US 6712277

I'll search for the specific patent and any related 2026 litigation activity.

Summary — US Patent 6,712,277 B2

Litigation/docket check (as requested): I searched for any 2026 CAFC appeal or other 2026 litigation tied to patent 6,712,277. I found no CAFC 2026 docket, and no district court or PTAB proceeding, involving this patent number. The searches returned only unrelated matters (e.g., Honeywell Int'l v. U.S. (CAFC No. 26-1377, a CIT tariff-classification appeal); Wilus v. HP; LiTL v. HP/Microsoft; Q3 Networking; R2 Semiconductor; Linex v. Apple/HP — none cite 6,712,277). This is consistent with the patent's status as Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration listed as 2022‑01‑24). Caveat: I could not run a live PACER/CAFC docket query or a full-text litigation database search; my conclusion rests on general web searching, so I flag residual uncertainty about a very recent or sparsely indexed filing.

Bibliographic data (from the granted patent and USPTO/OG record)

Abstract (as published): "A memory card and a method for operating a memory card, the memory card comprising: a memory mass storage; a first data interface with a contacting interface and a high data transfer rate; a second data interface with a contact-less interface. In a preferred embodiment, a memory card controller is included for selecting a first data line from said first data interface or a second data line from said second data interface to communicate with said memory mass storage based on a criteria."

Plain-language overview of the independent claim

Claim 1 (the only independent claim) covers a memory card with four required elements:

1. A memory mass storage (the specification says this may be flash, ROM, disk, OTP, "or any other memory technology").
2. A first data interface with a contacting interface — i.e., a physical/plug-in connector interface.
3. A second data interface with a contact-less interface — the spec's preferred example is an RF powered/signal block using magnetically coupled fields, referencing ISO 14443-2.
4. A relative speed limitation: the first data interface must have a higher data transfer rate than the second — the claim states this comparatively, not as an absolute "high speed" requirement.
5. A memory card controller that selects a data line from the first interface or a data line from the second interface to communicate with the mass storage, based on a criterion. The claim itself does not specify what the criterion is — the selection trigger is supplied only by the dependent claims.

Claim 2 (depends on 1): the criterion is a predetermined card select detect signal from the first interface.

Claim 3 (depends on 1): the criterion is detecting an indication of a carrier detect signal from the second data interface.

Notes and uncertainties

• No method claim issued. The specification describes a method (monitoring for a predetermined signal and switching the mass-storage input from a "cable" interface to a "contactless" interface, optionally automatically at power-up), but the granted claim set is entirely apparatus (3 claims).
• Claim-vs-specification wording differs. The abstract and summary describe the first interface as having "a high data transfer rate"; claim 1 instead recites the relative limitation that the first interface has a higher rate than the second.
• Literal text oddity worth flagging rather than correcting: the specification states "this carrier will be a 13.96 Megahertz carrier, if the ISO 14443-2 standard is utilized." ISO 14443-2 specifies 13.56 MHz. Per your strict rule I am not auto-correcting the number; I note only that the patent text as published says 13.96 MHz.
• Figure 2 is described as a simple diode-based power routing block ("it could be a more complicated structure"), but the power-routing feature is not claimed.
• Also disclosed but not claimed: splitting data/commands from the two interfaces into dedicated portions of the mass storage rather than routing through the controller, and extension to three or more interfaces at different speeds.

Sources: Google Patents, US6712277B2 – Multiple interface memory card (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6712277/en); USPTO Official Gazette entry, Issue 1280‑5 (https://webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu/virtual_disk_library/index.cgi/[5628977](/patent/5628977)/FID3294/OG/html/1280-5/us06712277-20040330.html); granted patent PDF (https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/74/35/85/3a77cae12f9256/US6712277.pdf).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 6712277 across patent litigation databases.

Initial searches returned results for different patents (e.g., 7,671,727 and Mirror Worlds' '227). Let me search patent litigation-specific databases.

Let me search patent litigation aggregators and court databases directly.

Litigation Search Results for U.S. Patent No. 6,712,277

I found no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 6,712,277.

What I searched

I ran multiple targeted searches across web-accessible patent-litigation sources, including Unified Patents' portal content, CourtListener/ RECAP dockets, Patexia, Stanford NPE database, SEC filings, and the CAFC/Justia docket databases. I also reviewed the full Google Patents record for US6712277B2 provided in the source material.

What the searches show

• No district court case, ITC Section 337 investigation, PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), or CAFC appeal naming U.S. 6,712,277 as an asserted or challenged patent was returned.
• The Google Patents record for US6712277B2 shows only the bibliographic, family, classification, citation ("Cited By"), and legal-status data. It contains no litigation section — which is consistent with the patent never having been asserted in a recorded suit. (By contrast, patents that have been litigated show a "Litigation" section on that same page.)
• Several results that appeared superficially relevant were for different patents and I am expressly excluding them per your instruction:
  • U.S. 7,671,727 — Omega Patents, LLC v. CalAmp Corp. (M.D. Fla., No. 6:13-cv-01950) — different patent ('727, not '277), vehicle control-system patents. Not this patent.
  • U.S. 6,718,277 — Valtrus Innovations Ltd. v. NTT Data Services, LLC (E.D. Tex., 2:24-cv-00361) — adjacent number but a different patent (Valtrus assertion). Not this patent.
  • Mirror Worlds '227 patent (document-stream operating system) — unrelated patent sharing only the "227" shorthand.
  • A Chinese execution-case filing ID beginning "6712277…" — coincidental database ID, not a U.S. patent litigation.

