US 10168235

I'll verify the record and check for any litigation/docket activity before summarizing.

US Patent 10,168,235 — Verified Summary

Note on scope of search: I searched for the literal identifier 10168235 (US 10,168,235 B1). I did not find any CAFC 2026 docket entry, district court case, or PTAB proceeding involving this patent. My searches for "10168235" plus litigation/docket terms returned only unrelated 2026 Federal Circuit matters (Innovaport, Spero, Linfo, Nearmap, Constellation Designs, Ironburg, etc.), none of which reference this patent. Given the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees in 2023, the absence of litigation activity is consistent. I cannot claim an exhaustive docket check of PACER/PatentCenter from this session — treat "no litigation found" as a negative search result, not an affirmative clearance.

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Bibliographic Data

Abstract (verbatim)

A stretchable piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring includes a stretchable flexible substrate and a conductive layer formed on the flexible substrate. A plurality of sensing members corresponding in number to end faces of a packaging box is adhered to the conductive layer. When the piezoelectric sensor is placed at the bottom of the packaging box containing goods, two ends of the piezoelectric sensor can be stretched to fit on the diagonal corners of the packaging box, and the sensing members are located on the respective end faces of the packaging box to achieve an all-round monitoring.

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Independent Claim — Plain-Language Overview

There is exactly one independent claim (claim 1). Parsed element by element:

Claim 1 — "Stretchable piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring"

1. Substrate — a stretchable flexible substrate.
2. Conductive layer — a conductive layer formed on the flexible substrate. (Per the specification, this is "deposited or coated… as an electrode layer for transmitting charge.")
3. Ring form — the sensor as a whole "is in the form of a ring," i.e., an endless annular band rather than a flat patch. This is the structural heart of the claim and the point of novelty over the inventor's own earlier piezoelectric label.
4. Sensing members — a plurality of sensing members adhered to the conductive layer, where the number of sensing members corresponds to the number of end faces of a packaging box (six, for a standard cuboid box).
5. Intended geometry/operation — when the two ends of the sensor are stretched and fitted onto diagonal corners of the packaging box, the sensing members end up located on the respective end faces of the box.

Plain-language restatement: a stretchy, ring-shaped piezo sensor strip whose sensor elements are spaced to match the faces of a shipping box; you drop the box onto the loop, stretch the loop up over two opposite corners, and every face of the box gets a sensor in one binding motion.

Dependent claims (for completeness, not "independent"):

• Claim 2 — the flexible substrate is a flexible printed circuit board.
• Claim 3 — the upper and lower end faces of the sensor are each enclosed with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) via an optical adhesive.

Specification Points of Note

• Sensing members are described as adhered through an anisotropic conductive film; the FPC is "soldered with a pin."
• The described end-to-end system: sensor + analog-to-digital converter + microcontroller ("smart circuit"), a QRCode 3 on the box scanned at the logistics station and recorded in a cloud management system 5, with the sensor in a vehicle 4 communicating over the Internet. The specification also mentions a back-end circuit connected to a police station, and reuse of the sensor as a removable anti-theft/automated-storage tag. None of these system features are recited in the claims — the claims are purely structural, which is worth noting if you are assessing claim scope or § 101 exposure.
• Cited prior art on the face of the patent: US 7,373,260 B2 (Metis Design); CN 202414432 U; US 2014/0049137 A1 (Murata); US 2016/0306393 A1 (Polyera); US 2016/0324431 A1 (Ospicon); TW I557680 B and TW 201714141 A (both Southern Taiwan University — the inventor's own earlier "logistics monitoring system by using piezoelectric sensing tag").
• Family/related documents: TW I645369 B ("Stretchable type piezoelectric sensor used on real-time logistic monitoring," 2018-12-21) and CN 108981977 A (2018-12-11), which appear to be counterparts. A sibling US application, US 2019/0006576 A1 ("Surface-mount piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring") and CN 108981978 A, is a different filing — do not conflate it with this patent.

Confidence and Caveats

• High confidence on title, application number, filing/issue dates, assignee, inventors, claim text, and the fee-lapse status — these come from the full patent record and are mutually corroborated across Google Patents, Justia, and Patent Encyclopedia.
• Moderate confidence on the absence of any earlier priority claim: the record shows the 2017-06-29 US filing as the priority date with no foreign priority entry, but the specification references a 2015 Taiwan filing (I557680) as background only.
• Explicit uncertainty: I have not confirmed the primary examiner or any post-grant proceedings (IPR/PGR) from an authoritative USPTO source in this session. I also cannot represent that the litigation search was exhaustive. If you need a definitive docket/PACER confirmation, that should be run against USPTO PatentCenter / PACER directly.

I'll search litigation databases for US Patent 10168235.

Let me try more targeted litigation databases.

Let me try a few more targeted searches on litigation-specific databases.

Litigation Search Results — U.S. Patent No. 10,168,235

Bottom line: I found no record of any litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,168,235. The patent appears never to have been asserted in a U.S. district court, before the ITC, or in any other forum identified in the sources I searched.

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What the patent is (for identification purposes)

This identification matters for your search: there is no terminal disclaimer, no reissue, and no recorded assignment away from the university in the materials I reviewed, so the only party with standing to sue during the patent's life was Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology (and, if exclusively licensed, its licensee).

Confirmatory negative evidence from the patent record itself

The Google Patents "Cited By" table for this patent lists only three forward citations, all of which are later patent documents, not litigation events:

• CN 109932117 A — "whole machine cabinet server shipment monitoring method and device" (Suzhou Inspur; priority 2019-02-27)
• US 2022/0042864 A1 / US 11,566,952 B2 — "Tensile force detecting device" (Korea Institute of Science and Technology; priority 2020-08-06)
• US 2022/0291017 A1 / US 12,078,512 B2 — "Dual channel detector" (TDK Electronics AG; priority 2019-11-28)

Similarly, the "Citations" (backward) table lists only patent publications: US 7,373,260 B2 (Metis Design), US 2014/0049137 A1 (Murata), CN 202414432 U (Shanghai University), US 2016/0306393 A1 (Polyera), US 2016/0324431 A1 (Ospicon), TWI 557680 B and TW 2017/14141 A (both Southern Taiwan University — the inventor's own earlier Taiwan filing). If this patent had been litigated, these tables typically would show parallel case activity, and in any event the absence of litigation is consistent with everything else in the record.

Searches performed and what they returned

I ran queries against the patent number, the title, the assignee, and litigation aggregators (Unified Patents litigation portal, CourtListener/RECAP-targeted searches, Docket Alarm/PTAB documents, general docket language such as "district court complaint infringement" paired with the patent number). Results:

• No district court case number, complaint, or docket referencing 10,168,235.
• No ITC Section 337 investigation.
• No PTAB proceeding (no IPR, PGR, or CBM) referencing 10,168,235 as the challenged patent.
• No CAFC appeal referencing 10,168,235.
• The only "hits" for the numeral 10,168,235 in litigation-adjacent material were false positives — e.g., a UK Companies House gazette listing of unrelated registered company numbers (10168235) in the London Gazette. These are not patent litigation and must not be treated as such.

Important caveats on this negative finding

1. Source coverage limits. I do not have direct, credentialed query access to Docket Navigator or the full PACER docket index in this session. My searches were web-mediated. A truly exhaustive check would require a Docket Navigator or Lex Machina patent-case search on the patent number, plus a PACER "case number by patent" query across all districts. I recommend that as a final verification step.
2. Litigation may be unindexed. Cases that are filed and dismissed very quickly (e.g., a stipulated dismissal within days), or state-court actions, or foreign proceedings (Taiwan, China) may not surface in U.S.-centric aggregators. Note the patent family has a Taiwanese sibling, TWI 645369 B ("Stretchable type piezoelectric sensor used on real-time logistic monitoring") and Chinese counterparts CN 108981977 A / CN 108981978 A; enforcement activity, if any, would more plausibly be outside the U.S.
3. Practical significance. Because the patent expired for nonpayment of maintenance fees effective 2023-01-01, any suit filed after that date would have faced an expired-patent / standing problem for prospective relief. This strongly reinforces the plausibility of a "no litigation" conclusion.

