US 7346374

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

Let me search more specifically for litigation/PTAB and the claim text.

I have the core bibliographic and claim data. Let me do a final targeted check for any litigation/CAFC activity specific to this number.

Research Summary — US Patent No. 7,346,374

Search scope note: I searched for the exact identifier "7346374" / "7,346,374" and reviewed Google Patents (full text), Justia, RPX Insight, USPTO.report, and FreePatentsOnline, plus Federal Circuit / district-court material. I could not access USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or CAFC dockets directly. I did not find any 2026 CAFC appeal, PTAB proceeding, or active litigation docket bearing on this patent; details on that point below.

1. Bibliographic data

The application is a continuation-in-part of U.S. App. 09/979,199 (a National Stage of PCT/US00/14692, filed May 26, 2000), which claims benefit of U.S. Provisional 60/135,979 (May 26, 1999).

2. Abstract (as issued)

"A system for communicating information is described. The system comprises a radio frequency (RF) transceiver coupled to a vehicle. The transceiver is configured to communicate with a personal digital assistant (PDA) located external to the transceiver using wireless RF signals to transmit information between the transceiver and the PDA."

Note: the abstract is directed to a PDA embodiment, whereas the granted claims are framed more broadly around a "portable device" and a vehicle microphone/audio/display — a common abstract/claim scope mismatch. The specification (FIGS. 1–17) covers Bluetooth/SWAP-CA short-range RF links between a vehicle transceiver and portable devices, diagnostics, assembly-line use, drive-through transactions, key fobs, Internet/push services, and a trainable HomeLink®-type transceiver.

3. Independent claims — plain-language overview

Independent claims are 1, 19, and 25 (the remaining 29 claims are dependent). Description below is grounded in the claim text as reported by RPX Insight / Google Patents.

Claim 1 — System (portable device ↔ vehicle), Bluetooth, mic + audio + display

• A wireless system for information exchange between a portable device and a vehicle occupant.
• The portable device carries a first RF transceiver operating under the Bluetooth protocol.
• The vehicle has a microphone, audio system, and display system, and the transferred "information" includes voice, audio, and display information.
• A second RF transceiver mounted in the vehicle communicates with the first; it routes display information to the vehicle display and audio information to the vehicle audio system, and sends voice information received from the vehicle microphone back to the portable device.

Claim 19 — System for use with a portable device in a vehicle

• Like claim 1 but written from the vehicle-side apparatus perspective: an RF transceiver coupled to the vehicle and external to the portable device, using Bluetooth.
• Receives microphone signals and transmits RF signals representing the voice signals to the portable device.
• Receives RF signals (sound) from the portable device and supplies signals to the vehicle audio system.
• Receives RF signals (display information) from the portable device and supplies signals to the vehicle display system.

Claim 25 — Method

• Receive voice from an occupant via a vehicle-coupled microphone.
• Transmit voice information from the transceiver to a portable device located external to the transceiver but within the vehicle, using Bluetooth.
• Receive audio information at the transceiver from the portable device and pass it to the vehicle audio system.
• Communicate display information from the portable device to the transceiver and transmit it to the vehicle display system.

Common thread across all three: a vehicle-side RF transceiver using the Bluetooth standard to exchange voice/audio/display information with a portable device, integrating the vehicle microphone and audio/display systems.

4. Patent family (related, but distinct — do not conflate)

• Parent: US 7,257,426 (from 09/979,199).
• Continuations: 11/517,946 → US 7,787,907; 11/963,576 → US 7,970,446; 11/810,253 (pub. US 2008/0045274); 10/364,794 (pub. US 2003/0228879, "Communication system for vehicle").
• Cited/incorporated references include US 5,810,420 (Travelnote®), and trainable-transceiver patents US 6,091,343, US 5,854,593, US 5,708,415 (HomeLink®).

⚠️ Caution: Some search results (e.g., aggregate "inventor" pages) display claim language about "verbal authorization for an order" and vehicle VIN/warranty claims. That language belongs to sibling applications (e.g., 11/810,253), not to US 7,346,374. Treat such text as belonging to other family members.

5. Litigation / CAFC 2026 status

• No CAFC 2026 docket or Federal Circuit appeal specific to US 7,346,374 was found in my searches. A query for "7,346,374" together with Federal Circuit / 2026 returned no relevant results, and the specific-identifier search returned nothing on point.
• No USPTO PTAB proceeding or district-court case specific to this patent surfaced. The only appearance of "7346374" in a PTAB-adjacent document I retrieved was as one entry in a long list of patent numbers in an unrelated petition's search string — i.e., a citation, not a proceeding against the '374 patent.
• Uncertainty statement: Because I could not query CourtListener/RECAP, the CAFC docket, or USPTO PTAB/PatentCenter directly in a comprehensive way, I cannot affirmatively certify that no 2026 appeal or proceeding exists. Based on the available evidence, however, I found no indication of active 2026 Federal Circuit or PTAB activity involving this patent, and the patent's recorded status is Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration Jan. 10, 2022), which makes current appellate activity unlikely.

If you need a definitive litigation/agency check, the authoritative sources would be the CAFC docket (cafc.uscourts.gov), CourtListener/RECAP, and USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB for application 10/336,466 — none of which I was able to query live here.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7346374. Let me search multiple sources.

Let me search more targeted litigation sources.

Let me check specialized patent litigation databases.

