US 7752646

I'll run targeted searches for this specific patent number, including any CAFC 2026 docket activity.

Those searches returned no relevant litigation results. Let me try a couple more targeted queries.

One search surfaced a March 2026 E.D. Tex. patent case involving LG. Let me check whether it involves this specific patent number.

Summary — US Patent 7,752,646

Note on search scope: I ran the specific-number searches requested. No CAFC 2026 appeal docket, and no active/pending litigation, could be tied to 7,752,646 itself. A March 2026 E.D. Tex. case does involve LG and a closely related family — Multimedia Technologies Pte. Ltd. v. [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.), No. 2:22-cv-00494-JRG-RSP (E.D. Tex.) — but the patents-in-suit there are different numbers (9,055,254; 9,247,174; 9,510,040; 10,419,805; 9,055,255). Per the rules, I am not conflating those with 7,752,646. Treat the litigation point as "not found for this number," not "none exists."

Bibliographic data (from the authoritative Google Patents full text)

Continuity (exact, per the specification): This application is a continuation of 11/704,922 (now US 7,594,248), filed 2007-02-12, which is a continuation of 11/062,429 (now US 7,246,365), filed 2005-02-23, which is a continuation of 09/760,840 (now US 6,918,133), filed 2001-01-17, with priority to Korean application P2000-2065 filed 2000-01-17. Sibling members include US 7,574,722; US 7,755,645; US 7,765,572; US 7,849,484; and US 7,853,976. (Assignee/status fields carry Google's standard disclaimer that they are assumptions, not legal conclusions.)

Abstract (verbatim)

"A digital television (DTV) receiver and a decoding method are discussed. According to an embodiment, the DTV receiver includes: a receiving unit for receiving a digital broadcasting signal including a plurality of extended text tables (ETTs) that appear in transport stream packets having common PID values, each ETT comprising a section header and a message body, wherein the section header contains a table identification extension field that serves to establish uniqueness of each ETT, and wherein the message body includes an extended text message (ETM) which provides detailed descriptions of a virtual channel or an event associated with each ETT; and a program and system information protocol (PSIP) decoder for detecting the table identification extension field to determine uniqueness of each ETT and detecting at least one pertinent ETT from the plurality of ETTs using the determined uniqueness of each ETT."

Technology background (plain language)

In ATSC digital TV, program-guide data is carried in PSIP (Program and System Information Protocol) tables. The ETT (Extended Text Table) holds the long descriptive text for a channel or a program (event), and the EIT (Event Information Table) holds program titles/times. In the prior art, all ETT sections for a given table were broadcast with an identical section header (the table_id_extension fixed at 0x00), so a receiver could not section-filter them — it had to receive and parse every section, extract the internal ETM_id, and discard the ones it didn't need. The patent's stated fix is to put an event identifier (and flags) into the section header's table_id_extension, so ETT sections become distinguishable by ordinary section filtering. The specification notes the field is 16 bits, of which 14 can carry the event_id and 2 residual bits can flag (a) ETM_location 0x01 vs. 0x02 and (b) whether the ETT concerns channels vs. events.

Independent claims (claims 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 — claims 2–6 depend on claim 1)

• Claim 1 — DTV receiver (means-plus-function). A receiving means gets a digital broadcast signal containing PSIP tables; a section filter detects ETTs carried in transport packets with common PID values by section-filtering the PSIP tables, each ETT having a section header with a table identification extension field that establishes uniqueness of each ETT and a body containing an ETM describing a virtual channel or event; a PSIP decoder picks out at least one pertinent ETT; and a storage unit stores the ETM of the detected ETT.

• Claim 7 — DTV receiver (distinct structure). A receiving means gets the PSIP-table signal; a detecting unit detects ETTs in packets with common PID values, where the section header's table ID extension value is set so that separate ETT instances are unique; body contains the ETM; a PSIP decoder detects a pertinent ETT; a storage unit stores the ETM.

• Claim 8 — DTV receiver (unit/field framing). A receiving unit gets a signal with ETT instances conveyed in packets of the same PID value; each ETT instance has a section header with a table ID extension field and a section body with an ETM giving detailed textual description; the extension field is set so separate instances are unique; a PSIP decoder parses at least one PSIP table; a storage unit stores the parsed table. (Note this claim emphasizes parsing/storing a PSIP table rather than the ETT text itself.)

• Claim 9 — Method of processing a signal in a DTV receiver. Receiving a signal with ETT instances in packets of the same PID; each ETT instance has a section header bearing a table ID extension field and "a second body" containing an ETM (the claim literally recites "second body," which reads as a drafting artifact for "section body"); the extension field is set so instances are unique; parsing a PSIP table in a PSIP decoder; storing the parsed PSIP table.

• Claim 10 — DTV transmitter (apparatus). A PSIP generator generates PSIP tables and, specifically, can generate multiple ETT instances conveyed in packets of the same PID value, each with a unique table ID extension field and a body with an ETM; a PSIP encoder encodes; a transmitting unit transmits the signal. This is the first claim in the set to cover the transmit side.

• Claim 11 — Method of processing a signal in a DTV transmitter. Generating a PSIP table plus ETT instances in packets of the same PID, each with a unique table ID extension field and an ETM body; encoding; transmitting.

Dependent claims (2–6, all depending from claim 1)

• Claim 2: the extension field defines a first value indicating the event ID the ETT corresponds to.
• Claim 3: the extension field is a 16-bit integer value.
• Claim 4: 14 bits of that 16-bit value represent the event ID.
• Claim 5: the extension field further defines a second value indicating whether the ETT and its corresponding EIT come from the same channel.
• Claim 6: the extension field further defines a second value identifying each ETT as an event ETT or a channel ETT.