Requested case table

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Conclusion: Based on the searches conducted, no litigation is known involving U.S. Patent No. 10,168,235. The patent was owned by Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, was never evidently asserted, and lapsed for failure to pay maintenance fees effective January 1, 2023 (recorded February 6, 2023). If you need court-of-record certainty, the definitive next step is a paid Docket Navigator or Lex Machina run on the patent number 10168235, restricted to that exact number.

I'll verify the structured "no proceedings" result against live sources before reporting.

The initial hits are false positives from other patents (e.g., 9,917,563; 10,715,235). Let me run more targeted checks.

PTAB / AIA Trial Report — US Patent 10,168,235 B1

"Stretchable piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring"
Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology · App. 15/637,240 · Filed 2017-06-29 · Granted 2019-01-01

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Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 10,168,235 — no IPR, no PGR, and no CBM — so there is no claim-invalidation, no institution denial, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal to report; the patent stands un-reviewed at the PTAB, and the defensive posture for a defendant is therefore "the validity of claims 1–3 has never been tested in an AIA trial, but the patent lapsed for non-payment of maintenance fees effective 2023-01-01, which largely moots the question."

I want to be candid about the source of that statement rather than dress it up as a merits victory for anyone:

• The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block supplied in this prompt (USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent.
• My independent web checks returned no PTAB petition, institution decision, Final Written Decision, or CAFC appeal naming US 10,168,235. Searches that looked promising resolved to different patents — see the false-positive warning below.
• The full patent record as fetched (Google Patents, which does surface a "Patent Trial and Appeal Board" section for patents that have one) contains no PTAB block, only a "Cited By" list and a "Similar Documents" list. That is consistent with the ODP result.

⚠️ False-positive warning — do not confuse these with this patent

PTAB filings use the shorthand "'235 patent" constantly, and none of the ones I encountered refer to this patent:

Anyone running a docket check by searching bare string "235" or even "'235" will get a garbage-in result. Search 10,168,235 or 10168235 — and even then verify the title, not just the number.

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Per-proceeding detail

None.

There is no proceeding to itemize. To be explicit about what would appear here and does not:

• Proceeding number — none issued (no IPR2019-#####, IPR2020-#####, PGR2019-#####, or CBM2019-##### number attributable to this patent).
• Petitioner / Patent Owner — no petitioner has ever been named.
• Judge panel — no APJ panel has ever been assigned.
• Petition grounds — n/a.
• Institution decision — n/a.
• Final Written Decision — n/a. No claim of this patent has ever been canceled, confirmed, or construed by the Board.
• Settlement / termination — n/a.
• Appeal — n/a. No 2020-#### / 2021-#### CAFC docket number traces to this patent on the basis of my searches.

Defensive value: the practical value of this finding is procedural, not substantive. Nothing here validates the claims. The absence of PTAB activity is best explained by the patent's own timeline (below), not by the strength of claim 1.

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Strategic summary

Claim status: all three claims are UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,168,235 has been canceled, narrowed, confirmed, or substituted. Claim 1 (the sole independent claim, directed to the ring-form stretchable piezoelectric sensor with sensing members numbering to the box's end faces) carries its original scope and its original presumption of validity. Claims 2 (flexible printed circuit board substrate) and 3 (PET encapsulation via optical adhesive) are likewise untouched. Do not let anyone tell you a PTAB panel held anything about this patent — it did not.

Why there are no proceedings — the timeline explains it, and it matters more than the count. Three independent gate-closures essentially eliminated every AIA vehicle:

1. PGR closed early and silently. The patent issued 2019-01-01 on a post-AIA (first-inventor-to-file) application, so PGR was available — but only until 2019-10-01, nine months post-grant. That window closed with no filer. A PGR would have been the natural vehicle here, because it is the only AIA trial that reaches § 101 subject-matter eligibility and § 112 — and this patent's claims are classified in G06Q10/08 and G06Q50/28 (logistics/business methods), which is exactly the profile that used to draw § 101 attacks. (Note the cross-reference to the earlier summary: the claims are purely structural; the QR-code, cloud-management, A/D-converter, microcontroller and police-station features live only in the specification and are not recited in any claim.)
2. CBM is no longer a tool. The covered-business-method program sunset on 2020-09-16. Even though this patent's G06Q classification and logistics-monitoring subject matter would have made it a plausible CBM candidate, no CBM petition appears to have been filed against it, and that door is now permanently shut. Note the irony: CBM was the only program that could have reached § 101 for a patent like this — and CBM was not available as an IPR substitute.
3. The patent died before an IPR was worth filing. Maintenance-fee reminder mailed 2022-08-22; lapse for non-payment 2023-02-06, effective 2023-01-01; "patent expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362" recorded 2023-02-28. There is no litigation on file (per the earlier summary's negative search result) and no PTAB activity. A petitioner pays six-figure IPR fees to defeat an asserted patent; an unasserted, fee-lapsed patent attracts neither petitions nor defensive aggregators. No Unified Patents-style entity appears anywhere in this patent's chain — no assignment history other than the original 2017-06-30 inventor-to-university assignment (Reel/Frame 042870/0818).

Estoppel landscape: effectively empty, and that cuts in the defendant's favor. Because no IPR or PGR reached a Final Written Decision, § 315(e)(2) estoppel has never attached to anyone. There is no petitioner, no real party in interest, and no privy barred from raising anything. If you are a defendant, you face no estoppel whatsoever and retain the entire § 102 / § 103 prior-art field, plus the full § 101 and § 112 toolkit that IPR could never have reached in the first place. Conversely, there is also no favorable estoppel to borrow — you cannot point a court at an FWD and say "the Board already killed this."

Pattern signals — essentially none, and that is itself diagnostic. No petitioner filed more than once against this patent (because none filed once). The patent owner has never appeared before the Board on this patent and has no PTAB appeal history here. The only familial note worth flagging from the earlier summary: TW I645369 B and CN 108981977 A are foreign counterparts, and a sibling US filing US 2019/0006576 A1 ("Surface-mount piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring") plus CN 108981978 A exist as separate filings. Foreign counterparts are outside PTAB jurisdiction entirely, and I found no PTAB activity on the sibling US filing either — but that sibling is a distinct patent with its own claims and its own status, and should be checked separately if it is in play.

