US 6950645

I'll search for the specific patent and any related CAFC docket information.

Let me run a couple more targeted searches to confirm the litigation/docket status.

Search results for US Patent 6950645

Search caveat up front: The USPTO/PatentsView and CAFC 2026 oral-argument dockets I could retrieve returned no CAFC 2026 docket entry for 6950645. The only Federal Circuit involvement appearing in the family data is Appeal No. 13-1090 (2013), which is not a 2026 docket. I could not verify the outcome of 13-1090 from the results returned, so I am explicitly flagging that as unconfirmed rather than guessing.

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative patent text provided, cross-checked against Google Patents / Unified Patents)

Assignment chain (per the Google Patents record): filed by Access Systems Americas Inc. (2000-09-28) → PALM, INC. (2001-01-08) → PALM SOURCE, INC. (2003-03-17) → PALMSOURCE, INC. (2004-05-20) → ACCESS SYSTEMS AMERICAS, INC. (2010-08-27, change of name) → ACCESS CO., LTD. (2011-03-04).

Minor source discrepancy worth noting (not auto-corrected): Unified Patents' page lists a priority date of 2000-09-27, grant date 2005-09-26, and expiration 2022-04-03 — one day earlier than the Google Patents figures (2000-09-28 / 2005-09-27 / 2022-04-04). I am reporting both literally rather than reconciling them.

Abstract

A method and system for managing when a responder device (a device having a transceiver for wireless communication) is operating in a discoverable mode in a wireless network such as Bluetooth. In discoverable mode, the responder device scans for and responds to general inquiry messages broadcast by an initiator device. In non-discoverable mode, it will not scan for and/or will not respond to such broadcast inquiry messages. The responder device automatically enters discoverable mode when it enters its awake (powered-on) mode, and automatically enters non-discoverable mode when it enters its sleep/standby (powered-off) mode. This shortens the discoverable window, reducing inquiry responses, pages, name requests, and user-friendly-name exchanges — thereby conserving battery power on both initiator and responder devices and simplifying device discovery for users.

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Claim 1 — Method (core concept). In a responder device, the device automatically goes into discoverable mode when it wakes up, where in that mode it scans for and answers broadcast wireless signals from initiator devices. It automatically goes into non-discoverable mode when it enters standby, where it does not scan for and does not respond to broadcast signals — and standby is defined as a power-conserving mode relative to awake. Separately, the device is automatically set to connectable mode in either awake or standby, meaning it still receives and responds to directed wireless signals that specifically identify that responder device.

Claim 10 — Method (broadcast/collision-flavored variant). Similar to claim 1, but framed around receiving a first broadcast signal that is also received by multiple responders in range. When the device enters awake mode it automatically enters discoverable mode and sends a second signal back to the initiator; when it enters standby mode it automatically enters non-discoverable mode where it receives but does not respond to that first signal. It also automatically enters connectable mode in either awake or standby, responding to a directed signal that specifically identifies it — such that only that responder, and not any other responder in range, receives the directed signal.

Claim 18 — Apparatus (responder device). A device with a bus, a wireless transceiver unit coupled to the bus for communicating with initiator devices, and a processor coupled to the bus that performs the same automatic method of claim 1: auto-discoverable on wake (scan for/respond to broadcasts), auto-non-discoverable on standby (no scanning/no responding to broadcasts), and auto-connectable in either mode (respond to directed signals that specifically identify the device).

Dependent claims worth noting: Claim 5 (and 13, 22) limit the devices to Bluetooth-enabled devices; claim 6/14/23 specify the first signal is an inquiry message requesting the responder's address; claim 7/15/24 specify the second signal carries that address; claim 8/16/25 specify the third signal is a page message directed to that address requesting the device's name; claims 9/17/26 specify the responder is a portable computer system. Note claim 2's "disregarding said first wireless signal when non-discoverable" and claim 4/12/21's "connectable at all times powered on."

Litigation / docket note

The NPE Litigation Database (Stanford) attributes this patent to SmartPhone Technologies LLC (classified as an "acquired patents" asserter) in these E.D. Tex. cases, matching the Google Patents litigation links:

• 6:10-cv-00074 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. Research In Motion Corp. et al.
• 6:10-cv-00580
• 6:11-cv-00530 — v. Amazon.com et al.
• 6:12-cv-00154 — v. Dell, Inc.
• 6:12-cv-00291
• 6:12-cv-00350 — v. ZTE Corp. et al.
• 8:12-cv-00511 (C.D. Cal.)
• CAFC Appeal 13-1090

I found no 2026 CAFC docket for 6950645, and I did not locate a 2026 appellate activity for this patent number in the CAFC scheduled-cases listing I retrieved. Given the patent expired in April 2022, active 2026 appellate litigation over it is unlikely, but I state that as an inference, not a confirmed fact — if you need certainty, the definitive check is the CAFC CM/ECF docket search by patent number and the USPTO Patent Center / PTAB record for 09/675,047 and 11/237,644.

I'll research this patent's litigation history using the litigation portals and web search.

Let me dig into the specific case numbers identified in the patent's litigation records.

Litigation Review — U.S. Patent No. 6950645

Patent identified: US 6,950,645 B1 — "Power-conserving intuitive device discovery technique in a Bluetooth environment"; App. No. 09/675,047; filed 2000-09-28; granted 2005-09-27; inventors David Kammer and E. Michael Lunsford; original assignee PalmSource/Palm, Inc.; current assignee Access Co., Ltd.; legal status "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2022-04-04.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US6950645/en

Important scoping note: My searches also surfaced active litigation by Competitive Access Systems, Inc. (v. Samsung, Apple, Red Hat, Oracle) involving patents such as 7,606,156, 8,228,801, 8,861,349, 9,350,649, 10,868,908, 11,418,641 and 11,582,343. None of those patents is US 6,950,645, and I have excluded them. Likewise, case numbers cited in Realtime Data, G+ Communications, Paneltouch, etc. are unrelated and excluded.

Confirmed litigation record (per Google Patents "Family has litigation," family ID 34992731)

The Google Patents record for this patent lists the following matters as family litigation. Note that Google Patents' links are keyed to family ID 34992731, which contains only US 09/675,047 and its continuation US 11/237,644 (Pub. US 2006/0189359 A1, abandoned).

Google Patents labels the first worldwide family litigation and the 6:11-cv-00530 entry as "Critical," indicating these were the leading assertions of the family.

Case-by-case detail (with confidence levels)

Plaintiff across the E.D. Tex. campaign: SmartPhone Technologies LLC — an Acacia Research–type patent-assertion entity ("NPE (W)"; asserter category "Acquired patents"). Source: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/party/smartphone-technologies-llc

1. 6:10-cv-00074 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. Research In Motion Corp. (E.D. Tex.)

   • Filed 03/03/2010; cause: patent infringement; status Closed 04/11/2013.
   • Source: https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/txed/6:10-cv-00074/smartphone-tech-llc-v-research-in-motion-corp

2. 6:10-cv-00580 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. HTC Corp. (E.D. Tex.)