Points of uncertainty / caution

• Claim vs. specification terminology: the claims speak generically of a "table identification extension field" that "establishes uniqueness," whereas the specification implements this concretely as an event_id inserted into table_id_extension (previously fixed at 0x00). The claims are broader than the specification's specific example.
• Internal inconsistency in the text I have: Table 1 lists the ETT table_id as 0xC7, while the description paragraph describing selective reception gives 0xCC. I am reporting both as written, not reconciling them.
• Status: "Expired – Lifetime" with adjusted expiration 2022-06-03 is Google's legal-status assumption; I did not independently confirm it against USPTO PatentCenter/PAIR in these searches.
• No CAFC 2026 docket for 7,752,646 was located. I could not retrieve a docket record tying this exact number to an appeal; state that as a negative search result rather than a definitive finding.

Sources: Google Patents full text for US 7,752,646 B2 (patents.google.com/patent/US7752646/en); Justia/vitallaw/Law360 reporting and the LG–Multimedia Sotera stipulation (E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00494) identified during searching, used only to confirm the case does not name this patent.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7752646 specifically.

Let me search litigation-specific databases.

The general searches returned noise. Let me query litigation-specific databases directly.

No litigation identified for U.S. Patent No. 7,752,646

Bottom line: I could not identify any district-court litigation, ITC proceeding, PTAB post-grant proceeding, or CAFC appeal in which U.S. Patent No. 7,752,646 ("Method for identifying extender text table of electronic program guide in digital TV," [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.)) is or was the asserted patent, the patent-in-suit, or the subject of a validity challenge. I am reporting this as an absence of found records, not as a verified negative — see the caveats below.

What I searched

• Targeted queries for the exact number 7752646 in combination with "litigation," "patent infringement," "complaint," "lawsuit," and "defendant" (comma-formatted and unformatted).
• Queries aimed at the litigation aggregators you named (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and at Docket Alarm / Justia dockets / CourtListener-style sources for the number.
• Queries combining the number with the patent's subject matter ("extender text table," "ETT," "PSIP," "electronic program guide") and with its owner (LG Electronics).

Results returned, and why none of them are this patent

Every search hit that contained a "646" or a "264" identifier turned out to be a different patent. Per your instruction not to auto-correct or conflate identifiers, these are listed only to show they were ruled out:

Context relevant to the negative result

• Legal status (from the patent record): the '646 patent is indexed as "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2022-06-03, with maintenance fees paid through the 12th year (12/06/2021). An expired patent cannot support an ongoing injunction, which substantially reduces (though does not eliminate, for past-damages tails) the incentive to assert it.
• Provenance: 7,752,646 is one of a large continuation cluster claiming priority to Korean Application P2000-2065 (filed 2000-01-17), including U.S. Patents 6,918,133; 7,246,365; 7,574,722; 7,594,248; 7,752,645; 7,765,572; 7,849,484; and 7,853,976 — all listing LG Electronics Inc. as assignee. The '646 itself issued from Application No. 11/932,788 (filed 2007-10-31), a continuation of Application No. 11/704,922.

Caveats on the negative finding

1. Search coverage was limited. I was not able to directly execute a name/number query inside the Unified Patents litigation caselist, PACER, Docket Alarm, or CourtListener docket databases in this session; those results were only reachable indirectly through general web search, which is a poor substitute for a number-indexed litigation database.
2. No evidence is not proof of absence. Assertions in complaints sometimes identify patents only by exhibit or by an abbreviated form, and some older or settled matters (especially pre-2015, before broad docket-aggregation coverage) may not surface in open web indexes.
3. Recommended verification steps, if you need a defensible clearance statement: query the number directly in Unified Patents Portal → Litigation caselist and PTAB caselist, Docket Alarm, CourtListener/RECAP, PACER (all district courts, 2000–present), the ITC EDIS Section 337 docket, and the USPTO Patent Center / Assignment record for 7,752,646 to confirm the current owner and any recorded enforcement-related assignments.

Conclusion: On the evidence retrieved, I state explicitly that no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,752,646 is known to me, and I decline to supply plaintiff/defendant/jurisdiction/case-number data, because doing so would require fabricating or misattributing case identifiers.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" default against live sources before writing anything up.

Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding the record is empty.

One more pass to check for Unified Patents filings, litigation history, and any Federal Circuit activity tied to this patent or its family.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 7,752,646: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal ingest) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent — the canonical list is empty, and my independent web checks (Google Patents family/legal-events data, PTAB petition and decision documents surfacing in search, and Federal Circuit coverage) surfaced no AIA trial and no related appeal involving the '646 patent. Breakdown by status: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

My web reconfirmation was done via targeted queries (e.g., patent number + "IPR"/"CBM"/"petition"/"PTAB"), which returned no hit binding any proceeding to this patent number. I'd rate my confidence that no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever filed against 7,752,646 as high for the ODP-indexed record, but I cannot rule out a very old or never-indexed filing with certainty — and I found none.

Bottom-line defensive posture: The usual "hardened patent" / "dead claim" framing does not apply here, because nothing has ever been tested at the PTAB. The materially more important facts for a defendant are (a) the patent is expired (Google Patents records legal status "Expired – Lifetime" with an adjusted expiration of 2022-06-03, priority date 2000-01-17, US filing 2001-01-17), and (b) the asserted family is a nine-application continuation chain with multiple live siblings, which is the real assertion risk. An expired patent means no injunction and past-damages exposure capped by the § 286 six-year lookback — but also no PTAB estoppel cushion, because no one has bled the art yet.

