, and no registered-agent address in the record. The assignee shipped an installed commercial product (350+ to 800+ sites).

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. CVPS, Inc. / HTV, Inc. / U.S. Pro Parking Systems do not appear on the standard NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). No Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency-plaintiff match surfaced. The only "asserter" here is the operating vendor itself.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data gap). Correspondent-of-record was not retrievable in this session for any of the three recordations. This signal cannot be scored. (If verified, a single recurring correspondent across the 1996/1997/2001 entries would be unsurprising for a small operating company and would not by itself indicate NPE conduct — the recurrence test is only meaningful across unrelated assignee names, which is not the fact pattern here.)

4. Cascading transfers through chained LLCs <24 months — NOT PRESENT. Two title transfers (1996-07-25 and 1997-09-25, ~14 months apart) occurred between related operating entities of the same business (the inventor's company and the entity named on the patent), followed by a pure name change in 2001. There is no chain of anonymous LLCs sharing a correspondent address or common principals.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. The last title-affecting record is the 2001-08-15 change of name; the 2009-03-20 Michigan suit came ~7.5 years later. No assignment within 6 months before the suit, so there is no evidence the chain was rearranged to manufacture standing or set venue.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding, no patent-sale motion, and no distressed-seller signal in the record; the business was acquired as a going concern in 2018, after expiry.

7. Privateering (operating company → NPE asserting on its behalf) — NOT PRESENT. The patent stayed with the operating vendor, and the assertion (2009) was brought by the vendor itself against a valet-parking software competitor, Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC — not by an arm's-length NPE funded by the vendor. Caveat: the contemporaneous CVPS press release characterizes the 2009 suit as targeting "the process of capturing the pre-existing physical condition of a vehicle," which is the language of the related US 6,630,893 ("Digital camera valet gate," also CVPS/Schuette), so the '557 may not have been the sole asserted patent in that case — but that does not change the ownership analysis.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent simply expired in-company.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The record shows a single-inventor patent that stayed inside one parking-technology operating family for its entire life: inventor Kai Herman Schuette → U.S. Pro Parking Systems, Inc. (1996-07-25) → HTV, Inc. (1997-09-25) → CVPS, Inc. via recorded Change of Name (2001-08-15), expiring 2016-07-25 with no post-2001 assignment and no licensing-vehicle assignee. The only enforcement event, CVPS, Inc. v. Automated Valet Parking Manager, LLC, No. 2:09-cv-11054 (E.D. Mich., filed 2009-03-20), was brought by the operating vendor that actually shipped the accused-market product (350–800 installations), against a valet-parking software competitor — the definition of an operating-company assertion rather than an NPE campaign. Caveats: reel/frame and correspondent-of-record were not retrievable here, so signal #3 is unscored; and the 2009 suit's press coverage describes vehicle-damage-imaging claims (the related '893 patent), so confirm which patents were actually asserted.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "5710557") and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Supporting litigation: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/michigan/miedce/2:2009cv11054/237890.

I'll research US patent 5710557 and its cited prior art references. Let me run several searches.

Prior Art Analysis — US 5,710,557

1. Patent Under Review

Note: Because the application was filed July 25, 1996 with no earlier priority claim, the critical prior-art date is July 25, 1996 for §102(a)/(e) and July 25, 1995 for the §102(b) one-year statutory bar.

Important scope caveat: The USPTO record for US5710557 (as mirrored at uspto.report/patent/grant/5710557) notes "Please see images for: (Reexamination Certificate)." This suggests a post-grant reexamination occurred. I could not retrieve the reexamination certificate text or any certificate-reduced claim set in this session, so the claim text analyzed below is the original granted claim set. Flagging this because a reexamination could have altered or cancelled claims. I cannot confirm the certificate contents with high confidence.

