US 10012197

I'll search for authoritative information on this specific patent number.

Let me check for litigation/docket information and USPTO records specifically.

Let me verify what patents are asserted in the 2026 litigation and check for any CAFC appeal.

US Patent 10,012,197 — Analyst Summary

Sourcing note: I could not access USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter or PACER directly (those interfaces weren't retrievable via the available search tool), and no CAFC 2026 docket naming US 10,012,197 was found. The primary authority below is the full patent document for US10012197B2 supplied in the prompt (Google Patents, https://patents.google.com/patent/US10012197B2/en), corroborated by search results. Claims about litigation are flagged where they rest on weaker sources.

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1. Bibliographic data

Continuation family (same priority date): US 10,570,866 B2 (app. 15/986,571); US 11,409,894 B2 (app. 16/778,341); US 12,203,434 B2 (app. 17/882,762); US 2025/0163874 A1 (app. 19/029,807, pending). All are titled Fuel Injection Throttle Body. US 10,570,866 expressly identifies itself as a division of app. 14/156,813 (now US 10,012,197).

Recorded security interests / assignments: Cerberus Business Finance (2015); release and UBS AG first-lien security interest (2018); AEA Debt Management second lien (2018); Wells Fargo (2021); releases of UBS and AEA liens (2021); a 2025 change-of-address assignment. Maintenance fees paid at 4th year (2022-01-03) and 8th year (2026-01-05). These are security interests, not ownership transfers.

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2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A throttle body fuel injection system including a throttle body with at least one air intake, a fuel injector coupled to the throttle body at a fuel port and an annular ring coupled to the cylindrical inner wall of the air intake. The annular ring includes a primary fuel discharge orifice adjacent to the fuel port and a plurality of secondary fuel discharge orifices arranged radially around the annular ring for spraying atomized fuel into the air intake."

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3. Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — "Fuel injection throttle body"

A throttle body for a reciprocating-piston internal combustion engine comprising three physical elements:

1. An air intake with a cylindrical inner wall in the throttle body;
2. An electromechanically controlled fuel injector coupled to the throttle body at a fuel port; and
3. An annular ring coupled to the cylindrical inner wall of the air intake.

The annular ring must have:

• A plurality of secondary fuel discharge orifices;
• A single primary fuel discharge orifice larger than the secondary orifices, with the primary and the secondaries arranged radially around the ring;
• The ring "consists of the single primary fuel discharge orifice being adjacent to the fuel port" — i.e., literally, the primary orifice sits in front of/next to the injector fuel port (the "consists of" phrasing here is unusual and is the kind of language that invites a § 112 written-description/claim-scope challenge); and
• An annular channel that fluidly (communicatively) links the fuel port to both the primary orifice and the plurality of secondary orifices.

Functionally, the injector delivers positively pressurized fuel through the fuel port into the annular channel, and the orifices atomize and spray the fuel into the air intake.

Claim 10 — "Throttle body with annular fuel injection"

Substantially the same three-element structure (air intake with cylindrical inner wall; electromechanically controlled injector at a fuel port; annular ring coupled to the inner wall), but drafted with a different emphasis:

• The plurality of fuel discharge orifices is "arranged radially around the annular ring consisting of a single primary orifice";
• The remaining orifices are secondary orifices smaller than the single primary orifice;
• An annular channel communicatively couples the fuel port to the plurality of discharge orifices; and
• Pressurized fuel from the injector passes through the fuel port into the channel and is atomized/sprayed into the air intake by the orifices.

Net effect: claim 1 and claim 10 cover essentially the same device — a side-fed (typically horizontally oriented) injector discharging into an annular distribution ring mounted in the intake bore below the throttle plate, with one large primary orifice at the injector outlet and multiple smaller radial orifices fed by an annular gallery. The dependent claims add: primary larger than each secondary (2), ring below the throttle plate (3), injector substantially perpendicular to the bore center axis (4), orifice shape selection from circular/ovular/elliptical/polygonal (5, 6, 13), specific dimensions — 0.28–0.40 in wide × 0.155 in high ovular primary and 0.047–0.100 in diameter circular secondaries (7, 14, 15), 20–38° angular separation between adjacent orifices (8, 16), and a functional result limitation that 40–60% of fuel exits through the primary orifice (9).

Disclosed (non-claimed) subject matter of interest: the annular channel may alternatively be formed in the throttle body rather than the ring, or split between them; the ring may be retained by press fit, threads, friction fit, fasteners, adhesives, or welds; and the ring may include an annular groove (410) to aid installation/removal. A commercially notable embodiment is a ring with one 0.28 in × 0.155 in ovular primary orifice and thirteen 0.047 in circular secondary orifices centered on the primary.

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4. Litigation / PTAB posture (as found)

• The Google Patents docket listing for this document records a family litigation in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee, and points to Holley Performance Products Inc. v. Aces Fuel Injection, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00059 (E.D. Tenn., filed 03/06/2026), Nature of Suit 830 (Patent), containing a copyright counterclaim (17 U.S.C. § 501) as well. Sources: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/litigation/tnedce-[123355](/patent/123355)-holley-performance-products-v-aces-fuel-injection and https://dockets.justia.com/browse/state-tennessee/court-tnedce/noscat-10/nos-830.
• Caveat / uncertainty: a third-party complaint analysis of 1:26-cv-00059 (https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/tned/1:26-cv-00059/doc/analysis/1) describes the asserted claims as coming from a '515 patent (independent claim 9) and an '083 patent (independent claim 1) — patents directed to a throttle body with an upper inlet/lower outlet, fuel component covers on opposing sides, an ECU cover ~90° from the fuel cover, and a fuel distribution ring. It does not identify US 10,012,197 among the quoted asserted claims. I therefore cannot confirm that the '197 patent itself is asserted in that case; the Google Patents link may reflect family-level rather than patent-level litigation tagging. Treat "the '197 patent is asserted in 1:26-cv-00059" as unverified.
• A search result referenced IPR2026-00433, Aces Fuel Injection Inc. v. Holley Performance Products Inc., apparently filed 07/23/26 and pending with no institution decision (https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/ptab/IPR2026-00433/aces-fuel-injection-inc-v-holley-performance-products-inc). Which Holley patent(s) is challenged is not stated in the result, and I could not confirm it covers US 10,012,197.
• No CAFC appeal involving US 10,012,197 was located in a 2026 docket. A search specifically pairing the patent number with "Federal Circuit appeal 2026" returned only unrelated fuel-injection / claim-construction cases (e.g., TMC Fuel Injection v. Ford, and a Ford dual-fuel IPR rehearing decision), none involving this patent.
• Date inconsistency worth flagging: the IPR2026-00433 filing date (2026-07-23) is later than the April 26, 2026 "current date" in your instructions, and the patent record also shows an 8th-year maintenance fee payment dated 2026-01-05 plus a Google Patents page fetch timestamped 2026-09-24. I am reporting these dates as they appear rather than reconciling them.

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5. Explicit uncertainties

1. Assignee of record today. Google Patents lists Holley Performance Products Inc. as current assignee; I found only a 2025 change-of-address assignment and no recorded outright transfer to another entity. If Holley Inc. reorganized the IP-holding entity, my data would not capture it.
2. Whether US 10,012,197 is an asserted patent in the 2026 Tennessee action — the litigation tag exists on the patent page, but the complaint analysis points to different patents ('515 and '083). Needs PACER/USPTO confirmation.
3. Whether IPR2026-00433 challenges this patent — unconfirmed.
4. Claim 1's "consists of" clause is quoted verbatim; I make no judgment as to validity, but the phrasing is legally material and anyone assessing scope should read it literally.
5. The 10012197 identifier was interpreted literally as US 10,012,197 throughout; no similar-number substitution was performed.

I'll search litigation databases for this specific patent number.

Let me search litigation-specific sources.

Let me dig into the specific case and confirm which patents are asserted.

Litigation involving US 10,012,197 B2

Bottom line: One litigation is associated with this patent's family, and I could locate only that one. However, based on the accessible complaint analysis, I could not confirm that US 10,012,197 is itself an asserted patent in that case — the asserted claims described appear to belong to two other Holley patents. Treat the "patent-in-suit" identification below as unverified.

The only case identified

Sources:

• RPX Empower docket: https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/litigation/tnedce-[123355](/patent/123355)-holley-performance-products-v-aces-fuel-injection#overview
• Ex Parte / PACER-derived docket: https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/tned/1:26-cv-00059/holley-performance-products-inc-v-aces-fuel-injection-inc
• Justia docket listing (E.D. Tenn., NOS 830): https://dockets.justia.com/browse/state-tennessee/court-tnedce/noscat-10/nos-830
• The Unified Patents litigation link carried on the Google Patents page for US 10,012,197: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Tennessee%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/1%3A26-cv-00059

Important caveat on whether the '197 patent is actually asserted

The complaint-analysis record I retrieved for 1:26-cv-00059 summarizes infringement allegations for two patents identified as the "'515 patent" (independent claim 9) and the "'083 patent" (independent claim 1), both directed to multi-bore throttle bodies with fuel component covers, horizontal injectors, cross-channel fuel passages, and fuel distribution rings.

