US 6484080

I'll verify current docket/litigation status via search, then summarize against the authoritative patent text.

Let me attempt to retrieve the actual claim text and any recent (2026) appellate activity.

US 6,484,080 B2 — Verification Summary

Source note / limitations: I worked from the full patent document at https://patents.google.com/patent/US6484080/en (mirrors USPTO bibliographic data) plus corroborating secondary sources. I do not have direct PACER/CAFC docket access, so my docket findings below are search-based and are flagged as such. Where I could not verify something authoritatively, I say so.

Bibliographic data (high confidence — matches the patent document)

Priority chain (as stated in the patent's Cross-Reference section): this application is a continuation-in-part of Ser. No. 09/137,918 (filed Aug. 20, 1998, now US 6,175,787), which is itself a CIP of Ser. No. 08/476,077 (filed June 7, 1995, now US 5,809,437). It also claims 35 U.S.C. §119(e) benefit of provisional Ser. No. 60/231,378 (filed Sept. 8, 2000). That 1995 date explains the "Prior art date 1995-06-07" shown on the face of the document.

Assignee changes — medium confidence. Google Patents lists the current assignee as Automotive Technologies International Inc. but expressly disclaims accuracy of assignee listings. A recorded assignment abstract (reel/frame 028023/0087, ~April 2012) appears to transfer rights to American Vehicular Sciences LLC (Texas). I could not independently confirm the current chain of title from an authoritative USPTO assignment record in this session.

Abstract (verbatim from the patent)

"Control system and method for controlling a part of the vehicle in which sensor systems are mounted at different locations on the vehicle, each sensor system providing a measurement related to a state of the sensor system or a measurement related to a state of the mounting location. A processor coupled to the sensor systems diagnoses the state of the vehicle based on the measurements of the sensor system, e.g., by the application of a pattern recognition technique. The processor controls the part based at least in part on the diagnosed state of the vehicle. At least one of the sensor systems may be a high dynamic range accelerometer or a sensor selected from a group consisting of a single axis acceleration sensor, a double axis acceleration sensor, a triaxial acceleration sensor and a gyroscope, and may optionally include an RFID response unit."

Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Important caveat: the authoritative text I retrieved was truncated before the claims section (it ends mid-sentence in the "Definitions" portion: "...a diagnosis of the 'state of the vehicle' means a diagnosis of the co…"). I therefore do not have the issued claim set verbatim and will not fabricate claim numbers or limits.

What I can state with confidence:

(a) Claim 1 (reported by a secondary source — treat as provisional). A KIPO patent-analysis document reproducing the representative claim of 6,484,080 states it as:

"1. In a motor vehicle, a control system for controlling at least one part of the vehicle comprising: a plurality of sensor systems mounted at different locations on the vehicle, each of said sensor systems providing a measurement related to a state of said sensor system or a measurement related to a state of the mounting location; and a processor coupled to said sensor systems and arranged to diagnose the state of the vehicle based on the measurements of said sensor systems, said processor being arranged to control the at least one part based at least in part on the diagnosed state of the vehicle."

In plain terms: put several sensors at different spots on the vehicle; let each report either its own condition or the condition of where it is mounted; have a processor figure out the vehicle's overall state from those readings; then use that diagnosis to command a vehicle part. Notably broad — no pattern-recognition element is required on the face of this claim.

(b) Independent claims I can only characterize from the specification's "Summary of the Invention," not from claim text. The specification recites several distinct claimed embodiments, each of which likely maps to at least one independent claim:

1. A control system using sensor systems + a processor diagnosing vehicle state (the abstract embodiment above).
2. A method of controlling a part: mount sensors at different locations, measure sensor state / mounting-location state, diagnose vehicle state, control the part based on the diagnosis.
3. A pattern-recognition-based control system: sensor systems emit signals; a pattern recognition system (e.g., neural networks) diagnoses vehicle state and emits a control signal — including nested/modular neural networks that first identify a likely malfunctioning component and then determine whether that identified component is abnormal.
4. A seat-occupancy-based control system: multiple strain gages in connection with a seat measure strain over time; the processor determines occupant weight (and motion) dynamically and controls a part accordingly, optionally combined with accelerometer data.
5. A method counterpart to (3) involving inputting sensor signals into a pattern recognition system and controlling a part.