   • Filed 10/29/2010; status Closed 03/28/2013. This case was litigated in parallel with 6:10-cv-00074 (the consolidated docket is referred to as "6:10-cv-0074-LED-JDL & v HTC Corporation, et al., 6:10-cv-0580").
   • Sources: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txed/6:10-cv-00580/smartphone-tech-llc-v-htc-corp ; https://patents.google.com/patent/[US8488885](/patent/US8488885) (references to "Smartphone Technologies v HTC Corporation, et al., Civil Action No. 6:10-cv-580")

3. 6:11-cv-00530 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., et al. (E.D. Tex.)

   • Filed 10/07/2011; cause: patent infringement; status Closed.
   • Sources: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/party/smartphone-technologies-llc ; https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/txed/6:11-cv-00530/smartphone-tech-llc-v-amazoncom-inc

4. 6:12-cv-00154 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. Dell, Inc. (E.D. Tex.)

   • Source: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/[6928300](/patent/6928300) (confirming this case number as a SmartPhone Technologies E.D. Tex. filing)

5. 6:12-cv-00350 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. ZTE Corporation et al. (E.D. Tex.)

   • Source: https://npe.law.stanford.edu/patent/6928300

6. 6:12-cv-00291 (E.D. Tex.) — listed by Google Patents as family litigation, but I could not confirm the plaintiff/defendant caption or filing date for this specific number in my searches. Consistent with the pattern, it is a 2012 SmartPhone Technologies E.D. Tex. filing, but treat the caption as unverified.

7. 8:12-cv-00511 (C.D. Cal.) — listed by Google Patents as family litigation; I could not confirm the parties, filing date, or outcome. Unverified.

8. Fed. Cir. 13-1090 — an appeal docketed in 2013, temporally consistent with appeals from the early-2013 closures of the RIM and HTC cases (6:10-cv-00074 / 6:10-cv-00580). I could not confirm the appellant/appellee caption, the issues, or the disposition. Unverified.

9. Darts-IP records a "first worldwide family litigation" for family ID 34992731, corroborating that the family (and therefore this patent) was asserted, but Darts-IP does not appear in these results with a captioned case.

Outcomes / current status

• Closed cases (confirmed): 6:10-cv-00074 (closed 04/11/2013) and 6:10-cv-00580 (closed 03/28/2013). Both were terminated in the same window as the Federal Circuit appeal 13-1090, which is a common signature of settlement/license followed by voluntary dismissal, but I do not have a document confirming the disposition terms — treat "settled/voluntarily dismissed" as inference, not verified fact. The Amazon (6:11-cv-00530) matter is likewise shown as Closed.
• No known pending litigation on US 6,950,645. The patent expired 2022-04-04 (adjusted expiration), and the current assignee of record is Access Co., Ltd. I found no assertion of US 6,950,645 by Access Co./Access Systems Americas in my searches.
• Litigation volume caveat: SmartPhone Technologies' 2010–2012 campaign asserted portfolios of multiple patents across several defendants (e.g., 6:10-cv-580/074 involved patents including US 6,928,300 and US 7,076,275). Google Patents links these cases to the '645 family, but the case dockets typically covered many patents, so the '645 patent was very likely one of several asserted patents, not necessarily the lead patent.

Gaps and caveats (stated explicitly)

• I could not verify the caption, filing date, or outcome for 6:12-cv-00291 or 8:12-cv-00511.
• I could not verify the parties or disposition of Fed. Cir. 13-1090.
• Filing dates are confirmed for 6:10-cv-00074 (03/03/2010), 6:10-cv-00580 (10/29/2010), and 6:11-cv-00530 (10/07/2011); for 6:12-cv-00154, 6:12-cv-00350, 6:12-cv-00291 and 8:12-cv-00511 I have only 2012 docket-sequence inference, not a verified filing date.
• Unified Patents litigation portal links returned by the patent record are the authoritative source for the case list; the Stanford NPE Litigation Database and third-party docket mirrors were used to resolve captions.
• No reexamination, IPR, or post-grant proceeding against US 6,950,645 appeared in my search results.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" signal against public sources before writing the report.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6950645: 0. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceedings for this patent, and my independent web checks surfaced no PTAB proceeding, no Final Written Decision, and no Federal Circuit appeal from a PTAB decision. The breakdown is therefore: 0 active / 0 claims invalidated / 0 claims sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution denials. Defensive posture: all 26 claims stand exactly as issued on 2005-09-27 — the claims have never been tested at the PTAB — but the patent expired on 2022-04-04 (Google Patents records its legal status as "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2022-04-04). That combination is unusual and, on balance, favorable to a defendant: you face untested claims, but you face them with no injunctive exposure and a shrinking § 286 damages tail.

Caution on a common misreading: the "Family has litigation" block on the Google Patents page lists US case filed in Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit … case/13-1090. That is not a PTAB appeal. No. 2013-1090 is Futurewei Techs., Inc. v. Acacia Research Corp., 737 F.3d 704 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 3, 2013) — a declaratory-judgment appeal from the C.D. Cal., dismissed under the first-to-file rule in favor of the E.D. Tex. infringement action. Do not let anyone characterize it as an affirmance of a PTAB invalidity holding; it decided no invalidity question at all.

Proceedings

None. There are no PTAB AIA trial proceedings on this patent to report — no petition was ever filed, so there is no proceeding number, panel, ground, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or PTAB appeal to describe. I will not invent proceeding numbers to fill this section. Two structural reasons help explain the blank:

• Timing. IPR/CBM became available 2012-09-16, and PGR only for patents with effective filing dates on or after 2013-03-16. This patent was filed 2000-09-28 and issued 2005-09-27, so it is PGR-ineligible, and the asserted defendants (a 2010–2012 E.D. Tex. campaign) largely predated or just reached the IPR window.
• CBM ineligibility. CBM review (2012–2020) required a claim directed to a "financial product or service" and not a "technological invention." Claims 1–26 recite Bluetooth inquiry/page/name-discovery behavior in a wireless transceiver — a poor candidate for CBM and a good candidate for the technological-invention exception.

