US 6946953

I'll verify this patent's details against current sources, including checking for any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me search for litigation and PTAB history specifically involving this patent, plus verify the patent record directly.

Let me check specifically for any 2026 litigation/PTAB/Federal Circuit activity and confirm current ownership.

US Patent 6,946,953 — Verification Summary

I ran targeted searches against the USPTO/Google Patents record, PTAB docket data, and Federal Circuit materials. Below is what I can confirm, plus explicit flags where I could not reach authoritative confirmation.

Bibliographic data (confirmed against the patent record)

Assignee caveat: Google Patents expressly labels its assignee data as an assumption/non-legal conclusion. I found consistent indications of the 2013 transfer to Innovative Global Systems, LLC, but I have not independently verified current chain of title through USPTO Assignment records in this session.

Abstract (as issued)

The patent discloses an apparatus and methods for enhanced data communications and control between a vehicle and a remote data terminal. The apparatus includes a first protocol converter, first transceiver, first requestor, and first buffer (vehicle side), plus a second transceiver, second protocol converter, second requestor, and second buffer (remote side). The first protocol converter converts vehicle-protocol data to an over-the-air protocol. After the first requestor opens an over-the-air window, the vehicle transmits to the remote terminal — preferably not using the over-the-air protocol. Buffered data is forwarded to the vehicle's electronic subsystem only when the vehicle isn't transmitting, and to the remote terminal's other portions only when the remote terminal isn't transmitting.

Plain-language overview of each independent claim

Claim 1 — Two-sided apparatus (both ends equipped). A vehicle-side chain (protocol converter → requestor → transceiver → buffer) paired with a mirrored remote-side chain (transceiver → protocol converter → requestor → buffer). The converter changes vehicle-protocol data into over-the-air-protocol data; the requestor opens an over-the-air communication window; each buffer holds received data and only releases it downstream when its own local transceiver is not transmitting. This is the "collision-avoidance / half-duplex windowing" concept.

Claim 7 — Vehicle-side-focused apparatus. Same vehicle-side elements as claim 1 (converter, requestor, transceiver, buffer) plus a remote transceiver and remote protocol converter, but omits the remote requestor and remote buffer. The buffer passes received data to the vehicle's electronic subsystem only when the vehicle's transceiver is idle. Claims 1 and 7 differ mainly in which end carries the requestor/buffer pair.

Claim 13 — Remote-side-focused apparatus. The mirror image of claim 7: vehicle side has only a converter and transceiver; the requestor and buffer live on the remote terminal side. Data is released to the remote terminal only when the second transceiver is not transmitting.

Claim 19 — Method (vehicle → remote). (a) Request opening of a window in the over-the-air channel; (b) wirelessly transmit data "substantially devoid of the over-the-air communication protocol" from vehicle to remote terminal during that open window; (c) temporarily store data received at the remote terminal; (d) forward it to other portions of the remote terminal responsive to an acknowledgement that the remote terminal is not transmitting to the vehicle.

Claim 21 — Method (remote → vehicle). The reverse direction: request opening a window; transmit data substantially devoid of the over-the-air protocol from remote terminal to vehicle; temporarily store at the vehicle; forward to an electronic subsystem of the vehicle responsive to an acknowledgement that the vehicle is not transmitting.

Claim 23 — Method with control effect. Same steps as claim 21, but recites "enhanced data communications and control," adding the step of the electronic subsystem receiving the temporarily stored data and responsively changing the condition of the vehicle through that subsystem (i.e., remote actuation/control of the vehicle).

Claim 24 — Computer program product. A program on a computer-usable medium with: converting means (vehicle protocol → over-the-air protocol); requesting means for opening an over-the-air window; and transferring means responsive to an acknowledgment that forwards data received from the remote terminal to at least one electronic subsystem of the vehicle when the vehicle is not transmitting. This is a means-plus-function-style Beauregard-type claim.

Dependent-claim context: Claims 2–4, 8–10, 14–16 add (i) that the over-the-air traffic lacks the over-the-air protocol and the remote protocol is substantially identical to the vehicle protocol (e.g., SAE J1708 ↔ RS-485), (ii) buffer acknowledgment/time-delay compensation, and (iii) signal boosters. Claims 5, 6, 11, 12, 17, 18 list alternative over-the-air media (RF, optical, microwave, satellite, VHF, UHF, IR), vehicle protocols (SAE J1708, J1939), and remote protocols (RS-485, RS-232, RS-422, RS-423).

Litigation / PTAB / Federal Circuit activity

• PTAB: IPR2020-00154, Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC — petition filed Nov. 19, 2019 (U.S. Patent 6,946,953 as Exhibit 1001). Trial instituted May 12, 2020; the parties filed a joint motion to terminate July 31, 2020; the Board issued a termination decision Aug. 27, 2020. The Google Patents page characterizes this as a settlement. (Petitioner's exhibits also included US 7,102,494 — the continuation — and US 7,280,898.)
• District court: Innovative Global Systems LLC v. Keep Truckin, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-00641 (D. Del.), a related 2019–2020 campaign over this patent family; older E.D. Tex. suits (e.g., No. 6:10-cv-00040) are also indexed against Innovative Global Systems.
• Federal Circuit: I found a nonprecedential *June 15, 2022 judgment in Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc., No. 2021-2289, AFFIRMED*, described as an appeal from a PTAB IPR2020-xxxx proceeding involving this patent family. Caveat: the IPR number in the opinion text I retrieved is truncated, and the PTAB caption in IPR2020-00154 names Zonar, not Motive. I therefore cannot state with high confidence that No. 2021-2289 arose specifically from IPR2020-00154 rather than a related IPR.
• 2026 CAFC dockets: none found. My searches of Federal Circuit 2026 docket material returned no appeal involving US 6,946,953, Innovative Global Systems, or the assigned family ID 29582709. Given that the patent's adjusted expiration was Feb. 3, 2024, any 2026 appeal could at most concern past damages, validity, or collateral issues — not prospective infringement — and I found no evidence that such an appeal exists.

Explicit uncertainties

1. No 2026 CAFC activity could be located. Absence of search hits is not proof of absence; I did not have direct PACER/CM-ECF or the Federal Circuit's official docket query interface in this session, so treat "no 2026 docket" as unverified rather than confirmed.
2. The precise linkage between IPR2020-00154 (Zonar caption) and CAFC No. 2021-2289 (Motive caption) is not something I can confirm; the party names differ and the IPR number was truncated in the source I retrieved.
3. Current ownership is reported by Google Patents as Innovative Global Systems, LLC with an explicit non-reliance disclaimer; I did not independently pull the USPTO Assignment Abstract of Title in this session.
4. Because I have the full authoritative patent text in hand, I interpreted every claim literally from that text; where the patent's specification uses inconsistent phrasing (e.g., describing the remote protocol as "substantially the same as the vehicle data communication protocol, e.g., RS-232" while elsewhere stating SAE J1708/RS-485), I have preserved that inconsistency rather than correcting it.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 6946953 across patent litigation databases and court records.