Per-proceeding detail

Not applicable — no proceedings to report. There are no proceeding numbers, panels, grounds, institution decisions, final written decisions, settlements, or appeals to describe. I am deliberately not populating this section with placeholder or inferred entries, per the no-fabrication constraint.

Strategic summary

Claim status: all 11 claims UNTESTED. No claim of 7,752,646 has been canceled, confirmed, or even subjected to an institution decision. The issued claim set (as printed in the authoritative patent text) runs to claims 1–11: claims 1–9 are receiver-side claims (receiving means, section filter / detecting unit, PSIP decoder, storage unit — covering ETTs conveyed in transport stream packets with common PID values and a table ID extension field establishing uniqueness), and claims 10–11 are transmitter-side claims (PSIP generator/encoder + transmitting unit, and the corresponding method). Dependent claims 2–6 add the familiar limitations: table ID extension defining an event ID (claim 2), 16-bit integer value (claim 3), 14 bits representing the event ID (claim 4), a second value indicating same-channel transmission as the EIT (claim 5), and a second value identifying the ETT as event vs. channel ETT (claim 6). Because there is no IPR, there is no § 318(b) certificate narrowing any of these, and there is no Federal Circuit mandate on them.

Estoppel landscape: clean slate. Because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches to anyone. Any defendant litigating this patent today may raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, on any art, in district court or the ITU — including art the original examiner did not consider — without the "raised or reasonably could have been raised" bar. That cuts both ways: the flip side is that the plaintiff is likewise unconstrained, and there is no PTAB record of claim construction or a validity win you can borrow for a § 282 defense. Practical consequence: your invalidity case must be built from scratch, and the obvious candidate art sits in the ATSC A/65 PSIP standard (the specification itself cites the Dec. 1997 A/65 document) and the Gemstar EPG/database art the specification discusses — all of which are printed publications predating the 2001-01-17 US filing and therefore § 102(b)/§ 103-eligible.

Pattern signals. (i) No repeat petitioner — there is no petitioner at all. (ii) No PTAB appeal activity by the patent owner, because there was no adverse PTAB decision to appeal; I found no Federal Circuit docket tied to this patent. (iii) No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents or similar) appears anywhere in the chain — I searched specifically for that and found nothing. (iv) The structural signal is instead family sprawl: US 7,752,646 is one of nine US applications in the same family (parent US 6,918,133; continuations US 7,246,365, US 7,574,722, US 7,594,248, US 7,755,645, US 7,765,572, and post-grant continuations US 7,849,484 and US 7,853,976). The '646 patent itself is a continuation of US 11/704,922 (US 7,594,248). Many of these siblings carry essentially the same disclosure, so invalidating or designing around the '646 claims does not neutralize the portfolio. Worth noting: I did not find IPRs against the siblings either, but I would not state that as verified — the absence of indexed proceedings here is best treated as a hypothesis to confirm in E2E for each sibling number.

Recommended next steps

1. Treat the PTAB channel as empty, not favorable. There is no FWD to link to and no § 318(b) canceled-claim certificate to quote. Confirm the null result yourself in USPTO PTAB E2E (https://e2e.uspto.gov/) and the PTAB Decisions portal (https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api/swagger-ui or https://ptacts.uspto.gov/) by searching application/patent number 7,752,646 and publication 20080060017.
2. Lead with expiry, not validity. With adjusted expiration 2022-06-03 (status: "Expired – Lifetime"), any demand letter aimed at present-day sales/setups implicates only past infringement. Check the § 286 six-year window from the filing date of the complaint — anything before that is time-barred, and the patent's tail is short by construction.
3. Because there is no estoppel, run a fresh PTAB-eligible prior-art search. Your best IPR grounds (if you still want a PTAB vehicle, e.g., to tee up invalidity for the district court) would be § 102/§ 103 over ATSC A/65 (Dec. 1997), the Gemstar ETT/EPG table art cited in the specification's own background, and MPEG-2 systems table-section filtering art (e.g., the IBM "based filtering of MPEG-2 compliant table sections" reference that appears in the prosecution-facing citation list, US 6,091,772). Note the practical caution: where the patent is expired and the patentee is no longer asserting it against you, the Board frequently discretionarily denies institution under §§ 314(a)/325(d) for lack of a live controversy — so consider whether a district-court § 282 invalidity case is the better vehicle than a discretionary-denial-prone IPR.
4. Map the whole family before you price a license or a defense. Nine family applications means nine potential assertion vehicles (transmitter claims 10–11 of '646 are especially relevant if you make encoders/PSIP generators or set-top boxes, not just TVs). Docket-check each sibling in PTAB E2E and in district-court/ITC records before concluding the '646 patent's inactivity reflects portfolio weakness.
5. Flag if anything new appears. If a petition on '646 is filed after the ODP ingest date, the controlling trial milestones are: institution decision due within 6 months of the § 313 POPR/patent-owner deadline, and a statutory 1-year FWD deadline from institution (§ 316(a)(11)). Any such filing would reset the estoppel and prior-art analysis above.

Confidence and caveats. The authoritative patent text (title, claims 1–11, family chain, priority 2000-01-17, filing 2001-01-17, adjusted expiration 2022-06-03, "Expired – Lifetime") is from the provided Google Patents record and I treat it as reliable. The zero-proceeding finding is corroborated by both the structured ODP block and my web searches, but web search is not a complete substitute for a docket-by-docket E2E query; I found no contrary evidence and I have not invented any proceeding numbers to fill the gap.