Closely related activity (not an AIA trial) — included only because it is the entire litigation history

E.D. Tex. campaign — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. various (asserting '645)

• Type: District court patent litigation, not a PTAB proceeding.
• Asserted claims/art: Not established in the sources I retrieved; I did not confirm claim-level contentions in any of these cases.
• Cases involving '645 (per the Stanford NPE Litigation Database and Unified Patents litigation portal):
  • 6:10-cv-00074 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. Research In Motion Corp. et al. (E.D. Tex.)
  • 6:11-cv-00530 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., et al. (E.D. Tex.)
  • 6:12-cv-00154 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. Dell, Inc. (E.D. Tex.)
  • 6:12-cv-00350 — SmartPhone Technologies LLC v. ZTE Corp. et al. (E.D. Tex.)
  • 6:12-cv-00291 — also listed for this patent; the counterparty is not identified in what I retrieved.
  • 8:12-cv-00511 — Huawei Device Co. Ltd. et al. v. SmartPhone Technologies LLC et al. (C.D. Cal.) — Huawei's DJ action, collateral to the Texas suit.
• Ownership chain: Palm, Inc. → PalmSource, Inc. → ACCESS SYSTEMS AMERICAS, INC. → ACCESS CO., LTD. (current assignee). In 2009 Access exclusively licensed five patents to Acacia Patent Acquisition LLC (APAC), which assigned enforcement rights to SmartPhone Technologies LLC, an Acacia entity.
• Appeal: Futurewei Techs., Inc. v. Acacia Research Corp., No. 2013-1090 (Fed. Cir. Dec. 3, 2013), 737 F.3d 704 — panel: Reyna, Mayer, Taranto (Taranto, author). Affirmed dismissal of Huawei's third-party-beneficiary and alter-ego counts under the first-to-file rule, holding the issues belonged in the E.D. Tex. action. CourtListener.
• Defensive value: The one thing this history gives a modern defendant is corporate context (Acacia/SmartPhone as the enforcement vehicle, Access as the owner with a customer-protection clause in its license that has already been litigated once) — not any validity ruling. Nothing here narrows or cancels a claim.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Every claim — independent claims 1, 10, and 18, and all dependents (2–9, 11–17, 19–26) — is UNTESTED. No claim is canceled; no claim has been sustained; no claim has been construed or invalidated in any reported proceeding. A continuation, US 11/237,644 (pub. US 2006/0189359 A1, filed 2005-09-27), issued to nothing — it is recorded as Abandoned, so there is no separate continuation patent to worry about.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever instituted, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel and no § 325(e)(2) estoppel attaching to anyone. Practically, that means every prior-art ground is still available to a district-court defendant — § 102 and § 103 combinations built on the Bluetooth 1.0B core specification (Dec. 1, 1999), the 1.0A and 1.0B GAP material, and contemporaneous Bluetooth discovery/power-management art were never presented to the Board and are unconstrained by estoppel. There is also no § 315(a)(1) / § 325(a)(1) bar problem, since no petitioner filed a civil action challenging validity before a petition. The absence of any prior IPR also means there is no IPR-flavored record — no Board claim construction — for either side to lean on.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed even once, so the "serial petitioner" and "aggressive appellate patent owner" patterns are both absent. There is no Unified Patents or other defensive-aggregator proceeding in the chain; the only aggregator entity in the history is Acacia/SmartPhone on the assertion side, and the license having been litigated through the Federal Circuit in 2013 makes the Access–APAC–SmartPhone structure well documented and potentially exploitable on standing/license defenses. The patent's expiration (2022-04-04) plus its age (priority 2000-09-28) is the most likely reason no AIA trial was ever filed: by the time IPRs were routine, the remaining damages runway was too short to justify the cost of a petition.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant and the patent has claims invalidated: it does not. No FWD exists, so there is no disposition to quote and nothing to link to at the PTAB. If opposing counsel suggests the claims were canceled or narrowed, ask for the proceeding number and the FWD — there is neither.
• If you receive a demand or complaint today, lead with the calendar, not the merits. The patent expired 2022-04-04, so (a) there is no injunctive relief available, and (b) the § 286 six-year damages lookback from 2026-09-30 reaches only back to 2020-09-30, leaving an approximately 18-month recoverable-accrual window (2020-09-30 → 2022-04-04) even for a fully successful plaintiff. Quantify that tail early; it usually dominates settlement math.
• IPR is still legally available against an expired patent (the Board can institute; claim amendment is simply moot). But between the § 315(b) one-year bar clock, the cost of a petition, and the negligible damages tail, an IPR is usually the wrong tool here. A district-court § 102/§ 103 defense, or a license/standing defense traced to the Access–APAC–SmartPhone agreement, is the higher-value path — and no estoppel blocks any of it.
• Verify before relying on my negative result. I confirmed "no PTAB activity" against the structured ODP block plus targeted web searches, and found nothing contrary. Because the ODP ingest can lag, run the confirmatory checks yourself: PTAB E2E search at ptab.uspto.gov (search by patent number 6950645), the PTAB Decisions library, and the Unified Patents litigation portal entry at portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-6950645-B1. I also did not exhaustively rule out an ex parte reexamination or a reissue, which would not appear as an AIA trial proceeding; if claim scope matters to your case, pull the full prosecution and post-grant history from PatentCenter rather than relying on the absence of PTAB activity alone.

I'll research the assignment record and litigation chain for US 6950645 before drafting.

Let me dig into the assignment records, the SmartPhone/Acacia license structure, and the CAFC appeal outcome.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,950,645 B1

Sourcing note (read first): I could not reach the USPTO Assignment Center's record-level view (reel/frame + correspondent) for this patent through the tools available to me — the searches returned the Google Patents legal-events feed, Unified Patents, the Stanford NPE Litigation Database, and litigation filings, but no reel/frame numbers and no recording correspondent names. Per the operating rules I am not inventing reel/frame numbers or attorney correspondents. The chain below is reconstructed from the Google Patents legal-events record (which mirrors USPTO reassignment data), PEDS-style dates, and the litigation/licensing record. Where the record-level fields are missing, I say so rather than guess. Verification target: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search "6950645") and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

Inventors

Pattern check: The inventors assigned to Palm, Inc. on 2001-01-08, roughly 3.5 months after the 2000-09-28 filing — this is the normal employment/confirmation-of-assignment timing, not an early-departure or fire-sale tell. I have no evidence that either inventor left Palm within 12 months of filing, and I could not independently confirm their later careers. That absence of evidence is not evidence of absence; I flag it as unresolved rather than asserting it either way.

Original assignee

• Entity named on the issued patent: PalmSource, Inc. (per the grant record, "[t]his patent grant is currently assigned to PalmSource, Inc."). Google Patents' "Original Assignee" field displays Access Systems Americas Inc — that is the current-name rendering of the same lineage (PalmSource later renamed), not a separate entity. Flag: these two fields contradict on their face; the resolution is that "Access Systems Americas, Inc." is PalmSource, Inc. after a change of name (2010-08-27). I report both literally.
• Primary line of business (at issuance, 2005): PalmSource was the Palm OS software company (operating-system and platform software for handhelds/smartphones), spun out of Palm, Inc. in October 2003. Parent Palm, Inc. at filing (2000) was the PDA hardware maker (Palm Pilot / m500 series / Palm VII).
• Did an entity ship a product embodying the claims? The claimed subject matter (auto-discoverable-on-wake Bluetooth device) is plausibly embodied in Palm's Bluetooth-capable handhelds and Palm OS Bluetooth stack, but I did not verify a specific shipping SKU in this pass. Treat as likely but unconfirmed.
• Current status:
  • PalmSource, Inc. → acquired by ACCESS Co., Ltd. in 2005; the U.S. entity took the name Access Systems Americas, Inc. (2010-08-27).
  • Palm, Inc. → acquired by HP in 2010; the brand was subsequently wound down/sold.
  • Current record owner: ACCESS CO., LTD. (Japan), per the 2011-03-04 assignment — i.e., the patent terminates in an operating company, not in an NPE.

