US 7245632

I'll verify the patent details and check for any litigation/docket activity.

Let me check for litigation/docket records and verify the claim set.

Let me confirm the full claim set and check for any CAFC 2026 activity.

US Patent 7,245,632 B2 — Analyst Summary

1. Bibliographic Data

Source: Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US7245632/en (fetched 2026‑09‑30).

Uncertainty note: The bibliographic fields above are taken directly from the authoritative Google Patents record supplied. The exact GB application number underlying the 2001‑08‑10 priority date is not shown in that record, so I cannot state it with confidence.

2. Abstract

I do not have the verbatim abstract text in the authoritative source provided. The Google Patents rendering I was given reproduces the "Definitions"/description text and the claim set, but not a clean abstract block. Rather than reconstruct one from memory, I flag this as a gap.

The closest authoritative statement of the invention's stated purpose, from the specification as rendered, is:

"Accordingly, an embodiment of the present invention seeks to reduce the impact on the external information processing network through the use of dedicated external storage connections."

and

"An embodiment of the invention can thus enable external storage to be provided in a modular system with a minimum of internal connections and without impacting bandwidth on external network connections."

If you need the exact abstract wording, it should be pulled from the USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Full‑Text record for 10/143,538 or the printed front page of the patent.

3. Independent Claims — Plain‑Language Overview

The specification describes three distinct aspects of the invention, which correspond to the independent claims. Claim 1 is verbatim‑confirmed from the source text.

Claim 1 — Computer system (storage‑gateway blade shelf)

A computer system comprising:

1. At least one information processing module (a server blade) having at least one module information connection for communicating information signals.
2. At least one switch module having:

• at least one internal switch information connection for communicating information signals;
• at least one external switch information connection for connection to an external information network; and
• at least one external storage connection for connection to external storage under an external storage channel format.

1. A carrier (e.g., a rack‑mountable shelf) including an interconnection member (a midplane) that interconnects the module information connection with the internal switch information connection.
2. Wherein the switch module includes a protocol converter operable to convert between information packets carrying packet‑format storage data and signals in the external storage channel format; and
3. Wherein the information processing module includes a packet‑format storage protocol driver operable to communicate information packets containing storage data in packet format with the protocol converter.

In plain terms: a blade‑server shelf whose switch module is also a storage gateway. The blades carry ordinary packet‑format storage traffic (the specification's worked example is iSCSI over IP) across the shelf midplane on the same Ethernet/Infiniband links used for normal information traffic. The switch module converts that traffic to a native storage channel format — the specification's example is "Fiber Channel" (Fibre Channel), over FC‑AL, via a PCI/FC‑AL interface and GBIC to an optical connector — for connection to direct‑attached storage (DAS) or a storage area network (SAN). Because storage traffic exits through dedicated storage ports rather than the external network uplinks, it does not consume external network bandwidth, and no new midplane conductors are needed.

Second independent claim — Server blade with a storage interface

Per the specification's summary of a further aspect, this claim is directed to a server blade comprising:

• at least one processor and memory;
• at least one blade information connection for communicating information signals; and
• a storage interface operable to communicate storage data to and from external storage via the information connection.

In plain terms: the blade itself is claimed, with the point being that it reaches external storage through its ordinary information connection (i.e., the fabric/packet path), rather than through a dedicated onboard storage controller, dedicated storage pins, or an internally mounted disk drive. This is the blade‑side counterpart to the switch‑side converter of claim 1.

Third independent claim — Switch module for a carrier

Per the specification's summary of a further aspect, this claim is directed to a switch module for a carrier operable to receive at least one information processing module, the switch module comprising:

• at least one internal switch information connection for communicating information signals with each information processing module;
• at least one external switch information connection for connection to an external information network;
• at least one external storage connection for connection to external storage under an external storage channel format; and
• a protocol converter operable to convert between information packets comprising packet‑format storage data received from an information processing module and signals in the external storage channel format.

In plain terms: the switch/storage‑gateway module claimed on its own, independent of the shelf and blades — the same three‑port concept (blades in, network out, storage out) plus the iSCSI→Fibre Channel conversion function.

Uncertainty note: The source text I was given states the substance of the second and third independent claims in the "Definitions"/summary section (the paragraphs beginning "Another aspect of the invention can provide a server blade…" and "a further aspect of the invention can provide a switch module…"), and I have verified the existence of these two further claim categories. However, I do not have the verbatim claim language or the exact claim numbers of these two independent claims from the authoritative record fetched — only claim 1's verbatim text. Dependent claims 2–5 are partially visible (removability of switch module; removability of processing module; plurality of module receiving locations) but the full dependent set and total claim count were not captured. Treat the second and third claim overviews as accurate in substance but unverified as to numbering and exact wording.

4. Litigation and CAFC Docket Status

I found no District Court or Federal Circuit docket activity asserting US 7,245,632. Specifically:

• Searches directed at the patent number returned zero Federal Circuit hits and no district‑court complaint identifying 7,245,632 as an asserted patent.
• Oracle America, Inc. / Oracle Corporation is a frequent defendant in W.D. Tex. patent suits in the 2024–2026 window — e.g., AlmondNet, Inc. v. Oracle Corp., No. 6:24‑cv‑00303 (W.D. Tex.); VirtaMove, Corp. v. Oracle Corp., No. 7:24‑cv‑00339 (W.D. Tex.); FrameTech LLC v. Oracle Corp., No. 7:25‑cv‑00020 (W.D. Tex., voluntarily dismissed 2025‑03‑24); Mobility Workx, LLC v. Oracle Corp., No. 7:26‑cv‑00031 (W.D. Tex., filed 2026‑01‑29); WiFidelity LLC v. Oracle Corp., No. 7:26‑cv‑00240 (W.D. Tex., filed 2026‑06‑24, terminated 2026‑08‑05) — but none of the retrieved pleadings or status reports in those matters identify US 7,245,632 as a patent‑in‑suit. (Those cases concern unrelated patents such as US 8,244,582, US 8,677,398, US 7,519,814, and US 7,784,058.)
• Related Sun/Oracle storage‑blade patents also appear in ex parte reexamination and IPR proceedings in the field (e.g., reexam 90/015,285), but I found no post‑grant challenge to 7,245,632 itself.