I'll research the assignment record for US 7,752,646 before reconstructing the chain.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US Patent 7,752,646

Scope note / search limitation (read first): The task specifies the USPTO Assignment Center as the primary source. In this session I could not execute a direct, number-indexed query against Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) or its legacy index (assignment.uspto.gov), nor against PTAB/PACER/RPX/Unified directories — those were reachable only indirectly through general web search, which is a poor substitute for a number-indexed assignment database. What I can report concretely is the legal-events record surfaced by Google Patents, plus the continuity facts in the specification. I state plainly below where I have data and where I do not. I will not invent reel/frame numbers.

One concrete, citable negative: the Google Patents Legal Events table for US 7,752,646 lists only fee/administrative events — FEPP (2009-12-08), STCF patent-grant status (2010-06-16), FPAY 4th-year (2013-12-24), MAFP 8th-year (2017-12-11), MAFP 12th-year (2021-12-06). There is no AS (assignment) event in that record. For comparison, LG-sourced patents of the same era routinely show an AS event (e.g. US 9,118,470 shows REEL/FRAME:028933/0429). The absence of any assignment event after grant is itself the key data point below.

Inventors

• Single inventor. No co-inventor cluster, no inventor team split.
• Unusual-pattern check: The "all inventors departed within 12 months of filing" fire-sale tell is not present / not applicable — I found no evidence of inventor departure, and no evidence pointing to a subsequent portfolio sale (see timeline). A lone inventor on a corporate-owned consumer-electronics filing is unremarkable.
• Continuity note: The same sole inventor is named across the entire continuation cluster (US 6,918,133; 7,246,365; 7,574,722; 7,594,248; 7,752,645; 7,765,572; 7,849,484; 7,853,976), all LG-owned. Nothing here suggests a departing-inventor fire-sale.

Original assignee

LG Electronics Inc. (20 Yeouido-dong, Yeongdeungpo-gu, Seoul, Korea; per the Google Patents assignment/receiving-party data in the same-era LG records).

• Primary line of business: Consumer electronics and home appliances — TVs, displays, mobile, appliances — an operating company, not a holding/licensing entity.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes, in the relevant sense: the patent claims read on ATSC digital-television receivers and transmitters that section-filter PSIP/ETT tables. LG was a major manufacturer of ATSC DTV sets and set-top receivers in the relevant era — i.e., the patented subject matter is standard-implementation functionality, not a standalone product. (I am stating this as the industry context; I did not locate a specific LG product SKU citation for this patent, so treat "ships an embodying product" as high-confidence context rather than a documented product mapping.)
• Current status: Operating. LG Electronics is a live, publicly traded multinational. No bankruptcy, no dissolution, no acquisition of the assignee. The patent itself is indexed "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2022-06-03.

Assignment timeline

Finding: I was unable to retrieve any recorded assignment (reel/frame, conveyance type, correspondent) for US 7,752,646. No post-issuance assignment appears in the public legal-events record, and I could not query Assignment Center directly in this session.

The ownership-relevant events I can document (from the specification's continuity paragraph and the Google Patents record) are below. These are prosecution/continuity events, not recorded assignments — do not read them as reel/frame assignments:

• 2000-01-17 — Korean priority application P2000-2065 / KR10-2000-002065 filed (LG-sourced); this is the earliest priority date, which Google Patents lists as the "prior art date."
• 2001-01-17 — US 09/760,840 filed → issued as US 6,918,133 (2005-07-12).
• 2005-02-23 — US 11/062,429 (continuation) filed → issued as US 7,246,365 (2007-07-17).
• 2007-02-12 — US 11/704,922 (continuation) filed → issued as US 7,594,248 (2009-09-22).
• 2007-10-31 — US 11/932,788 (the instant application) filed → issued as US 7,752,646 (2010-07-06).
• 2010-05-17 — two continuation children filed (US 12/781,697 → 7,853,976; US 12/781,719 → 7,849,484).
• 2013-12-24 / 2017-12-11 / 2021-12-06 — maintenance-fee payments by LARGE ENTITY (i.e., LG Electronics, consistent with the original assignee remaining the fee-paying owner).
• 2022-06-03 — adjusted expiration (patent lapses).

Interpretation: Filing fees through the 12th year were paid as a LARGE ENTITY, and no assignment event appears in the record. That combination is consistent with LG Electronics Inc. having retained ownership for the patent's entire life — i.e., no transfer to a shell/licensing entity ever recorded. I could not confirm this against Assignment Center directly, so I flag it as a strong inference from the available record, not a verified reading of reel/frame.

If you need a defensible chain-of-title statement, the verification steps are: query the number directly at USPTO Assignment Center (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/) and the legacy index (https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html), pull the USPTO Patent Center record for 11/932,788, and check the USPTO Assignment abstracts for the single initial inventor→LG assignment that almost certainly exists from the 2001 filing.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7752646
    2000 : KR priority P2000-2065 filed
    2001 : US parent 09/760,840 filed
    2005 : Continuation 11/062/429 filed
    2007 : Continuation 11/704/922 filed
         : Continuation 11/932/788 filed
    2010 : Patent 7752646 issued to LG Electronics
    2013 : Maintenance fee paid year 4
    2017 : Maintenance fee paid year 8
    2021 : Maintenance fee paid year 12
    2022 : Patent expires

(Note: I have deliberately not depicted any assignment to a third party, because none is documented in the record I could reach.)

NPE / troll-pattern signals

Verdict

Insufficient data — with a strong secondary characterization that the evidence points away from any NPE pattern.

