US 7149526

I'll search for the specific patent number and any 2026 CAFC docket activity.

Let me run targeted searches for any 2026 litigation or appeal activity involving this patent.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks for any IPR, reexam, or patent-litigation docket tied to this number.

US 7,149,526 — Summary

Verbatim identifier check: I searched literally for 7149526 / 7,149,526. Results returned only this patent (and its family). I did not merge it with look-alike numbers such as 7,149,926 (Infineon/Atmel microcontroller patent) or 7,149,926-adjacent IDs that surfaced incidentally in docket text.

Bibliographic data

Priority is claimed from three US provisionals: 60/222,605 (2000-08-02, "System and Method of Satellite-Terrestrial Frequency Reuse"), 60/245,194 (2000-11-03, "Coordinated Satellite-Terrestrial Frequency Reuse"), and 60/250,461 (2000-12-04, "System And Method Of Satellite-Terrestrial Frequency Reuse").

Family note / caveat: A sibling patent, US 6,892,068 B2 ("Coordinated Satellite-Terrestrial Frequency Reuse," Karabinis et al., issued 2005-05-10, from application 09/918,709, also claiming the same three provisionals) lists Mobile Satellite Ventures, LP as assignee. So this invention family has multiple members with slightly different recorded assignees. (Sources: patents.google.com/patent/US7149526/en; patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/.../US6892068.pdf)

Abstract (as published)

"A system and method of operation for efficiently reusing and/or sharing at least a portion of the frequency spectrum between a first satellite spot beam and a second satellite spot beam, and/or an underlay terrestrial network associated with a second satellite spot beam. The spectrum is efficiently reused and/or shared between respective spot beams and/or associated underlay terrestrial systems in a manner [that] minimizes interference between the respective satellite and terrestrial systems."

Plain-language overview of the core disclosure

The patent teaches a frequency-planning scheme for a hybrid satellite/terrestrial (dual-mode) network:

• A satellite footprint is divided into a cluster of spot beams (e.g., a 7-beam pattern of beams 802–814).
• Each spot beam is assigned an exclusive satellite frequency set (f₁…f₇).
• A "reuse" spot beam (e.g., 814) is split into a substantially central portion (818) and subareas (820–830) fanning out from that center to the beam edge. Each subarea typically contains one or more terrestrial cells.
• The terrestrial underlay inside beam 814 must not use beam 814's own satellite channels; instead it borrows channels belonging to other beams, choosing them beginning with the beam furthest away and proceeding toward adjacent beams. Because the terrestrial cell is far from the donor beam, co-channel interference is attenuated by inter-spot-beam isolation.
• In the central portion, channels of any/all adjacent beams may be reused; in a given subarea, channels of the beam directly adjacent to that subarea are excluded.
• Additional disclosure covers dynamic/preemptive channel reassignment (load balancing, capacity, signal-strength criteria), unequal-spot-beam "missing beam" planning (FIG. 12), increasing terrestrial reuse cluster size to cut co-channel interference (FIGS. 17a–17b), frequency inversion (satellite downlink/ uplink swapped to terrestrial forward/return links), base-station antennas with a null in the geostationary arc to protect the satellite link, and proximity-based call initialization and satellite↔base hand-off (FIGS. 21–24).

Independent claims — overview (with an important caveat)

⚠️ Uncertainty flag: The authoritative full text supplied to me truncates mid-specification and does not include the granted claim set. What I can retrieve with confidence via search is the claim set of the corresponding pre-grant publication, US 2004/0023658 A1, which uses very high claim numbering (independent claims appearing at least at 133/134, 135 and 136). Pre-grant claims frequently differ from the claims that ultimately issued. I therefore give a plain-language overview of the published independent claims and label it as such rather than asserting these are verbatim the issued claims of 7,149,526.

Published independent method/system claims, in plain terms:

1. System claim (published cl. 133/134 style — "means for" system): Apparatus for assigning/reusing frequencies across cooperating communication systems, comprising means for: (a) configuring a first satellite spot beam with a first frequency set; (b) configuring a second spot beam with a second frequency set; (c) configuring a terrestrial cell inside the first spot beam with a third frequency set whose coverage at least partially overlaps the first beam; and (d) assigning/reusing/borrowing — by the terrestrial base station, for a subscriber terminal — either a portion of the second frequency set or a portion of the first frequency set used in the first beam's central portion, when predetermined criteria are met, in particular when the borrowed second-set frequencies are substantially geographically distant from the first spot beam.

2. System claim (published cl. 135 style): Same concept but the first spot beam is defined as having multiple fan-like subareas radiating from a substantially central area to near the beam circumference, plus a terrestrial cell at least partially overlapping the first beam, with assignment/reuse/borrowing governed by predetermined criteria.

3. Method claim (published cl. 136 style): Steps of configuring first and second satellite spot beams (each with respective frequency sets and central portions), configuring a terrestrial cell in the first beam with a third frequency set, and then assigning/reusing/borrowing, by the terrestrial system, a portion of the second frequency set and/or the first-beam central-portion frequencies, responsive to predetermined criteria — including taking second-set frequencies when they are substantially geographically distant from the first beam. Dependent matter adds: subareas not sharing a common boundary; central-portion frequencies drawn from directly adjacent beams; prioritization rules based on dynamic load/capacity of donor cells; and any subscriber terminal in the central portion being allowed to use any adjacent beam's frequencies.

In essence, the independent claims are all directed to the same inventive concept: terrestrially reusing a satellite spot beam's spectrum by borrowing frequencies from other (preferably distant) spot beams, rather than the beam's own frequencies, to exploit inter-beam isolation and minimize satellite/terrestrial co-channel interference.

CAFC 2026 docket check — negative result

I found no Federal Circuit 2026 docket, opinion, or order naming US 7,149,526. What did surface for 2026 in the Ligado/ATC orbit is unrelated to this patent number:

• Ligado Networks LLC v. United States (Fed. Cl. No. 1:23-cv-01797; interlocutory Federal Circuit appeal decided March 2026) — a Takings Clause suit over L-band spectrum rights, not a patent appeal. The Federal Circuit remanded certain property-interest issues; Ligado and DOJ were later at loggerheads over next steps (Aug. 2026). (storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cafc.23085; stage.exportcompliancedaily.com, 2026-08-18)
• In re Ligado Networks LLC (Bankr. D. Del. 25-10006) and related D. Del. proceedings — Ligado's bankruptcy and its proposed L-band transfer to AST SpaceMobile (2026 filings). (courtlistener.com/docket/69517992)
• Unrelated 2026 CAFC patent cases that appeared in the same searches (e.g., Contour IP Holding LLC v. GoPro, Inc., No. 2026-2012; WIPQTUS, Inc. v. Samsung, No. 2025-1596) — explicitly not connected to 7,149,526.

Caveat: absence of results in my searches is not authoritative proof that no such docket exists. CAFC dockets are often identified by case number and party names, not patent number, and full PACER/PTAB docket queries were not completed within my search steps. Also note the patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2023-01-29), which limits the practical prospect of new infringement appeals — but again, I cannot state a definitive negative on 2026 docket activity.

Where to verify authoritatively

• USPTO PatentCenter / USPTO Assignment records for application 10/343,471
• Google Patents family view: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7149526/en
• Published application (claims visible): https://patents.justia.com/patent/20040023658
• CAFC opinions/orders: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders
• PACER for D. Del. 25-10006 and Fed. Cl. 1:23-cv-01797 (Ligado-related, not patent 7,149,526)

I'll research litigation involving US patent 7149526 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more specifically for litigation records for this patent.

Let me search directly on litigation-focused sources.

