US 7397496

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent, including any 2026 litigation activity.

Let me run additional targeted searches.

US Patent 7,397,496 — Summary

Search caveat (stated up front): I located no Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket, appeal, or PTAB proceeding naming patent 7,397,496 specifically. Searches for a CAFC/IPR match returned either empty results or unrelated hits (e.g., a Brazilian municipal publication number "7397496" — a false positive from the digits alone). Treat any statement below about ongoing litigation as not confirmed for this exact patent number.

Bibliographic Data (from the authoritative patent text)

Note on title: The record is internally inconsistent. The patent header and family listings use the "recovering evidence of extrinsic wrongful acts" title, while the abstract, specification, drawings summary, and the related publication title all read "Total perimeter view auto security monitoring system." I am reporting both literally rather than harmonizing them.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A total perimeter view auto security monitoring system which includes a pair of fixed viewing lenses at each corner of a vehicle, a central digital camera receiving optical data from all corners of the vehicle, a multiplexer to separate the data channels in real time, and a hard disc drive for recording the data."

Independent Claim — Plain-Language Overview

The patent has 6 claims total, with a single independent claim (claim 1). Claims 2–6 depend from it.

Claim 1 — a full-perimeter vehicle recording system. In plain terms, it covers:

1. A vehicle body with front and rear corners (limit: no particular corner design required).
2. Four sets of digital camera apparatus, one fixedly mounted at each corner.
3. A pair of viewing lenses per corner set, fixed with their major viewing axes lying in a horizontal plane and generally perpendicular to each other (i.e., ~90° apart), each corner capable of viewing at least about a quarter of a circle, such that collectively all four sets give a redundant view around the entire vehicle perimeter. The redundancy element is expressly recited, not incidental.
4. A central digital recording medium comprising a hard disc drive with a plurality of separate tracks, providing a "complete record" of the perimeter views.
5. A digital camera receiving optical data from all four corner camera sets.
6. Cable means feeding optical data from all eight viewing lenses to the digital camera on a continuous and concurrent basis.
7. A time multiplexer associated with the cable means and digital camera, sequentially dividing the outputs from the camera apparatus for recordation into separate tracks of the hard disc drive.
8. Wherein the recording medium plus time multiplexer is operable to record the outputs of the eight viewing lenses in separate node files on separate tracks of the hard disc.

Practical scope read: Claim 1 is a system claim tying together (a) corner-mounted, perpendicularly-arranged lens pairs giving redundant 360° coverage, (b) a single central digital camera, (c) continuous concurrent multi-lens feeding, and (d) a time-multiplexed hard-drive recorder writing eight separate track/node files. The "wherein" clause makes the eight-track-per-lens recording an element of the claim, not merely a description of a preferred mode.

Dependent claims (for context):

• Claim 2 — adds a per-corner housing with a transparent wall, lenses positioned inside it.
• Claim 3 — the two lenses at each corner have viewing axes separated by somewhat more than ninety degrees (claimed as the preferred redundancy/coverage margin).
• Claim 4 — the multiplexer records actual time while switching the camera input.
• Claim 5 — a battery that continuously energizes the recording medium and all lenses whether or not the engine is running, and that cannot be disconnected except under operator control.
• Claim 6 — disc drive supported in the vehicle trunk; switch for energizing camera apparatus, multiplexer and drive; normally closed both when running and when parked; operable only under driver control.

Family / Related Filings (relevant to scope and enforcement)

This patent is the original in a chain claiming the same 2004-04-15 priority:

• US 11/980,866 → US 7,679,497 B1 ("Recovering legal evidence of unfavorable events or conditions during vehicle operations") — listed as a continuation-in-part.
• US 12/661,217 → US 8,319,619 B2 ("Stored vision for automobiles").
• US 13/683,030 → US 2013/0100289 A1 ("Automotive stored vision system").

Litigation note (family-level only): Public docket records show Peregrine Data LLC (described in third-party sources as an NPE) asserting US 8,319,619 — not 7,397,496 — against Solera Holdings (3:24-cv-03103, N.D. Tex.), Lytx, SmartDrive Systems, Netradyne (1:25-cv-01179, D. Del.), Motive Technologies (1:25-cv-01180, D. Del. — voluntarily dismissed 2026-04-20), Garmin (S.D. Fla., dismissed with prejudice April 2025), and Brigade Electronics. Google Patents likewise lists a 2025 assignment of 7,397,496 to Peregrine Data LLC effective 2024-01-18, suggesting it is part of the same portfolio, but I found no docket naming 7,397,496 as an asserted patent, and no CAFC 2026 appeal.

Uncertainty Statement

• Authoritative (from the full patent text): all bibliographic fields, the abstract, all six claims, and the family relationships.
• Not confirmed / lower confidence: (i) whether 7,397,496 itself has been asserted in any 2025–2026 suit; (ii) any CAFC 2026 activity — my searches produced no matching docket; (iii) third-party characterizations of the current owner as an NPE come from Unified Patents/aggregator pages rather than court findings.
• One search returned a false-positive hit on the string "7397496" (a Rio do Sul, Brazil municipal publication number) — irrelevant, and flagged here so it is not mistaken for the patent.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 7397496 across patent litigation sources.

Let me refine my searches for litigation involving this specific patent and its owner.

Let me search patent litigation databases specifically for cases asserting the '496 patent.

Litigation search results for US Patent 7,397,496

Bottom line: My searches did not surface a case that explicitly identifies US 7,397,496 as the patent-in-suit. I want to be precise about this rather than pad the list with near-miss numbers (which you specifically warned against). What I did find is a live litigation campaign by the patent's current owner, Peregrine Data LLC, asserting patents in the same family (same priority date and same inventor, Kenneth Eugene Arant). Below I separate confirmed facts from the parts I could not verify.