Sources consulted:

• https://patents.google.com/patent/US5710557/en
• https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5710557
• http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5710557.html

2. Complete Set of Patent Citations (References Cited) for US5710557

The "References Cited — U.S. Patent Documents" section of US5710557 lists exactly two prior-art patents. Every citation of record is therefore addressed below. (The large "Cited By" list — e.g., US5940481, US6630893 — consists of later documents citing US5710557 and are not prior art to it; they are excluded.)

Both issued more than one year before the July 25, 1996 filing date. Each therefore qualifies as prior art under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) (and independently as §102(a)/§102(e) art). Note: I do not have the file wrapper/prosecution history for US5710557 in this session, so I cannot state with certainty how the examiner actually applied these references in rejections — the §102 mapping below is my independent analysis of the reference disclosures against the granted claims.

3. Reference-by-Reference Analysis

D1 — US 5,339,000 (Bashan et al.), "System for monitoring parked vehicles"

Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,339,000, "System for monitoring parked vehicles," issued Aug. 16, 1994; inventors Oded Bashan, Moshe Aduk, Ronnie Gilboa, Mehemya Itay, Dubi Shure; assignee Easy Park Ltd. (Rosh Pina, IL). Israeli priority IL 98880, July 18, 1991; EP counterpart EP 0 523 742 (A2), filed July 20, 1992, published Jan. 20, 1993.

Brief description: A municipal parking-monitoring system using (i) a portable parking tag placed in each vehicle containing a memory storing parking parameters (tariff, credit, zone), a timer, and a non-contact data-communications circuit (inductive/electromagnetic coupling); and (ii) a handheld reading device carried by a parking official. The reading device interrogates the tag, reads the stored parameters, runs a validity check, and drives output means (display and a small printer for issuing a parking ticket/report on a violating vehicle). The tag data can be renewed/decremented against a parking credit and reconciled through a host computer that accumulates per-zone parking fees and transfers funds to municipalities (see US5339000 claims 14–20).

Claim-by-claim §102 potential under US5710557:

• No independent claim is anticipated. D1's system addresses municipal parking enforcement/metering — an official reading a tag in a parked car — and lacks every core valet element of independent claims 1, 12, 20, 26 and 32: no ticket/indicia issued to a customer and associated with a vehicle at a staging area, no remote key station at a parking facility, no vehicle retrieval command, no retrieval of a vehicle/data for a valet pick-up, no attendant tracking. It also lacks the retrieval-time-window features of independent claims 21–23 and the license-plate/personalized-greeting features of claims 24–25.
• Peripheral overlap only. Elements resembling the generic data-capture and report aspects appear in US5710557's dependent/reporting claims, e.g., a central processor/management system with file memory (claims 3, 20, 26, 29), an RF/communications link (claim 4), and an output/printer producing a physical item from stored data (claims 5, 6, 17, 20). D1 discloses analogous generic components (parking-management computer, printed reports, non-contact read), but they are differently arranged and directed to a different problem.
• Net assessment: Best characterized as §102(b) background art, not anticipatory of any of the 40 claims. Its realistic utility is as §103 combination art (e.g., to show that RF/bar-code data capture, central database storage, and printed output were known in parking systems).

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5339000 · http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5339000.html · EP 0523742 A2 (Google Patents PDF)

D2 — US 5,373,282 (Carter), "Dealer information and security apparatus and method"

Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,373,282, "Dealer information and security apparatus and method," issued Dec. 13, 1994; inventor Ronald L. Carter (Greer, SC); application Ser. No. 07/830,678, filed Feb. 4, 1992. A divisional thereof issued as U.S. Pat. No. 5,563,579 (Oct. 8, 1996).

