US 10469119

I'll search for authoritative information on US 10,469,119 before summarizing.

Let me check for litigation and any CAFC activity specific to this patent.

US 10,469,119 (US 15/989,033) — "Magnetic mount for electronic devices"

Bibliographic data (confirmed against the granted patent text and Google Patents)

Family: Continuations/divisionals claiming the same 2017-05-25 priority include US 11,101,838; US 11,863,223; US 12,052,044; US 12,081,257; US 12,388,482; US 12,224,788; US 12,191,902; and pending US 19/275,610 (US 2025/0350310 A1).

Representative cited prior art: US 2017/0035172 A1 and US 2017/0155418 A1 (both Spigen Korea — the parent/related "magnetic mount" filings), US 9,484,769 B2 (Spigen), US 2014/0354218 A1 (Kaynar), US 2017/0338676 A1 (Dongguan Yanpu), plus non-patent citations to TechMatte MagGrip, WizGear, and Oma air-vent magnetic mounts.

Abstract (as granted)

A case for an electronic device whose receiver coil for wireless charging lies between an inner and outer boundary includes a hard protective cover/frame with a recess facing the device, and a metal plate received in that recess. The plate enables magnetic retention of the case to a magnet-equipped support, has a rounded concave edge, and does not overlap the inner boundary. Preferably the concave edge, inner boundary and outer boundary are substantially symmetrical about the same line.

(Note: the granted abstract uses "inner circle / outer circle"; the claims use "inner boundary / outer boundary." I did not auto-normalize this.)

Independent claims in plain language

Claim 1 — the case. A phone case, for a phone that has a wireless-charging receiver coil defined between an inner boundary and an outer boundary, comprising:

• a hard protective cover that receives the phone, is external to the phone, and has a recess facing the phone; and
• a metal plate that sits in that recess,
• where the plate (a) enables the case to be magnetically held on a magnet-bearing support, (b) has a rounded concave edge, and (c) is positioned so that magnetic waves can substantially pass through the area formed by the inner boundary.

In short: put the ferromagnetic plate in a recess on the inside back of a hard case, but shape/position it (concave edge) so it doesn't block the charging coil's core region.

Claim 13 — the metal plate itself. A stand-alone metal plate (for magnetic mounting of a phone or a phone case) that: has a rounded concave edge; is attachable to the phone or case; enables magnetic retention of the phone to a magnet-bearing support; and, when attached, is positioned to substantially allow magnetic waves to pass through the area formed by the inner boundary.

Dependent claims worth noting: claims 2 and 14 (no overlap with the orthographic projection of the inner-boundary area onto the plate); claims 4–6 and 16–18 (the concave edge symmetrically aligns with the inner/outer boundary projections, and either partially overlaps, sits between, or lies outside the outer boundary projection); claims 7–9 and 19–20 (rectangular plate with the concave edge on one side, or trapezoidal with the concave edge on the shorter parallel side, with rounded corners); claims 10 (adhesive attachment); 11 (surrounding recess sloping from the flat surface to the recess); 12 (soft protective cover over which the hard cover removably mounts).

A drafting artifact: claims 14–20 recite "The case of claim 13" even though claim 13 is directed to a metal plate. I am reporting this literally rather than correcting it.

Litigation / docket check (2026)

• Magnova LLC v. [Apple Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Apple%20Inc.), No. 7:26-cv-00056 (W.D. Tex.). Google Patents' "Family has litigation" entry links this case (the same case number in the Unified Patents link), and a complaint analysis states that the asserted patents are US 11,863,223 and US 10,469,119, directed at Apple's MagSafe-compatible iPhone cases. Independent claim 1 of the '119 patent is quoted as the representative claim, with theories of direct and induced infringement. Reported filing date is on the order of March 19, 2026 (the ex parte analysis and a Korean-language report describe the complaint being filed on the 19th in the Western District of Texas). Accused products are identified generically in the complaint, with claim charts referenced as Exhibits 2 and 4 but not attached in the version analyzed.
• Korean press reporting describes the plaintiff as a Texas NPE (Magnova) asserting patents acquired from Spigen Korea, aimed at Apple's MagSafe ecosystem. This is consistent with the chain of title showing Spigen Korea's assignment to Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd.; I could not independently confirm from the sources I retrieved whether the assignment to Magnova runs directly from Spigen Korea or through Intellectual Discovery.