1. Status of the patent itself (verified)

Family members sharing the '496 priority date: US 7,679,497 (CIP), US 8,319,619 (continuation), and US 2013/0100289. This matters because any campaign against the family will likely involve those siblings as much as, or more than, the '496 itself.

2. Cases identified — with the caveat on which patent is asserted

The following are all Peregrine Data LLC cases in the relevant 2024–2026 window. ⚠️ For the one case where I obtained a detailed complaint analysis (Solera), the patent actually pleaded was US 8,319,619 ("Stored vision for automobiles"), not the '496. I could not confirm from the retrieved sources which specific patent(s) each other complaint asserts. Treat patent identity in the rows below as unverified unless noted.

Counsel of record commonly appearing for Peregrine Data: Isaac Philip Rabicoff / Benjamin C. Deming (Rabicoff Law LLC); DNL Zito. Counsel for Motive: Andrew Colin Mayo (Ashby & Geddes); Michael J. Zinna and Vincent M. Ferraro (pro hac vice); Brian E. Lutness (Silverman, McDonald & Friedman).

3. What I could NOT confirm

• No case was found pleading US 7,397,496 by number. The one complaint analysis I retrieved (Solera) expressly identifies the '619 patent.
• No IPR, PGR, or other PTAB proceeding on the '496 was found. (I did encounter an IPR concerning a different patent referred to as "the '749 patent," with Apple Inc. and Microsoft as petitioners and Jahagirdar/Schultz as prior art, and a statement that "Patent Owner currently asserts the '749 patent in four other lawsuits." That is not US 7,397,496 — I am not auto-correcting it, and I flag it so it isn't mistaken for this patent.)
• No earlier litigation (2004–2023) by Arant or his family assignees asserting the '496 was surfaced.
• I was unable to open the Unified Patents litigation case list or RPX docket pages directly for a patent-number-filtered view, because my search session terminated before those queries completed. That is the single best remaining source to confirm or rule out '496-specific suits.

4. Recommended verification steps

Because the retrieved sources are docket-aggregator summaries rather than the complaints themselves, I'd confirm before relying on any row above:

1. PACER — pull each complaint (Docs. 1 and Exhibit lists) and the AO‑120 form to see the patent number pleaded.
2. Unified Patents Portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist) and RPX Insight — filter by patent 7397496.
3. patents.google.com/patent/US7397496 "Cited By / litigation" and the USPTO assignment reel 070139/0611 to confirm which patents transferred to Peregrine Data.

Summary

• Known litigation specifically asserting US 7,397,496: none confirmed.
• The '496 is owned by Peregrine Data LLC, which is actively litigating the Arant vehicular-camera patent family (at least six cases in 2024–2026). One confirmed case (Solera) asserts the sibling '619 patent; the asserted patent in the others is unverified.
• If your task requires "is the '496 being asserted," my honest answer is: I cannot confirm it from the sources retrieved, and the best evidence I have points to sibling patents ('619, '497), not the '496. Do not report these cases as '496 suits without checking the complaints.

I'll verify the structured data with targeted web searches before writing anything down.

The first hit references a different '749 patent (it challenges claims 1, 2, 5–7, 14, 15, 21, 23 — US7397496 has only 6 claims). Let me pin down whether any proceeding actually targets this patent.

Litigation is active (Peregrine Data asserting family patents), but I haven't yet found any IPR against the '496 patent itself. Let me search the PTAB side and the family.

Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file for US 7,397,496: 0. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM involving this patent — no active proceedings, no institution denials, no FWDs, no settlements, no appeals. My independent web searches did not surface any proceeding the ODP might have missed (see "Number-collision warnings" below for the lookalikes that pollute a "749" search).

Bottom-line defensive posture for a defendant today: this is not a "hardened" patent in the IPR sense — it is an untested patent. Nobody has ever asked the Board to construe these claims, so there is zero § 315(e)(2) estoppel on any party and no PTAB precedent tying the patent owner's hands on claim scope. The countervailing facts are (a) the patent is pre-AIA (effective filing 2004-07-09), so PGR is unavailable by statute and CBM is a poor fit for a vehicle-perimeter camera system; and (b) the structured data lists an "Adjusted expiration" of 2026-08-15, which has already passed as of today (2026-09-30) — meaning the term may have lapsed and the practical window for any AIA challenge has likely closed. Verify the term in USPTO Patent Center/EPAS before relying on this.

Proceedings

There are no proceedings to report. The template sections below are therefore populated with what is verifiable and with the two false positives a careless search will hand you.

(none) — no petitioner, no patent owner adverary at the Board

• Type: n/a — no Inter Partes Review, Post-Grant Review, or Covered Business Method review on file against US 7,397,496.
• Filed: n/a
• Status: n/a — the ODP block reports the absence affirmatively, and the Google Patents structured data for the '496 patent (fetched 2026-09-24) likewise shows no PTAB section, only a "Cited By" list and citation list. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7397496/en
• Judge panel: n/a
• Petition grounds: n/a
• Institution decision: n/a
• Final Written Decision: n/a — no claim of US 7,397,496 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the PTAB. Claim 1 and dependent claims 2–6 are all UNTESTED.
• Settlement / termination: n/a
• Appeal: n/a — there is no FWD to appeal, so no CAFC docket exists for this patent.
• Defensive value: The absence cuts both ways. You get a clean slate (no estoppel, no adverse claim constructions binding you in a later IPR), but you also get no free kill. Your defense must be built in district court or via ex parte reexamination — and you should check the term/expiration first.

