US 7181229

I'll search for this specific patent number across the sources you mentioned.

Let me check for any litigation/docket activity and confirm the USPTO record.

US Patent 7,181,229 — Verified Record Summary

Bottom line on your two requested sources:

• USPTO: Confirmed. The patent is real and fully indexed (Google Patents, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, USPTO.report, RPX Insight all return the same record), and the text you supplied matches the authoritative grant.
• CAFC 2026 dockets: I found no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit activity (2026 or otherwise) for this patent number. My searches for "7181229" + CAFC return zero relevant hits; an unrelated 2026 Chief Judge / Rule 36-type docket does not appear. I cannot rule out a docket I could not surface, but on the evidence available there is no Federal Circuit case involving 7,181,229. Treat "no CAFC 2026 docket found" as a failure to find, not a certified negative.

One name-collision caution: Several search hits reference a "Singh" in PTAB/IPR papers (e.g., IPR of U.S. 9,900,766; "Singh129/Singh906"). Those belong to CellSpin Soft and a different Singh et al. They are not this patent. Do not conflate them.

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Bibliographic data (as verified)

Uncertainty flags: (1) The fourth inventor's first name appears as "Lakinder" on Google Patents and as "Lokinder" in the EP/LU register — a literal discrepancy in the sources, not a transcription error on my part. (2) Google Patents labels assignee "Individual," consistent with the inventors being the owners; the EP register lists the four inventors as owners at an Indian address (104/47 Silver Oaks, DLF Qutab Enclave, Gurgaon). Both are user-supplied/aggregator data, not an authoritative USPTO assignment record I independently pulled.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7181229/en; https://patents.justia.com/patent/7181229; https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US7181229B2](/patent/US7181229B2); https://www.freepatentsonline.com/7181229.html; https://patent.public.lu/fo-eregister-view/search/details/502799454_EPV/0/0/1/10/0/0/0/null/null?locale=en

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Abstract

The patent covers a system that disables a cellphone under a first condition and switches it off under a second condition, restoring normal use when neither condition applies. The first condition is an attempt to operate a cellphone by the driver of a vehicle whose ignition is on and/or which is moving above a set speed; in that case the system disables the OK switch and may also perform the CALL END function. The second condition is a cellphone carried by a person occupying a seat in an aircraft, committee room, or similar restricted location, where the phone is automatically switched off. The system also provides automatic sequential dialing of emergency numbers (police, medical) by overriding the restriction, plus anti-tamper/anti-bypass control circuits.

The technical hook is that the regulatory signal is conveyed via capacitive coupling — a foil in the driver's seat, and a film inside the phone — using low-frequency, low-power electrical signals rather than radio/electromagnetic waves, which the applicants argue makes it driver-specific and health-neutral.

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Independent claims — plain-language overview

There are two independent claims: claim 1 and claim 7. (Claims 2–6 and 8 depend from claim 1.)

Claim 1 — the core device.
A cellphone-regulation device responsive to two conditions: (a) a signal generated from a vehicle in motion (first condition), and (b) a signal generated from a restricted area (second condition). It has seven elements:

1. Signal generating circuit that emits a polarity-specific signal identifying which condition is present (i.e., positive polarity = driving, negative polarity = restricted area).
2. Signal detection & processing circuit inside the phone, receiving that signal through two capacitive couplings — an external first coupling and an in-phone second coupling.
3. OK-switch disabling circuit that blocks the phone's OK switch when the first-condition signal is present.
4. Link and control circuit wired to the OK-switch disabling circuit, specifically to terminate a call if an already-active phone is handed to the driver by a passenger during the first condition.
5. Call-end circuit tied to the phone's call-end switch, triggered on the first condition when the OK switch is also disabled.
6. The link and control circuit also drives initiation of the call-end function on the first condition.
7. Switching-off circuit that powers down the phone and disables its ON function on the second condition.

Claim 7 — the microcontroller/binary-signature variant.
Same two-condition disable/enable goal, but implemented differently: the signal generator emits a specified binary signature distinguishing first from second condition, is powered through two control-and-switching circuits, incorporates a microcontroller, and links to the phone's detection/processing circuit through first and second capacitive couplings for signal demodulation, regulating phone use via the phone's own existing microcontroller.

Claim-drafting note (observation, not legal advice): Claim 1 element (iii) contains awkward/garbled operative language — "disabling it in the presence of a signal corresponding to said first condition to said signal at an input to the signal detection and processing circuit." Similar rough phrasing appears in the pre-grant publication ("a signal corresponding to said first condition to said signal at the input"). Anyone analyzing scope or validity should work from the issued claim text, not the published application.

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Dependent claims (brief)

• 2 — the second coupling is a conducting film inside the phone connected to the antenna through a resistance.
• 3 — the detection circuit drives the OK-disable and call-end circuits on the first condition, the call-end circuit using a switch connected across the phone's call-end switch.
• 4 — the switching-off circuit performs the second-condition power-down.
• 5 — the signal generator is powered via a control-and-switching circuit and linked to a second such circuit for the first condition (vehicle configuration).
• 6 — a central signal generator powered through a main switch, wired to individual seat foils via pressure-actuated switches, for the second condition (aircraft/theater configuration).
• 8 — an emergency switch permitting dialing of a set of emergency numbers, overriding both conditions.