Context on the patent's status

Per the authoritative record: US 6,712,277 B2, "Multiple interface memory card," inventor Andrew M. Spencer, assigned to Hewlett-Packard Development Company L.P. Filed 2001-12-05, granted 2004-03-30. Maintenance fees were paid through the 12-year window (last FPAY 2015-08-27), and the legal status is Expired – Lifetime, with adjusted expiration 2022-01-24. There is also a Dutch family member (NL1022091C2).

Caveats

• I could not complete a query against the Unified Patents litigation caselist page directly, and my last confirmation query was cut off by a tool-step limit. This means I cannot claim a fully exhaustive sweep of every docket aggregator.
• A negative result here should be read as "no litigation was found in the sources searched," not as an absolute certification that none ever existed. If you need a definitive answer, the authoritative checks would be a PACER/Docket Navigator full-text search on "6,712,277," a Lex Machina/RPX report for the patent, and a USPTO patent-assignment/reexamination history review.

Bottom line: Based on all available information, U.S. Patent No. 6,712,277 appears to have no history of litigation.

I'll start by verifying the structured data against any publicly searchable PTAB activity, since the ODP feed being empty doesn't always mean no proceedings ever existed.

The canonical list is empty and my first search turned up nothing. Let me run a couple more targeted sweeps to be sure I'm not missing an unindexed proceeding or a litigation-driven IPR.

One more sweep to check defensive-aggregator activity (Unified Patents) and any ex parte/reexam trailing history, then I'll write it up.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 (zero). The canonical USPTO Open Data Portal list supplied in the structured block returns no AIA trial proceedings for US 6712277. My independent web sweeps (Google Patents, PTAB/PTABCTS document hits, CourtListener, Unified Patents portal) surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM petition ever naming this patent — so the breakdown is 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials.

Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to work with, favorable or unfavorable. Claims 1–3 are untested at the Board — not canceled, not confirmed. The far more important defensive fact is not a PTAB outcome at all: US 6712277 expired on 2022-01-24 (adjusted expiration per the structured data; filed 2001-12-05, granted 2004-03-30, 20-year term plus adjustments). The patent has only three claims total (claim 1 independent; claims 2 and 3 depending from claim 1). If a demand letter cites US 6712277 today, the threshold question is not "how do we beat it at the PTAB" — it is whether the asserted acts fall inside the statutory term that ended in January 2022. There is no ability to pre-emptively test expired claims at the Board in any event, since an IPR requires claims that can still be canceled.

No proceedings to list

I am declining to generate the per-proceeding template (### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} — {Petitioner} v. {Patent Owner}) because there is no proceeding number, petitioner, panel, or decision to populate it with, and the instructions expressly forbid inventing proceeding numbers. Reporting a fabricated IPR2016-XXXXX here would be worse than reporting nothing.

What I searched and did not find:

• Google Patents "Cited By" / "Families Citing" and "Similar Documents" trees for US 6712277 — populated entirely with prosecution and litigation citations, no PTAB docket entries.
• General queries pairing "6,712,277" / "6712277" with "IPR," "inter partes review," and "covered business method" — only generic AIA-trial literature, no petition.
• Inventor-forward search (Andrew M. Spencer, assignee Hewlett-Packard Development Co. L.P.) — nothing.

Explicit non-confusion warning (these are different patents, and it matters):

• Papst Licensing MDL 1880 (In re Papst Licensing Digital Camera Patent Litigation) and Hewlett-Packard Co. v. Papst Licensing GmbH & Co. KG concern Papst's U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,470,399 and 6,470,449 — the "flexible interface device" patents. HP was a party there, but 6712277 was not a patent-in-suit. (CourtListener – HP v. Papst; In re Papst MDL 1880 opinion)
• MCM Portfolio LLC v. Hewlett-Packard Co., IPR2013-00217, concerns U.S. Pat. No. 7,162,549 ("Multimode Controller for Intelligent and 'Dumb' Flash Cards"). HP was the petitioner there and the Fed. Cir. used it to bless IPR constitutionality. Again, not 6712277. (Fed. Cir. decision via Patently-O)
• The CourtListener "Final Infringement Contentions" material discussing hybrid contact/contactless cards (Eye-Fi, SDIO) is Papst MDL record material, not a challenge to this patent.

If a party is relying on any of the above as "PTAB history of 6712277," that is a citation error, and it is worth correcting in whatever brief or memo prompted this research.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All three claims of US 6712277 — claim 1 (the sole independent claim) and dependent claims 2 and 3 — remain UNTESTED at the PTAB. Nothing has been canceled, disclaimed, or amended. There is no narrowing certificate, no certificate of correction canceling claims, and no reexamination certificate of record that I could find that would change the claim scope. Claim 1 recites: a memory mass storage; a first data interface with a contacting interface; a second data interface with a contact-less interface, the first having a higher data transfer rate than the second; and a memory card controller selecting a data line from either interface based on a criteria. Claim 2 adds that the criteria is a predetermined card select detect signal from the first interface; claim 3 adds that the criteria is detecting a carrier detect signal from the second interface. Because claim 3 depends from claim 1, killing claim 1 as a matter of claim construction or invalidity takes 2 and 3 with it — but no tribunal has done that.

Estoppel landscape. § 315(e)(2) estoppel is irrelevant here — there is no IPR, so no petitioner is estopped from anything. For a defendant being asserted today, the entire prior-art universe is open: every § 102/§ 103 combination, including art that would have qualified as IPR grounds, plus § 112 written-description/enablement and § 101 arguments that IPR cannot reach at all. Conversely, the patent owner faces no adverse PTAB record and enjoys the ordinary § 282 presumption of validity in district court. There is simply no PTAB-based "hardened patent" or "narrowed patent" narrative to tell in either direction.

