US 7836381

Here's a concise summary of US patent 7836381:

• Patent Number: US7836381B1
• Title: Computer readable medium with instructions for resource sharing in a telecommunications environment
• Inventors: Marcos C. Tzannes and Michael Lund
• Original Assignee: Aware Inc
• Current Assignee: TQ Delta LLC
• Filing Date: August 9, 2010 (Application number US12/853,020)
• Issue Date: November 16, 2010
• Abstract: A transceiver is designed to share memory and processing power among multiple transmitter and/or receiver latency paths in a communication system that supports various applications. For instance, the transceiver's latency paths can share an interleaver/deinterleaver memory. This memory allocation can be determined based on application requirements such as data rate, latency, bit error rate (BER), impulse noise protection, or any other relevant communication system parameter.

Plain-Language Overview of Independent Claims:

• Independent Claim 1: This claim describes a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium containing instructions that, when executed, enable a transceiver to allocate shared memory. The process involves:

  1. The transceiver either sending or receiving a message during initialization that specifies the maximum amount of memory available for an interleaver.
  2. The transceiver determines how much memory the interleaver needs to interleave Reed-Solomon (RS) coded data within a shared memory space.
  3. A specific amount of this shared memory is allocated to the interleaver for transmitting RS coded data at a particular data rate, ensuring this allocation does not exceed the maximum specified in the initial message.
  4. Another portion of the shared memory is allocated to a deinterleaver for deinterleaving RS coded data received at a different data rate.
  5. Finally, the interleaving and deinterleaving operations occur simultaneously using their respective allocated portions of the shared memory.

• Independent Claim 5: This claim is structurally very similar to Claim 1 but focuses on the deinterleaver first. It describes a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium with instructions for allocating shared memory in a transceiver, where:

  1. The transceiver sends or receives a message during initialization indicating the maximum memory available for a deinterleaver.
  2. The transceiver determines the memory needed by the deinterleaver to deinterleave a first set of Reed-Solomon (RS) coded data bytes within a shared memory.
  3. A first number of bytes from the shared memory is allocated to this deinterleaver for deinterleaving data at a specific data rate, not exceeding the maximum limit from the message.
  4. Concurrently, a second number of bytes from the shared memory is allocated to an interleaver for interleaving another set of RS coded data bytes.
  5. Both the deinterleaving and interleaving processes utilize their respective shared memory allocations at the same time.

USPTO and CAFC 2026 Dockets Search Results:

A search for US patent 7836381 indicates that its legal status is "Expired - Lifetime". The patent was anticipated to expire on October 11, 2025, but is currently listed as "Expired - Lifetime".

Regarding litigation, the patent family has been involved in several US District Court cases, specifically in the Delaware Northern District Court (e.g., cases 1:13-cv-02013, 1:14-cv-00954, 1:15-cv-00121, 1:13-cv-01835) and Alabama Northern District Court (case 5:14-cv-01381). There have also been PTAB (Patent Trial and Appeal Board) cases, including IPR2023-00066 (Not Instituted - Procedural) and IPR2022-00665 (Settlement). Additionally, there was a US case filed in the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (case 18-2158). The first worldwide family litigation was filed in 2013.

No specific CAFC 2026 dockets were found for US7836381 directly, but the existing information from Google Patents covers a CAFC case (18-2158) related to the patent family, though it doesn't specify its status as of 2026. Given the patent's "Expired - Lifetime" status, further litigation is unlikely unless related to past infringements or ongoing appeals from previous cases.