Brief description: A security/key-control and management-information system for vehicle dealerships. A key storage device mounted to each vehicle's window holds the vehicle's access keys and includes a sensor array and an RF transmitter. A reader/decoder reads an encoded access key; when a storage box is accessed (routine or hostile event), the device transmits an identifier for that specific vehicle by radio through an intermediate transmitter network (e.g., a pole-mounted receiver) to a central dealership computer D. The computer records the event and its time, stores the data, and generates management reports — e.g., who took keys, which salesperson greeted a customer, how long a test drive lasted, key/vehicle accountability — and triggers alarms for hostile events. Claim 27/28 recite, inter alia, a central computer monitoring a group of vehicles, storage devices each holding a vehicle's operating key, an access key to gain access, and an RF transmitter actuated in response to the access key to signal that a given vehicle's storage device was accessed, with means for inputting the signal into the central computer.

Claim-by-claim §102 potential under US5710557:

• Potential overlap with the "key station" concept — but not anticipation. US5710557 claim 1 recites a "vehicle parking lot key station … for inputting and retrieving a second set of vehicle identification data" and a "central processor including a file memory." D2 does disclose an on-vehicle key storage/holding device and a central computer that records, stores, and reports event data, which is conceptually adjacent to a key station + central database. However, D2's device is a security lockbox on a dealership vehicle, not a valet key station at a parking facility that inputs and retrieves vehicle-identification data in response to a retrieval command, and D2 has no customer ticket with electronically readable indicia, no staging-area data-entry transceiver, and no valet vehicle-retrieval workflow. It therefore does not anticipate claim 1, 12, 20, 26 or 32.
• Management-reporting claims. D2's explicit "generate reports useful to dealership management," time-stamping, and personnel-accountability objects overlap conceptually with US5710557's report-generation and employee-evaluation dependent claims — claims 28–31 and 36–37 (accounting reports, employee evaluation/management reports, who parked/retrieved a vehicle, elapsed durations). D2 discloses data capture + storage + report generation in a vehicle-management setting, so it is relevant art for those claims, though the specific data categories (parking/retrieval times per attendant and vehicle) are not disclosed.
• Net assessment: Best characterized as §102(b) background art that also supplies §103 rationales for the record-keeping, accountability, time-stamping and report-generation aspects of the dependent claims. It does not, on the disclosed content, anticipate any independent claim.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5373282 · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5373282.html · US 5,563,579 divisional (Google Patents PDF)

4. Summary Determination

Bottom line:

1. US5710557 cites only two prior-art patents, both issued in 1994 and both qualifying as §102(b) statutory-bar art.
2. On the face of their disclosures, neither reference anticipates any of the 40 claims of US5710557. US 5,339,000 is a municipal parking-monitoring/metering system; US 5,373,282 is a dealership key-control and security system. Neither discloses the claimed valet-specific combination of a customer ticket bearing electronic indicia, a staging-area transceiver, a remote parking-facility key station, a vehicle retrieval command, and remote retrieval/attendant performance tracking. Their likely role was as §102(b) background art and/or §103 combination art for the generic database, printing, RF-link, and management-reporting features.
3. I could not verify, in this session, the examiner's actual rejection rationale (no file-wrapper/Office Action retrieved), nor the contents of the noted Reexamination Certificate. If an authoritative §102/§103 mapping is required, the prosecution history and the reexamination certificate should be pulled directly from USPTO Patent Center / Global Dossier for application 08/687,210.

Additional context (not prior art): US5710557 is the subject of a First-worldwide-family-litigation entry and a Michigan Eastern District case (2:09-cv-11054) per the Google Patents record, and it is cited by numerous later valet/parking patents (e.g., US5940481, US6630893 "Digital camera valet gate" — same inventor/assignee family, US10,713,946). Those later documents post-date the July 25, 1996 priority date and cannot be prior art to US5710557.

If useful, I can next (a) retrieve the US5710557 prosecution history/rejections, (b) pull the reexamination certificate to confirm the live claim set, and/or (c) map D1/D2 element-by-element against each of the 40 claims in claim-chart form.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references listed on the patent page. Let me pull details on the two examiner-cited references and the near-in-time third-party reference.