Caveats on this finding:

• Absence of search hits is not proof of absence. I could not directly query PACER, Docket Alarm's or RPX's full dockets for the specific patent, or the CAFC's docket system; my evidence is drawn from general web search results only.
• The patent is recorded as expired as of 2025‑03‑27. As of today (the analysis date you set), it cannot be asserted for ongoing infringement. A claim for pre‑expiration damages within the six‑year lookback is theoretically possible, but the record shows no such action.

5. Summary of Uncertainty

If you need court‑grade certainty on the litigation and abstract points, the next step would be a direct PatentCenter/PAIR file‑history pull plus a PACER and CAFC docket query keyed to the patent number and to Oracle America, Inc.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7245632 across patent litigation databases and court records.

Let me search more targeted sources for this specific patent.

Summary Finding

Based on my searches of patent litigation sources (Unified Patents, CourtListener, CAFC opinions, PTAB records, and general litigation coverage), I found no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,245,632 — neither district court infringement actions, declaratory judgment actions, ITC investigations, nor PTAB post-grant proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM).

Applying your strict rule, I treated "7,245,632 / US7245632" as a literal identifier and excluded similar-but-different numbers (e.g., 7,245,635; 6,967,563; 7,512,563; 7,245,632-adjacent JP 特許第7245632号, which is an unrelated Japanese tire patent by Bridgestone, and a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement numbered "7245632" for the City of Chino — neither of which is this U.S. patent).

Requested Case Table

There is therefore no case to report with plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, or outcome.

Supporting Context on the Patent

• Title: "External storage for modular computer systems"
• Patent No.: US 7,245,632 B2
• Application No.: US 10/143,538; filed 2002-05-10
• Priority date: 2001-08-10
• Issued: 2007-07-17
• Original assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.; current assignee: Oracle America, Inc. (via Sun acquisition, recorded 2015-12-16)
• Inventors: Peter Heffernan, Martin P. Mayhead, Paul J. Garnett, James E. King
• Legal status: Expired – Lifetime; adjusted expiration 2025-03-27
• Family members (foreign/related): AU2002321437A1, WO2003014925A2, EP1415453A2, GB2379091B, GB2379092B

The absence of litigation is consistent with this being a large operating-company (Sun/Oracle) portfolio patent covering blade-server external storage architecture, which — unlike NPE-asserted patents — was not a subject of public infringement suits in the sources searched. Note also that the patent's term is now expired (2025-03-27), which further reduces the likelihood of any newly filed assertion.

Important Caveats

1. Search limitations: I could not fully access PACER dockets or the Unified Patents litigation portal's internal case-list database directly; my results come from indexed web content. A PACER/Unified Patents docket search keyed exactly to "7,245,632" would be the authoritative confirmation.
2. Confidence: I am stating with reasonable confidence that no public litigation is known, but I cannot rule out a sealed, settled-before-service, or very-low-profile action that never generated an indexed record.
3. Do not auto-correct: I have not substituted any similar number for 7,245,632, and I have flagged the three unrelated documents that merely share the digit string.

If you can provide PACER credentials or want me to run additional targeted queries (e.g., specific district-court dockets or a Docket Navigator/Unified Patents exact-match lookup), I can attempt a more definitive verification.

I'll verify the structured-data default against live sources before drafting.

No hits yet. Let me run more targeted checks — including reexamination/litigation history and defensive-aggregator activity.

Let me run two final targeted checks — the PTAB proceedings search and the patent's term/expiration status.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US Patent 7,245,632

Patent: US 7,245,632 B2 — "External storage for modular computer systems"
Inventors: Peter Heffernan; Martin P. Mayhead; Paul J. Garnett; James E. King
Original assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc. → current owner Oracle America, Inc. (per the reassignment recorded 2015-12-16, merger/name change)
Appl. No.: 10/143,538 · Filed: 2002-05-10 · Priority: 2001-08-10 · Granted: 2007-07-17
Claim set: independent claim 1 (computer system: information processing module + switch module with internal switch information connection, external switch information connection, and external storage connection under an external storage channel format; carrier/interconnection member; switch-module protocol converter between packet-format storage data and the external storage channel format; and a packet-format storage protocol driver in the information processing module) plus dependent claims 2 et seq.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for US 7,245,632, and independent web checks surfaced no petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or Federal Circuit appeal tied to this patent. That means the count is 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution-denied — there is no IPR history to work from.

The bottom line for a defendant is therefore not "the patent is hardened by surviving IPRs" and not "the claims are already dead." It is something more fundamental: US 7,245,632 has never been tested at the PTAB at all, and it expired on 2025-03-27 (Google Patents legal status: "Expired – Lifetime, expires 2025-03-27"; "2025-03-27 Adjusted expiration"). As of today (2026-09-30) the patent is past term, so the only residual exposure is past damages under the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback — and even that window is now closed for any product shipped after 2025-03-27. If a demand letter is citing this patent as a live, ongoing royalty obligation, that premise is wrong on its face.

Proceedings

No proceedings to report. There is no IPR, PGR, or CBM number, petitioner, panel, institution decision, FWD, settlement, or appeal to summarize for US 7,245,632. I am deliberately not populating the per-proceeding template with placeholder or inferred numbers — the instruction is to avoid inventing proceeding numbers and to say plainly when no PTAB activity exists.

Strategic summary

Claim status. Not "canceled" and not "sustained" — untested. All claims of the '632 patent, including independent claim 1 and its dependents, stand exactly as they issued on 2007-07-17. No claim has ever been canceled, confirmed, or amended through an AIA trial, and no certificate of correction/cancellation of that kind appears in the record. The specification's own description of the claimed architecture — iSCSI/IP packet-format storage data carried over the internal Ethernet (or Infiniband) connections between server blades and the CSSP, converted at the switch module to Fiber Channel (FC-AL) for transmission to external DAS or SAN storage via the GBIC/optical connection — is the substance a petitioner would have to attack, and no one has tried. Because the patent is expired, claim construction in any belated challenge would follow Phillips rather than the Samsung v. Infuse / living-patent amendment-friendly framework; that slightly favors a challenger on indefiniteness-adjacent issues but does nothing to change the claim scope.

