Invalidity dossier
US 6405049
Portable data terminal and cradle
Current assignee: Symbol Technologies LLC
Added 9/24/2026, 1:51:20 AM
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 6,405,049 B2
Title: Portable data terminal and cradle
Patent number / application: US 6,405,049 B2; application US 08/906,722
Inventors: Allan Herrod, John Klein, Sarosh Vesuna, Simon Bard
Assignee: Symbol Technologies LLC (original assignee as listed; assignment to Symbol Technologies, Inc. recorded 1998-03-03)
Key dates: Priority/filing date 1997-08-05; publication of US 2001/0055978 A1 on 2001-12-27; grant/publication 2002-06-11; anticipated expiration 2017-08-05; legal status "Expired – Lifetime."
Purpose (from the classification record): The patent relates to a portable data terminal used with a cradle. Its classifications point to portable-computer constructional details, external expansion units such as docking stations, wearable/belt-mounted computers, integrated cordless communication links (radio or infrared), battery/power-supply integration, cash-register constructional details, and wireless-network features — specifically traffic management with intermediate storage (flow control between endpoints), power-saving arrangements in terminal devices (including monitoring external events, loss of signal/out-of-range conditions, and battery-level-dependent switching), and cordless link integration.
Plain-language scope (as the excerpt supports it): In general terms, the disclosed subject matter concerns a portable data terminal that communicates wirelessly over a network and mates with a cradle, where the cradle serves as an expansion/docking unit and where power management and buffering/storage of traffic between communication endpoints are addressed.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6405049/en
What this excerpt does not establish: The excerpt contains no claim language, no abstract, no detailed description, no drawings, and no prior-art references beyond the "prior art keywords" list. It therefore does not establish the specific claimed elements, the exact structural or electrical relationship between terminal and cradle, data-transfer or power-management implementation details, or any prior-art citations. The title, dates, inventors, and assignee data are as listed by the source; Google states that the legal status, priority date, and assignee lists are assumptions and not legal conclusions. No litigation, ownership-transfer history, validity, or prior-art analysis is addressed here.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:31:03 PM
Cases on file (0)
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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.