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Prosecution / prior-art landscape (from the face of the patent)

The specification expressly distinguishes four references it labels D1–D4: JP 11-168767 A (NEC), JP 11-285070 A (Kokusai Denki), EP 1 035 746 A1 (Sony International (Europe)), and EP 0 880 296 A1 (NEC). The applicant's stated differentiators are: low-frequency/low-power signalling (no claimed health hazard), capacitive rather than radio/electromagnetic coupling, inherent driver specificity (passengers unaffected), and emergency-call override.

Forward citation impact (context)

The patent has a substantial citation footprint. Representative later patents/inventors citing it include Apple's US 9,019,068 ("automated change of an operating mode relating to a wireless device"), Michael Rosen (US 8,131,205 / US 8,384,555), Trimble Navigation (US 8,306,551; US 8,200,238), and numerous Sprint Spectrum and Ford Global Technologies filings.

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What I could not confirm

• No USPTO assignment chain beyond the "Individual" designation.
• No litigation, PTAB proceeding, or CAFC appeal for US 7,181,229 in any search I ran, including 2026.
• Termination/fee-payment specifics beyond "Expired – Lifetime" with a 2022-09-23 anticipated expiration (the EP counterpart lapsed earlier, ceasing 2014-09-23 in some national registers).

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7181229 across patent litigation sources.

Let me search more specific litigation databases.

No litigation surfaced yet. Let me check litigation-specific databases directly.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 7,181,229

Bottom line: I found no litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 7,181,229. Based on the sources I was able to search — Google Patents/Patents (which aggregates USPTO litigation and "Cited By" data), Justia Patents, Docket Alarm/PTAB document hits, Unified Patents' portal materials, and general web searches for the patent number and title — there is no district court action, ITC investigation, PTAB proceeding, or Federal Circuit appeal that I could identify naming this patent.

What the searches did return

1. No case docket entries. Searches for "7,181,229", "7181229", and the patent title ("System which automatically disables or switches off a cellphone") returned only:

   • The Google Patents page (source document).
   • Justia Patents' copy of the specification and claims.
   • A non-U.S. reference to a Japanese patent/grant bearing the number 7181229 (a laser-printing light source — a different patent entirely).
   • Brazilian and Lithuanian business-registry entries that happen to include the digits "7181229" as company/registration codes (irrelevant).
   • PTAB/Unified Patents documents that cite other patent numbers (8,201,968; 10,237,577; 9,338,449; etc.), not '229.

2. No apparent assertion campaign. The patent was granted to individual inventors — Yash Pal Singh, Anirudh Singh, Manu Singh, and Lakinder Singh Verma — with the current assignee listed as "Individual." That ownership profile, combined with the expired status, makes large-scale assertion/patent-troll litigation unlikely and is consistent with the absence of any case.

Key facts about the patent (context for why litigation is unlikely)

The patent's term has ended (anticipated expiration 2022-09-23) and its status is "Expired – Lifetime," so any past litigation window is closed.

Documents reviewed (URLs)

• Google Patents — US7181229B2: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7181229/en
• Justia Patents — https://patents.justia.com/patent/7181229
• Unified Patents litigation/PTAB portal (referenced): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist

Caveats — please read

• I could not directly query the live litigation databases. My searches did not successfully surface results from Unified Patents' litigation caselist, PACER, CourtListener/RECAP, or Docket Alarm case indexes (one search hit a step limit and returned no data). Therefore this is not a definitive "no litigation exists" finding — it is: no litigation was found in the sources reached, and the patent's expired status and individual ownership make litigation unlikely.
• If you need a definitive answer, you should run targeted queries directly against:
  • Unified Patents litigation caselist (search the patent number): https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist
  • PACER / CourtListener (RECAP) for "7,181,229"
  • USPTO Patent Center / Assignment records for a recorded reassignment that might explain any transfer.
• Search-term hygiene: because "7181229" also appears as unrelated business-registration numbers (Brazil, Lithuania) and as an unrelated Japanese patent number, any database search must be constrained to the U.S. patent field to avoid false hits.

If you'd like, I can re-run a narrower query against a specific docket database URL once the tool limits reset, or draft a formal "no results" declaration with the exact search strings and date stamps for your file.

I'll verify the structured data with targeted web searches before producing the analysis.

Let me run a couple more targeted checks to be thorough.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 7,181,229: 0. Broken down by status: 0 active, 0 with claims invalidated, 0 with claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials. The USPTO Open Data Portal (ODP) structured feed returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM proceeding naming this patent, and independent web searches surfaced no proceeding the ODP missed.

Bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant: this is not the "patent survived and is hardened" scenario — it is the no-challenge-ever-filed scenario, which is a different and, for the patent owner, worse signal. Across a ~21-year enforceable life (grant 2007-02-20 → expiration 2022-09-23) this patent attracted zero AIA petitions despite being cited by 69+ later documents and being squarely in the high-volume "cellphone use while driving" space where Unified Patents and others routinely file. The most likely explanation is consistent with the ownership profile: an individual-owned, unasserted patent with no commercial licensing campaign generates no petitioner. Neither scenario gives a defendant a canceled-claim shield, because no claim of this patent has ever been adjudicated unpatentable at the PTAB. The operative defense here is temporal, not PTAB-based: the patent expired 2022-09-23, so there is no live infringement theory to defend against in the first place.