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Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and have received a demand letter or complaint citing US 10,168,235:

• Do not expect a PTAB shortcut, because there isn't one. There is no FWD to link to and no canceled claim to quote. Unlike the situation where "claims 1–5 have been canceled — if the demand letter cites them, the troll has no case," here every claim is live as written.
• Lead with the lapse, and pin down the date. The asserted rights were cut off effective 2023-01-01 by non-payment of maintenance fees. Under the record, the patent expired for failure to pay maintenance fees (event code LAPS 2023-02-06; STCH same date; FP 2023-02-28 with effective date 2023-01-01). Practical consequences worth developing with counsel: (i) no infringement liability can accrue for conduct after the lapse effective date, which bounds any damages exposure to a pre-2023 conduct window; (ii) any pre-suit damages lookback is further constrained by 35 U.S.C. § 286; (iii) injunctive relief is off the table for an expired/lapsed patent, and (iv) the patent cannot be asserted to exclude anyone going forward. Confirm the § 41(c) lapse mechanics and the exact effective date against USPTO PatentCenter before relying on it in a filing — the record is unambiguous on its face, but the effective-date convention (2023-01-01 vs. the 2023-02-06 LAPS event) should be nailed down, since it can matter to the damages cutoff.
• If any pre-lapse conduct is genuinely in scope, the invalidity field is wide open. No § 315(e)(2) estoppel binds you, and the art of record is thin and old: US 7,373,260 B2 (Metis Design, "Sensor infrastructure"), CN 202414432 U (intelligent packing case with real-time status monitoring — a Chinese utility model, directly on point for box-mounted sensing), US 2014/0049137 A1 (Murata, displacement sensor), US 2016/0306393 A1 (Polyera, flexible electronics with sensed-movement UI), US 2016/0324431 A1 (Ospicon, flexible optic fiber sensor film), and the inventor's own TW I557680 B / TW 201714141 A. Claim 1's distinguishing feature over the inventor's own prior label is the ring form + stretch-over-diagonal-corners geometry, so any pre-2017 teaching of a loop/an endless band of distributed sensors that is stretched over a container is the highest-value target. Expect the § 103 combination to run through CN 202414432 U plus an elastic/sensor-band reference.
• Expect a § 101 argument to have real teeth if the case is ever filed. The claims are structural, but a court applying Alice step two to a sensor whose only stated advance is "simplifying the operation process" for logistics monitoring (G06Q10/08) may find the recited elements to be conventional components arranged to implement an abstract idea. Note, though, that no PTAB or court has ever addressed this — this is an untested theory, not a holding.

If you are tracking this patent on a monitoring/watch basis:

• Instruct your docket vendor to match on 10168235 / 10,168,235 and to verify against the title "Stretchable piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring," because the "'235 patent" shorthand in PTAB filings overwhelmingly refers to other patents (see the false-positive table above).
• For the canonical negative confirmation, run the patent against USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board End-to-End (PTAB E2E) at https://ptab.uspto.gov/ and the ODP API, and for any appeal run CourtListener's docket search at https://www.courtlistener.com/?type=r&q=%2210%2C168%2C235%22. I did not access PACER or PatentCenter directly in this session, so treat "no litigation, no PTAB" as a negative search result, not an affirmative clearance — consistent with the caveat already recorded in the earlier summary.
• Sunset condition to log: IPR remains technically available to a party served with a complaint, subject to the § 315(b) one-year bar, even against a lapsed patent — but in practice no petitioner files against an unasserted, expired patent, and the owner has no incentive to assert one. Treat this file as closed for practical purposes unless an assertion materializes, in which case re-run the docket check immediately.

Bottom line for a defendant: this is not a hardened patent — it is an un-exercised, un-reviewed, fee-lapsed patent. Nobody has ever tested claims 1–3 at the Board, and nobody appears to have asserted them in court. Your best defenses are the 2023-01-01 lapse (a hard ceiling on any damages theory) and a completely unencumbered invalidity case free of any § 315(e)(2) estoppel — with the entire § 101 and § 112 field available to you precisely because no AIA trial ever happened.

I'll verify the assignment record and check for any post-issuance transfers or assertion activity.

Inventors

All five named inventors are listed at Tainan City, Taiwan addresses, and the record is consistent with a single university research group rather than a multi-party collaboration:

Pattern notes. The inventor set is a tight, same-institution cluster (one professor as PI plus four co-inventors), which is the ordinary signature of a university lab filing, not of a spun-out startup. The STUST Electronic Engineering newsletter confirms the group's work was jointly developed between the Electronic Engineering and Mechanical Engineering departments and was one of two technical-university projects selected for Taiwan's 2017 Future Tech Expo (the "iTape 智慧膠帶" smart-tape module). The earlier related filing (TW I557680) names the same inventive circle and is also assigned to STUST.

"All inventors departed within 12 months of filing" — signal not present / not determinable. No evidence of inventor departure, spin-out, or assignment of individual rights away from the university appears in any record I retrieved. Because this is a university-originated portfolio, inventor retention is the norm (rights are contractually obligated to the university), so departure tracking is largely moot here.

⚠️ Caveat: I could not verify each inventor's department/employment from an authoritative STUST or USPTO source for all five. Cheng Hsin Chuang's STUST affiliation is corroborated by two independent third-party sources; the other four are inferred from Tainan City addresses and shared-project documentation.

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Original assignee

Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology (STUST; 南臺科技大學) — a private technical university in Tainan, Taiwan. Original assignee on the issued patent and, per all records I could reach, the current assignee.

• Product embodying the claims: The university does not ship a commercial product. Its research team did build and demonstrate a working demonstrator — the "iTape" smart adhesive tape logistics monitoring system (flexible PVDF piezoelectric force sensor + smart back-end circuit + tag scanner + in-vehicle unit + cloud management system) — exhibited at the 2017 Future Tech Expo. That is a prototype/research platform, not a marketed product. The patent's own claims are purely structural (a ring-shaped stretchable piezo sensor with sensing members spaced to box faces) and recite none of the system-level elements.
• Primary line of business: Higher education and academic research; technology transfer and industry-academia collaboration.
• Current status: Operating. No bankruptcy, dissolution, or acquisition found. The university maintains an active, publicly posted patent transfer/sale program (專利權讓與/出售公告 pages listing US and TW patents offered for assignment), including a 2023 posting tied to an Ministry of Economic Affairs program. Scholarship on US 10,168,235 lists no current assignee change.

Important classification nuance: STUST is a non-practicing entity in the literal sense (it does not manufacture), but it is a university, which is categorically distinct from an NPE/patent-assertion business model. Ownership by a university is not, by itself, an NPE signal.

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Assignment timeline

I was not able to query USPTO Assignment Center (assignmentcenter.uspto.gov) as a live search — that endpoint is a JavaScript application and did not return fetchable records in this session. The timeline below rests on the assignment data as mirrored in Google Patents "Legal Events," the patent's own front-page assignment data, Justia, and Patents-Review. Exactly one recorded assignment exists.

• Executed 2017-06-02 to 2017-06-05 / recorded 2017-06-30 — Reel 042870/0818
  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Chuang, Cheng Hsin; Chang, Wan Jung; Huang, Chung Lin; Su, Jian Ping; Wang, Cheng An (all five named inventors, individually)
  • Assignee: Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology (recorded name on the reel: "SOUTHERN TAIWAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY"; assignee name as shown in Google Patents legal events is truncated as "SOUTHERN TAIWAN UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLO")
  • Correspondent: Not displayed in the records I could reach. ⚠️ I will not guess. For context only: the prosecuting agent of record on this application is Rosenberg, Klein & Lee (per Patents-Review's bibliographic listing), which is the firm that would ordinarily have prepared and filed the recordation — but I could not confirm from the assignment record itself that Rosenberg, Klein & Lee is the named correspondent on reel 042870/0818, so this is unconfirmed and must not be treated as a repeat-correspondent finding.
  • Context: Founding/inbound assignment — the standard university employee-invention assignment perfecting title in the institution at filing. This is an acquisition by the original assignee, not a transfer to a third party.

No post-issuance assignments, security interests, licenses, mergers, changes of name, or releases are recorded on this patent. Google Patents "Legal Events" for US 10,168,235 shows only two entries: the 2017-06-30 assignment (AS) and the 2018-12-12 grant (STCF), followed by the maintenance-fee lapse events. The chain therefore terminates where it began: with the university.

Terminal event (not an assignment): maintenance-fee reminder 2022-08-22; lapse for failure to pay maintenance fees recorded 2023-02-06, effective 2023-01-01; "patent expired due to nonpayment of maintenance fees under 37 CFR 1.362" 2023-02-28. Anticipated expiration had fees been paid: 2037-06-29.

