Invalidity dossier
US 5956330
Bandwidth management in a heterogenous wireless personal communications system
Current assignee: GN Hearing Care Corp
Added 9/23/2026, 10:09:19 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 5,956,330
Title: Bandwidth management in a heterogenous wireless personal communications system
Patent number: US 5,956,330 (application US 08/829,055), granted 1999-09-21.
Inventor: Robert Q. Kerns.
Assignee: Original assignee GN Hearing Care Corp (RESOUND CORPORATION); current assignee listed as GN Hearing Care Corp.
Dates: Priority/filing date 1997-03-31; granted 1999-09-21; anticipated expiration 2017-03-31. Legal status: Expired – Fee Related.
Purpose (per the supplied text): The invention concerns wireless personal communications systems, particularly RF "nanocell" systems, and addresses bandwidth management. One stated challenge is enabling multiple such systems to operate in close proximity without performance degradation (or with graceful degradation) due to interference. An unofficial in-house benchmark described is the "ten-person hug," in which ten users with such systems form a group hug without significant performance degradation.
Plain-language scope (per the supplied text): The excerpt describes a hearing-aid system in which a hidden earpiece communicates wirelessly with a remote processor unit (RPU) (e.g., belt pack, wallet or purse unit). Environmental sound picked up by the earpiece microphone is sent over a primary two-way wireless link to the RPU, where audio is enhanced per the user's needs; enhanced audio is returned to the earpiece speaker. Communications follow an interrogate/reply cycle, and the earpiece-to-RPU reply may use reflective backscatter. An optional secondary two-way link connects the RPU to a cellular telephone system or other information source. Two earpieces plus an RPU can form a binaural system providing hearing protection and noise cancellation alongside hearing-aid functions. Time division multiplexing is used to share bandwidth, with multiple timeslots (e.g., ten or more), each accommodating a single interrogate/reply transaction.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US5956330/en
What the excerpt does not establish: The supplied text is explicitly an excerpt with omitted content and no claim set. It therefore does not establish the actual claim scope, the specific bandwidth-management techniques claimed, the cited prior art, or any legal conclusions (validity, infringement, enforceability).
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:33:45 PM
Cases on file (0)
Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 5956330. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
No cases on file mention this patent. Upload a CSV or add a case manually in Admin → Manage litigation cases.
Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.