Findings: Litigation involving US Patent 7,149,526

Bottom line: I could not identify any confirmed litigation specifically involving US Patent 7,149,526. Based on the searches I was able to run (Google Patents, general web, litigation-adjacent sources), no infringement suit, declaratory judgment action, or PTAB proceeding naming this patent was returned. I must be explicit about that rather than fill the gap, and I was unable to reach the Unified Patents litigation portal, PACER/Justia dockets, or the CAFC docket directly before exhausting my search steps.

Critical warning about false positives

The number "7149526" collides with several unrelated records that are not this patent. Per your strict rule, I am flagging these rather than treating them as matches:

• US 7,652,952 — Johnson Outdoors / Humminbird v. Navico (M.D. Ala., Case No. 2:10-cv-00067-WKW-CSC). This is the "952 patent" for sonar/marine electronics; the counterclaim text you may encounter ("Navico's Fifth Affirmative Defense," cases.justia.com/.../2:2010cv00067) belongs to this patent, not US 7,149,526.
• US 10,993,952 — Ingenus Pharmaceuticals v. Nexus/Hetero (pharmaceutical; D. Del. C.A. No. 24-1025-JLH).
• US 7,420,952 and US 11,368,537 — Dynamic Mesh Networks (MeshDynamics) v. Cisco.
• "7149526" also appears as an FDA adverse-event case number (Mirena) — not a patent.

None of these are US 7,149,526.

What the record does show about the patent itself

• Title: Coordinated Satellite-Terrestrial Frequency Reuse
• Inventors: Peter D. Karabinis; Rajendra Singh; George R. Olexa; Bahman Badipour
• Assignee history: ATC Technologies, LLC (original) — a Ligado Networks–predecessor entity (also linked in records to Mobile Satellite Ventures, L.P., and LCC International, Inc.)
• Filing: Aug. 1, 2001; Grant: Dec. 12, 2006; Priority: Aug. 2, 2000 (provisional 60/222,605; plus 60/245,194 and 60/250,461)
• Status: "Expired – Lifetime," adjusted expiration 2023-01-29 (per Google Patents/legal-status listing)
• Family: The disclosure corresponds to PCT/EP filings, e.g., EP1316233 ("Réutilisation coordonnée de fréquences d'un système terrestre et d'un système satellitaire," EP01963764.4, priority US 22260500 / 24519400 / 25046100, owner ATC Technologies, LLC). Related ATC/Ligado "satellite-terrestrial frequency reuse" family members include EP1350344 and EP1608086.

Because the patent is expired (adjusted expiration Jan. 29, 2023), the window for fresh infringement suits is essentially closed, which is consistent with finding no active litigation.

Caveats and recommended next steps

I do not have high-confidence knowledge of any ATC Technologies v. [defendant] infringement case asserting US 7,149,526. I also did not find a record of the "ASC/ATC" family being asserted in the well-known LightSquared-era patent disputes. I did not fabricate case numbers, courts, or outcomes; where I have no data, I have said so.

To close this out definitively, I'd recommend running the patent number through:

1. Unified Patents Portal litigation caselist — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (filter by patent number)
2. USPTO Patent Center / Assignment — https://patentcenter.uspto.gov and https://assignment.uspto.gov (for the "expiration" and transfer records)
3. PACER / Justia / CourtListener (RECAP) dockets for "7,149,526"
4. PTAB API / Docket Alarm for any IPR/PGR/CBM involving "7,149,526"

If you can confirm a specific docket number or party name you believe is associated with US 7,149,526, I can verify and pull the plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, filing date, and status details for each case.

I'll start by verifying the structured data against what web sources show, since the prompt directs me to flag anything the ODP hasn't indexed.

The first pass surfaced a false positive I need to rule out: the Viavi "526 patent" is a different patent (optical filters). Let me disambiguate by full patent number and patent owner.

No PTAB proceedings surfaced yet. Let me run a few more targeted checks before concluding the ODP record is accurate.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file against US 7,149,526: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block — sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal — returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM for this patent, and my independent web searches across PTAB petition documents, PTAB statistics reports, and litigation dockets surfaced no proceeding I can confirm. The breakdown is therefore: active 0 / claims invalidated 0 / claims sustained 0 / settled 0 / institution denied 0.

Bottom line for a defendant: there is no PTAB record to attack this patent with and no PTAB record that has narrowed it. That cuts both ways. On the one hand, no claims have been canceled, so you cannot point to an FWD and say "claim 1 is dead." On the other hand, the patent's practical offensive life is essentially over for reasons unrelated to the PTAB — see the strategic summary. This is a "no IPR activity" fact pattern, and per the operating rule in your own instructions, the absence is itself a signal, not a finding of validity.

⚠️ False-positive warning — do not conflate these two "526" patents. A search hit from PTAB petition materials (Viavi Solutions Inc. v. Zhejiang Crystal-Optech Co. Ltd., E.D. Tex. 2:21-cv-00378) discusses "the '526 patent," two prior IPRs, and an institution denial on 2021-08-17. That is a Viavi optical-filter patent, not US 7,149,526. Viavi does not own US 7,149,526, and the technology (thin-film optical filters) is unrelated to the ATC/Ligado satellite-terrestrial subject matter. Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549895](/patent/1549895)/download-documents. Any research note that attributes that Viavi IPR history to US 7,149,526 is wrong.

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No proceeding found — there is no {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} to report

I am deliberately not fabricating proceeding numbers. Because there is no proceeding, the per-proceeding template (type, filed date, panel, grounds, institution decision, FWD, settlement, appeal, defensive value) has nothing to populate. What follows is the substitute analysis that actually matters to a defendant.

The one adjacent-venue validity event that did happen — and it happened in Europe, not at the PTAB:

• Document: EP 1 350 344 B1 (ATC Technologies, LLC; Karabinis et al.; priority 2000-12-04) — a sibling ATC patent, not the EP counterpart of US 7,149,526.
• Outcome: Revoked by the EPO, revocation upheld on appeal. T 1130/08, Board 3.5.03, decision 2011-01-28: "The appeal is dismissed." Claim 1 of the main request and first and third auxiliary requests failed inventive step; fourth and sixth auxiliary requests lacked novelty; second and fifth contained added subject matter. https://www.epo.org/en/boards-of-appeal/decisions/t081130eu1
• Caveat: This is a different patent document from US 7,149,526. The EP counterpart to US 7,149,526 is EP 1 316 233 ("Coordinated satellite-terrestrial frequency reuse," app. 01963764.4, priority US 60/222,605, 2000-08-02), which INPI records as granted 2011-10-05 and now expired. https://data.inpi.fr/brevets/EP1316233. Do not represent the T 1130/08 revocation as a ruling on US 7,149,526's claims.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — CANCELED: none. SUSTAINED: none. UNTESTED: all of them. No claim of US 7,149,526 has ever been adjudicated by the PTAB. That means the full claim set is untested before the Board — but "untested" is not "strong." The patent issued 2006-12-12 and carried a priority date of 2000-08-02; it has been IPR-eligible since the AIA's 2012-09-16 effective date. It sat exposed to IPR for roughly a decade without a single petition I can find. For a patent in the well-known ATC/Ligado MSS-ATC family — a family that generated substantial FCC and court activity — that is an unusually quiet PTAB history, and it suggests the patent was never a priority monetization target.

Estoppel landscape — § 315(e)(2) is not a live constraint here. Because no IPR was instituted, there is no estoppel barring any ground for any party. A defendant today faces no petitioner estoppel, no privy estoppel, and no General Plastic / Fintiv risk inherited from a prior filer. Every § 102/§ 103 ground is theoretically available. This is the mirror-image downside of a clean PTAB record: you lose the free roadmap an earlier petitioner would have given you. No FWD means no adopted claim constructions, no Board findings on the prior art, and no institution-decision reasoning to piggyback on. You would be building a validity case from scratch.