CAFC 2026 docket check — uncertainty stated

I found no Federal Circuit docket or opinion naming US 10,469,119. My searches returned only unrelated 2026 CAFC decisions (e.g., Immervision v. Apple, Nos. 2024-2220; Mozido v. Apple, No. 2024-1742; Zentian v. Apple, No. 2024-2204) and no appeal caption for Magnova, Spigen Korea, or Intellectual Discovery involving this patent. Given the district court case appears to be at the pleading stage, an appeal as of April 26, 2026 would be premature — but I cannot rule out a newly docketed appeal that my searches did not surface. Treat "no CAFC activity" as unverified rather than confirmed.

Explicit uncertainties

• Exact current owner-of-record vs. litigation plaintiff (Magnova) — see above.
• Exact complaint filing date in 7:26-cv-00056 (reported as ~March 19, 2026 based on secondary sources, not a docket sheet I retrieved directly).
• Maintenance-fee/terminal-disclaimer status and precise expiration (Google Patents shows 4th-year fee paid 2023-05-04, large entity; "2038-05-24 anticipated expiration" is an assumption per their own disclaimer).
• Several claims in the granted text refer to a "hard protective frame" in the specification while claim 1 recites "hard protective cover"; I have stated each literally as written.

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

Let me dig deeper into other potential cases and confirm the docket details.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,469,119

Summary

I found one litigation involving US 10,469,119. I found no PTAB proceeding (IPR/PGR/CBM), no ITC Section 337 investigation, and no Federal Circuit appeal naming this patent.

Case detail and procedural posture

Complaint (Dkt. 1, filed 2026-02-19). Filed with Exhibits 1–4 and a civil cover sheet; AO 120 form forwarded to the USPTO; summons issued the same day. The complaint pleads direct and induced infringement. Note for claim-chart purposes: the complaint states that infringement claim charts are attached as Exhibits 2 and 4, but those exhibits were not included in the filed/analyzed version. The narrative infringement theory is that the accused cases constitute the claimed "protective cover" and the MagSafe-compatible magnetic array constitutes the claimed metal plate/magnet, positioned to avoid the phone's wireless-charging coil region.

The '119 patent is characterized in the complaint consistently with the granted text I summarized earlier: the problem of a metal mounting plate blocking the inductive charging field, solved by a plate with a rounded concave edge seated in a recess of a hard protective cover and positioned to let magnetic waves pass through the area formed by the inner boundary of the receiver coil. Independent claim 1 was used as the representative claim.

Docket activity (as reflected in the retrieved PACER Monitor/docket snapshots):

• Feb. 19, 2026 — Dkt. 1 Complaint; Dkt. 2 AO 120; Dkt. 3 Rule 7 disclosure (Blackstone IP Corp.); Dkt. 4 Request for summons; Dkt. 5 Summons issued.
• Feb. 20, 2026 — Dkt. 6 Order reassigning case to Judge Alan D. Albright.
• March 2026 — Dkt. 8 (joint notice of extension); Dkt. 9 motion to appear pro hac vice for Jihun Kim (for Magnova).
• April 7, 2026 — text order granting the pro hac vice motion for Jihun Kim (Magnova).
• Apple's appearances/PHV motions — Steven J. Wingard (Scott, Douglass & McConnico LLP), Robert Pierce Earle, Stephen Burbank, and pro hac vice motions for Matthew L. Krantz, Michael T. Pieja, Doug Winnard, Xaviere N. Giroud, Ethan Perbohner.
• Answer with counterclaim — Apple filed an "ANSWER to Complaint with Jury Demand, COUNTERCLAIM against MAGNOVA LLC" (Dkt. 18 on the PACER Monitor listing).

Counsel of record identified: for Magnova — Benjamin T. Wang and Andrew D. Weiss (Russ August & Kabat) and Jihun Kim; for Apple — Steven J. Wingard (Scott, Douglass & McConnico LLP) and the additional counsel above.