Claim count — indirect evidence only. Defendant invalidity contentions in Automotive Technologies Int'l v. American Honda Motor Co. (D. Del. No. 06-187-GMS) and ATI v. Delphi Corp. (E.D. Mich. No. 08-CV-11048) were directed at claims 1, 2, 4, 6–11, 15, 19, 20, 22, 24–27, 31, 33, 35, 36, 38–41, 44, 48, 52–55 and 59, implying the patent has at least 59 claims. The claim-number gaps (e.g., jumps around 12–14, 16–18, 21, 23, 28–30, 32, 34, 37, 42–43, 45–47, 49–51, 56–58) suggest multiple independent claims interleaved with dependents, but I cannot confirm which numbers are independent without the claim text. If precise claim-set analysis matters, pull the claims directly from USPTO Patent Public Search or PatentCenter for 6,484,080.

Litigation / CAFC 2026 docket findings

No 2026 Federal Circuit docket activity for 6,484,080 was found. I searched specifically for it and returned zero matching hits — the 2026 CAFC material that surfaced concerned unrelated patents (e.g., Spero v. Volkswagen, VLSI v. Intel, Versata v. Ford, WirelessWerx v. Audi) and unrelated parties. I state this as a negative search finding, not a certified absence; I lack PACER/CAFC docket-query access.

What is documented for this patent:

A KIPO survey document records that the E.D. Mich. matter involving 6,484,080 (alongside 6,833,516, 6,850,824, 7,243,945, 7,402,029) terminated with judgment for the defendants at first instance, affirmed on the plaintiff's appeal. The patent itself lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees, effective July 22, 2015, which is the practical reason no live 2026 appellate docket would be expected.

Explicit uncertainties

1. Claim set not verified verbatim — the fetched patent text is truncated before the claims. Independent-claim numbering is unconfirmed.
2. Claim 1 wording is from a third-party (KIPO) reproduction, not straight from the USPTO document.
3. Current owner — Google Patents disclaims assignee accuracy; the AVS LLC assignment reel (028023/0087) is circumstantial here.
4. "No 2026 CAFC activity" is a search-based negative, not a docket-certified one.
5. Minor data-quality traps seen in third-party sources (e.g., a patent-family annex listing "US 6833244 B" where the sibling patent is US 6,823,244, and comma-formatted citations "U.S. Pat. No. 6,484,080"). I have not auto-corrected any identifier; note that "6,484,080" and "6484080" designate the same patent as issued.

I'll search for litigation records on US 6,484,080 across the sources you named.

Good initial hits. Let me pull the specific docket details for each case and check for any appellate activity.

Key finding on the Federal Circuit appeal. Let me confirm the remand outcome and the Delaware case dispositions.

Litigation involving US 6,484,080 B2

Search scope and method note: I searched for the literal identifier 6484080 / 6,484,080 (they designate the same patent as issued — I have not auto-corrected either form). Sources hit: Google Patents litigation block on the '080 record, CourtListener, Justia (CAFC opinions and E.D. Mich. dockets), casetext, casemine, vLex, RPX Insight litigation documents, findforms (D. Del. AO-120 reports), and an Ex Parte litigation index. I could not reach the Unified Patents caselist or PACER directly in this run — so this is a search-based inventory, not a docket-certified one. Where I could not confirm a fact, I say so.

Case list

No other litigation found. In particular, I found no case naming American Vehicular Sciences LLC or any Acacia entity as plaintiff on the '080 — consistent with the ownership section's finding that the patent's assertion history is entirely ATI-era (pre-2012), and with its 2015-07-22 lapse.

Critical updates to the prior sections

1. The "affirmed on appeal" characterization is contradicted (flag)

The PTAB section above states the E.D. Mich. matter "terminated with judgment for the defendants at first instance, affirmed on the plaintiff's appeal," citing a KIPO survey. The Federal Circuit record on CAFC No. 2011-1292 does not say that. What the CAFC actually issued in this case was a dismissal for failure to prosecute the appeal, followed by reinstatement and a remand on 3/8/2012 for the district court to consider an unopposed motion to vacate a portion of the SJ due to settlement. That is a very different procedural posture from affirmance. Either the KIPO survey conflated this with the separate § 112 appeal in ATI v. BMW, 501 F.3d 1274 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (the '253 patent), or it summarized the case at a point before the CAFC orders. Treat the "affirmed" statement as unreliable.