Pattern signals. None to report: no repeat petitioner, no serial IPR campaigns, no patent-owner PTAB appeal practice on this patent, and no defensive-aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) challenge in the chain. That silence is itself notable and worth understanding. US 6712277 is a short, three-claim, single-inventor HP patent that expired in January 2022; it apparently was never asserted in a published infringement suit and never drew a petition. Well-asserted patents with active commercial life tend to attract IPRs; an expired, unasserted peripheral patent does not. The absence of PTAB activity here is therefore most consistent with commercial dormancy rather than with the claims being unassailable.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with the expiration date, not validity. US 6712277's adjusted expiration date is 2022-01-24. Confirm this against the USPTO Patent Center maintenance-fee/expiration record (the structured data shows fee payments at 4, 8, and 12 years, with the last recorded at 2015). If the demand letter you received asserts 6712277, the first response is a damages-period interrogation: identify the accused acts and their dates and test whether any fall within the enforceable term. Post-expiration damages are generally unavailable; pre-expiration damages for an apparently unasserted patent raise laches and notice questions worth pressing.

2. If any accused conduct predates expiration, build the § 102/§ 103 record now. With no IPR and no estoppel, you keep the full run of prior art in district court — and because the patent is expired, you cannot get a PTAB ruling anyway, so invalidity is a court-only fight (or an ex parte reexam, but there is no practical reason to hand the patent owner a narrowing opportunity on an expired patent). Note the patent's own cited art for leads: US 6,295,031 (Symbol, "Memory card assembly having an integral antenna") and US 6,219,732 (3Com) are directed at the memory-card-plus-wireless-interface concept, and US 5,347,231 / EP 0 473 569 (Mikron) cover contactless inductive data transmission. The claim-construction battleground is "a criteria," "contact-less interface," and "selecting a data line … based on a criteria" — the specification's own admissions at FIGS. 1–2 describe the selection mechanism in functional terms.

3. Do not promise a PTAB angle that does not exist. If internal strategy documents or a litigation-hold memo assume there is an IPR on 6712277 to leverage, correct it. The accurate statement to the business is: "This patent has no PTAB history. It expired 2022-01-24. Any defense runs through expiration, laches/notice, and district-court invalidity, not through the Board."

4. Verify the "zero" against the live dockets before filing anything. My searches covered Google Patents, PTAB document hits, CourtListener, and the Unified Patents portal. The authoritative confirmation is the USPTO PTAB End-to-End (E2E) system and the PTAB Decisions page, plus a Docket Alarm / Lex Machina party search for "Hewlett-Packard Development Company" as patent owner. I flag that my "zero" is based on the structured ODP feed plus public web sources and could miss a very recently filed, not-yet-indexed petition involving this patent; I found no indication of one, and given the January 2022 expiration, a newly filed petition challenging it would face a serious threshold problem.

Sources

• Patent record (authoritative text, claims, dates, expiration): US6712277B2 – Google Patents
• Official Gazette bibliographic entry (3 claims; class 235/492): Indiana Virtual Disk Library – US 6,712,277 B2
• Dutch counterpart: NL1022091C2, granted 2004-04-06 (per structured data)
• Unrelated but frequently conflated: In re Papst Licensing (6,470,399/6,470,449) — CourtListener · MCM Portfolio v. HP (7,162,549, IPR2013-00217) — Fed. Cir.

I'll start by verifying the assignment record and checking for any litigation or NPE activity on this patent.

Let me check for any litigation activity and the assignment records directly.

Let me verify whether this patent ever left HP's hands (e.g., via the HP/HPE patent divestitures or an NPE like Valtrus).

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 6,712,277 B2

"Multiple interface memory card" · App. 10/002,210 · Filed/Priority 2001-12-05 · Issued 2004-03-30 · HP Development Company, L.P. (current assignee of record) · Status: Expired – Lifetime, adjusted expiration 2022-01-24

Note on sourcing: the assignment data below is taken from the Google Patents legal-events record (which mirrors USPTO assignment reel/frame data) for this patent. I was not able to open the USPTO Assignment Center record live in this session, and — importantly — the correspondent of record is not exposed in the indexed legal-events data. I flag that explicitly rather than guess.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern check: No unusual pattern. This is a single-inventor, single-assignment, employer-owned corporate case. There is no evidence of the inventor departing HP within 12 months of filing, no co-inventor fragmentation, and no abandonment/reassignment cluster that would signal a pre-fire-sale. The inventor's subsequent filings continue under HP for years afterward (US 7,478,260 issued 2009), which is inconsistent with an early-departure pattern.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P., Houston, Texas (listed as assignee on the 2004-03-30 front page). The application itself was filed by Hewlett-Packard Company and only later moved to the L.P. via the recorded internal reorg (below).
• Primary line of business: HP Development Company, L.P. is the intellectual-property-holding and product subsidiary of Hewlett-Packard (later HP Inc. for PCs/printing); it was created in 2002 as part of the HP–Compaq restructuring. It is not an assertion vehicle — it is the operating company's IP holder and appears as assignee on thousands of HP product patents.
• Product embodying the claims: The claims cover a memory card with two data interfaces (contacting/high-speed + contactless) and a controller that selects between them based on a card-select or carrier-detect criterion. HP shipped memory-card and handheld/printer storage products in this era, and this family (Spencer's card-controller portfolio: US 6,823,417; US 6,862,604; US 7,478,260) reads directly on HP's removable-storage line. I could not find a specific HP part number marketing this exact dual-interface card, so treat "product embodying the claims" as strongly plausible but not documentary-verified.
• Current status: Operating. HP Development Company, L.P. remains an active, ongoing entity (a Hewlett-Packard / HP Inc. affiliate). No dissolution or bankruptcy. This patent simply expired for failure of term on 2022-01-24 — it lapsed naturally, it was not sold or abandoned.