Assignment timeline

Recorded events below are the five reassignments/name changes appearing in the legal-events feed. Reel/frame and correspondent are unavailable in the sources I could retrieve and are marked [not retrieved] — do not treat those slots as "none recorded."

1. 2001-01-08 (executed/recorded date per legal events) — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: David Kammer and E. Michael Lunsford (individuals)
   • Assignee: PALM, INC.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Employment/confirmation assignment — original inventors convey to the operating company ~3.5 months post-filing.

2. 2003-03-17 — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: PALM, INC.
   • Assignee: PALM SOURCE, INC.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Internal corporate separation — transfer to the newly spun-out Palm OS software entity (Palm's 2003 hardware/software split).

3. 2004-05-20 — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment (cleanup/confirmatory, on its face)
   • Assignor: PALMONE, INC. (note: assigns to PALMSOURCE, INC.)
   • Assignee: PALMSOURCE, INC.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Intra-group reorg/cleanup — post-split confirmatory recording; "PalmOne, Inc." is the hardware successor entity, another artifact of the 2003 split.

4. 2010-08-27 — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Change of Name (as recorded — see below for the interpretive caveat)
   • Assignor: PALMSOURCE, INC.
   • Assignee: ACCESS SYSTEMS AMERICAS, INC.
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Change of name only — PalmSource → Access Systems Americas after ACCESS acquired PalmSource (2005); no change in ultimate ownership.

5. 2011-03-04 — Reel [not retrieved]

   • Conveyance: Assignment
   • Assignor: ACCESS SYSTEMS AMERICAS, INC.
   • Assignee: ACCESS CO., LTD. (Japan)
   • Correspondent: [not retrieved]
   • Context: Intra-group consolidation — U.S. subsidiary transfers record title to the Japanese parent.

Critical structural finding (not a recorded assignment): There is no recorded assignment of the '645 patent to SmartPhone Technologies LLC. Per the complaint in SmartPhone Techs. LLC v. Amazon.com, Inc., No. 6:11-cv-00530 (E.D. Tex., filed 2011-10-07), SmartPhone is the "exclusive licensee" of the '645 patent "with ownership of all substantial rights," including the right to sue. So the assertion was executed by an exclusive licensee (an Acacia Research entity) while record title stayed with operating company ACCESS Co., Ltd. This is the single most important fact for the NPE analysis below, and it means a pure record-title read of the Assignment Center would miss the asserter entirely. Flag this explicitly: any NPE assessment limited to recorded assignments alone would conclude "chain ends at an operating company" and would be wrong about who monetized the patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6950645
    2000 : Filed by Kammer and Lunsford
    2001 : Assigned to Palm Inc
    2003 : Assigned to PalmSource from Palm Inc
    2004 : Assigned to PalmSource from PalmOne Inc
    2005 : Patent issued
         : ACCESS acquires PalmSource
    2010 : Change of name to Access Systems Americas
         : SmartPhone Technologies sues Apple and RIM
    2011 : Assigned to ACCESS Co Ltd
         : SmartPhone sues Amazon over Kindle Fire
    2012 : SmartPhone sues Dell and ZTE
    2013 : CAFC Appeal 13-1090
    2022 : Patent expired

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer (patent moved from operating assignee to licensing-only LLC) — NOT PRESENT at the record level; PRESENT as a licensing conduit.
   The recorded chain terminates at operating companies (Palm → PalmSource → ACCESS). Title never moved to an LLC. However, the asserting entity, SmartPhone Technologies LLC (Acacia Research Corp. subsidiary), is a classic shell-style asserter: per The Register (2010-03-11), SmartPhone "has no website, doesn't show up in the business directory of its stated hometown of Frisco, Texas," and its stated address (6136 Frisco Square Blvd., Suite 400) resolves to law offices, a mortgage broker, a psychotherapist, and a document-shredding service. It held an exclusive license with all substantial rights, not title. Net call: the transfer-to-asserter mechanism is present via exclusive license, not via assignment — cite SmartPhone v. Amazon, 6:11-cv-00530 complaint ¶10.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (strong).
   SmartPhone Technologies LLC is an Acacia Research Corporation (NASDAQ: ACTG) subsidiary and appears on every public NPE list. It asserted the '645 patent in at least seven matters: E.D. Tex. 6:10-cv-00074 (v. Research In Motion), 6:10-cv-00580, 6:11-cv-00530 (v. Amazon.com), 6:12-cv-00154 (v. Dell), 6:12-cv-00291, 6:12-cv-00350 (v. ZTE), plus C.D. Cal. 8:12-cv-00511, and CAFC 13-1090. Assessment against the named list (Acacia Research Corp) = positive match. (I could not confirm the 13-1090 outcome — flag as unverified.)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (data not retrievable).
   I could not retrieve any assignment-center correspondent fields, so I cannot say whether the same recording attorney recurs across links. Do not infer recurrence from absence. Separately, note for context that the litigation counsel of record is a different concept from the assignment correspondent: the Amazon complaint was signed by Nelson Bumgardner Casto, P.C. (Fort Worth), The Simon Law Firm, P.C. (St. Louis), and Ward & Smith Law Firm (Longview) — these are trial counsel, not assignment correspondents, and should not be conflated with the assessment asked for here.

4. Cascading transfers (multiple consecutive assignments through chained LLCs in <24 months) — NOT PRESENT as an NPE pattern; PRESENT but benign as corporate reorgs.
   The 2001→2003→2004→2010→2011 transfers span a decade and track real corporate events (Palm's 2003 hardware/software split, ACCESS's 2005 acquisition of PalmSource, and the 2010 name change). No LLC-to-LLC sprint. Assignees here are operating entities, not shared-address shells.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — UNCLEAR.
   I could not date the exclusive-license grant from ACCESS to SmartPhone Technologies relative to the first '645 suit. The first E.D. Tex. case naming this patent is 6:10-cv-00074 (2010), and the earliest litigation wave against Apple/RIM/AT&T/Motorola was 2010-03-11. If the license was executed shortly before that wave, it is a textbook pre-assertion arrangement, but I have no execution date, so I mark this unclear rather than assert it.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
   No Chapter 7/11. PalmSource was acquired by ACCESS in 2005 (a going-concern M&A), and Palm, Inc. was acquired by HP in 2010. The '645 patent changed hands through acquisitions and internal reorgs, not insolvency.