The real controlling facts — term and owner status, not the PTAB:

1. The patent is expired. The Google Patents legal record for US 7,149,526 shows status "Expired – Lifetime" with an adjusted expiration of 2023-01-29. If accurate, the term has run as of today (2026-09-28). A defendant cannot be enjoined, and the "ongoing infringement" theory collapses; any exposure is past damages only, further limited by the § 286 six-year lookback (which, on a complaint filed today, would reach back to approximately 2020-09-28 — a window that overlaps the tail of the patent's life). Verify the expiration date against the face of the patent and the USPTO Patent Center record before relying on it; the Google Patents "adjusted expiration" is a derived field.
2. The patent owner is a Chapter 11 debtor. ATC Technologies, LLC filed for bankruptcy in the District of Delaware on 2025-01-05 (Case No. 25-10011, Hon. Thomas M. Horan), jointly administered with the Ligado Networks entities. https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69518009/atc-technologies-llc/. Enforcement of this patent now runs through the estate, subject to the automatic stay, and Ligado's litigation energy is directed at the U.S. Government under the Tucker Act (Ligado Networks LLC v. United States, Fed. Cl. No. 23-1797) and at Inmarsat — not at patent assertion. The CAFC nonprecedential slip in the takings matter is at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cafc.23085/gov.uscourts.cafc.23085.55.0.pdf.

Pattern signals — none present. No serial petitioner (zero petitions is the opposite of a serial-petitioner pattern). No defensive aggregator in the chain — Unified Patents has indexed the family (see its portal entry for the related publication US-2005-0272369-A1) but I found no Unified-filed IPR against US 7,149,526. No PTAB appeals, because there were no PTAB trials to appeal.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant receiving an assertion letter citing US 7,149,526:

1. Lead with expiration, not invalidity. Pull the front page and the USPTO Patent Center term record and confirm the expiration date. The Google Patents record states adjusted expiration 2023-01-29. If confirmed, respond that the patent term has run, that no prospective relief is available, and that any claim is a past-damages claim subject to 35 U.S.C. § 286's six-year bar and the estate's bankruptcy proceedings.
2. Do not represent that the PTAB has killed any claim. It has not. Do not cite the Viavi "526" IPRs — different patent, different owner, different technology. Do not cite the EPO's T 1130/08 revocation of EP 1 350 344 as a ruling on US 7,149,526; it is a sibling document.
3. If, contrary to the record above, a live assertion appears, there is no estoppel and no FWD roadmap to lean on — budget for a full § 102/§ 103 prior-art build. The expired term makes IPR a poor economic choice (the Board may deny or the parties may moot), so the better path is a district-court invalidity/§ 286/standing posture.
4. If the estate attempts to sell or license the portfolio, treat the "no PTAB proceedings" fact as a diligence red flag in the other direction — it means there is no adjudicated strength either. Request the full prosecution file, the EP 1 316 233 file (parallel examinations frequently surface art not considered by the USPTO), and the EP 1 350 344 opposition/revocation record, which is a ready-made art roadmap for the same inventors' satellite-terrestrial reuse disclosures.

Search limitation, stated plainly: my web verification was terminated at a tool-step cap mid-inquiry. I confirmed no proceedings via the canonical ODP block plus multiple targeted searches, but I did not exhaustively paginate PTAB E2E for every year from 2012 onward, and a recently filed, not-yet-indexed petition cannot be ruled out. Before a client relies on "zero proceedings" in a filing, run a direct PTAB E2E / Patent Center query on 7,149,526 and re-check the ODP feed.

Where to verify each item cited:

• Patent text and legal status: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7149526/en
• EPO appeal T 1130/08 (2011-01-28): https://www.epo.org/en/boards-of-appeal/decisions/t081130eu1
• EP counterpart EP 1 316 233: https://data.inpi.fr/brevets/EP1316233
• ATC Technologies / Ligado bankruptcy dockets: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69518009/atc-technologies-llc/
• Viavi "526" petition (false positive — exclude): https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/1549895/download-documents

I'll research the assignment chain for US 7,149,526, starting with the USPTO Assignment Center and cross-referencing the reassignment events already visible in the Google Patents record.

Good — I found a sibling record exposing the ATC reel/frame chain. Let me pull the assignment-specific events for US7149526 itself and verify the correspondent of record.

Let me try to retrieve the actual Google Patents assignment tab and the specific reel/frame numbers recorded against this patent.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 7,149,526 B2

Scope note / build-on: This section builds on the Patent summary, Litigation summary, PTAB challenges, Prior art, and Obviousness sections already generated; I do not repeat the bibliographic table, the claim analysis, or the "no PTAB / no litigation" findings. Two derived facts carry forward: the patent is expired (adjusted expiration 2023-01-29) and the owner family is ATC Technologies, LLC / Ligado Networks.

⚠️ Sourcing limitation stated up front (critical to this task): The task asks me to populate each assignment with reel/frame and correspondent of record. I was able to retrieve the chain of recorded events and parties for US 7,149,526 (from the Google Patents reassignment feed embedded in the authoritative full text you supplied), but the feed as supplied did not expose reel/frame numbers for the US 7,149,526 entries, except one, nor did it expose correspondent/attorney data at all. I was cut off by a tool-step cap before I could open the USPTO Assignment Center record (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) directly. I am therefore not supplying reel/frame or correspondent values I could not verify — see the honest gaps flagged below and the verification URLs at the end.

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Inventors

Unusual pattern — flag this: This is not a single-employer invention. The four inventors came from three different organizations (MSV, Telcom Satellite Ventures, and LCC International), and their rights had to be separately assigned in and consolidated before the patent could be held by one owner. That is the defining structural fact of this chain: the 2005-07-13 cluster of recordings is a rights-consolidation, not a sale. It is not the "all inventors depart within 12 months of filing → fire-sale" pattern the prompt describes; I found no data on inventor departure dates, and I will not infer departures. (Note the filing/execution gap: the application was filed 2001-08-01, but the inventor→employer assignments were recorded 2005-07-13, i.e., roughly four years later, after the application had published as US 2004/0023658 A1 — consistent with a national-stage/PCT formalities-cleanup rather than a commercial event.)

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Original assignee

ATC Technologies, LLC is the assignee named on the issued patent (Google Patents; confirmed in the "Current Assignee" field and in the reassignment feed).

• Primary line of business: ATC Technologies, LLC is the satellite/terrestrial mobile-satellite-service (MSS) operating and IP-holding entity in the Ligado Networks family (successor chain: Mobile Satellite Ventures → SkyTerra → LightSquared → Ligado Networks). Its business was the MSAT MSS fleet plus the FCC "Ancillary Terrestrial Component" (ATC) L-band reuse architecture — precisely the subject matter of this patent.
• Did it ship a product embodying the claims? I cannot confirm a commercial product reading on these claims. The corporate successor operated the MSAT satellite service, but the terrestrial-reuse architecture claimed here (spot-beam partitioning / underlay terrestrial reuse of other-beam channels) was the basis of the LightSquared L-band LTE network that was never commercially launched at scale. Treat "no product shown to embody the claims" as the accurate position, not "operating product."
• Current status: In bankruptcy. Per the earlier sections, ATC Technologies, LLC filed Chapter 11 in the District of Delaware on 2025-01-05, jointly administered with the Ligado Networks entities. The patent is now an estate asset encumbered by the first/second-lien security agreements in the chain below.

⚠️ Cross-section contradiction to flag: my earlier Litigation summary cited a Ligado bankruptcy docket as No. 25-10006 ("In re Ligado Networks LLC"), while the PTAB section cited ATC Technologies, LLC, Case No. 25-10011. Those two numbers are inconsistent in the prior work and I cannot resolve which is correct from the present record. Verify the exact case number before relying on either.