Estoppel landscape. Empty. Since no petitioner has ever filed an IPR or PGR against the '632 patent, no one is subject to 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) estoppel with respect to it, and no real party in interest or privy of any petitioner is foreclosed from any ground. Practically, though, estoppel is not the lever here — the term is. If you are nonetheless facing an assertion (e.g., a letter demanding pre-2025 royalties), the full universe of § 102/§ 103 prior art remains available to you in district court on the lower-threshold-but-higher-burden path: invalidity must be proven by clear and convincing evidence, but you face no PTAB-discretionary-denial risk and no time-bar under § 315(b). The Sun/Sun Microsystems blade-server prior art of the 1999–2001 vintage is the natural place to look, and nothing in the record shows it has ever been run against these claims.

Pattern signals. There are none to read. No serial petitioner, no repeat filer, no General Plastic / § 314(a) Fintiv fact pattern, no joinder, no Director review, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) in the chain surfaced in the searches — which is unsurprising for a patent that was never litigated and is now expired. Oracle America appears in my search results only as a petitioner against other parties' patents (e.g., Oracle America, Inc. v. Realtime Data LLC, IPR2016-00373/00374/00375/00376/00377, institution decisions mailed 2016-06-27 and denials 2016-07-01) — that is Oracle on offense, not this patent on defense, and it has no bearing on the '632 patent. Separately: do not conflate this patent with JP Patent No. 7245632 (a Bridgestone tire patent) or with unrelated "7245632" contract identifiers; those appear in search results and are different instruments entirely.

Recommended next steps

1. Lead with expiration, not with PTAB. If you are a defendant or a recipient of a demand letter on US 7,245,632, verify the expiration date against USPTO Patent Center / Global Dossier and then confirm the file-wrapper for any PTA or terminal disclaimer. The patent text's own record shows the adjusted expiration as 2025-03-27. Post-expiration, the patent owner cannot obtain injunctive relief and cannot recover royalties for any post-expiration activity; any claim to ongoing royalties is baseless.
2. Scope the residual past-damages exposure. Under § 286 the damages reach-back is six years before filing of the complaint — from 2020-09-30 forward — and it terminates at 2025-03-27. Demand an accounting of exactly which accused products, shipment dates, and revenue are inside that bounded window before engaging on the merits at all.
3. Do not budget for an IPR. With no PTAB proceeding on file and no estoppel to worry about, there is no reason to incur an IPR filing, and no FWD to cite or link. If a demand letter represents that the patent "has been upheld by the PTAB" or "survived IPRs," that representation is false — nothing about this patent has ever been before the Board. Ask for the proceeding number; there isn't one.
4. Preserve invalidity defenses regardless. Because nothing has been adjudicated, all § 102/§ 103 grounds remain live and unestopped if the dispute does proceed. Run the Sun-era blade server / FC-AL-to-iSCSI bridging art of 1999–2001, and keep in mind the specification's own admission that an embodiment "does not require any specific electrical connections to be provided in the midplane and the midplane connectors of the CSSP 71 and the server blades 43 to implement the external storage solution" — useful written-description and obviousness material.
5. Re-verify before you rely. The structured ODP block is the canonical source and it is empty; I could not locate any PTAB final written decision, institution decision, or CAFC opinion for this patent. If new AIA activity has been filed but not yet indexed, it would appear as a new proceeding number in USPTO PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions — check there rather than relying on this memo as of a later date.

Sources consulted: the authoritative patent text provided (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US7245632/en, including the "Proceedings/legal status" data showing "Expired – Lifetime" with adjusted expiration 2025-03-27); USPTO ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block (empty); USPTO PTAB decisions / ptacts.uspto.gov and PTAB E2E search (no '632 proceedings); and web searches for IPR2018/2019/2020/CBM and Unified Patents activity against "7,245,632" (no results). No Final Written Decision, institution decision, or Federal Circuit opinion exists for this patent to link to. Where I could not confirm something with high confidence — in particular the precise PTA-derived expiration date — I have flagged it rather than stated it as a legal conclusion.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7245632 before assembling the analysis.

The first pass surfaced unrelated hits (a Microsoft EA number and an unrelated Japanese tire patent JP7245632). Let me target the actual US record.

I have the patent's legal events from the authoritative text. Now let me check for litigation/assertion history and any post-Oracle transfers.

I've gathered what I can and hit the tool-call limit. Here is the reconstruction, with one important data-availability caveat flagged up front.

Data-availability caveat (read first): I was able to confirm that US 7,245,632 has two recorded ownership events — they appear in the Google Patents "Legal Events" table on the authoritative page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7245632/en) — but I could not retrieve the specific reel/frame numbers, execution dates, or correspondent of record from the Assignment Center in this session. I will not invent reel/frame values. The two links below are the verified events; the reel/frame and correspondent fields must be pulled from Assignment Center before this analysis is treated as final. Treat every "reel/frame" field below as UNVERIFIED — pull from source.

Inventors

Basis: The four names appear as co-inventors on the granted patent. Their UK residency and employment are corroborated by (a) the co-assignor on the 2002 assignment cited in Google Patents' legal events — "SUN MICROSYSTEMS LIMITED" is named alongside the four individual inventors — and (b) the sibling EP application EP 1 286 272 ("Interface standard support in modular computer systems"), which names the identical four inventors at UK addresses (Camberley/Berkshire/Surrey/Hampshire) with Sun Microsystems, Inc. as applicant.

Unusual-pattern check — nothing anomalous. The presence of the UK subsidiary as a co-assignor is the ordinary mechanism by which a US multinational perfects rights from foreign-employed inventors: employee inventors assign to their local employing company, which in turn assigns to the US parent. There is no evidence any inventor departed within 12 months of filing, and no inventor-level reversionary or security interest appears. This does not fit the "inventors bailed out before the fire-sale" precursor.

Number-collision hygiene note: "7245632" collides with unrelated records — JP 7245632 B2 is a Bridgestone tire patent, and "7245632" is also a Microsoft Enterprise Agreement number. Neither is relevant here; do not let a keyword search for the bare number contaminate this file.

Original assignee

Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Santa Clara, California) — the entity named on the face of the issued patent, via an assignment from the four inventors and Sun Microsystems Limited recorded 2002-08-22 per the Google Patents legal-events table.

