US 7449993

US 7,449,993 — Verification Summary

Search scope note: I checked the USPTO public materials indexed via patent search results (Google Patents bibliographic/family record, USPTO/PTAB petition documents, court docket aggregators) and the Federal Circuit opinion feeds for 2026. I found no 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket activity for US 7,449,993, and I found no live USPTO proceeding that the record confirms is directed at the '993 patent. Details and caveats below.

1. Bibliographic data (high confidence — Google Patents record + patent front matter)

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A system, an apparatus, and methods are provided for data communications associated with a vehicle. The apparatus preferably includes at least one electronic subsystem associated with the vehicle and a plurality of electrical conductors connected to the at least one electronic subsystem and associated with the vehicle. A vehicle data communications protocol converter is preferably connected to the plurality of electrical conductors for converting a first data communications protocol associated with data communications along the plurality of electrical conductors to a second data communications protocol such as an infrared, an RF data, an Internet, or other network communications protocol. The apparatus also preferably includes a transceiver connected to the data communications protocol converter for transmitting the second data communications protocol from the vehicle and receiving the data communications protocol from another portion of the vehicle, a remote data communications terminal, another vehicle, or another communications network."

3. Plain-language claim overview

Important accuracy caveat: The authoritative full text I was given includes the complete text of claims 1 and 2 and a truncated portion of claim 3. I therefore have verbatim claim language only for claim 1 (and claim 2's dependency). I am not going to invent the text of claims 3–20 or guess which claim numbers are independent.

Independent claim 1 — verbatim, in plain language:
"A vehicle comprising: a data communications apparatus for communicating data to and from said vehicle, said data communications apparatus comprising: (a) a plurality of electrical conductors associated with said vehicle; (b) a vehicle data communications protocol converter connected to said plurality of electrical conductors to convert a first data communications protocol associated with data communications along the plurality of electrical conductors to a second data communications protocol; and (c) means connected to said vehicle data communications protocol converter for transmitting the second data communications protocol from said vehicle, and for receiving the second data communications protocol from a remote data communications terminal."

In everyday terms: the claim is drawn to a vehicle itself that carries a data-communications box. You have (1) vehicle wiring, (2) a converter that takes the data as carried on that vehicle wiring in one protocol and re-expresses it in a different protocol, and (3) transmitter/receiver means (a "means-plus-function" element under § 112 ¶ 6) that sends the re-expressed data off the vehicle and receives such data back from a remote terminal. Note that "remote data communications terminal" is the recipient as claimed; the specification elsewhere extends the recipient to another portion of the vehicle, another vehicle, or a network.

Dependent claims available to me:

• Claim 2 (depends on 1): the electrical conductors are operatively connected to at least one electronic subsystem associated with the vehicle.
• Claim 3 (depends on 2, text cut off mid-word): the electronic subsystem is selected from a group consisting of tire pressure monitor, vehicle identification, brake system, cargo monitor, reefer monitor, lighting sy[stem]… — the rest of the Markush group is not in the text I have.

Likely additional independent claims (INFERENCE, clearly flagged — not verified from the claim text): The specification's SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION sets out five distinct aspects, which typically map to separate independent claims in this family: (i) the vehicle + apparatus combination of claim 1; (ii) a standalone apparatus (conductors + protocol converter + transceiver that sends to and receives from a remote terminal); (iii) an apparatus having a transceiver housing mountable to the vehicle with the converter and transceiver inside it; (iv) an apparatus whose transceiver housing is a vehicle light housing, e.g., a side-marker light housing, hiding the electronics; and (v) a method (provide vehicle conductors → convert first protocol to second protocol → transmit to a remote terminal, other vehicle portions, other vehicles, or a network). I have not confirmed which claim numbers these correspond to, so treat items (ii)–(v) as probable rather than established.

Claim-construction context worth knowing: the specification emphasizes that the second protocol uses only the physical layer of the transceivers and not a data link layer (DLL), and names candidate second protocols as IrDA infrared, RF (including Bluetooth and IEEE 802.11), Internet/global-network protocol, LAN protocol, other wireless, or power line carrier (PLC) including Spread Spectrum PLC (CEBus, X-10, PowerBus). First protocol is preferably SAE J1708, alternatively J1939, J1587, RS-485, or PLC. The intermediate conversion is preferably J1708 → RS-485 → IrDA/RF.

4. Litigation / PTAB context

Google Patents "Family has litigation" feed for this family lists:

• E.D. Tex.: 6:12-cv-00057, 6:11-cv-00497, 6:10-cv-00574, 6:10-cv-00327, 6:10-cv-00040, 6:09-cv-00157 (the last is Innovative Global Systems LLC v. Turnpike Global Technologies L.L.C. et al, E.D. Tex., filed 2009‑04‑07, closed 2010‑08‑02, Judge Leonard Davis).
• E.D. Mich.: 2:12-cv-11024.

⚠️ Inconsistency in the sources I should flag rather than resolve: a copy of the Innovative Global Systems LLC v. OnStar, LLC et al. complaint (defendants OnStar, ATX Group, Xirgo, Progressive Casualty, Power Solutions, BSM Wireless) bears an E.D. Tex., Tyler Division caption while the Google Patents feed lists the E.D. Mich. case number 2:12‑cv‑11024. These may be two separate filings or a caption/case-number mismatch in the secondary sources. I cannot verify which is correct from what I retrieved.

Federal Circuit: the only IGS-side Federal Circuit appeal I found is Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc., No. 2021‑2289 — nonprecedential Rule 36 affirmance entered June 15, 2022 (Lourie, Bryson, Hughes, JJ.), appeal from PTAB IPR2020‑00694. I do not have confirmation that IPR2020‑00694 involved US 7,449,993; the PTAB record I retrieved shows a different Zonar petition, IPR2020‑00154, challenging US 6,946,953 (Lesesky). Do not treat the Motive appeal as '993‑specific without further verification.

2026 CAFC dockets: None found for US 7,449,993. My 2026 Federal Circuit/PTAB sweep returned unrelated matters (e.g., ASSA ABLOY v. CPC, Slingshot v. Canon, In re Volkswagen, AGI v. Farmers Edge, Magnolia v. Kurin). I did not find any pending 2026 appeal, IPR, PGR, or district-court action naming the '993 patent. This is a negative search result from a limited set of queries, not proof of absence — a PACER/Docket Navigator or PTAB API query would be needed to be authoritative.

5. Explicit uncertainties

1. Full claim set (claims 3–20): not available in the authoritative text supplied; independent claims beyond claim 1 are inferred, not confirmed.
2. 2026 litigation/CAFC activity: no hits found; absence of evidence, not verified absence.
3. IPR2020‑00694 patent identity: unconfirmed as to whether it is the '993 patent.
4. Assignee status: "Innovative Global Systems, LLC" is the recorded assignee; whether the '993 patent was later transferred, released, or abandoned is unknown. The patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2015‑12‑09) regardless.
5. Unrelated search collisions with the string "7449993" — to be explicit, these are different identifiers and must not be conflated with US 7,449,993: a Japanese patent publication no. 7449993 (Panasonic IP of America, "無線受信装置、及び、受信方法," registered 2024‑03‑14); a Brazilian JUCEEC registration "7449993 KAIZEN SOLUCOES ADMINISTRATIVAS LTDA"; and a document/figure reference "7449993_1.docx" appearing in an Australian patent specification.

I'll research litigation involving US 7,449,993 across patent litigation databases and court records.

Let me search for the specific case numbers listed in the patent record.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 7,449,993

Important framing caveat first: U.S. 7,449,993 ("the '993 patent") issued November 11, 2008 to inventors Alan C. Lesesky and Bobby Weant, originally assigned to Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc., and later assigned to Innovative Global Systems, LLC ("IGS") (recorded 04/06/2009). All asserted litigation I located was brought by IGS as plaintiff.

A second caveat: the litigation entries surfaced here are keyed to the patent family (priority 1995-11-09, family 37009723), which includes related patents such as US 6,064,299; 6,111,524; 6,411,203; 6,608,554; 7,015,800; 7,817,019; 8,232,871; and 8,680,976. I could not, within my search steps, confirm for every case listed below that the '993 patent itself was named in the complaint rather than a sibling family member. I flag that where it matters.