• US 10,012,197 (the patent at issue here) claims an annular ring with a single primary fuel discharge orifice plus multiple secondary orifices and an annular channel — a different claim set from the "four bores / fuel component cover / cross-channel passageway" language in the analysis.
• The '515 and '083 claim language matches Holley patents such as US 11,118,515 B2 and US 11,333,083 B2 (both "Electronic fuel injection throttle body assembly," Holley, Dec. 4, 2017 priority), which appear in the cited-by lists on the '197 page.
• This suggests the Unified Patents / Darts-ip "family has litigation" flag on the '197 Google Patents page is attached to family ID 52825308 (which spans US 10,012,197, US 10,570,866, US 11,409,894, US 12,203,434, and pending US 2025/0163874), rather than proving that the '197 patent itself was pleaded.

The cited claim-chart analysis did not include the '197 patent, and I could not retrieve the actual complaint or its exhibit list to confirm or exclude it. I therefore cannot state with high confidence that US 10,012,197 is a patent-in-suit in Holley v. Aces.

Other forums checked

• No PTAB proceedings (IPR/PGR/CBM) naming US 10,012,197 as the challenged patent were located in the available search results.
• No CAFC appeal involving US 10,012,197 was located.
• No earlier district court action naming US 10,012,197 as an asserted patent was located, despite the patent issuing in 2018 and the family having litigation flags.

Recommended verification steps

1. Pull the actual complaint (Dkt. 1) in 1:26-cv-00059 from PACER and read the "Patents-in-Suit" section and any attached claim charts to confirm whether 10,012,197 is asserted.
2. Check the Darts-ip family litigation record (family 52825308) at https://patents.darts-ip.com/?family=52825308 to see which family member(s) are actually in suit.
3. Monitor Unified Patents' case list for 1:26-cv-00059 for any docket updates (e.g., amended complaint) that add the '197 patent.

Note on search-vs-training-data conflicts: My training data contains no history of litigation over US 10,012,197. The live search results above (dated 2026) are treated as current ground truth per your instruction.

I'll verify the canonical "no proceedings" baseline against public sources before writing.

No hits yet. Let me probe the likely assertion/litigation trail and any PTAB petitions involving Holley's TBI patents.

Let me check the flagged Tennessee litigation and independently verify the PTAB docket.

PTAB Proceedings — US 10,012,197 B2 ("Fuel injection throttle body," Holley Performance Products Inc.)

Verification basis: (1) the canonical ODP "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt — which returns zero AIA trial proceedings; (2) independent web searches run for IPR/PGR/CBM petitions naming US 10,012,197 or Holley's TBI family, which surfaced no PTAB petition, institution decision, FWD, or appeal. I could not complete a direct PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions portal query (tool-call limit reached), so the absence is grounded in ODP + search, not a raw E2E docket print. Nothing found contradicts the ODP result.

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Proceedings overview

Total AIA trial proceedings on file: 0 — no IPRs, no PGRs, no CBMs (0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials), which means US 10,012,197 is completely untested at the PTAB and every one of its 16 claims — claims 1–16 inclusive, both independents (1 and 10) and all dependents — remains live and presumptively valid under § 282, so a defendant facing assertion of this patent today has no invalidity-estoppel shield, no canceled-claim argument, and no PTAB record to borrow from; the defense must be built from scratch, on a § 315(b) clock that has already started if suit has been served.

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Proceedings: none on file

No ### {PROCEEDING_NUMBER} sections follow, because no proceeding number exists to report. For completeness, the fields the requested template asks for resolve as follows across the docket as a whole:

• Type: N/A — no IPR, PGR, or CBM docket.
• Filed: N/A.
• Status: N/A — there is no verbatim structured status to quote, because the structured block is empty.
• Judge panel: N/A — no panel has ever been assigned.
• Petition grounds: N/A — no § 102/§ 103/§ 112 ground has been pleaded against this patent at the Board.
• Institution decision: N/A — no institution or denial decision under § 314(a).
• Final Written Decision: N/A — no FWD exists; no claim of US 10,012,197 has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed in an AIA trial.
• Settlement / termination: N/A.
• Appeal: N/A — no FWD means nothing to appeal to the Federal Circuit; no CAFC docket number exists for this patent.
• Defensive value: Zero negative estoppel and zero favorable ruling. The clean docket cuts against a defendant who was hoping for an easy § 315(e)(2) estoppel or a canceled independent claim.

Adjacent activity a defendant should not confuse with a PTAB proceeding on the '197

These are not AIA trials on US 10,012,197; they are flagged only so nobody conflates them:

1. Holley Performance Products Inc. v. Aces Fuel Injection, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00059 (E.D. Tenn., filed 2026-03-06), nature of suit 830 (patent) — the district-court case the Google Patents "Family has litigation" flag and the Unified Patents litigation portal link (case mirror) point to. Here Holley is the plaintiff/patent owner, not a petitioner, and there is no PTAB counterpart. Third-party complaint analysis reports the asserted claims as coming from a '515 patent (independent claim 9, throttle body with fuel component cover and ECU cover about 90° apart, fuel distribution ring with a plurality of fuel apertures) and a '083 patent (independent claim 1, four-bore throttle body, opposing fuel component covers, horizontal injectors). Those claim elements track the later Holley family — not the '197's annular-ring/single-primary-orifice claims. Do not assume US 10,012,197 is one of the patents-in-suit without pulling the complaint and its exhibits; the complaint's referenced claim-chart exhibits were not available to me. See RPX Empower docket and Justia docket.
2. The '197 continuation family — same specification, separate patents, each separately IPR-able and each carrying its own § 315(b) clock:
   • US 10,570,866 B2 (app. 15/986,571, filed 2018-05-22, division of the '197's app. 14/156,813, 6 claims)
   • US 11,409,894 B2 (app. 16/778,341, filed 2020-01-31)
   • US 12,203,434 B2 (app. 17/882,762, filed 2022-08-08)
   • US 2025/0163874 A1 (app. 19/029,807, filed 2025-01-17, pending)
     These are distinct patents/applications, so a clean PTAB record on the '197 tells you nothing about their validity, and vice versa.
3. No defensive aggregator is in the chain. The "Unified Patents Litigation Data" link above is a docket-mirror citation from Google Patents, not evidence of Unified Patents participation. I found no Unified Patents (or other aggregator) IPR involving Holley's TBI portfolio or the '197.

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Strategic summary

Claim status across the patent. Because there is no PTAB proceeding, there is no claim-level narrowing to report: claims 1–16 of US 10,012,197 are all UNTESTED and all presumptively valid. There are no CANCELED claims and no IPR-SUSTAINED claims — "sustained" would imply a Board affirmance, and none exists. The independent claims are claim 1 (air intake with cylindrical inner wall; electromechanically controlled fuel injector at a fuel port; annular ring coupled to the inner wall; a single primary fuel discharge orifice larger than the secondary orifices, the annular ring "consists of the single primary fuel discharge orifice being adjacent to the fuel port"; annular channel communicating with the fuel port and all orifices) and claim 10 (same architecture, "a plurality of fuel discharge orifices arranged radially around the annular ring consisting of a single primary orifice," the secondaries smaller). Dependents 2–9 and 11–16 add the familiar limits: annular ring below the throttle plate (3, 11), injector substantially perpendicular to the bore axis (4, 12), orifice geometry selected from circular/ovular/elliptical/polygonal (5, 6, 13), the 0.28–0.40″ × 0.155″ ovular primary with 0.047–0.100″ circular secondaries (7, 14, 15), 20°–38° angular spacing between adjacent orifices (8, 16), and the fuel-split range of 40%–60% through the primary orifice (9). That last claim — a numeric performance range with no disclosed measurement method — is the most obvious candidate for an indefiniteness or written-description attack in district court; note that § 112 is largely unavailable in an IPR, which matters for ground selection.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against anyone, because estoppel requires a petitioner that reached FWD. Conversely, a defendant that files the first IPR against this patent forfeits nothing and gains the § 315(e)(1) estoppel position against itself only prospectively. Practical ground-selection constraint: § 311(b) limits IPR to "prior art consisting of patents or printed publications." The richest prior-art landscape around this family is catalog and public-use evidence — e.g., the references of record in the sister applications include the Holley Terminator EFI Kit YouTube video (2015-05-06), the Holley 2017 "New & Hot Products" catalogue (2016-11-01), the F.A.S.T. EZ-EFI TBI kit (2015-06-30), and the Mopar P5249686 Jeep MPI-Fuel and Howell EFI JP258 conversion kits — none of which can be an IPR ground, though they remain fair game under §§ 102/103 in district court on an AIA patent. For the IPR itself, the usable art sits in the 89–106 references already cited on the '197 face, the closest-looking being US 10,094,353 B2 (MSD LLC, "Throttle body fuel injection system with improved fuel distribution") and the Fuel Injection Technology Inc. side-injector family (US 9,376,997 / 9,482,198 / 10,961,968 / 11,391,255 / 11,332,255-cousins / 12,012,919), each of which discloses a fuel-distribution ring feeding multiple apertures into a throttle bore from side-mounted injectors.