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Assignment timeline

Important framing: Every dated entry below is the recorded/event date as reported by the Google Patents reassignment feed for US 7,149,526. The feed does not separate "executed" from "recorded" dates for these entries, and — except where explicitly noted — it did not expose reel/frame or correspondent. I mark those fields [NOT EXPOSED — verify] rather than invent them. The one reel/frame I can ground appears verbatim in the patent text: Reel 016517, Frame 0290.

2005-07-13 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → employer)
• Assignor: KARABINIS, PETER D.; OLEXA, GEORGE RONALD
• Assignee: MOBILE SATELLITE VENTURES LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: rights consolidation — inventor/employer confirmatory assignment.

2005-07-13 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → employer)
• Assignor: SINGH, RAJENDRA
• Assignee: TELECOM SATELLITE VENTURES, INC.
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: rights consolidation.

2005-07-13 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: TELCOM SATELLITE VENTURES, INC.
• Assignee: MOBILE SATELLITE VENTURES LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: consolidation of the Singh/Telcom share into MSV.

2005-07-13 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment (inventor → employer)
• Assignor: BADIPOUR, BAHMAN
• Assignee: LCC INTERNATIONAL, INC.
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: rights consolidation (consultant's employer).

2005-07-13 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: LCC INTERNATIONAL, INC.
• Assignee: MOBILE SATELLITE VENTURES LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: consolidation of the Badipour/LCC share into MSV. After these five recordings, MSV held all four inventors' rights.

2005-09-14 — Reel 016517 / 0290 (the only reel/frame exposed for this patent)

• Conveyance: Correction / Corrective Coversheet ("CORRECTIVE COVERSHEET TO CORRECT THE NAME OF THE RECEIVING PARTY PREVIOUSLY RECORDED ON REEL 016517, FRAME 0290")
• Assignor: SINGH, RAJENDRA
• Assignee (receiving party, corrected): TELCOM SATELLITE VENTURES, INC.
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: change of name / typographical correction only — the receiving party's name was being corrected (the feed's own text passes through "TELECOM" vs "TELCOM"). No ownership change.

2005-12-05 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: MOBILE SATELLITE VENTURES, LP
• Assignee: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: internal reorganization — the MSV entity's MSS/ATC patent assets moved into the ATC Technologies, LLC holding company. This is the transfer that makes ATC the assignee on the issued patent.

2006-04-10 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Security Agreement
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC; MOBILE SATELLITE VENTURES LP
• Assignee/Secured Party: THE BANK OF NEW YORK
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization — the patent pledged as collateral for corporate debt.

2010-10-07 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: THE BANK OF NEW YORK MELLON (as collateral agent)
• Assignee/Released Party: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC; LIGHTSQUARED FINANCE CO.; LIGHTSQUARED LP
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: lien release — Bank of New York Mellon released the 2006 security interest (re-financing).

2010-10-12 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Security Agreement
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: WILMINGTON TRUST FSB, AS COLLATERAL TRUSTEE
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization — replacement collateral pledge.

2011-06-14 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Security Agreement
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC; LIGHTSQUARED INC. OF VIRGINIA; LIGHTSQUARED LP; LIGHTSQUARED SUBSIDIARY LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: WILMINGTON TRUST FSB, AS COLLATERAL TRUSTEE
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization — expanded LightSquared-family collateral package.

2016-01-22 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Security Agreement (Second Lien)
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: JEFFERIES FINANCE LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization.

2016-01-22 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Security Agreement (First Lien)
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: CREDIT SUISSE AG, CAYMAN ISLANDS BRANCH
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization (first-lien, parallel to the Jefferies second-lien).

2020-09-11 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Security Interest
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: JEFFERIES FINANCE LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization / amendment.

2020-10-22 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment of Security Interest
• Assignor: CREDIT SUISSE AG, CAYMAN ISLANDS BRANCH
• Assignee: CORTLAND CAPITAL MARKET SERVICES LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: transfer of the lender's security interest (loan-agent succession) — a financing-chain move, not an ownership transfer of the patent.

2020-10-26 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: JEFFERIES FINANCE LLC
• Assignee/Released Party: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: lien release.

2020-10-26 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Release by Secured Party
• Assignor: CORTLAND CAPITAL MARKET SERVICES LLC
• Assignee/Released Party: LIGADO NETWORKS LLC; ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: lien release.

2020-10-26 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment of and Amendment to IP Security Agreement
• Assignor: [not stated in feed — verify]
• Assignee/Secured Party: U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization — U.S. Bank steps in as collateral agent.

2020-10-30 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Second Lien Patent Security Agreement
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS COLLATERAL TRUSTEE
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization.

2020-10-30 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: First Lien Patent Security Agreement
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS COLLATERAL TRUSTEE
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization.

2022-12-28 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Security Interest
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC
• Assignee/Secured Party: U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization.

2023-03-03 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment of and Amendment to IP Security Agreements (successor collateral agent)
• Assignor: U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION (as existing collateral agent)
• Assignee: U.S. BANK TRUST COMPANY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS SUCCESSOR COLLATERAL AGENT
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: lender-agent succession — a security-interest bookkeeping move, not an ownership transfer.

2024-12-13 — Reel/frame [NOT EXPOSED — verify]

• Conveyance: Assignment of and Amendment to IP Security Agreements
• Assignor: ATC TECHNOLOGIES, LLC; LIGADO NETWORKS LLC; U.S. BANK NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
• Assignee: U.S. BANK TRUST COMPANY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS SUCCESSOR COLLATERAL AGENT
• Correspondent: [NOT EXPOSED — verify]
• Context: securitization — the last recorded event; the patent remains pledged as collateral to U.S. Bank Trust Company.

Net ownership read: after the 2005-12-05 MSV-LP → ATC Technologies, LLC transfer, no recorded assignment ever conveyed beneficial ownership away from the ATC/Ligado family. Everything after 2006 is collateral, releases of collateral, and lender-agent successions. There is no sale to an NPE and no assignment to an asserting entity.

Lead (NOT verified for '526 — do not cite as fact): A sibling ATC application (US 2006/0094352) exposes the same ATC chain with reel/frames such as 016357/0374 (MSV LP → ATC), 017435/0603 (Bank of New York), 025126/0120 (Wilmington Trust), 026438/0603 (Wilmington/LightSquared), 037573/0939 and 037573/0963 (Credit Suisse / Jefferies, 2015), 053755/0916, 054297/0444, 054298/0001, 054262/0207, 054262/0295, 062230/0806, and 069631/0485 (2024). Because the sibling's event dates do not line up cleanly with the '526 feed (e.g., the Bank of New York event is dated differently), I cannot represent these reel/frames as belonging to the '526 record. Use them only as a pointer to open in Assignment Center.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7149526
    2005 : Inventor rights consolidated into MSV
         : Coversheet correction Reel 016517 0290
         : Assigned to ATC Technologies LLC
    2006 : Pledged to Bank of New York
    2010 : Release by Bank of New York Mellon
         : Pledged to Wilmington Trust
    2011 : Expanded Wilmington Trust security
    2016 : Lienholders Jefferies and Credit Suisse
    2020 : Releases by Jefferies and Cortland
         : Pledged to US Bank as collateral trustee
    2022 : US Bank security interest recorded
    2023 : US Bank Trust now successor agent
         : Patent term expired
    2024 : US Bank Trust collateral agent amendment
    2025 : ATC Technologies Chapter 11 filing

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT. Ownership moved Mobile Satellite Ventures LLC → ATC Technologies, LLC (recorded 2005-12-05) — an intra-family reorganization within the same MSS corporate group, not a move to a licensing-only shell. ATC Technologies, LLC was an operating MSS/FCC-licensed entity, not a single-purpose Delaware/Texas licensing LLC, and the "-Technologies, LLC" suffix is not a licensing-shell tell. No registered-agent-service address appears in the record.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT. None of the enumerated NPEs (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities) appears as an assignee at any recorded event. The Unified Patents portal indexes this family under ATC Technologies LLC — an operating company entry, not an NPE. (Consistent with the earlier finding of zero PTAB proceedings and no infringement suit.)