7. Privateering (operating company transfers to an NPE asserting on its behalf) — PRESENT (strong).
   ACCESS Co., Ltd. (the record owner and an operating software company) partnered with Acacia/SmartPhone Technologies to license and litigate the portfolio. Joint press releases confirm the arrangement: 2010-10-07/08 — Acacia's SmartPhone and ACCESS licensed 74 smartphone patents (owner = ACCESS) to Microsoft; 2011-03-07 — the same pair licensed smartphone patents to Samsung. These are the hallmark of privateering: the operating company keeps title while an NPE runs monetization/assertion against third parties. Notably, the patents ACCESS obtained included "about 200 patents when it acquired PalmSource in 2005."

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
   The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at an operating company (ACCESS) whose patent is being actively asserted through an Acacia NPE.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

The record chain ends at an operating company (ACCESS Co., Ltd.), but the '645 patent was monetized by known NPE SmartPhone Technologies LLC (Acacia Research Corporation) acting as exclusive licensee with all substantial rights (per the SmartPhone v. Amazon complaint, 6:11-cv-00530, ¶10), and was asserted in at least seven district-court matters plus CAFC 13-1090. The privateering structure — ACCESS retaining title while Acacia/SmartPhone licensed the portfolio to Microsoft and Samsung and sued Apple, RIM, Amazon, Dell, and ZTE — supplies the second strong signal. Because the asserter was a licensee rather than a record assignee, an ownership review limited to USPTO recorded assignments would materially understate the NPE character of this patent; the exclusive-licensee record is the controlling evidence.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — search 6950645, and also pull US 11/237,644 / US 2006/0189359 A1 (the abandoned continuation) to check for any separate recording. Reel/frame and correspondent fields for all five recorded events remain unretrieved in this analysis and should be captured directly from the Assignment Center before relying on the correspondent-recurrence signal (which I have left as unclear).

I'll research the prior-art references cited against US 6,950,645. Let me run targeted searches.

The provided patent text lacks the "References Cited" (backward citation) section — it only includes "Cited By" forward citations. Let me find the examiner's cited prior art directly.

Important sourcing caveat up front

I was not able to retrieve the "References Cited" (backward-citation) list for US 6,950,645 within the tool budget for this task. This is a material gap, and I want to be explicit about it rather than paper over it:

1. The authoritative patent text supplied for this analysis does not contain a "Patent Citations / References Cited" section. It jumps from "Priority Applications" to "Family" to "Cited By (51)." The only citation data present is forward citations (later patents that cite 6,950,645) — those are not prior art and cannot anticipate under §102.
2. My web searches returned the Google Patents page, the Unified Patents page, uspto.report, and a wiki mirror — but none rendered the examiner's cited-reference list. The Unified Patents record does confirm the reference count: "Patent Art (8), Non-Patent Literature (0)" — i.e., the examiner (Lana Le) cited 8 patent references and zero NPL items. I could not enumerate those 8.
3. I did not reach a USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter full-text view of the front page, which is where the citation list lives.

Because of this, I cannot responsibly assert "reference X anticipates claim Y under §102" — doing so would mean fabricating citations and dates. Per the operating rule ("If you do not know something with high confidence, say so explicitly rather than fabricating"), I am flagging it instead.

What I can state with confidence

A note on the "similar number" trap (per your instruction)

Several search hits involved numbers that resemble 6950645 but are different documents, and I am deliberately not treating them as prior art for 6,950,645:

• EP 0 695 064 A (Advanced Micro Devices) — appears in a JP search report; different number, different subject matter.
• JP 6950645 B2 (Toyota Gosei, granted 2021) — an unrelated Japanese patent.
• US 6,955,988, US 6,909,645-type strings appearing in unrelated reference lists.

Interpreting "6950645" literally, none of these are the US patent at issue.

The forward citations I did retrieve (context only — NOT §102 art)

From the patent text's "Cited By (51)" list (partial, as supplied):

• US 2002/0140963 A1 — Canon, printer power control (pub. 2002-10-03)
• US 2002/0197956 A1 — Johanna Annola, "Hiding a device" (pub. 2002-12-26)
• US 2004/0037323 A1 — IBM, "Reduction of device discovery delays in frequency hopping-based ad-hoc networks" (pub. 2004-02-26)
• US 2004/0077314 A1 — Microsoft, "Bluetooth smart mode switching for security and privacy" (pub. 2004-04-22)
• US 2005/0261037 A1 — "Conservation of battery power in mobile devices having communication capabilities"
• US 2007/0066307 A1 — RIM, "Controlling visibility of a wireless device in discoverable mode"

These all post-date the 2000-09-28 filing and therefore cannot be §102 prior art; they are useful only for family/landscape context.

Claim-element map (what any §102 reference must teach)

To evaluate the 8 unknown references yourself, here is the element-by-element test derived from the independent claims:

Claim 1 (method):

• (a) Automatic entry to discoverable mode on entering awake mode;
• (b) in discoverable mode, scans for and responds to broadcast wireless signals;
• (c) Automatic entry to non-discoverable mode on entering standby, where standby is a power-conserving mode relative to awake;
• (d) in non-discoverable mode, does not scan for AND does not respond to broadcast signals;
• (e) Automatic connectable mode in either awake or standby, responding to directed signals that specifically identify the responder.

Claim 10: same auto-discoverable/non-discoverable-on-standby logic, plus (i) first signal is a broadcast also received by multiple responders, and (ii) in non-discoverable mode the device receives but does not respond, and (iii) directed signal reaches only the identified responder.

Claim 18: apparatus (bus + transceiver + processor) performing claim 1.

Key §102 gates for this pre-AIA patent (filed 2000-09-28):

• §102(a)/(b): references published before 2000-09-28; §102(b) bar specifically requires publication before 1999-09-28.
• §102(e): US patents/publications with an effective filing date before 2000-09-28.

Most-relevant prior art — honest status

The single reference I can identify with high confidence from the patent's own disclosure (and which the applicant expressly incorporated "as background," i.e., admitted art) is:

• "Specification of the Bluetooth System, Core," v1.0B, dated Dec. 1, 1999 — Generic Access Profile (GAP) §6. It describes inquiry/inquiry scan, page/page scan, and the discoverable/connectable distinctions and standby low-power mode that the claims build on. It is expressly incorporated by reference in the patent's BACKGROUND. Under §102(a) it is prior art (published ~10 months pre-filing); it does not trigger the §102(b) one-year bar because it is within one year of filing. It would be the natural primary reference to map against claim elements (a)–(e), but it is a specification (NPL) and the Unified record shows 0 NPL cited, so it likely was not the examiner's basis.

Beyond that, I cannot name the 8 examiner-cited references without the missing "References Cited" block, and I will not guess at numbers, dates, or §102 mappings.

Recommended definitive retrieval path

To get the exact 8 references and their §102 analysis:

1. USPTO Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) → search "6950645" → open the front page image; the "(56) References Cited" block lists U.S. Patent Documents, Foreign Patent Documents, and Other Publications with dates.
2. Google Patents → US6950645B1 → "Citations" tab (distinct from the "Cited By" tab) — this is the backward list. (Note: the forward list is the one that appeared in your supplied text.)
3. FreePatentsOnline / patentimages PDF of the grant — page 1, column 1, "(56) References Cited."
4. For each retrieved reference, confirm its publication/effective date against the §102 gates above, then map to claim elements (a)–(e) using the table I gave.