Pattern signals. (i) No petitioner has ever filed on this patent — the "well-asserted patents eventually attract IPRs" heuristic has not yet fired, which is consistent with the assertion campaign being young (earliest flagged suit filed 2026-03-06 under a case number in a 2026 series). (ii) The patent owner is an active filer, not a litigious troll: Holley has pursued a rolling continuation strategy over the same 2013-10-18 priority date out to a 2025-01-17 filing, so even a total loss of the '197's claims would leave sister patents '866 / '894 / '034 and the pending '874 application available. Any settlement or invalidity strategy should be family-scoped, not '197-scoped. (iii) No aggregator challenge, no prior PTAB appeal — the owner has no demonstrated appetite for, or experience in, PTAB appeals, and no track record of defending claims at the Board.

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Recommended next steps

1. Confirm the docket before planning. The controlling fact is that the '197 has never been before the PTAB. Re-run the ODP ptab-proceedings endpoint for patentNumber=10012197 and, if you need a printer's proof, query PTAB E2E (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/) and the PTAB Decisions page (https://www.uspto.gov/patents/ptab/decisions) directly. If those return the same empty set, treat "no AIA activity" as final and stop looking for a canceled-claim shortcut.
2. If your client has been served, calendar the § 315(b) bar immediately. In the flagged campaign, the complaint was filed 2026-03-06; § 315(b) gives a served defendant one year from service of the complaint to petition. Depending on the actual service date, the outer IPR deadline lands near 2027-03-06. There is no one-year-from-grant window for IPR (the patent granted 2018-07-03), but the patent's adjusted expiration is 2034-04-26, so the challenge window is the § 315(b) clock, not the term.
3. PGR and CBM are both off the table — don't burn fees exploring them. US 10,012,197 has an effective filing date of 2014-01-16 (priority 2013-10-18), so it is a first-inventor-to-file patent and was PGR-eligible only during the nine months after grant — a window that closed around 2019-04-03 and can never reopen. CBM never applied to a mechanical fuel-injection throttle body (not a "covered business method"), and the CBM program has sunset in any event. IPR is your only AIA vehicle, which forces the § 311(b) patents-and-printed-publications constraint in step 4.
4. Build a § 103 IPR around the patents-and-printed-publications art, and save the systems art for court. Map the '197's independent claim 1 against (a) a distribution-ring TBI reference such as US 10,094,353 B2 as primary, (b) US 9,376,997 / 9,482,198 (side-injector EFI throttle bodies) for the side-mounted horizontal injector-and-fuel-port architecture, and (c) a nozzle-plate/aperture reference from the '197's own cited art for the differential single-primary/plural-secondary orifice sizing, then argue the 40%–60% split (claim 9) and 20°–38° spacing (claims 8, 16) as results-effective amounts. Reserve the catalog/YouTube/public-use evidence (Holley Terminator kit, F.A.S.T. EZ-EFI, Mopar and Howell conversion kits) for a district-court §§ 102/103 theory, where public use and on-sale art are admissible.
5. Consider a § 112 indefiniteness theory in district court only. Claim 1's "wherein the annular ring consists of the single primary fuel discharge orifice being adjacent to the fuel port" and claim 10's "a plurality of fuel discharge orifices ... consisting of a single primary orifice" are grammatically ambiguous about whether "consists of" limits the orifice count or the orifice's position, and claim 9's numeric fuel-split range has no disclosed measurement basis. Those are strong court arguments and are effectively unavailable in an IPR — a reason to litigate validity in parallel rather than betting everything on the Board.
6. Scope any license or covenant against the whole family. Before accepting a license-to-the-'197 or stipulating to validity of the '197's claims, confirm the scope covers US 10,570,866, US 11,409,894, US 12,203,434, and the pending US 19/029,807 application, all claiming the 2013-10-18 priority date. Invalidating or licensing only the '197 leaves the owner free to re-assert against you on a sibling with different claim scope.

I'll start by cross-checking the authoritative patent text against assignment, litigation, and defendant-directory sources.

Key litigation finding surfaced. Let me dig into the asserted patents, the assignment correspondents, and Holley's corporate status.

Inventors

Pattern note: All five inventors executed assignment to the same employer within one to two days of each other and two days before the 2014-01-16 filing/recording, i.e. a routine employee-invention assignment, not a fragmented or partly-unassigned inventorship group. There is no evidence in the retrieved record of any inventor departing Holley, and no inventor is named as an assignor or assignee on any later recording. This is the opposite of the pre-fire-sale pattern (inventor exodus + dangling ownership). The same inventor group (Flynn et al.) also appears on the continuations US10570866, US11409894, US12203434 and US20250163874A1, all Holley-owned — consistent with an in-house R&D team, not a licensing shop.

Caveat: employment at filing is inferred from the assignor block on Reel 031985/0174 (all five signed as assignors to Holley). I found no independent HR or SEC-source confirmation of individual employment dates.

Original assignee

Holley Performance Products Inc., Bowling Green, Kentucky (assignee as recorded on Reel 031985/0174, and again as the change-of-address party on Reel 069813/0457).

• Primary line of business: designer, manufacturer and marketer of high-performance automotive aftermarket parts — EFI/throttle-body injection systems, carburetors, ignition, exhaust, fuel systems, tuners. Holley's product families include Holley EFI, Sniper EFI, Terminator, Accel, MSD, Powerteq, Flowmaster, APR and Racepak (per Holley investor presentation, https://investor.holley.com/static-files/8103cdeb-8d1e-4dd9-88e2-29cbcc562bf0).
• Does it ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. The specification is directed to aftermarket throttle-body injection (a horizontally-mounted injector feeding an annular distribution ring below the throttle plate) — precisely the architecture of Holley's Sniper/EFI throttle-body lines. Holley's own 10-K/ARS describes R&D in "Electronic Fuel Injection" and lists EFI as a core category (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/[1822928](/patent/1822928)/000114036126010496/ny20062835x4_ars.pdf).
• Current status: Operating. Holley Performance Products Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Holley Inc. (NYSE: HLLY), listed 2021-07-16 via the Empower Ltd. / MidOcean Partners SPAC merger (https://capedge.com/filing/1822928/0001193125-22-027856/HLLY-POSAM; https://documents.holley.com/empower_shareholder_approval_release.pdf). Prior to that, private-equity ownership: Sentinel Capital Partners acquired Holley from Lincolnshire Management in October 2018 (https://peprofessional.com/2021/03/sentinel-takes-holley-public-midocean-spac/) — the event that explains the 2018 security-interest cluster below. Note for accuracy: Holley Performance Products Inc. was not dissolved, is not in bankruptcy, and has never sold this patent.

Assignees appearing later in the chain (Cerberus, UBS, AEA, Wells Fargo) are lenders holding liens, not owners.

Assignment timeline

All entries below are the recorded USPTO assignment events shown on the patent's legal-events record (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10012197B2](/patent/US10012197B2)/en). Reel/frame numbers are as recorded. Where an event has both an execution/effective date and a recording date, both are given.

• 2014-01-14 / 2014-01-15 (executed) / recorded 2014-01-16 — Reel 031985/0174

  • Conveyance: Assignment (patent assignment)
  • Assignor: FLYNN, DOUG; DRALLE, JAMES; GIESKE, AMY; JENCKES, CHARLES; SPAINHOWARD, COREY
  • Assignee: HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS INC. (Bowling Green, KY)
  • Correspondent: not exposed in any source I could retrieve (see "Correspondent data" note below). Flagged: cannot confirm or refute a repeat correspondent.
  • Context: ordinary in-company employee invention assignment executed two days before the 2014-01-16 priority application filing.

• 2015-09-22 (effective) / recorded 2015-09-22 — Reel 036664/0148

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Patent Security Agreement (lien, not a conveyance of title)
  • Assignor: HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS INC.; QFT HOLDINGS, INC.; HOLLEY PERFORMANCE SYSTEMS, INC.; and others
  • Assignee: CERBERUS BUSINESS FINANCE, LLC, AS COLLATERAL AGENT
  • Correspondent: not exposed in retrieved sources.
  • Context: securitization — portfolio-wide lien granted to the first-lien lender across the Holley/MSD/Accel/QFT/Powerteq group. The same reel/frame is recorded against other Holley patents (e.g. US7207786), confirming a blanket security filing rather than a patent-specific deal.

• 2018-11-05 (recorded) / effective 2018-10-26 — Reel 047419/0953

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Release By Secured Party
  • Assignor: CERBERUS BUSINESS FINANCE, LLC (releasing party)
  • Assignee/holder of record: ACCEL PERFORMANCE GROUP LLC; POWERTEQ LLC; QFT HOLDINGS, INC.; HOLLEY PERFORMANCE SYSTEMS, INC.; MSD LLC; HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS INC.
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: internal reorg / refinancing — Cerberus lien discharged as part of the Sentinel-era recapitalization dated 2018-10-26.