Number-collision warnings (verify before you cite anything)

These are different patents that a "749"/"739" keyword search will surface. Do not import their outcomes onto US 7,397,496:

1. A different "749" patent was challenged in an IPR petition whose challenged claims are 1, 2, 5–7, 14, 15, 21, and 23 — nine claims, on obviousness under § 103(a) over Jahagirdar (US 6,125,286) in view of Schultz (US 4,053,789), with a declaration by Dr. Mark Horenstein, filed by Baker & Hostetler. That patent has at least 23 claims; US 7,397,496 has only 6 claims (1 independent). Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1462072](/patent/1462072)/download-documents
2. A different "739" patent (a heart-valve patent asserted by Colibri Heart Valve against Medtronic; IPR2020-01649 and a parallel Medtronic IPR, both instituted March 2021) also pops on these searches. Sources: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1547234](/patent/1547234)/download-documents

Strategic summary

Claim status. All six claims of US 7,397,496 — independent claim 1 and dependents 2–6 — are UNTESTED. Nothing is CANCELED; nothing is SUSTAINED by the Board. The only externally imposed narrowing is prosecution-history-based (e.g., the "generally perpendicular relation," "at least about a quarter of a circle," and "eight viewing lenses / eight tracks" limitations in claim 1). For the record, claim 1 requires four corner-mounted pairs of lenses (eight total), a central digital camera, continuous and concurrent cable feed of all eight lens outputs, a time multiplexer, and a hard disc drive with a plurality of separate tracks recording the eight lens outputs in separate node files — that is a fairly narrow, hardware-heavy combination, and it is the claim a defendant would have to attack on § 103.

Estoppel landscape. Because no IPR or PGR was ever filed by anyone, § 315(e)(2) and § 325(e)(2) estoppel is a non-issue: no petitioner, real party in interest, or privy is barred from any ground. Conversely, if you are a defendant who was served with a complaint alleging infringement of the '496 patent more than one year ago, the § 315(b) time bar will block you from filing your own IPR now — check your service date before assuming an IPR is available. If you are newly served, the § 315(b) clock is running.

Pattern signals. Current assignee is Peregrine Data LLC (assignment recorded 2025-02-07, effective 2024-01-18, from inventor Kenneth E. Arant). There is no defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents, RPX) in the chain, and no petitioner has filed multiple IPRs against this patent. Peregrine is an active monetizer of this family — the family includes US 7,679,497 (CIP, filed 2007-10-30), US 8,319,619 ("Stored vision for automobiles," filed 2010-03-12), and US 2013/0100289 A1 (filed 2012-11-21). District-court activity I could confirm includes: Peregrine Data LLC v. Solera Holdings LLC, No. 3:24-cv-03103 (N.D. Tex., filed 2024-12-12; transferred to the Fort Worth Division as 4:24-cv-01251-O); Peregrine Data LLC v. [Garmin International, Inc.](/litigations/by-defendant/Garmin%20International%2C%20Inc.), No. 0:25-cv-60318 (S.D. Fla., filed 2025-02-18; voluntarily dismissed with prejudice 2025-04-16, with Garmin having filed invalidity counterclaims on 2025-03-25); Peregrine Data LLC v. Brigade Electronics, No. 2:25-cv-00508 (E.D. Tex., filed 2025-05-07); Peregrine Data LLC v. SmartDrive Systems, Inc., No. 4:25-cv-00516 (N.D. Tex., filed 2025-05-15); and Peregrine Data LLC v. Motive Technologies, Inc., No. 1:25-cv-01180 (D. Del., filed 2025-09-22; voluntarily dismissed 2026-04-17/20). Caution: the D. Del. docket identifies Patent No. 8,319,619 — the child patent, not the '496 — so do not assume the '496 is in every one of these suits; I could not confirm from the dockets which complaints specifically assert US 7,397,496. Sources: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/florida/flsdce/0:2025cv60318/[684116](/patent/684116), https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txndce/4:2025cv00516/[404211](/patent/404211), https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txedce/2:2025cv00508/[237765](/patent/237765), https://unicourt.com/case/pc-db5-casegu8bc68188e8a8-[1986255](/patent/1986255), https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/60284240/Peregrine_Data_LLC_v_Motive_Technologies,_Inc

Why no IPR? Three plausible reasons, any of which should shape your strategy: (1) the patent's listed adjusted expiration (2026-08-15) makes IPR economics unattractive relative to a district-court invalidity defense; (2) accused defendants are large, well-counseled operating companies (Garmin, SmartDrive, Motive, Brigade, Solera) whose incentive is a stay + reexam/IPR posture only if the term justifies it; (3) the asserted claims in the campaign may predominantly be the child patents, which carry later expirations and have themselves attracted no AIA filings either.

Recommended next steps

1. First, confirm the term — it may end the case. The structured data lists "Adjusted expiration 2026-08-15," which is already in the past relative to today (2026-09-30). If correct, US 7,397,496 has expired; only pre-expiration conduct within the § 286 six-year lookback is even theoretically recoverable, and an expired claim cannot support injunctive relief. Confirm via USPTO Patent Center and the Patent Term Adjustment statement on the face of the patent (https://patentcenter.uspto.gov).
2. If the patent is expired, do not build your defense around an IPR. The Board can institute on expired patents, but the patent owner cannot amend, Phillips claim construction applies, and the practical payoff is small. Argue the term and the § 286 window instead, and consider a merits/§ 112 or § 103 summary-judgment track.
3. If the patent is somehow still in force and you are within a year of service, an IPR is wide open. Double-check the ODP before filing, but as of that ingest no one has ever petitioned. Search PTAB E2E / the PTAB API (https://developer.uspto.gov/ptab-api, https://ptab.uspto.gov) for "7,397,496" and its family (7,679,497; 8,319,619) before you draft; if the family is clean, you have a first-mover advantage with no § 315(e) estoppel against you and no adverse Board constructions to work around.
4. Serve a Sotera-type stipulation if you do file an IPR and want to blunt a Fintiv-style discretionary-denial argument under the current (post-2025) workload-management practice.
5. Treat "no PTAB activity" as a fact, not a conclusion. The absence is real per the canonical ODP dataset, but ODP ingest lags; re-run the search in PTAB E2E and PACER/Delaware/N.D. Tex./E.D. Tex. dockets before relying on the "zero proceedings" finding in a brief. Do not cite proceedings on the other '749/'739 patents described above as if they applied here.

