Invalidity dossier
US 9084166
Managing codec consistency across a communication session
Current assignee: Sprint Spectrum LLC
Added 9/23/2026, 2:56:14 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: US 9,084,166 B1
Title: Managing codec consistency across a communication session
Patent number: US 9,084,166 B1
Application number: US 13/595,668
Inventors: Sachin R. Vargantwar and Siddharth S. Oroskar
Assignee (original and current): Sprint Spectrum LLC (originally recorded as Sprint Spectrum L.P.)
Priority/filing date: 2012-08-27
Publication (grant) date: 2015-07-14
Adjusted expiration: 2033-01-13 (legal status listed as Active)
Purpose (plain language, from the excerpt):
The patent concerns codecs ("coder/decoders"—hardware/software that compress and decompress voice/data) used over a wireless air interface. In CDMA2000/EVRC-B, a codec defines eight "capacity operating points" (COPs, labeled 0–7, from highest to lowest average data rate). A higher rate generally consumes more transmission power but yields better voice quality. The RAN (e.g., a BSC) may adjust the COP as the access terminal moves between sectors with differing capacity loading.
The excerpt's threshold description — which motivates managing consistency — sets out that a low COP (e.g., 0) can provide high voice quality during a portion of a voice call when capacity utilization supports higher average data rates, and that a changing COP as capacity utilization changes across cells or sectors visited during a call can result in changing voice quality that a user finds … (the statement is cut off in the supplied excerpt). Classification headings point to handoff/reselection triggered by negotiated parameters (H04W36/26), reselecting an air interface (H04W36/14), and negotiating wireless communication parameters/rate (H04W28/18, H04W28/22).
Scope:
The supporting framework describes handoffs between coverage areas and between air interface protocols (IS-2000/1X and IS-856/EVDO), with the innovation aimed at managing codec consistency across such a session. Beyond the abstract framing above, the excerpt does not supply any actual claim language.
Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US9084166/en
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not quote any claim, so claim scope, independent vs. dependent claim structure, and specific limitations are unknown. The truncated sentence about changing voice quality is incomplete. Except for specific facts stated above, dates, and classification headings, further technical details, embodiments, and figures are omitted from the excerpt.
Generated 10/1/2026, 9:51:52 PM
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Litigation summary
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Proceedings on file (0)
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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
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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.