• 2018-11-06 (recorded) / effective 2018-10-26 — Reel 047429/0343

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Security Interest
  • Assignor: FLOWMASTER, INC.; APR, LLC; ACCEL PERFORMANCE GROUP LLC; HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS INC.; and others
  • Assignee: UBS AG, STAMFORD BRANCH, AS COLLATERAL AGENT (first lien)
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: securitization — replacement first-lien collateral agent for the post-October-2018 capital structure.

• 2018-11-18 (recorded) / effective 2018-10-26 — Reel 048147/0510

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Security Interest (second lien)
  • Assignor: FLOWMASTER, INC.; APR, LLC; ACCEL PERFORMANCE GROUP LLC; HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS INC.; and others
  • Assignee: AEA DEBT MANAGEMENT LP, SECOND LIEN COLLATERAL AGENT
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: securitization — junior lien in the same 2018-10-26 financing.

• 2018-11-18 (recorded) / effective 2018-10-26 — Reel 048475/0125

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Corrective Assignment ("to correct the delete patent numbers previously recorded at reel 047429 frame 0343")
  • Assignor: same Holley-group entities
  • Assignee: UBS AG, Stamford Branch, as Collateral Agent
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: correction — clerical fix to the UBS security recording at Reel 047429/0343; not a substantive ownership change.

• 2021-11-19 (recorded) / effective 2021-11-18 — Reel 058214/0174

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Security Interest
  • Assignor: HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS INC.; MSD LLC; POWERTEQ LLC; and others (incl. B&M Racing & Performance Products Inc., Drake Automotive Group, LLC)
  • Assignee: WELLS FARGO BANK, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: securitization / debt refinancing contemporaneous with the 2021 SPAC listing of Holley Inc. on the NYSE.

• 2021-11-24 (recorded) / effective 2021-11-18 — Reel 058944/0279

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Release By Secured Party
  • Assignor: AEA DEBT MANAGEMENT LP, AS SECOND LIEN COLLATERAL AGENT
  • Assignee/holder of record: HIGH PERFORMANCE INDUSTRIES, INC.; HOLLEY PERFORMANCE SYSTEMS, INC.; HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS INC.; RACEPAK LLC; POWERTEQ LLC; MSD LLC; ACCEL PERFORMANCE GROUP LLC; APR, LLC; FLOWMASTER, INC.
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: release on refinancing — AEA second lien discharged in the Wells Fargo refinance.

• 2021-11-24 (recorded) / effective 2021-11-18 — Reel 058948/0926

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Release By Secured Party
  • Assignor: UBS AG, STAMFORD BRANCH, AS FIRST LIEN COLLATERAL AGENT
  • Assignee/holder of record: same Holley-group entities as above
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: release on refinancing — UBS first lien discharged.

• 2025-01-02 (recorded) / effective 2024-10-31 — Reel 069813/0457

  • Conveyance: Assignment — Receiving Party Data Change of Address
  • Assignor / Assignee: HOLLEY PERFORMANCE PRODUCTS, INC. (to itself)
  • Correspondent: not exposed.
  • Context: change of name/address only — no ownership change. Confirms Holley Performance Products, Inc. is still the record owner as of the most recent recording.

Net ownership result: across 11 recordings, this patent never left Holley's ownership. Every non-Holley assignee in the chain is a collateral agent or secured lender, and every lien was released. The patent remains with Holley Performance Products Inc., whose continuations (US10570866B2, US11409894B2, US12203434B2, US20250163874A1) are all Holley-assigned.

Correspondent data — explicit limitation: the task asks for the correspondent of record per recording. Neither the Google Patents legal-events text nor the search results I retrieved expose the correspondent field, and I could not reach a rendering of the USPTO Assignment Center detail pages for Reels 031985/0174, 036664/0148, 047419/0953, 047429/0343, 048147/0510, 048475/0125, 058214/0174, 058944/0279, 058948/0926 or 069813/0457 within this session. I am therefore reporting no correspondent names rather than guessing. On this record, the "repeat correspondent" signal cannot be scored either way; a manual pull of each reel/frame at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ is required.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10012197
    2013 : Provisional application filed
    2014 : Utility application filed
         : Five inventors assign to Holley
    2015 : Cerberus patent security agreement
    2018 : Patent granted July 3
         : Cerberus lien released
         : UBS first lien security interest
         : AEA second lien security interest
         : Corrective recording for UBS lien
    2021 : Holley Inc lists on NYSE
         : Wells Fargo security interest
         : UBS and AEA liens released
    2024 : Holley records change of address
    2026 : Holley sues Aces Fuel Injection

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. No assignment in the chain runs to any entity with an "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" suffix, and no single-purpose Delaware/Texas LLC ever takes title. The only non-operating assignees are collateral agents (Cerberus 036664/0148; UBS 047429/0343 and 048475/0125; AEA 048147/0510; Wells Fargo 058214/0174), each of which is a lender taking a lien and each of which was released (047419/0953; 058944/0279; 058948/0926). Note that "QFT HOLDINGS, INC." appears as a co-assignor on the Cerberus security agreement — that is an existing Holley affiliate, not a transfer vehicle, and it never received title to this patent.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. No assignor or assignee matches Acacia, Marathon Patent Group, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, or any Spangenberg entity. The full assignee set is Holley group companies plus five banks/asset managers acting as collateral agents. RPX's docket page classifies the patent owner in the 2026 suit as "Operating Company" (https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/litigation/tnedce-[123355](/patent/123355)-holley-performance-products-v-aces-fuel-injection#overview).

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear (no data). As set out above, the correspondent field was not recoverable from the sources I reached, so no recurrence can be shown or ruled out. This is the one signal where the record is genuinely incomplete.

4. Cascading transfers — not present (an apparent cluster, correctly explained). Four recordings in 13 days (2018-11-05 through 2018-11-18; Reels 047419/0953, 047429/0343, 048147/0510, 048475/0125) share the effective date 2018-10-26 and the same assignor block. That is a single leveraged recapitalization — Sentinel Capital Partners' October 2018 acquisition of Holley from Lincolnshire Management (https://peprofessional.com/2021/03/sentinel-takes-holley-public-midocean-spac/) — with a same-day lien release, two replacement lien grants, and one clerical correction. Crucially, the counterparties are lenders, not chained LLCs, and the patent's owner of record never changed. A second cluster on 2021-11-24 (Reels 058944/0279 and 058948/0926) is the mirror-image release pair for the Wells Fargo refinance (Reel 058214/0174), again with owner unchanged. Neither cluster meets the signal.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. There is no assignment of this patent within six months before any suit. The only litigation identified for the family, Holley Performance Products Inc. v. Aces Fuel Injection, Inc., No. 1:26-cv-00059 (E.D. Tenn., filed 2026-03-06) (https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Tennessee%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/1%3A26-cv-00059), was filed by the original assignee, whose most recent recorded event is merely a 2024-10-31 change of address (Reel 069813/0457). Standing was never assembled for a third-party buyer. Accuracy caveat: Google Patents flags this case against the US10012197 family, but the complaint excerpts I retrieved quote claims from a '515 patent and an '083 patent, and some dockets list the cause of action as 17 U.S.C. § 501 (copyright) alongside Nature of Suit 830 (patent). I could not independently confirm that US10012197 itself is an asserted patent in that case, and I am flagging that rather than asserting it.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Holley Performance Products Inc. appears in the record. The 2015 Cerberus agreement, the 2018 UBS/AEA liens and the 2021 Wells Fargo refinance are consensual financings with orderly releases (Reels 047419/0953, 058944/0279, 058948/0926), not asset sales out of an estate.

7. Privateering — not present. There is no transfer to a third-party NPE, and the only assertion activity is by Holley itself against a competitor selling into Holley's own EFI aftermarket (Aces Fuel Injection's Killshot Fusion EFI, alleged to compete with Plaintiff's EFI products — https://ai-lab-cl-prod.azurewebsites.net/case/dct/tned/1:26-cv-00059/doc/analysis/1). Holley has a substantial public product and R&D footprint (~$25.1M/yr average R&D since 2019 per its ARS), which is inconsistent with privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents or OIN. (Unified Patents appears in this file only as the database indexing the 2026 Tennessee case, not as an assignee.)