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(No per-proceeding sections are included because the canonical list is empty. Per the task constraint — "Do not invent proceeding numbers" — I am not manufacturing entries. What follows documents the verification and the search-hygiene findings that matter for anyone repeating this check.)

Verification and false-positive flags (search hygiene)

Caution on "Singh" collisions (carried forward from the earlier litigation section): PTAB papers referencing "Singh129/Singh906" belong to CellSpin Soft and a different Singh et al. They are not this patent. Likewise the JP 7181229 and Brazilian registration numbers are unrelated. Any future database query must be field-constrained to the U.S. patent number, or these three false-positive families will contaminate the result.

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Strategic summary

Claim status — all UNTESTED. Not one of claims 1–8 of US 7,181,229 has been the subject of an AIA trial, a Final Written Decision, or any certificate of cancellation. There are no canceled claims and no sustained claims in the AIA sense — the slate is simply blank. The two independent claims (1 and 7) and the six dependent claims (2–6, 8) all stand exactly as granted. To be precise about what that does and does not mean: the absence of a PTAB FWD means no claim has been held unpatentable, but it equally means no claim has been held patentable. A defendant gets no offensive benefit and no defensive estoppel benefit from a record that does not exist.

Estoppel landscape — essentially empty. Because no IPR/PGR/CBM was ever instituted, there is no § 315(e)(1) or § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaching to any party or privy in any AIA proceeding. Practically: (a) there is no petitioner barred from re-raising art, and (b) there is no procedural roadblock that would prevent a party from filing a first-ever petition — but that option is now academic, because the patent's term ended 2022-09-23 and the statutory IPR window for challenging it has closed in a practical sense (the patent is expired and unenforceable, so there is nothing to invalidate that matters to a defendant facing a demand). On the merits side, the prior-art landscape a would-be challenger would have used remains fully available as defensive literature — notably the four references the applicant itself distinguished (D1 JP 11-168767 A; D2 JP 11-285070 A; D3 EP 1 035 746 A1; D4 EP 0 880 296 A1) — but there is no proceeding in which to deploy them.

Pattern signals. No petitioner has filed one, let alone multiple, IPRs against this patent. No defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, etc.) appears anywhere in the chain — consistent with the "Individual" assignee designation and the complete absence of litigation or assertion activity documented in the earlier sections. The patent owner has never pursued a PTAB appeal, because there has never been a PTAB outcome to appeal. There is no Federal Circuit docket for '229 (carried forward from the litigation section: total absence of CAFC activity).

Cross-reference check — no contradiction. The previously generated "Litigation summary" (no district court, ITC, PTAB, or CAFC activity) and the earlier "Patent summary" (no PTAB proceeding found) are consistent with this section. All three lines of analysis converge: US 7,181,229 has never been adjudicated anywhere.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant / demand-letter recipient: Do not frame your response around PTAB outcomes — there are none. Framing it that way would be a factual error a sophisticated counterparty could exploit. The correct and decisive response is expiration: the patent's term ended 2022-09-23 and its status is "Expired – Lifetime" (per Google Patents). An expired patent cannot be infringed by post-expiration conduct, and any recovery would be limited to the pre-expiration window (and would still have to clear the § 286 six-year damages bar measured from filing). There is no FWD to link or quote, precisely because no proceeding exists — say so plainly rather than implying a merits victory.

2. If you are validating a "no PTAB activity" clearance: the ODP feed is the canonical source and it is dispositive here. Preserve the search strings and date stamps (search date 2026-09-29): US 7,181,229, US7181229, plus title "System which automatically disables or switches off a cellphone", each constrained to the U.S.-patent field. Document the three excluded false-positive families (JP 7181229; Brazilian JUCISRS reg. 7181229; unrelated "Singh et al." exhibits) so the record shows they were affirmatively considered and rejected.

3. If you are monitoring for future activity (unlikely given expiry): for completeness, the standing watch points are the USPTO PTAB E2E system (https://ptacts.uspto.gov) and CourtListener/RECAP for any late-filed petition, Director Review request, or CAFC appeal. Given the 2022-09-23 expiration, the probability of any new proceeding is effectively nil — but I state that as an assessment, not a certified negative, since I could not exhaustively query every live docket database.

4. Methodology caveat (repeated for the file): my conclusion rests on the ODP structured feed plus web searches. I was not able to run direct field-constrained queries against PTAB E2E's full proceeding index, PACER, or CourtListener's docket API. This is therefore a well-supported "no proceedings found" rather than a notarized "no proceedings exist." For a formal clearance opinion, run one field-constrained query against PTAB E2E (patent number field) and CourtListener (docket search, patent: 7181229) and attach the timestamped results.

I'll research the assignment/ownership record for US 7,181,229 across USPTO Assignment Center, Google Patents legal events, and NPE/assertion directories.

Let me query the assignment databases and Google Patents legal events directly.

I attempted to pull the assignment record from the sources reachable in this session (Google Patents legal events, Justia, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, and general web queries keyed to the patent number, title, and inventor names). Two searches failed to surface any assignment-cover-sheet data, and I could not live-query the USPTO Assignment Center UI directly. Here is what the available record supports.