If you can supply the page-1 citation block (or authorize another search pass), I will produce the requested per-reference table — full citation, pub/filing date, brief description, and the specific claim(s) each potentially anticipates — with correct §102 subsections. I'd rather deliver that with real data than fill in eight plausible-looking but unverified entries.

Contradiction check vs. prior sections: none found — the earlier bibliographic/litigation sections are consistent with what I retrieved here (Google Patents vs. Unified Patents one-day date discrepancy already noted there still stands).

I'll pull the prior-art section data for this patent and related references before building the §103 analysis.

Let me retrieve the patent's own front-page references and check the exam citations.

Let me pin down the specific prior-art references available before the Sept. 2000 priority date and any invalidity contentions on this patent.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 6,950,645 B1

35 U.S.C. § 103(a) (pre-AIA, as the 2000-09-28 filing predates the AIA)

1. Scope, priority date, and the governing standard

Because the patent expired, any § 103 analysis is retrospective; but the relevant question for the 2010–2012 assertions by SmartPhone Technologies LLC was what a POSITA knew as of September 2000, judged under Graham v. John Deere and KSR Int'l v. Teleflex.

Level of ordinary skill (proposed): a bachelor's degree in EE/CS plus 2–3 years' experience designing short-range wireless (Bluetooth or equivalent) radio systems, or equivalent; familiarity with the Bluetooth Specification of the Bluetooth System (Core and Profiles, v1.0/1.0A/1.0B) and with host-radio interface design (HCI, PC Card/CompactFlash/USB radio modules).

2. What the page's "Prior Art" section actually contains — and a date audit

I must flag a structural problem before doing the mapping, because it changes which references can be used:

The Google Patents record supplied in the authoritative text provides "(51) Cited By" forward citations and a set of "Prior art keywords" (responder device / mode / responder / wireless signal / initiator), but it does not reproduce the patent's own "(56) References Cited — U.S. Patent Documents" list, which is what the examiner actually cited. I could not retrieve that (56) list from the sources returned (the uspto.report and patentimages front-page hits returned abstract/description text and forward citations, not the examiner-cited art). Anything I say about the examiner's cited art would be reconstruction, so I am not doing it.

Second, and more importantly: virtually nothing in the "Cited By" list can be used as § 103 prior art against the '645 patent, because nearly all of it postdates the 2000-09-28 filing:

So the "Cited By" set is evidence of the technological trajectory (discoverability control in Bluetooth became a crowded, well-worked field within a year or two of the '645 filing — Anolina, Microsoft, RIM all filed in this space), but it cannot carry an obviousness case. I have therefore built the grounds below from (a) the admitted prior art inside the '645 patent itself, and (b) references I could verify by search.

3. The prior art that does qualify

3.1 PA-1 — Bluetooth Specification of the Bluetooth System, v1.0A (July 1999) and v1.0B (Dec. 1, 1999) (Core and Profiles)

Status: § 102(b) as to v1.0A (July 1999 < 1999-09-28); § 102(a) as to v1.0B (Dec. 1, 1999). Independently, the '645 patent expressly admits v1.0B as background art: "Section 6 of 'Specification of the Bluetooth System, Core,' version 1.0B, dated Dec. 1, 1999, herein incorporated by reference as background." That admission makes it prior art regardless of the § 102 category.

What it discloses (verified against the PTAB's quotation of Bluetooth Profiles v1.0B, Unified Patents v. 2BCom, IPR2020-00996, Final Written Decision at 39–44 — https://bannerwitcoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/IPR2020-00996.pdf):

• § 4.1 Discoverability Modes: "With respect to inquiry, a Bluetooth device shall be either in non-discoverable mode or in a discoverable mode. (The device shall be in one, and only one, discoverability mode at a time.)" — "When a Bluetooth device is in non-discoverable mode it does not respond to inquiry." — when discoverable, the device "enters an INQUIRY_RESPONSE state and may send a response to an inquiry unless it is unable to respond due to other activity." A device that does not respond to inquiry (whether non-discoverable or merely busy) is a "silent device."
• § 4.2 Connectability Modes: "When a Bluetooth device is in non-connectable mode it does not respond to paging. When a Bluetooth device is in connectable mode it responds to paging"; connectable mode = "periodically enter the PAGE_SCAN state."
• § 6.1 General Inquiry / § 6.2 Limited Inquiry: the initiator sends an inquiry and receives the responder's Bluetooth Device Address, clock, Class of Device and page-scan mode — i.e., inquiry "request[s] an address for said responder device" (claims 6/14/23).
• § 6.3 Name discovery: user-friendly name obtained after a page; § 6.4 device discovery; conditions require discovered devices to be both discoverable and connectable.
• Explicit power/speed trade-off: "The speed of discovery is dependent on the configuration of the inquiry scan interval and inquiry scan type… The Host is able to configure these parameters based on trade-offs between power consumption, bandwidth and the desired speed of discovery." (This formulation appears verbatim in the GAP text in later editions; the 1.0B GAP contains the analogous programmable-timer framework, TGAP(100)–TGAP(104). I flag the edition-level wording as medium confidence — see §7.)

The '645 specification itself concedes the rest of PA-1 as prior art: the entire FIG. 1 flow (inquiry 40 → inquiry responses 42a/42b carrying addresses → pages 44a/44b → page responses → name requests 48a/48b → name responses 50a/50b), the recommendation that the initiator remain in INQUIRY 10.24 s, and the rule that a discoverable device enters inquiry scan every 2.56 s for 10.625 ms.

3.2 PA-2 — the '645 patent's own admissions about the prior-art powered-down device

The specification states, twice, that in the prior art a Bluetooth-enabled PDA "when… turned off (powered down), they may remain discoverable in the Bluetooth environment" and that "when Bluetooth-enabled device 390 is powered off, transceiver 308 may remain connectable." This is an admission that all claim elements except the coupling of discoverability to host power state were already known — and, notably, that connectability independent of host power state was known (the "connectable in either awake or standby" limitation of claims 1/10/18).

3.3 PA-3 — Nüsser & Pelz, "Bluetooth-based Wireless Connectivity in an Automotive Environment," IEEE VTS Fall VTC2000, vol. 4, pp. 1935–42

Cited as Ex. 1006 in IPR2020-00996. Discloses a Bluetooth access point in a car "set… in a non-discoverable mode" that "does not respond to inquiries for connection requests from unknown devices," while "desired devices… are still able to connect to the AP if the Bluetooth device address of the AP is known, [which] should have been stored in a previous connection to the AP."

That is the non-discoverable + still-connectable-to-known-devices architecture of claims 1, 10, and 18, with the security/privacy rationale the '645 patent itself asserts ("screening messages from devices that are unknown to responder device 730").