Confirmed cases

Sources: Google Patents litigation links for US 7,449,993 (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/6%3A09-cv-00157, .../6%3A10-cv-00040, .../6%3A10-cv-00327, .../6%3A10-cv-00574, .../6%3A11-cv-00497, .../6%3A12-cv-00057, and .../Michigan%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/2%3A12-cv-11024); RPX Insight docket page for 6:09-cv-00157 (https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation/txedce-[115364](/patent/115364)-innovative-global-systems-v-turnpike-global-techologies); RPX litigation document 4419458 (IGS complaint reciting the Teletrac final judgment); Stanford NPE litigation database (npe.law.stanford.edu), which lists "Innovative Global Systems LLC v. Teletrac, Inc. et al," 6:10-cv-00040, E.D. Tex., under patent-asserter category "Individual-inventor-started."

Related PTAB / appellate proceedings (not district-court litigation, but part of the enforcement history)

• Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC, IPR2020-00154, USPTO PTAB. Petition filed Nov. 19, 2019; trial instituted May 12, 2020; terminated Aug. 27, 2020 on a joint motion to terminate (typically indicative of settlement). I could not confirm whether the challenged patent in IPR2020-00154 was the '993 patent or a different Lesesky/IGS patent — the only exhibit identifiable from my search is U.S. 6,946,953 to Lesesky, cited as prior art. Treat the linkage to the '993 patent as unverified.
• Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc., No. 21-2289 (Fed. Cir.), nonprecedential judgment June 15, 2022 (AFFIRMED), an appeal from a PTAB IPR (IPR2020-____). Panel: Lourie, Bryson, Hughes. Appellant IGS represented by Christopher S. Edwards (Ward and Smith, P.A.); appellee by David Lindenbaum (Kelley Drye & Warren LLP). Source: CourtListener opinion 6477826. Again, I could not confirm which IGS patent family member was at issue.

What I could NOT establish

• The defendant identities for cases 3–7 (6:10-cv-00327, 6:10-cv-00574, 6:11-cv-00497, 6:12-cv-00057, and E.D. Mich. 2:12-cv-11024).
• The precise termination reason for the Turnpike case (closed 08/02/2010) — the docket shows closure, but I did not retrieve a dismissal-vs-settlement document.
• Whether every listed case named the '993 patent specifically, versus another patent in the same family. Given the '993 patent issued 11/11/2008, only cases filed after that date (6:09-cv-00157, 6:10-cv-00040, 6:10-cv-00327, 6:10-cv-00574, 6:11-cv-00497, 6:12-cv-00057, 2:12-cv-11024) could have asserted it; the E.D. Tex. cases 6:09-cv-00157 and 6:10-cv-00040 involved multiple patents-in-suit.
• The full docket history for the 2012 Michigan case's parties and outcome.

If you need the missing party names and outcomes, the reliable next steps would be PACER dockets for the five unverified case numbers, the RPX Insight litigation page for the '993 patent, and the Unified Patents litigation portal case list. I did not have a tool result that populated those fields, so I am not going to guess at party names.

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

Let me search for the litigation and any PTAB challenges tied to the patent owner and asserted patents.

Let me pin down the specific PTAB proceeding on this patent family and check the Federal Circuit appeal.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings have been filed against US 7,449,993. The USPTO Open Data Portal returned no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my searches of PTAB decision repositories, PTAB litigation reports, and the Federal Circuit docket surfaced no petition, institution decision, or FWD naming the '993 patent as the challenged patent. The bottom line for a defendant: this patent has never been tested at the PTAB — it is neither "hardened" by survival nor "killed" by cancellation. It is untested, and its most significant weakness is not a PTAB record at all: per the front-page data, the patent expired 2015-12-09 and its status is "Expired – Fee Related," which removes injunctive relief and caps exposure to a pre-expiration damages window.

⚠️ One trap to avoid, and it is a big one. Patent Owner Innovative Global Systems, LLC ("IGS") has a different set of patents in the same family that were wiped out at the PTAB — IGS's "ELD patents," US 8,032,277 and US 10,157,384. Defendants (and NPE-demand-letter recipients) frequently conflate these. The '993 was not among the patents challenged in those IPRs. Details below so you can tell them apart.

Family-context proceedings (NOT proceedings on the '993 — do not cite these as '993 outcomes)

IPR2020-00692 — Keep Truckin, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-03-10
• Patent challenged: US 8,032,277 B2 (asserted claims 1–13) — not the '993
• Status: Final Written Decision — all challenged claims unpatentable
• Judge panel: Justin T. Arbes, John F. Horvath, Frederick C. Laney (Arbes authored)
• Petition grounds: § 103(a) obviousness over Houser (WO 97/13208), the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Regulations (49 C.F.R. §§ 390–396), and Murphy (US 6,225,890)
• Institution decision: instituted on all challenged claims and all grounds, 2020-08-19
• Final Written Decision: issued 2021-08-16, holding claims 1–13 unpatentable — all challenged claims. FWD: docketalarm PDF · RPX Insight
• Settlement / termination: none — case ran to FWD
• Appeal: appealed; affirmed by the Federal Circuit, No. 21-2289, per curiam (Lourie, Bryson, Hughes), 2022-06-15 — CourtListener
• Defensive value for the '993: none directly. But it establishes that IGS's family is § 103-vulnerable in this technology space, and it identifies the petitioner's counsel (Kelley Drye) and expert (Scott Andrews) as a playbook you can reuse.

IPR2020-00694 — Keep Truckin, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2020-03-10 (companion petition, same day)
• Patent challenged: US 10,157,384 B2 (claims 1–11, 14–20) — not the '993
• Status: Final Written Decision — all challenged claims unpatentable
• Judge panel: Justin T. Arbes, John F. Horvath, Frederick C. Laney (Laney authored)
• Petition grounds: § 103(a) — Skeen, Warkentin, Transportation Regulations, and Murphy/Berenz in further combination
• Institution decision: instituted on all challenged claims and all grounds, 2020-07-23
• Final Written Decision: issued 2021-07-21, holding claims 1–11 and 14–20 unpatentable — RPX Insight
• Settlement / termination: none — case ran to FWD
• Appeal: consolidated into the same CAFC appeal, No. 21-2289; affirmed 2022-06-15
• Defensive value for the '993: technical only. Note the panel's use of 49 C.F.R. §§ 390–396 as printed-publication prior art — a tactic that may or may not transfer depending on the '993's priority date (see caveat below).

These two FWDs did not address the '993, and nothing in them cancels or narrows any '993 claim. Any statement that "claims of the '993 were invalidated at the PTAB" is false based on the record I can find.

Non-PTAB: the '993's actual litigation history

The '993 was asserted only in district court, in IGS's early campaign:

• Innovative Global Systems LLC v. Turnpike Global Technologies LLC, No. 6:09-cv-00157 (E.D. Tex., filed 2009-04-07, closed 2010-08-02) — RPX
• No. 6:10-cv-00040, 6:10-cv-00327, 6:10-cv-00574, 6:11-cv-00497, 6:12-cv-00057 (E.D. Tex.) and No. 2:12-cv-11024 (E.D. Mich.) — per the structured PTAB/litigation block. Complaints in that campaign (e.g., against OnStar, Rand McNally, Power Solutions/MasterTrak, BSM) pleaded the '993 as one of five patents-in-suit. IGS's later, 2018–2019 Delaware suits (Keep Truckin, Samsara, Blue Tree) asserted the '277 and '384 patents — not the '993.

All of the '993 suits terminated without any reported validity adjudication, and I have no reliable public record of claim-level outcomes. Those cases predate the AIA's IPR regime (available from 2012-09-16) except for the tail end, and no party filed an IPR on the '993.

Strategic summary

Claim status. US 7,449,993 has 20 claims (claim 1 independent; the text provided truncates at claim 3). No claim of the '993 is canceled, narrowed, or adjudicated unpatentable — by the PTAB or, on the record available to me, by any court. The entire claim set is UNTESTED. That cuts both ways: a defense built on "the PTAB already killed this patent" has no foundation as to the '993, but there is also no adverse FWD to overcome. What does exist is a strong family-level signal — two sibling ELD patents were held obvious in full and affirmed on appeal — and the '993 is an expired patent (adjusted expiration 2015-12-09, "Expired – Fee Related").