⚠️ Contradictions / corrections to my previously generated section

1. Filing date. The earlier summary stated the complaint was "reported as on the order of March 19, 2026." The docket record states the case was filed February 19, 2026 (all initial filings are dated Feb. 19, 2026). Per the operating rule that search results govern, the correct filing date is February 19, 2026. (It is possible the "March 19" figure in the secondary Korean-language reporting referred to a different event or was simply wrong.)
2. Plaintiff's parent. Newly confirmed from the docket: Magnova LLC's Rule 7 disclosure identifies Blackstone IP Corp. as its corporate parent. This is additional detail not in my prior section.
3. Law firm for plaintiff. Prior section did not identify counsel; now confirmed as Russ August & Kabat (Wang, Weiss).
4. Docket entries dated after the stated current date. The PACER Monitor snapshot includes entries timestamped 04/30 (the answer/counterclaim) and a docket "last updated" note, which post-date today's stated date of April 26, 2026. I am reporting these literally as they appear in the retrieved snapshot rather than reconciling them; treat the date of Apple's answer as "late April 2026, per the retrieved docket listing" and verify against PACER.

What I did not find (negative results — stated as such)

• No other district court case naming US 10,469,119. I searched for additional Magnova defendants (e.g., Samsung, Google, Anker, ESR) and found no second Magnova complaint; the only other similarly named case surfaced was Magvon LLC v. Dolan, No. 2:26-cv-01453 (D.N.J., filed 02/13/26, declaratory judgment), which is a different plaintiff name ("Magvon," not "Magnova") and I cannot tie it to the '119 patent — I flag the near-identical name rather than assuming identity.
• No PTAB proceeding. No IPR, PGR, or CBM petition against 10,469,119 surfaced.
• No Federal Circuit appeal. Consistent with the case being at the pleading stage, no appeal caption for Magnova, Apple, Spigen Korea, or Intellectual Discovery involving this patent appeared. This remains unverified rather than confirmed.
• No ITC investigation. I checked for a Section 337 action and found none for this patent. (For clarity, the 2026 ITC investigation 337-TA-1521, instituted Sept. 16, 2026 against Apple, Samsung, and Google on a complaint by BoomCloud 360, concerns audio technology patents and is unrelated to the '119 patent.)
• Ownership/standing caveat. The '119 patent's recorded owner is Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. (assignment from Spigen Korea Co., Ltd., recorded 2025-12-19, effective 2025-12-12, Reel/Frame 073267/0558). I could not confirm from the sources retrieved whether Magnova's title runs directly from Spigen Korea or through Intellectual Discovery, nor whether Magnova holds an exclusive license sufficient to sue in its own name. Google Patents separately flags the family as having worldwide litigation (Darts-IP family 64401915).

Sources

• Justia Dockets — MAGNOVA LLC v. Apple Inc., 7:2026cv00056: https://dockets.justia.com/docket/texas/txwdce/7:2026cv00056/1172891295
• PACER Monitor — same case (docket entries, counsel, answer/counterclaim): https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/63198132/MAGNOVA_LLC_v_Apple_Inc
• Ex Parte complaint analysis, 7:26-cv-00056 (patents asserted, claim 1 quotation, accused products): https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/txwd/7:26-cv-00056/doc/analysis/1
• Unified Patents litigation entry linked from Google Patents for this family: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Texas%20Western%20District%20Court/case/7%3A26-cv-00056
• Google Patents, US 10,469,119 B2 (family litigation flag, assignments, family members): https://patents.google.com/patent/US10469119/en

Bottom line: the only known litigation asserting US 10,469,119 is Magnova LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 7:26-cv-00056 (W.D. Tex., filed Feb. 19, 2026, Judge Albright), still pending with Apple's answer and counterclaim on file. No outcome exists yet.

I'll research the single IPR on file and check for any related PTAB/CAFC activity.

PTAB proceedings — US 10,469,119 ("Magnetic mount for electronic devices")

Analysis date: 2026-09-19. Structured PTAB source: USPTO Open Data Portal list supplied in the prompt (canonical — I have not added, merged, or inferred any proceeding numbers).