Justification (2–3 sentences): The assignment record I could reach contains no recorded assignment for US 7,752,646 — the Google Patents legal-events block shows only maintenance-fee and grant-status entries with no AS (assignment) event, and I could not directly query USPTO Assignment Center to retrieve reel/frame data. The maintenance fees were paid as a LARGE ENTITY from 2013 through 2021, which is consistent with LG Electronics Inc. — an operating company — retaining ownership for the patent's entire life, and no shell-entity, repeat-correspondent, cascading, pre-litigation, fire-sale, privateering, or defensive-aggregator signal is documented. Because the reel/frame chain could not be positively verified, I decline to upgrade this to "operating-company assertion" (that label also requires an active suit against competitors, which the prior section found absent) and instead return Insufficient data.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 7752646), and the legacy index https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

Flagged for your attention (not a contradiction, but a caveat): This patent is a continuation in a 9-member family all claiming the same 2000-01-17 priority. If a clearance/ownership opinion is the goal, the assignment record must be pulled for the whole family (6,918,133; 7,246,365; 7,574,722; 7,594,248; 7,752,645; 7,765,572; 7,849,484; 7,853,976) — an assignment that missed the '646 as filed could still appear on a sibling, and family-wide assignment defects are a common standing issue.

I'll verify the patent record and research each cited reference. Let me start with targeted searches.

I have strong data on four references. Let me now research the remaining cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 7,752,646 B2

Scope note on the "no similar numbers" instruction. I verified the target record directly. The full text retrieved is for US 7,752,646 B2, Application No. 11/932,788, filed 2007-10-31, granted 2010-07-06, titled "Method for identifying extender text table of electronic program guide in digital TV," inventor Kyung Mee Lee, assignee [LG Electronics Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/LG%20Electronics%20Inc.) Search results also surfaced sibling members of the same family (US 7,849,484; US 7,765,572; US 2010/0229203 A1; US 2006/0190982 A1) that carry near-identical text and titles. Those are different patent numbers in the same continuation family; I have not merged them into the analysis and flag them only where relevant.

Effective date / legal regime. The '646 claims priority to Korean P2000-2065 filed 2000-01-17. Its §120 chain runs through 11/704,922 → 11/062,429 → 09/760,840. Because the original was filed in 2001 and the continuations predate 2013-03-16, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. §102(a)/(b)/(e) and §103 govern. A reference is available as prior art only if its date precedes the 2000-01-17 priority date.

1. The references cited on the face of the '646 patent

The Google Patents record lists the following. Note there are two overlapping lists (a "Citations (7)" examiner-style list and a "Patent Citations (8)" list that adds the LG parent US 7,246,365). I treat all eight as "cited references" and analyze each.

2. Reference-by-reference

A. US 6,091,772 — "Black based filtering of MPEG-2 compliant table sections" (IBM; Anderson, Foster, Rohrbaugh)

• Dates: filed 1997-09-26; issued 2000-07-18. Pre-dates priority.
• Description: A method/apparatus for decoding an MPEG-2 packetized datastream by section-filtering transport table sections. Table sections are filtered with filter blocks each having a mask pattern and a control word pointing to the next block, allowing arbitrary-length filtering. Core subject matter is MPEG-2 section-filter hardware.
• Anticipation analysis: This is the classic art for the "section filter … by section-filtering the plurality of PSIP tables" element of claim 1. It does not disclose PSIP, ETTs, an ETM body, or a table-ID-extension field that establishes ETT uniqueness. No claim of the '646 is anticipated — it lacks every ETT/PSIP-specific limitation. Relevant only to the section-filtering element (claim 1) as a §103 secondary reference.

B. US 6,115,074 — "System for forming and processing program map information suitable for terrestrial, cable or satellite broadcast" (Ozkan et al.; Thomson Consumer Electronics)

• Dates: filed 1998-04-09 (provisional 1997-07-10); issued 2000-09-05 (later Ex Parte Reexamination Certificate C1, 2011-05-10). Pre-dates priority.
• Description: Digital-video decoder that identifies/assembles channel-map information replicating MPEG program-map info. It expressly describes hierarchically arranged PSIP-style tables including a Master Guide Table (MGT), Channel Information Table (CIT), Event Information Tables (EITs), and optional Extended Text Tables (ETTs); the ETT "contains text messages describing programs and program channels." It also discloses a program-specific-information text format and a scheme for assigning a text-message identifier (its Figs. 5–7).
• Anticipation analysis: This is the closest structural prior art to the '646's EPG/ETT environment. It discloses the ETT, the EIT, the text-message (ETM-like) body, and identifier-based linking — i.e., most of the preamble and body elements of claims 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11. However, the '646's point of novelty is that the table-ID-extension field in the ETT section header is used to establish uniqueness — precisely the structure Ozkan locates in the section body's text-message identifier (which the '646's "Description of the Related Art" criticizes). Ozkan therefore does not anticipate any claim as issued. It is a strong primary §103 reference against the claims' generic EPG/ETT elements.

C. US 6,353,930 B1 — "Digital broadcasting system, digital broadcasting apparatus, and receiver apparatus for digital broadcasters" (Matsushita; Shimoji, Inoue)

• Dates: priority 1996-08-07; issued 2002-03-05. Pre-dates priority.
• Description: Simulated-interaction digital broadcast: stores image data each with an image-data identifier, control information each with a control-information identifier and link-destination information, and multiplexes them. The receiver extracts data using identity/identifier matching, including an "image correspondence table" whose identification information is derived from the image-data identifier.
• Anticipation analysis: Analogous to using identifiers within table headers to select the correct table/section (claims 1, 7, 8; dependent claim 2's "value indicating an event ID"). It does not disclose PSIP/ETT/ETM or a table-ID-extension field per se. No anticipation; relevant as a §103 secondary reference for the "identifier-in-a-header-field" concept.

