Invalidity dossier
US 6694034
Transmission detection and switch system for hearing improvement applications
Current assignee: ETYMOTIC REARCH Corp
Added 9/23/2026, 6:17:57 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 — US6694034B2
Title: Transmission detection and switch system for hearing improvement applications
Patent number: US6694034B2 (application US09/752,806; publication US20030044033A1)
Inventors: Stephen D. Julstrom; Elmer V. Carlson; Norman P. Matzen; Robert B. Schulein; Willem Soede
Assignee of record (as listed): Etymotic Research, Inc. (original assignee); later listed as III Holdings 7, LLC. Inventors assigned to "Etymotic Rearch Corporation" per the 2001-06-01 record, with a 2002-01-25 re-recording correcting the assignee's address — the source does not reconcile these spellings.
Key dates: Priority 2000-01-07; filed 2000-12-28; publication 2003-03-06 (application) and 2004-02-17 (grant). Status: Expired – Lifetime, with adjusted expiration 2021-05-29.
Purpose (from the Definitions section): Hearing aids (BTE, ITE, ITC, CIC) often cannot alone meet a wearer's needs — e.g., conversations in high-background-noise settings, or listening to distant/multiple audio sources. The system adds a secondary transducer or microphone (or other secondary audio source) as an alternative to the hearing aid's primary microphone, transmitting its signals, preferably wirelessly, to the hearing aid as a secondary input. Examples of secondary sources cited: head-worn or hand-held directional/array microphones, audio entertainment systems, telephones, and body-worn microphone transmission systems.
Plain-language scope: A hearing aid that can accept a wireless secondary audio input and automatically detect that transmission and switch/select inputs accordingly. The classification data supports this: H04R25/43 (input selection or mixing based on input signal analysis), H04R25/554 (wireless connection to a hearing aid), and H04R2225/61 (mechanical or electronic switches/control elements).
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US6694034](/patent/US6694034)/en
What this excerpt does not establish: The supplied text omits the claims and most of the description, so the precise claim scope, detection/switching mechanism, and any limitations are not verifiable here. It contains no substantive prior-art discussion, and the assignee, legal-status, and litigation entries are expressly labeled assumptions; consistent with instructions, no litigation, ownership-transfer, validity, or prior-art analysis is offered.
(≈310 words)
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:42:53 PM
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Litigation summary
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PTAB challenges
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Assignment history
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Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
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