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaching to the '993 from IPR2020-00692/-00694, because those petitions challenged different patents. Keep Truckin/Motive's estoppel is limited to the '277 and '384. Practically, this means a current defendant has a clean slate for IPR grounds against the '993 — no estoppel, no prior-institution discretionary-denial history on this patent. But it also means there is no petitioner-side record to mine: no claim constructions, no expert findings, no Board assessment of the '993's means-plus-function transceiver limitation. The '993's claim 1 recites "means connected to said vehicle data communications protocol converter for transmitting… and for receiving…" — a § 112(f) means-plus-function limitation whose scope depends entirely on the specification's corresponding structure, which the patent describes as a "physical layer signal processing transceiver" only. That is the single most attackable feature of the patent and it has never been construed in a contested forum.

Pattern signals. IGS is a serial NPE ("established as a holding company to license intellectual property," in petitioner's words) that litigated this family in three waves: E.D. Tex. 2009–2012 (including the '993), then Delaware 2018–2019 (on the newer ELD patents). The patent owner does litigate appeals — it appealed both adverse FWDs to the Federal Circuit and lost. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, LOT) appears anywhere in the '993 chain. The "Family has litigation" flag in the structured block points to the Texas cases above, not to any PTAB filing.

Priority-date caveat (flag, not conclusion). The '993's stated prior-art date is 1995-11-09, but the application itself (11/376,417) was filed 2006-03-15 as a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 10/007,032 (filed 2001-11-08). Any claim element not supported by the earlier disclosure is entitled only to a 2006 date. I have not verified claim-by-claim priority, and I am not asserting the 2001–2006 art applies — but before you build an IPR, run that analysis, because it determines whether the entire second-generation fleet-telematics art (Murphy, Skeen, Warkentin, Berenz, the FMCSRs) is even prior art to the '993. If the '993 gets its 1995 date, most of the art that killed the siblings is ineligible.

Recommended next steps

Confirm the negative before you rely on it. Pull the '993 in PTAB E2E / PTAB Center and USPTO Patent Center (linked from Google Patents) and search CourtListener's PTAB docket for any post-2022 filing my sources may have missed. The structured ODP block is the canonical list and it says zero; my web searches agree. If a demand letter asserts the '993, the absence of PTAB activity is itself the signal: no venue has ever found a claim of this patent invalid.

Exploit the expiration first — it may moot the whole fight. The '993 expired 2015-12-09. There is no injunctive exposure and no ongoing infringement; damages reach back at most six years under § 286, which here lands inside the pre-expiration window only and may be further barred by laches-adjacent / notice considerations. Before spending on an IPR, priced at roughly $270k–$330k for a typical trial, confirm with IGS's own records (and the USPTO maintenance-fee history) that the patent is truly lapsed and unrevivable. An IPR petition against an expired patent with no live litigation is a strong candidate for discretionary denial as moot. Verify the six-year damages window still holds anything before filing.

If there is money on the table, the § 112(f) attack is your cheapest path. Claim 1's "means … for transmitting … and for receiving" has no recited structure; the specification maps it to a physical-layer-only transceiver plus "associated drive and amplification circuitry." Test whether the disclosure is adequate under Williamson v. Citrix — the patent itself says the second protocol "only uses the physical layer" of the transceivers "and not a data link layer." That is an unusually narrow, self-limiting disclosure and a candidate for indefiniteness or for a construction that reads on very little. Start your invalidity analysis here, not with prior art.

If you do file, mind § 325(d) and the family record. The Board has already considered Houser, Murphy, Skeen, Warkentin, Berenz, and 49 C.F.R. §§ 390–396 against sibling patents. If you assert those references against the '993, expect a § 325(d) "same or substantially the same art" argument even though no estoppel applies. The cleaner play is art that is new to the Board and, critically, prior art under the '993's correct priority date — which loops back to the priority analysis above.

One caution on the record. The claim text supplied to me truncates at claim 3 ("…lighting sy"), so I have not verified the full scope of dependent claims 3–20, and no FWD exists to quote. I have not fabricated claim-level dispositions for the '993 because there are none. Do not let anyone — opposing counsel, a broker, or a prior opinion — tell you otherwise without a proceeding number that resolves to the '993.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7449993 before writing anything up.

Good leads. Let me dig into the specific assignment records, reel/frame data, and litigation history.

Let me find the reel/frame and correspondent of record, plus the earlier inventor assignments.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 7,449,993 B2

Patent: US 7,449,993 B2 — "System, apparatus and methods for data communication between vehicle and remote data communication terminal…"
App. No.: 11/376,417 · Filed: 2006-03-15 · Issued: 2008-11-11 · Priority: 1995-11-09
Status: Expired – Fee Related (adjusted expiration 2015-12-09)

Sourcing note / record gap. The authoritative text supplied (Google Patents, fetched 2026-09-30) lists only one post-issuance transfer in its legal-events table (2009-04-06, VES → Innovative Global Systems LLC). In this session I was not able to retrieve the reel/frame number or the correspondent of record for that assignment from Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov — the searches returned the litigation and IPR record but not the recorded assignment instrument. Everything below is labeled to distinguish confirmed from unverified. I have not inferred a reel/frame or an attorney name.

Inventors

Pattern note (unusual, and inverted from the usual red flag): both inventors were inside VES at filing, and there is no evidence of inventor departure preceding the transfer. The opposite is documented: Lesesky did not walk away — he remained the common principal behind the acquiring entity. The IPR2020-00155 record (Unified Patents portal) classifies the patent owner as "NPE (Individual)", and the Stanford NPE litigation database tags Innovative Global Systems with the asserter category "Individual-inventor-started". IGS's later prosecution (e.g., US 10,127,556; US 11,386,431) lists Alan C. Lesesky as sole inventor with Innovative Global Systems, LLC as applicant/assignee — i.e., the inventor stayed and the licensing vehicle was built around him. This is an inventor-controlled NPE, not a fire-sale-of-departed-employees pattern.

Family-level inventor assignment (unverified for this patent): Google Patents legal-events for the VES/Lesesky family show an inventor→VES instrument — ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST; ASSIGNORS: LESESKY, ALAN; WEANT, BOBBY RAY; REEL/FRAME: 015370/0631, effective date shown as 1998-01-30. Because reel 015370 post-dates 1998 by several years and US 7,449,993 was filed in 2006 as a CIP, this reel/frame cannot itself cover the '993 application — treat it as chain-of-title context for the parent applications only, not as a recorded assignment of the '993.

Original assignee

Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. (VES) — Rock Hill, South Carolina.

• Line of business: vehicle electronics / heavy-duty tractor-trailer data-communications R&D and systems. The patent's own specification names VES's chief engineer's prior work (US 5,488,352, Jasper, "assigned to the common assignee of the present application") and the SAE J1708 / J1939 data-bus environment VES built in.
• Did it ship product embodying the claims? Partially confirmed. The specification describes a connector-mounted, cab/light-housing-mounted IR and RF transceiver adapted to "existing vehicle data communication technology" and expressly designed to avoid "extensive retrofitting" — i.e., it is written as a producible aftermarket/OEM device, not a paper claim set. More importantly, a court record shows VES commercially licensed and collected per-unit royalties on this technology: the IGS v. Zonar complaint (D.S.C., 2018) recites that in 2007 VES and Zonar entered a license for VES's "know-how, products, and intellectual property," with the Enhanced Patents specifically named and included, against an up-front payment plus royalty on net sales (Ex. 2003, IPR2020-00154). A company licensing "products" and collecting running royalties on "licensed systems" sold is, at minimum, a commercializing licensor. I did not verify a VES-branded SKU on the market.
• Current status: Unclear. I found no bankruptcy, dissolution, or merger record for VES in this session, and no SEC registrant by that name. What is documented is that "In 2009, after IGS was formed, VES transferred ownership of much of VES's intellectual property and patent rights to IGS" (IGS v. Zonar complaint ¶48). Google Patents still lists VES as original assignee and did not record a name change, so VES was not renamed into IGS — the two are separate legal persons with common control. Do not assert VES is defunct without a state-registry pull.

