Invalidity dossier
US 6370137
Method and apparatus for providing broadband access conferencing services
Current assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP
Added 9/23/2026, 7:34:36 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 — US 6,370,137 B1
Title: "Method and apparatus for providing broadband access conferencing services"
Patent number / application: US 6,370,137 B1; Application No. US 09/366,031.
Assignee: Original assignee listed as Ameritech Corp. The source also lists current assignees "AT&T Intellectual Property I LP," "SBC Holdings Properties LP," and "Ameritech Properties Inc," noting the listed assignees "may be inaccurate" and that Google did not perform a legal analysis of the list.
Dates: Prior art date 1997-07-17; filing date 1999-08-02; publication/grant date 2002-04-09. Status listed as "Expired – Lifetime," with anticipated expiration 2017-07-17.
Purpose: The invention "relates to broadband conferencing services" and, more particularly, to "a method and apparatus for providing voice and data services by coordinating standard telephone network and packet data network resources." It addresses limitations in U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,345, which supports voice and data over one subscriber loop but only for end-to-end calls, requires ISDN facilities at both ends, and uses dedicated circuit-switched paths.
Plain-language scope: The patent describes using telephone-network elements — central offices, tandem locations, an SCP with a CPE database and data address database, an STP using SS7, and an intelligent peripheral with a database — together with packet/data facilities such as a DSLAM, ADSL, and ATM, to manage simultaneous voice and data communications among multiple parties (including multi-party conference calls). The figures show the network, central office, subscriber location, tandem location, interworking unit, and flow diagrams for implementing broadband conferencing and establishing a multi-party broadband conference call. Classifications include H04M3/56 (conferencing) and H04M3/567 (multimedia conference systems).
Not established by this excerpt: The full text of the claims, the complete specification, the detailed description, and the exact operation of the described elements are omitted. Because the excerpt is partial, claim scope and any specific limitations cannot be confirmed from it. The source notes legal status and assignee listings are assumptions, not legal conclusions.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:41:56 PM
Cases on file (0)
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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.