US 2,010,217,837 · Filed 2007-12-31

The Smart Home Hub Patent That Never Made It Big

Imagine a single box sitting in your home that talks to all your smart devices—your lights, cameras, thermostat—and manages them like a traffic controller. This patent describes exactly that: a gateway device that sits between your home gadgets and the internet, handling security, setup, and support for everything connected to it.

Curated and verified by the IsItPatented Editorial team

The plain-English version

What it protects

The claim covers a physical gateway device installed at a home or business that acts as a central manager for multiple smart devices. What's protected here is the combination of a communications system (using peer and presence messaging protocols), a services framework that handles authentication and configuration, and a storage system that can run and execute service logic modules—essentially software rules—for managing and supporting all those connected endpoint devices.

Why it matters

This patent represents an early vision of the smart home hub concept, filed in 2007 when the Internet of Things was still emerging. Prodea Systems was trying to patent the architecture for a universal control point in the home—something that Amazon (Echo), Google (Home), and Apple (HomeKit) would later compete fiercely over. The patent matters because it's an attempt to lock down the foundational idea of a single device managing an entire ecosystem of home gadgets, which became a central battleground in consumer electronics.

Real-world use

Today, devices like Amazon Echo and Google Home operate on nearly identical principles: a central hub that authenticates users, manages connected devices, and executes commands through integrated services.

Original USPTO abstract

An intelligent gateway device provided at a premises (home or business) for providing and managing application services associated with use and support of a plurality of digital endpoint devices associated with the premises. The device implements includes a communications and processing infrastructure integrated with a peer and presence messaging based communications protocol for enabling communications between the device and an external support network and between the device and connected digital endpoint devices. A services framework at the gateway device implements the communications and processing infrastructure for enabling service management, service configuration and authentication of user of services at the intelligent gateway. The framework providing a storage and execution environment for supporting and executing received service logic modules relating to use, management and support of the digital endpoint devices. Thus, the gateway devices provides a network-based services point of presence for a plurality of digital endpoint devices at the premises.

Patent details

Publication number: US 2,010,217,837
Filing date: 2007-12-31
Grant date: Application — not yet granted
Assignee: Prodea Systems , Inc.
Inventor(s): ANSARI AMIR, COWGILL GEORGE A., MASINA RAMPRAKASH, RAMAYYA JUDE P., MCQUARTERS ALVIN R., RAISSYAN ATOUSA
CPC class: G06Q30/04

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