Cross-checked sources: Google Patents legal events (https://patents.google.com/patent/US10168235/en); Justia patent page (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[10168235](/patent/10168235)); Patents-Review (https://www.patents-review.com/a/20190002177-stretchable-piezoelectric-sensor-applied-logistics.html); Justia assignee listing for STUST (https://patents.justia.com/assignee/southern-taiwan-university-of-science-and-technology). Family counterparts TW I645369 B (南臺科技大學) and CN 108981977 A likewise show STUST as the owner-side applicant — no third-party transfer surfaced there either.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10168235
    2017 : Filed 29 Jun by five STUST inventors
         : Inventors assign to STUST
         : Recorded reel 042870 frame 0818
    2019 : Patent issued 1 Jan
    2023 : Lapsed for unpaid maintenance fee

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

Non-signal worth recording (context, not a finding): STUST runs a standing outbound patent assignment/sale program — it publicly advertises patents for 讓與/出售 (assignment/sale) on its Research & Development office pages, and I retrieved one such notice (108年, i.e. 2019) listing US patents US7943042B2, US8051900B2, US8421311B2 and US9458548B2 and TW patents including I444604 (a flexible piezoelectric tactile sensor) for transfer, plus a 2023 notice from an MOEA program. US 10,168,235 does not appear on the notices I retrieved, and I found no recording of any STUST patent sale to an LLC for this patent. Describing STUST as a willing patent seller is supported; treating that as evidence of an actual NPE transfer would be speculation and is not presented as a finding.

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Verdict

Insufficient data — under the rubric, the assignment record contains only the founding assignment, so none of the eight signals can be affirmatively or negatively resolved beyond the founding link.

Justification. The sole recorded assignment is reel 042870/0818, recorded 2017-06-30 (executed 2017-06-02–06-05), conveying the five inventors' rights to Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology; there is no post-issuance assignment, no LLC successor, no asserter, no litigation-timed transfer, and no defensive-aggregator terminus. The patent lapsed effective 2023-01-01 for non-payment of maintenance fees (recorded 2023-02-06), which neutralizes any assertion risk and is itself why the absence of NPE activity is unsurprising. On the substance, this is a university-owned, non-asserting profile — not an NPE — but the required controlled vocabulary for a chain of one is "Insufficient data," so that is the call.

⚠️ Limitations to carry forward: (a) USPTO Assignment Center could not be queried live in this session — the "no further assignments" conclusion rests on mirrored legal-events data (Google Patents, Justia) rather than a direct assignment-database hit; (b) the correspondent of record on reel 042870/0818 is unconfirmed, which is the single most valuable remaining data point if you want to test the repeat-correspondent signal; (c) the litigation search is a negative result, not an affirmative clearance.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by US 10,168,235 or application 15/637,240) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html — both surface the same underlying reel/frame records; confirm reel 042870/0818 and the named correspondent directly.

I'll verify the cited references and gather bibliographic detail on each. Let me run several searches.

I have four references. Let me gather the remaining two cited prior-art families (Ospicon, Southern Taiwan's own TW filings).

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,168,235 B1

Step 0 — Record verification (identifier searched literally)

A search for the literal string 10168235 returned exactly one patent: US 10,168,235 B1, "Stretchable piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring," App. No. 15/637,240, filed 2017-06-29, granted 2019-01-01, assignee Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology ("STUST"). No other patent number surfaced under that string, so the record is confirmed and not to be conflated with adjacent numbers.

Two record-integrity flags before I go further:

• Do not conflate this patent with its siblings. US 2019/0006576 A1 ("Surface-mount piezoelectric sensor applied to logistics for real-time monitoring") and CN 108981978 A are a different filing. CN 108981977 A and TW I645369 B are counterparts of the instant application — and both post-date the 2017-06-29 US filing (published 2018-12-11 and 2018-12-21 respectively), so they are not § 102 prior art to this patent and are excluded from the analysis below.
• Date discrepancy (flagging per instructions). The system context gives today's date as 2026-09-30; the task prompt says 2026-04-26. Neither affects the analysis, since all prior-art dates are fixed, but the inconsistency is noted rather than silently resolved.

Examiner: Not available from the sources I could reach; I will not guess. Pre-grant publication: US 2019/0002177 A1 (2019-01-03). The legal status is Expired – Fee Related (maintenance-fee lapse effective 2023-01-01), which is irrelevant to § 102 but worth remembering if you are weighing enforceability.

Legal framework applied. Under AIA § 102, a cited reference must pre-date the 2017-06-29 effective filing date to be prior art at all, and it anticipates only if it discloses every element of a claim, arranged as claimed. Dependent claims 2 and 3 incorporate all limitations of claim 1, so a reference that fails on claim 1 cannot anticipate claim 2 or 3 either. Where a reference teaches some but not all elements, that is a § 103 question, not § 102.

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Step 1 — The seven cited references, at a glance

All seven references below are cited on the face of US 10,168,235 as "Patent Citations (7)."

Note on the "Cited By" list (CN 109932117 A; US 2022/0042864 A1 and US 11,566,952 B2, KIST; US 2022/0291017 A1 and US 12,078,512 B2, TDK): these post-date this patent and are therefore not § 102 prior art to it. They are forward citations only.

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Step 2 — Reference-by-reference analysis and anticipation assessment

Reference 1 — US 7,373,260 B2 (Metis Design)

• Full citation: Kessler, S.S., Jugenheimer, K.A., Size, A.B., "Sensor infrastructure," US 7,373,260 B2; App. No. 11/071,129; filed 2005-03-03; priority to provisionals 60/549,668 (2004-03-03) and 60/616,748 / 60/616,705 (2004-10-07); issued 2008-05-13; assignee Metis Design Corporation. Pre-grant pub. US 2006/0080048 A1 (2006-04-13). 16 claims. Continuations: US 7,627,439 and US 7,725,269.
• Brief description: A packaged structural-health-monitoring (SHM) node — a sensor encapsulation containing a piezoelectric sensor/actuator pair, with a printed circuit board carrying a microprocessor, signal generator, and amplifier; the encapsulation can include "an outer cylindrical ring and a lid." Used for Lamb-wave/NDT damage detection in aircraft, naval, automotive and civil structures.
• § 102 assessment: Does not anticipate claim 1, 2, or 3. It discloses a sensor on a PCB (tangentially relevant to claim 2's "flexible printed circuit board") and a cylindrical ring encapsulation geometry — but that ring is a rigid housing lid, not an annular, stretchable sensor body fitted over the diagonal corners of a packaging box, and it has no "sensing members corresponding in number to end faces of a packaging box." No logistics, no box, no stretch-and-bind operation. Its ring-form language is a superficial keyword hit, not an element match.
• Best use: Background art for piezoelectric sensor nodes with FPC and encapsulation; § 103 only, and weak even there for claim 1.

Reference 2 — US 2014/0049137 A1 (Murata)

• Full citation: Ando, M. & Kawamura, H., "Displacement Sensor, Displacement Detecting Device, and Operation Device," US 2014/0049137 A1; PCT/JP2012/059508 filed 2012-04-06; JP priority 2011-04-08; published 2014-02-20; assignee Murata Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (family: EP 2696163 A1).
• Brief description: A displacement sensor having a long elastic member on which a flat-film piezoelectric element (poly-L-lactic acid, at least uniaxially stretched) with electrodes on both main faces is mounted at 45° to the long axis; detects bending/twist for game controllers, shoes, touch panels, etc.
• § 102 assessment: Does not anticipate any claim. It discloses a stretchable/elastic substrate with a piezoelectric film and an electrode layer — i.e., it partially overlaps the "stretchable flexible substrate + conductive layer" language of claim 1 — but it is a flat, rectangular displacement detector, not an annular ring, and it has no sensing-member array keyed to packaging-box faces and no diagonal-corner fitting. It cannot reach the claim 1 combination, and therefore cannot reach claims 2–3.
• Best use: Secondary/§ 103 reference for the "stretchable piezo film" concept.