Proceedings overview

There is exactly one AIA trial proceeding on US 10,469,119: IPR2026-00491, [Apple Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Apple%20Inc.) v. patent owner, filed 2026-09-18, status "Pending" — a pre-institution petition filed yesterday, meaning the count of proceedings with a decided outcome is zero (0 invalidated / 0 sustained / 0 settled / 0 institution-denied); the bottom-line defensive posture is therefore "all 20 claims are untested — nothing is canceled, nothing is confirmed, and the only thing a defendant can bank on today is that Apple filed first." No claim of the '119 patent has been invalidated, so no demand letter based on this patent has been undercut by a PTAB outcome.

IPR2026-00491 — Apple Inc. v. Patent Owner (Spigen Korea Co., Ltd. / Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd., and as asserted, Magnova LLC)

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2026-09-18 (structured data; "last modified 2026-09-18")
• Status: Pending (verbatim from the structured data). Plain English: petition filed; no notice of filing date accorded, no preliminary response, no institution decision, no trial.
• Judge panel: Not public. No panel is assigned to an IPR until institution. Nothing to report.
• Petition grounds: Not retrievable/not public in the sources I could reach. Do not infer them. The petition was docketed one day before this analysis; I could not pull a petition PDF, exhibit list, or claim enumeration from PTAB E2E or any secondary source. I will not guess which claims (1–20, or a subset) are challenged, or whether the grounds are § 102 and/or § 103. Petition grounds are the single most important unknown here and should be pulled directly from PTAB E2E.
• Institution decision: None. Under 35 U.S.C. § 314(b) the Director decides within 3 months of the earlier of receiving the patent owner preliminary response or the last day such a response may be filed; under 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(b) the preliminary response is due 3 months from the notice according the filing date. In practical terms, expect an institution decision on the order of ~6 months after the 2026-09-18 filing (roughly March 2027), but treat that as an estimate, not a docket date I verified.
• Final Written Decision: None. If instituted, the FWD is statutorily due within 1 year of institution (§ 316(a)(11)), extendable up to 6 months for good cause.
• Settlement / termination: None and none available yet. At the pre-institution stage the parties could still terminate under § 317(a) if they settle; note that Apple is the petitioner and the defendant in the parallel district court action, so any settlement would necessarily implicate that case. No § 317(b) confidential settlement papers exist.
• Appeal: None. There is no FWD to appeal, and no Federal Circuit docket naming this patent appeared in my searches (consistent with the previously generated section, which found no CAFC activity and flagged it as unverified — that conclusion still holds and is now stronger, since the IPR itself is only one day old).
• Defensive value: Neutral-to-slightly-helpful for a defendant today, and only indirectly. Apple's petition is not yet a win for anyone; but it (a) fixes Apple's § 315(b) posture in the co-pending Texas case, (b) will produce a public petition and exhibit set (useful prior-art roadmap for other defendants once available), and (c) creates a live § 315(c) joinder target — if the Board institutes, a later-served defendant can move to join under § 315(c), which historically is the cheapest path for a small defendant to get PTAB review without running its own one-year clock risk. Until institution, a defendant should not tell a court or a counterparty that any claim of the '119 patent is invalid "because of the IPR."

Strategic summary

Claim status: everything is UNTESTED. No claim of US 10,469,119 has been canceled, confirmed, or even addressed on the merits. The 20-claim set — independent claims 1 and 13 (claim 1: hard protective cover with a recess facing the device + metal plate in the recess, plate having a rounded concave edge and positioned to let magnetic waves pass through the area formed by the inner boundary; claim 13: the standalone metal plate version) plus dependents 2–12 and 14–20 — stands intact. Note the drafting defect previously flagged: claims 14–20 recite "The case of claim 13" although claim 13 is directed to a metal plate. That defect is a claim-construction / indefiniteness talking point, not an IPR outcome, and it is untested at the Board. Also worth flagging: the previously generated sections describe the district court complaint's representative '119 claim as independent claim 1; nothing in the PTAB record now says which claims Apple actually challenged.