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (cannot be scored). The correspondent of record was not exposed in any retrieved entry, and I will not guess attorney names. This is the signal most likely to be productive on a direct Assignment Center pull — the financing recordings (Credit Suisse 2016-01-22, Jefferies 2016-01-22, U.S. Bank 2020-10-30, 2024-12-13) would each carry a recorded correspondent, and a recurring lender-side recording firm across the 2016–2024 liens is the thing to look for. Not scorable with current data.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT. The chain contains no series of consecutive ownership assignments through chained LLCs within 24 months. The only clustered transfers (2005-07-13 → 2005-12-05) are consolidation then one intra-family move, roughly five months apart but not through a chain of unrelated LLCs, and sharing no NPE hallmarks.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT. No infringement suit naming this patent was found (earlier sections), and the patent expired 2023-01-29, so there is no assertion to precede. No transfer is timed to an assertion.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — PARTIAL / PRESENT AS ENCUMBRANCE (sale UNCONFIRMED). Two grounded facts: (a) ATC Technologies, LLC is in Chapter 11 (filed 2025-01-05, per earlier sections), and (b) the patent is pledged as collateral, most recently to U.S. BANK TRUST COMPANY, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION, AS SUCCESSOR COLLATERAL AGENT (recorded 2023-03-03, amended 2024-12-13). So the asset is bankruptcy-captured and lien-encumbered. However, I found no evidence this specific patent was sold in the proceedings — mark the fire-sale prong UNCONFIRMED and the encumbrance prong PRESENT.

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT. There is no operating-company → NPE transfer, and no NPE asserting on ATC/Ligado's behalf. Ligado's 2023–2026 disputes are regulatory/takings (FCC L-band; Ligado Networks LLC v. United States, Fed. Cl. 1:23-cv-01797) and Inmarsat-facing, not patent assertion. (See earlier Litigation/CAFC sections.)

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. It terminates at ATC Technologies, LLC (operating/estate entity), with a lender collateral agent in the last recorded slot. No defensive-aggregator neutralization event exists.

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Verdict

Defensive / non-asserting — with an explicit label caveat.

Justification (2–3 sentences, grounded): There is not a single NPE signal in the recorded chain: ownership moved intra-family at 2005-12-05 (MSV LP → ATC Technologies, LLC) and never left the ATC/Ligado family, with every subsequent recording (2006-04-10 Bank of New York; 2010-10-12 / 2011-06-14 Wilmington Trust; 2016-01-22 Credit Suisse & Jefferies; 2020-10-30 U.S. Bank; 2024-12-13 U.S. Bank Trust) being collateral, releases, or lender-agent succession — i.e., financing, not assertion-enabling transfer. ⚠️ Label caveat: the menu defines this verdict as a chain ending at a defensive aggregator; here the chain instead ends at a bankruptcy-captured operating company with lender collateral, so the call is driven by the "non-asserting" prong (no suit, no PTAB, expired 2023-01-29), not by an RPX/AST-type neutralization. If forced strictly, no listed category fits perfectly — "Operating-company assertion" is affirmatively wrong (no assertion), and "Insufficient data" is wrong (the record is rich).

Confidence: Moderate–high that this is not an NPE/privateering situation. Low confidence in the reel/frame and correspondent detail, because those fields were not exposed in the sources I could reach.

Verify authoritatively (the fields I could not populate)

• USPTO Assignment Center search by patent number (reel/frame + correspondent): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — search 7,149,526; open each reel/frame to read the recorded correspondent.
• USPTO Patent Center for application 10/343,471: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov
• Google Patents legal events / Assignments tab: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7149526/en
• Bankruptcy dockets to confirm the ATC/Ligado case number (25-10006 vs 25-10011 discrepancy flagged above): https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69518009/atc-technologies-llc/

What I did not do: I did not fabricate any reel/frame, correspondent, execution date, or case number. Where the source was silent (reel/frame for all but 016517/0290; all correspondents; the exec-vs-record split), I said so. The one reel/frame I cite — 016517/0290 — is quoted verbatim from the patent's own recorded-event text.

I'll research the prior art citations for US 7,149,526 on the USPTO and related databases.

Let me get the front-page references cited on US 7,149,526 itself.

Let me pull the actual front-page reference list for US 7,149,526 specifically.

Prior Art Analysis — US Patent 7,149,526 ("Coordinated Satellite-Terrestrial Frequency Reuse")

0. Identification guardrail (per your strict rule)

This analysis is confined to US 7,149,526 B2 and only that number. I deliberately excluded look‑alikes such as US 7,652,952, US 10,993,952, US 7,420,952, US 11,368,537, the "7149526" Mirena FDA case ID, etc. Confirmed identity:

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⚠️ Critical sourcing limitation (please read before relying on the list)

I was not able to retrieve the verbatim USPTO front‑page "(56) References Cited" block for US 7,149,526 B2 within this session. The search returns consistently surfaced the reference list of the sibling/parent case US 6,892,068 B2 (same title, same inventors, same family — a large 100+ item list) rather than the '526 front page itself, and the raw PDF for '526 did not render its citation block.

So I am grounding this answer on two authoritative sources that I could verify:

1. The specification text of US 7,149,526 itself (the full text you supplied) — which cites specific prior‑art patents inside its body; and
2. The published application US 2004/0023658 A1 — confirmed by Justia to carry "Patent Grant number: 7149526" (i.e., this publication is the '526 application; https://patents.justia.com/patent/20040023658).

Where I cannot confirm a date or the full text of a reference, I say so explicitly rather than guess. The front‑page "References Cited" list of the sister patent US 6,892,068 B2 is the closest proxy and is reproduced in §3 as a lead, clearly marked as not verified against the '526 front page.

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1. Prior art cited within the '526 specification itself (authoritative)

These are the references the patent text expressly relies on. Each is given with citation, date, description, and § 102 comment against the claims I can see (see §4 for the claim set).

1.1 — U.S. Patent No. 6,052,586

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,052,586, "Satellite radiotelephone system" — cited at FIG. 1 and "incorporated herein by reference" (see specification: "FIG. 1 shows a prior art satellite radiotelephone system, as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,052,586").
• Date: I could not confirm the exact grant date in this session. The specification treats it as pre‑2000 prior art (relevant, since the '526 priority date is Aug. 2, 2000). Flagging this rather than stating a date I can't verify.
• Description (per the specification): A satellite radiotelephone system having a fixed satellite system (satellite 112, C‑band air interface 118) and a mobile satellite system (satellite 132, L/S‑band air interface 138); feeder links 122/142 via gateways 124/144 to the PSTN; and fixed retransmitting stations 150a/150b that retransmit between the fixed satellite system and mobile radiotelephones at reduced, non‑interfering power to relieve capacity "hot spots." Includes a seven‑cell frequency reuse pattern (FIG. 2A) reused locally (FIGS. 2B–2C), with optional frequency translation / regenerative or non‑regenerative repeater operation.
• § 102 comment: This is the closest background reference to the capacity‑offload / retransmission concept. However, it does not disclose the '526‑defining architecture of a spot beam partitioned into a central portion + radial subareas, nor terrestrial reuse of adjacent‑beam satellite channels on a distance‑prioritized basis. It is therefore not an anticipatory reference for the partitioning/borrowing claims (e.g., pub. claims 133/136/149); it is best characterized as § 103 background art (single‑reference anticipation unlikely). It could touch the broad "satellite + terrestrial retransmission sharing spectrum" genus but does not teach the claimed subarea structure.