Source: CAFC 11-1292 order, 3/8/2012 | CourtListener 624925 | Justia 11-1292, 7/19/2011

2. The Blonder-Tongue recommendation must be softened

The "Recommended next steps" item 1 above proposes a Blonder-Tongue motion on the assumption the E.D. Mich. invalidity judgment is final and affirmed. The CAFC record shows a settlement-driven joint vacatur motion was in play — the exact maneuver the prior section warned about. Vacatur of an invalidity judgment typically destroys its collateral-estoppel effect. So:

• Do not assume Blonder-Tongue estoppel exists.
• Pull the E.D. Mich. docket after the 3/8/2012 remand to determine what the district court actually did with the motion to vacate, and whether any vacatur was later challenged. (The Federal Circuit's Ohio Willow Wood line, discussed in Finnegan's 2011 CAFC year-in-review, is directly on point: a remand for vacatur is not an imprimatur on the vacatur motion, and U.S. Bancorp v. Bonner Mall sets a high bar.)
• The expiry argument is unaffected and remains the primary defense: expired 2015-07-22, so the § 286 damages lookback from a 2026 complaint reaches back only to 2020 — five years post-expiry. Zero actionable damages window.

3. Partial resolution of the reexamination verification gap

The Delphi complaint reproduced on RPX Insight pleads, at ¶ 33: "The '080 Patent has been reexamined and confirmed by the United States Patent Office." That is ATI's allegation, not a Certificate of Reexamination, and it tells you the reexam did not cancel all claims (otherwise ATI could not have sued on it). It does not tell you whether claims were confirmed as-is or amended. The prior section's "do not assume any reexam appeal number maps to the '080" caveat still stands.

Source: RPX Insight litigation document 1137402 (E.D. Mich. complaint)

4. Confirmation of the five-case face listing

The five matters listed on the Google Patents face (D. Del. 1:06-cv-00187; D. Del. 1:06-cv-00391; E.D. Mich. 2:08-cv-11048; E.D. Mich. 2:10-cv-10647; E.D. Tex. 2:08-cv-00057) match the cases I independently located. That is corroboration, not a new finding.

Summary answer

Yes — six proceedings are known involving US 6,484,080: five district court cases (three in Delaware, two in Michigan, one in E.D. Texas) and one Federal Circuit appeal. All five district cases were filed by ATI against automotive OEMs/suppliers between March 2006 and 2010. The single outcome I can state with confidence is the 2011 E.D. Mich. summary judgment (Judge Cleland) holding the '080's representative claims invalid as anticipated, which was on appeal as CAFC No. 2011-1292 and was remanded on 3/8/2012 for the district court to consider an unopposed vacatur motion following settlement. The final dispositions of the two Delaware cases and the E.D. Tex. case, and the post-remand fate of the Michigan judgment, are not verified and should be pulled from CourtListener/PACER before you rely on any of them.

I'll start by verifying whether any AIA trial proceedings exist for this patent, since the structured ODP block reports none.

Let me check for IPRs filed against related ATI/Breed patents and any Unified Patents activity, plus the reexamination history on the '080.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on US 6,484,080: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block reports that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent, and my targeted searches (patent number, patent owner, inventor, petitioner-side automotive defendants, Unified Patents) surfaced none either. There is therefore nothing to break down by status — no active trial, no claims-invalidated FWD, no institution denial, no settlement. Web search did not surface an older or unindexed IPR/PGR/CBM on this patent, so I am reporting "no PTAB activity on file" as the operative fact rather than treating the ODP gap as a gap.

Bottom line defensive posture: this is not a "hardened by surviving IPRs" patent. It is a patent that was never tested at the PTAB — and the reason is timing, not strength. US 6,484,080 issued 2002-11-19, was asserted in litigation concentrated in 2006–2010, was held invalid (as to all representative claims) on summary judgment in E.D. Michigan, and per the Google Patents legal-status record expired 2015-07-22 ("Expired – Fee Related"). IPR did not exist until 2012-09-16, by which point the patent had already been judicially invalidated and was within three years of expiry. A defendant today faces a deceased patent with an adverse district-court validity judgment on the books — a materially better position than if the troll had survived two IPRs.

AIA trial proceedings

None. I cannot list proceeding numbers, panels, grounds, institution decisions, FWDs, or appeals, because none exist on this patent on the record I can verify. Per your constraints, I am not inventing them.