Assignment timeline

Only one post-issuance assignment is recorded for US 7,449,993. The chain is short: investors → VES (via the parent-application chain) → IGS, then nothing.

• 1998-01-30 (effective) / recorded date not retrieved — Reel 015370/0631

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Lesesky, Alan; Weant, Bobby Ray
  • Assignee: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not retrieved
  • Context: Founder/inventor-to-company assignment — family/parent-application chain, not verified as covering the '993. Flagged for verification before it is cited as '993 chain-of-title.

• 2009-01-29 (executed) / recorded 2009-04-06 — Reel NNNNNN/NNNN (not retrieved)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (Google Patents legal events: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc.
  • Assignee: Innovative Global Systems, LLC (South Carolina LLC, principal place of business Rock Hill, SC)
  • Correspondent: not retrieved — this is the one field the brief specifically wanted and it is the field I could not confirm. I decline to name an attorney without the instrument.
  • Context: Transfer to asserter. Execution date is independently corroborated by IGS's own pleading: "On January 29, 2009 IGS acquired through written assignment all right, title, and interest to the Patents-in-Suit from Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc." (IGS v. OnStar, E.D. Tex. complaint ¶18). The '993 had issued only ~2.5 months earlier (2008-11-11). The transferred package included US 6,608,554; 6,411,203; 6,744,352; 7,015,800 and 7,449,993.

• No further assignments recorded. Google Patents' current-assignee field remains Innovative Global Systems, LLC, and the only later legal event is 2015-12-09 (adjusted expiration / failure to pay maintenance fees). There is no record of IGS transferring the '993 out — no aggregator, no bankruptcy trustee, no name change.

Litigation overlay (for timing, not an assignment): IGS's assertion campaign on these five patents ran 2009 → 2018: 6:09-cv-00157 (Turnpike Global et al., E.D. Tex.); 6:10-cv-00040 (Teletrac); 6:10-cv-00327 (Volvo Construction Equipment); 6:10-cv-00574 (OnStar, ATX, Xirgo, Progressive Casualty, Power Solutions, BSM Wireless); 6:11-cv-00497; 6:12-cv-00057; and 2:12-cv-11024 (E.D. Mich., OnStar). Later, IGS v. Zonar (D.S.C. 2018) drew IPR2020-00154 and IPR2020-00155. Note the litigation counsel of record — Friedman Suder & Cooke (Fort Worth); Wong Cabello Lutsch Rutherford & Brucculeri; Eric M. Albritton P.C. (Longview) — are counsel for the plaintiff, not assignment correspondents, and must not be conflated with the recording attorney.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7449993
    1995 : Priority application filed
    1998 : Inventors assign family rights to VES
    2006 : CIP application filed by VES
    2008 : Patent issued Nov 11
    2009 : Assigned to Innovative Global Systems LLC
         : First IGS infringement suits filed
    2010 : Suits against OnStar and Volvo and Teletrac
    2015 : Patent expires for fee non-payment
    2018 : IGS asserts family against Zonar
    2020 : Zonar IPRs challenge family patents

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
VES (an operating vehicle-electronics company that licensed its technology commercially and collected running royalties) transferred the entire five-patent package to Innovative Global Systems, LLC by instrument executed 2009-01-29, recorded 2009-04-06. IGS is described in its own complaint as having "the exclusive right to enforce the Patents-in-Suit"; third-party industry coverage describes IGS as a patent-holding/licensing company (專利授權公司) holding nine patents, all from inventor Alan Lesesky. Qualifier I will not paper over: this is a single-purpose, licensing-only LLC, but not a faceless Delaware/Texas registered-agent shell — it is a South Carolina LLC with a real principal place of business in Rock Hill, SC, and the principals appear traceable to the inventor. The "anonymous shell" tell is only half-present.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (as a tracked individual-inventor NPE; NOT as a member of the big aggregator lists).
The Unified Patents litigation portal classifies the patent owner in IPR2020-00155 as "NPE (Individual)"; the Stanford NPE litigation database lists Innovative Global Systems LLC as an asserter category "Individual-inventor-started" (e.g., case 6:10-cv-00040). Business in Vancouver described IGS as "a non-practicing entity … known pejoratively as a 'patent troll.'" I found no Acacia / Marathon / Intellectual Ventures / Wi-LAN / Mosaid / Vringo / Pendrell / Round Rock / MPHJ link. Cite it as a single-principal individual-inventor NPE, not as an aggregator portfolio company.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT ESTABLISHED.
This is the one signal I cannot call either way, because the correspondent of record is not retrievable from the sources I could reach. There is only one post-issuance link, so even with the correspondent confirmed the "recurrence" test would have to be run across the sibling patents (6,608,554 / 6,411,203 / 6,744,352 / 7,015,800, all transferred on the same 2009 instrument) — that comparison is the natural next step and is where a repeat-player recording attorney would show up. Not a finding at this stage.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
One post-issuance transfer in 17 years, executed 2009-01-29 and recorded 2009-04-06, with no subsequent assignments. No chained LLCs, no re-recordings, no corrective assignments surfaced. The chain is flat, not cascading.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT.
Executed 2009-01-29 / recorded 2009-04-06, against IGS's first suit on these patents, Innovative Global Systems LLC v. Turnpike Global Technologies, Inc., No. 6:09-cv-00157 (E.D. Tex.), which IGS itself identifies as its first '554/'203/'352/'800/'993 case. The acquisition was executed ~2.5 months after the '993 issued and the assertion campaign began the same year. Caveat: I could not confirm the exact filing date of 6:09-cv-00157, so the strict "<6 months" arithmetic is inferred from the 2009 case number, not from a docket timestamp. The transfer was plainly arranged as a clean-standing/venue-setting record, but I will not state the six-month figure as measured fact.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT / NO EVIDENCE.
No Chapter 7/11 record for Vehicle Enhancement Systems, Inc. surfaced, and the 2009 transfer is documented by IGS as a written assignment from a going concern that was simultaneously running a 2007 license with Zonar. Whether VES's transfer was distress-motivated is unclear — but there is no bankruptcy proceeding to point to.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Classic privateering is an operating company funding an NPE to attack competitors. Here the transferor (VES) and the NPE (IGS) share a common individual principal in the inventor Lesesky, whose later applications were filed directly in IGS's name. That is inventor-controlled assertion, a distinct pattern from third-party-funded privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Innovative Global Systems, LLC, a plaintiff. No RPX / AST / LOT / Unified / OIN assignment exists. The patent was not neutralized; it was asserted (2009, 2010, 2011, 2012) and only later expired for non-payment of maintenance fees on 2015-12-09 — i.e., it was abandoned economically, not bought into a defensive pool.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two independent strong signals are documented: (i) a transfer-to-asserter of the entire five-patent package from the operating original assignee VES to a licensing-only single-purpose LLC, executed 2009-01-29 and recorded 2009-04-06, executed just ~2.5 months after this patent issued; and (ii) the pre-litigation timing and subsequent assertion campaign by that same assignee — first suit 6:09-cv-00157 (E.D. Tex.) in 2009, then 6:10-cv-00040, 6:10-cv-00327, 6:10-cv-00574, 6:11-cv-00497, 6:12-cv-00057 and 2:12-cv-11024 through 2012, continuing in D.S.C. against Zonar in 2018. Third-party NPE trackers corroborate the characterization: Unified Patents labels the owner "NPE (Individual)" on the companion IPR2020-00155, and the Stanford NPE database carries IGS under "Individual-inventor-started." The short chain — no cascading LLCs, no known aggregator, no bankruptcy, no defensive aggregator at the end — keeps this out of the "operating-company assertion" and "insufficient data" buckets, and the reliance on the inventor as the common principal keeps it distinct from classic investor-funded privateering.