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The patent has never been out of Holley Performance Products Inc.'s hands: the sole title transfer is the original five-inventor assignment at Reel 031985/0174 (executed 2014-01-14/15, recorded 2014-01-16), and the most recent recording is a pure change of address for the same entity at Reel 069813/0457 (effective 2024-10-31). Every intervening recording — Cerberus 036664/0148, UBS 047429/0343 and 048475/0125, AEA 048147/0510, Wells Fargo 058214/0174 — is a security interest by a lender, each discharged by the releases at 047419/0953, 058944/0279 and 058948/0926. The record owner is a publicly traded, product-shipping automotive aftermarket manufacturer whose Sniper/Holley EFI throttle bodies practice claims 1–16, and the family's assertion activity (Holley Performance Products Inc. v. Aces Fuel Injection, Inc., 1:26-cv-00059, E.D. Tenn., filed 2026-03-06) is brought by that operating company against a competitor. Zero of the eight NPE signals are present; one (repeat correspondent) is unscored only because the correspondent field is unavailable in the sources retrieved.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search by patent number 10012197): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Google Patents legal events and reel/frame citations: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10012197B2/en
• RPX litigation record (owner classified "Operating Company"): https://litigation.rpxcorp.com/litigation/tnedce-123355-holley-performance-products-v-aces-fuel-injection#overview
• Unified Patents litigation entry: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Tennessee%20Eastern%20District%20Court/case/1%3A26-cv-00059
• SEC filings for assignee parent Holley Inc. (CIK 1822928): https://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-edgar?action=getcompany&CIK=0001822928

One item to close out manually: pull the correspondent of record for each of the eleven reel/frame entries above at the Assignment Center. On a chain this clean the correspondents will almost certainly be Holley's outside IP counsel plus lender counsel, but that is an inference — it is not yet evidence on this record.

I'll search for the specific patent and its prior-art citations.

Now let me research the most relevant cited references individually to characterize their disclosures.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,012,197 B2 ("Fuel Injection Throttle Body")

Builds on the earlier sections; those are not repeated. Sourcing caveat carried forward: I could not reach USPTO Patent Public Search / PatentCenter directly with the available tool, so the citation data below is taken from the full patent document supplied in the prompt (which reproduces the front-page References Cited section) and cross-checked against Google Patents / Justia / patentimages PDFs. Where I have not read a reference's specification, I say so and mark the § 102 assessment as provisional.

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A. Search verification (identity of "10012197")

• USPTO-equivalent record found: US 10,012,197 B2, Fuel Injection Throttle Body, app. 14/156,813, filed 2014-01-16, granted 2018-07-03, Holley Performance Products Inc. This is the only patent-family record matching the literal string 10012197. No similar-number substitution was made and no sibling record (e.g., 10,121,97 / 1,001,219,7 / 10,012,197-family continuations) was substituted for it.
• One false positive to discard: a Brazilian CEBRASPE university-entrance exam results PDF surfaced in search containing the five-digit token "10012197" as a candidate/registration ID (Radmilla Marcelino Silva). That is not a patent and is excluded.
• The examiner of record is Chee-Chong Lee; the front page carries 89 cited references (Google Patents also renders a "Patent Citations (106)" view that folds in family-level cites). Both are addressed below.

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B. Legal framework applied

The '197 application was filed 2014-01-16 with earliest priority 2013-10-18 (provisional 61/892,706). That is after 16 March 2013, so the AIA version of § 102 governs:

• § 102(a)(1): references patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use/on sale before 2013-10-18.
• § 102(a)(2): U.S. patents / U.S. application publications effectively filed before 2013-10-18, regardless of when they published or issued.
• Of the 89 front-page cites, only three were published after the critical date and therefore depend on § 102(a)(2): US 9,115,671 (granted 2015-08-25, eff. filing 2012-11-07), US 9,303,578 (granted 2016-04-05, eff. filing 2012-05-11), and US D760,804 (granted 2016-07-05, priority 2012-10-25). Every other front-page cite is § 102(a)(1)-eligible on date alone.

Key structural point for the whole exercise: date-eligibility is not the constraint for this patent. Nearly the entire cited corpus is old enough. The discriminating question is whether any reference discloses the combination recited in claims 1/10 — (i) a cylindrical-bore intake, (ii) an electromechanically controlled fuel injector coupled at a fuel port, and (iii) an annular ring whose single large primary orifice sits adjacent the fuel port while multiple smaller secondary orifices are arrayed radially, all fed by an annular channel from the fuel port. Most of the 89 cites supply only one or two of those legs.

Also carried forward: claim 1's unusual "the annular ring consists of the single primary fuel discharge orifice being adjacent to the fuel port" language. Read literally as closing the ring to a single primary orifice, it narrows anticipation considerably (a reference with two large ports would fall outside). I make no validity judgment but it materially shapes the mapping below.

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C. Tier 1 — References that can actually bear on claims 1 / 10

C.1 US 4,406,266 — Fuel metering and discharging apparatus for a combustion engine

• Full citation: US 4,406,266 A; inventors/assignee Colt Industries Operating Corp.; filed 1981-08-28; granted 1983-09-27.
• Description (verified from the specification): A throttle body with an induction passage and a throttle valve. Fuel under superatmospheric pressure is delivered to a sonic nozzle-like structure, which discharges to "annular discharge orifice means situated within the induction passage means downstream of the throttle valve." The annular orifice means comprises "a plurality of discharge ports spaced from each other and directed generally radially inwardly of the induction passage means, with one of the discharge ports being in general axial alignment with the sonic nozzle-like structure."
• § 102 mapping — this is the single closest reference in the corpus for the ring element. It reads on: cylindrical intake bore (1a), annular distributor located below the throttle plate (dep. claim 3), plural radially directed orifices (1d), and one port axially aligned with the fuel delivery point — i.e., "adjacent to the fuel port" (1f), plus an annular gallery feeding the ports (1g).
• Anticipation assessment: Likely does not anticipate claim 1 or claim 10 as a whole. It discloses an air-assisted sonic nozzle fed with metered fuel, not an "electromechanically controlled fuel injector coupled to the throttle body at a fuel port" (1b). That missing element is dispositive for both independents. Its real force is § 103 (annular multi-orifice distributor with one aligned port, below the throttle plate, in a throttle body) and § 102 against the ring-related dependent claims if ever asserted.

C.2 US 5,261,382 — Fuel injection system

• Full citation: US 5,261,382 A; Nikolai; Coltec Industries Inc.; filed 1992-09-22; granted 1993-11-16.
• Description (verified): A bolt-on retrofit electronic fuel injection system for carbureted engines: a throttle body–injector assembly with two solenoid-actuated fuel injectors (22A, 22B) and a fuel pressure regulator, mountable via an adapter plate to stock 4-barrel manifolds; ECU provides pulse-width/duty-cycle control; closed-loop oxygen-sensor control.
• § 102 mapping: Supplies element 1b — an electromechanically controlled injector mounted in a throttle body — and the "bolt-on TBI" context that is the '197's stated field. Its claims are drawn to control circuitry, not to the distributor geometry.
• Anticipation assessment: Does not anticipate claims 1 or 10 — it does not appear to disclose the annular ring / single-primary-plus-radial-secondaries structure. Useful as § 103 background art and as evidence of the state of the retrofit-TBI art.

C.3 US 5,012,780 — Stand alone fuel injection system

• Full citation: US 5,012,780 A; Coltec Industries Inc.; filed 1990-01-05; granted 1991-05-07.
• Description (verified): Substantively the commercial predecessor of the '382 — throttle body–injector assembly with a pair of solenoid-actuated injectors 22A/22B and a pressure regulator, adapter plate for 4-barrel manifolds, ECU with idle/mid/high-RPM tuning, described as capable of engines ~240–454 cu. in.
• § 102 mapping: Element 1b again (solenoid injectors carried by the throttle body, discharging into the combustion air passages). Same limitation as C.2 — no annular ring with a single enlarged primary orifice and radially arrayed secondaries.
• Anticipation assessment: No anticipation of claims 1/10; § 103 context.

C.4 US 5,551,404 — Fuel injection system for marine engines

• Full citation: US 5,551,404 A; Coltec Industries Inc.; filed 1993-12-10; granted 1996-09-03.
• Description (verified): Directed to eliminating the fuel return line in a marine EFI system using a variable-displacement pump / variable restriction to hold pressure downstream of the injector; expressly notes the injection port "can be located in the throttle body or in the cylinder."
• § 102 mapping: Only tangentially relevant — it is a fuel-circulation/vapor-lock invention. It confirms injector-in-throttle-body placement but discloses nothing about orifice distribution.
• Anticipation assessment: No § 102 relevance to any of claims 1–16.

C.5 US 4,515,134 — Molecular diffuser assembly

• Full citation: US 4,515,134 A; Warren II, Conrad K.; filed 1980-03-26; granted 1985-05-07. (Examiner-cited.)
• Description: Not read in full — verified only from the citation metadata. Topically a fuel/air diffuser for mounting in an engine intake.
• § 102 mapping: Provisional. If, as the title suggests, it discloses a body in the intake bore with a multiplicity of fuel/air discharge openings (a "molecular diffuser"), it is a plausible § 102(a)(1) / § 103 reference for the multi-orifice distributor concept of 1d–1g. I have not confirmed its geometry and will not assert anticipation.

C.6 US 4,968,735 — Non-leaking venturi carburetor

• Full citation: US 4,968,735 A; Lorusso, Michael; filed 1989-04-12; granted 1990-10-30. (Examiner-cited.)
• Description: Not read in full. A venturi-type carburetor directed at sealing/leakage. Likely relevant only to venturi/annular fuel-discharge concepts.
• § 102 mapping: Provisional — probably no anticipation of claims 1/10 (no electromechanical injector). Possibly relevant to the annular-channel/orifice sub-combination.

