US 6324607

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number.

Search scope and method

I queried for the exact number 6,324,607, with targeted runs against patent-family, USPTO-report, Espacenet/EPO and Federal Circuit docket sources. Results below are limited to US 6,324,607 itself and its family; I did not return look-alike numbers except where a family member is explicitly identified as such.

Bibliographic data for US 6,324,607 B1

Sources: Google Patents US6324607B1, USPTO Report grant page, Patent Leaderboard – Harold Lake.

Family/priority chain (per the specification and the US 7,337,256 front page): provisional 60/005,279 (filed 1995-10-10) → 08/560,167 (filed 1995-11-20, now US 6,076,124) → 09/443,774 (filed 1999-11-19, this patent) → 09/528,263 (filed 2000-03-17, now US 6,671,763) → 10/722,341 (filed 2003-11-25, now US 7,337,256). Parallel family members include US 6,003,985, US 6,033,257, US 6,183,289, US 6,418,499, US 6,496,892, EP 0 772 107 (A2/B1), CA 2,187,590.

Abstract

"A field controller for use in a distributed control system including an area controller and at least one field controller. The field controller manages at least one controlled device in an industrial process operation. The field controller comprises a processor module segment through which it can control a selected number of devices, and it may also include one or more expansion module segments to enable it to control a larger number of controlled devices. The processor module segment includes a processor module and at least one local interface module for interfacing to a controlled device, and the expansion module segment includes interface modules for interfacing to other controlled devices. In the processor module segment, the processor module and said local interface module are interconnected by a bus segment, which is also connected to an upstream off-module connector. Each expansion module segment includes at least one interface module, and also includes a downstream off-module connector and an upstream off-module connector, which are interconnected by a bus segment. The downstream off-module connector of each expansion module segment is adapted to mate with the upstream off-module connector of the processor module segment and of other expansion module segment, so as to facilitate the interconnection of the processor module segment and a sequence of expansion module segments by establishing a unitary multi-drop bus comprising the processor module's bus segment and the bus segments of expansion module in the sequence. The processor module controls each controlled device through the respective local interface module or expansion interface module connected thereto. The processor module segment and each expansion module segment are each mounted in a housing segment which is configured to form a unitary housing when they are interconnected."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Caveat on claim text: the authoritative full text supplied for this analysis contains the specification, abstract, drawings list and classifications but not the numbered claim set. I therefore reconstructed the independent-claim substance from (a) the abstract/summary "In brief summary, the invention provides…" passage, which is drafted in claim-style, and (b) the substantively identical claim language published in the same family in US 2004/0158666, which expressly claims priority to US 09/443,774. The figures and reference numerals (20, 21(e), 23, 40/51, 43/47/50/52, 44(p)/55(p), 71(s)) are this patent's own and are used in the overview.

Claim 1 (apparatus – the field controller), as reconstructed:

• A field controller for a distributed control system that also has an area controller; it controls at least one device in an industrial process operation.
• It has two kinds of building blocks:
  • a processor module segment containing (i) a processor module (20) and (ii) at least one local interface module (the PCMCIA interface card 45(p) with external interface 46(p)) for talking to a controlled device, the processor module and local interface module being joined by a processor-module bus segment (27/40) that also connects to an upstream off-module connector (47);
  • one or more optional expansion module segments, each with at least one interface module (54(p)/57(p)), plus a downstream off-module connector (50) and an upstream off-module connector (52) tied together by an expansion bus segment (51).
• The downstream connector of each expansion segment mates with the upstream connector of the processor segment (or of the previous expansion segment), so stacking segments daisy-chains the bus segments into a single unitary multi-drop bus spanning the whole stack.
• The processor module controls each controlled device through whichever interface module (local or expansion) that device is wired to.
• Each segment is mounted in its own housing segment, and the segments together form a unitary housing when interconnected (housing 65; end caps 70/72; snap elements 77/78).
• The mated, segment-to-segment busing plus per-segment local interface ability is what makes the controller extensible in the field.

Other independent claims (dependent on the same disclosure, reconstruction with lower confidence):

• A method of controlling devices using the above architecture — assembling the processor segment plus N expansion segments until the bus reaches the required device count, and passing control signals from the processor module along the composite multi-drop bus to the interface module serving each device.
• Possibly an independent claim directed to the module-selection aspect (FIG. 2B): the processor sub-module (22) broadcasts four MOD SEL signals A0–D0 through connectors 28(A)–28(D); each sub-module/expansion module uses a select-and-rotate network 29(0)–29(3) that decodes a two-signal pair (e.g., A0&B0 for module 23; B0&C0 for module 21(1); C0&D0 for 21(2); D0&A0 for 21(3)) and rotates the pattern downstream. Note that US 7,337,256 — a sibling continuation — is titled "Distributed control system with multiple control levels and/or downloading," which suggests the selection/downloading subject matter may have been prosecuted in the sibling rather than as an independent claim here.
• Independent claim count and total claim count for US 6,324,607 I could not verify from the retrieved sources. A "45 Claims, 13 Drawing Sheets" figure appears in search results, but it belongs to the front page of US 7,337,256, not to this patent — do not attribute it to 6,324,607.

Key technical details worth noting in the overview: the bus is described as conforming to the ISA bus specification (multi-drop, with interrupt capability); the processor sub-module 22 is a PCMCIA-form-factor card (3⅜″ × 2⅛″ × ¼″, ISA interface along a long edge), with the S-MOS CARDIO™ 486 module named as a suitable part; the interface cards are PCMCIA cards coupled through an interface controller chip (42/53); each segment's top wall is a finned heat sink, the front has a hinged access door (80(s)) and a recess for external connectors, and service is by opening the door to swap PCMCIA cards or the processor sub-module without disassembling the controller. Two physical embodiments exist — segments that extend parallel to the wall/DIN surface (FIGS. 3–6B) and those that stack transversely to it (FIGS. 7–10B).

CAFC 2026 docket / litigation check

• I found no 2026 (or any-year) Federal Circuit docket, appeal, PTAB proceeding, or district-court docket entry involving US 6,324,607 in the searches I was able to run. I could not directly query the CAFC docket system (PACER/CM-ECF) or the USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB APIs from this environment, so this is a negative search result, not a certification of no litigation.
• Context that bears on the likelihood: the patent is recorded as Expired – Lifetime with anticipated expiration 2015-11-20, having issued 2001-11-27 from an application filed 1999-11-19 with a 1995-10-10 priority claim. Its statutory term would have run out in 2015, and the six-year damages look-back under 35 U.S.C. § 286 would have closed around 2021 absent tolling. Any 2026 Federal Circuit activity would therefore most plausibly be stale or collateral rather than active enforcement of this number.
• The patent's ownership trail on Google Patents shows a security-interest history (Deutsche Bank AG, London, 2004 and 2006, with releases recorded 2006-07-27 and 2013-08-08) and an EKMS, Inc. reassignment (2003-04-28) — these are recorded assignments/security interests, not litigation.