1.2 — U.S. Patent No. 5,995,832

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,995,832 — cited at FIGS. 3 and 4 (the "communications system 310/440"). Corroborated in a verified ATC/Karabinis reference list as "5,995,832 A 11/1999 Mallinckrodt" (US 7,599,656 B2 front page).
• Date: Granted Nov. 30, 1999 (listed as 11/1999). Pre‑dates the Aug. 2, 2000 priority date → qualifies as § 102 prior art.
• Description (per the specification): A hybrid CDMA satellite/terrestrial communications system:
  • System network control center 312 (FIG. 3 version) coordinating satellite and ground resources; regional node control centers 314; ground nodes 316 and satellite node control centers 318; satellite 320; user units 322; gateways 324.
  • FIG. 4 version dispenses with the network control center; the user unit selects satellite (442) vs. ground (450) node by a predetermined code, or by searching for one link type and falling back to the other.
  • Backhaul K‑band; user links L/S‑band; spread‑spectrum CDMA with per‑user codes.
• § 102 comment: Directly relevant to the dual‑mode / satellite‑vs‑terrestrial selection aspects of the '526 claims (e.g., the method of making a telephone call and choosing satellite vs. base station — pub. claims 149 and the FIG. 21 call‑initiation flow). But it discloses system‑level resource allocation and link selection, not the geographic subarea/channel‑distance reuse plan that is the core of the '526 independent claims. So: possibly relevant under § 102 only for the broadest "share spectrum between satellite and ground nodes" concept, more realistically § 103.

1.3 — U.S. Patent No. 5,926,745

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,926,745 — cited only as "incorporated herein by reference" in the specification (grouped with 5,815,809, 6,112,085, 6,058,307). No descriptive content is given in the '526 text, and I could not retrieve its disclosure in this session.
• Date: Not verified.
• Description: Unknown from available sources.
• § 102 comment: Cannot map to claims without the reference text. Flagged as unresolved.

1.4 — U.S. Patent No. 5,815,809

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 5,815,809 — incorporated by reference (same group as above).
• Date / Description: Not verified.
• § 102 comment: Cannot map to claims. Flagged as unresolved.
• (Note: a 5,812,947 "Dent" appears on the related ATC lists; do not conflate 5,815,809 with 5,812,947.)

1.5 — U.S. Patent No. 6,112,085

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,112,085 — incorporated by reference.
• Date / Description: Not verified.
• § 102 comment: Cannot map. Flagged as unresolved.

1.6 — U.S. Patent No. 6,058,307

• Full citation: U.S. Pat. No. 6,058,307 — incorporated by reference (note: rendered exactly as it appears in the specification; not auto‑corrected).
• Date / Description: Not verified.
• § 102 comment: Cannot map. Flagged as unresolved.

Grounding URL for the six references above: they appear verbatim in the specification text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US7149526B2/en and in the pre‑grant publication https://patents.justia.com/patent/20040023658 (patent history block).

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2. Related‑application / family references (they are § 102 art against others, but relevant to the '526 picture)

These are not "cited prior art" but priority‑family members cited in the '526 "Related Applications" section — useful for completeness and for double‑patenting/§ 102(b)‑family context:

• US 60/222,605 (Aug. 2, 2000), US 60/245,194 (Nov. 3, 2000), US 60/250,461 (Dec. 4, 2000) — provisionals, incorporated by reference.
• PCT/US2001/024046 → WO 2002/011302 A2/A3/B1 (pub. Feb. 7, 2002 / Apr. 25, 2002 / Jul. 4, 2002).
• EP 1,316,233 B1 (EP 01963764.4; AT‑E527764‑T1) — "Réutilisation coordonnée de fréquences d'un système terrestre et d'un système satellitaire."
• Siblings/continuations of the same disclosure: US 6,892,068 B2 (May 10, 2005); US 7,593,726 B2 (Sep. 22, 2009, from app 11/382,898); US 7,636,567 B2 (Dec. 22, 2009); publications US 2005/0272369, US 2005/0181786, US 2006/0211371, US 2009/0305697.

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3. Front‑page "References Cited" — best‑available proxy (NOT verified for '526)

Read this as a lead, not as the '526 front page. The reference block below is from the family sibling US 6,892,068 B2 (identical title/inventors), which shares substantially the same specification and thus almost certainly overlaps the '526 citation list. Representative U.S. patents in that block include:

3,963,990 (DiFonzo); 4,119,964 (Fletcher et al.); 4,144,496 (Cunningham et al.); 4,168,496 (Lichibiau); 4,292,685 (Lee); 4,396,948 (Fernsler et al.); 4,425,639 (Acampora et al.); 4,506,383 (McGann); 4,672,655 (Koch); 4,819,227 (Rosen); 4,823,341 (Rosen); 4,870,408 (Zahnek et al.); 4,879,711 (Rosen); 4,901,307 (Gilhousen et al.); 4,956,875 (Bernard et al.); 4,979,170 (Gilhousen et al.); 4,985,706 (Schukat); 5,010,317 (Schwendeman et al.); 5,044,062 (Cyrulnik); 5,073,900 (Mallinckrodt); 5,073,971 (Schaeffer); 5,081,703 (Lee); 5,093,925 (Chauroo); 5,111,534 (Benner); 5,142,691 (Freeburg et al.); 5,193,101 (McDonald et al.); 5,193,102 (Meidan et al.); 5,208,829 (Soleimani et al.); 5,937,332 (Karabinis); 5,995,832 (Mallinckrodt)… plus foreign patents (e.g., AU 616363; CA 2120908; CA 2157182) and non‑patent literature:

• Araki, Minamisono, Oodo, Miura, "Frequency Sharing of FSS and HAPS in the Reverse Band Working," AIAA ICSSC, Apr. 10–14, 2000, pp. 1074–1081 (Abstract).
• Chang, John W., "Visibility Considerations in Frequency Sharing with Low Earth Orbit Satellites," Canadian Conf. on Electrical & Computer Engineering.
• Krishnamarachari, Bhaskar, "Channel Allocation," www.ee.cornell.edu/~bhaskar/msthesis/node19.htm, May 11, 1999.

Source for this proxy block: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/b4/8c/ec/f89f84e8479963/US6892068.pdf (US 6,892,068 PDF, "(56) References Cited").

§ 102 comment on the proxy list as a whole: These are overwhelmingly general satellite/cellular frequency‑reuse, CDMA power‑control, and spot‑beam references (e.g., Gilhousen 4,901,307/4,979,170 CDMA; Mallinckrodt 5,073,900). They establish the state of the art in satellite spot‑beam reuse, but none of them, on the face of their titles, discloses the '526 core of a spot beam divided into a central region plus radial subareas that terrestrially reuse adjacent‑beam channels selected by geographic distance. Best characterization: § 103 obviousness art, not standalone § 102 anticipators. I could not verify any of these against the '526 front page, and I could not retrieve their individual texts in this session.

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4. The claims to be measured against (from the '526 application publication)

Because I could not pull the granted claim set verbatim, I use the claims of US 2004/0023658 A1 — the application that Justia confirms issued as US 7,149,526. Key independent claims (as published):

• Claim 133 (system): means for configuring a first satellite spot beam (first frequency set) comprising a substantially central portion + a plurality of subareas extending from the central‑portion periphery to near the beam circumference; a second spot beam (second frequency set); a terrestrial cell within the first beam (third frequency set, overlapping coverage); and means for assigning/reusing/borrowing, by the second spot beam, a portion of the third set responsive to predetermined criteria, including when the second set is geographically distant from the first beam.
• Claim 136 (method): same architecture in method form.
• Claim 149 (method of making a telephone call): dialing in a first terrestrial cell of a first spot beam; determining the first frequency set can't establish the connection; configuring a second spot beam; establishing the connection by borrowing the second set when the mobile terminal is geographically distant from the second beam.
• Claim 150 / 152 / 154 (frequency‑inversion): a satellite‑terrestrial system using satellite uplink/downlink frequencies inverted — terrestrial system transmits at the satellite uplink frequency to a terminal and receives at the satellite downlink frequency (and the mirror).
• Dependent concepts: subareas = beam cluster size − 1; central portion ≈ 25% of beam area; borrow‑from‑furthest‑beam‑first rule; ~3 dB‑loss spot‑beam sizing; equalizing non‑exhaustion probability across donor cells.

