Invalidity dossier
US 6275231
Centralized control and management system for automobiles
Current assignee: American Calcar, Inc.
Added 8/27/2026, 12:47:13 AM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-v4-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview: US6275231B1
Title: Centralized control and management system for automobiles
Patent number: US6275231B1
Application number: US08/904,855
Inventor: Michael L. Obradovich
Original assignee: American Calcar Inc (current assignee listed as Auto Director Tech Inc)
Priority/filing date: 1997-08-01
Publication (grant) date: 2001-08-14
Legal status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2017-08-01)
Purpose and plain-language scope
The patent describes a centralized control and management system for automobiles—a single in-vehicle arrangement for controlling and managing multiple vehicle functions and presenting information to the user. Consistent with the prior-art keywords listed (vehicle, item, user, display, indicator), the disclosed subject matter concerns a display through which a user views and selects items, with indicators relating to those items. The classifications place it in vehicle instrumentation and dashboards (B60K35/00), electrical/fluid circuits and signal transmission between vehicle parts or subsystems (B60R16/02, B60R16/023, B60R16/0231), multiplexed power supply to vehicle subsystems (B60R16/0315), and anti-theft/personal-settings arrangements (B60R25/20, B60R25/2081, B60R25/24, B60R25/241). The system therefore appears to unify driver-facing control, display, and vehicle subsystem management, including storage/retrieval of personal settings tied to an electronic identifier.
What the excerpt does not establish
The supplied text does not include the claims, the written description, or the drawings/figures; it also does not include an abstract. Accordingly, no specific claim language, element-by-element scope, or embodiments can be quoted here. The listed classifications are indexing metadata, not a statement of claim scope. Family members and later-filed continuation/divisional applications are listed, but their contents are not supplied.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6275231](/patent/US6275231)/en
Note: Per instructions, no litigation, ownership-transfer, validity, or prior-art analysis is offered; the current-assignee listing above is reproduced only as it appears in the supplied source.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:03:51 PM
Cases on file (1)
Group view →Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 6275231. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
- American Calcar, Inc. v. BMW of North America, LLCfiled Mar 25, 20043:04-cv-00614U.S. District Court, Southern District of Californiaterminated Apr 19, 2006closed
Defendants: BMW of North America, LLC
Other patents asserted: 6009355, 6148261, 6282464, 6330497, 6438465, 6459961, 6529824, 6542795, 6587758, 6587759, 6703944
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: American Calcar, Inc.
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.
Keep exploring
More patents asserted by American Calcar, Inc.
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- US 6529824US6529824B1 — Concise Overview Title: Personal communication system for communicating voice data positioning information Patent number: US6529824B1 Application number: US09/669,527 Filing date: 2000-09-25 Publication/grant date: 2003-03-04…
- US 6542795Patent Overview — US 6542795 B2 Title: "Technique for providing information and control responsive to a request in a vehicle" Patent number: US6542795B2 (application US10/176,444) Assignee: American Calcar Inc. (listed as both original and…
This patent in court (1)
1 tracked lawsuit name US 6275231.