Explicit uncertainties and data discrepancies (flagged, not corrected)

1. Continuation statement vs. application number. The specification paragraph in the authoritative text reads: "This application is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/443,774, filed Nov. 18, 1999…" But 09/443,774 is this patent's own application number, and Google Patents gives its filing date as 1999-11-19. Taken literally, the specification's self-referential continuation sentence and the "Nov. 18" date are inconsistent with the bibliographic record. I am reporting both as found and not silently harmonizing them.
2. Date discrepancy. "Nov. 18, 1999" (specification text) vs. "1999-11-19" (Google Patents filing date). Also, the web-fetched abstract block for this document rendered the filing date as 1999-11-19 while the same document's descriptions say Nov. 18.
3. Inventor/assignee shifts. The earlier 1999 assignment record lists only Kagan and Korowitz; the 2001-01-16 assignment adds Lake. Three inventors ultimately appear on the face of the patent.
4. Claim set not independently verified. I did not retrieve the granted claim text of 6,324,607 from an authoritative source (USPTO Patent Full-Text, PatentCenter, or the patent PDF). My claim overview is a faithful reconstruction from the patent's own "in brief summary" paragraph and from parallel family claim language, and should be confirmed against the granted claims before being relied on for any infringement/validity purpose.
5. Current owner naming. Google Patents lists Schneider Electric Systems USA Inc. as current assignee by way of a change of name recorded 2017-07-31 from Invensys Systems, Inc. — i.e., not a sale. Verify against USPTO Assignment records if title matters.
6. No CAFC 2026 hit — as stated above, this reflects the limits of the retrieval tools used, not an affirmative clearance.

Local notes: The provided full text ends mid-sentence in the description ("…status of the field con"), so the FIG. 8–10B embodiment description and the entire claim set are truncated/absent in that source; those gaps are the reason for the claim-level uncertainty noted in point 4.

I'll search multiple litigation sources for this specific patent number.

Initial results are citation references, not litigation. Let me search litigation-specific databases.

Let me drill into specific litigation databases and check for any case asserting this exact patent.

Litigation search results for U.S. Patent No. 6,324,607

Bottom line: I found no litigation specifically asserting U.S. Patent No. 6,324,607 ("Distributed control system including a compact, easily-extensible and serviceable field controller").

I want to be explicit about this rather than infer a case that doesn't exist. The searches returned no complaint, docket entry, IPR/PGR petition, or judgment in which the '607 patent is identified as an asserted patent.

What the searches actually returned

Every hit mentioning "6324607" was a citation or family reference, not a litigation record:

• International search report / EPO search-report annexes listing the '607 as a "patent family member" or cited document in other applications (e.g., https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/28/f2/6e/e073b3705fb8d5/WO2003050625A3.pdf; .../27/dd/a8/c3552eae116b46/EP1388769A1.pdf; .../28/28/a8/16037cdd7955dc/WO2002019047A3.pdf).
• A Russian patent (RU2299458C2) citing the '607 in its search-report list of references.
• The '607 listed as a related/continuation patent in the specification of US 7,337,256 (Korowitz et al.), and as a cited reference on its face (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/3c/06/a6/146513a255af58/US7337256.pdf).
• The Google Patents record itself (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6324607](/patent/US6324607)/en), showing front-page citations only.

Two Invensys-related litigations that appeared but do NOT appear to involve the '607

Because the '607 is an Invensys/Foxboro patent, these surfaced in the search and are worth distinguishing so you don't mistake them for '607 cases:

1. Invensys Systems, Inc. v. Emerson Electric Co. and Micro Motion, Inc.

   • Court: U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (Tyler Division)
   • Case No.: 6:12-cv-00799 (filed Oct. 22, 2012; docket https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/6:2012cv00799/[140485](/patent/140485))
   • Patents asserted: Coriolis flowmeter patents — U.S. 6,311,136 ('136); 7,124,646 ('646); 7,136,761 ('761); and a '062 patent. These are the "Invensys Patents-in-Suit" referenced in the invalidity contentions and IPR briefing (IPR2014-00170, which concerns U.S. Pat. 6,311,136).
   • The '607 is not among the Coriolis patents asserted.

2. Automation Middleware Solutions, Inc. v. Invensys Systems, Inc.; Schneider Electric USA, Inc.; Rockwell Automation, Inc.; Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.

   • Appeal: Fed. Cir. No. 17-2187, Rule 36 judgment Sept. 17, 2018 (https://cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/17-2187.Rule_36_Judgment.9-17-2018.1.pdf)
   • The record excerpts reference "Invensys Motion Control Systems" and middleware/motion-control software claims (claim-construction terms shown are from middleware patents such as a '897 and '058 patent), not the '607 field-controller patent.

Additional context on the '607

• Owner chain: The Foxboro Company → Invensys Systems, Inc. → Schneider Electric Systems USA, Inc. (2017 change of name).
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; anticipated expiration Nov. 20, 2015 (per the Google Patents record). An expired patent can still be the subject of past-infringement damages claims, so expiration alone does not rule out historical litigation, but it makes a current/active case unlikely.
• Family: continuation of 09/443,774; continuation of 08/560,167 (now US 6,076,124); provisional 60/005,279 (Oct. 10, 1995); related US 6,671,763 and US 7,337,256.

Confidence and caveats

• Low-to-moderate confidence that no litigation exists. My search coverage was limited, and I was not able to complete independent direct queries against Unified Patents' litigation case list (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), PACER, or a full RPX/Docket Alarm search for this specific number before my search budget was exhausted.
• Free web-search results often do a poor job of surfacing complaints where the patent number appears only inside exhibit PDFs or ex-parte/assignment records.

Recommended verification steps if you need a definitive answer: run the exact string "6,324,607" (with commas, and also "6324607") in Docket Alarm / RPX Insight full-text litigation search, in PACER's nationwide docket search (civil, patent nature-of-suit), and in Unified Patents' litigation case list; also check Lex Machina or LexisNexis Patent Litigation if available.

I did not fabricate any case. Based on the evidence available to me: no known litigation asserting U.S. Patent No. 6,324,607 was identified.

I'll start by verifying the structured data with targeted web searches for any PTAB activity on this patent.

Let me run a few more targeted checks to be thorough.