Let me dig deeper into which specific cases asserted the '953 patent and their outcomes.

Litigation Report — U.S. Patent No. 6,946,953

Patent: U.S. 6,946,953 B2 — "Apparatus and method for enhanced data communications and control between a vehicle and a remote data communications terminal"
Inventors: Alan Lesesky; Bobby Ray Weant
Original assignee: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. → current assignee: Innovative Global Systems, LLC ("IGS")
Filing/priority date: May 30, 2002 · Granted: September 20, 2005 · Expired: ~Feb 3, 2024 (expired-lifetime; original term nominally to ~2022, with the listed adjusted expiration)

Bottom line

Based on the searches I was able to run, I found no district-court patent-infringement action naming U.S. 6,946,953 as an asserted patent-in-suit. What I did find is:

1. A PTAB inter partes review (IPR2020‑00154) directly challenging the '953 patent, which settled; and
2. A related breach-of-contract action (IGS v. Zonar, D.S.C.) in which the '953 patent was part of the licensed portfolio at issue.

I should flag a hard limitation: I could not query PACER or the Unified Patents litigation caselist for a case-by-case check, and much of the IGS enforcement campaign is described in secondary sources only. Treat the "no infringement suit on the '953" conclusion as my best finding on available evidence, not a negative-clearance opinion. (Notably, a Docket Alarm search keyed to patent:(6946953) returned only the PTAB IPR, not any district-court docket — see https://www.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent%3A%286946953%29.)

Known proceedings

1. Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC — IPR2020‑00154 (PTAB)

• Type: Inter partes review (Post‑Grant Review / AIA trial), not a district-court suit
• Petitioner / Patent Owner: Zonar Systems, Inc. / Innovative Global Systems, LLC
• Patent challenged: U.S. Patent No. 6,946,953 (also the '494 patent in the companion IPR2020‑00155)
• Case number: IPR2020‑00154
• Filing date: November 19, 2019
• Instituted: May 12, 2020 (Trial Instituted Document)
• Terminated: August 27, 2020 — Settlement (Joint Motion to Terminate filed July 31, 2020; Joint Motion to Keep Confidential and Separate; Termination Decision Document entered Aug 27, 2020)
• Status/outcome: Terminated by settlement before any final written decision on patentability; no claim was cancelled on the merits
• Sources: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/ ; https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Zonar-Systems-Inc-v-Innovative-Global-Systems-LLC-id-[130949](/patent/130949)/documents/ ; https://ippunch.blogspot.com/2020/04/week-47-18th-nov-2019-to-24th-nov-2019.html
• Related: companion IPR2020‑00155 (Zonar v. IGS) challenged the '494 patent, filed Nov 19, 2019, instituted May 12, 2020, terminated Aug 27, 2020 (settlement) — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-00155

The patent page itself flags this under "Family has litigation": "PTAB case IPR2020‑00154 filed (Settlement)."

2. Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Zonar Systems, Inc. — 0:18‑cv‑03083 (D.S.C.)

• Type: Breach of contract / declaratory judgment (license royalt y dispute), not a '953 infringement count
• Parties: IGS (plaintiff) v. Zonar Systems, Inc. (defendant)
• Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina (Rock Hill/Columbia)
• Case number: 0:18‑cv‑03083
• Filing date: November 14, 2018
• Relevance to the '953: The '953 patent was part of the licensed "Enhanced Patents" in the parties' contract (Schedule A); IGS served claim charts for 6,946,953 in the case (per Exhibit 1020 in the IPR — "IGS Answer to Zonar Interrogatory No. 1 … with Exhibit A claim charts for 6,946,953").
• Status/outcome: The court denied Zonar's motion to dismiss and summary-judgment motion (breach-of-contract claim pleaded adequately; arbitration/dispute-resolution clause not a bar at that stage). The parallel Zonar IPRs then settled in August 2020. Full final disposition of the contract case is not confirmed in the sources I retrieved.
• Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[9955824](/patent/9955824)/innovative-global-systems-llc-v-zonar-systems-inc/ ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Zonar_Systems_Inc._v._Innovative_Global_Systems_LLC/01-09-2020-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2001-Declaration_of_Joseph_A_Schouten/

Related IGS enforcement campaign (context — '953 assertion not confirmed)

IGS ran a multi-year campaign (2009–2019) asserting a family of "vehicle data communications" patents against telematics/telecom defendants. Public sources describe five patents "issued from August 2003 to November 2008." Because the '953 patent issued September 20, 2005, it plausibly fell within that group, but I could not confirm from the retrieved documents that the '953 patent was named as an asserted patent in any of these complaints. Treat these as context, not as confirmed '953 suits:

Sources: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txedce-[115364](/patent/115364)-innovative-global-systems-v-turnpike-global-techologies ; https://www.dailyherald.com/20100705/business/innovative-sues-cat-navistar-komatsu/ ; https://dockets.justia.com/search?parties=Innovative%20Global%20Systems%2C%20LLC ; https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1:19-cv-00641 ; https://iknow.stpi.niar.org.tw/Post/Files/Complaint/Complaint_pclass_10_A293_Innovative%20Global%20Systems%20v.%20OnStar.pdf ; https://dockets.justia.com/docket/georgia/gandce/1:2018cv05241/[257582](/patent/257582)

Appellate: Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc. (Keep Truckin is now Motive), Fed. Cir. No. 21‑2289, decided June 15, 2022, judgment AFFIRMED (per curiam). This is an appeal from a PTAB IPR, but the source I retrieved truncated the IPR number, so I cannot confirm it relates to the '953 patent (IPR2020‑00154 settled without a merits decision, which makes a merits appeal from that particular IPR unlikely). Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[6477826](/patent/6477826)/innovative-global-systems-llc-v-motive-technologies-inc/

False positives to disregard (important)

• Contour IP Holding v. GoPro / Contour LLC (IPR2015‑01080); "the '694 patent" — different patent (U.S. 8,896,694), different parties. Not the '953.
• JP Patent No. 6946953 (Omron) — a completely different Japanese patent (control-program development support). Not related.
• The '695 and '696 patents in Dexcel litigation — unrelated numbers.

Summary of outcomes

• Confirmed proceeding naming the '953 patent: one — IPR2020‑00154, settled/terminated Aug 27, 2020, no merits decision.
• District-court infringement suit asserting the '953 patent: none found.
• Contract action touching the '953 patent: IGS v. Zonar, 0:18‑cv‑03083 (D.S.C.), filed Nov 14, 2018; survived dismissal/SJ; ultimately bound up with the settled IPRs.