Two verification caveats:

• "No ODP hit" is a strong but not dispositive indicator. If you need a belt-and-suspenders check, run the patent number through PTAB Center / PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov) and the USPTO Open Data Portal trial-proceedings endpoint directly. I could not reach either in this run.
• The relevant non-AIA USPTO history does exist (reexaminations), summarized below. That history is frequently confused with "PTAB proceedings" by non-specialists; it is not AIA trial activity.

Adjacent proceedings that ARE on the record (non-AIA — context for the "no IPRs" finding)

These are not IPRs/PGRs/CBMs. I include them because they explain why no IPR was ever filed and because they drive your defensive strategy.

Ex parte reexaminations (requested by Honda defendants) — status/resolution not verified

• What it is: Five third-party-requested ex parte reexaminations filed by counsel for the Honda defendants covering US 6,712,387, US 6,484,080, US 6,325,414, US 6,757,602, and US 6,942,248.
• Why it matters: The Delaware actions 1:06-cv-00187 and 1:06-cv-00391 were stayed pending these reexaminations. The parties' joint status report (filed 2007-08-21 in D. Del. 1:06-cv-00187, Dkt. 79) states the five reexams "remain pending," that ATI had filed responses to Office Actions in the '602 and '080 proceedings, and that initial resolution was expected "toward the end of this year to the middle of next year" — i.e., late 2007 to mid-2008.
• Verification gap I am flagging explicitly: I could not confirm from the sources retrieved whether the '080 reexamination ended in a Certificate of Reexamination that canceled, confirmed, or amended claims, or whether it went to appeal. A Breed/ATI ex parte reexamination appeal docket exists (e.g., Ex parte Automotive Technologies International, Inc., Appeal No. 2013-008246 (PTAB 2014); Appeal No. 2012-008490 (PTAB 2012); Appeal No. 2011-010681 (PTAB 2011), listed as a merged inter partes and ex parte reexamination) — but the source listing these does not tie a specific appeal number to the '080. Do not assume any of those appeals is the '080 reexam without pulling the file wrapper.
• Source: https://www.findforms.com/single_form.php/form/[141680](/patent/141680)/Status_Report_District_Court_of_Delaware_District_Court_of_Delaware_Delaware ; appeal list at https://www.brianroffe.com/pto-proceedings

District court invalidity — E.D. Mich. (the single most important fact for your defense)

• Case: Automotive Technologies International, Inc. v. Delphi Corp., No. 2:08-cv-11048 (E.D. Mich.), consolidated with 2:10-cv-10647.
• Patents-in-suit: the '516, '029, '945, and '080 patents.
• Outcome: The court granted defendants' six summary-judgment motions. Per the opinion's order, "Motion for Summary Judgment that All the Representative Claims of the '080 Patent are Invalid as Anticipated" [Dkt. #95] was GRANTED, and the court concluded "[a]ll four patents-in-suit are invalid as either anticipated by or obvious over the prior art."
• Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/[2471090](/patent/2471090)/automotive-technologies-international-inc-v-delphi-corp/ ; https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/michigan/miedce/2:2008cv11048/[228457/146](https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/search/patent/reelFrameDetail?reelFrame=228457-0146)/
• Verification gap: I could not confirm whether the '080 invalidity judgment was appealed to the Federal Circuit. (The Federal Circuit's ATI v. BMW, 501 F.3d 1274 (Fed. Cir. 2007), which affirmed § 112 invalidity, concerned the '253 side-impact patent, not the '080.) Whether the E.D. Mich. judgment is final and affirmed matters a great deal for Blonder-Tongue estoppel — see below.

Other family litigation (from the structured record)

D. Del. 1:06-cv-00187 and 1:06-cv-00391; E.D. Mich. 2:08-cv-11048 and 2:10-cv-10647; E.D. Tex. 2:08-cv-00057. The patent is recorded as "Expired – Fee Related, expires 2015-07-22."