PTAB proceedings search — US 6,324,607

I ran the structured ODP data against multiple independent web searches (patent number alone, patent number + IPR prefixes, patent number + "PTAB"/"validity," and assignee/party names). Every search came back consistent: there is no AIA trial proceeding on file for US 6,324,607.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,324,607: zero (0). No IPRs, no PGRs, no CBMs — no institution decisions, no final written decisions, no appeals. Breakdown by status is therefore N/A (0 active / 0 invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied). Bottom line defensive posture: the patent is not "hardened by surviving IPRs" and it is not "softened by canceled claims" — it is simply untested at the PTAB. A defendant gets no free invalidity win out of the PTAB record, but also inherits no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no adverse claim-construction rulings from any prior Board panel. Critically, the patent expired on 2015-11-20 (Google Patents legal status: "Anticipated expiration"), which sharply limits the practical stakes.

Note on scope: the assignee Invensys Systems, Inc. and its successor Schneider Electric Systems USA, Inc. have been through heavy PTAB activity — but on different patents (the Micro Motion / Emerson flowmeter IPRs, e.g., IPR2014-00179 on U.S. 7,124,646; and the related '761/'136 family litigated in Invensys Systems, Inc. v. Emerson Electric Co., No. 6:12-cv-00799-LED (E.D. Tex.)). None of those proceedings involve US 6,324,607. Do not conflate the flowmeter IPR record with this patent.

Proceeding-by-proceeding

None to report. No proceeding numbers exist to list, and I will not invent any. The absence of a proceeding is not an inference I can manufacture a docket entry for.

Strategic summary

Claim status for US 6,324,607: all claims UNTESTED at the PTAB. No claim has been canceled, and no claim has been confirmed by the Board. The claims stand as issued (subject only to whatever occurred in prosecution/reissue, which is not a PTAB matter). Because nothing was decided, there is no claim-level survival list to provide — every claim of the patent remains as-granted.

Estoppel landscape: There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, because that estoppel only attaches to a petitioner that reaches a final written decision. With no FWD, a current defendant faces no IPR-based estoppel bar on prior-art grounds — the full universe of § 102/§ 103 art is available in district court, subject only to normal IPR filing mechanics if you decide to petition. Conversely, the patent owner also has no adverse PTAB rulings to overcome.

Pattern signals: No repeat-petitioner pattern (no petitioner at all). No patent-owner appeal to the Federal Circuit from any PTAB decision on this patent. No defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) is in the chain on this patent. The more telling signal is the timeline: IPRs became available 2012-09-16, yet no one ever petitioned on '607 — and the patent expired 2015-11-20. An expired patent offered too little remaining term and too little litigation leverage to justify the cost of an AIA petition. That is the single strongest explanatory fact here.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not represent to a court or adversary that 6,324,607 has been invalidated. No FWD exists. Any argument that "claims 1–5 are canceled" or "the patent survived IPRs" would be a fabrication — there is no such docket entry to cite. If opposing counsel asserts PTAB history, demand the proceeding number and check the PTAB E2E public docket directly.
2. Confirm expiration status first. Google Patents lists an anticipated expiration of 2015-11-20 (priority 1995-10-10; filed 1999-11-19). If the patent is expired, damages are limited to pre-expiration infringement within the § 286 six-year lookback (which here may predate expiration entirely), and injunctive relief is off the table. Verify via the USPTO Patent Center for any maintenance-fee lapse, expiration-for-failure-to-pay, terminal disclaimer, or reissue that changes the picture.
3. If you nonetheless want an AIA challenge: an expired patent can still be reviewed, but the value is usually nil, and the new § 42.108 proposed bars (not yet effective as of the search results) would narrow filability. Confirm the current institution policy — the Director's October 2025 memorandum centralized institution decisions with the Director, a material procedural change if you file.
4. If you are the patent owner: the clean PTAB record is a small positive, but the expiration date dominates. Prepare for obviousness/anticipation and § 112 defenses in district court on an as-issued claim set, and expect the accused infringer to lead with expiration and indefiniteness rather than an IPR.
5. Watch for newly-filed petitions the ODP may not have ingested: check PTAB E2E and CourtListener for any docket activity tied to the patent number before relying on the "no activity" conclusion in a filed brief.

Confidence note: I could not locate any AIA trial proceeding for US 6,324,607 in the structured data or across repeated web searches. If a proceeding exists that is not indexed by ODP and not surfaced by search, I have no basis to report it and will not guess a proceeding number. Treat "no PTAB activity on file" as the operative finding, subject to an E2E docket confirmation.

Ownership reconstruction — US 6324607 B1

Critical data gap, stated up front: I was unable to retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the correspondent-of-record names for these records in this session — the Assignment Center's per-record detail (reel/frame, execution date, correspondent) is not exposed in the search results I could reach, and I hit the tool limit before extracting them. The chain below is reconstructed from the USPTO-derived legal-events record reproduced on the patent's own Google Patents page (which mirrors the Assignment Center data) plus the Florida Division of Corporations name history (sunbiz.org). Where the format below asks for reel/frame and correspondent, I have written not retrieved rather than invent a number. Every entry should be verified at the Assignment Center before being relied on. This is a genuine limitation of my output, not a finding.

Inventors

Pattern worth noting (not a departure pattern): the first recorded assignment (1999-11-19, coincident with the 09/443,774 filing date) names only two of the three inventors. The third inventor, Harold Lake, appears only in the 2001-01-16 assignment — recorded about ten months before issuance (2001-11-27). That is consistent with a late correction of ownership documentation (added inventor or an omitted signature), not with a portfolio fire-sale.

Employer attribution is inferred from the assignee named on the assignments (The Foxboro Company); I did not independently verify the inventors' employment records. Foxboro was a Siebe plc company that became part of Invensys plc upon the Siebe/BTR merger in 1999.

Departure-within-12-months pattern: cannot be determined. No inventor personnel data is in the record.

Application-number anomaly (flag, do not auto-correct): the front page lists application 09/443,774, filed 1999-11-19, yet the body text states "This application is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/443,774, filed Nov. 18, 1999… which is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 08/560,167, filed Nov. 20, 1995." The description text appears to be that of the continuation US6671763B1 (application 09/528,263, filed 2000-03-17, whose priority to the '774 application is also shown on the page). This is a text-mixing artifact, not a legal event, but it matters because 09/528,263 → US6671763B1 was also swept into the EKMS conveyance (see below).

Original assignee

The Foxboro Company (Foxboro, Massachusetts) — the assignee named on the face of the patent.

• Primary line of business: industrial process control and automation instrumentation. The claimed subject matter (a modular, snap-together field controller with PCMCIA-format I/O cards on an ISA-derived multi-drop bus) is squarely Foxboro's core control-systems business.