• Primary line of business: enterprise computer systems — SPARC workstations and servers, the Solaris operating system, Java, and high-density rack/blade server platforms. This patent sits squarely in that last category: the specification describes a rack-mountable "shelf" carrying up to sixteen server blades, redundant Combined Switch and Service Processor (CSSP) modules and dual PSUs, with iSCSI-to-Fibre-Channel protocol conversion for external storage (see claim 1 and the FIG. 19–20 description).
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? Substantially yes at the platform level: the described architecture (blade shelf + CSSP with switch and shelf service processor + Fibre Channel external storage path) corresponds to Sun's blade server shelf product line. I did not verify the commercial part number claim-by-claim in this review — treat "shipped an embodying product" as high-confidence but not claim-mapped.
• Current status: No longer independent. Sun Microsystems, Inc. was acquired by Oracle Corporation (deal announced April 2009, closed 27 January 2010). Sun's US operating entity became Oracle America, Inc., a wholly owned Oracle subsidiary. Sun did not enter Chapter 7 or Chapter 11.
• Current owner of record: Oracle America, Inc. (per the 2015-12-16 "merger and change of name" event), with Oracle Corporation as corporate parent (as Oracle itself represents in Rule 7 disclosure statements, e.g. Mobility Workx, LLC v. Oracle Corp., W.D. Tex. 7:26-cv-00031, Dkt. 12/17).

Assignment timeline

Two recorded ownership events appear in the authoritative legal-events table. Reel/frame, execution date and correspondent were not retrievable in this session and are marked accordingly.

• Executed: not retrieved (filing-period, 2002) / recorded 2002-08-22 — Reel UNVERIFIED / UNVERIFIED

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Paul J. Garnett; Peter Heffernan; James E. King; Martin P. Mayhead; and Sun Microsystems Limited
  • Assignee: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: UNVERIFIED — not retrievable; no recurrence signal can be assessed (see Signal 3)
  • Context: Filing-period perfection of title — the four UK employee-inventors and their UK employer assign to the US parent. Routine multinational housekeeping, not a sale.

• Executed: not retrieved / recorded 2015-12-16 — Reel UNVERIFIED / UNVERIFIED

  • Conveyance: Merger and change of name (Google Patents: "MERGER AND CHANGE OF NAME (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Sun Microsystems, Inc.; Oracle USA, Inc.; Oracle America, Inc.
  • Assignee: Oracle America, Inc.
  • Correspondent: UNVERIFIED — not retrievable
  • Context: Internal corporate reorganization — the formal recordation of the Sun→Oracle entity chain roughly six years after the 2010 acquisition closed. Change of name and merger only; no consideration-bearing sale to a third party.

No other records. There is no recorded assignment to any LLC, no security agreement, no license, no release, and no correction in the chain. Per Google Patents the patent carries an adjusted expiration of 2025-03-27 and current status "Expired – Lifetime" — i.e., as of today (2026-09-30) the patent term has lapsed and it is no longer assertable by anyone.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7245632
    2001 : Priority application filed
    2002 : US application filed
         : Assignment to Sun Microsystems Inc
    2007 : Patent issued as US 7245632
    2010 : Oracle acquires Sun Microsystems
    2015 : Merger and name change to Oracle America
    2025 : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. The only post-issuance link (2015-12-16) runs Sun Microsystems, Inc. → Oracle America, Inc. and is expressly recorded as a merger and change of name. No assignee carries an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix, no registered-agent address appears, and no single-purpose LLC is in the chain. A name-based suspicion cannot be raised because there is no shell name to suspect.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. The two assignees of record are Sun Microsystems, Inc. and Oracle America, Inc. Neither appears on the RPX or Unified Patents high-frequency-plaintiff directories, which catalogue licensing-only asserters (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.). Oracle is a large operating company and is overwhelmingly a defendant in the NPE suits in the docket (e.g., it is the defendant in Mobility Workx, LLC v. Oracle, AlmondNet v. Oracle, WiFidelity LLC v. Oracle), which is the inverse of an asserter profile.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (cannot be called). The controlling evidence for this signal is the correspondent of record on each reel/frame. That field was not retrievable in this session, so I cannot determine whether the same attorney or firm filed both the 2002 and 2015 recordings, and I have no basis to compare a correspondent against a Unified Patents / RPX / Patent Progress NPE list. This is the one signal that must be resolved against the primary source before filing — pull both reel/frame entries at Assignment Center and compare the named correspondent. Note that with only two links and a ~13-year gap, even a match would be weak evidence, since large operating companies routinely use a single long-standing outside firm for all corporate recordations.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. One post-issuance transfer across roughly thirteen years (2015-12-16) is the antithesis of a chained-LLC cascade. There are no consecutive assignments inside a 24-month window, no shared correspondent addresses, and no common-principal pattern.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT / NOT APPLICABLE. No infringement litigation naming US 7,245,632 was found in any of the searches run, so there is no first-suit date against which a six-month pre-litigation transfer could be timed. The single transfer (2015-12-16) is a merger recordation, not a venue- or standing-driven conveyance.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT. I am expressly correcting the premise supplied in the task instructions, which lists "Sun Microsystems → Oracle" as a bankruptcy-fire-sale example. Sun Microsystems never filed Chapter 7 or Chapter 11; it was acquired by Oracle in an all-stock merger announced 20 April 2009 and completed 27 January 2010 (a ~$7.4B transaction), with Sun's entity renamed Oracle America, Inc. The 2015-12-16 reel entry is the recordation of that merger and name change, not a sale in a bankruptcy estate. Contrast with genuine bankruptcy sales (Kodak, Nortel, Polaroid), where a trustee moves assets; nothing of that shape is present here.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. Oracle did assert Sun-origin patents against Google in Oracle America, Inc. v. Google Inc. (N.D. Cal. 3:10-cv-03561), but (a) it did so on its own behalf as an operating company, not through a transferred-to NPE, and (b) the asserted patents were the Java-related family (e.g., U.S. 6,061,520; RE38,104; 5,966,702; 6,910,205; 7,426,720) — US 7,245,632 was not among them. No transfer to a third-party asserter for assertion against a competitor appears anywhere in the chain.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain terminates at Oracle America, Inc., an operating company. It does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN, so the "patent has been neutralized by aggregation" reading does not apply. (The patent is now neutralized, but by term expiration on 2025-03-27, not by defensive aggregation — a different mechanism that does not satisfy this signal.)

Verdict

Operating-company assertion — with two express qualifications.

The chain is a clean two-link operating-company record: a filing-period assignment from the four UK inventors and Sun Microsystems Limited to Sun Microsystems, Inc. (recorded 2002-08-22), followed by a merger and change of name to Oracle America, Inc. (recorded 2015-12-16). Both assignees are operating companies that design and sell the server hardware described in the specification; not one of the eight NPE signals is present, so this is about as far from an NPE chain as a file can look.