Litigation Search Report — U.S. Patent No. 7,346,374

Bottom line

Based on my searches, I could not identify any litigation (district court, ITC, or Federal Circuit) that actually asserts or adjudicates U.S. Patent No. 7,346,374. The record appears to contain no known infringement actions specifically involving this patent. I am stating this as "not found," not as a definitive negative, for the reasons noted below.

What the patent is (for identification, not auto-correction of identifiers)

Per the authoritative patent data:

• U.S. 7,346,374 B2 — "Wireless communications system and method"
• Application No. 10/336,466; filed 2003-01-03; granted 2008-03-18
• Inventors: Todd R. Witkowski, Kurt A. Dykema, Steven L. Geerlings, Mark L. Zeinstra, Robert F. Buege
• Original assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company; later assigned to Visteon Global Technologies, Inc. (2015-02-25)
• Status: Expired – Fee Related; adjusted expiration 2022-01-10
• Priority date: 1999-05-26 (via PCT/US2000/014692 / provisional 60/135,979)

Search results

Matters that are NOT this patent (avoiding confusion of similar identifiers)

1. Visteon Corporation v. Johnson Controls, Inc., No. 2:17-cv-12500 (E.D. Mich., filed Aug. 2, 2017) — This is an "Other Contract" / diversity action (28 U.S.C. § 1332), not a patent infringement suit, and it does not name the '374 patent. It arose between the former and current assignees but is contract-based. Do not treat it as '374 patent litigation.

2. Momentum Dynamics (PTAB / district filings, e.g., WiTricity-related wireless EV charging) — The pleadings reference a "'734" patent as one of a group (alongside '955, '935, '701, '581, '595, '635). That " '734" is a different patent (a later-issued wireless-power patent), not US 7,346,374. Per the strict instruction to interpret identifiers literally, this must not be conflated with the '374.

3. The PTAB petition (ICPR/PTAB document, Petition No. 1558625) listing the string containing "7346374" is an exhibit/prior-art number list, not an assertion of the '374 patent.

Important caveats and limitations

• Search coverage was limited. I was not able to fully query PACER directly, the full Docket Alarm / Unified Patents litigation databases, or Darts-IP, and my session was truncated. A truly conclusive "no litigation" answer for a US patent normally requires those paid/authenticated sources.
• Family context: The '374 patent is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 09/979,199 and is related to a family that includes US 7,787,907, US 7,970,446, US 8,634,888, and US 9,318,017. It is possible that enforcement activity focused on sibling patents rather than the '374 itself. I did not confirm any such suits, so I do not state them as litigation here.
• The patent expired (fee-related) as of 2022-01-10, which reduces (but does not eliminate) the likelihood of recent assertion; expired patents can still be asserted for past damages during the limitations period.

Recommended next steps to confirm

1. PACER / CourtListener RECAP full-text search on "7,346,374" and "7346374" (all districts + Fed. Cir.).
2. Unified Patents Litigation portal and Darts-IP for the patent number.
3. USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records and the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PRPS) for any IPR/PGR/CBM involving the '374.
4. Check sibling patents (7,787,907; 7,970,446; 8,634,888; 9,318,017) for litigation that the '374 might have been added to via amendment or counterclaim.

If you can provide access or excerpts from PACER/Darts-IP for this specific number, I can update this report with exact case captions, case numbers, filing dates, and dispositions.

I'll verify the structured data against public sources before reporting.

Let me run more targeted searches on litigation and PTAB activity.

Let me check a couple more angles — Unified Patents, Visteon assertions, and PTAB E2E.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 7,346,374: zero. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured block reports no AIA trial proceedings, and my independent searches — Google Patents/Justia patent pages, USPTO PTABS petition documents, CourtListener, and general web queries — surfaced no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent. Breakdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0. The bottom line for a defendant is therefore not "the patent has survived IPRs and is hardened," and it is also not "claims 1–5 are canceled." It is a third posture: the patent was never tested at the PTAB and is now expired, so validity has never been adjudicated in an AIA trial, but the infringement exposure is time-barred going forward and limited to a shrinking six-year damages lookback.

Two caveats on my diligence:

• "'374" is one of the most over-loaded short numbers in the patent corpus. Nearly every raw search hit for "374" involved an unrelated patent — e.g., Schaeffler's U.S. 8,573,374 (Valeo, IPR2017-00441), Trading Technologies' '374 (CBM), IBM's U.S. 7,631,346 (the "'346 patent"), and a Taiwanese LCD '374. I discarded all of these as false positives. If anyone later reports a "'374 IPR," confirm the full eight-digit number and patent title before relying on it.
• The ODP ingest is the canonical list here, and web search did not contradict it. I did not find any recently-filed proceeding that ODP had missed, so I have nothing to flag as an un-indexed filing.

No per-proceeding sections are included, because there are no proceedings to describe. Per the constraints, I am not fabricating docket numbers or panels to fill the template.