• Product embodiment: Foxboro shipped distributed control systems in this era (I/A Series and its modular field I/O and controller hardware). I cannot confirm from the record that a specific commercial product embodied these exact claims; the claims are hardware/firmware architecture claims, and the record shows a family of sibling continuations (US6671763B1, US6496892B1, US6418499B1, US7337256B2).

• Current status: the original assignee entity is still in existence and operating, having been renamed twice:

  • 2001-07-10 — "THE FOXBORO COMPANY" → "INVENSYS SYSTEMS, INC."
  • 2017-01-11 — "INVENSYS SYSTEMS, INC." → "SCHNEIDER ELECTRIC SYSTEMS USA, INC." (Florida entity F00000005487)

  Invensys plc was acquired by Schneider Electric SE in January 2014 — an acquisition, not a bankruptcy.

• Patent status: expired. The page shows anticipated expiration 2015-11-20 (20 years from the 1995-11-20 parent filing) and legal status Expired – Lifetime.

Assignment timeline

Dates below are the recordation/event dates as surfaced in the legal-events record. Execution dates were not separately retrievable. Reel/frame and correspondent were not retrieved (see the caveat at top).

• 1999-11-19 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (original, inventors → employer)
  • Assignor: Harris D. Kagan; Simon Korowitz
  • Assignee: The Foxboro Company
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: initial conveyance of inventor rights to the employer, recorded on the filing date of continuation 09/443,774.

• 2001-01-16 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Harris D. Kagan; Simon Korowitz; Harold Lake
  • Assignee: The Foxboro Company
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: confirmatory/corrective assignment adding the third named inventor, recorded ten months before issuance.

• 2003-04-28 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: The Foxboro Company
  • Assignee: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: internal reorg/confirmatory assignment — the Florida name change to Invensys Systems, Inc. had been effective 2001-07-10; recorded same day as the transfer below, i.e. title was cleaned up immediately before conveyance out.

• 2003-04-28 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: EKMS, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: transfer of the portfolio to an IP-licensing / patent-mining firm (EKMS, Inc., founded 1986 by Edward Kahn) — a monetization arrangement, not a product-line sale. Cross-reference: sibling US6671763B1 is listed on Google Patents with Ekms, Inc. as assignee, indicating the deal covered a family, not just this patent.

• 2004-04-05 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Security Interest
  • Assignor: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: Deutsche Bank AG, London
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: securitization — Invensys group financing; patents pledged as collateral.

• 2005-06-27 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment (reversion)
  • Assignor: EKMS Inc.; UTEK-EKMS, Inc.
  • Assignee: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: the portfolio came back. EKMS had been acquired by UTEK Corporation (AMEX: UTK) in 2004 and operated as UTEK-EKMS, Inc.; Invensys reacquired the patents from both entities. A ~26-month round trip to a licensing intermediary and back.

• 2006-07-13 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: securitization — replacement/extended secured financing.

• 2006-07-27 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release and Termination of Security Interest
  • Assignor: Deutsche Bank AG London
  • Assignee: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: release of the 2004/2006 Deutsche Bank security interests (financing payoff/reset).

• 2013-08-08 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
  • Assignor: Deutsche Bank AG, London Branch
  • Assignee: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: termination of a later security interest — housekeeping on the secured-financing record.

• 2017-07-31 — Reel/frame not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Invensys Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: Schneider Electric Systems USA, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: name change only — no change in beneficial ownership (Florida name change effective 2017-01-11; Schneider had acquired Invensys plc in 2014).

Net ownership conclusion: the patent never left the Foxboro/Invensys/Schneider corporate lineage except for the 2003-04-28 → 2005-06-27 EKMS round trip, and it is now expired.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6324607
    1995 : Provisional filed 10 Oct
         : Parent application filed 20 Nov
    1999 : Continuation filed 19 Nov
         : Assigned to The Foxboro Company
    2001 : Corrective assignment adds Lake
         : Patent issued 27 Nov
    2003 : Foxboro to Invensys Systems
         : Invensys to EKMS Inc
    2004 : Deutsche Bank security interest
    2005 : Portfolio reacquired from EKMS and UTEK-EKMS
    2006 : Deutsche Bank security agreement
         : Security interest released
    2013 : Secured party release recorded
    2014 : Invensys acquired by Schneider Electric
    2017 : Name change to Schneider Electric Systems USA

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present (as an end state); weak present (historical).
   The only move to a licensing entity is the 2003-04-28 assignment to EKMS, Inc. EKMS is not an anonymous "IP Holdings LLC" — it was a known, named IP-management consultancy (Edward Kahn, later UTEK-EKMS, later UTEK Intellectual Capital Consulting) with a public professional profile. More importantly the transfer was reversed on 2005-06-27, and the current owner is an operating company. No shell LLC, no registered-agent address, no single-member Delaware/Texas vehicle appears anywhere in the chain.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present.
   No link matches the enumerated lists (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). EKMS/UTEK-EKMS is an IP-consulting/licensing firm, not a listed high-frequency litigant. Caveat: I could not query the Unified Patents or RPX asserter directories in this session, so this is "not present on the enumerated lists," not "verified absent from every directory."

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear / not determinable.
   This is the single most valuable tell the task asks for and I could not obtain it: the correspondent-of-record fields (and reel/frame) are not exposed in the sources I reached. I will not name a firm I cannot cite. Action item: pull each record at the Assignment Center and compare the correspondent on the 2003-04-28 EKMS assignment against the 2005-06-27 reversion; a common correspondent across those two would confirm a single arranging law firm handled the round trip, and the 2004/2006/2013 Deutsche Bank filings should be checked for the same firm as a financing-counsel artifact.

4. Cascading transfers — not present.
   The two 2003-04-28 recordings are a same-day Foxboro→Invensys→EKMS pair (title clean-up immediately followed by conveyance), not a chain of independent LLCs. Total post-issuance ownership transfers: one out, one back, 26 months apart.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present / no evidence.
   No infringement action naming US 6324607 surfaced. Nothing to time a transfer against. (Also note the patent issued 2001 and expired 2015; there is no assertion-era transfer.)

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present.
   Invensys plc did not file US Chapter 7/11. The group restructured and was acquired by Schneider Electric in 2014. The 2004-04-05 and 2006-07-13 Deutsche Bank entries are secured financing (SECURITY INTEREST / SECURITY AGREEMENT) with matching releases on 2006-07-27 and 2013-08-08 — collateral pledges, not bankruptcy sales.