(All claim text above is from the published application at https://patents.justia.com/patent/20040023658#10. The granted '526 likely carries a renumbered/subset claim set; treat the numbers as publication‑stage unless independently confirmed.)

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5. Bottom line — most relevant prior art and § 102 mapping

Conclusion on the substance: On the material I can actually ground, none of the cited references appears to be a clean, single‑reference § 102 anticipator of the '526 independent claims. Their principal relevance is (a) establishing the pre‑2000 satellite/terrestrial frequency‑reuse context and (b) serving as § 103 combination art. The single‑reference‑anticipation theory, if one exists at all, would have to come from a reference whose full text I could not open here (the four "incorporated by reference" patents, or the unverified items on the sibling front page).

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6. What I could not confirm (explicit, per your no‑fabrication rule)

1. The verbatim (56) "References Cited" block of US 7,149,526 B2 — not retrievable this session; the Google Patents/PDF rendering served the sibling US 6,892,068 instead.
2. Grant/publication dates and full disclosures for US 5,926,745, US 5,815,809, US 6,112,085, US 6,058,307, and US 6,052,586.
3. The granted claim set of '526 (I used the published application's claims).
4. Whether the sibling US 6,892,068 front‑page list is identical to the '526 list.

Recommended next steps to close these gaps (all verifiable, official sources)

• USPTO Patent Center — open the '526 "Patent Full‑Text" images and read the printed front page (56) block: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov (app 10/343,471).
• USPTO Patent Public Search ("USPAT" / "USOCR" collections) for the exact '526 citation set.
• Google Patents "Citations" / "Cited By" tabs for US 7,149,526B2 (the "Cited By" list is retrievable even though the "References Cited" block was not).
• FreePatentsOnline record for US 7,149,526: https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7149526.html — its "Referenced By"/"References Cited" tables are usually machine‑readable.

If you can paste the printed (56) block from the '526 front page (or its Patent Center text), I will map each verified reference element‑by‑element against the '526 independent claims and give you a definitive § 102 versus § 103 classification.

I'll verify the key reference identities and the granted claim set before building the § 103 analysis, since the Prior Art section flagged several of these as unverified.

The generic searches returned noise. Let me query the specific records directly.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,149,526 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Analysis date: 2026-04-26. Builds on the Prior Art section of this file; does not repeat its reference-by-reference descriptions except where needed to ground a combination.

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1. Governing law, effective date, and the claim-set caveat

Statute: US 7,149,526 has a priority date of 2000-08-02 (provisional 60/222,605) and was filed 2001-08-01 — both before the AIA's 2013-03-16 change. The controlling provision is therefore pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007), applies in full. A reference qualifies as § 103 prior art only if it independently qualifies under pre-AIA § 102 (e.g., § 102(b) if published/patented more than one year before 2000-08-02; § 102(e) for pre-filing US applications/publications).

The claim-set caveat carries forward and governs everything below. As the Prior Art section flagged (and as I re-confirm), the authoritative full text supplied does not include the granted claim set, and my attempts to retrieve the printed (56) block or the issued claims of '526 did not succeed within the tool-step cap. I therefore analyze the published independent claims of US 2004/0023658 A1 (the application Justia confirms issued as US 7,149,526; claim numbering 133, 135, 136, and 149, with frequency-inversion claims 150/152/154). Every conclusion below is publication-stage and must be re-run against the granted claims before it is used in a filing or an invalidity contention. Pre-grant claims frequently change on allowance.

One reference was newly verified this session and is now load-bearing:

• US 5,926,745 — verified title: "Network operations center for mobile earth terminal satellite communications system." The NOC performs resource/usage measurement, capacity planning, and "arrange[s] for any necessary satellite reconfiguration to meet changes in traffic requirements." (https://patents.google.com/patent/US5926745). This matters because the '526 specification itself incorporates US 5,926,745 by reference and because the NOC/borrowing limitations map directly onto it (see Combination 3).

I also attempted to verify US 5,815,809, US 6,112,085, and US 6,058,307; those searches returned noise and I hit the step cap. They remain unverified and I do not build any combination on them. Treat them as open.

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2. Person having ordinary skill in the art (PHOSITA)

A PHOSITA here is an RF/systems engineer with 3–5 years in satellite and cellular network design: competent in spot-beam frequency planning, reuse clusters (N=3/4/7), inter-beam isolation, CDMA/TDMA air interfaces, and satellite/terrestrial (dual-mode) interoperability — the exact background the '526 specification presumes when it says the invention works with "LEO, MEO, GEO" and "TDMA, CDMA, GSM." This is a mature, crowded art as of 2000, which cuts against non-obviousness (predictable field, finite design choices).

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3. Claim-element decomposition (publication-stage claims)

Element D+E (borrow the neighbor's spectrum, not your own, prioritizing the farthest donor) is the inventive core. Everything below is aimed at D+E first.

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4. Combination 1 — The core geographic-reuse architecture (Elements A–F, I)

Primary combination: US 6,052,586 (spec-cited, FIG. 1) + US 5,995,832 (Mallinckrodt, spec-cited, FIGS. 3–4) + US 5,926,745 (verified NOC) + the CDMA/spot-beam reuse art on the sibling front page (Gilhousen US 4,901,307 / US 4,979,170; Mallinckrodt US 5,073,900) + the cell-planning art.

What each supplies:

• US 6,052,586 supplies the entire physical premise: a fixed + mobile satellite architecture, a 7-cell reuse pattern (its FIG. 2A — the identical N=7 premise of '526 FIG. 8a), local retransmission at "reduced, non-interfering power levels," and the explicit capacity-offload motive for terrestrial reuse in "hot spots." It supplies A and the general satellite+terrestrial premise.
• US 5,995,832 supplies system-level frequency/spectrum sharing between satellite nodes and ground nodes with CDMA spreading and, critically, user-terminal selection between satellite and ground links (FIG. 4 variant ignores the network control center; the unit picks by predetermined code or by searching one link type and falling back). It supplies A and the satellite/ground sharing premise.
• US 5,926,745 supplies I and the load/donor logic of F — a NOC that measures resource usage, does capacity planning, and "arrange[s] for any necessary satellite reconfiguration to meet changes in traffic requirements."
• The Gilhousen/Mallinckrodt reuse art supplies the conventional frequency-reuse and power-control toolkit (spot-beam reuse, orderly channel allocation) that a PHOSITA would apply when told to increase capacity without new spectrum.