Two qualifications you should carry forward: (1) no litigation asserting this specific patent was found, so the "assertion" prong of the verdict is an ownership conclusion (Oracle, an operating-company owner), not an evidence-of-suiting conclusion; and (2) the patent expired 2025-03-27 per Google Patents' adjusted-expiration data and now shows status "Expired – Lifetime," so it is no longer assertable by anyone — which is worth noting because it also means the absence of NPE activity is now permanent rather than merely historical.

Verification links:

• Assignment Center (search patent number 7245632): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Legacy Assignment Search: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Authoritative legal-events table used above: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7245632/en

Open items to close before filing this analysis: pull the reel/frame for both entries and record the correspondent of record on each — that is the only field capable of changing the verdict (Signal 3), and the only field I could not verify.

I'll research US patent 7245632 and its prior art citations. Let me search for authoritative sources.

Let me get the specific citation details from the patent's front page.

I have the key data. Let me retrieve the complete cited-references list from the patent's front page.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 7,245,632 B2

1. Patent identification (confirmed against available records)

Methodological note / caveats up front (per my operating rules):

• I did not query USPTO PatentCenter directly in this session. The records above come from Google Patents and Justia (FreePatentsOnline), both of which mirror USPTO front-page data. Where I could not verify a fact, I say so rather than fill the gap.
• The "references cited" on a patent front page are the examiner's/applicant's citations of prior art (backward citations). The front page does not tell us which office-action rejections were made or which claims each reference was applied against; that requires the file wrapper (Office Actions / Form 892s). I flag this because the question asks me to map references to claims — the mapping below is analytical, not a verbatim record of what the examiner did.

2. The prior art of record — "Referenced Cited"

The following U.S. patent documents are listed on the front page of US 7,245,632 (per Justia's reproduction of the front page):

U.S. Patent Documents

Foreign Patent Documents

⚠️ Honesty flag: I can confirm the numbers, dates and inventors (they are on the front page). I cannot with high confidence confirm the subject-matter description of several of these older mechanical/connector references from memory, and I will not invent titles for them. Where I give a description below, it is either (a) reasonably well known to me, or (b) explicitly labeled as unverified.

3. What the patent actually claims (for the § 102 mapping)

The inventive core is narrow and is stated in claim 1 (independent):

A computer system comprising: (a) at least one information processing module with a module information connection; (b) at least one switch module with an internal switch information connection, an external switch information connection to an external information network, and an external storage connection for connection to external storage under an external storage channel format; and (c) a carrier with an interconnection member (midplane) interconnecting the module and switch; wherein the switch module includes a protocol converter operable to convert between information packets comprising packet-format storage data and signals in the external storage channel format, and the processing module includes a packet-format storage protocol driver communicating packet-format storage packets with the protocol converter.

From the specification and the claim description:

• The packet-format storage protocol is iSCSI over IP on the internal (Ethernet/InfiniBand) connections.
• The external storage channel format is Fibre Channel (FC-AL).
• Dependent claim 2: switch module removably mountable in the carrier.
• Dependent claim 3: information processing module removably receivable within the carrier.
• Dependent claim 4: carrier receives a plurality of modules in respective receiving locations.
• The description further recites aspects directed to a server blade (processor + memory + blade information connection + a storage interface to communicate storage data to/from external storage via the information connection) and to a switch module per se as independent aspects (the exact claim numbers for these independent aspects are not confirmed in the material I retrieved — I will not assert a number).

Consequence for the analysis: Claims 1 (and the blade/switch-module independent aspects) are system/protocol claims about iSCSI↔Fibre Channel conversion inside a switch module of a blade shelf. The bulk of the cited references, by contrast, are mechanical/enclosure/connector/hot-swap/blade-chassis art. That mismatch drives the mapping below.

4. § 102 anticipation mapping (analytical)

Legal standard applied: A reference anticipates under 35 U.S.C. § 102 only if it discloses every element of the claim, arranged as in the claim (single-reference test). A reference that discloses only some elements is at most § 103 (obviousness) art, not § 102 art. Because this is a pre-AIA patent (filed 2002), the relevant § 102 subsections are (a)/(b) (publication/use before the invention date or >1 yr before filing), (e) (US patent/application by another filed before the invention), and (g) (earlier US patent/application).

Group A — References potentially relevant to the structural/mechanical claims (claims 2–4 and the carrier/shelf/blade structure)

These are almost certainly the references that drove the structural dependent claims (removable switch modules, removable blades, multi-slot carriers, midplane/backplane, hot-swap, connector alignment, EMI):

• US 5,971,804 (Gallagher et al., Oct 26, 1999) — hot-swap backplane/shelf architecture. Potentially relevant to claims 2–4 (removable modules in a carrier with an interconnection member).
• US 6,003,689 (Babineau et al., Dec 21, 1999); US 6,146,165 (Reich et al., Nov 14, 2000); US 6,147,878 (Heselton, Nov 14, 2000) — connector/EMI/shielding and enclosure art. Potentially relevant to structural/EMI dependent claims.
• US 6,556,438 (Bolognia et al., Apr 29, 2003); US 6,583,989 (Guyer et al., Jun 24, 2003); US 6,594,150 (Creason et al., Jul 15, 2003) — modular server/blade enclosure and shelf art (these are the type of references commonly cited against blade-chassis dependent claims). Potentially relevant to claims 2–4 and the carrier/shelf structure.
• Older mechanical references (4,386,400; 4,614,389; 4,740,164; 4,778,394; 4,975,805; 5,010,426; 5,466,166; 5,575,669; 5,669,512; 5,793,614; 5,809,328; 5,906,497) — general connector, guide-rail, latch, and enclosure art. Relevant only to incidental structural features, if at all.

Confidence: Medium for the "field/structural relevance" characterization; low for reference-by-reference subject matter on the 1970s–1990s connector patents, which I cannot verify without full-text retrieval.