Confidence/limitations. High confidence on the core finding: no AIA trial proceeding on US 7,397,496 appears in the ODP structured data, and my web searches found none. Lower confidence on the exact expiration date and on which Peregrine complaints assert the '496 specifically — both need documentary confirmation. I found no Federal Circuit appeal, no settlement agreement, no judgment panel, and no FWD for this patent, and I am not asserting the existence of any.

I'll research the assignment record and asserter-directory coverage before writing the reconstruction. Let me run targeted searches.

Good — I have NPE-source material. Let me dig into the assignment record specifics and the Zautner connection.

Let me nail down the correspondent-of-record and the Zautner entity network.

I have enough to reconstruct the chain. Note upfront: the Google Patents legal-events record (my primary mirror of the USPTO assignment data) exposes reel/frame, conveyance, assignor, assignee, and dates, but does NOT expose the correspondent-of-record field. I could not retrieve the correspondent names from my available sources, and I will not invent them. That gap is flagged explicitly below with the exact lookup you'd run to close it.

Inventors

Unusual pattern worth flagging (in place of the standard inventor-departure tell): the inventor did not assign to an employer at filing, but later moved the asset within his own family twice — outward to two relatives in 2010 (reel 024120/0355) and back to himself in 2014 (reel 032313/0273) — before selling to an NPE in 2024/2025. A two-way intra-family round trip followed years later by a sale to a litigating LLC is a monetization-prep pattern, not a normal corporate chain of title.

Original assignee

• Entity on the issued patent: Individual — Kenneth E. Arant (sole inventor-owner). The front page lists "Original Assignee: Individual."
• Primary line of business: none — the original owner was a natural person, not an operating company. There is no corporate maker, no product line, and no SEC-reporting entity anywhere in the chain.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? No evidence of one. A third-party sale listing for this exact patent states "No manufacturer offers any OEM surveillance system" and markets the patent as an unbuilt concept — consistent with a never-commercialized invention (see the sale listing at patentauction.com, US 7397496, asking price USD 1,000,000, page generated 2026-02-14).
• Current status: the individual inventor is no longer the owner; he conveyed the rights to Peregrine Data LLC by the 2024-01-18-executed assignment. I found no bankruptcy, dissolution, or death record for the inventor in the sources consulted.

Assignment timeline

Three post-issuance assignments are recorded. (Prosecution events — 2004-07-09 filing, 2005-10-20 pre-grant publication, 2008-07-08 grant, and the 2004-04-15 provisional priority — are not assignments and are omitted from the "conveyance" list but shown in the diagram.)

• 2010-03-15 (executed) / recorded 2010-03-22 — Reel 024120/0355

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Arant, Kenneth E.
  • Assignee: Arant, Grue W. + Arant, Juanita F. (address of record: California)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in the data I could retrieve (Google Patents legal-events mirror omits the correspondent field). ⚠️ Correspondent for this reel/frame must be pulled directly from Assignment Center — see note below.
  • Context: intra-family transfer from the inventor to two individuals sharing his surname (likely relatives); consistent with asset/estate planning or shielding, not a sale for value to a stranger.

• 2014-02-10 (executed) / recorded 2014-02-27 — Reel 032313/0273

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Arant, Gene W.; Arant, Juanita F.
  • Assignee: Arant, Kenneth Eugene (address of record: California)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in retrievable data ⚠️
  • Context: reversal / internal reorg — the same individuals who received the 2010 transfer conveyed it back to the inventor, reconcentrating title in a single natural person four years later. Note the assignor first name shifted from "Grue W." (2010) to "Gene W." (2014) in the records as indexed — reported literally, not harmonized.

• 2024-01-18 (executed) / recorded 2025-02-07 — Reel 070139/0611

  • Conveyance: Assignment ("ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNOR'S INTEREST")
  • Assignor: Arant, Kenneth E.
  • Assignee: Peregrine Data LLC (New Mexico)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in retrievable data ⚠️
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter — sale out of the family and the inventor's sole name into a New Mexico LLC that is not an operating company. Recording came ~13 months after execution and ~3.5 months after the first Peregrine suits were filed (see signals below).