⚠️ Critical date caveat — do not overlook this. The Nüsser/Pelz paper was presented at VTC2000 Fall, September 24–28, 2000 — i.e., the same week as the '645 filing (2000-09-28). It is therefore not § 102(b) art (critical date 1999-09-28) and its § 102(a) status is doubtful unless a printed version was publicly accessible before the applicant's invention date. In IPR2020-00996 the PTAB initially held Nüsser did not qualify as prior art on public-accessibility grounds, and only found it qualifying on rehearing (https://www.ptablitigationblog.com/panel-grants-rehearing-and-reverses-itself-on-patentability/). For the '645 patent, a post-2000 paper is unusable. I include it only (i) as corroboration of what was known in the art, and (ii) with the note that any Nüsser/Daimler-Benz patent-family equivalent with a 1997–1999 priority date would be the usable form of this teaching. I did not verify such a family member's existence and will not assert one.

3.4 PA-4 — the known practice of gating inquiry/page scan on battery-powered Bluetooth adapters

A Bluetooth serial adapter manual states: "the SD has an internal, rechargeable battery. As stated before, to maximize battery life, the SD INQUIRY SCAN and PAGE SCAN is set to disabled in manufacture. Therefore, to make the SD 'Discoverable' (INQUIRY SCAN) and 'Connectable' (PAGE SCAN), these operations must be manually activated." (http://pdinda.org/rtclass/docs/Promi-SD_manual.pdf). This is direct evidence that the industry practice was to disable inquiry/page scan to save battery, with the scan states tied to an explicit "STANDBY" operational status. Caveat: I could not establish the publication date of this manual; if it is post-2000 it is context only. Treat as low-confidence prior art, high-confidence context.

3.5 PA-5 — Ericsson/Haartsen, "Bluetooth — The Universal Radio Interface for Ad Hoc, Wireless Connectivity," Ericsson Review No. 3, 1998

§ 102(b) art. Teaches the inquiry / inquiry-scan / page / page-scan state machine, the standby state as the default low-power state, and the hold/sniff/park low-power modes. Establishes that a POSITA understood standby = low power and inquiry scan = active radio use, and that the host/application chooses which scan states the unit enters.

3.6 Explicitly excluded

• Cooper, US 2002/0123325 A1 (used against the '210 patent in IPR2020-00996) — published 2002-09-05. Not prior art to the '645 patent. Excluded.
• US 7,603,083 / US 7,796,979 — these cite the '645 as prior art (the '645 is their background); they are later patents and cannot be used against it.
• All 2001+ "Cited By" items from the page (§ 2, above).

4. Element-by-element mapping

Notation: [A] = awake-mode/discoverable coupling; [B] = standby/non-discoverable + no scan/no response; [C] = connectable in either mode; [D] = inquiry→address→response; [E] = directed page/name; [F] = portable computer system.

The single genuine gap is not any individual limitation — it is the automatic, state-driven coupling: "automatically setting… to discoverable when said responder device enters awake mode" and "automatically… to non-discoverable when… enters standby mode." PA-1 discloses each mode and the ability to switch between them; it does not, on its face, tie the switch to the host device's power state.

5. Grounds of rejection under § 103

Ground 1 — Bluetooth v1.0B GAP (PA-1) in view of the ordinary skill and common sense of a POSITA, and in further view of the host-gated radio practices of PA-4/PA-5

Covers: claims 1–9 (and 10–17, 18–26 by parallel reasoning).

• All mode mechanics are met by PA-1 as charted above.
• The coupling element is supplied by (i) GAP's express instruction that the Host configure the inquiry-scan parameters "based on trade-offs between power consumption… and the desired speed of discovery" — i.e., discoverability is a host-controlled, power-motivated setting, not a physical constant; (ii) PA-4's practice of manufacture-defaulting inquiry/page scan to disabled to maximize battery life and tying it to a terminal "STANDBY" status; and (iii) the artisan's common-sense design convention that a suspended/off host issues no HCI commands and its radio is idle.
• Motivation (KSR): the '645 patent itself states the problem verbatim — inquiry scan and inquiry responses "consum[e] power" on "limited power devices (battery-powered devices)"; "more frequent battery charges may be needed, inconveniencing the user." That is the patentee's own statement of the known problem, and the known problem can supply the reason to combine. KSR, 550 U.S. 398, 420–21. Combining two known Bluetooth modes (discoverable / non-discoverable) with a known power-state trigger (host on / host off) is "the combination of familiar elements according to known methods… [yielding] predictable results."
• Reasonable expectation of success: high — no new signaling is required; the modification is a host-side policy for when to issue the standard GAP mode-setting command. (The '645 patent concedes as much: "the present invention can be implemented consistent with and within the framework of the Bluetooth specification.")

Ground 2 — PA-1 in view of PA-3 (Nüsser), for the non-discoverable-but-connectable limitation and its rationale

Covers: claims 1[C], 2, 10, 18.

Nüsser teaches a Bluetooth AP deliberately in non-discoverable mode that refuses inquiry from unknown devices but still accepts connections from devices whose BD_ADDR was stored in a previous connection. That is the precise functional content of "connectable in either mode, responding to directed signals that specifically identify the responder." Motivation: security/privacy and reduction of nuisance connection attempts — the same rationale the '645 specification asserts.
Mandatory caveat: for the '645 patent, use the pre-September-2000 form of this teaching (Nüsser family patent or the 1997–1999 Daimler-Benz disclosure). The VTC2000 paper itself is likely not available as art (§ 3.3).

Ground 3 — PA-1 in view of PA-5 (Haartsen/Ericsson Review 1998, § 102(b)) alone

Covers: claims 1[B]'s "standby is a power-conserving mode relative to awake" and the mode-selection concept. Haartsen establishes the state machine and the power hierarchy (standby < sniff < hold < park < active; inquiry/page scan = active radio use), giving the artisan both the mechanism and the reason to keep a hibernating device out of the scanning states.

Ground 4 — the "silent device" sub-limitation of claim 10

Claim 10 requires that in non-discoverable mode the device "receives but does not send a response to said first wireless signal." PA-1 discloses both halves: a non-discoverable device "does not respond to inquiry," and the GAP defines a "silent device" as one that does not respond to inquiry even though in range. A device that is silent necessarily may have "received" the inquiry. This limitation requires no secondary reference at all; claim 10's only other delta from claim 1 is the multi-responder preamble and the "only said responder device… receives said directed wireless signal" clause, which is inherent in BD_ADDR-addressed paging.

Ground 5 — claims 9 / 17 / 26 (portable computer system)

GAP and Haartsen expressly contemplate mobile phones and handhelds; the '645 FIG. 4 host is a PDA. The dependent limitation adds nothing beyond the stated class of devices, and a POSITA applying a wireless PAN radio to a handheld battery-powered device was doing the obvious. This claim family is also the one most exposed to KSR's "marketplace demand" rationale (the patent's own stated motivation is battery life of PDAs).

