Well, just read the synopsis:

>A device may be capable of communicating using at least two type types of modulation methods. The device may include a transceiver capable of acting as a master according to a master/slave relationship in which communication from a slave to a master occurs in response to communication from the master to the slave. The master transceiver may send transmissions discrete transmissions structured with a first portion and a payload portion. Information in the first portion may be modulated according to a first modulation method and indicate an impending change to a second modulation method, which is used for transmitting the payload portion.

This could be valid for any form of communication with more than one modulation system (Wifi, BT, DVB television, any recent communication system). I'm pretty sure that the modulation of the monitoring systems in a rocket will switch between transmission modes when the rocket reaches some upper layers of the atmosphere.

1. What you quoted itself a far cry from "any electronic device that communicates in any way", a statement that mischaracterizes the patent as much as the title of TFA does the actual claim. Note that it says the header may be modulated using one method whereas the payload another depending on the header. Are you sure this applies to any of those you mentioned? (Except Bluetooth of course, as it was just found to infringe :-P)

2. The synopsis does not define the scope of what a patent claims.

EE/CE here. Yeah that's a garbage patent. I'm a practitioner in the field and 20 years ago that would have been some forward-thinking stuff. But in 2009, when it was filed? Total joke.

The priority date of the patent was Dec 5, 1997. So was it forward thinking a little over 17 years ago?

Well there's something weird going on there, then, because priority dates and filing dates aren't supposed to differ by more than a year or so.

So either it was invented in 1997 and should have been patented then and would expire in 2017, or it was "invented" in 2009 and they trolled for something to give them a much, much earlier priority date so that it would seem more legitimate somehow.

Either way I'm not sure that I buy it.

EDIT:

I mean, hell, dial-up modems did the same thing basically. Connect and sync at a low baud rate, then switch to whatever the modems agreed the channel could support. How old are dial-up modems? 1980s? Acoustically coupled modems are at least as old as the 1970s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modem#Acoustic_couplers

The weirdness is due to these patents being "continuations", that is, follow-on patents that keep the priority date of the original, but file new claims on the same subject matter. This is usually done to get broader (or sometimes just different) claims than the original. On the flip side, the follow-on patents lifetime is still based on the original filing date.

Also, if there was any prior art that did "basically the same thing" you can bet Samsung would have brought it up. TFA does not give much detail about Samsung's arguments, but only mentions a non-infringement defense.