Invalidity dossier
US 7881213
Methods and apparatus for fibre channel interconnection of private loop devices
Current assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd
Added 9/23/2026, 4:13:10 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US7881213B2
Title: Methods and apparatus for fibre channel interconnection of private loop devices
Patent number / application: US7881213B2; application US10/289,241, filed 2002-11-05; published as US20030086377A1 on 2003-05-08; granted 2011-02-01.
Priority date: 1997-02-18, claimed from US08/801,471 (which issued as US6185203B1). The listed prior art date is also 1997-02-18.
Inventor: Stuart B. Berman.
Assignee history shown: Original assignee Emulex Design and Manufacturing Corp. Current assignee listed as Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd. The record shows earlier reassignments involving Vixel Corporation, Arcxel Technologies, Inc., and Berman. (Stated only as recorded in the supplied text; no analysis of those transfers.)
Status: Expired – Fee Related; adjusted expiration 2019-04-06. The source notes legal status is an assumption, not a legal conclusion.
Purpose and plain-language scope: The prior-art keywords — port, loop, fibre channel, fabric, frames — indicate the disclosure concerns connecting private loop devices in Fibre Channel networks, i.e., tying loop devices together through fabric/switch ports. Classification confirms this: Fibre channel switches (H04L49/357), storage area networks (H04L49/356), loop networks with decentralised control (H04L12/427), interconnected ring systems (H04L12/4637), and routing/path finding including establishing or releasing connections between ports (H04L49/253). Beyond these indicators, the excerpt supplies no abstract, claims, or description text, so no specific claim scope can be stated.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7881213](/patent/US7881213)/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It contains no claim language, no specification text, no drawings, no abstract, and no description of embodiments. It therefore does not establish the precise claimed methods or apparatus, the number or content of claims, specific technical mechanisms, or what was actually disclosed versus claimed. It also notes a worldwide family litigation entry but provides no case details; nothing about litigation is assessed here.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:51:02 PM
Cases on file (0)
Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 7881213. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
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Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.