Let me verify the status and disclosure of the one third-party reference in the list whose priority date precedes the patent's filing date, since it may bear on the priority/invention-date issue.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent 5,710,557 (Schuette, "Computerized valet parking system")

1. Framework and governing law

• Statute: The application (US 08/687,210) was filed July 25, 1996, so it is governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103. The references cited on the face of the patent both published more than one year before the filing date (Aug. 16, 1994 and Dec. 13, 1994), so they are clean § 102(b) statutory-bar art — no swearing-behind-date issue arises.
• Test: Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966); KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007). The question is whether the differences between the claims and the prior art would have been obvious to a PHOSITA, considering (i) the scope/content of the prior art, (ii) the differences, (iii) the level of ordinary skill, and (iv) objective indicia. The combined teachings are read as a whole — In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA 1981). See MPEP §§ 2141–2143.
• Level of ordinary skill: A person with a bachelor's degree in computer science/electrical engineering (or equivalent) and ~2 years' experience with networked point-of-sale/data-capture terminals and vehicle-identification systems; alternatively, an experienced parking-operations manager working with a systems integrator. The patent itself characterizes the components as off-the-shelf (Symbol PPT 4600 terminal, Metrologic MS 860 scanner, H-P NetServer, FoxPro 2.6, Novell Netware 3.12) — strong evidence that the invention is a systems-integration invention at the ordinary-skill level.
• Analogy: All references address tracking/identifying vehicles in a parking or vehicle-storage facility and collecting associated data — reasonably pertinent to the inventor's problem, and thus proper In re Clay analogous art.
• Special note — the patent's own admissions. The "Discussion" and "DETAILED DESCRIPTION" sections describe, in admitted terms, the pre-existing manual valet process (numbered perforated ticket with stubs, keys stored at a key station, attendants matching stubs) and label the sliding-window retrieval-time computation a "conventional software programming technique." An applicant's own characterization of prior art is an admission usable against it. Riverwood Int'l Corp. v. R.A. Jones & Co., 324 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2003). This materially strengthens the § 103 case.

2. The prior art of record (the "Prior Art" section of the page)

Caveat on US 5,940,481: because it published after the '557 filing date, it is not § 102(a)/(b) art. It could only qualify under pre-AIA § 102(e) if its U.S./PCT filing date predates the applicant's date of invention — its stated 1996-07-21/07-20 priority precedes the 1996-07-25 filing by only days, so that showing is uncertain on this record. I therefore treat it as a secondary/contingent reference and do not hinge any ground on it.

3. Representative independent claim — element mapping

Claim 1 (system) requires: (a) a ticket with unique electronically readable indicia; (b) a data transceiver inputting/retrieving a first set of vehicle ID data including the indicia; (c) a vehicle parking lot key station, remote from the transceiver, inputting/retrieving a second set of vehicle ID data; (d) a central processor with file memory storing both sets; and (e) the key station outputting vehicle pick-up data for retrieval in response to a vehicle retrieval command from the central processor.

Primary ground for claim 1: admitted conventional valet practice (Background) + Carter + Easy Park.

4. Claim-group-by-claim-group grounds

Ground A — Claims 1–19 (system + method of parking/retrieving): Carter + Easy Park + admitted prior art, as mapped above. Claims 3–4 (server; wireless link) are met by Carter's "intermediate transmitter network" / radio links and Easy Park's non-contact wireless transfer. Claim 5–6 (output means; printer) is squarely met by Easy Park's printer 28. Claims 7–8 (handheld wireless transceiver with scanner; bar code) are met by Easy Park's portable reader plus the admitted handheld bar-code terminal. Claims 9–10 (license plate; driver ID) are met/rendered obvious by Zeitman's database fields ("license plate number, and/or user identity, such as name") or by Carter's customer/vehicle records. Claim 11 (parking spot location data) is a predictable stored data field for a facility that must later locate the vehicle (Carter tracks which vehicles are where on the lot; the admitted valet process locates keys on a numbered board). Claims 12–19 track the admitted manual method step-for-step, with computer entry at the key station supplied by Carter/Easy Park (steps "re-entering bar code, valet ID data, parking space data").