Strategic summary

Claim status: every claim of US 7,346,374 is UNTESTED. No claim has been canceled, and no claim has been sustained, in any AIA trial. The patent issued 2008-03-18 from Appl. No. 10/336,466 (filed 2003-01-03), claiming priority to 1999-05-26 (provisional 60/135,979 via PCT/US2000/014692), and it is a continuation-in-part of Appl. No. 09/979,199. Its three disclosed independent embodiments cover (i) a system with an RF transceiver coupled to a vehicle configured to communicate with a PDA located external to the transceiver, (ii) the same architecture addressed to a portable computing device, and (iii) a corresponding method claim. None of these were ever challenged at the Board. The only "validity-adjacent" event on the public record is that the patent's legal status is now "Expired – Fee Related," with an adjusted expiration of 2022-01-10 — i.e., the term has run, so validity is largely academic and injunction exposure is zero.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) is a blank slate. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted against this patent, no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is estopped under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) from raising any § 102/§ 103 ground in a district court or ITC action. Any defendant is free to run whatever prior-art theory it can find, including art that a hypothetical petitioner "reasonably could have raised." Practically, though, the more important bars are elsewhere: (a) § 315(b)'s one-year time bar only matters if an IPR were filed, and the patent's expired status makes funding a post-grant challenge hard to justify; and (b) the real constraints are the six-year damages lookback under § 286 and the fact that a patent that expired 2022-01-10 supports only past damages on the six years preceding the complaint. On today's date (2026-10-01), that window reaches back only to roughly 2020-10-01 — and every day that passes trims it.

Pattern signals. There is no petitioner-side pattern to report: no party has challenged this patent once, let alone repeatedly. There is likewise no evidence of a defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, AST, etc.) in the chain for this patent — the only Unified Patents page that references the title is a generic patent-portal listing, not a challenge record. On the patent-owner side, the family shows sustained prosecution activity rather than PTAB aggression: continuations from this disclosure ripened into US 7,787,907, US 7,970,446, US 8,634,888, US 9,318,017, US 9,370,041, US 8,897,708, and US 8,494,449 (Witkowski/Dykema et al.), and ownership moved from Johnson Controls Technology Company to Visteon Global Technologies, Inc. by assignment recorded 2015-02-25. That is a monetization-oriented family structure — but the '374 patent's own expiration means any current campaign would have to be built on the later family members, not on this one.

What I could not verify. I found no confirmed district court action asserting US 7,346,374 specifically, and no Federal Circuit appeal involving it. I flag that as unverified rather than disproven — the searches I ran were not exhaustive on litigation dockets, and a prior owner or Visteon may have asserted it in a case whose docket does not surface in general web results. Do not treat the absence of a litigation hit as an affirmative finding that the patent was never asserted.

Recommended next steps

• Do not brief around a phantom IPR. There is no FWD to cite, no institution decision to distinguish, and no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to invoke. Any prior-art attack must be built from scratch in district court or the ITC, where the patent enjoys the § 282 presumption of validity and must be overcome by clear and convincing evidence — a materially harder road than an IPR's preponderance standard.
• Lead with the expiration date, not validity. The single most useful fact is the 2022-01-10 adjusted expiration (Google Patents legal-status entry; status "Expired – Fee Related"). That caps recovery at past damages and forecloses injunctive relief. Combine it with § 286's six-year lookback and demand the plaintiff identify accused acts falling between 2020-10-01 and 2022-01-10 with specificity; anything outside that window is outside the recovery period.
• Check the live family members before assuming you are clear. Because the '374 patent is expired, an active assertion today (if any) is far more likely to rest on US 8,634,888, US 9,318,017, US 9,370,041, US 8,897,708, or US 8,494,449 — same specification lineage, later expiration. Pull the ODP PTAB records for those numbers separately; my mandate here covered only 7,346,374, and those siblings have not been checked.
• If you want to confirm the null result yourself, query the PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions portal (https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api/swagger-ui and https://ptabs.uspto.gov) on patent number 7346374, and cross-check the patent's own Google Patents page (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7346374/en), whose "Related litigation"/"PTAB" fields are empty as of the fetch cited in this record.
• Record the signal honestly to the client. The absence of any PTAB challenge to a patent that was asserted-adjacent and monetization-oriented for over a decade is itself informative: it suggests either that the accused products were never a large enough target to justify an IPR budget, or that the family's real leverage sits in the younger continuations. Either way, it is not evidence that the claims are strong — it is evidence that nobody bothered to find out.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7346374, starting with the assignment database and cross-references.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 7346374 B2

"Wireless communications system and method" — Appl. 10/336,466; issued 2008‑03‑18; assignee of record Johnson Controls Technology Company; current assignee Visteon Global Technologies, Inc.

Source note / limitation up front: I could retrieve the legal events (assignor/assignee/date) from Google Patents and derived pages, but I could not retrieve the reel/frame numbers or the recording correspondent (attorney/agent) for either assignment through my available sources. I will not invent them. Where the record is missing I say so explicitly. One ambiguous third‑party hit (a PTAB petition document referencing "Reel 012382, Frame 0565" adjacent to the Visteon IP Department address) could not be tied to this patent and is not relied upon.

Inventors

All five inventors are listed on the 2003‑04‑14 assignment to JOHNSON CONTROLS TECHNOLOGY COMPANY (Google Patents legal events, https://patents.google.com/patent/US7346374/en). All addresses cluster in West Michigan, consistent with Johnson Controls' Holland, MI operations. Prosecution was handled by Foley & Lardner LLP (attorney of record per Justia, https://patents.justia.com/patent/[7346374](/patent/7346374)).

Unusual-pattern check: No evidence of inventors departing the assignee within 12 months of filing; I found no such data and will not infer it. This is an inventor→operating-company assignment, the normal pattern — no fire‑sale precursor present.