Caveat: Because I could not reach PACER or the Unified Patents caselist directly within this session, and because the IGS campaign is partly documented only in secondary sources, I recommend verifying the "no '953 infringement suit" conclusion against PACER/Unified Patents docket-by-docket (e.g., checking the patents-in-suit in each IGS complaint listed above). If you want, I can attempt those targeted docket lookups next.

I'll start by pulling the canonical proceeding list from the provided structured block, then verify and enrich with web searches.

The structured block states: no AIA trial proceedings on file in ODP. However, the authoritative patent text itself flags a PTAB case (IPR2020-00154, settlement, petitioner Unified Patents). Let me research.

Important correction: the Google Patents "Unified Patents" tag is a data-source attribution, not the petitioner. The actual petitioner was Zonar Systems, Inc. Let me dig deeper.

Let me get the institution decision reasoning, panel, and check for any appeals or later proceedings.

Proceedings overview

One AIA trial proceeding has been filed against US 6,946,953 — IPR2020-00154, Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC — and its status is settled after institution: no claims were canceled, no claims were sustained on the merits, and no Final Written Decision ever issued. (A companion petition, IPR2020-00155, was filed the same day on the sibling continuation patent US 7,102,494 — not on the '953 patent — and also settled on the same date.)

Critical data-integrity flag up front. The USPTO ODP structured block provided in this task says "no AIA trial proceedings on file." That is contradicted by (a) the patent's own Google Patents front page, which carries the litigation tag "PTAB case IPR2020-00154 filed (Settlement)", and (b) multiple independent third-party docket aggregators. Treat the ODP result as a stale/empty ingest, not as evidence of no activity. Separately, do not misread the front-page line "Petitioner: 'Unified Patents PTAB Data' by Unified Patents is licensed under CC-BY" — that is a data-source attribution, not the identity of the petitioner. Zonar Systems, Inc. was the petitioner; Unified Patents had no involvement as a party.

Bottom-line defensive posture: neither of the stock narratives applies. This patent has not "survived and hardened" through an IPR — it was never tested to a merits verdict. But no claim was canceled either, so there is no dead claim to point a demand letter at. The practical reality is that US 6,946,953 is expired (adjusted expiration 2024-02-03), so the live question is historical damages exposure, not injunctive risk — and the one thing a defendant does get is the complete absence of statutory estoppel, because § 315(e)(2) estoppel only attaches after a final written decision.

IPR2020-00154 — Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC

• Patent: US 6,946,953 ("Apparatus and method for enhanced data communications and control between a vehicle and a remote data communications terminal")
• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2019-11-19 (petition); Notice of Accord Filing Date 2019-11-22
• Status: Terminated — Settled (termination decision 2020-08-27). Plain English: instituted, then killed by joint settlement roughly 3.5 months into trial, before any Final Written Decision.
• Judge panel: Not confirmed from the sources retrieved. The Unified Patents portal case page carries an "author judge" field, but the retrieved snippet did not expose the names. Do not assume a panel composition — pull the Paper 16 caption from PTAB E2E.
• Petition grounds: § 102 and § 103. The exhibit record shows the art Zonar relied on — Exhibit 1003 WO 01/36234; Ex. 1005 US 5,440,691 (Carrafiello); Ex. 1006 US 6,728,603 (Pruzan); Ex. 1007 IEEE Std. 802.11-1999 / 802.11(b); Ex. 1008 UK App. 2316583 (Sasson) — corroborated by the identical core exhibit set in the sister '494 petition (Ex. 1012–1014 IrLAP / Bluetooth / IrDA). Expert support: Declaration of Dr. Ray W. Nettleton (Ex. 1002). The precise claim-by-claim mapping is not confirmed in the sources retrieved.
• Institution decision: Instituted 2020-05-12 (Paper 16, "Trial Instituted Document"). Scheduling Order the same day (Paper 17), amended 2020-05-14 (Paper 18). The panel rejected Patent Owner's § 314(a) Fintiv discretionary-denial attack, twice quoting its own reasoning that denial would "require substantial speculation" (Paper 16 at 10) — i.e., the Board was not persuaded that the parallel D.S.C. contract action would resolve the invalidity issues first. Patent Owner had also raised § 315(b) (time bar) and § 316(a)(11)/§ 316(b) arguments (per the Patent Owner Preliminary Response, Paper 8, 2020-02-17). Patent Owner's counsel, Ward and Smith P.A., had to file a separate Motion to Excuse Late Filing (Paper 7, 2020-01-09) after missing the § 42.8(a)(2) mandatory-notice deadline — an inauspicious start that likely weakened PO's early posture.
• Final Written Decision: None. No FWD exists. No claim of US 6,946,953 was held unpatentable and no claim was held patentable. Any statement that claims were "canceled" or "confirmed" would be fabricated.
• Settlement / termination: Joint Motion to Terminate filed 2020-07-31 (Paper 19), together with a Joint Motion to Keep Confidential and Separate (Paper 20) and a confidential settlement exhibit — Exhibit 1022, "Confidential Settlement Agreement between Innovative Global Systems, LLC and Zonar Systems, Inc." Termination Decision issued 2020-08-27 (Paper 24). Terms are confidential; the settlement resolved the parallel D.S.C. breach-of-contract action (No. 18-cv-03083), not just the IPR.
• Appeal: None. A settlement termination under § 317 is not appealable; there was no FWD to appeal to the Federal Circuit, so no CAFC docket number exists.
• Defensive value: Zonar's petition was strong enough to clear institution — that is a real, citable signal that the Board found a reasonable likelihood that at least one claim is unpatentable over WO 01/36234 / Carrafiello / Pruzan / Sasson + IEEE 802.11. But Zonar abandoned the trial, so no estoppel attached and the claims remain presumptively valid and wholly untested. If your client is being asserted on this patent today, note the 2024-02-03 expiration — the fight is a backward-looking damages dispute, and you can freely reuse the Zonar art plus anything else.

Companion proceeding (different patent — context only)

IPR2020-00155 — Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC, on US 7,102,494 (the § 120 continuation of the '953 patent, same Lesesky/Weant specification). Filed 2019-11-19; instituted 2020-05-12 (Paper 15); terminated by settlement 2020-08-27 (Paper 23), same day as the '154 termination. Both were resolved as part of the same global deal. This is not a proceeding "on" 6946953 and must not be counted as one — but it is material to why the '953 IPR died.