Inventors

Four named inventors on the issued patent:

Pattern notes:

• Three of the four inventors share the surname Singh, and the EP counterpart register lists all four as owners at a single Indian residential address (104/47 Silver Oaks, DLF Qutab Enclave, Gurgaon). This is consistent with a family/private-inventor group, not a corporate R&D team. I am flagging that as an observation only — surname sharing is not, by itself, evidence of anything.
• No employer is named anywhere on the face of the patent, and the assignee field is "Individual." There is therefore no corporate assignee for the inventors to have "departed." The "all inventors leave the assignee within 12 months" fire-sale tell does not apply — there was never a corporate assignee to leave.
• Literal-discrepancy flag (carried from the prior section): the fourth inventor's first name appears as "Lakinder" on Google Patents and as "Lokinder" in the EP/LU register. This is a source discrepancy, not a transcription error.

Name-collision warning (contradiction guard): A search for "Singh" + patents surfaces U.S. 7,534,366 and 8,033,120 to "Singh et al.," and Mexichem/Amanco Singh-family material, plus the CellSpin Soft "Singh129/Singh906" IPR references. Those are different Singhs and different families and must not be linked to US 7,181,229. The prior patent summary flagged the CellSpin collision; add these two references to the same do-not-conflate list.

Original assignee

Individual — the four named inventors.

• Entity on the issued patent: "Individual" (Google Patents lists both Original Assignee and Current Assignee as "Individual").
• Line of business: None. This is not an operating company; it is a group of private inventors.
• Product embodying the claims: No evidence of any commercial product. The specification describes a bench/prototype circuit realization (FIGS. 3, 6(a), 6(b), 7, 8) — discrete op-amps, logic gates, transistor switches, and microcontrollers — with no indication of a manufactured or marketed device.
• Current status: The patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees / end of term ("Expired – Lifetime"), anticipated expiration 2022-09-23. The individual ownership status is unchanged in every source reached.

Assignment timeline

Plainly stated: I found no recorded assignments for US 7,181,229 in any source I could reach.

Every aggregator that mirrors the USPTO assignment/reassignment data returns the same result:

• Google Patents legal events for US7181229B2 show only: Application filed 2002-09-23 → Publication of US2004/0198306A1 2004-10-07 → Application granted 2007-02-20 → Anticipated expiration 2022-09-23 → Expired – Lifetime. No reassignment event of any kind.
• Justia, FreePatentsOnline, uspto.report, RPX Insight all render the assignee as "Individual" with no post-issuance transfer.

Because there is no recorded assignment, there is no conveyance type, no reel/frame, no assignor/assignee pair, and no correspondent of record to report. (The Assignment Center's "correspondent" field is populated from the cover sheet of a recorded document; with nothing recorded, the field does not exist for this patent.) I will not fabricate reel/frame numbers.

Caveat (must be read): This is a failure to find in the sources reached, not a certified negative from the Assignment Center itself, which I could not query live in this session. To close the loop, verify directly at:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 7181229)
• Legacy Assignment Search — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html

Interpretation at this stage: zero recorded assignments on an individually owned patent most commonly means the original inventors still own it — the chain is a single link (inventors → themselves) that was never papered, because there was no transfer to record.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7181229
    2001 : Priority filing in India
    2002 : PCT and US national stage filed
    2004 : Pre grant publication
    2007 : Patent granted to four individual inventors
    2022 : Anticipated expiration reached
         : No recorded assignments found

NPE / troll-pattern signals

All eight signals are "not present." Note that signals 1–5 are not merely absent — they are structurally inapplicable, because there is no recorded transfer for any of them to attach to. The tell-tale NPE architecture (a lawyer's correspondence address recurring across successive shell LLCs) simply has no footprint here.

Verdict

Insufficient data — and specifically, the "no records, or only the original assignment" prong.

The record shows a single ownership link: four private individual inventors holding US 7,181,229 from grant (2007-02-20) through expiration (2022-09-23), with no recorded assignment, no corporate assignee, no correspondent of record, and no asserted campaign. That profile is the inverse of an NPE chain — an NPE requires a recorded transfer into a licensing entity, and none exists in any source reached. I stop short of a stronger call only because I could not live-query the USPTO Assignment Center in this session, so the "no assignments" finding rests on the aggregators (Google Patents legal events, Justia, FPO, uspto.report), which are reliable mirrors but not the authoritative register.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search 7181229): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• USPTO Assignment Search (legacy): https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents (legal events / assignee): https://patents.google.com/patent/US7181229/en
• EP family register (owners at Gurgaon address): https://patent.public.lu/fo-eregister-view/search/details/502799454_EPV/0/0/1/10/0/0/0/null/null?locale=en

If you want a definitive register pull, run the patent number against the Assignment Center directly; if it also returns zero records, the finding hardens to "original individual inventors still own; no NPE chain ever existed," and the file can be annotated as non-asserting, non-NPE, expired.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 7,181,229, starting with the patent record and its citation lists.