Where I could not verify (state plainly): Assignment Center's per-record correspondent-of-record field was not available through my sources. If you need the correspondent names to run the "same lawyer behind the shell" test, retrieve reels 024120/0355, 032313/0273, and 070139/0611 individually at https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search "7397496"), which returns the recording attorney/firm for each. I am not substituting litigation counsel for this field — see the caution in Signal 3.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 7397496
    2004 : Provisional filed by K Arant
         : Nonprovisional filed Jul 2004
    2008 : Patent 7397496 issued
    2010 : Assigned to Grue and Juanita Arant
    2014 : Reassigned to Kenneth Eugene Arant
    2024 : Executed sale to Peregrine Data LLC
         : First Peregrine suits filed
    2025 : Peregrine assignment recorded
    2026 : Peregrine sues Detroit Diesel

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Reel 070139/0611 (executed 2024-01-18, recorded 2025-02-07): the patent moves from an individual inventor to Peregrine Data LLC, New Mexico. Concrete supporting evidence beyond the name: (a) Peregrine Data LLC's Rule 7.1 disclosure statement in litigation reads "No Parents or Affiliates Listed" (e.g., 1:25-cv-01179, D. Del., entered 2025-09-22/23); (b) there is no product evidence for the entity, only patents-in-suit; (c) the same LLC is publicly characterized by Unified Patents as "an NPE and entity of Eric Zautner" (Unified PATROLL contest, Dec 2024; prior-art-found post, 2025-03-29). New Mexico is an anomalous venue for a vehicle-surveillance business and is consistent with a single-purpose holding LLC.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
Current assignee Peregrine Data LLC appears on Unified Patents' NPE/PATROLL listings as an Eric Zautner entity. It does not match the legacy named-asserter list in your prompt (Acacia, Marathon, IV, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, etc.), so the match is to the Unified Patents / aggregator directory, not to the classic roll-up funds. Precision caveat: Unified's listings name US 8,319,619 (the child of this patent) as the universe challenged/asserted — not 7,397,496. The linkage of the NPE to this patent is via the same assignee (reel 070139/0611), not via a directory entry naming 7,397,496.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR (cannot call).
The correspondent-of-record field is not retrievable in my sources for any of the three reels, so I cannot test recurrence. Do not infer from the litigation bar: plaintiff's counsel of record — DNL Zito and Rabicoff Law LLC (Peregrine v. Solera, 3:24-cv-03103, N.D. Tex.) and Antranig N. Garibian (Peregrine v. Lytx, 1:24-cv-01177, D. Del.) — are litigation counsel, a different role from the recording correspondent sought here. Marked unclear pending a direct Assignment Center pull.

4. Cascading transfers (<24 months through chained LLCs) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain is 2010 → 2014 → 2024/2025; there is no cluster of LLC-to-LLC assignments within 24 months. The final hop to Peregrine is a single transfer, not a cascade.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (with a timing nuance).
The transfer to the asserter was executed 2024-01-18, and Peregrine's first suits followed in late 2024 — Peregrine v. Lytx, 1:24-cv-01177 (D. Del., filed 2024-10-22) and Peregrine v. Solera, 3:24-cv-03103 (N.D. Tex., filed 2024-12-12). The ~9-month execution-to-first-suit interval is just outside the strict <6-month window, so I am not calling the textbook version; however, the recording (2025-02-07) postdates both filings, meaning the chain was put in motion immediately around the assertion campaign. Patent specificity caveat: the 2024 suits name US 8,319,619, not 7,397,496 — the pre-litigation-timing signal is established at family/assignee level, not by a docket naming this patent.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT / no evidence.
I found no Chapter 7/11 proceeding, no SEC filing, and no judicial-sale record for any assignor. The 2010→2014 family round trip has the shape of estate/asset planning but I have no bankruptcy documentation, so it is not scored. (Absence of evidence, stated as such.)

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
Privateering requires an operating company transferring to an NPE that asserts on its behalf. Here the original owner was a natural person, not an operating company; there is no operating-company parent to benefit. Structurally inapplicable.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at Peregrine Data LLC, an active plaintiff (Peregrine v. Lytx; v. Solera; v. Netradyne, 1:25-cv-01179; v. Garmin, 0:25-cv-60317/60318, S.D. Fla.; v. Detroit Diesel, 1:26-cv-01036). It did not end at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN. No neutralization.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two independent strong signals land on the current record. First, a shell-entity transfer: reel 070139/0611 (executed 2024-01-18, recorded 2025-02-07) moves the patent from individual inventor Kenneth E. Arant to Peregrine Data LLC (New Mexico), an entity whose litigation Rule 7.1 statement confirms "No Parents or Affiliates Listed" and which has no product. Second, a known asserter: the assignee is publicly identified by Unified Patents as an NPE and entity of Eric Zautner, and it runs an active multi-defendant campaign (Lytx 2024-10-22; Solera 2024-12-12; Netradyne, Garmin, and Detroit Diesel through 2026). The pre-litigation timing of the assignment (Signal 5) reinforces both, though the covered suits name the child patent 8,319,619 rather than 7,397,496 itself.

Honest limits: (i) the correspondent-of-record on all three reels is unverified in my sources — the repeat-counsel test (Signal 3) is unresolved; (ii) 7,397,496 is not confirmed as a patent asserted in any filed suit — the assertion evidence is family-level via the shared assignee; (iii) no CAFC 2026 appeal naming 7,397,496 was found. Verify the reel/frame and correspondent entries at USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search "7397496") and https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/.

I'll research the specific patent and its cited prior art before writing. Let me run targeted searches.

Let me gather details on the remaining key cited references.

Prior-Art Analysis — US Patent 7,397,496 B2

Patent under analysis (confirmed): US 7,397,496 B2, "Apparatus system for recovering evidence of extrinsic wrongful acts in vehicular incidents," App. No. 10/886,739, filed 2004‑07‑09, earliest priority 2004‑04‑15 (provisional 60/562,190), granted 2008‑07‑08, inventor Kenneth Eugene Arant. Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7397496/en

Search-scope note (read first): I was asked to search the USPTO database for "7397496" specifically. My tools returned the Google Patents record for US7397496B2, which mirrors the USPTO front page; I did not obtain a separate USPTO-PatentCenter-restricted hit, and I am not reporting results for any neighboring number (e.g., the unrelated "749" IPRs noted in the earlier sections). The 34 references below are the citations of record appearing on the '496 as fetched from the authoritative patent text. I am treating the patent text as controlling where search results conflict.

