Most likely not; it's just another minor process variation, like the thousands of such patents that exist. Is there evidence that this patent is a particularly

Most likely not; it's just another minor process variation, like the thousands of such patents that exist. Is there evidence that this patent is a particularly novel or important one? And furthermore, what motive would someone have to knock off the inventors when they no longer even own the patent? If you look in the document, you can see that it has an single Assignee, Freescale Semiconductor. When a patent has been "assigned", the original inventors give up any proprietary rights in the invention to the Assignee, which is the normal process with corporate patents.