Invalidity dossier
US 7688735
Fibre channel switching system
Current assignee: Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd
Added 9/23/2026, 2:51:03 PM
Active provider: DeepSeek · deepseek-flash
Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US7688735B1
Title: Fibre channel switching system
Patent number / application: US7688735B1; Application US09/330,755, filed 1999-06-11.
Inventor: Stuart B. Berman.
Assignee of record (as listed): Original assignee Emulex Design and Manufacturing Corp; current assignee listed as Avago Technologies International Sales Pte Ltd. (The excerpt shows reassignment entries—Vixel Corporation, Arcxel Technologies, Inc., Emulex Corporation, Avago Technologies General IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., and a security interest—but these are not interpreted here.)
Key dates: Priority date 1997-02-18; filing date 1999-06-11; granted/publication date 2010-03-30; anticipated expiration 2017-02-18. Legal status listed as "Expired – Fee Related." Family has litigation indicated, per the source's Darts-ip link.
Purpose and plain-language scope: The patent relates to a switching system for Fibre Channel networks. Based on the excerpt, the claimed subject matter concerns routing frames through a switching fabric—illustrative prior-art keywords listed are "port," "route," "fabric," "frame," and "buffer." The listed classifications cover packet switching elements, Fibre Channel switches, storage area networks, routing/path finding including fault recovery, address table lookup, flow control and buffer-occupancy congestion control, QoS/priority-aware traffic handling, and optical switching. Plainly stated, the disclosure appears directed to receiving frames at switch ports, looking up routes, buffering, and forwarding frames across a fabric, with attention to flow control, priority, and route fault recovery.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7688735](/patent/US7688735)/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not reproduce the claims, abstract, or detailed description, so the precise scope of any claim, the exact number of claims, and the specific embodiments are not verifiable from the supplied text. It does not establish validity, enforceability, or the accuracy of the listed assignees, dates, or legal status (the source itself flags several entries as assumptions). It does not identify prior art, litigation parties, or outcomes. No facts beyond the excerpt are asserted.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:51:55 PM
Cases on file (0)
Specific litigation cases in our database that name US patent 7688735. The free-form analysis below may also discuss cases beyond this list.
No cases on file mention this patent. Upload a CSV or add a case manually in Admin → Manage litigation cases.
Litigation summary
Past and pending lawsuits — plaintiffs, defendants, jurisdictions, outcomes, and notable rulings.
Proceedings on file (0)
All PTAB activity →AIA trial proceedings (IPR / PGR / CBM) filed at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board against this patent. Sourced from the USPTO Open Data Portal and refreshed every six hours; each proceeding number deep-links to the PTAB E2E docket.
No PTAB proceedings on file. This patent has not been challenged via IPR, PGR, or CBM. The absence is itself a signal — well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs. The LLM analysis below may surface filings the ODP feed hasn’t indexed yet.
PTAB challenges
AIA trial proceedings at the USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board — IPR, PGR, and CBM. Petitioners, judge panels, claim-level invalidation outcomes from Final Written Decisions, and Federal Circuit appeals. The single most important defensive datapoint after litigation history.
Assignment history
Inventors, original assignee, and the chain of ownership recorded with the USPTO — including the correspondent attorney who recorded each assignment, since shell-LLC chains often share one repeat-player attorney even when the entity names look unrelated. Surfaces NPE / patent-troll patterns: shell-entity transfers, known asserters in the chain, repeat correspondent fingerprints, pre-litigation assignments, and bankruptcy fire-sales.
Prior art
Earlier patents, publications, and products that may anticipate or render the claims unpatentable.
Obviousness
Combinations of prior art that suggest the claimed invention would have been obvious under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
Extensions
Patent term adjustments, term extensions, continuations, divisionals, family members, and expiration dates.
Derivative works
Defensive disclosure: derivative variations of each claim designed to render future incremental improvements obvious or non-novel.