6. Why a POSITA would have combined these teachings

1. The problem was stated in the prior art by the patentee itself. The specification's entire "BACKGROUND ART" is a recitation of the known deficiencies (power drain from inquiry scan; collisions; name-list clutter; unwanted discovery). A patent's own characterization of the prior-art problem can supply the motivation. No teaching away exists.
2. Express prior-art instruction to do the thing. GAP tells the Host to trade off power consumption against discovery speed — the artisan is directed to control discoverability for power reasons.
3. Finite, predictable options. The design space was: (a) always discoverable, (b) never discoverable, (c) discoverable on a timer, or (d) discoverable conditional on host state. Choosing (d) and implementing it with the existing GAP mode commands yields the predictable benefit of eliminating the scan duty cycle while the device is off. KSR: "when there is a design need or market pressure to solve a problem and there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, a [POSITA] has good reason to pursue the known options."
4. Design incentives / market forces. The '645 patent's own assignee marketed battery-limited PDAs; battery life was the dominant constraint in the 1999–2000 handheld market.
5. Verification by later filings in the same space. Within roughly a year of the filing, Nokia (US 2002/0197956, "Hiding a device," 2001), Microsoft (US 2004/0077314, "Bluetooth smart mode switching for security and privacy," 2002), and RIM (US 2007/0053313, "Controlling visibility of a wireless device," 2005) all filed on discoverability control. Desirable — but I must be explicit that these are post-priority filings and are therefore usable only as evidence of the crowdedness/obviousness of the field's direction, never as § 103 art against the '645.

7. Rebuttal analysis — where the patent owner has arguments

Likely (and reasonably strong) arguments:

• The prior art affirmatively went the other way. The '645 specification admits that prior-art Bluetooth PDAs "may remain discoverable" and "remain connectable" when powered down. The patent owner can argue this is teaching away from the claimed coupling: the art's design premise was that a Bluetooth radio runs independently of the host power state, and a POSITA starting from that premise would not couple them. This is the single best non-obviousness argument, and it is why Ground 1 depends on supplying a reason to decouple discoverability from connectability.
• Claim 1's "standby mode" is the host's standby, not the radio's. GAP's "standby" is a link-controller state of the Bluetooth unit. To read PA-1 as teaching "responder device enters standby mode → non-discoverable," the petitioner must map "standby" across two different layers (host vs. baseband). Claim 1's own caveat — "said standby mode is a power-conserving mode relative to said awake mode" — is drafted to paper over that gap. Expect the patent owner to argue the mapping requires an unsupported inference. Counter: the '645 specification itself equates them ("standby (or sleep) mode," "powered off (asleep)," "turned off (powered down)"), and the claim-construction record in 6:10-cv-00074 construes "initiator device" broadly as "a device capable of sending broadcast wireless signals and directed wireless signals," reflecting a broad, functional reading of the claim terms (https://cases.justia.com/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/6:2010cv00074/[121338/402](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=121338-0402)/0.pdf).

Likely to fail:

• "Automatic" as a point of novelty. Claim construction treats "automatically setting" by its plain meaning; the limitation is a control-logic detail, and KSR disfavors finding novelty in the automation of a known function. No new hardware or protocol is required.
• Secondary considerations. I found no evidence in the record of commercial success attributable to the '645, licensing-nexus evidence, or a long-felt-need showing tied to the claims. The patent expired in 2022 and the asserting entity was an acquired-portfolio NPE (SmartPhone Technologies LLC), which weakens nexus arguments. Flagging as unverified: I did not find an objective-indicia record — but I also found no evidence it exists.

Confidence grading:

• PA-1 disclosures (§ 4.1/4.2/6.x, non-discoverable = no INQUIRY_SCAN, connectable = PAGE_SCAN, silent device): high — verified against a PTAB FWD quoting Bluetooth Profiles v1.0B (Dec. 1, 1999).
• v1.0A = § 102(b) / v1.0B = § 102(a): high, from the stated dates and the patent's own admission.
• The exact wording "Host is able to configure these parameters based on trade-offs between power consumption, bandwidth and the desired speed of discovery": medium — I retrieved it from GAP text that also contains eSCO/Secure Simple Pairing (a later edition), so I cannot certify it appears verbatim in 1.0B, though the programmable inquiry-scan-timer framework and power/delay trade-off are present in the 1.0B GAP.
• Nüsser/Pelz as prior art: low / likely unavailable (Sept 24–28, 2000 publication vs. 2000-09-28 filing). Included only in the form described in § 3.3.
• Promi-SD "/AT+BTSCAN" manual as prior art: low (undated in what I retrieved); medium-high as industry-practice context.
• The examiner's (56) cited references: not retrieved — the page text supplies forward "Cited By" citations only.

8. Bottom line

On the record assembled here, claims 1–9 and 18–26 are the most vulnerable, and the strongest single ground is:

Ground 1: Bluetooth Specification of the Bluetooth System v1.0A/1.0B GAP §§ 4.1, 4.2, 6.1–6.4 — which discloses the discoverable / non-discoverable / connectable mode structure, that non-discoverable means "never enter the INQUIRY_SCAN state" and "does not respond to inquiry," that connectable means responding to an addressed page, the inquiry→BD_ADDR→page→name-discovery sequence, and the express Host-side power-consumption trade-off — in further view of the known practice of gating inquiry/page scan on host/battery power state (PA-4/PA-5), and in further view of the non-discoverable-but-connectable rationale of Nüsser-family art (PA-3) for the "connectable in either mode" limitation.

Claims 10–17 stand or fall with the same art because claim 10's only substantive deltas are (i) the "receives but does not respond" variant, which is the GAP "silent device" concept, and (ii) the multi-responder/"only said responder device receives the directed signal" preamble, which is inherent in BD_ADDR-directed paging.

The pivot point for any challenge is the automatic coupling of discoverability to the host's awake/standby state. It is a thin reed — it adds no new signaling, no new hardware, and only a policy decision that the prior art both motivated (GAP's express power trade-off) and arguably taught against (the admitted practice of staying discoverable while powered down) — but it is the only genuine point of novelty, and a § 103 challenge that fails to supply a specific secondary teaching tying the scan states to the host power state will likely fail with it. My assessment is that the claims would more likely than not have been held obvious, but I rate that conclusion moderate confidence, chiefly because I could not obtain the patent's own cited-art list and because the best secondary references (Nüsser; the adapter manual) carry unresolved date problems.

Recommended verification steps before relying on this: (1) pull the (56) "References Cited" list from the granted patent front page or USPTO Patent Center/IFW for 09/675,047 — the examiner (Lana Le) cited art I have not seen; (2) check the litigation record in 6:10-cv-00074 (E.D. Tex.) for RIM's/HTC's invalidity contentions and any § 282 notice, which would name the actual art the parties believed invalidated the '645; (3) obtain the July 1999 v1.0A Core and the Dec. 1, 1999 v1.0B Core/Profiles to fix the exact § 102(b)/§ 102(a) boundary and the exact GAP wording; (4) verify whether any Nüsser/Daimler-Benz patent-family member predates September 1999.