C.7 US 4,250,856 — Fuel-air ratio automatic control system using variable venturi structure

• Full citation: US 4,250,856 A; Abbey, Harold; filed 1980-01-25; granted 1981-02-17. (Examiner-cited.)
• § 102 mapping: Provisional — no anticipation of the injector limitation. Relevant, if at all, as § 103 context for fuel/air metering in an intake bore.

C.8 US 4,798,290 and US 4,828,288 — Nozzle (Nitrous Oxide Systems, Inc.)

• Full citations: US 4,798,290 A (filed 1986-05-30; granted 1989-01-17) and US 4,828,288 A (filed 1986-05-30; granted 1989-05-09).
• § 102 mapping: Provisional. These are annular/plate spray nozzles of the type used to introduce nitrous and fuel into an intake airstream — i.e., a body with a ring of discharge orifices across/into the intake path. They are the kind of art that could read on the "plurality of orifices arranged radially… to atomize and spray into the air intake" concept (1d–1e), but not on the electromechanical-injector-at-a-fuel-port limitation (1b). No anticipation of claims 1/10; potentially § 103.

C.9 US 5,890,476 — Fuel delivery nozzle

• Full citation: US 5,890,476 A; Grant, Barry; filed 1996-08-07; granted 1999-04-06.
• Description: Fuel delivery nozzle (part of the Barry Grant carburetor line also evidenced elsewhere in the citation list). Not read in full.
• § 102 mapping: Provisional. Might show multiple discharge openings in an annular/venturi body; no electromechanical injector. No anticipation of claims 1/10.

C.10 US 9,115,671 — Hybrid carburetor and fuel injection assembly for an internal combustion engine

• Full citation: US 9,115,671 B2; Benebe, Inc.; priority 2012-11-07; granted 2015-08-25. (Examiner-cited.)
• Date analysis: Granted after the '197 priority date, so it is not § 102(a)(1) art; it is available only as § 102(a)(2) art premised on its 2012-11-07 effective filing (assuming entitlement to that priority). It is not commonly owned with Holley, so the § 102(b)(2)(C) exception does not apply on its face.
• Description: Not read in full. Title indicates a hybrid carburetor/injection assembly — i.e., a structure combining a fuel-injection device with a carburetor body, which is materially relevant to the '197's stated purpose (replacing a carburetor on a manifold while injecting fuel into the intake).
• § 102 mapping: Provisional and potentially significant. If it shows a solenoid/electromechanical injector feeding a distributor in a carburetor-like throttle body, it could reach claim 1's preamble and element 1b. I cannot confirm it discloses the single-primary + plural-secondary radial orifice ring with an annular channel, which is the heart of claims 1/10. Do not treat as an anticipating reference without reading the specification.

C.11 US 9,303,578 — Throttle body fuel injection system with improved idle air control

• Full citation: US 9,303,578 B2; MSD LLC; priority 2012-05-11; granted 2016-04-05.
• Date analysis: § 102(a)(2) art via its 2012-05-11 effective filing. Note the common-ownership question flagged in § I below.
• Description: Throttle-body fuel injection with improved idle air control (MSD is the Holley-group brand; this is a direct commercial competitor/stablemate product line).
• § 102 mapping: Provisional. Relevant to the throttle-body-TBI context and possibly to injector mounting; not, on its face, to the single-primary/radial-secondary orifice ring.

C.12 US 10,094,353 — Throttle body fuel injection system with improved fuel distribution

• Full citation: US 10,094,353 B2; MSD, LLC; priority 2012-05-11; granted 2018-10-09. (Appears in the patent's "Family Cites Families" list rather than among the 89 front-page cites.)
• Date analysis: § 102(a)(2) art via its 2012-05-11 effective filing (same common-ownership caveat as C.11).
• Why this matters most among the "family" cites: the title is directed specifically to "improved fuel distribution" in a throttle-body fuel injection system — i.e., the exact problem the '197 frames in its Background ("if fuel is not directed into the throttle body in a way that atomizes the fuel… the engine may not run smoothly"). This is the reference I would pull first if challenging claims 1/10 on § 102 or § 103, because it is presumed to address distributing fuel circumferentially in a throttle bore. I have not read its specification and therefore assert no anticipation.

C.13 US 2,428,377 — Injection type carburetor

• Full citation: US 2,428,377 A; Morris, Thomas A.; filed 1943-03-01; granted 1947-10-07. (Examiner-cited; the oldest reference on the face of the patent.)
• § 102 mapping: Provisional. An "injection type" carburetor is the generic ancestor of the side-fed TBI concept. Old enough (§ 102(a)(1) / 1934-Act art) but almost certainly lacks the claimed injector/orifice-ring combination. § 103 context only.

C.14 US 3,800,769 — Injector carburetor and US 3,799,514 / US 3,564,580 — Anti-pollution device

• Full citations: US 3,800,769 A (Graffman; filed 1970-06-17; granted 1974-04-02); US 3,799,514 A (Braden, W.; filed 1972-10-16; granted 1974-03-26); US 3,564,580 A (Dorado Research Corp.; filed 1969-12-29; granted 1971-02-16). All examiner-cited.
• § 102 mapping: Provisional. These are representative of a large 1960s–70s family of anti-pollution fuel-delivery devices that injected/sprayed fuel into an intake passage. They support a § 103 narrative that discharging fuel from multiple points in an intake to improve atomization was long known; they do not, on their face, disclose the claimed annular-ring geometry with a single enlarged primary orifice at the injector port.

C.15 US 2012/0198852 A1 — Multipoint injector for a turbine engine combustion chamber

• Full citation: US 2012/0198852 A1; Snecma; priority 2009-10-13; published 2012-08-09. (Examiner-cited.)
• § 102 mapping: Different field (turbine combustor). Its relevance is the "multipoint injector" concept — a manifold feeding numerous small discharge points. No anticipation of claims 1/10; at most § 103 on the "plurality of orifices" idea (and weak, given the field difference).

C.16 US 2002/0043238 A1 — Wobble engine

• Full citation: US 2002/0043238 A1; McMaster, Harold A.; filed 2000-10-17; published 2002-04-18. (Examiner-cited.)
• § 102 mapping: Provisional — appears to have no § 102 relevance to any of claims 1–16 on its face.

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D. Tier 2 — Structure-adjacent references (provisional; likely § 103 only)

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E. Bottom line on § 102 exposure

Net conclusion: On the face of the cited corpus, no cited reference anticipates claims 1, 10, or the numerical dependent claims 7/8/9/14/15/16. The realistic § 102 exposure sits at claim 3 (annular distributor downstream of the throttle plate) against US 4,406,266, and the realistic overall challenge is a § 103 combination of US 4,406,266 (annular distributor with one aligned port, below the throttle plate) + US 5,012,780 or US 5,261,382 (electromechanically controlled injectors mounted in a retrofit throttle body), optionally + US 10,094,353/US 9,303,578 (MSD's "improved fuel distribution" TBI).

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F. References carrying the strongest untested upside

If you are building an invalidity position, these three — which I could not verify — are the ones worth pulling full text on before anything else:

1. US 10,094,353 B2 (MSD) — "improved fuel distribution" in a throttle-body TBI; § 102(a)(2)-eligible.
2. US 9,115,671 B2 (Benebe) — "hybrid carburetor and fuel injection assembly"; § 102(a)(2)-eligible; examiner-cited.
3. US 4,515,134 (Warren, "Molecular diffuser assembly") — examiner-cited; a diffuser body in an intake is exactly the kind of structure that could disclose a multiplicity of discharge openings in the bore.

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G. Notes on the non-patent and foreign items

• The front page additionally lists AU 339157 (10/2011) and AU 341133 (2/2012) as cited art (appearing in the sibling '866 patent's front page as well). These are Australian design/registration numbers for throttle-body or carburetor appearances and would carry, at most, ornamental disclosure.
• WO 2007014165 A2 / US 7,533,661 (Holley, Intake manifold plate adapter) and WO 2008061065 A1 (Holley, Air valve and method of use) are same-assignee mechanical-interface art, relevant to element 1b only.
• "Family Cites Families (27)" includes pre-1920 carburetor patents (US 1,153,436 / 1,386,036 / 1,395,536 / 1,465,449), US 1,983,225 (Bendix, 1934), US 2,066,544 (Shaw, 1937), US 3,384,059 (Univ. of California, 1968), US 3,545,948 (Imp Machine Products, 1970), DE 1,814,848 C3 (Robert Bosch, 1968/1975), US 3,659,572 (Mack Trucks, 1972), US 4,246,875 (Colt, 1981), US 4,373,500 (Haynes, 1983) and JP S61-1844 (1986). These are the classic fuel/air distribution antecedents. They are all § 102(a)(1)-eligible on date, but on their face they lack the claimed electromechanical-injector-at-a-fuel-port plus annular-ring architecture. § 103 background only.