Strategic summary

Claim status on US 6,9466953 — everything is UNTESTED. Claims 1–24 (three independent apparatus claims — 1, 7, 13 — two independent method claims — 19, 21 — a method/control claim 23, and a CRM claim 24) were challenged but never adjudicated. There is no canceled claim and no surviving-amended claim. Anyone telling you "claims 1–5 were canceled" or "the patent was narrowed in IPR" is wrong. The record shows an institution decision and a settlement — full stop.

Estoppel landscape — the cleanest possible defense posture. Under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2), estoppel bars a petitioner (and its privies/real parties in interest) from raising before a district court any ground "raised or reasonably could have been raised" — but only after a final written decision. Because IPR2020-00154 terminated by joint settlement under § 317 before any FWD, no IPR estoppel attached to anyone, including Zonar. Two consequences follow: (1) Zonar (or any other party, for that matter) can raise the WO 01/36234 / Carrafiello / Pruzan / Sasson / IEEE 802.11 grounds in litigation without an estoppel fight; and (2) there is no paper trail of a "lost" ground that a plaintiff can point to as already-rejected. The prior-art field is wide open.

Pattern signals. No defensive aggregator was ever in the chain — Zonar is an operating company (fleet telematics/inspection), not a Unified Patents–style filer; the Unified Patents name on the Google Patents page is a licensing attribution on the dataset only. No serial filer: Zonar filed exactly two IPRs, one per patent in the family, on a single day, which is the classic signature of a contract dispute being escalated into an administrative pressure play rather than a coordinated invalidity campaign. Patent Owner never pursued a PTAB appeal — there was nothing to appeal — and there is no Federal Circuit docket for this patent found in the record. The only notable procedural oddity is PO's late mandatory notices and the resulting Motion to Excuse Late Filing.

Recommended next steps

1. Do not build a defense around a canceled claim — there isn't one. Instead, pull Paper 16 (Institution Decision, 2020-05-12) from PTAB E2E and read the panel's § 314(a) reasoning and its preliminary merits assessment. An institution decision is a public, citable, Board-level finding of "reasonable likelihood that at least one claim is unpatentable," and it is the single most useful document on this patent. E2E case entry: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabs/ (search IPR2020-00154).
2. Confirm the expiration math before doing anything else. The patent's adjusted expiration is 2024-02-03, and it is recorded as Expired – Lifetime. If a demand letter dated after that date asserts infringement, the damages theory is foreclosed for post-expiration conduct, and § 286's six-year lookback now anchors any residual claim to pre-2020 conduct.
3. Reuse the Zonar art freely — estoppel is not a constraint here. Because there was no FWD, § 315(e)(2) never engaged. Pull Petitioner's exhibit list (Paper 21, 2020-07-31, available via the Docket Alarm case page linked below) and evaluate WO 01/36234, Carrafiello ('691), Pruzan ('603), Sasson (UK 2316583), and the 802.11/Bluetooth/IrDA protocol references as § 102/§ 103 art in your own invalidity contentions.
4. Assume the settlement is off-limits and plan around it. Exhibit 1022 is a confidential settlement agreement; the joint motion to keep material confidential and separate was granted. Do not expect to obtain terms through the public PTAB record — you would need third-party discovery in the D.S.C. action (No. 18-cv-03083) or a collateral subpoena.
5. Flag the ODP gap. If you are relying on the USPTO Open Data Portal API for a due-diligence memo, disclose that it returned zero AIA proceedings for this patent while the patent's own front page and third-party dockets show a terminated IPR. Docket confirmation sources: Docket Alarm (https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/), Unified Patents PTAB portal (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-00154 and https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2020-00155), Patexia document index (https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Zonar-Systems-Inc-v-Innovative-Global-Systems-LLC-id-[130949](/patent/130949)/documents/sort_by/doc_number/sort_dir/asc).

Caveat on completeness: I found no evidence of any second AIA proceeding on US 6,946,953 (no PGR, no CBM, no later IPR). I could not confirm the APJ panel names or the petition's exact claim-by-claim ground mapping from the sources retrieved — verify both against PTAB E2E Papers 2 and 16 before putting either in a filing.

I'll research the assignment record for US 6946953 using the sources available to me.

Let me search for more specific assignment details and the litigation history.

Let me try to find the specific assignment reel/frame records and the litigation campaign details.

I hit the tool-call limit before I could pull the USPTO Assignment Center's reel/frame fields directly. Below is the assignment reconstruction based on what I could verify — Google Patents' legal-events record for US 6,946,953, the PTAB/IPR dockets, and the district-court docket. I flag explicitly where a field could not be retrieved rather than filling it in.

Inventors

Pattern note: Both inventors conveyed to the original assignee (Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc.) by assignment recorded 2002-08-19, roughly 2.5 months after the 2002-05-30 filing. That is the ordinary founder/employee-assignment pattern, not the "all inventors departed the assignee within 12 months → fire-sale" signal. Lesesky in particular remained tied to the asset long enough to appear as an inventor on the successor entity's later patents (e.g., US 7,881,838, assigned to Innovative Global Systems, LLC, Rock Hill, SC).

Original assignee

Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. (VES) — Charlotte, North Carolina.

• Line of business / product: An operating supplier of tractor-trailer electrical and data-communications systems. The patent's own background cites VES's prior products/patents: US 5,488,352 "Communications and Control System for Tractor/Trailer" and US 5,677,667 "Data Communications Apparatus for Tractor/Trailer Using Pneumatic Coupler." This is a real manufacturing/systems house, not a paper entity.
• Product embodying the claims: Consistent with the above, VES commercialized tractor/trailer data-communications hardware (SAE J1708/J1939-based). I could not independently confirm a specific commercial part number for the claimed over-the-air apparatus.
• Current status: Not determinable with high confidence from the sources I could reach. What is documented is that on 2013-08-16 VES transferred this patent out to Innovative Global Systems, LLC. Whether VES was later acquired, wound down, or continues to operate I could not verify — I will not guess.

Assignment timeline

Important sourcing caveat. The USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) and the legacy assignment.uspto.gov index did not return reel/frame, correspondent, or execution-date fields for this patent through the tools available to me. The chain below is reconstructed from Google Patents' "Legal Events / Reassignment" record for US 6,946,953. Reel/frame numbers and the correspondent of record are NOT asserted here because I could not retrieve them — treat the Reel [...] and Correspondent [...] lines as open verification items, not as findings. Google Patents shows the following recorded events verbatim:

• 2002-08-19 (executed on/about 2002-08-19; recorded on/about 2002-08-19) — Reel […not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Alan Lesesky; Bobby Ray Weant (the inventors)
  • Assignee: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — this is the recording attorney/firm for the original inventors→company conveyance; obtain from Assignment Center.
  • Context: Founder/employee assignment to the operating company at filing.

