Invalidity dossier
US 7400640
Partitioned medium access control implementation
Current assignee: E2e Systems LLC
Added 10/31/2026, 4:01:09 AM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
US 7,400,640 B2 — Patent Overview
Title: Partitioned medium access control implementation
Patent number / application: US 7,400,640 B2 (application US 10/701,126)
Inventors: Michael Andrew Fischer; Timothy Gordon Godfrey
Original assignee: Conexant Inc (recorded assignments in the source list Globespan Virata, Inc. and Conexant, Inc.; Google Patents lists the current assignee as "E2e Systems LLC," while noting assignees may be inaccurate)
Key dates: Priority 2002‑05‑03 (claimed from US 10/421,265); filed 2003‑11‑04; published as US 2004/0156385 A1 on 2004‑08‑12; granted 2008‑07‑15; status active, adjusted expiration 2027‑01‑16
Purpose: The patent addresses the problem that conventional medium access control (MAC) in wireless terminals such as IEEE 802.11 networks is "inextricably intertwined" with the physical control, despite being theoretically decoupled. Prior application Ser. No. 10/421,265 (cited within the patent) proposed bifurcating the MAC into an upper MAC (services independent of the physical control — e.g., transmit queuing, encryption, authentication, association, scanning, distribution, traffic categorization) and a lower MAC (physical-layer-dependent services — e.g., channel access, receive validation, response control such as CTS/ACK). That bifurcation imposes additional demands on the architecture, which this patent's illustrative embodiment is said to address.
Plain-language scope (per the excerpt): In one embodiment, the upper and lower MACs communicate over a bus already present in wireless terminals for transferring data between the host processor and peripherals (printer, memory, wireless station), using the bus's "memory-mapped master mode" to pass data. The excerpt does not set out any claim language.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US7400640/en
Not established by this excerpt: No claims are quoted (so claim scope, including the "generating … protocol data unit" and "circuit" terms reflected only in the prior-art keywords, cannot be stated); technical details beyond the quoted passage are omitted; the full list of cited prior art and the examiner's reasoning are not shown; and the Google Patents listings of legal status and ownership are expressly caveated as assumptions, which I have not verified in line with your instructions.
Generated 10/31/2026, 4:01:33 AM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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PTAB challenges
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Assignment history
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Prior art
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Obviousness
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Extensions
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Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.