7. Privateering — unclear.
   The 2003-04-28 Invensys→EKMS transfer has the shape of an operating company routing patents to a licensing intermediary, which is the structural precondition for privateering. But the record shows no assertion by EKMS, and the 2005-06-27 reversion argues against a durable privateering structure — more consistent with a monetization engagement that was unwound. Without the correspondent data and any EKMS enforcement record, I cannot call this present.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present.
   The chain terminates at Schneider Electric Systems USA, Inc., an operating subsidiary of Schneider Electric SE — not RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent was not neutralized by a defensive aggregator; it simply expired.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with an explicit caveat on the "assertion" half.

Reasoning: the recorded chain runs The Foxboro Company → Invensys Systems, Inc. (2003-04-28) → EKMS, Inc. (2003-04-28) → back to Invensys (2005-06-27) → change of name only to Schneider Electric Systems USA, Inc. (2017-07-31), and the patent expired 2015-11-20. The current owner is a large industrial-automation operating company, there is no shell-LLC chain, no listed NPE, and no defensive aggregator; every non-operating link is either a reversed licensing intermediary (EKMS) or secured financing (Deutsche Bank, released 2006-07-27 and 2013-08-08). Because the enumerated option set has no "operating-company-owned, non-asserting" bucket and I found no litigation naming this patent, the literal definition of Operating-company assertion ("suing actual competitors") is not satisfied — the substantive finding is operating-company-owned, non-asserting, now expired, and this is not an NPE situation.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6324607) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — please pull the reel/frame and correspondent fields I could not retrieve, particularly for the 2003-04-28 EKMS transfer and the 2005-06-27 reversion, which are the two entries that would settle signal #3.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 6,324,607 directly.

Let me try to retrieve the actual cited references from the patent's front page and the sibling family patents.

Let me retrieve the actual front-page references for US 6,324,607 from the patent PDF and Google Patents.

USPTO search result for US 6,324,607 — identity confirmed

A search of USPTO/Google-Patents records for the exact number 6,324,607 returns, and only returns, the following (no look-alike numbers):

Source: radaris/Harris Kagan inventor index (reproducing the issue data for 6,324,607), Google Patents US6324607B1.

Effective filing date for § 102 purposes: 1995-10-10 / 1995-11-20 (pre-AIA). References must therefore predate Oct–Nov 1995 to be § 102(a)/(b) art, subject to the separate § 102(e) route for earlier-filed U.S. patents.

⚠️ Critical limitation I must state plainly before the analysis

I was unable to retrieve the front-page "(56) References Cited" list of US 6,324,607 itself. The authoritative full text supplied for this analysis (and the search budget available to me) does not contain the patent's own 1449/IDS bibliography, and repeated queries for the '607's own front page returned the sibling US 7,337,256's reference list and third-party search reports instead. Per the operating rules I will not attribute another document's citations to the '607 and will not invent a reference list.

What follows is therefore split into (A) references I actually retrieved and can cite, with the source each came from, and (B) an explicit best-estimate of which of those are most relevant to the '607's claims — flagged as inference where it is inference.

A. Retrieved cited/relevant references (with source attribution)

A-1. From the sibling US 7,337,256 front page (same family — best available proxy)

Source: US 7,337,256 B2 PDF, "(56) References Cited"

Important caveat on categorization: US 6,076,124, US 6,006,985 and US 6,324,607 are themselves family members / same inventive entity, not prior art to one another. US 6,006,985 and US 6,076,124 cannot be § 102 art against the '607 (common inventorship / same family, and post-priority dates).

A-2. From the design patent D394,842 (same inventors / same product)

Source: Justia — D394842 "Field controller housing"; D394842 PDF

These are prior-art references to the housing design, retrieved from the design patent's own "References Cited" box — relevant only to the housing/unitary-enclosure aspects of the '607 claims, not to its electrical architecture.

A-3. Family-annex documents (NOT prior art)

Source: EP 0 772 107 A3 search-report / family annex

Listed as family members of the '607: US 6,076,124, CA 2,187,590, DE 69611966 D1/T2, EP 1 041 476/1 041 477/1 041 478 A2, EP 0 772 107 A2, EP 0 862 755/0 862 756 A1, JP 9222906, WO 97/19396, WO 97/19397, US 6,183,289, US 6,496,892, US 6,418,499, US 6,033,257, US 6,008,985. These are the same invention, not prior art — do not cite them as anticipatory.

A-4. Non-patent literature retrieved

• M-System Co., Ltd., "Signal Conditioners Designed for Fisher-Rosemount Systems Delta V," (Dec. 1997) — listed among OTHER PUBLICATIONS on the US 7,337,256 front page. Dated after the '607 priority date, so it is not § 102(b) art to the '607 (post-1995); it could only matter as § 102(a) "known by others" if it predated, which it does not.

B. Most relevant prior art and § 102 mapping (analysis — flagged as inference)

Because the granted claim set of the '607 is not present in the authoritative source text (already flagged in the earlier sections), I map references to the reconstructed claim substance — claim 1's elements: (i) processor module segment with processor module + local interface module joined by a bus segment to an upstream off-module connector; (ii) expansion module segments with downstream/upstream off-module connectors joined by a bus segment; (iii) the daisy-chained unitary multi-drop bus; (iv) per-segment housing segments forming a unitary housing.

Ranked relevance:

1. US 4,158,226 (Struger et al.), 6/1979 — highest relevance among retrieved art.

   • This is the classic programmable-controller reference for a modular controller whose functional modules are linked by a common multi-drop backplane/bus, with a processor module and I/O modules stacked and interconnected.
   • Potential § 102(b) anticipation of: reconstructed claim 1 (and any independent claim to the processor-module + expansion-module + shared multi-drop bus combination) to the extent the claim is read on a multi-drop bus joining stacked modules. Its weakness as art is the field-serviceable, snap-together per-segment housing with off-module connectors feature — Struger is a backplane-rack architecture, so the "unitary housing formed from per-segment housing segments" element is the likely point of novelty that survives. Confidence this reference alone anticipates: low–moderate; confidence it is § 103 material: moderate–high.

2. DE 3603750 A1 (German published application; listed "8/1978" on the '256 front page, but the number implies a 1986 German application — the year is internally inconsistent in the retrieved data; I do not correct it).

   • German published application directed to an industrial control module/rack arrangement.
   • Potential § 102(a)/(b) art on the modular-controller-with-bus aspects; foreign printed publication qualifies as § 102(b) art if published more than one year before the '607 priority date, which both the "1978" and "1986" readings satisfy.
   • The date discrepancy is material to § 102(b) status and should be resolved against the actual document before relying on it.

3. US 4,738,632 (Schmidt et al., 4/1988), US 4,956,747 (Beer et al., 9/1990), US 5,483,229 (Tamura et al., 1/1996), US D358,369 (Shimizu, 5/1995).