Original assignee

Johnson Controls Technology Company (Holland, MI) — the technology/IP holding subsidiary of Johnson Controls, Inc. (a public company at the time, NYSE: JCI). Primary line of business: automotive interiors, automotive electronics, and building controls/HVAC. The patent's own specification names JCI commercial products (the "Travelnote®" voice recording/playback system and the "HomeLink®" trainable transceiver), and JCI marketed Bluetooth hands‑free products (e.g., the BlueConnect hands‑free car kit) in this era — so the original assignee did ship products in the relevant space.

Current status: operating, but restructured. JCI divested its automotive electronics business to Visteon (transfer of record dated 2015‑02‑25, below) and spun off automotive seating/interiors as Adient (2016); the building-controls business merged with Tyco to form Johnson Controls International plc. JCI Technology Company today sits within that building-technologies group. No bankruptcy.

Assignment timeline

The Assignment Center surfaces two recorded assignments in this chain. I have the parties and dates but not the reel/frame or correspondent, which I flag rather than fabricate.

• 2003‑04‑14 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not retrieved (see limitation note)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Witkowski, Todd R.; Dykema, Kurt A.; Geerlings, Steven L.; Zeinstra, Mark L.; Buege, Robert F.
  • Assignee: Johnson Controls Technology Company
  • Correspondent: not captured in available sources — could not verify; no repeat-player flag possible.
  • Context: standard inventor→employer assignment taken at filing; normal prosecution step.

• 2015‑02‑25 (recorded) — Reel/Frame: not retrieved

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Johnson Controls Technology Company
  • Assignee: Visteon Global Technologies, Inc. (One Village Center Drive, Van Buren Township, MI)
  • Correspondent: not captured — could not verify. (A Visteon in‑house "Intellectual Property Department" address appears in unrelated PTAB filings, but I cannot tie it to this recording; not treated as a finding.)
  • Context: corporate divestiture — transfer of JCI's automotive‑electronics portfolio to Visteon. Operating company → operating company; not a shell or licensing entity.

• 2022‑01‑10 — Adjusted expiration; legal status "Expired – Fee Related" (Google Patents legal events). The patent lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees, i.e., the then‑owner (Visteon) allowed it to expire rather than maintain or assert it.

Related family members (US 7787907, US 7970446, US 8634888, US 9318017) share the same JCI→Visteon provenance (Unified Patents portal listings for US‑9318017‑B2 and US‑7346374‑B2 show Visteon Global Technologies as assignee), confirming this is a portfolio divestiture, not a serial NPE hand‑off.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7346374
    1999 : Priority provisional filed
    2003 : CIP application filed by Johnson Controls
         : Inventors assign to Johnson Controls
    2008 : Patent issued as US 7346374
    2015 : Assigned to Visteon Global Technologies
    2022 : Lapsed for failure to pay fees

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. Both links are operating companies (Johnson Controls Technology; Visteon Global Technologies). No "IP/Holdings/Licensing/Ventures" LLC, no registered‑agent address, no single‑purpose entity appears in the chain (events of 2003‑04‑14 and 2015‑02‑25).

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither assignee appears on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / Wi‑LAN‑Conversant / Pendrell / Round Rock / Spangenberg lists or on the Unified Patents / RPX high‑frequency‑plaintiff sets. Visteon appears only as a defendant/patent owner in that ecosystem, not as an NPE plaintiff.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / insufficient data. I could not retrieve the recording correspondent for either assignment, so recurrence cannot be tested. (The patent's prosecution attorney, Foley & Lardner LLP, is a full‑service firm doing both operating‑company and other work; a single appearance there would not be a signal in any event.)

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. Only one post‑filing transfer (2015‑02‑25), roughly 12 years after the 2003 filing — no chained LLCs, no <24‑month succession, no shared correspondent address.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present / unverified. I found no infringement litigation naming US 7346374; with no suit identified, the 6‑month‑before‑suit test cannot be triggered.

6. Bankruptcy fire‑sale — Not present. JCI did not enter Chapter 7/11; the 2015 recording reflects a voluntary business‑line divestiture, not a court‑supervised patent sale.

7. Privateering — Not present on available evidence. No SEC disclosure or third‑party (Patent Progress/EFF) coverage indicates Visteon asserting this patent on JCI's behalf; and the patent lapsing for non‑payment in 2022 is affirmative evidence of non‑assertion.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti‑NPE) — Not present. The chain terminates at an operating company (Visteon), not at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Insufficient data — though the evidence points away from any NPE finding.

Justification: the complete recorded chain is inventors → Johnson Controls Technology Company (2003‑04‑14) and Johnson Controls Technology Company → Visteon Global Technologies, Inc. (2015‑02‑25), both operating companies, with the patent subsequently lapsing for fee non‑payment on 2022‑01‑10. No shell LLC, no listed NPE, no cascading transfers, and no identified litigation appear — so the enumerated verdicts do not include a clean "operating‑company, non‑asserting" category, and I could not verify reel/frame or the recording correspondents. On the record available, this is a non‑NPE, non‑asserting operating‑company chain, not a troll pattern.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7346374); mirrored at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — pull the reel/frame and correspondent fields, which are the two data points I could not confirm and which are the crux of any corroborating NPE check.

I'll search for the cited prior art references for US 7,346,374.

Let me pull the citation list directly from patent database mirrors.

Let me retrieve the Justia citation table and the Google Patents citation list.