I have the citation list. Now let me verify each cited reference's identity and content.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent No. 7,181,229

Scope note / method. I searched for the specific number 7,181,229 (not similar numbers) and worked from the patent's own record of cited references. The authoritative citation lists come from the grant record mirrored at Justia and uspto.report, which reproduce the "References Cited" printed on the face of the patent. Two caveats up front:

1. The prior art "of record" falls into two distinct buckets: (a) the U.S. patent documents listed on the face of the grant, and (b) the four foreign documents the applicant discusses by name in the specification as D1–D4. Both matter, but they are cited for different reasons — D1–D4 are the applicant's own background/admission references; the U.S. patents were supplied by the examiner (the attorney of record was The Webb Law Firm).
2. § 102 framing. You asked which claims each reference "potentially anticipates." I have to flag a structural reality: every reference below is a radio / infrared / magnetic-field / geolocation style restriction system. None discloses the two-capacitive-coupling architecture that is the heart of independent claims 1 and 7. So none is a true § 102 anticipation of the independent claims; their realistic force is § 103 (alone or in combination), and only for the narrower dependent claims. I say this explicitly rather than force-fit an anticipation label. Where a reference could plausibly be argued under § 102, it is only against a dependent claim, and even then the argument is thin.

I could not fully re-verify every cited U.S. reference's title/abstract in this session (search results were noisy and returned unrelated "Tanaka/Valentine" patents, and I hit a tool-step ceiling). Items I could not confirm are marked [unverified]; do not treat my field-level descriptions as substitutes for pulling the documents.

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1. The citation list of record

(a) U.S. patent documents cited on the face of the grant

(b) Foreign patent documents cited

Identifier caveat (per your no-auto-correct rule): The PTO-printed citation list renders D1 as "11-1168767," while the specification body calls it "JP 11 168767 A." These strings do not match. I am not silently equating them; I flag that they appear to refer to the same NEC document but the record itself is internally inconsistent. Treat the literal strings as printed.

Do not conflate: The number "7181229" also exists as an unrelated Japanese patent (a laser-printer light source) and as various business-registry codes; neither relates to this U.S. patent.

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2. Reference-by-reference analysis

Group A — The four foreign documents (applicant's D1–D4)

These are the references that actually shaped the specification's "Summary of the Invention," and they are the most substantive prior art of record.

D1 — JP 11 168767 A / JP 11-1168767, NEC Corporation (pub. June 1999).
Description (from the patent's own characterization): A system making wireless-phone communication impossible in a moving vehicle. A unit generates a logic hi/lo signal denoting ignition on/off (or speed high/low), and the vehicle condition is transmitted to the phone by radio waves, with infrared as an alternative.
Claims potentially implicated under § 102: None squarely. It lacks the "signal generated from a restricted area" second condition, lacks capacitive coupling, and lacks emergency override. At most it is § 103 art against the vehicle-condition-detection aspect underlying claim 1's "first condition" and claim 5's power/control circuitry — but the transmission modality is radio/IR, the very thing the '229 claims distinguish.

D2 — JP 11 285070 A, Kokusai Denki KK (pub. Oct 1999).
Description: Restricts phone use in moving vehicles; picks up engine ignition noise, wave-shapes it, converts frequency→voltage to derive engine rpm; detects the vehicle via the electromagnetic field of the communication system; requires the driver to select a special "DRIVE KEY," which locks the keyboard and messages the caller.
Claims potentially implicated under § 102: None. No capacitive coupling; expressly requires user-actuated key (the '229 patent touts the absence of any such key). Relevant under § 103 only to the general concept of vehicle-motion-based locking.

D3 — EP 1 035 746 A1, Sony International (Europe) GmbH (pub. Sep 2000).
Description: Protects a predetermined area; a mobile base station radiates a protection signal recognized by any phone in the area, which then operates in a prescribed mode (e.g., high-frequency portion switched off in sensitive areas, silent mode, visual/non-audible output). Preferred implementation is Bluetooth® at 2.4 GHz. The spec notes ¶¶[0042]–[0052] "attempt to cover the entire range of signal transmission techniques."
Claims potentially implicated under § 102: This is the closest foreign reference to the second condition and therefore to claim 4 (switching-off circuit performing power-down in the second condition) and claim 6 (central generator + per-seat foils + pressure-actuated switches for the area/second condition). Under § 102 it still fails: the '229 claims require the capacitive couplings and a polarity-specific first-vs-second distinction, which D3's radiated protection signal does not supply. Strong § 103 candidate against claims 4 and 6.

D4 — EP 0 880 296 A1, NEC Corporation (pub. May 1998).
Description: Transmission-restricting system using magnetic-field command codes at area entrance/exit. Notably, for drivers it sets an interruption field around the driver's seat and a release field around the other seats — i.e., driver-specific restriction with passengers unaffected.
Claims potentially implicated under § 102: Closest foreign reference to the "inherently driver-specific, passengers stay enabled" concept recited in claim 1, and to claim 3 (linked disable/call-end circuitry). Still fails § 102 on the coupling medium (magnetic field vs. capacitive) and on the call-end/OK-switch interplay. Its "two distinct field patterns" (interrupt + release) is the concept the applicant explicitly argues it improves upon.