Reference 3 — CN 202414432 U (Shanghai University)

• Full citation: 殷文昊 (Yin Wenhao), 马建华 (Ma Jianhua), 赵伟尧 (Zhao Weiyao), "智能包装箱及其实时状态监测系统" / "Intelligent packing case and real-time status monitoring system for same," CN 202414432 U; Appl. No. 201120326981.0; filed 2011-09-02; granted 2012-09-05; assignee 上海大学. Terminated 2018-09-02.
• Brief description: A rigid packaging box with wall and top-lid interlayers housing an onboard control system (communication + control + power) and a sensor suite inside the interlayers — a motion sensor (accelerometer), a temperature sensor, and a lid open/close (displacement) sensor — wirelessly reporting box status to a remote monitoring center. Claim 1 recites the box-with-interlayers and the sensor suite; claim 2 specifies sensor types; claim 3 adds an air pump/airbag.
• § 102 assessment: Does not anticipate any claim of US 10,168,235. It is the closest cited reference on the logistics-monitoring purpose and on "monitoring a packaging box during transport," but the structures diverge completely: the sensors are embedded in the box's own interlayers, there is no piezoelectric sensing (they are accelerometer/temperature/displacement sensors), and there is no annular, stretchable, externally bound sensor whose sensing members land on the six faces when stretched over diagonal corners. Every structural element that distinguishes claim 1 is absent.
• Best use: § 103 reference for the "real-time logistics monitoring of a boxed good" field and motivation — not an anticipation reference.

Reference 4 — US 2016/0306393 A1 (Polyera)

• Full citation: "Flexible Electronic Display with User Interface Based on Sensed Movements," US 2016/0306393 A1; filed 2016-06-24; priority 2013-12-24; published 2016-10-20; assignee Polyera Corporation (granted as US 10,372,164).
• Brief description: An attachable article — notably a wristband/band — comprising a dynamically flexible support, a flexible display, and one or more force sensors coupled to the flexible support, with a processor/memory that changes the display based on force-sensor signals.
• § 102 assessment: Does not anticipate any claim. Two features superficially echo claim 1: a flexible substrate and an annular band form carrying sensors. But the sensors are force/touch sensors for user-interface control, not piezoelectric sensing members; there is no conductive layer functioning as a charge-transmitting electrode; and there is no packaging box, no "number of sensing members = number of box end faces," and no diagonal-corner stretch-and-fit. The ring-form overlap is coincidental to a wearable, not a box-binding sensor.
• Best use: The most interesting § 103 reference for the annular flexible carrier bearing distributed sensors idea, to be combined with a piezoelectric/logistics reference.

Reference 5 — US 2016/0324431 A1 (Ospicon)

• Full citation: NG, Seng Tat; CHONG, Hwee Siong; JIANG, Xin; LIN, Xu, "Flexible Optic Fiber Sensor Film, Mat Structure Comprising the same and Method of Use of the Mat Structure," US 2016/0324431 A1; US national stage of PCT/CN2014/093043 (WO 2016/086392 A1), filed 2014-12-04; published 2016-11-10; assignee Ospicon Company Limited.
• Brief description: A flexible sensor film with a sandwiched upper/lower film and an embedded optic fiber cable with protrusions that induce light loss under body movement; packaged as a mat for detecting presence, movement, respiration rate and heart rate. The background section expressly criticizes piezoelectric sensors as hard, temperature-degrading, and incapable of true static measurement.
• § 102 assessment: Does not anticipate any claim — and is affirmatively divergent. It is a non-piezoelectric (optical-fiber) flexible sensor film, and its stated purpose is to avoid piezoelectric sensing. No ring geometry, no conductive electrode layer, no box, no box-face sensor count, no diagonal-corner fitting.
• Best use: Background showing alternative flexible-sensor approaches; not usable for anticipation, and only marginally useful for § 103 (it teaches away from piezoelectric in this context).

References 6 & 7 — TW I557680 B and TW 201714141 A (STUST — the applicant's own earlier work)

• Full citations:
  • TW I557680 B, "Logistic monitoring system that utilizes piezoelectricity sensing tags," priority 2015-10-14, published 2016-11-11, assignee 南臺科技大學 (STUST).
  • TW 201714141 A, same title, same priority 2015-10-14, published 2017-04-16, same assignee — the pre-grant publication of the same disclosure.
• Brief description (per the '235 specification's own background section, which describes this work): A piezoelectric sensing label is affixed to the top or bottom of the goods/box; the label is scanned at the logistics station with a scanner; during carriage the piezoelectric value is transmitted to a vehicle, which relays it to a cloud management system for real-time monitoring, enabling attribution of responsibility for damage. The specification expressly states the shortcomings that motivated the '235 invention: the label covers only the sealed portion (top/bottom), leaving other faces unmonitored; covering all six faces requires affixing labels one by one; and affixing to the bottom is impractical for heavy boxes.
• § 102 assessment: This is the single most relevant cited reference set — same field, same assignee, same inventors' lineage, and it supplies nearly all of the functional context (piezoelectric sensing members, ADC/MCU "smart circuit," QR code, vehicle, cloud system, logistics responsibility attribution). Yet it does not anticipate claim 1, because claim 1 turns on the structural/combinatorial novelty the '235 specification itself identifies as the invention over this reference: the sensor "is in the form of a ring," is stretchable, and has sensing members corresponding in number to the box's end faces positioned by stretching onto the diagonal corners. I557680/TW201714141 disclose discrete flat labels affixed face-by-face — the opposite of a one-piece annular stretch-and-bind structure. Because claim 1 is not met, claims 2 and 3 fail a fortiori.
• Important AIA nuance: Both TW documents published less than one year before the 2017-06-29 US filing (2016-11-11 and 2017-04-16) and are the work of the same inventors/assignee. Under AIA § 102(b)(1)(A) (grace-period exception) and/or § 102(b)(2)(C) (common ownership) as applicable, these disclosures may be excepted from being prior art altogether. That would remove the applicant's own closest prior art from the § 102/§ 103 field against this patent — a notable strategic point.
• Best use: If the exception does not apply, a § 103 combination reference (logistics piezo-tag monitoring + a known stretchable/annular sensor carrier).

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Step 3 — Bottom-line § 102 conclusions

No single cited reference discloses every element of claim 1, and because claims 2 and 3 depend from claim 1, no cited reference anticipates any of the three claims under 35 U.S.C. § 102. The claimed novelty sits in a specific structural combination — (i) annular ring sensor body, (ii) stretchable flexible substrate + conductive electrode layer, (iii) sensing members whose count matches the box's end-face count, and (iv) the geometry/operation in which stretching the two ends over the box's diagonal corners seats the sensing members on the respective faces.

Where the cited art actually matters is § 103, not § 102. The most plausibly combinable pairs for an obviousness challenge would be:

1. TW I557680 B / TW 201714141 A (piezoelectric logistics monitoring of a boxed good, with vehicle + cloud system) + US 2016/0306393 A1 (annular, flexible, sensor-bearing band) — arguably the strongest combination against the ring-form flexible sensor carrier concept; and
2. TW I557680 B + US 2014/0049137 A1 (stretchable piezoelectric film sensor) for the stretchability element.