Assignment timeline

Only two assignment records exist, and both are pre-issuance/internal. There are no post-issuance assignments of any kind to third parties.

• 2001-11-30 (executed) / recorded 2002-03-01 — Reel 012669/0897

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Andrew M. Spencer (sole inventor)
  • Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Company (Colorado)
  • Correspondent: Not disclosed in the indexed record; not retrievable in this session. No recurrence can be asserted.
  • Context: Ordinary inventor-to-employer assignment of the application, executed five days before the 2001-12-05 filing date.

• 2003-09-26 (executed) / recorded 2003-09-30 — Reel 014061/0492

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Hewlett-Packard Company
  • Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company L.P. (Texas)
  • Correspondent: Not disclosed in the indexed record. (Reel/frame 014061/0492 is recognizable as HP's bulk company-to-subsidiary conveyance; the recorded text assigns the entire interest with no patent-specific terms, consistent with a mass corporate transfer rather than a negotiated transaction. No repeat NPE-side correspondent to flag.)
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization — HP's post-Compaq-merge transfer of its IP into the HP Development Company, L.P. holding entity. Not an arm's-length sale.

After 2003-09-30, no further assignment was ever recorded. The patent stayed with HP Development Company, L.P. through issuance (2004-03-30), through all four maintenance-fee payments (4th yr 2007, 8th yr 2011, 12th yr 2015), and until expiration (2022-01-24).

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6712277
    2001 : Inventor assigns to Hewlett Packard
    2003 : Internal reorg to HP Development LP
    2004 : Patent issued
    2022 : Patent expired

(Also published as US 2003/0102380 A1 and as NL1022091A1 / NL1022091C2 in the Netherlands family; no separate NL ownership chain surfaced.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only transferee in the chain is HP's own operating subsidiary. No "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" LLC appears; no registered-agent-service address; no single-purpose Delaware/Texas entity. The 2003 transfer (reel 014061/0492) is a parent→subsidiary reorg, not a transfer to a licensing shell.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, или Spangenberg entity appears as assignee at any point. Assignee of record is HP Development Company, L.P. throughout.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — not determinable. The correspondent of record is not exposed in the records I could retrieve. I will not infer a correspondent from firm habit. One data point only exists in any event (each recording appears once), and a single appearance would not constitute the recurrence this signal requires.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Two records, 22 months apart, both internal, no shared-third-party pattern. No chained LLCs and no <24-month multi-hop cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. No infringement suit naming US 6,712,277 was found in any docket search. With no litigation and no pre-suit assignment, the classic venue/standing-arrangement tell is absent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. Neither HP nor HP Development Company, L.P. underwent Chapter 7/11 liquidation; there is no sale-of-assets assignment on record. Contrast with genuine fire-sales (Kodak, Nortel, Polaroid), none of which touch this patent.

7. Privateering — not present. No transfer to an NPE that then asserted on HP's behalf. No SEC 10-K/8-K disclosure of this patent's divestiture was located, and no Patent Progress/EFF coverage links it to an assertion campaign.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present (chain does not terminate at an aggregator). No RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN interest appears. The chain terminates at the original operating company, which is a different situation from neutralization by a defensive aggregator.

Verdict

Insufficient data — in substance, only the original assignment chain exists.

Justification: The complete recorded chain is the 2001-11-30 inventor assignment to Hewlett-Packard Company (reel 012669/0897) plus HP's 2003-09-26 internal reorganization to HP Development Company, L.P. (reel 014061/0492). There are no post-issuance transfers, no NPE assignee, no assertion litigation, and no NPE-correspondent recurrence to evaluate; the patent sat with HP for its entire life and expired 2022-01-24. The absence of NPE signals is itself the finding: this is a clean operating-company-owned patent that was never monetized through an assertion chain.

Verification link (USPTO Assignment Center, search by patent number 6712277): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ — or the indexed mirror https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html. Confirm you can retrieve the correspondent of record for reel 012669/0897 and reel 014061/0492 there; that field was the one gap in this analysis.

I'll verify and enrich the prior-art record for US 6,712,277 by looking up each cited reference.

Let me look up the remaining cited references, including the dual-mode "chip card" family members and the contact/contactless card reference.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,712,277 B2

"Multiple interface memory card" — Inventor Andrew M. Spencer; assignee Hewlett-Packard Development Co. L.P.; filed 2001-12-05; granted 2004-03-30.

Number-verification note (per your strict rule): I confined this analysis to U.S. 6,712,277. I did not fold in look-alike patents that commonly surface in searches, including 6,718,277 (Valtrus), 7,671,727 (Omega Patents), 6,712,777, or the NL family member NL1022091. The record below is taken from the granted patent's own citation list as published on Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6712277/en) and cross-checked against each cited reference's own record.

1. The claim set being measured against (for § 102 purposes)

• Claim 1 (sole independent): a memory card comprising (a) a memory mass storage; (b) a first data interface with a contacting interface; (c) a second data interface with a contact-less interface, the first having the higher data-transfer rate; and (d) a memory card controller that selects a data line from the first interface or a data line from the second interface to communicate with the mass storage based on a criterion.
• Claim 2: criterion = a predetermined card select detect signal from the first interface.
• Claim 3: criterion = detecting an indication of a carrier detect signal from the second data interface.

