Invalidity dossier
US 6556624
Added 9/23/2026, 5:05:14 PM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US6556624B1
Title: Method and apparatus for accomplishing multiple description coding for video
Patent number: US6556624B1
Application number: US09/478,002
Inventor(s): Michael Orchard, Hamid Jafarkhani, Amy Reibman, Yao Wang
Original Assignee: AT&T Inc; later recorded as AT&T Corp., AT&T Properties, LLC, and AT&T Intellectual Property II, L.P.
Priority date: 1999-07-27
Filing date: 2000-01-05
Publication/grant date: 2003-04-29
Legal status (as listed): Expired – Fee Related; anticipated expiration 2020-01-05
Purpose and plain-language scope (from supplied text): The patent concerns multiple description coding for video. The excerpt's classification entries indicate the subject matter covers adaptive coding, selection of coding mode or prediction mode, spatial versus temporal predictive coding, group-of-pictures (GOP) structure, macroblock-level coding units, and reformatting video elementary streams by decomposing into layers (base layer plus enhancement layer(s)). The prior-art keywords listed are "mode," "technique," "coefficients," "macroblocks," and "macroblock," suggesting the described techniques operate on macroblocks and transform coefficients and select among coding modes/techniques.
Related continuing applications shown: US10/350,537 (published as US6920177B2); US11/050,570 (published as US7813427B2); US12/872,152 (published as US8199822B2); US13/493,612 (published as US8842733B2); US14/458,085 (published as US9826258B2).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6556624](/patent/US6556624)/en
What the excerpt does not establish:
- It contains no claim language, so the precise scope of any claim cannot be stated.
- It contains no abstract or detailed description of the actual encoding/decoding method.
- It does not establish inventorship contributions, validity, enforceability, or infringement.
- It does not establish the specifics of any ownership transfer beyond the recorded assignment entries listed.
- It does not establish the content of the omitted portions of the document.
Per the source excerpt, the listed legal status and assignee entries are presumptions, not legal conclusions.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:43:52 PM
Cases on file (0)
Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 6556624. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
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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.