   • Housing/enclosure art. Relevant only to the "each segment mounted in a housing segment configured to form a unitary housing" limitation and to the modular enclosure/serviceability aspects.
   • Potential § 102(b) for a claim drawn narrowly to a stacked snap-together equipment housing; § 102(e) is available for Tamura (1/1996) only if its underlying U.S. filing predates the '607 priority date (likely, but unverified).
   • Alone, none of these anticipates the electrical bus claims — they lack the multi-drop processor/expansion bus.

4. US 6,076,124 / US 6,006,985 / US 6,324,607 (family). NOT prior art — same inventive entity/family. Any § 102 reliance on these would be legally improper.

Net conclusion on § 102: On the retrieved record, no single reference is a clean § 102 anticipation of reconstructed claim 1, because the combination of (a) a processor-segment-controlled, segment-to-segment unitary multi-drop bus with (b) per-segment housings that snap together into a unitary enclosure does not appear in any one retrieved reference. The most likely § 103 attack would combine Struger (US 4,158,226) for the modular multi-drop controller bus with one of the housing references (e.g., US 4,738,632 or US 4,956,747) for the stackable enclosure. US 4,158,226 paired with the housing art is the strongest prior-art combination I can identify from retrieved material.

Explicit uncertainties (not corrected, per rules)

1. The '607's own front-page reference list was not retrieved. Everything in Section A is either (a) another family member's citation list (US 7,337,256), (b) the design patent D394,842's list, or (c) family-annex members. I could not confirm which of these (if any) actually appear on the '607's own (56) face. Do not represent Section A as "the references cited on US 6,324,607" until checked against the granted front page / file wrapper.
2. DE 3603750 A1 date is internally inconsistent in the retrieved text ("8/1978" against a "36xxxxx" number). Reported literally, not harmonized.
3. Claim set unavailable in the authoritative full text (source truncated mid-description), so § 102 claim mapping is against reconstructed claim language, not granted claims.
4. No verified claim-level rejections. No office action, IPR, or court record applying these references to the '607 was located (consistent with the earlier litigation/PTAB sections: no PTAB proceeding, no identified litigation).

Recommended verification steps

• Pull the '607 granted front page and full file wrapper from USPTO Patent Center (application 09/443,774) to obtain the authentic (56) reference list and any examiner § 102/§ 103 rejections.
• Confirm US 4,158,226 and the housing references are actually cited on the '607 face (they are confirmed only for the siblings/design patent).
• Verify the DE 3603750 A1 publication date to fix § 102(b) status.

I'll first try to retrieve the actual prior-art references of record for this patent, since the task directs me to rely on the Prior Art section and my previously generated sections did not capture the front-page citation list.

Good — I now have the actual front-page citation list. Let me pull additional detail on those references and try to recover the granted claim set, which my earlier sections flagged as unverified.

I have the citation list now. Let me try to recover the actual granted claims of the '607 and get detail on the two remaining primary references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,324,607 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analyst note on ordering of authorities: I used the Prior Art section of the patent page as the primary source (front-page references of record and the search-report annex), then cross-checked against the family's EP search reports and the sibling front page. Where I could not verify a reference's technical content in this session, I say so rather than paraphrasing it.

0. Correction to a previously generated section (flagging a contradiction, per instructions)

The earlier "Plain-language overview of the independent claims" section reconstructed claim 1 of the '607 as the "field controller / processor module segment / expansion module segment" claim (reference numerals 20, 21(e), 43/47/50/52, 71(s), etc.). That reconstruction is contradicted by the granted claim text recovered in this session. The claims actually issuing on US 6,324,607 as retrieved from the Justia full-text record for patent 6324607 are "computing device" claims directed to an internal-PCMCIA-card architecture — e.g.:

Claim 34: "A computing device comprising: a field mountable housing; a processor internal to said field mountable housing; at least one peripheral connector adapted to receive at least one PCMCIA card such that when said PCMCIA card is plugged into said peripheral connector, said PCMCIA card is enclosed internal to said housing, said peripheral connector being electrically coupled to said processor; a first PCMCIA card plugged into a first peripheral connector of said at least one peripheral connector, said first PCMCIA card having a first interface to facilitate communications with a process; and a second PCMCIA card plugged into a second peripheral connector of said at least one peripheral connector, said second PCMCIA card facilitating communication over a network connection to another computer, and further comprising an expansion board electrically coupled to said processor, and wherein said at least one peripheral connector is disposed on at least one of said expansion board and a native board within said computing device."
— patents.justia.com/patent/6324607

This is corroborated by the '607 page's own auto-generated "Prior art keywords: computing device, expansion, connector, processor, housing", which are claim-derived and match the PCMCIA claims, not the segment claims. Treat the earlier "segment" claim overview as superseded for the '607. (Those segment claims correspond to the separately-prosecuted family members, e.g. the EP 0 772 107 "Control system for a field-control" line and the EP 1041476/1041477/1041478 divisional applications.)

Scope limitation (carried forward and still true): I retrieved claims 26–34 only. Claims 1–25 and 35+ (and the exact total claim count) were not recovered. Claim 1 is therefore analyzed below only by inference from the claim-derived keyword set and is explicitly marked low-confidence.

1. Governing law and the critical date

Discrepancy carried forward (still unresolved, still material to the critical date): the '607 specification states it "is a continuation of U.S. Ser. No. 09/443,774, filed Nov. 18, 1999" — i.e., it names its own application number, and gives a date one day off the bibliographic filing date of 1999-11-19. If the § 120 chain to 08/560,167 (1995-11-20) were ever broken for the PCMCIA subject matter (e.g., new matter), the critical date would move to 1999-11-19 and the whole prior-art landscape would change. This is the single highest-leverage validity issue on the '607 and should be checked first.

2. The Prior Art Section — references available

2A. References cited of record on US 6,324,607 (five documents)

Retrieved from the '607 citation table reproduced on the family's EP publication page (patents.google.com/patent/EP0772107A3/en):

Date discrepancy (flagged, not corrected): the '607 citation table renders DE 3603750 A1 as 1987-08-13, whereas the front page of sibling US 7,337,256 renders the same document as "DE 3603750 A1 8/1978" (US7337256.pdf). The 1987 date is the one supported by the Google Patents citation table; "8/1978" is very likely an OCR/transcription artifact. Either date is pre-critical-date, so the point is immaterial to § 103 — but it is reported as found.

All five are pre-1995-10-10 (except PA-5, which is pre-1995-10-10 but post-1994-11-20), so all five are available as § 102/§ 103 art.

2B. Additional art cited on the sibling front page (US 7,337,256, same specification)

These were cited during prosecution of 10/722,341 and are therefore in the same technical neighborhood; I list them as candidate secondary references but have not verified their disclosures in this session:

US 4,158,226 (Struger et al., programmable controller) · US 4,558,914 (Prager et al., connector) · US 4,689,736 (Glaudel et al.) · US 5,056,001 (Sexton) · US 5,119,496 (Nishikawa et al.) · US 5,162,986 (Graber et al.) · US 5,204,669 (Dorfe et al.).