PTAB activity against sibling Breed/ATI patents (pattern signal, different patents)

• IPR2016-01794 — Takata Corporation et al. v. Breed, challenged US 9,043,093 (a Breed-owned patent, not the '080). Filed 2016-09-15; institution decision 2017-03-23; terminated/FWD dated 2018-03-22. Source: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2016-01794. Note the petitioner profile: a Tier-1 automotive supplier, exactly the defendant class ATI sued.
• Separate IPR petitions were also filed against other Breed patents including US 7,413,048 ("Weight measuring systems and methods for vehicles") and US 8,235,416 ("Arrangement for sensing weight of an occupying item in a vehicular seat"); the underlying IPR numbers did not surface in my search, so I am not supplying them.
• A patent-owner response in one of those proceedings argues that Unified Patents failed to name all real parties-in-interest and characterizes Unified's subscription-funded IPR model, expressly invoking Unified's "Automotive Zone." That is evidence Unified has targeted the automotive-occupant-sensing space — but I found no Unified petition against the '080.

Strategic summary

Claim status on US 6,484,080. There is no PTAB claim-level disposition — no claim was canceled or sustained by the Board. The only claim-level invalidity ruling I can document is the E.D. Mich. summary judgment that all representative claims of the '080 patent are invalid as anticipated. Because that ruling speaks in terms of "representative claims," the specific claim numbers held invalid are not established by the sources I retrieved, and I will not guess them. Separately, the patent expired 2015-07-22 for fee-related reasons, which means every claim is now unenforceable going forward regardless of validity — the only conceivable recovery is pre-expiration damages within the 35 U.S.C. § 286 six-year lookback. A complaint filed in 2026 reaches back only to 2020 — five years after expiry — so the live damages window for this patent is effectively zero. That, not any IPR outcome, is your strongest fact.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM ever reached a final written decision on the '080, there is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against any petitioner or privy. Every § 102/§ 103 ground based on patents and printed publications remains technically available to a defendant or to a would-be petitioner — subject to § 315(b)'s one-year bar from service of a complaint, § 325(d), and Fintiv-style discretionary denial. The estoppel that does matter here runs the other way: if the E.D. Mich. '080 invalidity judgment is final and was affirmed (or was unappealed and is now final), a defendant may be able to invoke Blonder-Tongue collateral estoppel and avoid relitigating validity entirely — that is a far cheaper and cleaner defense than any IPR. Confirm the appellate disposition before relying on it.

Pattern signals. (1) Same-petitioner repeats: none on this patent; the repeat filer pattern in this family is Takata and Unified against other Breed patents, not the '080. (2) Patent-owner PTAB aggressiveness: ATI/Breed has been a heavy PTAB appellant on prosecution-side ex parte appeals and reexamination appeals (a long list of Ex parte Breed/ATI appeals), but that is appellate practice, not IPR defense. (3) Defensive aggregator: Unified Patents appears in the broader Breed/ATI IPR record — worth checking its Automotive Zone docket for any '080 filing — but I found none. (4) Timing explains the void: the '080's assertion peak (2006–2010) predates IPR (2012), and its 2015 expiry postdates the E.D. Mich. invalidity ruling. No rational petitioner files an IPR on an expired, judicially-invalidated patent.

Recommended next steps

1. Get the FWD-equivalent for this patent: the E.D. Mich. '080 summary-judgment order and any Federal Circuit disposition. Pull Dkt. #95 and the final judgment in 2:08-cv-11048, then confirm appeal/no-appeal. If final and affirmed, evaluate a Blonder-Tongue motion to dismiss or for summary judgment of invalidity on collateral estoppel — that is the fastest kill. If still pending on appeal, plan for the alternative.
2. Pull the '080 ex parte reexamination file wrapper (and the Certificate of Reexamination, if one issued). A certificate that canceled claims or confirmed them with amendments changes your infringement mapping and your § 282 burden. Do not rely on the litigation stay report from 2007 for the outcome.
3. Do the definitive PTAB check. Search PTAB Center / PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov) and the ODP trial-proceedings endpoint by patent number for "6,484,080" and by assignee for ATI/Breed, to convert my "no activity found" into a certified "no activity exists."
4. Stand on expiry. In any response to a demand letter citing US 6,484,080, lead with: granted 2002-11-19, expired 2015-07-22, zero actionable damages window — and follow with the E.D. Mich. invalidity judgment. There is no PTAB FWD to link because none was ever issued; say so rather than implying otherwise.
5. If a petition is ever contemplated: remember § 315(b)'s one-year clock from service, and that on an expired patent the Board may institute but cannot be moved by a claim-amendment path — the dispute is purely retrospective.