Why a PHOSITA would combine them (KSR rationales):

1. Explicit design incentive, admitted in the patent. '526 concedes the problem: "capacity 'hot spots' or congestion develops within certain spot beams… the fixed system… can deploy fixed retransmitting stations to relieve the capacity load." An admitted need plus references aimed at that need is the classic KSR motivation.
2. "Known technique improving similar devices in the same way." Partitioning a coverage area into a central zone plus radial sectors/subareas and assigning frequency groups by distance between co-channel users is the ordinary cell-splitting / reuse-cluster-sizing technique. '526 FIG. 8a is an N=7 cluster — the same cluster the prior art already uses. Applying cell-splitting geometry and distance-based reuse to a satellite spot beam is a predictable application, not a new principle.
3. Inter-beam isolation is itself prior-art knowledge. '526 states its own core move as taking co-channel, co-beam interference and "transfer[ring] it to co-channel, adjacent beam interference" reduced by "the spot beam to adjacent spot beam isolation factor." That isolation property is a known, measurable characteristic of any multi-beam satellite; nothing in the claim requires discovering it, only exploiting it. A PHOSITA who knows beams are isolated would predict that reusing a far beam's channel locally reduces interference — predictable result.
4. Finite, enumerated choices. Element E is a ranking rule ("furthest first"). The patent itself presents the alternatives as a small closed set (furthest → adjacent). Selecting among a finite number of identified, predictable frequencies is "obvious to try" under KSR where the result is not unpredictable.
5. Art-recognized "reverse-band"/FSS-terrestrial sharing literature. The sibling front page cites Araki et al., "Frequency Sharing of FSS and HAPS in the Reverse Band Working," AIAA ICSSC (Apr. 2000) and Chang, "Visibility Considerations in Frequency Sharing with Low Earth Orbit Satellites." These establish that terrestrial/HAPS systems sharing FSS bands with attention to geographic/visibility separation was an active, published design problem contemporaneous with the priority date — again supplying motivation and predictability.

Anticipation assessment (echoing and extending the Prior Art section): No single one of these references discloses B+C+D+E together, so Combination 1 is an obviousness (§ 103) theory, not a clean § 102 theory. The four "incorporated by reference" patents (5,926,745, 5,815,809, 6,112,085, 6,058,307) are the only plausible home for a single-reference anticipation of D+E, and I could not open their texts — that is the highest-value remaining gap (see §7).

Weakest link in Combination 1: the jump from "reuse spectrum between satellite and terrestrial systems" (well taught) to "terrestrially reuse the adjacent neighbor's channels rather than the local beam's own channels." A patent owner will argue no reference motivates deliberately avoiding your own beam's spectrum. The best rebuttal is the Araki "reverse band working" + inter-beam-isolation literature: if beams are isolated and co-channel reuse is the enemy, the distance-prioritized donor rule is the natural, mechanical application of a known interference-avoidance principle. This is a genuinely arguable point and I would not call it a walkover for either side.

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5. Combination 2 — Frequency inversion (Element G, claims 150/152/154)

Primary combination: Araki et al., "Frequency Sharing of FSS and HAPS in the Reverse Band Working" (AIAA ICSSC, Apr. 2000) + US 6,052,586 / US 5,995,832.

This is the strongest § 103 theory in the whole set, because the prior art reference is titled exactly the claimed concept: "Reverse Band Working." '526's inversion technique "involves reversing the satellite down-link (F1) and satellite up-link (F2) frequencies to become the terrestrial up-link ('return-link') and terrestrial down-link ('forward-link') frequencies." Araki is about sharing FSS spectrum between a fixed-satellite service and a terrestrial/HAPS layer in the reverse band — i.e., terrestrial forward links placed in the satellite downlink band and terrestrial return links in the satellite uplink band. A PHOSITA reading Araki in 2000 would have the claimed inversion as a directly disclosed technique, and would combine it with the satellite/terrestrial system of '586/'832 for the same reason Araki gives — to make terrestrial and satellite links separable by direction so they do not collide.

Assessment: If Araki's disclosure is as its title and abstract indicate (the Prior Art section notes it was available only as an "Abstract" in the source it used), Element G is likely obvious, and possibly anticipated. Verify the full Araki text before relying on it — this is the single most exploitable reference in the file and it is currently verified only at abstract level.

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6. Combination 3 — Call setup, hand-off, and network control (Elements H, I)

Primary combination: US 5,995,832 (FIGS. 3–4) + US 5,926,745 (verified NOC) + Krishnamarachari, "Channel Allocation" (Cornell MS thesis, 1999).

• '526's FIG. 21 call-initiation flow — a terminal that must choose satellite vs. base-station, or request a transition channel when interference is unacceptable — is the '832 FIG. 4 behavior ("the user unit designates satellite node communication or ground node communication by sending a predetermined code. Alternatively, the user unit could first search for one type of link… and, if not… use the alternate") dressed in a measurement/retry loop. Channel-selection-by-measurement and fallback is routine.
• Krishnamarachari, "Channel Allocation" (posted 1999) supplies the standard channel-allocation-under-interference framework the claims' "predetermined criteria" language implies.
• US 5,926,745 (now verified) supplies the NOC that dynamically reconfigures resources to meet traffic — mapping onto the claim language "a network operations controller… facilitates assignment, borrowing and/or reuse of frequencies."

Why combine: all three are directed to resource management in hybrid satellite/terrestrial mobile systems; combining them is "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way." No new principle is required. Assessment: § 103, strong on the call-setup/hand-off and NOC limitations.

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7. Consolidated KSR motivation summary (for the whole claim set)

Dependent-element note: the numerical deps (central portion ≈ 25%, subareas = cluster − 1, ~3 dB sizing, "equalizing non-exhaustion probability") are the kind of design-parameter and mathematical-optimization choices KSR and its progeny treat as obvious absent a showing of unexpected results. The ~3 dB (half-power) beam-sizing rule is the textbook spot-beam definition.

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8. Anticipated non-obviousness arguments and responses

1. "No reference teaches avoiding the local beam's own spectrum" (the D+E core). Response: inter-beam isolation + the interference-avoidance principle in '586's "reduced, non-interfering power" retransmission and Araki's reverse-band separation make the donor rule an application of known principles; also obvious-to-try over a finite donor set. This is the patent's best defense and its weakest point equally.
2. "Specific geometry (central portion + radial subareas) is deliberate and non-trivial." Response: it is a two-parameter geometric choice (central fraction; subarea count) with the patente's own spec offering alternatives ("Any number of subareas… may alternatively be used") — a hallmark of an obvious design-space selection.
3. Common ownership / § 103(c) disqualification. Note the risk that US 5,937,332 (Karabinis) and the other spec-incorporated references were, or might be argued to be, commonly owned with '526 at the time of invention. If so, they may be disqualified as § 102(e)/§ 102(f)/§ 102(g) prior art for § 103 purposes under pre-AIA § 103(c). A PHOSITA cannot build the case on the inventor's own commonly-owned art without a common-ownership check. This is an important limiting condition on Combinations 1 and 3 to the extent they lean on US 5,937,332 or other ATC-family references.

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9. Explicit uncertainties (no fabrication)

• Granted claim set of US 7,149,526: not retrieved. All mappings are to publication claims 133/135/136/149/150/152/154. Re-verify against the issued claims.
• US 5,815,809, US 6,112,085, US 6,058,307: text not retrieved. No combination built on them. These are the best candidates for a single-reference § 102 hit on D+E — worth pulling from Patent Center/FreePatentsOnline.
• US 6,052,586: grant date not independently verified here; the spec treats it as pre-2000 prior art.
• Araki et al. (AAA ICSSC 2000): verified only at abstract level via the US 6,892,068 front page. Its full text is decisive for Element G.
• US 5,926,745: NEWLY VERIFIED this session as the mobile-earth-terminal NOC — treat as solid.
• US 6,892,068 front-page list remains a proxy, not the confirmed '526 (56) block.

Bottom line: On the material that can be grounded, no single verified reference anticipates the core architecture (Combination 1 is § 103, not § 102), but there are two reasonably strong § 103 theories — (i) the geographic distance-prioritized adjacent-beam reuse architecture ('586 + '832 + verified '745 NOC + Gilhousen/Mallinckrodt reuse art + the FSS/terrestrial sharing literature), and (ii) the frequency-inversion claims (Araki "Reverse Band Working," potentially anticipatory). The system/hand-off/NOC limitations fall easily under '832 + '745 + Krishnamarachari. The patent's surviving non-obviousness story rests almost entirely on the "borrow the neighbor's spectrum, not your own" insight, and that story is contestable but not frivolous. Before any filing, close the four open gaps in §9 — starting with the granted claims and the Araki full text.