Invalidity dossier
US 9270244
System and method to detect close voice sources and automatically enhance situation awareness
Current assignee: Staton Techiya, LLC
Added 8/28/2026, 4:00:24 AM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 9,270,244 B2
Title: System and method to detect close voice sources and automatically enhance situation awareness.
Patent number / kind code: US9270244B2. Application number: US 14/210,430. Publication of pre-grant version: US20140270200A1. Inventors: John Usher and Steven W. Goldstein. Original assignee: Personics Holdings Inc. Current assignee (per the source): St Case1tech LLC and Strategic Portfolio Holdings LLC (the source notes listed assignees may be inaccurate and were not analyzed here).
Key dates (from the source): Priority date 2013-03-13; filing date 2014-03-13; publication date 2016-02-23; legal status Active, with an adjusted expiration listed as 2034-05-21.
Purpose and plain-language scope: The patent relates to processing audio and acoustic signals, and particularly to earphones, ear-coupling devices, and mobile devices for enhancing voice communication and situation awareness in a user's environment. In plain terms, it describes an earphone assembly providing sound isolation, electronically configured to enhance situation awareness, and methods for enhancing situation awareness by mixing ambient sound signals with audible content, and for controlling an ambient sound pass-through. Figures referenced in the excerpt illustrate an earphone assembly (FIG. 1A), methods for enhancing situation awareness and controlling ambient sound pass-through (FIGS. 1B, 2B, 2D), and a "lean in" situation-awareness user context enabling hands-free operation to control ambient sound pass-through during voice conversation with a second individual in close proximity to one side of the wearer (FIG. 2C). Classifications include H04R1/10 (earpieces; earphones), H04R1/406 (combining identical transducer microphones), G10L25/78 (detection of presence or absence of voice signals), and H03G3/32 (automatic gain control dependent on ambient noise or sound level). Recorded prior-art keywords include voice, ambient sound, earphone, voice activity, and sound.
What the excerpt does not establish: The provided text contains only a partial or excerpted description; it does not include the claims, the full written description, any prior-art references, prosecution history details, the litigation or PTAB matters listed as links, the assignment/ownership chain events, or any legal conclusions. No missing facts have been inferred.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:03:32 PM
Cases on file (1)
Group view →Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 9270244. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
- Staton Techiya, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al.filed Jun 6, 20242024-1917U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuitterminated Dec 20, 2024dismissed
Defendants: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc.
Other patents asserted: 10979836, 8111839, 8254591, 8315400, 9124982, 9491542, 9609424, 10405082, 10966015, 11039259, 11057701, 11217237, 11244666
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.
Current assignee: Staton Techiya, LLC
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.
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This patent in court (1)
1 tracked lawsuit name US 9270244.