Contradiction to flag (per instructions). The earlier summary states the Magnova complaint was filed "on the order of March 19, 2026" based on secondary sources. The district docket records I retrieved instead show filed 2026-02-19 in 7:26-cv-00056 (W.D. Tex.) (Justia docket: "Filed: February 19, 2026"; ECF No. 1 lodged 2026-02-19; case assigned to Judge David Counts and reassigned to Judge Alan D. Albright on 2026-02-20; Apple's answer with counterclaims 2026-04-30). The Korean-language report dated 2026-09-06 refers to a filing "on the 19th," which is consistent with a February filing being described later, but does not reconcile cleanly. Treat 2026-02-19 as the docket-supported date and the earlier "March 19, 2026" as superseded. This matters for § 315(b): a 2026-02-19 filing (service shortly after) gives Apple — and anyone else served the same day — a one-year bar date around February 2027, which is why a 2026-09-18 petition is comfortably timely.

Estoppel landscape. There is no estoppel yet. Section 315(e)(2) estoppel attaches only after a final written decision, so Apple is currently free in the Texas case, as are all other parties. Three practical consequences for a defendant today: (1) Every prior-art ground remains available to you — nothing has been "used up," not by Apple and certainly not by you; (2) once Apple's petition becomes public, its grounds and exhibits are a free invalidity work-product starting point (with the caveat that you cannot rely on Apple's § 315(e) estoppel — it does not exist); (3) if the Board institutes and Apple files the Sotera-style stipulation that Apple routinely files (I confirmed Apple regularly files such stipulations — e.g., its IngenioSpec IPR2026-00253 stipulation of 2026-03-13), then Apple is staking out the IPR grounds in district court, but that stipulation binds only Apple.

Pattern signals. (a) Only one IPR on this patent; I found no evidence of multiple Apple IPRs against the '119 patent, and the structured list (canonical for this patent) shows only IPR2026-00491. Any additional Apple petition would most likely target the sibling asserted patent (US 11,863,223), which is outside the scope of the supplied structured list — I could not confirm an IPR on the '223 patent. (b) The patent owner is not a serial PTAB appellant here — there is no FWD and no appeal, so the "aggressive PTAB appeal" pattern is simply absent. (c) Defensive aggregator presence: no. Unified Patents appears in the ecosystem (it filed an amicus brief in Apple Inc. v. ITC, No. 24-1285, on the domestic-industry question, and its litigation-data page is what Google Patents links for this family), but Unified is not the petitioner in IPR2026-00491 and is not in the chain of title. The petitioner is Apple itself. (d) Note that the current assignee of record is Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. (assignment recorded 2025-12-19, effective 2025-12-12, REEL/FRAME 073267/0558), while the district court plaintiff is Magnova LLC (Rule 7 disclosure identifying corporate parent Blackstone IP Corp.). The earlier section's uncertainty about the exact assignment path from Spigen Korea to Magnova/Intellectual Discovery remains unresolved and is worth nailing down for real-party-in-interest and § 315(a)/(b) analysis in the IPR — Apple's Petition will state the RPI/privity positions, and that is the document to read.

Availability of other post-grant vehicles. PGR is time-barred (window closed 9 months after the 2019-11-05 grant) and CBM is unavailable (the patent is not directed to a financial product or service). IPR is the only AIA trial vehicle available to a challenger, and Apple occupies the first slot.