Group B — References potentially relevant to the storage/protocol-conversion concept (the heart of claim 1)

• US 5,941,972 (Hoese et al., Aug 24, 1999) — this is the most conceptually relevant reference on the list. It concerns a storage router/bridge providing access to remote storage over Fibre Channel using SCSI-command semantics (the Crossroads Systems "storage router" family). It is the single best candidate for a § 102(§102(b))/(e) challenge aimed at the protocol-conversion element of claim 1.
  • Anticipation assessment: It is not a clean § 102 hit against claim 1 as a whole, because claim 1 additionally requires (i) a modular blade carrier with an interconnection member tying an information-processing module to a switch module, and (ii) "information packets comprising packet-format storage data" (i.e., iSCSI/IP encapsulation) exchanged internally between the module and the switch, with a packet-format storage protocol driver in the processing module. A Fibre-Channel storage router does not, on its face, disclose the in-shelf iSCSI-over-IP transport element. It is therefore stronger as § 103 combination art (e.g., Hoese + a blade-chassis reference) than as a standalone § 102 reference against claim 1.
• US 2002/0199205 A1 (Sonawane et al., Dec 26, 2002) and US 2002/0124114 A1 (Bottom et al., Sep 5, 2002) — published after the 2001-08-10 priority date, so they are relevant only as § 102(e) art if their underlying applications were filed before the invention date. Both are network/storage related.
• US 2003/0033463 A1 (Garnett et al., Feb 13, 2003) — note this is a co-inventor family member (Garnett is a named inventor on the '632 patent and this is the sibling Sun Microsystems application in the same program). A same-family/co-pending application is not § 102 prior art to the '632 patent; it appears in the list as a related application, not as anticipating art. I therefore do not treat it as § 102 art against any claim.

Anticipation assessment for claim 1 (and the blade/switch-module independent aspects): No single reference cited on the front page discloses all elements of claim 1. The distinguishing element — a protocol converter inside a blade-shelf switch module converting between iSCSI packet-format storage data carried on the internal module↔switch links and Fibre Channel to external storage, paired with an iSCSI driver in the processing module — is not shown in one reference by any of the citations I can see. This is consistent with the specification's stated advantage: providing external storage "without impacting bandwidth on external network connections."

Group C — Domain mismatch (flagged)

• US 6,301,609 (Aravamudan et al., Oct 9, 2001) — this is in the instant-messaging/user-priority field, not the modular-computer/storage field. If the front-page listing is accurate, it is not meaningful § 102 art against any claim of the '632 patent. I flag this as a possible citation of convenience or a listing anomaly rather than a substantive reference.
• US 6,374,110 (Parker et al.), US 6,424,621 (Ramaswamy et al.), US 6,496,282 (Malik), US 6,260,155 (Dellacona), US 6,247,078 (Ebert et al.), US 6,721,862 (Grant et al.), US 5,991,530 (Okada et al.), US 5,953,340 (Scott et al.), US 6,452,809 (Jackson et al.), US 6,374,110, and the German documents DE 2613354 and DE 29923637 — I cannot, with confidence, state their subject matter from memory, and I will not fabricate descriptions. To complete the per-reference descriptions you requested, these need full-text retrieval from USPTO PatentCenter / Espacenet.

5. Bottom line

1. Identification is confirmed: US 7,245,632 B2, "External storage for modular computer systems," Sun Microsystems (now Oracle), filed 2002-05-10, priority 2001-08-10, expired.
2. The cited references cluster into (a) mechanical/enclosure/connector/hot-swap art aimed at the structural dependent claims (2–4 and the carrier/shelf aspects) and (b) a small storage/protocol cluster, of which US 5,941,972 (Hoese et al.) is the closest to the inventive concept.
3. No listed reference appears to anticipate independent claim 1 under § 102 by itself, because none discloses the full combination of a modular blade carrier + switch module + internal iSCSI-in-IP transport + protocol converter to Fibre Channel + packet-format storage driver in the processing module. The most likely validity challenge would be § 103 (Hoese-type storage router combined with a blade-chassis reference such as Gallagher/Creason/Guyer), not § 102.
4. US 2003/0033463 A1 (Garnett et al.) is a same-family/co-inventor application and is not § 102 prior art to the '632 patent.

To deliver the complete reference-by-reference descriptions and dates you asked for, the remaining step is to pull the file-wrapper Form 892/PTO-1449 and the full text of each cited patent from USPTO PatentCenter (or a full-text service such as FreePatentsOnline/Espacenet). I did not have direct PatentCenter access in this session, and I have deliberately flagged rather than guessed at the references whose subject matter I could not verify with high confidence.

I'll start by pulling the prior-art references associated with this patent, since the pasted page text does not include the "References Cited" / prior-art listing.

Let me try to retrieve the actual "References Cited" listing for this patent from alternate mirrors.

The Google Patents "References Cited" table didn't come through in the pasted text. Let me try to retrieve it via the family's PCT/EP search reports and mirrors.

Scope note up front (what "the Prior Art section of this page" actually contains)

Before the analysis, an important record-integrity point, because it affects what I can and cannot ground:

The text of the Google Patents page you provided (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7245632](/patent/US7245632)/en) does not contain a "References Cited" / "U.S. Patent Documents" table. The only prior-art-related fields the page actually supplies are:

I attempted several retrievals (Google Patents citation tables, the Patents‑Review mirror, and the WO2003014925/EP1415453 search reports) to obtain the examiner's cited-art list. The tool budget was exhausted before I could confirm that table, so I will not invent reference numbers or reproductions. Where I name prior art below, I flag whether it is (a) corroborated by the search results I actually retrieved, or (b) drawn from my own knowledge and requiring verification. Where a reference is only a forward citation (a document that cites US7245632), I say so and explain why it is not §103 prior art.

The "Prior art keywords" list above is Google's auto-generated keyword tagging, not a list of references; it is not itself prior art.

1. Governing law and critical date

• The application was filed 2002-05-10 (US 10/143,538), claiming a priority date of 2001-08-10. Both predate 16 March 2013, so pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §§ 102/103 governs. Pre-AIA §103(a) asks whether the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made.
• The operative critical date is at latest 2002-05-10 (filing) and at earliest 2001-08-10 (the listed priority date — note the page says this is an "assumption"). A reference must predate the invention/priority date under §102(a)/(e), or predate the filing date by one year under §102(b), to be available.
• Obviousness is assessed under the Graham v. John Deere factors (scope and content of the prior art; differences; level of ordinary skill; secondary considerations), with the KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) refinements (predictable combinations; "known technique to improve similar devices in the same way"; design incentives/market pressure).
• The patent is expired (Google Patents: "Expired - Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2025-03-27). A §103 analysis today is therefore retrospective validity analysis (e.g., for a damages/estoppel dispute over past acts), not a live IPR posture. The one-year IPR time bar and PTO correction avenues are moot.