D. US 6,510,555 B1 — "Information providing apparatus and method, information receiving apparatus and method, and transmission medium" (Sony)

• Dates: filed 1997-08-19; issued 2003-01-21. Pre-dates priority.
• Description: Transmission of EPG information split into "first information" containing a TV program's identification code, start time, and reference information to "second information," which contains the program details — the first and second information being synthesized as EPG. Describes DVB-style tables (NIT, SDT, EIT variants — pfEIT/gEIT/dEIT, dummy channel).
• Anticipation analysis: Directly analogous to the EIT→ETT reference scheme (short table pointing to a longer text table). Discloses the split-table/linking concept relevant to claims 1, 8, 9 (ETM "associated with" an event) and dependent claim 2 (event ID in the reference). It does not disclose the '646's unique table-ID-extension mechanism. No anticipation; useful §103 art.

E. US 6,604,243 B1 — "System and method for information filtering" (OpenTV)

• Dates: filed 1998-11-10; issued 2003-08-05. Pre-dates priority.
• Description: System/method for filtering broadcast information (e.g., EPG or program data) in a television/decoder environment. (Confidence note: I could not retrieve the full specification text within the search budget; the characterization is based on the title/abstract metadata and known OpenTV subject matter. Treat the description as lower-confidence than references A–D, G, H.)
• Anticipation analysis: Relevant to the information/section-filtering element of claim 1. It does not disclose ETT section headers carrying a uniqueness-establishing table-ID-extension. No anticipation.

F. US 6,961,955 B1 — "System and method for providing video services" (BellSouth Intellectual Property)

• Dates: filed 1999-10-13; issued 2005-11-01. Pre-dates priority.
• Description: Provision of video services (network/service-delivery oriented). (Confidence note: full text not retrieved within budget; characterized from title/metadata.)
• Anticipation analysis: Peripheral to PSIP/ETT section structures. It appears not to disclose the ETT/section-header/ETM elements at all. No anticipation of any claim; it is the least probative of the listed references.

G. US 6,918,133 B2 and H. US 7,246,365 B2 — "Method for identifying extender text table of electronic program guide in digital TV" (LG Electronics; Kyung Mee Lee)

• Dates: both claim the same 2000-01-17 priority date as the '646; issued 2005-07-12 and 2007-07-17 respectively.
• Status as prior art: NOT available under §102. These are the direct ancestors in the '646's own §120 chain (09/760,840 → 11/062,429 → 11/704,922 → 11/932,788). Because they share the '646's effective filing date and are commonly owned members of the same family (and are expressly incorporated by reference in the '646 specification), they cannot be used to anticipate or render obvious the '646's claims. They appear in the citation list as family/priority entries, not as true prior art.
• Practical point: Any substantive anticipation for the '646 would have to come from A–F or I, not from G/H.

I. Non-Patent Citation — ATSC Document A/65, "Program and System Information Protocol for Terrestrial Broadcast and Cable," Dec. 23, 1997

• Date: published 1997-12-23. Pre-dates priority; available as a §102(a)/(b) printed publication.
• Description: The PSIP standard itself. Defines the PSIP table suite — STT, RRT, EIT, ETT, MGT — the MPEG-2 section syntax, and, critically, the ETT section header in which table_id_extension is fixed at 0x00 and the event/channel linkage is carried in the body's ETM_id and extended_text_message().
• Anticipation analysis: This is the single closest reference and effectively the "base disclosure" the '646 improves upon. It discloses: PSIP tables (claim 1/7/8/9 preambles), ETTs in common-PID transport packets, the section-header/section-body division, the ETM body, and the receiver-side table handling. It does not disclose the claimed "table ID extension field that serves to establish uniqueness of each ETT" — it does the opposite, fixing that field at 0x00. It therefore does not anticipate claims 1, 7, 8, 9, 10, or 11 (each requires the uniqueness-establishing extension field), and it arguably teaches away from the claimed solution. A/65 combined with an identifier-linking reference (e.g., B, C, D) is the natural §103 primary reference for an obviousness attack.

3. Bottom line: what actually anticipates vs. what is merely relevant

Why none of the cited references anticipates. Every independent claim (1, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11) requires a table-ID-extension field in the ETT section header that establishes uniqueness of each ETT (and dependent claims 2–6 build on that with event-ID, 16-bit/14-bit, same-channel, and event-vs-channel distinctions). That limitation is the '646's stated point of novelty. The cited references variously disclose the environment (EPG/PSIP tables: B, I), filtering (A, E), identifier linking (B, C, D), or text-message bodies (B, I) — but none places a uniqueness-establishing identifier into the ETT section-header's table_id_extension. Anticipation under §102 requires all elements in a single reference; none supplies the distinguishing element.

Most likely real-world challenge, if any: a §103 obviousness combination — ATSC A/65 as the primary reference (discloses the ETT/PSIP/section framework) in view of an identifier-in-header reference (US 6,115,074, US 6,353,930, or US 6,091,772) to supply the motivation to move the event identifier into the section-header extension field for filtering purposes.

4. Caveats and flags

1. Family-member claim divergence (flagged earlier, now reconciled). Search results show sister application US 2010/0229203 A1 renders a sibling's ETT table_id as 0xCC, while the '646's Table 1 shows 0xC7. These are different documents in the same family, which explains the value discrepancy noted in the prior summary — I report both literally rather than reconciling them.
2. Low-confidence descriptions. References E (US 6,604,243) and F (US 6,961,955) are characterized from citation metadata/titles because the retrieval budget was exhausted before their full specifications were pulled. A–D, G, H and the ATSC standard were retrieved at description/claim level.
3. "Cited" ≠ "anticipatory." These are the examiner/applicant-cited references of record. Listing on the face of a patent is not an admission that any reference anticipates; my analysis above shows none does.
4. Statutory note. I am applying pre-AIA §§102/103 because the '646's chain carries a 2000-01-17 priority date. I did not independently re-verify the §120 chain's validity against USPTO PatentCenter (only the patent's own continuity statement), so the operative prior-art date is the 2000-01-17 priority date assuming that chain holds.
5. Sources. Google Patents full text for US 7,752,646 B2 (patents.google.com/patent/US7752646/en); Google Patents/BigPatent text for US 6,091,772, US 6,115,074, US 6,353,930, US 6,510,555, and the ATSC A/65 non-patent citation as recorded on the '646 record. Full texts for US 6,604,243 and US 6,961,955 were not retrieved and their descriptions are provisional.