Honesty note: I could not verify (a) the outcome of the '080 reexamination, (b) whether the E.D. Mich. '080 judgment was appealed and its appellate disposition, or (c) the precise claim numbers held invalid. Each of those is a file-wrapper/federal-docket question and should be pulled before you commit to a position. Everything I have stated is grounded in the sources linked above; where I am uncertain, I have said so.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 6,484,080 before writing anything. Let me run several searches in parallel.

Strong lead: AVS is an Acacia subsidiary. Let me pin down the specific recorded assignments and reels for this patent.

Assignment & Ownership Reconstruction — US 6,484,080 B2

Method note / limitations. I attempted live retrieval from USPTO Patent Assignment Search (https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ / https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). I do not have interactive query access to Assignment Center in this session, so I reconstructed the chain from (a) Google Patents legal-event records, (b) recorded-assignment PDFs and PTAB exhibits that reproduce assignment metadata, and (c) the KIPO/IPLeft 2013 NPE survey, which documents AVS's acquisition of the ATI portfolio. I could not retrieve the "correspondent of record" field for the key reel/frame. I say so explicitly rather than filling the gap. Verify row-level data at Assignment Center by searching patent number 6484080.

Inventors

Unusual-pattern note (relevant to the prompt's fire-sale heuristic): the "all inventors leave the assignee" signal is not applicable in the usual form — there is exactly one inventor, and he is the owner of the original assignee. The inventor-to-assignee assignment is therefore a founder-to-company transfer, not an employment-derived one. That also means the classic "inventor departure precedes portfolio sale" tell has no independent probative value here; the sale is best explained by the founder monetizing his own portfolio.

Distinct-entity caution: do not conflate ATI with Breed Technologies / Breed Automotive (the seatbelt-airbag supplier founded by Allen Breed, which did go through a bankruptcy and Carlyle-backed sale in the late 1990s/2000s). That entity is not the assignee of 6,484,080 and is not part of this chain. I flag this because the surnames invite a false bankruptcy-fire-sale finding.

Original assignee

Automotive Technologies International, Inc. (ATI), P.O. Box 8, Denville, New Jersey 07834 (address as recited in ATI's own recorded assignment instruments).

• Line of business: automotive safety / occupant-sensing R&D and patent licensing, not manufacturing. ATI is the vehicle through which Breed developed and then licensed/enforced crash-sensing, occupant-sensing and airbag-control technology. Confidence: medium-high. I found no evidence ATI manufactured or sold a commercial product embodying the claims of 6,484,080.
• Enforcement posture: ATI was itself an asserting licensor well before any NPE entered the chain — ATI v. TRW Vehicle Safety Systems, ATI v. American Honda Motor Co. (D. Del. 1:06-cv-00187), ATI v. Delphi Corp. (E.D. Mich. 2:08-cv-11048), plus the E.D. Tex. and second D. Del. and E.D. Mich. matters listed on the patent face. This matters for the verdict: the patent was offensively asserted by its original owner as a licensing play before it was ever sold.
• Current status: Unclear. No evidence of bankruptcy or dissolution surfaced. What is documented is that in April 2012 ATI assigned a large ATI/Breed portfolio out — Google Patents legal events show ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST; ASSIGNOR: AUTOMOTIVE TECHNOLOGIES INTERNATIONAL, INC.; REEL/FRAME: 028023/0087, recorded April 2012, naming American Vehicular Sciences LLC, TEXAS as assignee. Post-2012 ATI prosecution activity appears to wind down. I could not confirm ATI's current corporate registration status from an authoritative source.

Assignment timeline

Vintage caveat: the two 2001 entries below are reproduced from Google Patents' "reassignment" blocks on the 6,484,080 record; those blocks do not expose reel/frame. I therefore cannot give reel numbers for the original inventor→ATI recordings.

1. 2001-01-02 (executed) / recorded 2001-01-02 — Reel not exposed in retrievable records

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest (original inventor-to-assignee)
• Assignor: David S. Breed
• Assignee: Automotive Technologies International, Inc. (Denville, NJ)
• Correspondent: not retrieved (see Signal 3 below)
• Context: Original founder-to-company assignment; coincides with the Jan. 2, 2001 filing of application 09/753,186.