• 2013-08-16 (executed on/about 2013-08-16; recorded on/about 2013-08-16) — Reel […not retrieved]

  • Conveyance: Assignment (ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS' INTEREST)
  • Assignor: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: Innovative Global Systems, LLC
  • Correspondent: [not retrieved] — verification lead: Schwartz Law Firm, P.C. is the attorney of record on related Innovative Global Systems, LLC patents (e.g., US 7,881,838, per Justia), and the assignee sits in Rock Hill, SC. Confirm whether the same firm/attorney is the assignment correspondent on this 2013 recording; if so, this is the recurring-attorney tell to follow across the IGS family.
  • Context: Transfer of the asset out of the operating company to a licensing-oriented LLC (dated 8 years post-issuance).

• 2024-02-03 — Adjusted expiration; status Expired – Lifetime (not an assignment; noted for completeness).

Note on the Google Patents sidebar. The entry reading "PTAB case IPR2020-00154 filed (Settlement) — Petitioner: 'Unified Patents PTAB Data'" is a data-source attribution, not the petitioner. The actual petitioner of record is Zonar Systems, Inc. (see signals below). Do not read that line as "Unified Patents is in the chain."

Also relevant to the chain: the family continuation US 11/079,926 (filed 2005-03-14, priority 2002-05-30) issued as US 7,102,494 and follows the same VES → Innovative Global Systems path.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6946953
    2002 : Filed by Vehicle Enhancement Systems
         : Inventors assign to Vehicle Enhancement Systems
    2005 : Patent issued
    2013 : Assigned to Innovative Global Systems LLC
    2019 : Zonar files IPR on family patents
         : Samsara suit filed by Innovative Global Systems
    2020 : IPR terminated by settlement
    2024 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Present (moderate evidence). The 2013-08-16 recording moves the patent from operating company Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. to Innovative Global Systems, LLC. The "LLC / Holdings-style" licensing posture and the later assertion conduct support it. Caveat: I could not retrieve the assignee's registered-agent address or LLC member structure (the single-purpose/Delaware-or-Texas-Shell tells), so this rests on the transfer + assertion pattern, not on entity-formation records.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Present (as a classified NPE, not on the named "big-list" roster). Current owner Innovative Global Systems, LLC is classified by Unified Patents' PTAB portal as "NPE (Individual)" (see IPR2020-00155 page). It does not match the specific entities enumerated in your list (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.). Treat as a low-profile, inventor-linked NPE rather than a marquee aggregator.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / not retrievable. I could not obtain the correspondent of record for either the 2002-08-19 or 2013-08-16 recording, so recurrence cannot be established. The lead worth chasing is Schwartz Law Firm, P.C. (prosecution counsel on IGS patents), which may or may not be the recording correspondent. Do not treat a single prosecution appearance as this signal — the signal requires recurrence across recordings.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Only one post-issuance transfer is recorded (2013), executed 8 years after issuance. No rapid <24-month chain of successive LLCs is visible on the record I retrieved.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. The transfer (2013-08-16) predates the first assertion activity (2019) by ~6 years — far outside the 6-month window.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present / no evidence. No Chapter 7/11 sale of this asset appears in the record retrievable to me. (Absence of evidence, not proof of absence.)

7. Privateering — Unclear. The inventor-linked successor asserting against competitors (Zonar, Samsara) is consistent with an inventor/NPE monetization model, and could also be read as the original principals continuing to monetize their own portfolio. I found no SEC filing or Patent Progress/EFF coverage documenting an operating company directing IGS to assert on its behalf, so I cannot confirm privateering (nor rule out a self-monetization variant).

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. Note again: Unified Patents appears here only as a PTAB data provider and third-party IPR filer, not as an assignee — it is on the petitioner side.

Supporting litigation evidence (for signals 1–2):

• Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC, IPR2020-00154 (US 6,946,953) and IPR2020-00155 (US 7,102,494) — both filed 2019-11-19, instituted 2020-05-12, terminated by settlement 2020-08-27. Zonar is a large operating company; IGS is the patent owner. (Unified Patents IPR2020-00154, IPR2020-00155)
• Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Samsara Networks, Inc., No. 1:19-cv-01708 (D. Del.), complaint filed 2019-09-12; IGS's Rule 7.1 disclosure states "No Parents or Affiliates Listed." (Unified Patents docket)

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two independent, concrete signals drive this: (1) the 2013-08-16 recorded assignment moving the patent from the operating manufacturer Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. to Innovative Global Systems, LLC, followed by (2) assertion conduct against large operating companies — IGS's 1:19-cv-01708 (D. Del.) suit against Samsara Networks and the Zonar Systems IPRs (IPR2020-00154/-00155, both settled 2020-08-27), with IGS explicitly classified "NPE (Individual)" by Unified Patents and reporting "No Parents or Affiliates Listed." The verdict would be bulletproof with the 2013 reel/frame and the LLC's registered-agent data, which I could not retrieve.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center search: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 6946953; legacy index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html)
• Google Patents legal events: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6946953/en

Two open items to close the record: (a) pull the reel/frame + correspondent for both recordings above; (b) confirm whether Schwartz Law Firm, P.C. (or a related attorney) is the recurring recording correspondent across the IGS family recordings — that is the highest-value remaining tell.

I'll research the prior art cited for US 6,946,953. Let me search for the patent's full citation record and each reference.

The Google Patents citation list was truncated at 12 entries. Let me find the complete list of cited references.

I now have the complete front-page reference list. Let me verify details on the key references, especially the non-Lesesky ones and the examiner-flagged references.

I hit the tool step-limit before I could verify every bibliographic detail, so the analysis below relies on two authoritative sources I did retrieve — the full front-page "References Cited" list from the patent itself (via PTAB IPR2020-00154 Exhibit 1001, and the identical list in continuation US 7,102,494), cross-checked against the Google Patents citation record. Where I could not independently confirm a title or filing date, I say so explicitly rather than filling the gap.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 6,946,953 B2

0. Target patent (literal identification)

• US 6,946,953 B2 — "Apparatus and method for enhanced data communications and control between a vehicle and a remote data communications terminal"
• Inventors: Alan Lesesky; Bobby Ray Weant; Assignee: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. (later Innovative Global Systems, LLC)
• Appln. US 10/158,581; filed May 30, 2002; issued Sept. 20, 2005
• Critical date: pre‑AIA (filed 2002) → 35 U.S.C. §§ 102(a)/(b)/(e) apply; §102(b) bar date = May 30, 2001.

Confirmation that this is the correct record: the IPC/CPC (G08G 1/20; G07C 5/008), the inventors, the claims (24), and the cited references all match. I did not return or rely on any similar-numbered patent.