Ground B — Claims 20, 26–31 (system with reports/remote retrieval/server): Carter + Easy Park. Claim 20's "financial and employee performance evaluation reports" is the strongest single mapping in the patent: Carter expressly teaches report generation useful to management about which salesperson handled which vehicles, greeting latency, demonstration and test-drive durations, and using that data for staffing and business-hours decisions; Easy Park teaches the financial/accounting half (tariff, cumulative fee, debit). Claim 29's "downloading reports to a remote database on a periodic basis" is a routine application of Carter's networked transmission of stored records to a central computer. Claims 26–28, 30–31 are the same system viewed from the report side.

Ground C — Claims 21–23 (retrieval-time computation and display): Carter + Easy Park, with the spec's own admission that the technique is conventional. Easy Park furnishes the timer/elapsed-time measurement and a display/printer; Carter furnishes the practice of measuring and reporting service durations for management purposes. Computing a running/sliding average over a recalibrating window is a conventional statistical/queue-management technique that a PHOSITA would have applied for the recognized benefit of giving customers a wait estimate and smoothing peak/off-peak variation. Under KSR, this is an "obvious to try" / predictable-variation situation. Confidence: moderate — this is the group most amenable to a "non-functional descriptive/computational limitation" and obviousness argument, but also the group where a patentee could argue no reference suggests customer-facing wait estimation.

Ground D — Claims 24–25 and 34 (personalization / greet by name): Carter is unusually on point — its stated object includes determining "how long it took for a salesperson to greet that customer" and which salesperson greeted, i.e., greeting performance is a tracked metric, giving an express motivation to speed/greet-by-name. Entering license plate data as a database key and auto-retrieving the linked customer name is a routine lookup given Zeitman's database design (plate number + user identity) and Carter's customer records. Motivation: customer service and the admitted desirability of personalizing valet service (spec's own stated feature). Confidence: high for obviousness of the concept; note the specific "auto-retrieve on plate entry" ordering is a routine database design choice.

Ground E — Claim 35 (store parking rate; display service charge on retrieval): Easy Park teaches parking tariff, credit, computed parking debit, and credit renewal, and printing a record for the vehicle; displaying the charge at retrieval is a predictable application. Confidence: high.

Ground F — Claims 36–37 (employee ID for parking and retrieval + management reports with enumerated categories): This is largely Carter alone, optionally + Easy Park. Carter expressly teaches (i) accountability as to who had the keys, (ii) a record of what happened while a particular individual was in possession, (iii) how long the activity lasted, and (iv) generating reports useful to management covering which person handled which vehicle, vehicle counts/activity per person, and durations — the very categories recited in claim 37. Adding "+ Easy Park" supplies the timing/accounting data plumbing. Confidence: high — claim 37 in particular reads like a recitation of Carter's express objectives.

Ground G — Claims 38–40 (handheld wireless transceiver; data transmitted to a transceiver adjacent the parked vehicle; remote retrieval station): Easy Park meets claim 38 (portable reader, wireless transfer, memory). Claim 39 is met or rendered obvious by Carter's vehicle-mounted device that receives/transmits information at the vehicle location (and its divisional US 5,563,579's "remote device receiving, storing and retransmitting" at the vehicle). Claim 40's remote retrieval station is met by Zeitman's user interface units (public telephone / mobile telephone / computer terminal at a location remote from the vehicle) reporting to a central control unit, or by Easy Park's credit-renewal/reader stations; the motivation is plain customer convenience and congestion reduction. Confidence: high (claim 38), moderate (claims 39–40).