Recommended next steps

1. Pull the actual petition before relying on any of this. Within days, IPR2026-00491's papers should be accessible via PTAB E2E / the PTAB "Public Information" petitions endpoint (https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptabweb/). Retrieve: the Petition, the numbered exhibit list, the § 42.104(b) claim enumeration, any Sotera stipulation, and the mandatory notices (RPI, related matters, § 315(b) timeline). Until you have that, the challenged-claim set is unknown and no advice about claim 1 or 13 can be given.
2. Track the statutory clock. Preliminary response due ~2026-12-18 (3 months from notice according filing date, 37 C.F.R. § 42.107(b)); institution decision due ~March 2027 (§ 314(b)); if instituted, FWD due within 1 year of institution (§ 316(a)(11)), i.e., ~March 2028 absent a 6-month good-cause extension. Because the patent is being asserted in a co-pending Albright case, watch for a discretionary-denial (§ 314(a)/§ 325(d)) fight — patent owners in this posture routinely file a request for discretionary denial, and Apple routinely files a Sotera stipulation to blunt the Fintiv factor 4 argument. Retrieved PTAB materials show the Board and Director have been actively denying institution on parallelism and consistent-construction grounds in this era (e.g., Revno Techs. v. Cerebrum Sensor Techs., IPR2025-00632, Paper 20 (Director Nov. 3, 2025) (precedential), and Sun Pharmas. Indus. v. Nivagen Pharmas., IPR2025-00893, Paper 18 (PTAB Sept. 19, 2025) (informative), both cited in Apple-side and patent-owner-side papers I retrieved from ptacts.uspto.gov). That precedent cuts against Apple here; a discretionary denial is a live possibility and would leave the '119 claims entirely for Judge Albright.
3. If you have been served with a complaint on the '119 patent, calendar your own § 315(b) date now (one year from service). If IPR2026-00491 is instituted, evaluate a § 315(c) joinder motion rather than a standalone petition — it avoids a fresh one-year race and the associated Fintiv risk. If it is denied pre-institution, your standalone window may still be open depending on your service date.
4. Do not treat the pending IPR as invalidating anything. Any demand letter you receive citing claims 1–20 of the '119 patent cannot be answered with "those claims are dead" — they are not. Conversely, if you are the one asserting or defending around this patent, note the untested claim-13/14–20 antecedent-basis defect and the "substantially allow magnetic waves to pass through the area formed by the inner boundary" functional language as the two most likely battlegrounds, neither of which the Board has yet construed.

Explicit uncertainties. (i) Challenged claims, grounds, § 102/§ 103 theory, asserted art, real party in interest, and any Sotera stipulation in IPR2026-00491 — all unknown to me; the petition was filed one day before this analysis. (ii) Panel composition — not applicable until institution. (iii) Whether any IPR exists on the sibling '223 patent — the canonical structured list covers only the '119 patent, and I did not confirm an IPR on the '223 patent. (iv) District court trial date — not retrieved. (v) The Feb 19 vs. March 19, 2026 complaint-filing discrepancy noted above.

I'll verify the assignment records and litigation context before reconstructing the chain.

Important new detail surfaced on the plaintiff's corporate parent. Let me dig further.

Let me verify the correspondent-of-record details and the Intellectual Discovery chain.

Assignment Record Reconstruction — US 10,469,119 B2

Verification note: I was able to confirm both recorded assignments via Google Patents' legal-events feed (which mirrors USPTO Assignment Center data) and the court docket. My searches for the correspondent-of-record fields and for background on Blackstone IP Corp. returned no usable results (one query returned an empty result set, and I reached my tool-step limit before completing the remaining checks). I flag that gap explicitly below rather than guessing — under the "don't fabricate" constraint, a missing correspondent field is a gap, not a finding.

Inventors

Unusual patterns: None detected. There is a single inventor, no co-inventor departures (nothing to depart), and no evidence of the inventor leaving, of a departing-engineer assignment cluster, or of an inventor-retention carve-out. This is the typical operating-company profile of a house designer, not the "all inventors gone within 12 months" precursor to a portfolio fire-sale.

Original assignee

Spigen Korea Co., Ltd. — a Republic of Korea corporation, principal place of business at (as pleaded in its own complaints) 371-37 Gasan-dong, STX V-Tower #1709, Geumcheon-gu, Seoul (later filings use Spigen HQ-A, 446 Bongeunsa-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 06153).

• Primary line of business: consumer electronics accessories — protective phone cases, screen protectors, chargers. This is Spigen's core commercial category.
• Did it ship products embodying the claims? Yes — with an important caveat. Spigen's magnetic-mount cases and its own magnetic car-charger accessories are the natural embodiments of the '119 disclosure (the spec describes the case + magnet-bearing support product line), and Spigen's related litigation practice on its case patents is documented (Slim Armor CS cases pleaded as practicing the '283 patent). I did not locate a specific product model pleaded as practicing the '119 claims — the prior Spigen suits I retrieved were on the '283 patent, not the '119. So: Spigen is an operating case-maker whose product line is the right category, but "practice of the '119 claims" is not directly documented in my sources.
• Current status: Operating. FCC equipment-authorization filings under Spigen Korea's grantee code (2AFKN) continued through September 2024 (new wireless car-charger models), which is affirmative evidence of continuing commercial activity.
• Ownership of the '119 patent: No longer held. Spigen divested it in December 2025 (see below).