I was unable to complete a full retrieval of the face-of-patent "References Cited" list within my tool budget, so I want to be precise about what I verified versus what I could not. Below I separate the two clearly and do not fabricate citation data.

1. Identification of the correct record (screening out similar numbers)

Searching the identifier 7346374 surfaced several unrelated records that share the same digit string. Per the strict rule, I am excluding these as not the target:

• JP S50-70494 A — a 1975 Japanese patent whose internal application number renders as "JP7346374A" (brominated butyl rubber chemistry).
• Japanese Patent No. 7346374 (特許第7346374号) — a 2020/2022 semiconductor-substrate filing.
• US 6,532,374 B1 (Cheinnakeshu et al.) — different patent.

The target is US 7,346,374 B2, "Wireless communications system and method," Johnson Controls Technology Co., app. 10/336,466, filed 2003‑01‑03, issued 2008‑03‑18, priority 1999‑05‑26. Confirmed at Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7346374) and Justia (https://patents.justia.com/patent/7346374).

2. Important limitation on the citation list (stated up front)

I was not able to retrieve the complete "References Cited" table that appears on the face of US 7,346,374. The tools available to me only execute web searches (no direct page fetch of the Justia/Google "Patent Citations" table), and my searches returned only a fragment of that table plus the citation tables of other patents.

Consequently:

• I will not list U.S. Patent Documents allegedly cited on the '374 front page unless I actually observed them in a retrieved source. Inventing a plausible-looking list would violate the "no fabrication" rule.
• The one directly observed citation-table entry for '374 is given in §3 below.
• The most defensible prior-art discussion I can support is grounded in (a) that observed entry and (b) the EPO search report for the European family member EP 1 246 414, which shares the same disclosure — clearly labeled as a proxy, not as the U.S. cited references.

If you need the authoritative U.S. list, it must be pulled from the front page of US 7,346,374 via USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR or the Google Patents "Citations / Cited By" panel (application 10/336,466). I could not complete that retrieval here.

3. Directly observed citation evidence for US 7,346,374

WO 98/53384 (PCT publication) — November 1998 — appeared as a Foreign Patent Document in the Justia citation table for patent 7346374. Full bibliographic verification of the subject matter was not completed within budget, so I will not characterize its disclosure. Any § 102 assertion about it is therefore withheld pending verification.

4. Best-supported prior art: EPO search report for the same-family EP 1 246 414

The U.S. application 10/336,466 is a continuation-in-part of the PCT that also produced the European counterpart EP 1 246 414 A3, "Wireless communications system and method therefor." The EPO's search report (retrieved from patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/.../EP1246414A3.pdf) lists the following, with the examining division's own relevance codes. Because the disclosure is common to the family, this is the most reliable indicia of what a searching authority considered the closest art. Caveat: these are EPO-cited references; I have not confirmed that the same documents appear on the U.S. front page.

Statute-of-limitations / § 102 status of these references

Relative to the 1999-05-26 priority date and the 2003-01-03 U.S. filing date:

• All five pre-date 1999-05-26 and are more than one year before 2003-01-03, so each qualifies as § 102(b) art (and § 102(a) as to the earlier date).

§ 102 anticipation assessment (what I can and cannot responsibly claim)

Anticipation under § 102 requires a single reference disclosing every element of a claim, arranged as claimed. Independent claims 1, 19, and 25 each require, in substance: a portable device with an RF transceiver using the Bluetooth protocol; a vehicle with a microphone, vehicle audio system, and vehicle display system; and bidirectional transfer of voice / audio / display information therebetween (per the claim text on RPX Insight, https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/US7346374B2).

• Bennett (1997) — X code at the EPO: the "Piconet" paper is the strongest candidate but is directed to generic embedded short-range networking. On its face it does not appear to disclose the vehicle microphone + vehicle audio system + vehicle display system integration that is recited in every independent claim here. Under U.S. § 102, therefore, I would not expect Bennett alone to anticipate claims 1, 19, or 25; it is far more likely an obviousness (§ 103) or background reference against the broadest concept.
• Haartsen (1998) and DE 197 28 083 (1999): these were combined by the EPO as a Y pair (i.e., a § 103-type combination), not as a single anticipatory reference. A two-reference combination is legally insufficient for § 102 anticipation.
• US 5,661,651 and DE 34 17 956: coded A (mere background), so no § 102 reliance.

Bottom line: on the evidence I actually retrieved, I cannot identify a reference that anticipates (as opposed to renders obvious) any of claims 1–32, and the EPO's own treatment supports a § 103 rather than a § 102 theory. I am explicitly not asserting a specific claim-by-reference anticipation mapping, because (i) I lack the full U.S. cited-reference list and (ii) I have not read the full text of the candidate references.

5. Documents incorporated by reference (not prior-art citations, but part of the record)

The specification expressly incorporates, and these should not be confused with § 102 art:

• US 5,810,420 — the "Travelnote®" voice recording/playback system (cited in the FIG. 8 discussion).
• US 6,091,343; US 5,854,593; US 5,708,415 — HomeLink® trainable-transceiver patents, incorporated for the trainable-transceiver embodiments (FIGS. 15–17).
• WO 00/72463 A2 — the PCT publication of the parent application (PCT/US2000/014692), from which priority is claimed.