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

1. Same field, same problem. Both Carter and Easy Park attack the same problem the '557 patent identifies: replacing manually-tracked, error-prone vehicle handling with electronically captured vehicle identity, timed events, and centrally stored records. This is the strongest and simplest "field of endeavor / nature of the problem" motivation.
2. Complementary, non-overlapping teachings with predictable results. Easy Park supplies the mobile data-capture + printer + timer + host accounting; Carter supplies the key/attendant accountability + central event records + management reporting. Combining them yields nothing more than the predictable sum of their established functions — the hallmark of KSR obviousness.
3. The patent's own starting point supplies the missing valet context. The Background already discloses the ticket/stub/key-station/retrieval workflow. A PHOSITA automating an admitted manual process would look to a computerized parking-monitoring system (Easy Park) and a computerized vehicle/key-accountability system (Carter).
4. Design incentives / market forces. Carter is expressly driven by management's desire for accountability, staffing, and business-hours decisions; Easy Park by enforcement/billing efficiency; the '557 patent by the need to control accounting for subcontracted valet services. These incentives independently push toward the claimed combination.
5. Simultaneous independent invention. Zeitman's filing four to five days before the '557 filing (1996-07-20/21 vs. 1996-07-25) and its near-identical problem statement (central database, vehicle ID, user ID, remote interface) evidence that the solution was the natural next step in the art, not an unexpected insight. (Used as evidence of obviousness only; did not rely on it as § 102 art.)

6. Counterarguments and objective indicia — candid assessment

Where a patentee can push back:

• No valet context in either reference. Neither Carter (dealership security) nor Easy Park (municipal enforcement) is a valet system. A patentee will argue the combination is hindsight-driven and that "key station" is a valet-specific structure.
• Claim 1's directional limitation ("in response to a vehicle retrieval command from said central processor") — Easy Park's reader largely pushes data to the tag; a patentee can argue the central-command architecture is not squarely disclosed. (Counter: networked host-issued instructions to remote printers were routine by 1996, and Easy Park claims 15/17–18 disclose host-generated control signals.)
• Claims 21–23 — the customer-facing estimated-retrieval-time display has no direct antecedent in either cited reference.
• Claims 1, 12, 32 as a whole — a patentee will argue no single reference or combination teaches the ticket-with-indicia + remote key station + retrieval-command-driven output combination.

Objective indicia: I found no secondary-considerations evidence in the record consulted (no evidence of unexpected results, licensing nexus, praise, or copying was located). The patent's expiration on 2016-07-25 (status "Expired – Lifetime") and the noted Michigan E.D. litigation (case 2:09-cv-11054, per the page) mean the practical stakes of any validity challenge are now largely historical. I did not locate a recorded final obviousness determination on these claims and do not represent one to exist.

7. Bottom line

Overall: claims 20, 26–31, 35, 36 and 37 are the most vulnerable — they recite little more than Carter's stated objectives and Easy Park's stated accounting functions. Claims 1–19 and 32–40 are vulnerable to a three-way combination (admitted valet practice + Carter + Easy Park), with the weakest links being the "ticket-with-bar-code" element (obvious substitution of machine-readable indicia) and the "key station outputs pick-up data on a central-processor command" element (routine network architecture). Claims 21–23 are the least vulnerable and would require the strongest showing that customer-facing sliding-window wait estimation was a known, motivated technique — though the specification's own "conventional software programming technique" admission cuts against the patentee there. Accordingly, a § 103 rejection or invalidity contention would most reliably target claims 20, 26–31, 35, 36, 37, and would have a reasonable chance against the remaining claims using the combinations above.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5710557/en · https://patents.google.com/patent/US5339000 · https://uspto.report/patent/grant/5339000 · https://patents.google.com/patent/US5373282 · https://www.freepatentsonline.com/5373282.html · https://patents.google.com/patent/US5940481A · https://patents.google.com/patent/US5563579 (divisional of Carter 07/830,678)

Identifiers are reproduced literally as they appear in the source; US 5,940,481's effective date is stated per the source and is flagged as unverified for § 102(e) purposes. This is a technical obviousness analysis, not a legal opinion.