2. Claim scope as it can be reconstructed (with a caveat)

The pasted page contains the Summary/Definitions but not the granted claims. My mapping of limitations below is taken from the Summary-of-the-Invention language the page does contain, and I am treating that as an approximation of independent claim 1 plus the corresponding blade claim and switch-module claim:

Core system claim (as summarized):

1. A carrier (rack-mountable shelf) carrying at least one information processing module (server blade) having a module information connection, and at least one switch module having (i) an internal switch information connection, (ii) an external switch information connection to an external information network, and (iii) at least one external storage connection to external storage under an external storage channel format;
2. an interconnection member (midplane) interconnecting the module and internal switch connections;
3. the switch module includes a protocol converter operable to convert between information packets comprising packet-format storage data and signals in the external storage channel format;
4. the information processing module includes a packet-format storage protocol driver operable to exchange those packets with the protocol converter.

Dependent/exemplary features disclosed: two removably-mounted switch modules with redundancy; Ethernet or Infiniband; Internet Protocol packets; iSCSI as the packet format; Fibre Channel as the external storage channel format; the converter implemented as software on a processor in the switch module; enabling direct-attached storage (DAS) and/or SAN attachment; service controllers in the blades and a service processor in the switch module connected over the midplane; blades as sealed FRUs.

The point of novelty is thus architectural placement: putting a storage-gateway function (iSCSI-client in the blade ⟷ iSCSI-to-Fibre-Channel protocol converter in the shelf's switch module, alongside the network uplink) inside the same removable module that already provides the shelf's external network switch ports, so blades need only ordinary packet/Ethernet connections and the storage traffic does not consume the external network uplink.

3. The prior-art landscape (as verifiable)

Confirmed by the searches I retrieved:

• US 6,400,730 B1 — Nishan Systems, "Method and apparatus for transferring data between IP network devices and SCSI and Fibre Channel devices over an IP network." Appears in the family citation list of JP2005110118A (https://patents.google.com/patent/JP2005110118A/en). Filed 1999-03-10, published 2002-06-04. This is the single most on-point reference for claim element (3): protocol conversion between IP-network storage packets and FC/SCSI storage. Its 1999 filing date makes it §102(e) art against the 2001/2002 dates.
• US 6,766,412 B2 — Quantum Corporation, "Data storage media library with scalable throughput rate for data routing and protocol conversion," listed with priority date 2001-03-31 (same family citation list). A second protocol-conversion/data-routing reference predating the 2001-08-10 priority.
• JP 2002-014777 A — Hitachi, "data moving method and protocol converting device, and switching device using the same," published 2002-01-18. Notably it ties protocol conversion to a switching device — but its publication date is after the priority date, so it is only available if a qualifying US counterpart existed on or before the priority date (unverified; treat as non-qualifying absent confirmation).
• US 7,404,000 B2 — EMC, "Protocol translation in a storage system," published 2008-07-22, priority ~2001-09-28. Because 2001-09-28 postdates 2001-08-10, this is a near-miss: it is not §103 prior art on the listed priority date and is useful only as evidence of the field. Flagging this deliberately, since it is easy to mis-cite.
• Forward citations only (i.e., documents citing US7245632, per the "Cited By (21)" table retrieved from a family member page, e.g. US20030048613): the Dot Hill "network storage appliance with integrated switch" family (US 2005/0010715, US 2005/0102549, US 2005/0207105, priority ~2003), US 2004/0228090 (network taps, 2003), US 2008/0147844 (integrated RAID controller and SAS switch, 2006), etc. Their 2003–2006 priority dates place them after this patent's critical date; they are not prior art to US7245632. They are relevant only to show that the architectural idea (integrated switch + storage in one chassis) was rapidly adopted afterwards — a hindsight trap to avoid.

From my own knowledge (flagged as requiring verification of exact numbers/dates before use in a filing):

• iSCSI itself: the IETF IP Storage (ips) working group's iSCSI Internet-Drafts circulated in 2000–2001 (Satran, Meth, et al.); the later RFC 3720 (2004) postdates the priority date and is not prior art here. The drafts are the §102(a)/(b) "printed publication" candidates.
• US 5,941,972 (Crossroads Systems/Hoese et al.), "Storage router and method for providing virtual local storage" — the archetypal FC-to-SCSI storage router, issued 1999. Verify the number/assignee.
• Commercial FC SAN switching and blade chassis: FC fabrics (Brocade etc., mid/late 1990s); commercial blade-server chassis with embedded switch modules (e.g., RLX System 324, Compaq ProLiant BL, both 2000–2001); commercial iSCSI-to-FC gateways (e.g., the Cisco SN 5420 Storage Router, announced in 2001 — verify the announcement date, because it sits near the priority date and could be §102(a) art rather than §102(b) art).

Also relevant and intrinsic to this record: the patent's own background admissions. The pasted text repeatedly states that the disclosed elements are exemplary and known — Ethernet/Infiniband links, IP packets, iSCSI as the packet storage format, Fibre Channel as the external storage channel format, blades of the "rectangular slab" form, midplane-based interconnection, and redundant switch/service modules. These are applicant admissions about the state of the art and are usable against it.

4. Obviousness combinations

Combination A — Nishan '730 + a blade-shelf-with-embedded-switch architecture (primary challenge)

• Nishan '730 supplies: IP-network ⟷ Fibre Channel/SCSI storage protocol translation; i.e., the "protocol converter operable to convert between information packets comprising packet format storage data and signals in the external storage channel format."
• Blade-shelf architecture supplies: a carrier (rack shelf), blade information-processing modules with a module information connection, an interconnection member/midplane, and a removable switch module with internal switch connections to each blade and external network uplink connections. This architecture is squarely in the prior art and is admitted in the specification (FIGS. 1–17 describe it as the starting point; the patent's contribution is described as "the provision of data storage in a higher density computer system").

Why a POSITA would combine them. Both references are in the same field of endeavor (rack-mounted, high-density modular computing with network switching) and address the same problem the specification states: how to give densely packed, small-form-factor blades access to storage without adding connectors, power, or heat inside the blade. The blades described in the patent carry only 2.5″ IDE drives and a resource-limited 84-pin midplane connector; a POSITA facing that pin/volume/power budget has a strong design incentive to move the storage-attach function out of the blade and into the shelf's own switching module, which already exists, already has a processor, and already has external-facing connectors. KSR supplies the rationale directly: use of a known technique (storage protocol conversion) to improve a similar device (the shelf switch module) in the same way.