Two caveats to carry forward before this memo is filed: the reel/frame and correspondent of record for the 2009 VES→IGS instrument are unverified, which leaves signal #3 (repeat correspondent) open and weakens any per-attorney attribution across the sibling patents; and VES's current corporate status is unverified. Both are one-pull fixes.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 7449993; legacy index: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html)
• Google Patents legal events / current assignee: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7449993/en
• IPR2020-00155 owner classification (Unified Patents): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/[ptab](/ptab)/case/IPR2020-00155
• IGS acquisition date corroboration (IGS v. OnStar complaint ¶¶18–19): https://iknow.stpi.niar.org.tw/Post/Files/Complaint/Complaint_pclass_10_A293_Innovative%20Global%20Systems%20v.%20OnStar.pdf
• IGS v. Zonar, VES 2007 license history (IPR2020-00154, Ex. 2003): https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Zonar_Systems_Inc._v._Innovative_Global_Systems_LLC/

I'll research the prior art cited on the face of US 7,449,993. Let me run several searches.

Let me try to pull the "References Cited" (prior-art) tables directly.

Let me pull the actual cited-reference tables from patent databases.

Bottom line up front

I was unable to retrieve the actual face-of-patent prior-art citation list for US 7,449,993 within my available search budget. I will not reconstruct or guess at a PTO-1449 "References Cited" table, because doing so would mean inventing patent numbers, dates, and § 102 mappings — the exact kind of fabrication I'm instructed to avoid. What follows is (a) exactly what I searched and what came back, (b) the prior-art / patent citations that are verifiably present in the authoritative materials I do have, with § 102 analysis, and (c) precisely where the definitive list lives so it can be pulled directly.

1. What I searched, and the result of each attempt

I also hit a step-limit termination mid-session, which is why the last three queries returned nothing.

2. Patent citations that ARE verifiable in the authoritative record I hold

These are the only patent references I can ground in the supplied full text with confidence. Neither category is a USPTO "References Cited" entry — I flag the distinction because it matters for § 102.

2a. Prior-art reference cited in the specification body (high confidence)

The specification also references SAE J1708, SAE J1939, and SAE J1587 by name — these are standards, not patent citations, and they are the named "first data communications protocol."

2b. Co-pending family applications recited in RELATED APPLICATIONS (not prior art)

The specification's RELATED APPLICATIONS paragraph recites the priority chain. Critically, none of these is § 102 prior art against the '993 patent — they are the '993 patent's own ancestors, and § 102(b)/102(e) does not apply to a reference that is in the same priority chain and shares inventorship.

Flagged contradiction (carried forward from the prior sections): the specification gives two different dates for 08/554,907 — "Nov. 5, 1995" in one clause and "Nov. 9, 1995" in the next. Google Patents lists the priority date as 1995-11-09. I am not auto-correcting this; it is a genuine internal inconsistency in the source.

§ 102 consequence of the family chain (this is the analytically important point): US 7,449,993 is a CIP filed 2006-03-15 claiming a 1995-11-09 priority date. Under pre-AIA § 102 (which governs — filed 2006-03-15, well before the 2013-03-16 AIA cutover), the effective filing date is claim-by-claim and limitation-by-limitation. Subject matter carried over from the 1995–2001 ancestors gets the 1995 date; new matter added in the 2006 CIP does not. The '993 specification's newer material — explicitly naming Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, Internet protocol, Zilog eZ80 Webserver, and the >10 Mbps / OFDM high-speed PLC discussion — is very likely 2006-dated matter. Any § 102 analysis must therefore split the claims.

2c. Documents that cite the '993 family — NOT prior art

The search results surfaced a "Cited By (74)" table (on the Google Patents page for family member US 6,608,554) and a PCT search report for WO 2013/086517 A1 that cites US 2009/0102626 A1 (Lesesky, published 2009-04-23) as an "X" document against claims 1–5 of that later application. Examples of the forward citations I saw:

• US 2003/0058128 A1 (Crunk) — 2003-03-27
• US 2004/0230370 A1 (Tzamaloukas) — 2004-11-18
• US 2004/0263329 A1 (Savi Technology) — 2004-12-30
• US 2005/0002417 A1 (Kelly / work machine protocol conversions) — 2005-01-06
• US 2005/0182527 A1 (Knosmann, "Method and apparatus for data interchange between a tractor vehicle and a trailer vehicle") — 2005-08-18
• US 2006/0071552 A1 (Lamon, DC system digital message conveyance) — 2006-04-06

These are all later in time or later-published than the 1995 priority date and post-date the 1995–2001 ancestors. They are documents that cite this family; they are not asserted prior art against the '993 patent, and several are too late to qualify as § 102 prior art against the 1995-supported claims. I list them only so the distinction is explicit and they are not mistaken for the citation list.

3. What I explicitly could NOT establish

1. The complete PTO-1449 "References Cited" list — the U.S. patent documents, foreign patent documents, and non-patent literature actually cited on the face of US 7,449,993, together with the examiner's applied rejections. I did not obtain this and will not reconstruct it.
2. The primary examiner — the idiyas.com record has a blank "Primary Examiner" field; I have no verified name.
3. US 5,488,352's exact filing date, and whether it is listed in the '993 References Cited table (vs. cited only in the specification body).
4. Whether any of the "Cited By" documents were ever applied by an examiner against the '993 claims during prosecution.
5. Any non-patent literature (e.g., SAE standards documents, IrDA specification, CEBus/X-10 materials, Sharp/Hewlett-Packard/Zilog product literature) that the examiner may have cited. The specification names commercial parts (Sharp GP2W0004YP; Zilog eZ80 Webserver; CEBus; X-10; PowerBus; Cogency Semiconductor; Intellon Corp.) — any of these could have been cited as NPL, but I have no evidence that they were.

4. Where the definitive list actually is (for a follow-up pull)

• Google Patents → US7449993B2 → "References Cited" section (distinct from the "Cited By" section, which I did retrieve). URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7449993B2/en
• USPTO Patent Public Search (ppubs.uspto.gov) → the full document with the printed front page showing "References Cited."
• USPTO PatentCenter (patentcenter.uspto.gov) → application 11/376,417 file wrapper → the PTO-1449 / IDS and the examiner's Notice of References Cited (PTO-892), which is the authoritative statement of applied art.
• Espacenet → US7449993 → "Also published as" / "Cited documents."

One USPTO PTAB document I retrieved (ptacts.uspto.gov petition download, art. OhFj7fLFoqAEfKMDmPx_2BpxioqXyuFFOYon6ZcRycgVPwB4R7oqIO0) shows a patent-search query string containing "7449993" run across US-PGPUB; USPAT databases — i.e., some party ran a prior-art search including this patent. That is evidence a search occurred; it is not the '993 citation list.

5. A caveat that undercuts the entire § 102 exercise

US 7,449,993 is expired — fee related, with "Adjusted expiration: 2015-12-09." It lapsed roughly seven years after issuance and thirteen years before today. It is not enforceable, and no live infringement claim can turn on whether any reference anticipates it. An anticipation analysis of the '993 claims is therefore historical (relevant to validity as it stood, and to the family's litigation record) rather than practical.

If you want the actual anticipation analysis, the single highest-value next step is the PTO-892 / PTO-1449 from application 11/376,417 — that gives me the real applied references and I can map each to claim 1 and the dependent claims with proper § 102 treatment. I have the verbatim text of claim 1 and claim 2 only (claim 3 is truncated mid-word at "lighting sy…"), so any per-claim mapping beyond claims 1–2 would also need the full claim set, which the authoritative text I was given does not contain.

I'll ground this analysis with targeted searching before opining on the prior-art combinations.

Good — the Zonar IPR record gives me a concrete prior-art set. Let me nail down the references cited on the '993 face and characterize the key third-party references.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,449,993 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

0. A necessary caveat about the instruction

You asked me to "use the results from the Prior Art section of this page." No "Prior Art" section was included in the material provided to me. The only materials I received were the full patent text from Google Patents plus the previously generated Patent summary and Litigation summary sections.

Rather than treat that instruction as satisfied, I reconstructed the prior-art universe from three verifiable sources:

1. The patent's own specification and its face (which cites prior art but whose reference list I could not fully retrieve — see §8, gap 1);
2. The specification's extensive self-identification of the commercial and standards landscape (SAE J1708/J1939/J1587/J560, IrDA, Bluetooth, IEEE 802.11, CEBus, X-10, Intellon/Cogency PLC chips, Zilog eZ80);
3. The exhibit set from Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC, IPR2020‑00154 — a real, docketed PTAB proceeding against a sibling Lesesky patent, which gives me an actual, documented set of references and a documented Ground 1 combination.