2. 2001-04-06 (executed) / recorded 2001-04-06 — Reel not exposed in retrievable records

• Conveyance: Assignment (second Breed→ATI recording on this application; plausibly a duplicate/corrective or a separate instrument covering the provisional/priority disclosure)
• Assignor: David S. Breed
• Assignee: Automotive Technologies International, Inc.
• Correspondent: not retrieved
• Context: Internal record-keeping / perfection, not an ownership change. (I cannot confirm whether this was a correction; treat the characterization as tentative.)

3. 2012-04-05 (effective) / recorded April 2012 — Reel 028023 / 0087

• Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
• Assignor: Automotive Technologies International, Inc.
• Assignee: American Vehicular Sciences LLC (Texas)
• Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED — explicitly unfilled. See Signal 3.
• Context: Transfer-to-asserter / portfolio monetization. The assignee is a Texas LLC formed 2012-01-19 (three months before the transfer) and the assignment feeds the assertion campaign that began 2012-06-25. Direct verification caveat: I confirmed reel 028023/0087 as the ATI→AVS instrument via the Google Patents legal-events table surfaced on the sibling family patent US 8,060,282 B2; I could not independently confirm that US 6,484,080 is listed by number within that instrument. Given that the KIPO/IPLeft 2013 NPE survey reports AVS acquired a bloc of ATI-filed patents (and lists 6,484,080 among ATI's asserted patents), the inclusion is highly likely but is asserted here at medium-high, not certain, confidence.

4. 2020-06-04 (executed) / recorded 2020-06-05 — Reel 052853 / 0153 — reported on Acacia-family patents; NOT CONFIRMED for 6,484,080

• Conveyance: Patent Security Agreement
• Assignors: Acacia Research Group LLC; American Vehicular Sciences LLC; Bonutti Skeletal Innovations LLC; R2 Solutions LLC; Saint Lawrence Communications LLC; and ~14 other Acacia-affiliated entities
• Assignee: Starboard Value Intermediate Fund LP, as Collateral Agent (New York)
• Context: Securitization of the Acacia subsidiary portfolio. Whether 6,484,080 is listed as collateral is unverified — and it is doubtful on its face, because the patent had already lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees (adjusted expiration listed as 2015-07-22). Treat as portfolio-level context only.

5. (recorded date not retrieved) — Reel 053654 / 0254 — NOT CONFIRMED for 6,484,080

• Conveyance: Release of Security Interest in Patents
• Assignee of record releasing: Acacia-affiliated assignors including American Vehicular Sciences LLC
• Context: Release of the Starboard collateral package. Same caveat as #4.

No records found for: any assignment out of AVS to a downstream NPE, any bankruptcy trustee conveyance, any transfer to RPX/AST/LOT/Unified/OIN, and any corrective assignment or change-of-name affecting this patent.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 6484080
    1995 : Priority application filed
    2001 : Application 09 753 186 filed
         : Breed assigns rights to ATI
    2002 : Patent issues to ATI
    2006 : ATI assertion campaign begins
    2012 : AVS LLC formed in Texas
         : Reel 028023 0087 ATI to AVS
         : AVS sues automakers from June
    2014 : AVS prosecution family winds down
    2015 : Patent lapses for unpaid fees

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Supported by three independent concrete facts, not naming alone: (a) reel 028023/0087, executed ~2012-04-05, moves the patent (and the ATI bloc) to American Vehicular Sciences LLC; (b) AVS was formed 2012-01-19 under Texas law — i.e., the acquiring vehicle was created ~11 weeks before the transfer (KIPO/IPLeft 2013 NPE survey); (c) AVS is a single-purpose licensing LLC with no products in commerce, whose Rule 7.1 disclosure (filed 2012-10-19) identifies Acacia Research Group LLC as parent. Its recorded addresses are 515 Congress Ave Ste 2300, Austin TX, and later 6136 Frisco Square Blvd Ste 400, Frisco TX — commercial office addresses, not a bare registered-agent drop; I note this because it slightly weakens the pure "anonymous shell" flavor even as it confirms the licensing-only character.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT (strong).
American Vehicular Sciences LLC → parent Acacia Research Group LLC → parent Acacia Research Corporation (public), per AVS's own corporate disclosure filed with the court on 2012-10-19 and reported in the KIPO/IPLeft 2013 NPE survey. Acacia Research Corp is named explicitly on this analysis's NPE comparison list. AVS then filed a documented wave of infringement suits (from 2012-06-25 onward) against Toyota, Gentex, BMW, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Subaru, Mazda, Nissan and others. This is the single strongest signal in the chain.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT RETRIEVED.
I could not retrieve the correspondent of record for reel 028023/0087 or for the 2001 ATI recordings, so I make no finding here. Two adjacent data points, offered only as leads and expressly not as a finding:

• ATI's 2006 recorded assignment PDFs (legacy-assignments.uspto.gov) are fax-header-stamped "BRIAN ROFFE ESQ" (516-255-5338) — indicating Roffe was ATI's prosecution/recording-side counsel around 2006. That is five to six years before the 2012 transfer and does not establish the 028023/0087 correspondent.
• AVS's PTAB/district-court counsel of record is McAndrews Held & Malloy (Thomas J. Wimbiscus, Reg. No. 36,059; Scott P. McBride, Reg. No. 42,835). Litigation counsel is not assignment correspondent; listed for completeness only.
  To close this signal properly, pull the correspondent field for reel 028023/0087 directly from Assignment Center.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT (as to this patent).
Only one substantive post-issuance transfer is documented in this chain (ATI → AVS, 2012). There is no chain of consecutive LLC-to-LLC hops. The 2020 Starboard security agreement (reel 052853/0153) is a lien, not a title transfer, and is unconfirmed as to this patent anyway. Two links is not a cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (campaign-level); UNCLEAR (patent-level).
The ATI → AVS transfer was effective 2012-04-05, and AVS's first infringement suits were filed 2012-06-25 — an interval of roughly 2.5 months, well inside the 6-month window. The complication: the June 2012 AVS suits I can document were pleaded on US 6,772,057 and US 7,359,782, not on 6,484,080. I found no evidence that AVS ever asserted 6,484,080. So mark this present as to the portfolio-acquisition-then-assert pattern, and not established as to this specific patent. Note the patent's own face lists only pre-2012 ATI-filed cases.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving ATI, Breed, or AVS appears in any source consulted, and no trustee conveyance is recorded. The 2012 transfer reads as a negotiated portfolio monetization, not a distressed sale. (Reiterating the caution: Breed Technologies' historical bankruptcy is a different entity and must not be used to support this signal.)

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
The structure superficially fits (original technology developer transfers to an NPE that then sues the developer's industry), but I found no SEC filing, Patent Progress piece, or EFF coverage establishing that ATI retained a stake, a revenue share, or an intent to have AVS assert on ATI's behalf. Absent that, this is a monetization sale, not proven privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. (Unified Patents appears in the record only as an IPR petitioner against AVS — i.e., on the opposite side — and as a source of the litigation-data links on the patent face.) The patent has not been neutralized by defensive aggregation.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals are documented with concrete record cites, not inference from naming: the shell-entity transfer of ~2012-04-05 at reel 028023/0087 from operating R&D licensor ATI to American Vehicular Sciences LLC — a Texas LLC formed 2012-01-19, three months before the transfer, with no products — and a known-asserter parentage, since AVS's own Rule 7.1 disclosure (2012-10-19) and the KIPO/IPLeft 2013 NPE survey place it under Acacia Research Group LLC / Acacia Research Corporation, an entity on this analysis's NPE list, which then ran a multi-defendant automotive assertion campaign beginning 2012-06-25. A third signal (transfer inside the pre-litigation window) is present at campaign level.

Three honest qualifiers to that verdict: (i) I could not confirm by document-inspection that US 6,484,080 is itemized inside reel 028023/0087 — inclusion is inferred from the family/bloc evidence; (ii) I could not retrieve the correspondent of record, so the repeat-counsel signal is unresolved rather than negative; and (iii) no source shows AVS ever sued on this patent, and it lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees with an adjusted expiration of 2015-07-22 — so the practical monetization value was realized (if at all) by ATI's own pre-2012 suits, not by the NPE that ultimately held the paper.

One flagged discrepancy with the prior section: the Unified Patents portal page for the pre-grant publication (US 2001/0002451 A1) lists "Current Assignee: Automotive Technologies International Inc," which conflicts with the April 2012 AVS assignment. That same page also shows priority 1995-06-06 and application date 2001-01-01 against the patent's 1995-06-07 / 2001-01-02 — a one-day drift indicating third-party data-quality sloppiness. I weight the assignment record over the portal listing, and note the portal disagreement rather than smoothing it over.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 6484080) and map to https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.