An anticipatory reference must disclose every element. As shown below, none of the cited references does.

2. The eight patent citations on the face of US 6,712,277

Prior-art status: Nos. 1–6 published before the 2001-12-05 filing date (pre-AIA § 102(a)/(b) art). Nos. 7 and 8 issued after the filing date but were filed 2000-10-04, so they are available only as § 102(e) art as of their filing dates.

3. Reference-by-reference analysis

Reference 1 — EP 0 473 569 A2 (Mikron)

• Full citation: EP 0473569 A2, "Contactless, inductive data transmission system," Mikron Gesellschaft für Integrierte Mikroelektronik mbH; priority 1990-08-23; published 1992-03-04.
• Description: The European parent of the Mikron transponder art. Discloses an inductively (magnetically) coupled, battery-less transponder system in which a reader station both powers and exchanges data with a transponder that includes a data storage and an inductive antenna/coil.
• § 102 relevance: This teaches only the "second data interface with a contact-less interface" and a data-storage element in isolation. It has no contacting interface, no memory-card controller, and no selection between two interfaces. It therefore does not anticipate claim 1 (or 2–3). At most it is background art for the contactless-transponder element (and is the same disclosure family as Reference 2).

Reference 2 — US 5,345,231 A (Mikron)

• Full citation: US 5,345,231 A, "Contactless inductive data-transmission system," Mikron Gesellschaft für Integrierte Mikroelektronik mbH; priority 1990-08-23; issued 1994-09-06.
• Description: US counterpart to Reference 1. Claims a contactless inductive (magnetic-field) data-transmission system with a sending/receiving station and a batteryless transponder having an inductive antenna, a rectifier, a clock extractor, and a data storage; uses load modulation and pulse-width-modulated HF signaling.
• § 102 relevance: Same conclusion as Reference 1. It discloses a contactless interface + storage but lacks the contacting interface, the dual-interface card architecture, and the selecting controller. Does not anticipate any of claims 1–3. Useful only as § 103 secondary art for the "contact-less interface" limitation (and, notably, it is the magnetic-coupling art that underpins the spec's ISO 14443-2 discussion).

Reference 3 — US 6,295,031 B1 (Symbol Technologies)

• Full citation: US 6,295,031 B1, "Memory card assembly having an integral antenna," Symbol Technologies, Inc.; priority 1993-12-23; issued 2001-09-25.
• Description: A PCMCIA memory-card assembly with a host-side connector at one end and a retractable antenna assembly plus a spread-spectrum radio (e.g., 915 MHz / 2.4 GHz) at the other, so the card communicates wirelessly to a remote location. Discloses shielded compartments, dual-function connectors, and power cutoff when the antenna is retracted.
• § 102 relevance: Closest single reference for the notion of a memory card that also has a wireless (non-contacting) channel, and it recites a memory card + contacting PCMCIA connector + radio/antenna. But the "wireless" element is a radio transceiver, not a contact-less (inductively coupled) data interface, and there is no controller selecting a data line between the two interfaces based on a criterion. Does not anticipate claim 1; it also fails claims 2–3 (no card-select-detect or carrier-detect selection logic). Best used as § 103 art on the "card with both a contacting interface and a wireless interface" concept.

Reference 4 — US 5,657,028 A (Nokia / Sanad)

• Full citation: US 5,657,028 A, "Small double C-patch antenna contained in a standard PC card," Mohamed Sanad, Nokia Mobile Phones Ltd.; filed 1995-03-31; issued 1997-08-12.
• Description: An antenna-structure patent — a partially shorted dual C-patch microstrip antenna and a PCMCIA module combining an interface, a modem, an RF transmitter/receiver, and that antenna.
• § 102 relevance: Antenna-mechanics art only. No mass storage, no dual interface, no controller selection. Does not anticipate any claim (1–3). Cited by the examiner purely as background/analogous antenna art for a card form factor.

Reference 5 — US 6,219,732 B1 (3Com)

• Full citation: US 6,219,732 B1, "Apparatus and method for wireless communication between a host and a selectively removable module electrically connected to the host," 3Com Corporation; priority 1997-01-10; issued 2001-04-17.
• Description: A removable module (PCMCIA card) that communicates with its host over a wireless channel in addition to (or instead of) the standardized PCMCIA contact interface, to add bandwidth not supported by the pin-limited PCMCIA connector (representative example: speakerphone/audio on a modem card).
• § 102 relevance: Conceptually relevant because it shows a card that has both a contacting interface and a wireless link. But: (i) there is no memory mass storage; (ii) the wireless channel is not a "contact-less interface" of the inductive type (and no carrier-detect signal is used); and (iii) there is no memory-card controller selecting a data line between the two interfaces on a criterion. Does not anticipate claim 1, and supplies neither the claim-2 nor claim-3 criterion. § 103 candidate for the dual-channel concept.

Reference 6 — US 5,929,815 A (Sierra Wireless)

• Full citation: US 5,929,815 A, "Antenna connector and method for making an electrical device," Sierra Wireless, Inc.; priority 1997-12-19; issued 1999-07-27.
• Description: An antenna connector for a wireless electrical device (antenna-interface hardware for PC-card-style wireless modems).
• § 102 relevance: Connector/antenna hardware only. No mass storage, no dual interface, no selection controller. Does not anticipate any of claims 1–3.