⚠ Inconsistency flagged (carried from the earlier section): the patent's front page attributes US 5,488,352 to "Jasper," while the specification's own Background cites the same number as "Communications And Control System For Tractor/Trailer And Associated Method" by Lesesky et al. These two attributions conflict. I preserve both and do not auto-correct the "Jasper" line.

1. Complete "References Cited" — US patents (as listed in the patent)

None of the entries below carries an inventor/title in the OCR I recovered except where noted; the descriptions reflect the title/assignee from the Google Patents citation record (confirmed for the 12 shown) or the patent's own Background text.

* = cited by examiner (per the patent's own asterisk).

2. Foreign patent documents cited

The continuation US 7,102,494 front page lists WO 97/28988 twice (duplicate entry). I preserve that reproduction artifact rather than silently merging it.

3. Most relevant prior art — and the §102 reality check

Threshold point: anticipation under §102 requires a single reference disclosing every element of a claim. The signature elements of the independent claims are: (i) a requestor that opens an over-the-air communication window; (ii) transmission of data "substantially devoid of the over-the-air communication protocol" across that window; and (iii) a buffer that holds received data and releases it only when the local transceiver is not transmitting. No cited reference discloses that specific requestor/window + buffer-when-idle combination. Accordingly, on the record I can verify, none of the cited references is a clean §102 anticipation; they are properly §103 obviousness references. I state this candidly rather than forcing an anticipation label.

Ranked closest art:

1. US 6,064,299 (Lesesky et al., 5/16/2000) — the single closest reference. Same assignee, same "over-the-air / through-the-air" vehicle↔remote concept. Best §103 candidate against cl. 1, 7, 13, 19, 21, 24; but it does not show the window-requestor or the idle-gated buffer, so it alone cannot anticipate.
2. US 5,732,074 (Spaur et al./CellPort, 3/24/1998) — the strongest non-family reference. Discloses an in-vehicle controller that (a) connects to the vehicle's controller-area network, (b) converts/encapsulates vehicle data for an over-the-air packet link, and (c) supports two-way remote↔vehicle communication. Maps to the transceiver + protocol-converter elements of cl. 1, 2, 7, 13 and arguably the "computer program product" concept of cl. 24 — but lacks the window-requestor and idle-gated buffer.
3. US 5,790,536 (Mahany/Norand, 8/4/1998) — the best reference for the buffer / store-and-forward / time-delay limitations of cl. 1, 3, 9, 15; still not keyed to "buffer releases only when the local transceiver is idle."
4. EP 0 802 082 A2 (Bosch, 10/22/1997) and WO 97/17232 (VES, 5/15/1997) — vehicle transceiver and vehicle monitoring/control, respectively; secondary §103 art for cl. 1, 7, 13, 23.
5. US 4,996,719 (Stanley Electric, 2/26/1991) and US 5,917,632 (Lesesky, 6/29/1999) — support the alternative-media limitations of cl. 5, 11, 17 (optical/infrared).

Design patents (D403,659; D404,170; D434,006): ornamental designs — cannot anticipate apparatus/method claims and are not meaningfully prior art here.

Same-assignee caveat: many references (#3, 5, 7, 10, 13, 14, 17–20, 22–26, and WO 97/17232) are Vehicle Enhancement Systems / Lesesky-family art. They remain §102 prior art against a different inventive entity, but under pre-AIA §103(c) common ownership/obligation-of-assignment can remove them from the obviousness analysis. This matters to any validity challenge and is worth flagging.

Examiner-flagged references (asterisk): only US 5,913,180 (Ryan) and US 6,532,416 (Mueller) were expressly "cited by examiner," indicating the examiner viewed them as the most pertinent art of record.

4. Explicit uncertainties (do not treat as verified)

1. Tool step-limit reached. I could fully confirm titles/assignees for only ~12 of the 29 US references and 3 of 6 foreign documents; the remainder I have by number/date/inventor only. Any "title not confirmed" flag above is a genuine gap, not a placeholder.
2. US 5,488,352 inventor conflict ("Jasper" on the front page vs. "Lesesky et al." in the spec) is unresolved — reported, not corrected.
3. Post-filing references (US 6,430,485; US 6,532,416; US 6,772,248) can only qualify under §102(e); their effective filing dates relative to 5/30/2002 were not verified.
4. §102 vs. §103: I found no single-reference anticipation of the independent claims on the record retrieved. Treat all "claims potentially affected" entries as §103 relevance, not confirmed anticipation.
5. I did not reach the USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter interface directly this session; the reference list comes from the patent's own front page (PTAB Exhibit 1001) and the Google Patents record, which agree on the U.S. documents.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis by pulling the actual prior-art record and, critically, the grounds the PTAB petitioner actually asserted against this patent family.

I now have the actual IPR grounds. Let me pull the complete set of grounds and the specific references Zonar relied on.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,946,953 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on: the claim-by-claim summary and litigation sections already generated. This section adds the § 103 merits analysis and, importantly, the actual asserted grounds from IPR2020‑00154 — which the earlier litigation section flagged as unresolved but did not contain. No contradictions with those sections were found; see the two flags at the end.

Legal frame (pre‑AIA, since filed May 30, 2002): Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966) — scope/content of prior art, differences, PHOSITA level, objective indicia — plus KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (predictable solutions, design need, market pressure). The § 102(b) critical date is May 30, 2001.

I. Level of ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A person with a bachelor's degree in electrical/computer engineering (or equivalent) and 2–4 years of experience in vehicle data-communication buses (SAE J1708/J1939, RS‑485) and wireless data links, or a master's degree with 1–2 years. Zonar's expert, Ray Nettleton (Ex. 1002), framed the analysis around precisely this skill set. Practical corollary: a PHOSITA in 2002 would have been conversant with the IEEE 802.11 MAC layer, since the '953 specification itself invokes it.

II. The critical threshold fact: the applicant's own admissions

Before reaching the references, three points from the '953 specification dramatically narrow the § 103 distance:

1. The "requestor"/"open window" element is expressly admitted to be standardized 802.11b functionality. The specification states the requestor "is preferably implemented in software capable of opening a window in an over-the-air communication channel in accordance with the IEEE 802.11b standard," and that "[t]he software and command sequence for this to occur is specified in the IEEE 802.11b standard and is well understood by those skilled in the art." That is a § 103 admission that limitations 1(b) and 1(g) — the "first/second requestor" — read on a published standard (802.11b, ratified Sept. 1999, and thus § 102(b) art).
2. The "buffer" element is admitted to be a response to a known problem. The specification concedes that the "one major difference … is the time delay involved in this over-the-air transfer," and that the buffer "advantageously allows the time delay to be compensated for." A design need articulated in the patent is fair game as a motivation under KSR.
3. The protocol-substitution element is admitted to be a near-equivalent. The specification states RS‑485 "advantageously has substantially the same characteristics as the SAE J1708 protocol." That is a design-choice admission for claims 4/6/10/12/16/18.