Important correction to watch for: the patent's citation table labels one column "priority date" and another "publication date." Below I report both literally for each reference (priority/filing → publication). I do not normalize "Grue W."/"Gene W."-style inconsistencies or typographic errors in the original.

Timing framework (pre‑AIA, because effective filing is 2004):

• A reference published before 2003‑04‑15/2003‑07‑09 is §102(b) art (more than one year before the priority/filing date).
• A reference published before 2004‑04‑15/2004‑07‑09 but within one year is §102(a).
• A U.S. patent/application publication filed before the '496 priority/filing date but published later is §102(e) art.
• Anything filed after 2004‑07‑09 is not §102(a)/(b)/(e) art against this patent.

1. The most relevant prior art (bottom line)

Claim 1 is a narrow, hardware-heavy combination: four corner-mounted pairs of lenses (eight total), perpendicular within each pair, redundant 360° coverage, one central digital camera, continuous/concurrent cable feed of all eight lens outputs, a time multiplexer, and a hard-disc drive with separate tracks recording eight separate node files. Dependent claims 2–6 add: a transparent-wall corner housing (2), >90° axis separation (3), concurrent time recording (4), a non-disconnectable always-on battery (5), and a trunk-mounted drive with a normally-closed driver-controlled switch (6).

No single cited reference discloses all elements of claim 1, and therefore none is a clean §102 anticipation of claim 1 (or of any dependent claim, since each incorporates claim 1). The citation set is overwhelmingly §103 obviousness material. The references that matter most, ranked:

A note on a related reference that is NOT among the 34 citations: US 5,793,420 (Schmidt, filed 1996‑02‑20, claiming 1994‑10‑28 priority) discloses four cameras, motion detectors, and a system where power is continually supplied from the vehicle battery — directly on point for claim 5 and claim 6's power concept. It is a same-inventor sibling of cited US 5,570,127. Because it was not cited on the '496, I flag it separately rather than counting it in the citation list. Source: https://patents.searchlight.law/doc/US5793420

2. Full citation-by-citation analysis (all 34 references of record)

Columns: Citation / date(s) → Description → Potential §102 read (claim mapping). "Priority → Pub." = priority/filing date → publication/grant date as listed.

3. §102 mapping — summary and honest limits

Anticipation (single-reference §102): none established.
For every claim 1–6, the claim on its face requires the full claim‑1 combination. No cited reference discloses four corner-mounted pairs of lenses (eight total) with perpendicular axes within each pair, feeding a single central digital camera over cable means, through a time multiplexer, into a hard disc drive with a plurality of separate tracks that records eight separate node files. The cited art instead shows: central single-housing 360° cameras (Mazzilli), concealed cameras in lights (Steed), side/rear camera sets with a video multiplexer feeding a VCR (Lee; Schmidt), and generic surrounding-monitoring systems. The recording media in the art are predominantly VCRs/tape or generic recorders, not an eight-track hard-disc node-file architecture.

Where §102 "potentially anticipates" can be said to apply at all, it is only to the extent a given reference maps onto individual limitations, not entire claims:

• Claim 1(b)/(c) (perimeter camera coverage): US 6,333,759; US 5,680,123; US 6,151,065; WO 1999/037503; US 5,289,321; US 5,646,614.
• Claim 1(d)/(g)/(h) (multiplexed multi-track recording): US 3,539,712; US 5,497,419; US 6,333,759 (multiplexer/recorder).
• Claim 1(e)/(f) (central camera + cable feed): US 5,570,127; US 5,680,123; US 6,151,065; US 6,333,759.
• Claim 2 (transparent-wall corner housing): US 6,151,065; US 6,583,730.
• Claim 3 (axes separated by somewhat more than 90°): US 6,333,759 (cameras spaced 90°) — but that is 90°, not "somewhat more than" 90°, so this is §103 material, not strict anticipation.
• Claim 4 (record actual time): US 5,497,419; US 6,333,759 ("records with time and date").
• Claim 5 (always-on battery, not disconnectable except by operator): US 5,570,127 / US 5,793,420 (continuous vehicle-battery supply).
• Claim 6 (trunk-mounted drive; normally-closed driver-controlled switch): US 6,333,759 (recorder in trunk/glove box).

The realistic attack is §103. The strongest combination is US 6,333,759 (Mazzilli) as primary, alone or in view of US 5,680,123 (Lee) and/or US 5,570,127 (Schmidt) for camera-bank + multiplexer + recorder, further in view of US 3,539,712 and/or US 5,497,419 for separate-track/time-stamped recording. Whether that yields an obviousness conclusion turns on the "eight lenses / four corner pairs" and "hard disc with separate node files per lens" limitations, which no cited reference squarely teaches.

4. Caveats and flags (per the strict rules)

1. Do not auto-correct numbers. All 34 numbers/dates above are transcribed literally from the '496 citation table. I did not substitute any neighbor (e.g., "749"/"739") references from search noise.
2. US 7,227,611 B2 is not prior art to this patent (filed 2004‑08‑23, after the '496's 2004‑07‑09 filing). Treat its presence on the front page as background citation only.
3. §102(e) references (items 10, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33) were filed before the '496's priority date but published/granted later; their availability depends on the '496's ability to claim the 2004‑04‑15 provisional benefit for the relevant claim language — which I could not verify from the text alone.
4. Related-but-uncited art: US 5,793,420 (Schmidt) and DE 19801884 A1 (the priority document behind WO 1999/037503) are highly on-point but are not in the '496's citation list; I flag them as independent references, not as citations of record.
5. No proceeding or litigation finding is imported here. As noted in the earlier sections, no IPR/PGR names this patent, and I did not confirm any suit asserting the '496 specifically.
6. Limits of this analysis: descriptions for items 14, 17, 19–34 are derived primarily from their titles and assignees as listed in the '496 record, supplemented by search results only where retrieved (items 4, 8, 9, 11, 16). Full-text verification against each reference's specification would be required before asserting any specific §103 combination in a filing.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art references cited on the face of US 7,397,496. Let me pull details on the key references.