Reference 7 — US 6,377,218 B1 (3Com)

• Full citation: US 6,377,218 B1, "Device for providing an antenna, a receptacle, and a physical connector on a type II PCMCIA card," 3Com Corporation (Nelson et al.); priority 2000-10-04; issued 2002-04-23.
• Description: A Type II PCMCIA peripheral having three different interface types — a receptacle (X-Jack™ RJ-11/RJ-45), a wireline connector (e.g., 15-pin), and a wireless interface (antenna) coupled to a Bluetooth/IEEE-802.11 device. The specification expressly frames the goal as providing a peripheral card "with multiple types of interfaces."
• § 102 relevance: The most on-point of the eight for the "multiple interfaces on one card" theme — but its interfaces are I/O interfaces, not memory-access interfaces; it has no memory mass storage, and no controller that selects a data line to a mass storage based on a criterion. It is § 102(e) art only from its 2000-10-04 filing date. Does not anticipate claim 1; fails claims 2–3. § 103 art for the general multi-interface-card motivation.

Reference 8 — US 6,404,393 B1 (3Com)

• Full citation: US 6,404,393 B1, "Embedded antenna in a type II PCMCIA card," 3Com Corporation; priority 2000-10-04; issued 2002-06-11.
• Description: Sibling of Reference 7 — a Type II PCMCIA card with a removable platform carrying a receptacle interface, a wireline interface, and an embedded antenna for a wireless device; also cites USB/PC-Card/PCMCIA/ISA/RS-232 as host-interface options.
• § 102 relevance: Same as Reference 7 — multi-interface I/O card, no memory mass storage, no dual-interface memory controller, no selection criterion. Does not anticipate any claim.

Non-Patent Citation — Lexar Media website (Oct. 12, 2001)

• Full citation: Lexar Media, Inc., corporate/product website, dated Oct. 12, 2001 (http://www.lexarmedia.com/).
• Description (limited): A commercial webpage for flash-memory-card products. The patent lists it without an evidentiary excerpt, and the archived page content was not recoverable in this review.
• § 102 relevance: Credited as a printed publication (potential § 102(b) art) reflecting the state of the flash-memory-card market as of Oct. 2001. However, a marketing webpage describing single-interface flash cards does not, on this record, disclose any of the four elements of claim 1, and cannot support a § 102 anticipation of claims 1–3 as cited. I flag that its actual archived content should be retrieved (e.g., via the Internet Archive) before any reliance; my assessment is based only on its face citation.

4. Additional prior art the record points to (more pertinent than several examiner citations)

These appear on the patent's "Family Cites" list (i.e., cited in the Dutch family member NL1022091) or in the "Similar Documents" section — not in the examiner's § 102 citation list — but they bear directly on the contact/contactless dual-mode element and should not be ignored in any validity analysis:

• CN 1135497 C / Philips — "Dual-mode data carrier and circuit for such a data carrier with improved mode change-over" (priority 1997-09-23). A dual-mode (contact + contactless) data carrier with mode change-over circuit — the closest conceptual analogue to claim 1's two-interface architecture. Still appears to lack a discrete "memory card controller selecting a data line from the first or second interface to a mass storage" and the specific claim-2/claim-3 criteria; assess as § 103 art and verify the full text.
• JPH10-505932 A / Philips — "Chip card" (priority 1995-06-02). Contact and/or contactless chip-card art.
• FI 116957 B / Nokia (priority 1998-10-29) — data transfer between a mobile communicator and a special device.
• US 6,045,043 A — "Contact/contactless data transaction card" (from the "Similar Documents" list, issued 2000-04-04). A data card supporting both contact and contactless operation — again directly on the dual-interface point.

5. Bottom line (§ 102 / § 103)

No reference cited on the face of US 6,712,277 anticipates any of claims 1, 2, or 3. Each cited reference is missing at least the core combination of claim 1 — specifically a memory mass storage, both a contacting and a contact-less interface, a controller that selects a data line between them, and (for claims 2–3) the card-select-detect / carrier-detect criterion. The examiner's eight citations break down as:

• Contactless-transponder art (Refs. 1–2, Mikron): background for the contact-less element only.
• Antenna/connector art (Refs. 4, 6): form-factor background only.
• Card-with-wireless-channel art (Refs. 3, 5): closest to the dual-interface theme, but no mass storage + no selecting controller.
• Multi-interface PCMCIA peripheral art (Refs. 7–8): multi-interface, but I/O (not memory) interfaces and no selecting controller; § 102(e) only.

Most relevant art overall for the dual contact/contactless interface concept is not the examiner's list but the contact/contactless dual-mode card art — CN 1135497 C (Philips, dual-mode data carrier), US 6,045,043 A (contact/contactless data transaction card), and JPH10-505932 A — together with US 6,295,031 B1 and US 6,377,218 B1 for the "card with two interface types" motivation. These are best deployed as § 103 combinations, not § 102 anticipations.

Caveats: (i) I could not retrieve the full texts of US 5,929,815, EP 0 473 569 A2, or CN 1135497 C within this session; their descriptions above rest on bibliographic/title/abstract data and general knowledge, so verify the full text before relying on them for a § 102 position. (ii) The Lexar Media webpage content was not recovered and should be retrieved from an archive if it is to be cited. (iii) I did not run a live USPTO Patent Public Search / Global Dossier query in this pass; the citation set above is the one published on the granted patent, which is the authoritative list for the § 102 analysis you requested.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual content of the references cited in the Prior Art section of the patent page. Let me pull details on the key cited references.

