Invalidity dossier
US 9491542
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 9,491,542 B2
Title: Automatic sound pass-through method and system for earphones
Patent number / application: US 9,491,542 B2; application US 14/600,349; pre-grant publication US 2015/0215701 A1.
Inventor: John Usher.
Assignee information (per supplied text): Original assignee Personics Holdings Inc. Current assignee listed as "St Case1tech LLC," "DM Staton Family LP," and "Strategic Portfolio Holdings LLC." (Additional reassignment entries appear in the source; per instructions, ownership transfers are not analyzed here.)
Key dates (as stated, assumed rather than legally concluded): Priority date 2012-07-30; filing date 2013-07-30; publication 2015-07-30 (US 2015/0215701 A1); grant/publication 2016-11-08; anticipated expiration 2033-07-30. Legal status listed as "Active."
Purpose: The invention relates to earphones and headphones, and more particularly to automatically directing ambient sound to a sound-isolating (SI) earphone or headset used for voice communication and music listening, to maintain situation awareness with hands-free operation. The stated disadvantage of existing SI earphones is that a user may become acoustically detached from the local sound environment, impairing communication with nearby people.
Plain-language scope (from the excerpt): A method passes ambient sound to an earphone inserted in a user's ear canal. An ambient sound microphone (ASM) near the earphone captures ambient sound to form an ASM signal. An audio content (AC) signal is received from a remote device. Voice activity of the user is detected. The ASM signal and AC signal are mixed so that, when voice activity is detected, the ASM gain is increased and the AC gain is decreased; the mixed signal is directed to an ear canal receiver (ECR). A corresponding earphone system includes an earphone device with a sealing section conforming to the ear canal, an ECR, an ASM, and a signal processing system performing the receiving, detecting, and mixing steps.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide the full claim text, detailed embodiments, exact claim language, validity, infringement, or prior-art analysis.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:03:33 PM
Cases on file (1)
Group view →Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 9491542. 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, 9270244, 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 9491542.