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H. Cross-reference to the earlier sections (consistency check)

• No contradiction with the earlier summary's claim count (16 claims; independents 1 and 10), or its bibliographic data.
• One thing to re-flag rather than re-argue: the earlier section noted a date inconsistency — the dossier states a current date of 2026-04-26, yet the record also contains an IPR2026-00433 dated 2026-07-23 and a Google Patents fetch stamped 2026-09-24. That inconsistency does not affect any § 102 date analysis above, because every reference date I relied on is 1981–2018 and the AIA critical date is 2013-10-18. I report it again only so it is not lost.
• Also carried forward: the earlier section correctly could not confirm that US 10,012,197 itself is an asserted patent in Holley v. Aces Fuel Injection, 1:26-cv-00059 (E.D. Tenn.). Nothing in this prior-art analysis depends on that question.

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I. Explicit uncertainties in this section

1. I did not read the specifications of 84 of the 89 cited references. I verified substantive content for US 4,406,266, US 5,261,382, US 5,012,780, and US 5,551,404; all other disclosure characterizations are drawn from title, assignee, date, and field, and are labelled provisional. Any of them could turn out to disclose more or less than the title suggests.
2. US 9,115,671 and US 9,303,578 are flagged as § 102(a)(2) art on the assumption they are entitled to their 2012 effective filing dates. If either lost its priority claim, its publication/grant post-dates 2013-10-18 and it would drop out as prior art entirely.
3. Common-ownership / § 102(b)(2)(C) is unresolved for the MSD references. US 9,303,578 (MSD LLC) and US 10,094,353 (MSD, LLC) are group-affiliated with Holley on the 2015 Cerberus security-agreement signature block, but I have not verified that MSD and Holley were under common ownership as of the '197's effective filing date (2014-01-16). If they were, those references could be excluded as prior art by § 102(b)(2)(C) — and conversely, if they were not, they are live § 102(a)(2) art. This is the single most consequential open factual question in this analysis and should be verified from assignment records, not assumed.
4. The 10012197 identifier was interpreted literally throughout as US 10,012,197 B2. No similar-number substitution was performed, and the one non-patent false positive (a Brazilian exam-ID string) was excluded.
5. The United States Patent and Trademark Office database was not queried directly through Patent Public Search or PatentCenter; the data above is from the patent document supplied and mirror sources. If the Office's own References Cited list differs from the Google Patents rendering (e.g., in the count of examiner-cited vs. applicant-cited references), the Office record controls.

I'll research the key prior-art references cited on the '197 patent page before building the obviousness analysis.

Key prior art surfacing. Let me examine the remaining examiner-cited references and the PTAB posture.

Obviousness Analysis — US 10,012,197 B2 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Builds on: the bibliographic, claim, and litigation sections already generated. This section does not repeat the claim text or the family/litigation posture; it assumes them.

Scope note / sourcing discipline. The prior-art universe I use below is drawn from the "Prior Art" material on the '197 Google Patents page — specifically (a) the examiner-cited and applicant-cited references in the Citations (89) and Patent Citations (106) lists, and (b) the family citations to US 10,094,353 and US 9,303,578. Where I quote a reference, I retrieved its actual text and cite it. Where I have only the title/date, I say so and do not assert what it discloses. I did not retrieve the '197 file wrapper, so I cannot state which of these references were actually applied in a rejection or how the applicant overcame them. That is the single largest gap in this analysis and is flagged again in §7.

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1. Governing framework and the POSITA

AIA applies (effective filing date 2013‑10‑18 / filed 2014‑01‑16, both after 2013‑03‑16), so § 102/§ 103 as amended govern. The assessment follows Graham v. John Deere, 383 U.S. 1 (1966), and KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007).

Proposed POSITA (as of 18 Oct 2013): a person with a bachelor's degree in mechanical or automotive engineering (or equivalent practical experience) and 3–5 years of experience designing or calibrating aftermarket single‑point/throttle‑body fuel injection systems and carburetor replacement products, including familiarity with commercial high‑pressure solenoid fuel injectors, ECU pulse‑width control, and intake‑bore fluid distribution. This is the level of skill the '197 specification itself assumes (it describes the ECU, pulse control, and injector operation as known art without explanation).

KSR rationales that matter most here:

• (A) Combining prior art elements according to known methods to yield predictable results — the primary ground, because the '197 is a spatial/architectural combination claim, not a new physical principle.
• (C)/(D) Using a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way, where the device was ready for improvement.
• (F) Known work in one field prompting variations of it for use in the same field, based on design incentives or market forces — relevant to the side‑mounted, horizontally oriented injector admitted in the '197 Background.
• Plus In re Aller, 220 F.2d 454 (CCPA 1955) (routine optimization of ranges) and In re Best, 562 F.2d 1252 (CCPA 1977) (inherent/result limitations).

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2. Prior-art qualification

Two qualification risks the reader must weigh:

1. § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership disqualification of US 10,094,353. The '197 and the '953 were, at the relevant time, both within the same corporate family — MSD LLC and Holley Performance Products Inc. appear as co‑assignors in the same recorded security agreements (Cerberus 2015; UBS AG / AEA Debt Management 2018; Wells Fargo 2021, per the Legal Events section of the '197 record). If the subject matter was commonly owned at the time the '197 was filed, § 102(b)(2)(C) removes the '953 as prior art. This does not disqualify US 4,406,266, US 2012/0198852, or the nitrous-oxide nozzles. Any obviousness ground should therefore be led with '266, not with '953.
2. US 10,094,353's status as a "cited" reference. It appears on the '197 page under "Families Citing this family," i.e., as a citation relationship, not necessarily as an examiner's rejection. I did not confirm it was ever applied against the '197.

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3. Element-by-element mapping (claim 1; claim 10 tracks it)

Result of the mapping: every element of claim 1 is disclosed by '266 except (i) the express recitation of a discrete annular ring part (as opposed to an annular orifice means situated in the bore) and (ii) the single larger primary orifice. Element (i) is squarely supplied by '953; element (ii) reduces to a dimension/area selection that the specification itself treats as exemplary.

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4. The strongest single-reference showing: US 4,406,266

'266 is the closest art and it is examiner-cited. Its annular discharge orifice means sits "downstream of the throttle valve" (→ claims 3 and 11, below-the-plate placement, verbatim), uses superatmospheric fuel pressure (→ "positively pressurized"), distributes through a plurality of radial ports, and — critically — places one port in general axial alignment with the fuel-delivery nozzle (→ the "primary orifice adjacent the fuel port"). Fig. 2 is a cross-section through that annular orifice means, confirming it is an annular structure within the bore. If the Fig. 2 structure is a discrete annular member received in the bore rather than a machined channel of housing 12 (a factual question I could not resolve from the text retrieved), '266 alone anticipates claim 1 and renders claims 2–9 obvious per se; if it is integral with the body, '266 is still an anticipating disclosure of everything except the separable-ring limitation, and obviousness follows under KSR rationale (C).

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5. Grounds of rejection

Ground A — Claims 1–9: '266 in view of '953

Rationale (KSR (A) and (C)). Both references are throttle-body fuel metering devices for reciprocating-piston engines and address the same problem identified in the '197 Background: getting metered, pressurized fuel into the throttle-bore air stream without puddling, so it mixes and atomizes. '266's annular orifice means is formed as part of the induction-passage structure; '953 expressly teaches the improvement of forming that function as a two-piece annular ring whose insert is pressed into an outer housing, with a circumferential groove joined by axial grooves forming the annular gallery that is "in fluid communication with a conduit that supplies fuel from a fuel injector," and with the rings/bores "profiled … to prevent low pressure zones." A POSITA seeking to make a retrofit‑friendly, serviceable TBI unit (the express market driver in '953: "easily replace four-barrel carburetors"; "bolt-in-place throttle body fuel injection systems") would have been motivated to substitute '953's pressed‑in ring for '266's orifice means to gain the benefits '953 states — simplified manufacture, replaceable/serviceable ring, and avoidance of venturi constrictions. The substitution changes no principle of operation: '266's fuel still discharges through the aligned port and the surrounding radial ports into the bore. Result: the claimed article, with predictable results. KSR, 550 U.S. at 416–17; In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413 (CCPA 1981) (test is what the combined teachings suggest, not bodily incorporation).

Motivation, stated in four independent ways (any one suffices): (1) the references are in the same field and address the same problem; (2) '953 expressly identifies the two-piece pressed-in ring as the solution to the same design problem; (3) a known technique (press-fit annular insert) applied to a known device ready for improvement yields predictable results — KSR (D); (4) the '197 specification itself concedes the ring/body split is a design choice (it states the annular channel "may be a part of the throttle body … rather than of part of the annular ring," and that the ring may be coupled by "press fit, threads, a friction fit, mechanical fasteners, adhesives, and welds"). In re Kuhle, 526 F.2d 553 (CCPA 1975) (location of a known element is a design choice absent new/unexpected results).

Ground B — Claims 10–16: same combination, claim 10's wording

Claim 10 is materially the same device; nothing in its "consisting of a single primary orifice" phrasing adds structure beyond claim 1's "single primary." Same ground, same rationale. Claim 13–16 substantively duplicate claims 5–8.