Group B — The eight U.S. patent documents

I could not cleanly verify each title in this session [unverified], but functionally these are the genus of late-1990s/early-2000s "restrict mobile-phone use (in a vehicle / in a zone)" references. None is described anywhere in the '229 record as disclosing capacitive coupling. Their realistic mapping:

Net: For the U.S. citations, no claim-level § 102 anticipation is supportable, because each lacks at least the "first capacitive coupling + second capacitive coupling in the cellphone" limitation of claim 1 (and the "binary signature … through a first and second capacitive coupling for signal demodulation" limitation of claim 7).

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3. Consensus assessment — which references are "most relevant"

Ranked by proximity to the '229 claims:

1. EP 0 880 296 A1 (D4) — most relevant overall; only cited reference that is driver-specific while leaving passengers enabled, which is claim 1's stated advantage. Best § 103 art against claims 1/3/6.
2. EP 1 035 746 A1 (D3) — most relevant to the second condition and to claims 4 and 6; also the reference the applicant most extensively distinguished (whole range of transmission techniques).
3. JP 11 285070 A (D2) — relevant to vehicle-motion detection, but its DRIVE-KEY and ignition-noise approach is what the '229 design deliberately avoids.
4. JP 11 168767 A (D1) — relevant to the first condition and to radio/IR transmission generally.
5. The eight U.S. patents collectively — § 103 background on "restrict phone in vehicle/zone"; individually weak.

Claim-by-claim § 102 exposure (honest read): Independent claims 1 and 7 are not anticipated by any cited reference (each requires the dual capacitive coupling and polarity-specific/binary-signature signal). Dependent claims 4 and 6 are the most exposed, but even there the references lack capacitive coupling and the pressure-actuated-seat-foil linkage, so the correct posture is § 103, not § 102.

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4. Forward-citation context (not prior art)

Distinct from the cited art, the '229 patent has a large "cited by" footprint. Representative later documents (from the record you already have) include Apple's US 9,019,068, Trimble Navigation's US 8,306,551 / US 8,200,238, and filings by Sprint Spectrum and Ford Global Technologies — plus US 6,675,002 (Lipovski) appearing on both the backward and forward sides. These are later references and therefore not § 102 prior art against '229; they matter only for infringement/obviousness-of-later patents and for showing the field's evolution.

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5. Verification status and caveats

• Confirmed from the record: The complete "References Cited" list above (8 U.S. patents; 4 foreign documents) is drawn from the grant's face as mirrored at Justia (https://patents.justia.com/patent/7181229) and uspto.report (https://uspto.report/patent/grant/7181229), and is consistent with the specification's D1–D4 discussion.
• Not independently confirmed in this session [unverified]: Exact titles/abstracts of the eight U.S. patents and the precise technical content of each. My per-reference descriptions for Group B are inferential. Recommend pulling each on Google Patents / patentimages before relying on a § 102/§ 103 chart.
• Literal-identifier flags (per your rule): "JP 11-1168767" (record) vs. "JP 11 168767 A" (spec) are inconsistent as printed and were not auto-corrected. The unrelated Japanese patent numbered 7181229 (laser-printer light source) was excluded.
• Date note: I am working from the searchable record as of this analysis; your task heading states April 26, 2026 while the environment date reads 2026-09-29 — this does not change the citation set, which is fixed at grant.

If you want, I can build a formal § 103 combination chart (e.g., D3 + D4 as primary references against claims 1/4/6, with the eight U.S. patents as secondary) once you can supply the verified abstracts, or re-run the per-patent title lookups when tool limits reset.

I'll ground this § 103 analysis in the prior-art references identified in the specification (the "Prior Art section" D1–D4) and verify their disclosures before building the combinations.

§ 103 Obviousness Analysis — US 7,181,229 ("System which automatically disables or switches off a cellphone")

Built on the prior sections: the "Patent summary" (claim text, D1–D4 identification), "Litigation summary," "PTAB challenges," and "Strategic summary" (all claims untested; expired 2022‑09‑23) are treated as established. This section adds the merits analysis they deliberately left out.

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1. Legal framework and scope

I apply the Graham v. John Deere framework — scope and content of the prior art, differences between the prior art and the claims, PHOSITA level, and secondary considerations — with the KSR gloss that a combination is obvious where (a) the references are from the same field or solve the same problem, (b) the combination is of elements known to perform the claimed function ("a predictable variation"), or (c) there was a "design need or market pressure" and a finite number of identified, predictable solutions. I use the issued claim text (per the drafting caution in the Patent summary section), not the pre‑grant publication.

PHOSITA: a degreed electrical engineer (or equivalent experience) with ~3–5 years in consumer mobile‑phone hardware and vehicle telematics, circa the 2001 priority date — comfortable with analog front‑ends, logic circuits, microcontrollers, and RF/IR/near‑field coupling.

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2. The four references — prior‑art status and verified disclosures

All four D‑references predate the 2001‑09‑25 priority date. Verified from the specification and confirmed against primary/aggregator records in this session:

Claim 8's emergency‑override feature has independent prior‑art support in the vehicle‑phone art: EP 0 342 049 / US 5,081,667 family (NEC, 1989) discloses an automobile telephone with an "emergency switch which manually produces an emergency switch signal" causing power‑on regardless of ignition/key state. This is supplementary (not one of the patent's D1–D4) and is flagged as such.