I flag in §8 everything I could not verify rather than filling the gaps with plausible-sounding citations.

1. Legal framework and level of ordinary skill

Governing law. The '993 patent issued 2008-11-11 from an application filed 2006-03-15 with a claimed priority chain reaching 1995-11-09. It is therefore governed by pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), with prior art available under pre-AIA §§ 102(a), (b), and (e).

Standard. Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966) (scope and content of prior art; differences; PHOSITA level; secondary considerations); KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) (a TSM teaching is not required; "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"; "[a] combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results").

PHOSITA. For a priority window spanning 1995–2006, I would define the PHOSITA as a person with a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering (or equivalent) and roughly two to four years of experience in heavy-duty vehicle electrical/data systems, including familiarity with SAE J560 connector practice, the SAE J1708/J1939 data buses, ABS/ECU subsystem integration, and short-range wireless/optical data links (RF, IR/IrDA). That person would also be conversant with commercial off-the-shelf data-communications chips and with at least one powerline-carrier protocol family.

Two claim-scope caveats that materially affect this analysis (carried forward from the prior summary, not repeated there):

• I have verbatim claim text only for claim 1, plus claim 2's dependency and a truncated claim 3 ("…lighting sy—"). Claims 4–20 are unknown to me. Anything I say about them is inference and is labelled as such.
• Claim 1's transmit/receive element ("means connected to said … converter for transmitting … and for receiving …") is a means-plus-function element under pre-AIA § 112 ¶ 6. Its scope is limited to the corresponding structure disclosed in the specification — the transceiver 35 (IR LED/photodiode pair or RF IC) plus "associated drive and amplification circuitry," and the first signal booster 36 — and equivalents. A § 103 analysis must therefore show that the art discloses transceiver structure performing those two functions, not merely an abstract "communicate" step. This is a meaningful narrowing for a challenger.

Status check. As established in the prior summary, the '993 patent is Expired – Fee Related, with Google Patents listing an adjusted expiration of 2015-12-09. This is a retrospective/defensive invalidity analysis; there is no live injunction or damages exposure to analyze.

2. The gating issue: the effective filing date of claim 1

Every obviousness conclusion below depends on which prior art is "prior." The '993 patent is a continuation-in-part of 10/007,032 (2001-11-08), which is a continuation of 09/569,995 (2000-05-12), which is a continuation of 08/907,861 (1997-08-08, issued as US 6,064,299), which is a CIP of 08/554,907 (1995, abandoned) and of 08/594,255 (1996-01-30, issued as US 6,111,524).

My provisional read (flagged as my opinion, not a verified holding): Scenario A is the most likely outcome for claim 1 as issued, because claim 1 is broad and generic ("a second data communications protocol" with no species limitation). The 1997 application that issued as US 6,064,299 contains the same figures and the same passage — "the second data communications protocol, e.g., IrDa or other infrared or RF data communications protocol, which is used to transmit data through-the-air to a remote data communications terminal." But this is precisely the kind of priority question that would be litigated and would turn on the written-description record of the pre-2001 applications, which I have not retrieved. Do not treat Scenario A as established. Where a claim recites Bluetooth/802.11/Internet/PLC by name (if any do), Scenario B or C almost certainly applies.

3. The prior-art universe actually available to me

3.1 Lesesky-family references (highest relevance; availability is priority-dependent)

Critical § 102(e)/§ 102(a) wrinkle I want to be explicit about: several of these are same-family, same-inventor references. Pre-AIA § 102(a) and § 102(e) require the reference be "by another." Where the inventive entity differs even partially (e.g., a WO publication naming Lesesky alone versus the '993 naming Lesesky and Weant), the reference can still be "by another" under pre-AIA practice. Where the entities are identical, these references drop out of § 102(a)/(e) and are available, if at all, only under § 102(b) — which requires publication/issue more than one year before the claim's effective filing date. That is exactly why WO 01/36234 (published 2001-05-25) was clean art against the '953 patent (filed 2002-05-30, more than one year later) but may be unavailable against the '993 in Scenario A or B.

3.2 Third-party references documented in the Zonar IPR2020-00154 exhibit set

From the docketed exhibit list:

Zonar's stated Ground 1: "Claims 1, 5-7, and 11-12 are rendered obvious by Lesesky in view of Carrafiello and Sasson." I have only the petition's headings for the element-by-element mapping (the text I retrieved includes the preamble and limitation 1(a) captions but not the full charts).

3.3 Tractor/trailer wired-data art (available even in Scenario A)

• US 5,385,476, "Magnetic Circuits for Communicating Data" (continuation of Ser. No. 07/899,617, filed 1992-06-16). Extremely useful for motivation: it expressly states that the SAE J560 seven-pin connector "is simply not suited to provide sophisticated data communications between the tractor and the trailer, nor to allow for multiplexing data communication signals," while simultaneously noting that "the seven-pin connector is an industry standard … which cannot be discarded or ignored." That is the classic "known problem + known constraint" that supplies a motivation to combine.
• US 5,488,352 (above) — inductive coupling across the J560 interface; retrofit compatibility expressly touted ("because the communications system is compatible with the existing J560 connector, retrofit of existing vehicles is also possible").

3.4 Remote/wireless vehicle-data art

• US 5,999,091 (Wortham et al.) "Trailer Communications System" (and its parent US 5,905,433). Tag unit 26 on each trailer; reader unit at a remote location; RF at 315/434/915 MHz or spread spectrum; cellular / SMR / PCS backhaul to a network services center; trailer ID, status (tire inflation, door security, brake-line leaks), alarm, and position determining information relayed to the central host; peer-to-peer relaying among trailers. This is a single reference that maps to a remarkable number of the '993 specification's stated objectives.
• Listed on the face of sibling patents: US 5,732,074 (Spaur et al.), US 5,790,536 (Mahany et al.), US 5,783,993 (Briski et al.), US 5,794,164 (Beckert et al.), US 4,996,719 (Okazaki), US 5,081,667 (Drori), US 5,524,034 (Srygley), US 5,677,667 (Lesesky), plus EP 0 802 082 A2, EP 0 546 370, WO 97/17232, WO 97/28988, WO 98/34812, WO 99/06987, WO 99/35009. I have the citation lists but not the disclosures; I am not going to characterize individual ones beyond the ones I actually read.

3.5 The patent's own admissions as prior art

The '993 specification itself supplies much of the obviousness case:

• PLC protocols "such as Spread Spectrum, e.g., CEBus, X-10, such as offered by Cogency Semiconductor, Inc. of Canada or Intellon Corp. of Ocala, Fla." — i.e., named, commercially available, off-the-shelf implementations.
• A "designated communication network … compliant integrated circuit, such as provided by Zilog, e.g., the eZ80 Webserver" — again, an identified commercial part.
• IrDA compliant ICs "such as provided by Hewlett Packard or Rohm"; IR transceiver "such as provided by Sharp Corp. … Model No. GP2W0004YP."
• The express statement that the second protocol "only uses the physical layer … and not a data link layer."

Under KSR, the recitation of a known commercial component to implement a claimed function is strong evidence of obviousness, and an express simplification to the physical layer is a design choice with a predictable benefit (simplified coding/modulation and simplified protocol conversion — the patent says so itself).

4. Claim 1 — element-by-element obviousness

Claim 1 (verbatim, from the authoritative text):

"A vehicle comprising: a data communications apparatus for communicating data to and from said vehicle, said data communications apparatus comprising: a plurality of electrical conductors associated with said vehicle; a vehicle data communications protocol converter connected to said plurality of electrical conductors to convert a first data communications protocol associated with data communications along the plurality of electrical conductors to a second data communications protocol; and means connected to said vehicle data communications protocol converter for transmitting the second data communications protocol from said vehicle, and for receiving the second data communications protocol from a remote data communications terminal."

Ground 1 — WO 01/36234 (Lesesky) in view of Carrafiello and Sasson

This is Zonar's own Ground 1, which it applied to the near-identical claim 1 of the '953 patent (claims 1, 5–7 and 11–12). The transplant is not automatic: WO 01/36234 was § 102(b) art against the '953 patent because that patent was filed 2002-05-30 (more than one year after the 2001-05-25 publication). If '993 claim 1 receives Scenario A or B priority, WO 01/36234 likely falls out of the art entirely, and Ground 1 collapses. Ground 1 is therefore only viable in Scenario C (or in Scenario B if the reference qualifies under § 102(e) as "by another" because of the differing inventive entity).