6. Cross-reference / consistency flags

• Consistent with the previously generated summary: patent number, dates, assignee, inventors, and the claim-1/19/25 structure all match.
• One note to flag: an aggregate result (US9370041) shows a "References Cited" list containing 7,346,374 B2 * 3/2008 Witkowski, 7,349,722 B2, 7,787,907 B2, etc. That is the citation list of US 9,370,041, a later family-related patent in which '374 is cited — it is not '374's own cited art. Do not attribute that list to US 7,346,374.
• Forward citations (patents citing '374), e.g., US 8,571,752 and US 7,941,541 (Justia "7346374 | March 18, 2008 | Witkowski et al."), are likewise not prior art against '374.

7. What I recommend as the next, definitive step

To produce a compliant, complete § 102 mapping you need the actual face-of-patent list, which I could not retrieve:

1. USPTO PatentCenter / PAIR for application 10/336,466 → "References Cited" and any PTO-892 / PTO-1449 forms (examiner-cited vs. applicant-cited, and their § 102/§ 103 markings).
2. Google Patents "Citations" panel for US7346374B2 (https://patents.google.com/patent/US7346374) — the front-page reference table.
3. Global Dossier / Espacenet for the family to correlate U.S. and EP citations.

If you can supply (or grant a fetch of) the front-page "References Cited" list, I will return an itemized table — full citation, publication/filing date, brief description, and the specific claim(s) each reference could anticipate under § 102 — without the proxy caveats required above.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art citations of record for this patent. Let me pull the citation records.

Let me pull the full front-page "References Cited" list and the examiner's cited art.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,346,374 B2

"Wireless communications system and method" — Appl. No. 10/336,466, filed 2003‑01‑03, granted 2008‑03‑18.

0. Sourcing note (read first)

The task directs me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." I want to be transparent about a gap: the full text supplied in this analysis does not reproduce the patent's front‑page "References Cited" block or Google Patents' "Citations" table — the supplied text runs from "Definitions" → "Landscapes" → "Abstract" → "Description," skipping the citation listings. So I could not mechanically read the entire prior‑art of record off the page.

What I can ground here, from the reference lists retrievable via search on this patent and its Justia/RPX counterparts, is the following set of references actually of record or admitted in the specification:

⚠️ Two cautions:

1. I saw, in a different patent's front page (US 9,370,041), a citation to the '374 patent and a long list of 2001–2002 U.S. patent publications. Those are references cited by that later patent — they are not necessarily the '374's own cited art. I have not attributed them to '374.
2. The two post‑filing news items sometimes surfaced near this family — Lienert, "Phone Users Will Love New DaimlerChrysler feature; UConnect…," Detroit News, Aug. 13, 2003, and Rothman, "Just Click 'Decaf'," TIME, Sept. 8, 2003 — post‑date the Jan. 3, 2003 CIP filing and cannot be §102(b) art; they are probative only as evidence of contemporaneous market/demand (relevant to motivation, and possibly to secondary considerations). Do not treat them as prior art.

1. Legal framework

• Because Appl. 10/336,466 was filed January 3, 2003, pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs (the AIA first‑inventor‑to‑file provisions apply only to applications filed on or after March 16, 2013).
• The controlling obviousness test is Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) — decided while this patent was still pending/prosecuting. KSR teaches that:
  • the "motivation to combine" need not be found in the references themselves; it may come from market demand, design incentives, common sense, or the ordinary creativity of a POSITA (550 U.S. at 415–421);
  • a combination is obvious where it is "obvious to try" — a finite number of identified, predictable solutions (id. at 421);
  • "if a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious unless its actual application is beyond his or her skill" (id. at 417);
  • substituting one known element for another to obtain predictable results is obvious (id.).
• Because all three independent claims recite a well‑known published standard (Bluetooth) integrated with well‑known vehicle telephony/audio/display hardware, this case sits squarely in the KSR "predictable variation" zone. The strongest §103 argument therefore runs on a standard‑specification‑plus‑vehicle‑platform combination, not on a single anticipating reference.

2. Critical date / effective filing date — the key §103 threshold issue

The patent claims priority to May 26, 1999 (provisional 60/135,979 → PCT/US2000/014692 → Ser. No. 09/979,199), via a continuation‑in‑part. This creates an important two‑tier dating problem:

Consequence: If the Bluetooth limitations are new matter, then the 1999–2003 window is open prior‑art territory for those limitations. That window comfortably contains:

• the Bluetooth Specification v1.0/1.1 (1999) and the "Comprehensive Description of the Bluetooth System" (June 17, 1998);
• the Haartsen Ericsson Review article (1998);
• the Bluetooth Adopter "Technology Overview" (Apr. 27, 1999);
• "Microsoft Introduces Auto PC" (Feb. 1998) and Chinnock "Car PCs Out for a Test Drive Only" (Nov. 16, 1998).

Even on the earliest (1999) date, the 1998 Bluetooth publications and the 1998 Auto PC/Car‑PC articles remain §102(b) art.

3. The claimed subject matter, distilled

Claim 1 (system): first RF transceiver integrated with a portable device, operating under Bluetooth; a second RF transceiver mounted in the vehicle; vehicle has microphone + audio system + display system; the second transceiver (a) routes display information from the portable device to the vehicle display, (b) routes audio information from the portable device to the vehicle audio, and (c) routes voice information from the microphone back to the portable device.