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3. What each claim element reads on, reference by reference

Independent claim 1 (seven elements) mapped to the art:

Net: D1/D2 supply the first condition; D3/D4 supply the second condition; D4 additionally supplies the near‑field, seat‑confined, inherently driver‑specific architecture that the patent's own specification holds out as the inventive advance. The only element that no cited reference expressly recites is the capacitive coupling in element (ii). Everything else is disclosed.

Independent claim 7 (microcontroller + binary signature + two control‑and‑switching power circuits + demodulation into the phone's own microcontroller):

• binary signature → D1's logic hi/lo; D3's modulated mode‑change information (binary data sequences);
• two control‑and‑switching circuits / power source control → routine vehicle‑interface design, illustrated by NEC's own ignition‑gated power circuits (EP 0 342 049 / EP 0 444 929) and the power‑gating in D1;
• microcontroller in the phone processing a demodulated signature → D3's control section 321 and D4's controller 12/19 (microcontroller‑driven).

Claim 7 therefore stands or falls with claim 1 on the coupling limitation; its remaining elements are, at 2001, standard microcontroller engineering.

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4. The three strongest § 103 combinations

Combination A (primary): D1 + D3 — and optionally D2

Render obvious: claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 7; strongly support 8.

• Why combine: Both references target the same problem — controlling mobile‑phone operation based on where/when the phone is. D1 discloses automatic mode control on a vehicle condition; D3 discloses automatic mode control on a restricted‑area condition, expressly naming airplanes (and family members naming hospitals, railroad cars, theaters‑analogous venues). A PHOSITA asked to build a regulator handling both of the patent's stated conditions has two references each already solving one half, from the same field, using the same architecture (a generator that emits a condition signal → a detector in the phone → a mode controller). Combining them is the paradigm KSR "predictable use of prior‑art elements according to their established functions." The result is a mere aggregation of two known regulatory functions — no new, unexpected synergy.
• The "polarity‑specific" element (i): A phone that must distinguish a vehicle condition from an area condition must encode them differently; D4 shows the two‑command (interrupt/release) convention and D1 shows hi/lo. Selecting opposite polarities for two conditions is a routine encoding choice.
• Element (iv) — "call terminated if an active phone is handed to the driver": This is the anti‑bypass refinement the patent itself characterizes as necessary because "even the use of hands‑free cellphones does not ensure complete safety" and the prior art suffers bypass problems (D2's DRIVE KEY can simply be ignored). D1's "interrupt mode" applied on the vehicle condition, combined with the patent's own statement of the problem to be solved, makes adding a positive call‑termination on the 1st condition an obvious design step. D4's seat‑confined interrupt inherently produces this effect for a phone handed into the driver's seat, supplying the functional teaching directly.
• Element (vii) / claim 4: D3 expressly switches off at least the RF parts under the protection signal — the second‑condition "switching off" function. Mapping claim 1's second condition (restricted area/aircraft) to D3 is direct.

Combination B: D4 + D3 (or D4 + D1) — the near‑field, driver‑specific architecture

Render obvious: claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

• D4 already teaches the structural idea the patent relies on: a coupling element placed at a specific seat, driver‑specific interruption, with a release field for passengers. D4's coupling is an electromagnetic (magnetic) field from coil generators. The patent's claim 1 requires the coupling to be capacitive. For § 103 the question is whether substituting capacitive (electric‑field/electrostatic) coupling for D4's inductive magnetic coupling is an obvious variation. It is, for three reasons grounded in the record:
  1. D4 and the patent solve the identical problem — confining the regulatory field to the driver so passengers are unaffected — and D4 uses a near‑field technique. Capacitive coupling is the other standard near‑field modality (it is the electric‑field dual of D4's magnetic coupling) and is the natural alternative a PHOSITA would consider when the reference's magnetic approach is criticized as complex and prone to ferromagnetic distortion.
  2. The applicant's own admission in the specification — that D3's sections [0042]–[0052] "attempt to cover the entire range of signal transmission techniques" — is a concession that the transmission‑mode space was known and broad before the priority date. Selecting one known mode from a canvassed set is the KSR "obvious to try" situation (finite, identified, predictable options).
  3. The stated motivation is supplied by the references themselves — avoiding RF health concerns (the applicant's stated reason) is the same concern D3's critics raise about Bluetooth at 2.4 GHz and that D4's continuous magnetic exposure raises. The references articulate the very rationale for moving to a low‑power near‑field signal.
• Claim 6 (central generator + seat foils + pressure‑actuated switches) is closely matched by D3's central transmitter + family members keyed to occupancy/movement, and by D4's per‑seat field generators; seat‑occupancy pressure switches are ubiquitous occupant‑detection hardware.

Combination C: D1 + D2 + D3 (+ D4) — keyboard‑lock/caller‑message and the microcontroller variant

Render obvious: claims 1, 3, 7, 8.

• D2 supplies the OK‑switch/keyboard lock (element iii) and the caller notification function, plus the anti‑bypass framing (DRIVE KEY misuse) that motivates the patent's handed‑off‑phone call termination.
• D1/D3 supply condition detection and mode control respectively; the micro‑controller signature of claim 7 is met by D3's control section and D4's controllers.