Even these combinations must still bridge the two most distinctive claim-1 requirements — "sensing members corresponding to a number of end faces of a packaging box" and the diagonal-corner fitting — which none of the cited references teaches or suggests, and which the '235 specification frames as the express solution to the face-by-face affixing problem. That is precisely why the applicant's own earlier TW work was cited as background rather than as a bar.

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Caveats

• Confidence: high on the bibliographic data and quotations for references 1–5, which I verified against the source documents (Google Patents, FPO, patentimages PDFs, EPO/PubChem family pages).
• Moderate confidence on the TW references 6 and 7: I confirmed the titles, assignee (STUST), priority date and publication dates from the '235 record, and the substance of their disclosure comes from the '235 specification's own background description of that earlier work. I did not retrieve the full TW claim sets this session, so my characterization of I557680/TW201714141 rests on the '235 specification's account plus the record metadata.
• Explicit uncertainty: I could not confirm the primary examiner or retrieve an authoritative examiner's statement of reasons for allowance, and I did not run a formal § 102/§ 103 invalidity search beyond the cited references. The anticipation conclusions above are element-by-element comparisons based on the references as disclosed; a definitive anticipation/obviousness opinion would require full-text review of each reference's complete disclosure (including figures) and application of the AIA § 102(b) exceptions to the applicant's own TW publications.

I'll verify the content of the cited prior-art references before building the § 103 combinations, since accuracy on what each reference actually teaches is essential.

Let me verify the remaining cited references (Murata, Polyera, and the inventor's own TW publications) before constructing the combinations.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,168,235 B1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103

Source of prior art: Per the task instruction, this analysis uses only the references listed in the "Patent Citations (7)" table of the patent page itself (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US10168235B1](/patent/US10168235B1)/en). All seven carry the examiner-citation asterisk. I am not importing outside art as the primary basis, though I flag below where the combination would need to be rebuilt if certain references are disqualified.

One methodological caveat up front: I was able to verify the substantive disclosures of US 7,373,260, CN 202414432 U, US 2014/0049137 A1, and US 2016/0324431 A1 from the references themselves. My search for US 2016/0306393 A1 (Polyera) returned no usable content in this session, so I treat it as unverified and do not rely on it. The TW I557680 B / TW 201714141 A disclosures are verified only indirectly — through the '235 patent's own background section, which describes that work in detail and is the most reliable available proxy for what those references teach.

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1. Governing standard

The application was filed 2017-06-29, so the AIA version of § 103 applies, with §§ 102(a)(1)–(a)(2) defining the prior-art universe. The operative test is Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1 (1966), as refined by KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007):

1. Determine the scope and content of the prior art;
2. Ascertain the differences between the prior art and the claims;
3. Resolve the level of ordinary skill;
4. Consider objective indicia.

The KSR rationales relevant here (see MPEP § 2143) are:

• (A) Combining prior-art elements by known methods to yield predictable results;
• (B) Simple substitution of one known element for another to obtain predictable results;
• (C) Use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way;
• (D) Applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement to yield predictable results ("obvious to try" where there is a finite number of identified, predictable solutions);
• (F) "Design incentives and other market forces can prompt variations… if a person of ordinary skill can implement a predictable variation, § 103 likely bars its patentability."

A PHPOSITA here is a mechanical/electrical sensor engineer (or packaging-engineer working with one) with a bachelor's degree in electrical or mechanical engineering and 2–3 years in flexible/thin-film sensor integration or structural monitoring — the level consistent with the references themselves, which are all sensor-engineering disclosures.

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2. The claim at issue and its elements

Claim 1 is the only independent claim. Its elements, as I read them:

Critical drafting observation for the § 103 analysis. E1–E4 are pure structure. E5 is a statement of intended use and inherent capability, not of additional structure: it describes what happens when a user performs a step. Under In re Schreiber, 128 F.3d 1473 (Fed. Cir. 1997), and In re Casey, 165 F.2d 1010 (CCPA 1948), an apparatus claim containing a recitation of intended use reads on a prior-art apparatus that is merely capable of that use. The only way E5 acquires limiting weight is if the recited capability requires a specific structure not otherwise present — i.e., that the band be elastic enough and the sensing members spaced such that the geometry of E5 necessarily results (cf. In re Giannelli, 739 F.3d 1375 (Fed. Cir. 2014)). That spacing/elasticity requirement is supplied almost entirely by E1 + E3 + E4. E5 therefore adds little or no patentable weight, and the obviousness case stands or falls on E1–E4.

Also flag for accuracy: the preamble "applied to logistics for real-time monitoring" is a field-of-use/intended-use recitation with no structural consequence.

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3. What each cited reference teaches

3.1 TWI 557680 B / TW 2017/14141 A — Southern Taiwan University (the inventor's own earlier work)

Per the '235 specification's own background: a piezoelectric sensing label is affixed to the top or bottom of a packaging box; scanned at the logistics station; during transport the sensed piezoelectric value is transmitted to a vehicle and thence to a cloud management system; used to "clarify the attribution of responsibility when the goods are damaged." The same background expressly states that the tags can be affixed to the six end faces of the box to achieve "all-round monitoring," but that this requires affixing the labels one by one, and that affixing at the bottom is highly inconvenient "because the goods are too heavy and the packaging box cannot be overturned."

This is the closest art and is the patent's own admitted starting point. Two things follow:

• It discloses E2 (conductive layer) and E4 (sensing members on the end faces of a packaging box, matching the face count) in substance, plus the logistics/liability purpose.
• More importantly, it supplies the express motivation: the very problem the '235 patent claims to solve is recited in the prior art as a known, recognized deficiency (laborious serial affixation; inability to reach the bottom face).

3.2 US 7,373,260 B2 — Metis Design Corp. ("Sensor infrastructure"; filed 2005-03-03, granted 2008-05-13)

From the reference itself (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US7373260B2](/patent/US7373260B2)/en; https://www.metisdesign.com/docs/US07373260.pdf):

• A sensor node with a piezoelectric wafer 29 (sensor 50 / actuator 51) and a flexible circuit having a top portion 26 and a bottom portion 28 that "provides power and data connections to and from the wafer" — i.e., conductors carried on a flexible dielectric, with the piezo element bonded into/onto that flexible circuit (E1's "flexible," E2, and the "adhered" relationship of E4);
• The sensor encapsulation "can include an outer cylindrical ring and a lid, and wherein the sensor and the actuator can be positioned in the cylindrical ring" (E3);
• "A plurality of sensors co-located on at least one piezoelectric wafer" (E4);
• "The sensor can provide substantially a 360-degree radial detection of structural occurrences in a material" — an express functional rationale for a ring/annular sensor geometry;
• Broad statement of applicability: the infrastructure can be used in "any field in which a single sensor or a distributed network of sensors is required to collect data," including "security, surveillance, condition monitoring or quality control."

3.3 CN 202414432 U — Shanghai University ("Intelligent packing case and real-time status monitoring system")

From the reference (https://patents.google.com/patent/CN202414432U/en):

• A packaging box with wall interlayers and a top-lid interlayer containing a sensor system: a motion-parameter (acceleration) sensor and a temperature sensor in the wall interlayer, and a lid open/closed (displacement) sensor in the top-lid interlayer;
• A control system, a power system, and a wireless communication system transmitting real-time status to an external monitoring center over GPRS;
• Expressly perceiving "violent collision, being destroyed, being opened, internal temperature, transport delay," and expressly providing a record/evidence function for later claims and client rights.

This supplies (i) multiple sensing members distributed across plural faces of a packaging box, (ii) the tamper/unsealing detection function, and (iii) the remote-monitoring/liability purpose — all in the packaging arts.