III. The prior-art record actually of record

A. Examiner-cited art (patent front page, printed)

The Google Patents "Prior art" list supplied in the source material is truncated at 12 of 31 entries; the complete front-page list (from Ex. 1001 to the IPR) is:

B. Art Zonar actually asserted (IPR2020‑00154, filed Nov. 19, 2019)

This is the ground truth for what a competent challenger believed the art showed — and it is materially different from the examiner's list:

• Ex. 1003 — WO 01/36234 (Lesesky) — primary reference
• Ex. 1005 — US 5,440,691 (Carrafiello et al.)
• Ex. 1008 — GB 2 316 583 (Sasson et al.)
• Ex. 1006 — US 6,728,603 (Pruzan)
• Ex. 1007 — IEEE Std. 802.11 and 802.11(b)
• Ex. 1009 — US 7,102,494 (the continuation), Ex. 1011 — US 7,280,898 (claims priority to WO 01/36234), Ex. 1002 — Nettleton declaration
• Asserted Ground 1: "Claims 1, 5–7, and 11–12 are rendered obvious by Lesesky in view of Carrafiello and Sasson" (Pet. at 22–38).

Key analytic insight: the delta between the examiner's allowance and the petitioner's case is essentially the 802.11/802.11b standard document (Ex. 1007), WO 01/36234, and Pruzan. The examiner allowed over a deep stack of vehicle-comms art but apparently did not apply the very standard the specification names as supplying the "requestor/window" function. That is the seam along which an obviousness attack runs.

Source: https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._6946953/docs/11-19-2019-Petitioner/Petition-2-953_Petition_for_IPR.pdf

IV. Claim-by-claim obviousness mapping

The independent claims collapse into three architectural variants (both-ends-equipped, vehicle-only requestor/buffer, remote-only requestor/buffer) plus three method claims and one product claim. The same art disposes of all three variants, because the vehicle-side and remote-side element sets are mirror images of one another.

Ground I — Core architecture: Claims 1, 2, 7, 8, 13, 14

Primary: US 6,064,299 (Lesesky), § 102(b) art (issued May 16, 2000, >1 year pre-critical date). It discloses the entire skeleton:

• a vehicle data communications protocol converter converting SAE J1708/J1939 → RS‑485 → IrDA or RF;
• a transceiver transmitting that through-the-air protocol from the heavy-duty vehicle;
• a remote data communications terminal with a second transceiver and a converter to a third protocol (RS‑232, RS‑422, RS‑423).

That is claim elements 1(a), 1(c), 1(e), 1(f), and 7(a)–(c) and 13(a)–(d) essentially verbatim. The '299 abstract and claim 1 confirm the converter + transceiver + remote-terminal architecture.

Secondary A: US 5,732,074 (Spaur/Cellport) — a remote computer terminal communicating with a vehicle controller over a standardized wireless link, with data memory in the controller storing vehicle-device data and a request/response service model. Supplies the remote-terminal-side buffering and the "remote requestor" concept (elements 1(g), 1(h)).

Secondary B: IEEE Std. 802.11/802.11b (Ex. 1007) — supplies the "request the opening of an over-the-air communication window" limitation directly. 802.11's distributed coordination function (carrier sense + RTS/CTS) is literally a protocol for determining when the channel is available and requesting/opening an access window. The '953 specification itself concedes this element is implemented "in accordance with the IEEE 802.11b standard."

Motivation to combine (Ground I):

• Same field of endeavor: all four references address vehicle/remote wireless data communication.
• Predictable substitution: swapping '299's proprietary IR/RF physical layer for the then-new, standardized 802.11b WLAN link is the paradigm KSR "finite number of identified, predictable solutions" scenario — a PHOSITA seeking interoperability and higher bandwidth would have done exactly this.
• Explicit teaching/suggestion from the applicant's own words: the '953 spec names 802.11b as the windowing mechanism and names '299 as the over-the-air vehicle-comms technique. When the patentee's own specification supplies the linkage, the motivation requirement is satisfied on the patentee's own terms.

Ground II — Buffer / idle-gated transfer / time-delay compensation: Claims 1(d), 1(h), 3, 7(d), 9, 13(f), 15

Primary: US 5,790,536 (Mahany/Norand) — "hierarchical communication system providing intelligent data, program and processing migration," i.e., store-and-forward buffering in a multi-node RF network with deferral of transmission. This is the archetype of the claimed buffer behavior.

Secondary: US 5,440,691 (Carrafiello) — asserted by the petitioner for the buffer/control aspects of the vehicle data bus.

Additional: US 6,728,603 (Pruzan) — asserted by the petitioner; a vehicle information/communication system with wireless buffering.

Motivation to combine (Ground II):

• The problem is inherent in the medium: any half-duplex RF link cannot transmit and receive simultaneously. Deferring serial-port output until transmission completes — precisely claim 3's "acknowledgment … that the … transceiver has completed the over-the-air communication" — is the routine engineering response, and it directly addresses the patent's own admitted "time delay" problem.
• Design need / market pressure (§ 103 KSR factors 5–6): the specification itself frames the buffer as solving collision/missed-data risk, i.e., a known problem with a known family of solutions.
• The claimed buffer is conventional and disclosed at the level of function only — the specification describes it as receiving, holding, and releasing data, with no described structure beyond generic memory. Under KSR, "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods" yields obviousness.

Ground III — Remote actuation / "changing the condition of the vehicle": Claim 23

Claim 23 adds only: receiving the buffered data at the vehicle's electronic subsystem and responsively changing the condition of the vehicle. This is ordinary remote vehicle actuation.

References: US 5,081,667 (Drori — integrating a cellular telephone with a vehicle security system, enabling remote arming/disarming), US 5,802,545 (Coverdill), US 5,884,202 (Arjomand).

Motivation: telematics monitoring and telematics control are two sides of one coin; a PHOSITA reading Drori (remote cellular command of vehicle state) would have had every reason to add remote command to the '299/Spaur monitoring architecture. The '953 spec's own list of controllable functions (engine off/on, door locks, PTO cut-out, RPM/speed control, battery disconnect, governor speed control) confirms these were conventional vehicle actuators, not new subject matter.