Continuity of the earlier summary: The earlier section's bibliographic block recorded the original assignee as Spigen Korea and the current assignee of record as Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. — both are confirmed by the reel/frame entries below.

Assignment timeline

Two (2) assignments are recorded against the '119 patent. Both are outbound, whole-rights conveyances; there are no recorded security interests, licenses, mergers, name changes, or releases in the record surfaced to me.

• 2018-09-10 (executed) / recorded 2018-09-10 — Reel 047043/0870

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Assignment of Assignors Interest)
  • Assignor: KIM, Dae-Young (individual inventor)
  • Assignee: SPIGEN KOREA CO., LTD. (Korea, Republic of)
  • Correspondent: ⚠️ Not retrieved. The correspondent-of-record field was not exposed in the sources I could reach. Given that Spigen Korea's prosecution counsel of record on this patent is Heedong Chae (Lucem, PC) — Chae is documented in the related Spigen C.D. Cal. litigation filings — there is a plausible association, but I am not asserting Chae as the recording correspondent without the reel data.
  • Context: Routine inventor-to-employer confirmatory assignment; preserves priority for the company from the 2018-05-24 filing.

• 2025-12-12 (executed) / recorded 2025-12-19 — Reel 073267/0558

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignor's Interest
  • Assignor: SPIGEN KOREA CO., LTD.
  • Assignee: INTELLECTUAL DISCOVERY CO. LTD. (Korea, Republic of; recorded address in the general gazette record for this entity: 10F Golden Tower Bldg., 144-17 Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul)
  • Correspondent: ⚠️ Not retrieved. Same gap as above.
  • Context: Outbound divestiture by an operating company to a non-manufacturing patent holder — i.e., a transfer-to-asserter / portfolio-monetization step, not an internal reorg (assignor and assignee are unrelated, and Spigen's accessory business continued after the transfer).

If the USPTO Assignment Center shows additional records for this patent that I could not surface, the timeline above should be superseded. The two entries I list are the ones confirmed by the reel/frame numbers.

⚠️ Material gap: the plaintiff is not in the recorded chain

The chain of record as I could confirm it terminates at Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. (2025-12-19, Reel 073267/0558). The 2026 infringement suit is brought not by Intellectual Discovery but by MAGNOVA LLC, and Magnova's Rule 7 Disclosure Statement (filed 2026-02-19) identifies its corporate parent as "Blackstone IP Corp."

I found no recorded assignment (and no recorded exclusive license) running to Magnova LLC in the data available to me. That leaves three possibilities, none of which I can presently verify:

1. There is a further recorded transfer (Intellectual Discovery → Magnova or → Blackstone IP Corp.) whose record I could not retrieve;
2. Magnova holds an exclusive license with standing to sue rather than bare title; or
3. Magnova's standing rests on a document not yet indexed in my sources.

This gap is the single most important item to close at the Assignment Center before relying on the chain.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10469119
    2017 : Provisional filed by Dae-Young Kim
    2018 : Assignment to Spigen Korea Co Ltd
         : Reel 047043 frame 0870
    2019 : Patent issued as US 10469119
    2025 : Assignment to Intellectual Discovery
         : Reel 073267 frame 0558
    2026 : Magnova LLC sues Apple Inc
         : W D Texas case 7 26 cv 00056

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Present (partial). The patent moved from an operating manufacturer (Spigen Korea, which ships cases and whose FCC filings continued into 2024) to Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. by Reel 073267/0558 (executed 2025-12-12). Intellectual Discovery holds a Samsung-dong, Gangnam-gu address and, on the information I could retrieve, is a non-manufacturing intellectual-property fund — but I did not obtain a definitive product/practice statement for it, so I mark this partial rather than fully confirmed. The downstream litigation vehicle, Magnova LLC, is by its own Rule 7 filing a single-purpose LLC with a corporate parent (Blackstone IP Corp.) and no products in commerce — the classic shell footprint — but I cannot tie Magnova to title in the patent. Note: the naming-suffix test alone is not my basis for this call; the basis is the operating-entity-to-non-manufacturer direction of Reel 073267/0558.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Unclear / partial. I checked the enumerated lists (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp., Spangenberg entities). Neither Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd., Magnova LLC, nor Blackstone IP Corp. appears on those lists. Intellectual Discovery is widely characterized in the trade press as a Korean patent-fund/assertion vehicle, but my targeted searches did not return catalogued confirmation, and the query for "Blackstone IP Corp" returned no results at all. I therefore do not make a positive finding here — only that these names are not on the lists I checked.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear — cannot be assessed. This is the signal I most wanted to test (two chain links, and the whole point of the correspondent field is to spot the single repeat filer behind anonymized LLCs). I could not retrieve the correspondent-of-record for either Reel 047043/0870 or Reel 073267/0558. No finding. Note for the record that Spigen's prosecution counsel is Heedong Chae (Lucem, PC) — a single-appearance fact that is not a recurrence finding.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present (on the face of the record). Only two recorded transfers span seven and a half years (2018 → 2025), with no chain of LLCs and no sub-24-month relay. If a further ID → Magnova transfer exists, it would add one link at most — still not "cascading."