Let me pull details on the multi-lens and corner-camera references, plus the in-vehicle recording references.

Obviousness Analysis — US 7,397,496 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Building on the prior sections: the claim-by-claim breakdown, the identity of the six claims, the priority chain, and the defensive posture were established above and are not repeated. This section takes the 34 references cited on the face of the patent (the "Prior Art" section) and tests them against the claim elements. All cited references are pre-AIA art (the '496 has an effective filing date of 2004-07-09 and a 2004-04-15 provisional priority), so pre-AIA § 103 applies with Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and the KSR Int'l v. Teleflex, 550 U.S. 398 (2007), "expansive and flexible" obviousness inquiry. All quotes below are drawn from the sources retrieved, cited inline.

1. Level of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA)

A POSITA here would be an engineer with a bachelor's degree in electrical/computer engineering (or equivalent) and roughly 2–5 years' experience in vehicle electronics, automotive vision/ADAS, or video-surveillance/CCTV recording systems, familiar with: (a) mounting cameras on vehicles to eliminate blind spots; (b) CCD/CMOS digital cameras; (c) video multiplexers and multi-channel recorders (VCR and hard-disc DVR); and (d) the electrical architecture tying cameras, power, and a recorder together. This is the level a defendant's expert would likely offer, and it deliberately includes both the automotive-camera and the video-surveillance recording skill sets — because claim 1 sits at their intersection.

2. The claim elements that matter (recap, without re-deriving)

Per the earlier breakdown, claim 1 requires, in substance: (a) a vehicle with front/rear corners; (b) four corner-mounted digital camera sets; (c) a pair of lenses per corner, axes horizontal and generally perpendicular (~90°), each covering ≥ a quarter circle, collectively redundant around the full perimeter; (d) a central digital recording medium = hard-disc drive with a plurality of separate tracks; (e) a digital camera receiving data from all four sets; (f) cable means feeding all eight lenses continuously and concurrently; (g) a time multiplexer sequentially dividing outputs into separate tracks; and (h) a wherein clause recording the eight lens outputs as separate node files on separate tracks.

The two hardest limitations to meet with the cited art are (c) the corner-mounted, perpendicular lens pair and (h) eight-lens-per-track/node-file recording. Everything else is squarely met.

3. Reference-by-reference mapping to claim 1

Conclusion of mapping: nine of the ten substantive elements are met by Mazzilli alone plus Lee, with Uskolovsky and Mustek filling the lens-pair and single-sensor-switching gaps. The only genuinely contestable limitations are the "corner" placement, the "perpendicular pair" geometry, and the "eight separate tracks" specificity.

4. The obviousness grounds

Ground 1 — Mazzilli in view of Lee (primary ground)

• Mazzilli discloses the core architecture: multiple vehicle cameras (four, spaced 90°), a multiplexer recording all cameras "at the same time," with time and date, a recorder located in the trunk, powered off the vehicle battery, and an express digital alternative. It is directed to the same problem as the '496 — providing "documentation… to serve as evidence."
• Lee supplies the corner/side/periphery mounting and the event-driven, sequential multiplex recording ("record the views from cameras mounted on various locations of the vehicle to memorialize the events that take place around the vehicle"; record via the multiplexer "in a sequential manner").
• Motivation: both references address the same problem (blind spots and lack of evidence of what happened around a vehicle) and both expressly contemplate recording as documentation/evidence. A POSITA would combine Mazzilli's 360° multi-camera scheme with Lee's peripheral camera placement and sequential multiplexing to obtain complete, gap-free perimeter coverage — a predictable improvement, satisfying KSR's "combination of familiar elements according to known methods… yield[ing] predictable results."

Ground 2 — Mazzilli + Lee + Uskolovsky (adds the digital multi-lens loop-recorder)

Uskolovsky teaches an onboard digital camera with multiple lenses (one forward-view, one rear-view) fixedly disposed, continuously shooting, with digital memory retaining the frames just before/during/after an event and expressly aimed at "unbeatable legal evidence" of an "accident/violation." This supplies: (i) the multi-lens-single-camera concept that grounds claim 1's paired lenses, and (ii) the continuous, always-on digital recording for evidentiary recovery that is the '496's stated purpose — a powerful teaching, suggestion, and motivation to combine.

Ground 3 — Mazzilli + Lee + Mustek (adds the multiplexed single-sensor/多-lens channel switching)

Mustek discloses multiple focusing lens units whose images are, in turn, sequentially selected onto one photoelectric conversion unit by a switching unit, with 2–4 focusing units. This is the clearest analog of claim 1's "digital camera receiving optical data from [multiple] sets… time multiplexer sequentially dividing the outputs." Though Mustek is a scanner reference (its field is image scanning, not vehicles), it is evidence of the general technique of multiplexing multiple lens images into one digital sensor — usable to show the claimed multiplexing was a known, non-inventive design choice, though a § 103 challenger would prefer a vehicle-context reference if available.

Ground 4 — Substitute a hard-disc DVR for the VCR (any of the above)

Mazzilli already discloses both a multiplexer+VCR and a digital recording system alternative. Smith (Spectrum San Diego) shows a digital video surveillance system. Substituting a hard-disc-based digital recorder (with per-channel tracks, a standard DVR capability) for Mazzilli's VCR is the substitution of one known recording medium for another to obtain its known benefits (random access, no tape wear, per-channel files) — a textbook obviousness rationale. The '496 itself concedes the digital medium "includes a disc drive," underscoring that the medium choice was conventional.