Reasonable expectation of success. High. iSCSI was designed precisely so that an initiator (the blade's "packet format storage protocol driver") can reach FC/SCSI storage through a gateway, and the gateway's job is exactly the conversion recited.

Combination B — Nishan '730 (or the iSCSI drafts) + Quantum '412 + blade chassis with embedded switch

• Quantum US 6,766,412 teaches data routing and protocol conversion in a storage system, corroborating that protocol conversion as a routing function (not merely an end-node function) was known by March 2001.
• Adding the iSCSI drafts supplies the specific packet format (iSCSI over IP) recited in the dependent claims, and the FC-PH/FC-AL ANSI standard (ANSI X3.230, 1994) supplies the external storage channel format.

Motivation. The three references are combinable in the KSR sense: iSCSI defines the packet format, an FC fabric/FC storage target is the destination, and a switch module is the natural place to terminate the one and originate the other because that is where the shelf's other protocol boundary (external network ⟷ internal blade links) already lives. The specification's own statement that this arrangement "enable[s] external storage to be provided in a modular system with a minimum of internal connections and without impacting bandwidth on external network connections" identifies the precise motivation — and that motivation is a design objective, not an unexpected result.

Combination C — storage-router art (e.g., the Crossroads FC-to-SCSI storage router, verify number) + blade chassis with embedded switching

Here the converter is taught at the level of a standalone "storage router" appliance that maps hosts on one transport to storage on another, with access control and virtualized storage. The obviousness argument is the placement argument: a POSITA seeking to serve sixteen blades from a single external storage connection would predictably integrate the standalone router function into the shelf's switch module, in the same way that the switch function itself was integrated into the (CSSP) module rather than left as an external appliance. This is the "combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results" rationale (MPEP 2144.04).

Combination D — for the dependent claims specifically

• Two removably mounted switch modules / redundant information connections: redundant switch modules in a blade shelf were standard, and the patent itself describes redundancy as a general design principle ("Typically such systems are designed around providing redundant resources…"). Duplicating a module that has already been taught (Combination A/B) is an obvious modification where redundancy is a known and expected design goal.
• Service controller in each blade + service processor in the switch module, connected over the interconnection member: this is the management-plane mirror of the data plane already disclosed for the shelf; predictable.
• Converter "implemented using computer software operable on a processor in the switch module": software implementation of a known conversion on a general-purpose processor already present in the switch module is the paradigm of an obvious design choice absent evidence of a specific unexpected technical advantage.
• iSCSI / Fibre Channel / Ethernet / Infiniband / DAS-or-SAN: each is recited in the specification as an example ("can be"), which is effectively an admission that these were known options; selecting among known protocols per system requirement is routine.

Explicit non-combinations (to avoid hindsight error)

The Dot Hill "network storage appliance with integrated switch" family (US 2005/0010715, US 2005/0102549 et al.), US 7,404,000 (EMC), US 2005/0262265-adjacent IBM work (CN100368993C, 2004 priority), and US 2008/0147844 (integrated RAID controller and SAS switch) all post-date the 2001/2002 critical date. They must not be used in a §103 combination against this patent. If a petition or opinion were to rely on them, that reliance would be legally erroneous on its face under pre-AIA §102/§103.

5. Where the claims may nonetheless resist §103

A candid analysis has to identify the limitations a POSITA would not have found obvious, because that is where a validity challenge would most likely fail:

1. The single-module dual-boundary architecture. The claims appear to require the same switch module to bear (i) the external information-network connection and (ii) the external storage connection in the external storage channel format, with the protocol converter inside it. Prior-art iSCSI gateways (Nishan-style, Cisco-style) are dedicated appliances; prior-art blade shelves have embedded Ethernet switch modules. The combination is a placement decision, and the patent articulates a concrete functional benefit (no additional midplane connectors; no consumption of external network uplink bandwidth). Whether that rises above predictable combination is the crux; a patent owner would argue that the references' own architectures point away from co-locating a storage-protocol stack in the same enclosure/ASIC/processor context as the Ethernet switch fabric, and would point to the counter-design of putting an FC HBA in each blade or using NAS.
2. "Service processor … connectable to the service controller of the information processing modules via respective management signal connections over the interconnection member" combined with the storage path — integration of data-plane storage conversion and management-plane service processing in one removable module is a narrower configuration that not every reference set would suggest.
3. Secondary considerations — the record I have contains nothing on commercial success, long-felt need, copying, or industry praise. Absent that evidence, nexus arguments would have to be built from scratch; I cannot assess them from this page.

6. Conclusion

• On the record I can verify, the strongest §103 challenge is Nishan US 6,400,730 B1 (IP ⟷ SCSI/FC data transfer; §102(e) as of its 1999-03-10 filing) in view of a rack-mounted blade shelf with embedded, removable switch modules and a midplane, optionally with Quantum US 6,766,412 (protocol conversion + data routing, 2001-03-31 priority) for the "conversion in a routing/switch element" teaching and the IETF iSCSI drafts for the packet format. The motivation is the admitted design problem (density, connector/power/thermal budget in small blades, preserving external uplink bandwidth) and the KSR "known technique, same improvement" rationale; the expectation of success is high because iSCSI-to-FC gateways were designed for exactly this conversion.
• The dependent claims (redundant switch modules, service processor/controller management connections, software-implemented converter, specific protocol choices) are, in my assessment, more likely than not obvious as routine design choices, but this depends on the granted claim text, which was not present in the material you supplied and which I therefore could not map limitation-by-limitation.
• I could not retrieve the "References Cited" table for this patent, and I have deliberately declined to reconstruct it from memory. Any formal opinion should begin by pulling that table (Google Patents "References Cited," or the USPTO PatentCenter file wrapper for US 10/143,538) and the search reports for WO2003014925/EP1415453/GB2379091, all of which were beyond reach within my tool budget. The reference numbers I have flagged as "requiring verification" (Crossroads '972, Cisco SN 5420 announcement date, exact iSCSI draft identifiers) must be confirmed before use, and the post-2001/2002 references listed in §3 must be excluded from any combination.