Ground IV — Boosters and protocol selections: Claims 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18

• Signal boosters: US 4,996,719 (Okazaki — optical communication apparatus for a motor vehicle) plus the '953 spec's own statement that the booster "advantageously boosts transmission signals … such that the transmission range … can be increased." Increasing transmit power/range is the definitional obvious step.
• SAE J1708 / J1939 and RS‑485 / 232 / 422 / 423: these are pre-existing published standards, listed as alternatives without any asserted criticality. The specification concedes RS‑485 has "substantially the same characteristics as the SAE J1708 protocol," so claim 4's pairing is a mere design choice among known equivalents. Claims 5/6/11/12/17/18 are pure alternative-lists and are obvious per se.

Ground V — Computer program product: Claim 24

A Beauregard-style product claim reciting converting means / requesting means / transferring means. Its patentability rises and falls with the apparatus/method claims (Grounds I–III). Two additional observations:

• The "means" limitations are § 112(f) means-plus-function terms; the corresponding structure disclosed is generic software. As the IGS–Zonar discovery made plain, the interrogatory required IGS to identify "the structures, acts, and materials … that correspond to the claimed 'means'" — i.e., the claim's scope is tied to the disclosed algorithms, which are the 802.11b window sequence and generic buffering. Narrowing construction helps the obviousness case, because the narrowed scope is exactly what the standard teaches.

Method claims — 19, 21, 23

Claims 19 and 21 recite the same sequence as the apparatus claims (request window → transmit data "substantially devoid of the over-the-air communication protocol" → temporarily store → transfer upon acknowledgement that the local side is idle). The same Ground I + Ground II combination disposes of them; there is no separate patentable weight in recasting the apparatus as steps. Claim 21 is the mirror of claim 19 and is met by the same references with the transmission direction reversed.

The actual asserted Ground (for completeness)

Zonar's Ground 1 — claims 1, 5–7 and 11–12 obvious over WO 01/36234 + Carrafiello + Sasson — is structurally the same attack with a different primary. WO 01/36234 (Lesesky) and US 7,280,898 (which "claims priority to" WO 01/36234 per Ex. 1011) are in the same VES/Lesesky family as US 6,064,299 and would carry the same converter/transceiver/remote-converter disclosure. GB 2 316 583 (Sasson) appears to supply the remote-side/buffering aspects. I cannot confirm the content of GB 2 316 583, WO 01/36234, US 5,440,691, or US 6,728,603; my element-by-element mapping above is built on US 6,064,299 and US 5,732,074, whose disclosures I can verify. Treat Ground 1 as corroborating the same theory, not as an independently verified mapping.

V. Where the patent owner would push back (honest counter-case)

A rigorous § 103 opinion must state the weaknesses:

1. "Substantially devoid of the over-the-air communication protocol" (claims 19, 21, 23) is the hardest limitation. Lesesky '299 converts to the over-the-air protocol and transmits that protocol. The '953 claim requires transmitting data lacking the OTA protocol (i.e., transparent pass-through so RS‑485 on the far end is "a replica of the data on the vehicle"). The '953 specification is internally inconsistent here — FIG. 3 block 54 says "data of the over-the-air communication protocol is then wirelessly transmitted," while the summary and claims say "substantially devoid of." A patent owner would argue no reference teaches a protocol-free over-the-air payload. A petitioner must show that a PHOSITA would have understood transparent tunneling as an obvious alternative — supported by the spec's own "replica of the data on the vehicle" framing and the alleged equivalence of J1708 and RS‑485.
2. Claim 24's means-plus-function scope was contested in discovery; narrow construction cuts both ways, but it removes the "generic software" breadth argument from the patent owner's toolkit.
3. No merits decision exists. IPR2020‑00154 was instituted May 12, 2020 — meaning the Board found a reasonable likelihood of success on at least one ground — but was terminated by settlement on Aug. 27, 2020 before any final written decision. Institution is a low threshold; settlement means no claim was ever adjudicated unpatentable, and equally that no claim was affirmed. Neither side can claim a merits win.
4. The examiner allowed over 26 U.S. and 6 foreign references. That is some evidence that the then-known art did not render the claims obvious — though the pivotal difference is that the examiner apparently never applied the 802.11/802.11b standard, the reference the specification itself names.

VI. Objective indicia (secondary considerations)

On balance, objective indicia are insufficient to overcome a well-supported prima facie case, chiefly because the "advantages" recited are the predicted consequences of combining known elements, not unexpected properties.

VII. Conclusion

The strongest available § 103 combinations are:

The through-line motivation is uniform and KSR-compliant: same field; standardized, published solution (802.11b) to the admitted channel-access problem; routine buffering to solve the admitted half-duplex time-delay problem; and the applicant's own specification supplying both the reference linkage and the equivalence of J1708 and RS‑485. The strongest single argument against patentability is that the "requestor" and "buffer" limitations are, on the patent's own admissions, the off-the-shelf 802.11b windowing mechanism plus conventional buffering.

The best defense for the patent owner is the "substantially devoid of the over-the-air communication protocol" limitation in the method claims, which no located reference squarely teaches, and the absence of any merits adjudication (IPR2020‑00154 settled without a final written decision).

VIII. Flags, limitations, and corrections to prior sections

1. Prior-art list was truncated in the source page. Google Patents shows "Citations (31)" but the fetched text rendered only 12. I reconstructed the full examiner-cited front-page list from Ex. 1001; the 12-entry list in the earlier section is therefore incomplete, not wrong.
2. "US 5,488,352" attribution conflict — preserved, not corrected. The printed front page attributes it to "Jasper"; the '953 specification attributes it to "Lesesky et al."; Google Patents lists the assignee as Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. I have not resolved which is correct and have carried the discrepancy forward literally.
3. Reference contents not independently verified: WO 01/36234, US 5,440,691 (Carrafiello), GB 2 316 583 (Sasson), US 6,728,603 (Pruzan), and the IEEE 802.11/802.11b exhibit. I have their identities (from the IPR exhibit list) but not their disclosures. Element-level mappings using these should be re-verified against the references themselves.
4. Priority/filing dates unverified: US 6,430,485 (Hullinger), US 6,532,416 (Mueller), US 6,772,248 (McClure) have post-2002 issue dates; whether they qualify as § 102(e) art against a May 30, 2002 filing depends on their filing dates, which I could not confirm.
5. § 103(c) common-ownership note: US 6,064,299 issued May 16, 2000 — more than one year before the May 30, 2001 critical date — so it is § 102(b) art and the § 103(c) common-ownership exception (which disqualifies art qualifying only under § 102(e), (f), or (g)) cannot remove it. § 103(c) might apply to the Lesesky-family references that qualify only under § 102(e), but that turns on inventive entity ("by another") and on ownership as of the time of invention — a fact-specific inquiry I have not run.
6. No 2026 development found. Consistent with the earlier section: the patent's adjusted expiration is Feb. 3, 2024 (front page: term adjustment of 614 days under § 154(b)); I found no 2026 Federal Circuit or PTAB activity.