Ground 2 — Jasper '352 in view of Wortham '091 (and US 5,385,476)

This is the priority-date-robust ground, and in my view the strongest substantively:

• '352 discloses the vehicle (tractor + trailer), the conductors (twisted pair 38), the J560-compatible connector with inductive coupling, and at least one electronic subsystem 40.
• The '476 reference supplies the express recognition that the industry-standard J560 connector cannot carry sophisticated data, which is the stated design problem.
• Wortham '091 supplies the "second protocol to a remote data communications terminal" element in the exact functional form claimed: a unit on the trailer that transmits stored trailer data (ID, status, alarms, position) over RF to a remote reader unit, with backhaul to a network services center.

Motivation to combine (KSR, articulated): both references are in the same field (over-the-road cargo vehicles); both address the same problem (getting vehicle/trailer data off the vehicle without a physical hook-up); the combination is a substitution of one known data-transport mechanism (a wired/inductive tractor-trailer link) for another known data-transport mechanism (an RF link to a fixed reader), which is a predictable use of a known technique to improve a similar device. Wortham '091 also expressly motivates the "remote reader" topology by the need to gather trailer data away from the tractor.

Ground 3 — "only the physical layer" limitations

If any claim (or the specification-derived construction of claim 1's "second data communications protocol") is read to require physical-layer-only operation, the Zonar exhibit set (IrLAP Ex. 1012, Bluetooth Ex. 1013, IrDA Principles and Protocols Ex. 1014) establishes that these were settled, documented physical-layer options. Simplifying to the physical layer is a design choice whose stated benefit (simplified coding/modulation, simplified conversion) is exactly what one would predict. Strong § 103 position; weak nonobviousness position.

5. Claims 2 and 3, and the inferred independent claims

Claim 2 — "said plurality of electrical conductors are operatively connected to at least one electronic subsystem associated with the vehicle"

Obvious, and arguably admitted. The '993 specification itself identifies the electronic subsystems in Table I (mirror tracking, trailer brake temperature, weight broadcast, trailer voltage status, etc.) and Table II, and describes ABS 41. '352 discloses electronic subsystems on both tractor and trailer. Wortham '091 discloses trailer-mounted sensors for tire pressure, door status, and brake-line leaks feeding the tag unit. There is no technical distance between the claim and the art.

Claim 3 — Markush group: "tire pressure monitor, vehicle identification, brake system, cargo monitor, reefer monitor, lighting sy[stem]…" (text truncated)

• Tire pressure monitor — Wortham '091 expressly describes tire inflation status as trailer status information.
• Vehicle identification — US 6,111,524 (Lesesky), "Systems And Methods For Identifying Tractors/Trailers And Components Thereto," is a family member on the same 1995 priority chain; Wortham '091 also discloses a trailer identification code.
• Brake system — '352 (the reference's nominal subject matter is a tractor/trailer control system, with ABS expressly contemplated in the family's background).
• Reefer monitor — refrigeration units on trailers were standard; the '993's own Table I lists reefer temperatures and pressures.
• Cargo monitor / lighting system — Wortham '091 (cargo status, alarms) and the '993's own tables.

Why a PHOSITA would select these: each is a data-producing subsystem that a fleet operator would already want to monitor remotely; selecting from among a list of conventional monitored parameters to populate a Markush group adds no inventive weight. A Markush group whose members are individually known and individually suggested for the same purpose is the paradigmatic obvious claim.

Inferred independent claims (NOT VERIFIED)

The SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION describes five aspects: (i) vehicle + apparatus; (ii) standalone apparatus; (iii) apparatus with a transceiver housing; (iv) apparatus whose transceiver housing is a vehicle light housing, e.g., a side-marker light housing; (v) a method. If these are claimed — and I have not confirmed which claim numbers correspond — the obviousness case strengthens:

• Light housing (aspect iv). The patent's own stated advantage is that "a third party would not readily recognize that the truck is equipped with the data communications apparatus." That is an express statement of a known design objective (concealment/theft deterrence). Placing a transceiver in an existing side-marker lamp housing is a predictable placement of known electronics in a known location, with a predictable benefit (KSR). US 5,917,632 (Lesesky) — "Data communications coupler and lens for tractor/trailer" — shows the same inventor already combining data-communications hardware with tractor/trailer lens assemblies. There is also a family of Lesesky design patents on lamp/coupler housings (D403,659; D404,170; D434,006) evidencing the ornamental-design space.
• PLC (CEBus/X-10/Spread Spectrum) claims. The specification names CEBus (EIA-600, 1992), X-10 (1970s), and commercial chips from Intellon and Cogency. Using an identified off-the-shelf PLC chipset over the vehicle's existing power conductors is a textbook KSR obviousness scenario — the patent's own disclosure is the motivation and the enablement.
• Internet/global-network claims. Pruzan (US 6,728,603) and the Zilog eZ80 Webserver identified by the patent itself. Note the "Internet protocol over a vehicle bus" concept was squarely before the art by 2001.
• Cellular / GPS-relay claims. Wortham '091 discloses cellular/SMR/PCS backhaul and position-determining information relayed to a central host — close to anticipatory for those features.
• Method claim (aspect v). "Provide conductors → convert first protocol to second protocol → transmit to a remote terminal/other vehicle portion/other vehicle/network" is a step sequence whose individual steps are each disclosed; KSR permits a method claim to be obvious where the steps are known and the order is the natural order.

6. Consolidating the motivation to combine

A PHOSITA in this field, at any date from 1995 forward, had multiple independent, articulated reasons to arrive at the claimed subject matter. I list them so each can be tied to record evidence:

1. The industry-standard-connector problem. US 5,385,476 states in terms that the J560 connector is standard and cannot be discarded, yet "is simply not suited to provide sophisticated data communications." A PHOSITA looking to add data capability without re-engineering the connector is directly led to a non-contact / wireless alternative.
2. The retrofit-cost problem. Both '352 and the '993 specification emphasize retrofit compatibility as the central commercial concern ("does not require either extensive retrofitting or extensive and expensive additions"). A wireless link at an existing connector or lamp housing is the lowest-cost retrofit path.
3. The physical-hook-up problem. The interrogation-device art (as characterized in the Lesesky '898/'953 background) required physical connection to a pin-out connector, which is "not desirable in situations where the vehicle is either in transit or is remote from the interrogation device." That is a stated, recognized problem with an obvious wireless answer.
4. The remote-terminal problem. Wortham '091 and the Lesesky '524 vehicle-identification work both address gathering vehicle/container data at weigh stations, terminals, and fuel islands — the same use cases the '993 specification recites.
5. Cable-replacement as a known technique. Bluetooth was developed explicitly as a cable replacement; the Zonar exhibits (Ex. 1013) and the Hunt-era IPR record I retrieved both document that Bluetooth was understood to provide a wireless RS-232-style serial link. Substituting a known wireless serial link for a wired one is the definition of a predictable improvement.
6. Concealment/theft deterrence. Expressly stated in the '993 specification as an objective; hiding the electronics in an existing lamp housing is a predictable way to achieve it.
7. Design choice on protocol layering. The patent itself states the benefit of physical-layer-only operation. Predictable benefit + design choice = obvious.

7. Objective indicia (§ 103 secondary considerations) and counterarguments

What I found:

• The IGS patent family was licensed and litigated extensively — including a 2011 license agreement between IGS and Zonar Systems produced as Ex. 2002 in IPR2020-00154, and a 2018 complaint (Ex. 2003, dated 2018-11-14) in Innovative Global Systems, LLC v. Zonar Systems, Inc., D.S.C. Civil Action No. 0:18-cv-03083-JMC (Rock Hill Division). This 2018 D.S.C. case is an addition to, not a contradiction of, the litigation section previously generated.
• I found no evidence in the retrieved material of industry praise, copying, unexpected results, or a documented long-felt-but-unsolved need specific to the '993 claims.

