Invalidity dossier

US 6459961

Technique for providing information upon a notable condition in a vehicle

Current assignee: American Calcar, Inc.

Added 8/27/2026, 12:47:16 AM

At a glanceNo PTAB challenges1 lawsuit on fileasserted by American Calcar, Inc.

Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-v4-flash

Patent summary

Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.

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Patent Overview: US6459961B1

Title: Technique for providing information upon a notable condition in a vehicle

Patent number: US6459961B1

Application number: US09/717,943

Inventors: Michael L. Obradovich; Michael L. Kent; John G. Dinkel

Assignee: American Calcar Inc. (original and current assignee per the listing)

Key dates (as listed; the source notes these are assumptions, not legal conclusions):

  • Priority date: 1997-01-28
  • Filing date: 2000-11-21
  • Publication/grant date: 2002-10-01
  • Anticipated expiration: 2017-01-28
  • Legal status: Expired – Lifetime

Purpose (plain-language scope, drawn from the title and the supplied indexing terms): The patent concerns a technique for delivering information to a user when a notable condition arises in a vehicle—i.e., presenting information in response to a detected vehicle condition.

Scope indicators from the supplied text: The listed prior-art keywords are "option," "user," "interface," "screen," and "vehicle," indicating subject matter involving a user interface/screen through which options are presented in a vehicle context. Classifications covered in the excerpt include vehicle heating/cooling/ventilating control systems with inputs such as driving condition, vehicle speed, GPS-based position, or tunnel, plus display/indicating devices (B60H); suspension control combined with other vehicle control systems (B60G17/0195); and vehicle instrument arrangements, including input arrangements and visual output arrangements combining multiple visual outputs (B60K35/...).

What the excerpt does not establish:

  • The actual claim language, claim count, or precise claimed scope
  • The specification's description of the "notable condition" or the information provided
  • The content of any figures
  • Any specific prior-art references or their teachings
  • Litigation, ownership transfers, or validity (excluded per instructions; the source lists related case links but this overview does not analyze them)
  • Completeness of the classification list (the excerpt is truncated)

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6459961](/patent/US6459961)/en (fetched 2026-10-01)

Generated 10/1/2026, 10:03:49 PM

Cases on file (1)

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Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 6459961. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.

Litigation summary

Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.

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Proceedings on file (0)

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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.

Current assignee: American Calcar, Inc.

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.

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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.

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Prior art

Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.

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Obviousness

Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.

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Extensions

Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.

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Derivative works

Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.

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More patents asserted by American Calcar, Inc.

This patent in court (1)

1 tracked lawsuit name US 6459961.