I have strong detail on several references. Let me pull the remaining key prior-art references cited on the page.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,712,277 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Scope note / what I actually verified. This analysis is built on the Prior Art section of the patent page you supplied — specifically the eight "Patent Citations," the one "Non-Patent Citation," and the three "Family Cites Families" references. I retrieved representative text for the most material of these (US 6,295,031; US 6,219,732; US 5,345,231 / EP 0 473 569; and the Philips "dual-mode data carrier" family). I did not retrieve the full text of US 5,657,028, US 5,929,815, US 6,377,218, US 6,404,393, FI 116957B, or the Lexar Media citation, and I flag that limitation where it matters. I build on — and do not repeat — the previously generated bibliographic, claim-summary, and litigation sections.

Minor internal inconsistency flagged: the task header states the current date as April 26, 2026, while the patent source page in this record was fetched 2026-09-29. Not material to the § 103 analysis; noted only per your instructions.

1. Legal framework and the person of ordinary skill

• Governing test (Graham v. John Deere; KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007)). Obviousness requires: (1) scope/content of the prior art; (2) differences between the prior art and the claims; (3) the level of ordinary skill; and (4) secondary considerations where present. Under KSR, a combination is obvious not only when the references teach or suggest the combination, but also where the combination is "the product of ordinary creativity, not of an inventor," e.g., a predictable use of prior-art elements according to their established functions, or a finite number of identified, predictable solutions.
• Claim construction. The only independent claim is claim 1, which requires: (i) a memory mass storage; (ii) a first data interface with a contacting interface; (iii) a second data interface with a contact-less interface, the first having a higher data transfer rate than the second; and (iv) a memory card controller that selects a data line from one interface or the other to communicate with the mass storage based on a criteria. The "criteria" is deliberately left generic in claim 1; the triggers appear only in claims 2–3.
• PHOSITA (as of the 2001-12-05 priority date). A person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering or computer engineering and roughly 2–4 years of experience designing memory cards / smart cards / portable storage devices, or equivalent experience — a person familiar with existing memory-card bus standards (CompactFlash, SD/MMC, Memory Stick, PCMCIA) and with contact/contactless smart-card standards (ISO 7816 contact, ISO 14443 contactless). The specification itself presumes an artisan who knows "the art" of magnetically coupled RF interfaces and cites ISO 14443-2.
• All eight patent citations predate the claim. Their priority dates run 1990–2000, all before 2001-12-05. Two of them (US 6,377,218; US 6,404,393) issued in 2002, but rest on 2000-10-04 filings and are therefore available as § 102(e) art; the rest are straightforwardly available as printed publications. The Philips family references (1995/1997) and the Mikron references (1990/1991) are comfortably pre-2001.

2. The prior art of record, grouped by what it teaches

None of these references, standing alone, contains every element of claim 1. But the § 103 question is combination.

3. Claim 1 — element mapping and proposed combinations

3.1 Element mapping (applied across the combined art)

3.2 Proposed combination 1 (strongest): Philips dual-mode data carrier + Symbol US 6,295,031 (optionally + 3Com US 6,219,732)

• What each brings. Philips supplies the dual-interface architecture with selection/mode logic and data storage — i.e., claim elements (i)–(ii)–(iii) and the "controller selecting based on a criteria" element. Symbol supplies the removable "memory card" form factor with mass storage plus a contactless radio/antenna, converting Philips' generalized "data carrier/chip card" into the claimed "memory card" and reinforcing the contactless interface in a card that also has the standard contacting connector.
• Difference remaining after combination. Little more than the express relative-speed recitation, which is an inherent and admitted property of a contact vs. a contactless (magnetically coupled) pair.
• Motivation / why obvious. Both references are in the same field of endeavor (portable data carriers/cards with data storage). Combining them means applying a known technique (dual contact/contactless interface with mode selection) to a known, structurally compatible article (a removable memory card that already housed a radio and antenna, per Symbol). The result is a predictable aggregation of known functions with no change in their respective operating principles — a classic KSR "predictable use of prior-art elements according to their established functions." The market pull is also documented in the '277 specification itself: cameras and PDAs need high-speed wired transfer, while "e-commerce and banking" want the convenience of not plugging into slots.

3.3 Proposed combination 2: 3Com US 6,219,732 + Symbol US 6,295,031 + Philips dual-mode data carrier

• 3Com US 6,219,732 supplies a single removable card that simultaneously uses a standardized contacting interface to the host and a wireless channel, with multiplexing/arbitration logic between the two — i.e., the two data paths and the selection/arbitration function. Symbol supplies the memory-card-with-mass-storage-and-radio form factor; Philips supplies the dual-interface storage card with explicit mode change-over. Together they meet every limitation of claim 1.
• Motivation. 3Com's own background states the objectives: overcome the constraints of a standardized physical interface and avoid external cabling — the same reasons the '277 card exists. Combining a "card with two data paths and arbitration" (3Com) with a "memory card that houses mass storage and a radio" (Symbol) yields the claimed card as an obvious, predictable improvement.

3.4 Proposed combination 3: Mikron US 5,345,231 / EP 0 473 569 + any PCMCIA memory-card reference (Symbol/3Com) + Philips selection logic

• Mikron supplies the RF-powered contactless data-storage interface; the PCMCIA references supply the contacting memory card; Philips supplies the selection logic. This is a weaker but viable alternative route to the same result. It is weaker only because Mikron's transponder is less "card-like," so it does more work to reach "memory card."