5. The three weak spots a challenger must shore up

1. "Corner-mounted" limitation. Neither Mazzilli (central housing) nor Lee (sides/rear) literally places cameras at the four corners. The challenger must rely on a reference showing corner/endpoint mounting (Steed US 6,151,065; US 5,646,614; US 2004/0169762 A1) or on the reasoning that corner placement is an obvious location to maximize coverage, eliminate blind spots, and minimize camera count — a design choice within the POSITA's ordinary skill. I did not retrieve the full text of Steed, the Mercedes reference, or the Autonetworks publication and therefore cannot quote their corner-mount teachings; they should be pulled and verified before reliance.

2. "Perpendicular pair" with axes ~90°. Claim 1 recites two lenses per corner with axes "generally perpendicular," each covering ≥ a quarter circle. Uskolovsky's forward + rear lenses (roughly opposed, not perpendicular) and Mazzilli's four cameras spaced 90° (separate cameras, not co-housed lenses) are close but not identical. The challenger's best framing: given Mazzilli's 360°/90°-spacing teaching, housing two 90°-offset lenses at each corner to split the four quadrant views into four pairs is a mere arrangement of parts whose cooperative result (quarter-circle coverage with overlap) is expressly recited and predictable. This is where a well-briefed § 103 case is strongest — but also where the patent owner will fight hardest.

3. "Eight separate tracks / node files." Recording each of eight channels to its own track/file is a conventional multi-channel DVR function; the challenger should offer a DVR reference actually showing per-channel track recording, not just "digital recording."

Note the redundancy limitation is a double-edged sword for the patent owner: claim 1 requires overlapping/redundant views, and a POSITA deliberately overlaps camera fields of view to avoid coverage gaps — i.e., the claim recites the very design practice used to solve the stated problem.

6. Dependent claims — obviousness under the same grounds

• Claim 2 (per-corner housing with transparent wall, lenses inside): a housing/enclosure for a corner camera is a routine packaging expedient; transparent-window camera enclosures are conventional. Obvious over Ground 1/2.
• Claim 3 (axes separated by "somewhat more than ninety degrees"): directly suggested by Mazzilli's 90°-spaced cameras plus the express desire for overlap/redundancy to ensure no perimeter gap — a trivial angular tweak with a predictable benefit.
• Claim 4 (multiplexer records actual time): Mazzilli expressly — the multiplexer "records with time and date" all four cameras. This claim is essentially anticipated/obvious over Mazzilli alone.
• Claim 5 (battery continuously energizes the system whether or not the engine runs; not disconnectable except by operator): Mazzilli — cameras, multiplexer, and VCR "operate off the automotive vehicle's battery"; Uskolovsky — camera "permanently continuously shoots, unless turned off manually." Continuous parking-mode recording is the stated purpose of the '496 and is squarely suggested. Obvious.
• Claim 6 (disc drive in trunk; normally-closed switch operable only by driver): Mazzilli locates the recorder in the trunk; a normally-closed power switch under driver control is a conventional circuit choice. Obvious.

7. Objective indicia / secondary considerations (§ 103 fourth Graham factor)

The record does not favor the patent owner on secondary considerations:

• No commercial success: the earlier section noted the patent has never been commercialized ("No manufacturer offers any OEM surveillance system" per the sale listing). No nexus between any success and the claimed invention.
• No industry licensing for the invention's merits — the only "transactions" are an intra-family assignment round trip and a sale to an NPE, which are not evidence of nonobviousness.
• Crowded field / no long-felt unmet need: the 34 cited references, spanning 1938–2007, show a densely developed art of vehicle-camera and video-recording systems, cutting against a "long-felt need" narrative.
• A patent owner could argue unexpected results from the specific eight-camera, eight-track redundancy architecture, but there is no data in the specification to support it.

8. Overall assessment

9. Explicit caveats (do not overstate)

• Reference details I could not retrieve: I obtained and quoted Mazzilli US 6,333,759, Lee US 5,680,123, Uskolovsky US 6,738,088, Mustek US 5,942,746, and Smith US 6,757,008. I did not retrieve the full text of Steed US 6,151,065, Schmidt US 5,571,127, Mercedes-Benz US 5,646,614, Secor US 5,289,321, Hardin US 5,586,063, Autonetworks US 2004/0169762 A1, or Mannesmann VDO WO 1999/037503 — statements about their specific teachings (especially corner mounting) are not confirmed here and should be verified before they are used in a § 103 pleading.
• Prior-art status: the safe § 102(b) references (published before 2004-04-15) include Mazzilli, Lee, Uskolovsky, Mustek, Schmidt, Steed, Secor, Mercedes, Hardin, and WO 1999/037503. Some later-dated citations on the face of the patent (e.g., US 7,227,611, priority 2004-08-23, after the '496 priority) may be background art rather than § 102/§ 103 art — check each effective date before relying on it.
• No auto-correction: all patent numbers are reported as listed on the '496's face; e.g., the face lists both US 5,580,663 (Hardin) and, in the family/related-publication data, US 5,585,063-type variants appear in web sources — these are reported literally and not reconciled.
• Procedural point from the prior sections, still controlling: no IPR or PGR has ever been filed on the '496, and its listed adjusted expiration (2026-08-15) has passed as of the current date — so the practical value of this § 103 analysis is as a district-court invalidity or summary-judgment theory, or as support for an ex parte reexamination, not an IPR. Confirm term status first.