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5. Motivation‑to‑combine statement (consolidated)

A PHOSITA would have been motivated to combine D1 (or D2) with D3 and D4 because:

1. Same field / same problem: every reference addresses the danger or nuisance of uncontrolled mobile‑phone use, keyed to location (vehicle, airplane, hospital) or vehicle state.
2. Complementary, non‑overlapping solutions: D1/D2 handle the vehicle condition; D3/D4 handle the area condition. D3 explicitly identifies its own limitation — its area approach "would block not only the cell phones of drivers as well as passengers … but also … offices and residential buildings within the covered area" — which is an express incentive to combine with a driver‑specific vehicle solution (D1/D2/D4). That is a reference‑supplied rationale, satisfying even a strict TSM standard.
3. Predictable results / mere aggregation: combining a vehicle‑condition mode controller with an area‑condition mode controller yields a phone that does both, with each element performing its known function — no unexpected result.
4. Design need / market pressure: the specification itself recites proliferating local prohibitions on driving‑while‑phoning and the impracticability of enforcement — the classic "design need" driver recognized in KSR.
5. The coupling choice is a selection among known options: once D4 teaches a seat‑confined near‑field coupling to achieve driver specificity, the electric‑field (capacitive) variant is an obvious alternative to the magnetic‑field variant, particularly given the health/hazard criticisms the references themselves raise and the applicant's admission that the transmission‑technique space was fully canvassed.

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6. Dependent claims and claim 8

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7. Where the obviousness case is weakest (defenses the patentee would press)

I flag these candidly — a rigorous § 103 opinion should not overstate:

1. Capacitive coupling is nowhere express in D1–D4. All four use radiated (RF/IR/acoustic) or magnetic (inductive) coupling. The patentee's strongest nonobviousness argument is that no cited reference teaches or suggests capacitive coupling, and that D4 (the closest near‑field reference) commits to magnetic fields. The rebuttal is the KSR "known‑alternatives / obvious‑to‑try" line plus the § 0025‑type admission that D3 canvassed "the entire range of signal transmission techniques." Expect a genuine factual dispute here; a challenger would want an additional reference or textbook evidencing capacitive/proximity coupling in seat or hand‑held contexts to close it cleanly. I do not have such a reference confirmed in this session.
2. The two‑coupling architecture (an external foil‑to‑body coupling and an in‑phone film‑to‑antenna coupling) is a specific arrangement not shown as a combination in any single reference. It is arguably an obvious mechanical realization of near‑field coupling, but it is the element most likely to survive a motion.
3. Claim 1(iv) — the "handed‑off to the driver" automatic call termination is only inherently (D4) or functionally (D1 interrupt mode) met; no reference recites the hand‑off scenario. A patentee can argue this is a specific insight into a real bypass, not taught.
4. Teaching away on claim 8 (D3 disabling emergency calls in sensitive areas).

None of these defeats a well‑constructed combination; items 1 and 3 are the live battlegrounds.

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8. Secondary considerations / objective indicia

No evidence of record supports nexus‑bearing objective indicia. The "health‑hazard‑free / low‑frequency" advantage the applicant touts is a design choice shared by other near‑field approaches and is undercut by the same consideration appearing in D3 and D4 — it does not rise to unexpected results. There is no commercial‑success, licensing, or industry‑praise record (consistent with the "Individual," unasserted, expired posture documented in the Litigation/PTAB/Strategic sections). Absent objective indicia, the KSR combination analysis controls.

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9. Bottom line

• Strongest, cleanest attack: D1 + D3, optionally + D2 — renders claims 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 obvious as a predictable combination of two same‑field condition‑responsive phone‑mode controllers; D2 reinforces elements (iii) and the anti‑bypass motivation.
• Add D4 (+ D2/D3) to reach the near‑field, driver‑specific architecture and the "phone moved into the driver zone" behavior — renders claim 6 and strengthens the element (iv)/(v) showing. The capacitive substitution is the pivot and rests on KSR "obvious to try" plus the applicant's own admission that the transmission‑technique space was fully canvassed.
• Likely to survive a § 103 challenge more often: the specific two‑capacitive‑coupling arrangement (claim 1(ii) + claim 2) and the hand‑off auto‑call‑end (claim 1(iv)); claim 8 is defensible for the second condition on a teaching‑away theory but obvious for the vehicle context.
• Contextual note: all of this is an ex‑ante merits question. Per the Strategic summary section, the patent is expired (2022‑09‑23) and no claim has ever been adjudicated, so the practical relevance of the § 103 analysis is defensive/historical, not a live invalidity dispute.

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7181229/en (specification, claims, D1–D4 descriptions); https://jglobal.jst.go.jp/detail?JGLOBAL_ID=200903021067514362 (JP 11‑168767 A abstract/claims); https://patents.google.com/patent/EP1035746A1/en and http://data.epo.org/gpi/EP1035746A1 (D3); http://data.epo.org/gpi/EP0880296A1 and https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/21/9f/2b/d0b578ed767f97/US6122486.pdf (D4 / US 6,122,486); https://patents.google.com/patent/US20040198306#3 (applicant's own admissions re: D2/D3/D4); EP 0 342 049 / EP 0 444 929 family (NEC automobile‑telephone emergency switch — supplementary).

Caveats: D2's full text was reviewed via the specification's description and general art knowledge rather than a primary full‑text fetch in this session; the capacitive‑coupling rejection rests on legal argument (KSR) rather than an express documentary disclosure, as stated in § 7.