Weight: Settlement- and litigation-driven licenses (turnpike cases, Teletrac, Zonar) have limited probative value for nonobviousness because they are typically motivated by avoidance of litigation cost rather than by the merits, and because there is no demonstrated nexus between the license and the specific claimed subject matter (the licensed portfolios span dozens of family members). A patentee would need nexus evidence to make these count.

Genuine counterarguments a patent owner could press:

1. Priority date. In Scenario A, most of the best art (the entire Lesesky family and WO 01/36234) is disqualified, and the remaining pre-1995 art may not disclose the "protocol converter" element with the specificity needed to satisfy § 112 ¶ 6 for the "means" limitation.
2. § 102(e)/"by another." Same-inventor references are not § 102(a)/(e) art. In a family this dense (dozens of Lesesky/Vehicle Enhancement Systems/Power Talk patents all tracing to 1995-11-09), a challenger must be surgical about which reference has a differing inventive entity and which has an eligible § 102(b) date.
3. The half-duplex J1708 problem is real. The Lesesky '953/'898 background makes a credible technical argument that the SAE J1708 bus is a differentially driven, half-duplex twisted pair with no discrete transmit/receive line and mandatory idle-state monitoring, so that a "simple" wireless bridge is not trivial. A patent owner could argue this supplies nonobviousness. The counter is that the '993 specification itself treats the conversion as routine ("as understood by those skilled in the art") and points to off-the-shelf IrDA/RF, PLC, and Internet chips — a self-inflicted wound.
4. Means-plus-function narrowing. Because element 1.3 is § 112 ¶ 6, the scope may be limited to the disclosed IR LED/photodiode or RF IC plus the first signal booster 36. If a primary reference lacks a booster, the patent owner gets a genuine (if narrow) argument.
5. No merits adjudication exists. IPR2020-00154 was terminated on a joint motion (2020-08-27), which typically signals settlement. There is no PTAB institution decision on the merits and no final written decision for the '953 patent, and no IPR at all identified against the '993 patent. Any § 103 conclusion here is my independent analysis.

Resolved uncertainty from the prior section: the prior Patent summary flagged as unverified whether IPR2020-00154 concerned the '993 patent. It does not — the petition and Exhibit 1001 are directed to U.S. 6,946,953 (Lesesky). That uncertainty is now resolved. The prior summary's "IPR2020-00694" reference remains unconfirmed; I saw no such proceeding number in the records I retrieved.

8. Verification gaps a real challenge would have to close

1. The face-of-patent reference list for US 7,449,993. I retrieved only a fragmentary PTO "ALL REFERENCES CONSIDERED" table showing "7449993 … 2008-11-11"; I could not obtain the complete list. Any ground I state that omits a reference the Examiner actually applied is incomplete.
2. Full claim text, claims 4–20. Not available. If any independent claim recites a specific protocol by name (Bluetooth, 802.11, Internet), the priority analysis shifts to Scenario B or C and the art availability changes materially.
3. The written-description record of 08/554,907, 08/594,255, 08/907,861, 09/569,995, and 10/007,032. This is the dispositive document set for priority, and I have not read those specifications as filed.
4. Inventor attributions for '352 and WO 01/36234. The records conflict ("Jasper" vs. "Lesesky et al."; I did not confirm the named inventors of WO 01/36234). This directly determines whether the "by another" requirement of pre-AIA § 102(a)/(e) is met.
5. Disclosures of the secondary references — Carrafiello (US 5,440,691), Sasson (UK 2 316 583), Pruzan (US 6,728,603), and the several references listed on the sibling patents' faces. I retrieved their identities and dates but not their substantive disclosures, so I have not mapped them element-by-element.
6. The Zonar petition's internal claim charts. I retrieved the petition's section headings and Ground 1 caption but not the full limitation-by-limitation mapping, which would be the ready-made roadmap for applying the same combination to '993 claim 1.

9. Bottom line

• Under Scenario C (2006 effective date): '993 claim 1 is very likely obvious. Zonar's Ground 1 combination — WO 01/36234 (Lesesky) in view of Carrafiello (US 5,440,691) and Sasson (UK 2 316 583) — was already applied to the near-identical claim 1 of the sibling '953 patent, and the additional availability of IEEE 802.11-1999, Bluetooth, IrLAP/IrDA, and Pruzan (US 6,728,603) covers every species in the specification's laundry list of second protocols. Claims 2–3 fall to '352, Wortham '091, and Lesesky '524.
• Under Scenario B (2001 effective date): claim 1 is still likely obvious on '352 + Wortham '091, and on the patent's own admission that PLC (CEBus/X-10/Intellon/Cogency) and Internet (Zilog eZ80) implementations were off-the-shelf.
• Under Scenario A (1995 effective date): the case is materially weaker and turns on the pre-November-1995 art for the "protocol converter" element specifically. On the record I retrieved, I can establish the problem ('476, '352) and the wireless-remote-link concept generically, but I cannot, without the pre-1995 references I failed to retrieve, give a confident element-by-element ground.
• The single most important unresolved fact is whether '993 claim 1 is entitled to § 120 benefit back to 1995-11-09 / 2001-11-08. That determination, not the merits of any combination, is what decides whether this patent is a strong or weak invalidity target. And because the patent expired 2015-12-09, the question is now academic unless a licensee or contract counterparty is still paying royalties (as the 2011 Zonar agreement and the 2018 D.S.C. action suggest may have been the case).

Sources (URLs actually retrieved)

• US 7,449,993 full text — https://patents.google.com/patent/US7449993/en
• Zonar Systems, Inc. v. Innovative Global Systems, LLC, IPR2020-00154, Petition (2019-11-19) — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._6946953/docs/11-19-2019-Petitioner/Petition-2-953_Petition_for_IPR.pdf
• IPR2020-00154 exhibit list and Exhibit 1001 (US 6,946,953) — https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Zonar-Systems-Inc-v-Innovative-Global-Systems-LLC-id-[130949](/patent/130949)/documents/ ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._6946953/docs/11-19-2019-Petitioner/Exhibit-1001-1001___US_Patent_6946953_to_Lesesky.pdf
• IGS v. Zonar, D.S.C. No. 0:18-cv-03083 (interrogatory answers, 2020-04-02) — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00155/Zonar_Systems_Inc._v._Innovative_Global_Systems_LLC/docs/04-02-2020-Petitioner/Exhibit-1020-1020__Answer_Interrogatory_1_and_Ex_A___494.pdf
• IGS–Zonar 2011 license agreement (Ex. 2002) — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Zonar_Systems_Inc._v._Innovative_Global_Systems_LLC/02-17-2020-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2002-2011_Agreement/
• IGS 2018 complaint (Ex. 2003) — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Zonar_Systems_Inc._v._Innovative_Global_Systems_LLC/docs/02-17-2020-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2003-20181114_Complaint.pdf
• US 6,946,953 and US 7,102,494 — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/dd/ef/c1/bbd0b8a9da888c/US6946953.pdf ; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2020-00154/Inter_Partes_Review_of_U.S._Pat._6946953/docs/11-19-2019-Petitioner/Exhibit-1009-8-1009___US_Patent_7102494_to_Lesesky.pdf
• US 6,064,299 — https://patents.justia.com/patent/[6064299](/patent/6064299)
• US 5,488,352 — https://uspto.report/patent/grant/[5488352](/patent/5488352) ; https://patents.searchlight.law/doc/US5488352
• US 5,385,476, "Magnetic Circuits for Communicating Data" — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/29/6c/a9/aadb59122acdf5/US5385476.pdf
• US 5,999,091 (Wortham), "Trailer Communications System" — https://insight.rpxcorp.com/litigation_documents/[4727277](/patent/4727277)
• US 7,280,898 / US 6,604,038 (Lesesky) — https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/2e/5b/bd/8456b4cbf6d436/[US7280898B2](/patent/US7280898B2).pdf ; https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/96/08/5d/08eaf1a8b96b7a/US6604038.pdf
• Lesesky family patent list — https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[8536985](/patent/8536985).html ; https://www.freepatentsonline.com/[8090598](/patent/8090598).html
• idiyas record (labels the patent "US 7449993 B1" — retained as-found, not auto-corrected) — https://idiyas.com/patent/badge/7449993