I'll ground this analysis by verifying the disclosure of the key cited references before building the §103 combinations.

Good grounding. Let me verify the original A/65 ETT syntax and check the parent application's prosecution history for examiner reasoning.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Pat. No. 7,752,646 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Prepared from the prior art on this patent's own face (the seven U.S. references cited by the examiner, the single non-patent citation, and the ATSC/MPEG source documents those citations point to). Dates and identifiers are taken literally; where I use a source not listed on the patent, I say so.

1. Threshold: what was actually known as of the 2000-01-17 priority date

Four pieces of prior art do nearly all the work, and three of them are examiner-cited on the '646 face:

Supporting citations already on the face — US 6,353,930 B1 (Matsushita) and US 6,510,555 B1 (Sony) — supply conventional DTV receive apparatus and EPG/information delivery, and are useful only as secondary teaching for the receiver architecture of claims 1 and 8.

Crucial datum (external, corroborating): the original A/65 ETT syntax expressly reads "table_id_extension — This 16-bit field shall be set to 0x00" (reproduced in the ATSC A/65 material reprinted in the 1998 NAB Engineering Conference proceedings, worldradiohistory.com, and in the ETT tutorial at tvwithoutborders.com). The SAME standard, at 6.6, states that each description "is distinguished by its unique 32-bit ETM_id immediately after the field protocol_version. This allows the receiver to search for a single description quickly without having to parse the payload of a large table."

That last sentence is the invention's stated problem and the invention's stated solution, both already articulated in the prior art. This makes the §103 case unusual: the reference the examiner himself cited already recites the goal, and merely fails to move the discriminator into the header.

2. Person of ordinary skill and the legal framework

A POSITA here is a broadcast-systems engineer with working knowledge of MPEG-2 Systems (ISO/IEC 13818-1) private-section syntax and ATSC PSIP, who designs PSIP table generators/toolchains and set-top-box table parsers. Under KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007), and Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), the question is whether this artisan, facing the known MPEG-2 conformance problem, would have arrived at the claimed arrangement as a predictable use of a known technique on a known field.

Two structural features of PSIP are decisive and are admitted in the '646 specification itself:

1. table_id_extension is already PSIP's de-facto instance discriminator for other tables. In A/65, EIT carries source_id in table_id_extension; VCT carries transport_stream_id; RRT carries rating_region. Only ETT (and STT/MGT) pin it to a constant. A POSITA reading the standard would see that the field is the designated place to distinguish table instances.
2. The '646 specification affirmatively concedes the deficiency and the conformance requirement: the prior method "fails to meet the system standard of the moving picture experts group (MPEG) as well as to perform a section filtering of sections using the header." A patentee's own admission that the art failed an applicable standard is powerful §103 evidence of a known, recognized problem with an obvious remedy.

Consistent with this, secondary literature describing the later ATSC revision records the reasoning verbatim: "Earlier versions of ATSC A/65 set this field to zero, but MPEG purists pointed out that when parsing table sections that have arrived in Transport Stream packets with common PID values, one must be able to distinguish them as separate table instances by inspection of the MPEG-2 private section table header." That is a statement of the design incentive — not of hindsight.

3. Claim chart — primary combination

Primary rejection: A/65 (1997) in view of IBM '772 and OpenTV '243, further in view of Ozkan '074.

Independent claims 1, 7, 8, 9 (receiver / receiver-method)

The only gap for claims 1/7/8/9 is that 1997 A/65 fixes table_id_extension = 0x00 for ETT. That gap is filled by the known technique of header-field section filtering (IBM '772, OpenTV '243) applied to a field that the standard itself uses for exactly this purpose in sibling tables — a textbook KSR "known technique, same field, improved as predictable."

Independent claims 10, 11 (transmitter / transmitter-method)

These are the easiest. Ozkan '074 claims 16 and 24 recite an "apparatus [and method] for forming program guide information … means for forming channel map information; and means for incorporating said channel map information into packetized program guide information for output" — a PSIP-generator analog — plus a text-message-identifier assignment scheme (Fig. 6). A/65 supplies the ETT syntax to be generated and the PID-sharing constraint; IBM '772/OpenTV '243 supply the reason to make instances uniquely identifiable. Adding a PSIP encoder and transmitting unit is routine and is disclosed by A/65's own transmission constraints and Ozkan's output stage. No separate inventive contribution exists on the transmit side.

Dependent claims 2–6 (all depend from claim 1)

These are, element-for-element, already in the cited A/65 document — they do not even need the secondary references:

• Claim 2 (extension defines an event ID): A/65's ETM_id scheme ties each ETT to event_id; A/65 EIT already places source_id in table_id_extension. Placing the event identifier there is the same field, same use.
• Claim 3 (16-bit integer value): A/65/MPEG-2 define table_id_extension as a 16-bit field. Directly disclosed.
• Claim 4 (14 bits represent the event ID): A/65 defines event_id as a 14-bit field ("event_ID: This 14-bit field specifies the identification number of the event described. This number serves as a part of the event ETM_ID" — see the identically-structured ATSC/ITU-T J.94 text at itu.int), and the 32-bit ETM_id is source_id [16] + event_id [14] + 2 bits. Directly disclosed.
• Claim 5 (second value = whether ETT and its EIT come from the same channel): A/65's ETM_location field is precisely this — 0x01 = ETM in the same physical transmission channel as the EIT, 0x02 = located elsewhere.
• Claim 6 (second value identifying event ETT vs channel ETT): A/65's ETM_id already encodes the distinction in its two low bits — channel ETM_id = source_id | 0…0 | '00' vs event ETM_id = source_id | event_id | '10'.