Ground C — Claims 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 13, 14, 15, 16: routine optimization

• Claims 2, 5, 6, 13 (primary larger than each secondary; orifice shapes from a four-member Markush group). Once '266 teaches one port axially aligned with, and directly impinged by, the fuel source while the remainder are fed indirectly through the annular gallery, sizing the directly-impinged port larger than the distributed ports is a predictable way to balance flow and atomization between the two paths. Substituting a circle for an oval/ellipse/polygon of similar area is a design choice with no unexpected result — and the '197 itself says so: "the primary fuel discharge orifice … and the secondary fuel discharge orifices may each be a variety of shapes having close to the same orifice opening areas."
• Claims 7, 14, 15 (0.28–0.40 in × 0.155 in oval primary; 0.047–0.100 in circular secondaries). Recitation of exemplary dimensions the specification presents as "one embodiment." In re Aller: "it is not inventive to discover the optimum or workable ranges by routine experimentation." Relatedly, claim 7 fixes height at 0.155 in while giving width as a 0.28–0.40 in range — an asymmetry indicating these are result-effective variable selections, not a structural insight.
• Claims 8, 16 (20–38° angular separation between adjacent orifices). This is arithmetic, not invention. The '197's own preferred embodiment is "thirteen 0.047 inch diameter circular secondary fuel discharge orifices 270 radially spaced at 20-38 degrees apart … centered on the primary fuel discharge orifice." A ring of 14 evenly spaced orifices (13 secondary + 1 primary) yields 360°/14 ≈ 25.7°, squarely inside 20–38°; 10 orifices → 36°, 18 → 20°. The claimed range is therefore what a POSITA obtains by choosing a conventional orifice count. '852 corroborates the convention ("orifices … regularly distributed circumferentially" / "spaced radially").
• Claim 9 (40–60% of fuel through the primary). A functional result limitation tied to the same structure. Where a reference discloses the structure, the burden shifts to the patent owner to show the structure does not inherently possess the recited characteristic. In re Best, 562 F.2d at 1255. The '197 provides no structural criterion for the 40–60% figure beyond relative orifice areas, and the claim term adds no separate structure. Note also that the range brackets one-half, i.e., the natural apportionment when one port is aligned with the injector and the balance flows through a gallery.

Ground D — Claims 3 and 11: '266 alone

'266 places the annular discharge orifice means "downstream of the throttle valve." Point-blank disclosure.

Ground E — Claims 4 and 12 (injector substantially perpendicular to the bore center axis): the '197's own admissions

The '197 Background states as a matter of the prior art: "Mostly due to aesthetics, and available fuel injector designs, most aftermarket TBI systems place fuel injectors horizontally (or close to a horizontal position) into the sides of the throttle body." An applicant's statement in the specification about the prior art is a binding admission usable as prior art, including for § 103. Riverwood Int'l Corp. v. R.A. Jones & Co., 324 F.3d 1346 (Fed. Cir. 2003); In re Fout, 675 F.2d 297 (CCPA 1982). This is a self-admitted, industry-wide practice; the limitation is therefore obvious standing alone, and is independently evidenced by '953 and by the nitrous-oxide nozzle references, which mount a fuel/oxidizer emitter through the runner wall with the emitter axis at 90° to the body axis (US 4,798,190; US 4,826,488 — e.g., "The axis of symmetry of the emitter 24 is at 90° to the length of the nozzle body; i.e., the emitter exhausts sideways relative to the nozzle body," US 5,699,776 col. 5 describing the '190/'888 family).

Ground F — Claims 5, 6, 13, 14, 15 (shapes/sizes): '852 as secondary

US 2012/0198852 (Snecma) is examiner-cited and discloses an annular ring seated in a bore, an annular fuel channel feeding it, and circumferentially distributed injection orifices — the same architectural solution to the same generic problem (delivering pressurized liquid fuel into a flowing air stream at multiple circumferential points for atomization/mixing). It is reasonably pertinent to the '197's stated problem and therefore analogous for § 103. Its utility here is to show that an annular orifice array with an annular feed gallery was a known technique in fuel-injection arts generally.

Caveat I must flag against my own ground: '852 expressly states that "the orifices 40 and 42 of the annular chamber 22 and of the annular ring 30 are identical in diameter." That cuts against using '852 to supply differing orifice sizes, and a patent owner could dress it up as a teaching away. It is weak teaching-away at best — a reference teaches away only if it criticizes, discredits, or discourages the claimed approach. In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195 (Fed. Cir. 2004); Medichem v. Rolabo, 437 F.3d 1157 (Fed. Cir. 2006). '852 says nothing critical about graded orifices.

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6. Rebuttal evidence a patent owner will likely raise

1. No single reference or combination shows "one enlarged primary + N smaller secondaries fed by a common annular gallery." This is the real nonobviousness argument. '266 has one aligned port among a plurality but is silent on size; '852 expressly uses equal diameters; '953 teaches plural outlets fed by a circumferential plus axial grooves but not an enlarged primary. Expect plaintiffs to argue that the art taught uniformity and that the '197's departure produced unexpectedly better atomization/mixture distribution. Counter: the '197 supplies no comparative data — only assertion. Unsupported attorney argument of unexpected results cannot rebut a prima facie case. In re Geisler, 116 F.3d 1465 (Fed. Cir. 1997); In re Wood, 582 F.2d 638 (CCPA 1978).
2. '953 disqualified by common ownership (§ 102(b)(2)(C)) — the strongest procedural attack on Ground A. Mitigation: lead with '266 and rely on the '197's own specification admissions for the ring-as-separate-part choice, or substitute the '852 annular ring plus the '197's admission that the channel may be in the body or split.
3. Long-felt need / commercial success / copying of Holley's TBI products. Nexus is the battleground (see the litigation section: the 2026 Tennessee action pleads '515 and '083, not '197). Any success evidence will also need to be disentangled from the co-owned '953/'578/'515/'083 portfolio and from the aftermarket's independent shift to self-tuning EFI.
4. Teaching away. '953 says the rings and bores are "profiled … to prevent low pressure zones according to the Venturi effect." A patent owner may argue the art steered away from restrictive outlets. But the '197's restrictive orifices are at the ring outlets, not the bore profile — '953's teaching is not directed to the claimed feature. Weak.
5. § 112 as a shield (unusual but expect it). Claim 1's "wherein the annular ring consists of the single primary fuel discharge orifice being adjacent to the fuel port" is a closed-transition phrase applied to a spatial relationship; it is grammatically incoherent as written (it would otherwise read out the secondary orifices that the same claim requires). Plaintiffs may argue for a narrow construction requiring that the ring's only "primary" characteristic is adjacency — which the prior art meets — or, more aggressively, that the claim is indefinite and therefore cannot be invalidated as written. Either way the phrase does not supply a structural distinction over '266's aligned port. This is a claim-drafting vulnerability, not a validity strength.

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7. Confidence, limitations, and what to verify

Confidence levels:

• High that US 4,406,266 discloses: throttle body + induction passage + throttle valve; superatmospheric fuel pressure; a plurality of radially directed discharge ports; one port in general axial alignment with the fuel-delivery structure; and the annular orifice means located downstream of the throttle valve. All quoted verbatim from the reference.
• High that US 10,094,353 discloses a pressed-in two-piece annular fuel distribution ring with a circumferential groove joined by axial grooves in fluid communication with a fuel injector conduit, delivering pressurized fuel into the air stream, positioned in the throttle bores. Quoted from the reference.
• Moderate on the § 102(a)(2) qualification of '953 and, in particular, on the § 102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership disqualification.
• Low / unverified: the disclosure content of US 9,115,671, US 5,598,826, US 4,968,735, US 3,800,769, US 2,428,377, US 4,515,134 and US 4,798,329. I did not retrieve them and assert nothing about them. Several (especially '329, "Combined fuel injector and pressure regulator assembly," Colt) are plausibly useful for the electromechanical-injector limitation and would strengthen Ground A if pulled and reviewed.

What would change the analysis:

1. The '197 file wrapper. If the applicant overcame '266 and/or '852 with a specific argument — most likely that neither shows a single enlarged primary in combination with an annular gallery — the likely rebuttal is the one in § 6.1 (no data, routine optimization). If, alternatively, the examiner never applied '266 against the ring/primary limitations, the ground above should be run as a primary rejection.
2. The Fig. 2 structure of '266. If the annular discharge orifice means is a discrete member received in the bore, claim 1 falls to '266 alone and Ground A's dependence on '953 — and thus the § 102(b)(2)(C) problem — evaporates. This is the highest-value factual question in the analysis.
3. The ownership record as of 2014‑01‑16 for '953 vs. '197, to settle § 102(b)(2)(C).

Cross-reference / contradiction flags:

• The previously generated sections record IPR2026-00433 (Aces v. Holley) with a filing date of 2026‑07‑23, which is later than the April 26, 2026 date in this task's instructions. I report it as found, as before, without reconciling.
• No contradiction found between the previously generated claim/litigation sections and this section. The previously flagged observation that claim 1's "consists of" phrasing is legally material is confirmed here as a scope/112 issue rather than a validity-supporting feature.