Claim 19 (vehicle‑side apparatus): same architecture from the vehicle perspective — RF transceiver coupled to the vehicle and external to the portable device, using a Bluetooth communication standard; receives mic signals and transmits voice RF to the portable device; receives sound RF and drives the vehicle audio; receives display RF and drives the vehicle display.

Claim 25 (method): receive voice via vehicle mic → transmit voice info to an in‑vehicle portable device via Bluetooth → receive audio from the portable device and play on vehicle audio → communicate display info to the vehicle display.

Common inventive concept: a Bluetooth short‑range RF link between a portable device and a vehicle electronics suite, integrating the vehicle microphone, audio system, and display.

4. Prior art of record and what each teaches

4.1 The Bluetooth standard (Haartsen 1998; "Comprehensive Description of the Bluetooth System," 6/17/1998; "Technology Overview," 4/27/1999)

These references — cited by the applicant itself — disclose the substantive content the claims attribute to "Bluetooth":

• A short‑range (≈10 m) 2.4 GHz ISM ad hoc radio link established automatically when devices come into proximity (the spec's cable‑replacement purpose).
• Voice and data: SCO channels for synchronous voice and ACL channels for asynchronous data — i.e., Bluetooth inherently carries both voice and data over one link. The '374 claims' separation of "voice information," "audio information," and "display information" maps onto SCO (voice/audio) and ACL (display/data) traffic.
• Frequency hopping (1600 hops/s), encryption/authentication, automatic output‑power adaptation — the very features the '374 specification describes as Bluetooth's.
• The Haartsen article's own "ultimate headset" passage — "Connect a headset to your mobile PC or to any wired connection and free your hands for more important tasks at the office or in your car" — is a direct, in‑record teaching to apply Bluetooth to in‑car hands‑free use. (This exact passage appears in a PTAB petition discussing the Haartsen reference as prior art, confirming its content.)

Critical point: Because the '374 specification itself describes Bluetooth as a pre‑existing standard ("The Bluetooth communications standard was established…"), the applicant has made an admission that the Bluetooth standard's content (voice+data, 2.4 GHz, hopping, auto‑connection) is prior art. Admissions in the specification are usable as prior art for §103.

4.2 Vehicle telephony/audio/display platforms ("Microsoft Introduces Auto PC," Feb. 1998; Chinnock, "Car PCs Out for a Test Drive Only," Nov. 1998)

These cited references establish that, before the '374's effective dates, the automotive art already contained:

• an in‑vehicle computing/telematics platform (Auto PC) with a display, audio system, and voice/microphone interface, controlling vehicle electronics and running applications;
• vehicle informatic/hands‑free telephony functionality — the recognized need to free the driver's hands and to present information on a vehicle display.

4.3 U.S. 5,810,420 (Travelnote®) — incorporated by reference

The '374 specification expressly incorporates this patent, which teaches a vehicle microphone + audio playback/record system (visor/rearview‑mirror mounted) for hands‑free voice capture and playback. This supplies the "vehicle microphone + audio system" element and the hands‑free vehicular context as of record art.

4.4 U.S. 6,091,343; 5,854,593; 5,708,415 (HomeLink®/trainable transceivers) — incorporated by reference

Relevant to the CIP's trainable transceiver subject matter (FIGS. 15–17) and to dependent claims reciting a trainable/home‑control transceiver.

4.5 WO 98/53384 (Nov. 1998)

Listed among the cited foreign patent documents on the Justia record for this family. I could not retrieve its teaching in this session, so I will not assign it a specific disclosure. It is noted for completeness and would need to be verified against the full document before being relied upon.

5. Grounds of rejection under § 103

Ground 1 — Bluetooth standard + in‑vehicle hands‑free/telematics platform (primary ground)

Combination: Haartsen (1998) and/or "Comprehensive Description of the Bluetooth System" (6/17/1998), in view of "Microsoft Introduces Auto PC" (Feb. 1998) and/or Chinnock, "Car PCs Out for a Test Drive Only" (11/16/1998), and optionally U.S. 5,810,420.

Element mapping to claim 1:

• Portable device with first RF transceiver operating under Bluetooth → Haartsen/Bluetooth spec (portable devices — phones, PDAs, notebooks — with Bluetooth transceivers; the spec's central premise).
• Second RF transceiver mounted in the vehicle → Auto PC / Car PC platform integrating a wireless transceiver into the vehicle head unit.
• Vehicle microphone → U.S. 5,810,420 (vehicle mic) and the Auto PC voice interface.
• Voice information from the microphone provided to the first transceiver → Bluetooth SCO voice channel (Haartsen), hands‑free telephony (U.S. 5,810,420; Auto PC).
• Audio information from the portable device routed to the vehicle audio system → Bluetooth SCO/ACL audio to vehicle speakers (Haartsen's in‑car headset teaching; U.S. 5,810,420).
• Display information from the portable device routed to the vehicle display → Auto PC / Car PC in‑dash display driven by external/portable computing data; Bluetooth ACL data channel.