2C. What the Prior Art Section does not contain — and it matters

None of the references of record teaches a PCMCIA (PC Card) interface at all, let alone a PCMCIA card enclosed inside a field-mountable housing, or one PCMCIA card serving a process interface and a second serving a network interface. The five references are modular-controller/backplane/fieldbus art. This is the central gap in any § 103 case built solely on the record.

2D. Art that is not available (avoid error)

• US 6,003,985, US 6,033,257, US 6,076,124, US 6,183,289, US 6,418,499, US 6,496,892, US 6,671,763, US 7,337,256 are common-priority family members (Foxboro → Invensys → Schneider), listed in the same PCT family annex (WO2003050625A3). They are not prior art to the '607, but they are the reason the patent faces an obviousness-type double patenting (ODP) exposure — see § 7 below.
• The M-System/Fisher-Rosemount DeltaV "Signal Conditioners" publication (Dec. 1997) cited on the '337,256 page is post-critical-date and not § 102(b) art.

3. Element-by-element: what a § 103 ground must reach

3A. Independent claim 34 (the anchor — full text retrieved)

3B. Dependent claims 26–33 (text retrieved)

• 26 — first PCMCIA card + second PCMCIA card over a network to another computer. Gap as in (e).
• 27, 28, 29, 31 — first/second interface using first and second protocols, same or different type. Gap as in (e), plus art on multi-protocol card interfaces.
• 30 — the device "capable of communicating through multiple I/O streams." Gap as in (e).
• 32 — "said network connection comprises an ethernet." Requires art on PCMCIA Ethernet cards.
• 33 — "said another computer comprises a supervisory control system." Requires art on supervisory/DCS host connectivity from a field device.

3C. Independent claim 1 (NOT retrieved — low confidence)

The claim-derived keyword set for the '607 is "computing device, expansion, connector, processor, housing." I infer claim 1 is a computing-device claim reciting a housing, an internal processor, an expansion connector, and a peripheral connector for a PCMCIA card. Do not rely on this inference. Verify claim 1 against USPTO PatentCenter before any substantive use.

4. Proposed § 103 grounds

GROUND 1 — PA-1 (Harms '762) as primary, alone or with PA-4/PA-5, against claims 1 and 34's structural elements — likely insufficient standing alone

Rationale (KSR category A — combining prior-art elements by known methods, predictable result): PA-1 already discloses the complete architectural teaching claimed: a modular, field-mountable controller built from individual housing units whose internal data-bus segments join through mating side-wall connectors to form one continuous multi-drop bus, including a processor unit in the same assembly, field-wiring connectors, and a mounting bracket. A POSITA seeking a compact field controller would have had every reason to build on Harms. Combining PA-1 with PA-5 (Herion: actuators/sensors to a field bus) to supply the "communications with a process" function, and with PA-4 (Siemens: flexible automation system) to supply the broader distributed-automation context, produces a predictable aggregation of known controller building blocks.

Why this ground fails on the record: elements (c)–(e) require a PCMCIA card enclosed internal to the housing. PA-1's internal module connectors are card-edge/pluggable connectors for proprietary I/O module cards, not PCMCIA connectors for industry-standard PC Cards, and none of PA-1 through PA-5 mentions PCMCIA. A § 103 ground resting only on the references of record cannot reach claim 34. This is the honest bottom line: the record art was evidently sufficient to allow the claims because the examiner had no PCMCIA teaching before him.

GROUND 2 — PA-1 + PA-4 + PA-5 in further view of art teaching the PCMCIA/PC Card standard as a small-form-factor internal expansion interface — the viable ground

The combination: PA-1 supplies the field-mountable, bus-expandable controller housing and processor; PA-4/PA-5 supply the process-side and automation-system context; the third reference supplies the PCMCIA connector/card as the removable interface element.

Motivation to combine (articulable, KSR-compliant):

1. Same field of endeavor and same problem. All references address compact, modular, field-mountable industrial control. The '607's own specification frames the problem as replacing "large, centrally-located and expensive computer systems" that "are expensive to maintain and typically have limited expansion capabilities."
2. Known-technique improvement (KSR, 550 U.S. at 417). By 1993–1995 the PCMCIA/PC Card standard (Release 2.0, 1991) was the established, commercially ubiquitous way to add a removable, standardized I/O or network interface to a small computer. Applying that known technique to a small industrial controller would have been recognized as improving it in the same way — it converts a fixed-function I/O module into a user-swappable industry-standard card.
3. Simple substitution (MPEP 2143(A)). Substituting a PCMCIA connector/card for the proprietary card-edge I/O module connection of PA-1 is a substitution of one known electrical interface for another, with a predictable result (the module still mates to the processor bus; only the mechanical/electrical standard changes).
4. Design incentive / market pressure. A manufacturer of a field controller has an express incentive to let customers select I/O and communication functions from an open, multi-vendor standard rather than tooling proprietary modules — reduced SKU count, shorter lead time, field-serviceable by card swap. This is the classic "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" situation (KSR at 421).
5. Reasonable expectation of success: high. The mechanical act of mounting a PCMCIA connector on an internal PCB and enclosing the plugged card within a housing is routine; PCMCIA connectors and cards were catalog parts; no unpredictable technology was required.

What this ground still needs to be complete: a reference (or a dated public-use/printed-publication showing) for (i) a PCMCIA slot internal to an industrial/field-mountable enclosure, and (ii) PCMCIA cards used as process I/O and as Ethernet/fieldbus interfaces. I could not verify such a reference in this session, and I will not name one I have not checked. Candidate classes to search: PC/104-format (1992) embedded controllers with internal PC-Card slots; IEEE/ISA-bus industrial PCs with internal PC-Card cage; commercial PCMCIA Ethernet and serial/fieldbus card datasheets predating 1995-10-10.

GROUND 3 — Claims 26–33 (dual-card process + network) — needs third-party card art, but the rationale is strong

The entire inventive distance of claims 26–33 over claim 34 is: (a) two PCMCIA cards instead of one, (b) one card for the process and one for a network, (c) same/different protocols, (d) "multiple I/O streams," (e) Ethernet, (f) the far end being a supervisory control system.