3.4 US 2014/0049137 A1 — Murata Mfg. ("Displacement Sensor, Displacement Detecting Device, and Operation Device")

From the reference (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140049137/en):

• A displacement sensor comprising a rectangular elastic member with a flat-film piezoelectric element attached to a main face of the elastic member;
• The piezoelectric element is a piezoelectric sheet with electrodes formed on both main faces; the sheet is poly-L-lactic acid, at least uniaxially stretched;
• In one configuration the elastic member itself has conductivity and serves as one of the electrodes;
• Detection occurs by bending/stretching the elastic member and reading the piezo-generated voltage; the sensor is mounted on/or in devices subject to deformation.

This is the reference that most directly supplies E1 in its literal "stretchable" sense — a piezoelectric transducer integrally bonded to an elastic, deformable member, with a conductive electrode layer on it. It is also classified in G01L 1/16 ("Measuring force or stress… using properties of piezoelectric devices"), the same CPC subgroup assigned to the '235 patent — strong evidence of analogous art and a same-field-of-endeavor relationship.

3.5 US 2016/0324431 A1 — Ospicon ("Flexible Optic Fiber Sensor Film, Mat Structure…")

From the reference (https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160324431A1/en):

• A sandwiched layer of upper and lower films with a sensor element (optic fiber) between them; protrusions on the films to press on the fiber;
• Explicit disclosure that the upper film, lower film, protection films, protective layer and outer mat cover "are made of elastic material selected from plastic, rubber, nylon, particularly polyethylene";
• An outer mat cover that encases the sensor film and protective layer (encapsulation);
• The film is a mat that can be rolled up / wrapped; and the system includes an ADC, a processor, and a transmission module (e.g., wireless) for sending results to a display.

This is the best cited art for encapsulating a flexible sensor laminate between protective outer layers — relevant to claim 3 — and for the wrap-around/conformable form factor generally. It is fiber-optic rather than piezoelectric, so its value is as a structural/encapsulation reference, not as a piezoelectric-sensing reference.

3.6 US 2016/0306393 A1 — Polyera — not verified this session. Do not rely on it.

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4. Combination 1 (primary): TWI 557680/TW 2017/14141 A + Murata '137 + Metis '260

Why this is the natural, and likely correct, examiner combination.

Step 1 — Claim 1 minus the primary reference. TWI 557680 gives, in the logistics/packaging field: piezoelectric sensing tags, on the end faces of a packaging box, count-matched to the faces, with detected values telemetered to a cloud system for damage attribution. It does not disclose a single annular, stretchable band that is applied by stretching over diagonal corners. The differences are therefore E1 (stretchable), E3 (ring), and the "one-time operation" mode of E5 — which is exactly the invention as the specification frames it.

Step 2 — Supply E1 and E3 from the secondary references.

• Murata '137 supplies E1: a piezoelectric element on an elastic member that is deliberately deformed (stretched/bent) and whose deformation is sensed, with electrodes on the piezo sheet and (optionally) a conductive elastic member serving as an electrode → a stretchable substrate + conductive layer + piezo sensing member.
• Metis '260 supplies E3: a sensor node that can include an outer cylindrical ring, with the sensor/actuator positioned in the ring, expressly to obtain "substantially 360-degree radial detection," and a plurality of sensors co-located on a wafer carried by a flexible circuit.

Step 3 — The motivation, articulated. This is where the combination is strongest, because the motivation is not merely imputed by the analyst; it is recited in the art itself:

1. The problem is expressly identified in the prior art. TWI 557680's own description (reproduced verbatim in the '235 background) states that covering all six faces "requires affixing the piezoelectric sensing labels one by one," and that bottom-face affixation is impractical because heavy boxes "cannot be overturned." A recognized, articulated problem in the same field is a classic KSR rationale (D): applying a known technique to a known device ready for improvement.
2. The solution chosen is among a finite, predictable set. Given a strip of sensors that must be distributed around a rectangular six-faced solid and hold itself in place under tension, the available solutions are: (i) an elastic band/loop, (ii) hook-and-loop straps, (iii) adhesive, (iv) shrink wrap. Option (i) is the single most predictable, and is also the one that requires no adhesive (eliminating the bottom-face access problem entirely). KSR holds that where a finite number of identified, predictable solutions exists, the fact that the inventor selected one is not enough for patentability.
3. The "stretch to fit over diagonal corners" step is a direct consequence of the geometry. For a rectangular solid, applying a closed elastic loop requires stretching it over the corners — the two opposite corners being the minimal-clearance points. Varying the band circumference to seat sensing members on the faces is ordinary mechanical design ("the length of the piezoelectric sensor can be adjusted according to the needs," as the spec itself concedes). This is KSR rationale (A).
4. Metis '260 supplies the reason to prefer an annular form. Its express 360-degree radial detection teaching gives a person of skill a reason to arrange sensing elements in a closed ring rather than as discrete patches — the ring geometry is chosen for a known functional benefit.
5. Murata supplies the reason to prefer an elastic substrate. An elastic member that is stretched and whose strain is sensed is disclosed as a better piezoelectric displacement sensor (it avoids the brittleness of PZT ceramics — a concern the Ospicon reference also highlights). Using an elastic (stretchable) rather than merely flexible substrate is a known technique used to improve a similar device in the same way (rationale C), and yields nothing more than the predictable result of a band that conforms to and grips the box.

Step 4 — The result is the claimed subject matter, and it is predictable. Combining a piezo-on-elastic transducer (Murata) with a multi-sensor annular/circumferential sensor arrangement (Metis) in the known packaging-monitoring application (TWI 557680 / CN 202414432 U) yields, with no change in the respective functions of the components: a stretchable, ring-shaped band bearing plural piezoelectric sensing members on a conductive layer, stretchable onto a six-faced box so that the members seat on the faces. Each reference is doing exactly what it was known to do; the combination "merely arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform" (KSR, quoting Anderson's-Black Rock).

Claim chart (claim 1):

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5. Combination 2: CN 202414432 U + TWI 557680 + Murata '137 (+ Metis '260)

A variant that may be stronger for claim 1 without the TW reference and for the tamper-detection aspect: CN 202414432 U teaches a packaging box whose several faces each carry a sensor, including a lid-open/closed sensor and a motion (impact) sensor, all reporting wirelessly to a remote monitoring center for evidence/liability purposes — that is the multi-face packaging-monitoring framework, in the same CPC classes as the '235 patent (B65D 79/02 "Arrangements or devices for indicating incorrect storage or transport" and B65D 77/24 "Inserts or accessories added or incorporated during filling of containers" — both listed on the '235 face). Exchanging its acceleration/temperature/displacement sensors for piezoelectric sensing elements (Murata; Metis) is a simple substitution of one known sensing element for another to obtain a predictable result — piezo transducers being the art-recognized choice for detecting impacts/vibration (KSR rationale B). Impartment of the elastic-band carrier is as in Combination 1.

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6. Dependent claims

Claim 2 — "the flexible substrate is a flexible printed circuit board."
Doubly obvious. (a) Metis '260 discloses a flexible circuit carrying power and data connections to the piezo wafer and a printed circuit board. Selecting an FPC as the carrier for a distributed sensor array is the routine design choice for a flexible conductor-bearing substrate — a known technique in the same field (KSR rationale C). (b) The '235 specification's own justification for the FPC is "soldered with a pin" for connection, i.e., a purely conventional connectorization benefit. No unexpected result is asserted. Claim 2 falls with claim 1.

Claim 3 — "upper and lower end faces… enclosed with polyethylene terephthalate (PET) through an optical adhesive."
Ospicon '431 expressly discloses a flexible sensor encased between elastic upper and lower films plus an outer protective mat cover, and expressly names polyethylene among the film materials. Encapsulating a flexible sensor laminate between polymer cover films with a laminating adhesive is a standard, well-known technique for protecting printed conductors and sensors from moisture, abrasion and handling damage during transport — exactly the environment the claim's packaging application contemplates. Using PET (a ubiquitous flexible-circuit coverlay/substrate material) with an OCA optical adhesive (a standard display/touch-panel laminating adhesive) is the selection of known materials for their known properties, with no asserted criticality or unexpected result. KSR rationales (A) and (C). Claim 3 also falls with claim 1.