Motivation to combine (KSR‑sufficient):

1. The Bluetooth references themselves supply the suggestion. The Haartsen article expressly names "your car" as a target environment for the cable‑free headset, and the Bluetooth standard was created to replace cables between mobile devices. A POSITA reading Haartsen with the Auto PC platform would be directly led to implement the Bluetooth link between the portable device and the vehicle electronics.
2. The Auto PC / Car‑PC references supply the complementary motivation — the automotive industry was actively integrating computing/display/audio into the vehicle and seeking to interface portable devices and hands‑free telephony.
3. Market demand / regulatory environment: hands‑free driving laws and consumer convenience created strong, KSR‑recognized incentives to remove the cable between a portable phone/PDA and vehicle electronics. The 2003 UConnect news articles (post‑filing, but evidence of contemporaneous demand) confirm this.
4. Predictable result / simple substitution: Replacing the wire between a hands‑free car kit and a portable phone with the Bluetooth link the standard was designed to provide is the paradigm "substitution of one known element for another" with predictable results. No new mechanical/electrical architecture is required — the integration is a routine CMOS transceiver drop‑in (the '374 spec itself concedes Bluetooth transceivers are inexpensive single‑chip CMOS parts).
5. Reasonable expectation of success: Bluetooth was an open, published standard with published hardware; integration required only ordinary skill.

Ground 2 — Bluetooth standard + vehicle display/telematics art (targets the display‑information limitation)

Combination: Haartsen/Bluetooth spec in view of "Microsoft Introduces Auto PC" (and/or Chinnock) — specifically to supply routing of display information from a portable/computing device to a vehicle display.

Motivation: The Auto PC references teach an in‑vehicle display presenting information generated by computing applications. Once Bluetooth's ACL asynchronous data channel (Haartsen) is available, a POSITA would recognize that non‑voice data (display content, text, navigation, contacts) can be carried over that same radio link to the vehicle display. This is a straightforward application of a known data channel to a known display — predictable, and squarely within KSR's "improve similar devices in the same way" rationale. The '374 specification's own "personal calendars, e‑mail, telephone directories" example is the ordinary, expected use.

Ground 3 — Applicant‑admitted prior art in the '374 specification itself

Because the specification describes, as existing technology, (a) Bluetooth (2.4 GHz, hopping, encryption, output‑power adaptation, piconet/scatternet), (b) vehicle audio and display systems, and (c) vehicle text‑to‑speech modules, those admissions are available as prior art. Under In re Nomiya / Riverwood, admissions of prior art in the specification can be used for §103, especially where the applicant characterizes a feature as "conventional."

Combining the admitted Bluetooth standard with admitted conventional vehicle audio/display/microphone hardware → the subject matter of claims 1, 19, and 25 is obvious.

6. Dependent‑claim analysis

The dependent claims add limitations that are either expressly in the Bluetooth standard or routine design choices, making them separately obvious over Ground 1:

Note on the "automatic connection" claims: the '374 background frames automatic/unconscious linking as a desideratum ("it would therefore be desirable…"). Where the inventor frames the problem and the prior art supplies the known solution (Bluetooth ad hoc connection), the claim is obvious under KSR's "known problem, known solution" principle.

7. Anticipation vs. obviousness

No single reference of record appears to disclose all of claim 1's elements in one document (a complete vehicle with mic + audio + display and a Bluetooth portable‑device link). The rejection therefore best sounds in § 103, not § 102. The strongest framing is:

Bluetooth standard (Haartsen/Comprehensive Description, 1998) in view of the in‑vehicle Auto PC / Car PC platform art (Hansen Report 1998; Chinnock 1998), and further in view of U.S. 5,810,420 (Travelnote®).

8. Counterarguments and how they fare

9. Conclusion

Claims 1, 19, and 25 of U.S. 7,346,374 would have been obvious under pre‑AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over the Bluetooth standard references of record (Haartsen 1998; "Comprehensive Description of the Bluetooth System," June 17, 1998; Bluetooth Adopter "Technology Overview," Apr. 27, 1999) in view of in‑vehicle computing/telephony platform art of record ("Microsoft Introduces Auto PC," Feb. 1998; Chinnock, Nov. 16, 1998), and further in view of U.S. 5,810,420 (Travelnote®).

The dispositive motivations are (i) Haartsen's express teaching of in‑car, hands‑free cable‑free use; (ii) the automotive art's established in‑vehicle display/audio/microphone platform; (iii) the recognized market/safety demand for hands‑free in‑vehicle operation; and (iv) the KSR‑recognized principle that substituting a known wireless link for a known cable, with predictable results, is obvious. The dependent claims add only Bluetooth‑standard features (2.4 GHz, hopping, encryption/authentication, auto‑connect, power adaptation) or conventional elements (text‑to‑speech, trainable transceiver per the incorporated HomeLink® patents), and are likewise obvious.

10. Explicit uncertainties and limits of this analysis

1. I could not read the '374's complete front‑page "References Cited" list in this session; the provided text omits it. The disclosure of WO 98/53384 in particular is unverified — do not rely on it without pulling the document.
2. I did not verify whether the parent Ser. No. 09/979,199 / PCT/US00/14692 discloses "Bluetooth" as such. This is the single most important open factual question, because it determines whether the 1999–2003 Bluetooth publications are available as prior art. The parent's specification and the EPO prosecution history (European App. 00 939 337.8 / 02 076 747.1, referenced on the record) should be examined.
3. I identified the specific U.S. patent‑document citations on the '374 front page only partially. A complete obviousness opinion should be run against the full PTO‑1449/892 record (all cited U.S. and foreign patent documents), not just the NPL references I could retrieve.
4. This is a technical/analytical assessment, not a legal opinion, and no litigation/validity challenge to this patent is known of on the record researched earlier. If validity is at issue in a live matter, the analysis should be re‑run against that proceeding's specific grounds and claim construction.