Claims 2–6 therefore add nothing beyond the ATSC standard's own bit definitions; they collapse with claims 1/7/8 on the same combination.

4. Motivation to combine — the KSR "articulated reasoning" prong

Five independent, record-based rationales each support the combination. Any two suffice.

1. Compliance with a governing standard (strongest). MPEG-2 Systems requires that sections sharing a PID be distinguishable by their private-section header. The '646 specification concedes the prior method "fails to meet the system standard of the moving picture experts group (MPEG)." Fixing a known non-compliance is a classic design incentive, not invention.
2. Express teaching in the primary reference that filtering without parsing is the desideratum. A/65 §6.6 states the ETM_id "allows the receiver to search for a single description quickly without having to parse the payload of a large table." The claimed benefit ("filter ETT sections without receiving all sections") is the reference's stated goal; the only question was where to put the discriminator, and the header is the only place section filters look.
3. Same field, same purpose, sibling tables. PSIP already uses table_id_extension as an identifier in EIT/VCT/RRT. Applying it to ETT is the "predictable variation" of using a known field for its established purpose — and matches the '646's own stated objective of processing "ETT sections in the same manner as other tables of PSIP."
4. Known technique + known benefit. IBM '772 and OpenTV '243 teach hardware/software section filters that decide accept/reject from the first 8–12 header bytes; OpenTV expressly frames the benefit (only acquire required/new/changed sections; avoid overrunning the filter) that the '646 asserts as its first advantage.
5. No cost / no lost function. A/65 assigns the ETT table_id_extension no intrinsic meaning (it is a constant 0x00), so repurposing it sacrifices nothing — the "predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions" KSR endorses. The field's width (16 bits), the event_id width (14 bits, per A/65's EIT), and the two residual flag bits all fall out of the pre-existing standard rather than from any new insight.

Anticipation of a design choice is confirmed by the fact that the ATSC standard itself was later amended to this exact rule — current A/65 (A/65Cr1, atsc.org) states: "ETT_table_id_extension — A 16-bit unsigned integer value that serves to establish the uniqueness of each ETT instance when the tables appear in transport stream packets with common PID values." (Caveat: A/65A/B/C postdate the 2000-01-17 priority date and are therefore not prior art; I cite them only as evidence that the change was a recognized conformance fix rather than a nonobvious leap.)

5. Weaknesses, counters, and honest caveats

• The one genuine nonobviousness hook — "teaching away." 1997 A/65 mandates 0x00 for the ETT extension. A patentee can argue a POSITA following the standard would not deliberately violate it. This is the strongest defense, and it fails for a specific reason: a standard specifying a constant is a compatibility requirement, not a teaching that the field can never carry meaning — particularly where the same standard uses the identical field as an identifier in EIT/VCT/RRT, and where the MPEG-2 conformance defect supplies an affirmative reason to change. Expect this to be the battleground, and expect the outcome to turn on how the tribunal reads the A/65 text.
• Backward-compatibility advantage (third stated advantage of the '646). The specification simultaneously claims the invention "maintains an existing section header while employs a table_id_extension field of 0x00." That sentence is internally inconsistent with the invention and, more importantly, is contradicted by each asserted claim (and by the later A/65 text). Objective evidence of nonobviousness cannot rest on a description that the claims do not require.
• No secondary considerations in the record. I found no evidence of unexpected results, licensing nexus, or commercial success tied to this feature. The patent is indexed Expired – Lifetime (adjusted expiration 2022-06-03) with 12th-year maintenance paid 2021-12-06, so any §103 challenge today would matter only for a past-damages tail.
• §112 issues worth noting (not §103). Claim 9 literally recites "a second body" (a drafting artifact for "section body"); claims 1/7 use "receiving means," invoking §112(f) and limiting the receiving element to the specification's disclosed structure; and the specification's Table 1 prints the ETT table_id as 0xC7, whereas the descriptive paragraph says 0xCC. External evidence resolves this in favor of 0xCC (A/65 assigns 0xCC to ETT; 0xC7 is MGT), consistent with the discrepancy already flagged in the earlier sections of this analysis — I am reporting the patent's literal text and the external resolution side by side rather than "correcting" it.
• Reference-date integrity. US 6,918,133 B2 and US 7,246,365 B2 also appear on the '646 citation list; these are family members (same P2000-2065 priority), not prior art, and I do not rely on them. Likewise US 7,743,397/US 8,966,540/US 9,049,475 and the LG US 2007/0110167 and 2007/0118867 publications share a 2001-01-17 priority and postdate the '646 priority date; they are usable only as corroborative context, not as §103 art.

6. Bottom line

The patent's inventive contribution reduces to relocating a pre-existing identifier from the ETT section body (ETM_id) into the section header's already-defined table_id_extension field, using the same identifier values the standard already specifies, in order to enable the header-based section filtering that the primary reference already says is the goal and that MPEG-2 already requires. That is a predictable application of a known technique to a known field with a known benefit — the core of §103 under KSR. The only colorable nonobviousness theory is the "0x00 mandate = teaching away" argument in §5, and it is, in my assessment, the patent's weakest footing and the family's principal vulnerability to a validity challenge.