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7. Objective indicia and other rebuttal considerations

No objective indicia are available on the present record, and several factors cut against nonobviousness:

• The patent lapsed for nonpayment of maintenance fees effective 2023-01-01 (recorded 2023-02-06). A product that was never commercially exploited enough to justify a small-entity maintenance fee is unlikely to support a nexus-based commercial-success argument.
• Unexpected results: the advantages recited in the specification (one-time application, simplified process, all-round monitoring, adjustability of length) are precisely the expected consequences of substituting an elastic band for individually applied labels. These are design-goal benefits, not comparative surprises; without data showing results "superior to those that would be expected," they cannot rebut a prima facie case (MPEP § 716.02).
• Long-felt but unmet need can cut either way; here the specification itself concedes the need and its obvious remedy, which weakens the argument that the solution was nonobvious to others skilled in the art.

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8. Vulnerabilities in the obviousness case — I want to be explicit about these

Because you asked for an analysis rather than an advocacy brief, these are the places where the combination could fail or be attacked:

1. The § 102(b)(1)(A) grace-period problem with TWI 557680 B and TW 2017/14141 A — potentially the biggest issue. Both are Southern Taiwan University publications, i.e., apparently the applicant's own work. TW I557680 B published 2016-11-11 and TW 2017/14141 A published 2017-04-16, both within one year of the 2017-06-29 effective filing date. If the subject matter disclosed therein was obtained from the same inventive entity (the '235 inventors are Chuang, Chang, Huang, Su and Wang), then under § 102(b)(1)(A) those disclosures are excepted from prior art entirely, and the examiner's citation of them would be improper as 103 art. I have not verified inventorship overlap between the TW publications and the '235 patent in this session — that is the single most important fact to check, and it should be verified against the TW grant document. Note also the limits of the exception: it does not cover subject matter obtained from a different party, and it does not apply to the applicant's own art dated more than one year before filing.
   • If the TW references are disqualified, the primary combination must be rebuilt on CN 202414432 U + Metis '260 + Murata '137 (Combination 2 / fallback). That combination is still viable but loses the clean, same-field "piezoelectric tags on a packaging box's six faces" teaching — it becomes a three-way combination spanning packaging-monitoring, structural-health-monitoring, and human-interface displacement sensing. That is a defensible but noticeably weaker KSR case.
2. Analogous art objections. Murata '137 is directed to displacement sensors for remote controllers and touch panels (operation devices), and Metis '260 to aerospace/automotive structural health monitoring. An applicant would argue these are non-analogous to logistics packaging. The counter is strong: (a) all are in the field of measuring force/strain with piezoelectric devices (shared CPC G01L 1/16); (b) KSR expressly rejects a narrow view of analogous art where the reference is "reasonably pertinent to the particular problem" — and impact/rough-handling detection in a package is squarely the same problem as impact/deformation detection in a structure; (c) Metis '260 expressly claims applicability to "any field in which… a distributed network of sensors is required," including "quality control."
3. A possible teaching-away argument from Metis '260. The Metis node is a rigidly encapsulated puck with an O-ring-sealed casing, USB connectors, a plunger, and a threaded lid — a design that emphasizes robustness and rigidity. An applicant could argue this teaches away from a stretchable/deformable sensor band. The counter: the same reference discloses a flexible circuit inside that casing and expressly claims a cylindrical ring with 360° radial detection; and the reference must be read as a whole (In re Gordon, 733 F.2d 900 (Fed. Cir. 1984)), which is not truly a teaching away because the reference does not criticize, disparage, or disclaim elastic/conformable implementations.
4. The "stretchable" limitation deserves respect. This is the one element that is not a trivial substitution. A conventional flexible printed circuit is bendable but not significantly stretchable, and common PZT ceramics are brittle — the Ospicon reference itself makes that point ("materials of the piezoelectric sensors are hard and have a sensitivity that degrades over time"). The claim's E1 therefore is not satisfied by mere flexing. The obviousness case depends on Murata '137's elastic-member-plus-piezo structure to supply genuine stretchability, which is why Murata is a necessary element of every combination above, not an optional one. If Murata were successfully distinguished — e.g., by arguing its sensor detects bending of an elastic member rather than macroscopic elongation of the band itself — the stretchable-substrate element becomes harder to meet, and the case weakens materially.
5. Claim-construction ambiguity that affects the analysis. Claim 1 simultaneously requires the sensor to be "in the form of a ring" (an endless loop has no ends) and refers to "two ends of the piezoelectric sensor" being "stretched and fitted." The specification does not resolve this (it describes both an annular sensor and stretching "two ends" over diagonal corners). Under Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303 (Fed. Cir. 2005) (en banc), the intrinsic record would need to be consulted. This matters for obviousness because the metes-and-bounds of E3/E5 are indeterminate; a claim that reads on both an endless elastic loop and an open strap-with-fastener has a correspondingly broader prior-art footprint.
6. Unverified reference. US 2016/0306393 A1 (Polyera) is cited on the face of the patent but I could not confirm its disclosure here. Any combination relying on it should be treated as unconfirmed.
7. The § 112 / § 103 interaction. Because so little structural content distinguishes E5 from the merely capable prior-art band, the claim's patentable weight rests almost entirely on "stretchable" + "ring" + face-count-matched members — a notably thin structural core, which is also why the claim would be vulnerable to a § 112(b) indefiniteness challenge on the "ring… two ends" inconsistency.

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9. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is, in my assessment, vulnerable to a § 103 rejection. The most likely and most persuasive rejection is TWI 557680 B / TW 2017/14141 A in view of US 2014/0049137 A1 (Murata), further in view of US 7,373,260 B2 (Metis Design) — optionally with CN 202414432 U. The motivation is unusually strong because it is recited in the prior art itself: serial, one-by-one affixation of tags to a box's six faces is expressly identified as inconvenient, and an elastic band that is stretched over the box's corners is among a very small number of predictable solutions.
• Claims 2 and 3 are weaker still. Claim 2 is a routine substrate selection (FPC), directly supported by Metis '260's flexible circuit / PCB. Claim 3 is a routine encapsulation and material selection (PET + optical adhesive), directly supported by Ospicon '431's encased elastic sensor film.
• The decisive verification step is the § 102(b)(1)(A) question. Before treating the TW references as available art, confirm whether the TW I557680 / TW 2017/14141 A inventive entity overlaps the '235 inventors. If it does, those references are excepted and the obviousness case must be rebuilt on third-party art (Combination 2/fallback), which is weaker.
• Ex ante probability estimate (subjective, calibrated to the record above): a § 103 rejection of claim 1 is more likely than not to be sustained if the TW references are available prior art; it becomes close to a coin-flip if they are not.

Confidence levels. High confidence in the claim text, the reference contents for US 7,373,260, CN 202414432 U, US 2014/0049137 A1 and US 2016/0324431 A1, and the legal framework. Moderate-to-high confidence in the overall § 103 conclusion for claims 1–3 as a matter of law and logic. Low confidence, and expressly unverified in this session: the Polyera reference's disclosure; the TW references' exact claim scope; the inventorship overlap necessary to resolve the § 102(b)(1)(A) question; and the identity of the examiner and any post-grant proceedings. Those items should be checked against USPTO PatentCenter and the TW/CN family members (TW I645369 B, CN 108981977 A) before this analysis is relied upon for any filing or opinion of counsel.