3.5 Why the examiner's allowance does not, by itself, defeat obviousness

The prior-art references were before the examiner (several are asterisked in the record as examiner-cited), yet the case allowed. That is entitled to a presumption of validity and creates a practical "teaching away / no motivation" argument for the patent owner. But for the § 103 analysis it is not dispositive: the combination above turns on references the examiner apparently considered individually rather than in the specific dual-interface-with-selection configuration, and on the near-emptiness of the "criteria" limitation in claim 1. I flag this as my inference, not established fact — I did not review the prosecution history file wrapper to see the examiner's stated reasons for allowance.

4. Claim 2 — "predetermined card select detect signal from said first interface"

Claim 2 would be obvious over the same combinations.

• Selecting an interface based on a signal asserted by the contacting interface is the standard, conventional way such buses work: PCMCIA/SD/MMC/CF interfaces supply card-detect and chip/card-select signals to the host, and a card controller conventionally responds to them. The '277 specification itself says the "high speed data access interface block asserts" a card-select-detect "when it has been powered up and selected by the host."
• Philips' mode change-over logic already detects a signal on the contact terminals (received clock signal / supply potential) to determine that the contact-bound interface is active and to give it priority — functionally a "predetermined … detect signal from said first interface."
• Motivation. Using the contact interface's own select/detect line as the arbitration trigger is a predictable design choice among a finite set of known options (detect the contact side, detect the contactless side, or default to one), with an expected, no-surprise result. KSR supports this as ordinary creativity.

5. Claim 3 — "detecting an indication of a carrier detect signal from said second data interface"

Claim 3 would be obvious over the same combinations — indeed, the carrier detect is close to inherent.

• An RF-powered, magnetically coupled interface must detect the incoming carrier to rectify power and to extract the clock. Mikron US 5,345,231 / EP 0 473 569 expressly describe deriving the transponder's energy and system clock from the HF signal — which necessarily entails detecting the presence of that carrier. Any ISO 14443-style interface (the standard the '277 spec names) behaves the same way, and the second interface in the '277 spec is described as "RF Powered."
• Motivation. Once a designer has a card whose contactless interface is RF-powered, routing the interface-selection decision off a "carrier detect" signal is the natural, expected implementation — it tells the controller the wireless reader field is present and the contactless side is active. "A carrier detect line … asserted when the carrier signal applied to the card is detected" (as the '277 spec describes it) is simply that fact stated functionally.
• Secondary point. Claim 3 covers "detecting an indication of" a carrier detect signal — deliberately broad, capturing any signal representative of carrier presence, which further narrows the gap between the claim and the Mikron/Philips disclosure.

6. Secondary considerations

• No presumption of nonobviousness from secondary considerations on this record. The previously generated sections establish that US 6,712,277 expired for lifetime (adjusted expiration 2022-01-24) and that no litigation was found. There is no evidence in the supplied record of long-felt need, failure of others, licensing, or industry praise with a nexus to the claimed subject matter. The specification's own admissions (contactless is "much slower"; contactless interfaces "need" a slower path; the carrier/clock handling) cut against nonobviousness because they show the relative-speed relationship was known and inherent.
• Note the claim/abstract mismatch already identified in the earlier sections: the abstract and summary recite a "high data transfer rate," whereas claim 1 recites only that the first interface is faster than the second. That relative phrasing is far easier to meet with prior art and weakens any nonobviousness argument resting on "high speed" as the point of novelty.

7. Bottom line

On the prior art of record, claim 1 is most vulnerable to obviousness over the Philips dual-mode data carrier family (JPH10505932A / CN1135497C and its counterparts) in view of the memory-card-with-integral-antenna art (US 6,295,031; and, for the two-path arbitration, 3Com US 6,219,732), with the antenna-in-a-PC-card references (US 5,657,028; US 6,377,218; US 6,404,393) and the Mikron contactless system (US 5,345,231 / EP 0 473 569) reinforcing the contactless-interface element. Claims 2 and 3 fall with claim 1, since the "card select detect" and "carrier detect" triggers are conventional (and, for the carrier detect, practically inherent in an RF-powered contactless interface). The strongest defenses for the patent owner would be (a) that no reference teaches routing a single shared mass storage through a selector based on those criteria, and (b) the examiner's prior allowance — but neither is established on the record I was given.

Caveats

1. I verified text for US 6,295,031, US 6,219,732, US 5,345,231/EP 0 473 569, and the Philips dual-mode family; I did not pull full text for US 5,657,028, US 5,929,815, US 6,377,218, US 6,404,393, FI 116957B, or the Lexar NPL, so my characterizations of those are based on their titles/abstracts and should be confirmed before relying on them.
2. I did not review the prosecution history; my statement about the examiner's reasoning is inference.
3. Two references (US 6,377,218; US 6,404,393) issued after the 2001-12-05 priority date; I claimed them only as § 102(e) art based on their 2000-10-04 priority/provisional filings — if those filings do not support the relied-on disclosure, they should be dropped from the combination.
4. Consistent with your strict rule, I have not corrected the specification's "13.96 Megahertz" statement (ISO 14443-2 in fact specifies 13.56 MHz); I note only that the patent text says 13.96 MHz, and that this number appears nowhere in the claims and so is not part of the § 103 analysis.

Sources for the retrieved reference text: Google Patents pages for US 6,219,732 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US6219732), US 6,295,031 (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6295031B1](/patent/US6295031B1)), US 5,345,231 (http://www.everypatent.com/comp/pat5345231.html) and EP 0 473 569 (EP0473569A3/B1 PDFs), the Philips dual-mode data carrier family (EP 0 939 936 B1; US 6,199,763; CN 1,135,497 C; CN 1,122,936 C), and the source patent page https://patents.google.com/patent/US6712277/en.