Motivation: the '607 specification itself describes exactly this architecture as the purpose of the device — the processor sub-module "may include one or more external communication ports … for, for example, facilitating communications with the area controller 11," while the PCMCIA cards handle the controlled devices. Splitting local process I/O from the plant-network uplink across two cards is the stated object of the system, and once PCMCIA is adopted as the interface, providing a second slot for network connectivity is an obvious design choice — PCMCIA Ethernet cards were commodity items by 1994, and the PCMCIA form factor was expressly designed to host multiple heterogeneous cards in a small host (the standard defines multiple-socket hosts). A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation that a two-socket host with an Ethernet card and an I/O card would work, because the PCMCIA specification's whole premise is a generic host supporting mixed card types.

A caution on claim form: claims 26 and 34 recite cards that are "plugged into" the connectors. That is a product-by-...-configuration recitation; obviousness of the claimed assembled device is measured against the prior art assembly, and the mere fact that an infringer ships the housing and the customer plugs in the cards raises both infringement and validity questions. But for validity purposes, the recited plugged-in cards do not add patentable weight beyond the claims' structural arrangement, and the "facilitate communications with a process" language is functional and met by any prior-art process-I/O card.

5. KSR rationale ledger (why a POSITA would combine)

6. Secondary considerations (objective indicia)

• Commercial success: the Foxboro I/A Series field controller family was commercially significant, and the housing design generated a companion design patent, US D394,842 ("Field controller housing," Kellstedt/Korowitz/Kagan/Lake, filed 1995-10-20). But commercial success must be tied by nexus to the claimed subject matter (internal PCMCIA architecture), and the design patent's separate existence suggests the housing aesthetics — not the claimed card architecture — drove much of the marketplace reception. Weak-to-moderate, and contestable.
• Long-felt need: the spec identifies the need (large, expensive, poorly expandable central computers vs. compact distributed field controllers). However, by 1995 that need was being met by multiple vendors (Siemens per PA-2/PA-4, Fisher-Rosemount's DeltaV, others), which under KSR weakens the "long-felt but unsolved need" narrative — a need that many solved simultaneously is not a strong secondary consideration.
• Copying / industry praise / licensing: nothing in the record retrieved. Do not assert.
• Unexpected results: none identified — the disclosed benefits (compactness, expandability, field-serviceability) are the predictable consequences of the claimed structure and are recited as such in the specification's own "benefit" paragraph.

Net: secondary considerations are unlikely to overcome a properly supported § 103 ground, though they may tip a close case.

7. Independent validity threats that are not § 103 (but use § 103 reasoning)

1. Obviousness-type double patenting across the family — this is the '607's most serious exposure. The same 1995 disclosure produced US 6,003,985, US 6,003,257, US 6,076,124, US 6,183,289, US 6,324,607, US 6,418,499, US 6,496,892, US 6,671,763 and US 7,337,256 — a family annex-confirmed set (WO2003050625A3) with common inventors (Korowitz, Kagan, Lake) and common ownership (Foxboro → Invensys → Schneider). Notably, the '607's claims (PCMCIA computing device enclosed in a field-mountable housing) sit almost exactly on top of the disclosed subject matter of US 6,003,985 and US 6,033,257, whose abstract recites a "field mountable primary housing … expansion board … peripheral connector receiv[ing] at least one PCMCIA card … within the housing" (justatic Foxboro assignee listing). US 6,671,763 — a continuation of the '607 — claims a computing device with a PCMCIA connector and no full display/keyboard. Because the '607 is expired, ODP cannot be raised now; but if validity is litigated, a defendant will argue the disclosure of the sibling patents shows the '607's claims are not patentably distinct from the family's other claims, and that the printed publications of the siblings are § 102(b)/§ 103 art if the '607 loses its priority chain (see § 1).
2. Priority-chain integrity (§ 1 above). The self-referential continuation paragraph and the Nov. 18 vs. Nov. 19 discrepancy must be run down in the file wrapper for 09/443,774, 08/560,167 and provisional 60/005,279. If the PCMCIA-enclosure subject matter was first added at any point in the chain, the critical date moves to 1999-11-19 and the family's own earlier publications (EP 0 772 107 A2, 1997-05-07; CA 2,187,590, 1997-04-11; and the 1997 WO 9719396/9719397 publications) become prior art against it. That would be dispositive, not merely persuasive.
3. § 112 written description / enablement as to the broad functional language ("facilitating communication over a network connection to another computer," "communications with a process") and as to claim breadth across card types.

8. Bottom line

• On the face of the '607, the claimed invention was a combination of known elements: a field-mountable control housing with an internal bus-connected processor and field-wiring connectors (PA-1, US 4,790,762 — verified disclosure), deployed in a distributed automation system (PA-2, PA-4), with process devices on a field bus (PA-5), and serial inter-module communication (PA-3) — plus the PCMCIA card as the internal, standard, removable interface.
• The five references of record, standing alone, do not render claim 34 (or claims 26–33) obvious, because none of them teaches or suggests a PCMCIA card enclosed internal to the housing, a first card communicating with a process, or a second card communicating over a network to another computer. A § 103 ground built only on the Prior Art Section as it stands would fail at element (c).
• The viable § 103 ground is PA-1 (Harms '762) as the primary reference, in view of PA-4/PA-5 for the automation and process-I/O context, in further view of art evidencing the PCMCIA/PC Card standard as the small-form-factor, internally-mounted, multi-socket expansion interface. The motivation is the same-field/same-problem combination plus the KSR "known technique to improve a similar device" and "simple substitution" rationales; the reasonable expectation of success is high; and no teaching-away is apparent in the record. On the reasoning, claims 1 and 34 look obvious; claims 26–33 look obvious once commodity PCMCIA Ethernet/network card art is supplied.
• Confidence: moderate on the analytical conclusion; low on the completeness of the reference set, because (i) I retrieved only claims 26–34 of the granted claim set, (ii) I could not verify the technical disclosures of PA-2 (DE 3603750 A1) or PA-3 (WO 91/14324 A1) in this session, and (iii) I did not locate a verified pre-1995-10-10 reference for the internal-PCMCIA-in-an-industrial-enclosure limitation — which is the linchpin of any real § 103 attack.

To make this analysis dispositive, verify in this order: (1) the complete granted claim set of US 6,324,607 via USPTO PatentCenter (file wrapper for 09/443,774), including any reexamination or certificate of correction; (2) the § 120 chain and the Nov. 18/Nov. 19 discrepancy; (3) the full disclosures of DE 3603750 A1 and WO 91/14324 A1; (4) pre-October-1995 art on PC-Card slots internal to industrial/enclosed computers and on PCMCIA network (Ethernet) and process-I/O cards — this is where the obviousness case is won or lost.

Nothing in this analysis should be represented as a finding that any claim of US 6,324,607 has been held invalid, has been challenged at the PTAB, or has been asserted in litigation. No such record was found in the earlier sections of this analysis, and none is asserted here.