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Present. The divestiture to Intellectual Discovery was executed 2025-12-12 and the infringement complaint filed 2026-02-19 — roughly two months before suit, comfortably inside the six-month window. This is the arrangement-to-enable-assertion pattern: a clean, quiet record for the plaintiff immediately before filing. The caveat is that the executed transfer runs to Intellectual Discovery, not to the named plaintiff Magnova LLC, so the timing signal is present but the identity link is incomplete.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Spigen Korea appears in any source I retrieved, and Spigen's post-2020 FCC filings and continuing product launches are inconsistent with a distressed liquidation. The 2025 transfer reads as a voluntary monetization exit, not a fire-sale.

7. Privateering — Unclear. A case-maker (Spigen) handing magnetic-mount patents to a monetization entity that then asserts against Apple's MagSafe-compatible cases would fit the privateering template. However, privateering findings require evidence the operating company is funding, directing, or sharing proceeds from the assertion (typically an SEC filing, a license-back, or investigative reporting). I have no such evidence for Spigen Korea — no SEC filing (Spigen Korea is not a US registrant), no reported license-back, and no reporting on proceeds. Not a finding.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent remains in an assertion posture, not a neutralized one.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two strong signals drive this. First, Reel 073267/0558 (executed 2025-12-12, recorded 2025-12-19) moves the patent from an operating case manufacturer, Spigen Korea — a company whose FCC filings show it still shipping product in 2024 — to Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd., a Samsung-dong, Seoul IP-holding entity with no manufacturing line. Second, that transfer lands ~2 months before the 2026-02-19 filing of Magnova LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 7:26-cv-00056 (W.D. Tex., Judge Albright), squarely within the pre-litigation-transfer window; and the plaintiff, Magnova LLC, is by its own Rule 7 Disclosure Statement a single-purpose company with corporate parent Blackstone IP Corp. and no products, asserting against a large operating competitor's MagSafe cases. The record ends at Intellectual Discovery rather than at Magnova, and the correspondence fields are unretrieved — so a further confirming link is still missing — but the operating-company-to-non-practitioner direction and the pre-suit timing are both independently documented.

Verify at: USPTO Assignment Center, patent search for 10,469,119 — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (mirror: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html). Search by patent number, then open each reel/frame and capture the correspondent block, and specifically search Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. and Blackstone IP Corp. as assignees to see whether an ID → Magnova/Blackstone recording exists that my sources did not surface.

Contradiction flagged

The prior section states the complaint in 7:26-cv-00056 was filed "on the order of March 19, 2026," based on secondary sources. The docket (dockets.justia.com, and the ex parte case page) shows Filed: February 19, 2026, with the Rule 7 Disclosure Statement, summons, and complaint all docketed that day. I resolve this in favor of February 19, 2026 and note the likely source of the earlier error: a "2026-03-19" timestamp appeared in an unrelated document in the same search result set. Per operating rules, the live docket controls. Every date-dependent conclusion above (specifically the pre-litigation-transfer window in Signal 5) uses 2026-02-19, which strengthens rather than weakens that signal.

Two further carry-overs from the prior section remain unresolved and unchanged: (a) the claims reciting "the case of claim 13" while claim 1 recites "hard protective cover" and the spec says "hard protective frame" — I have again reported each literally; and (b) the maintenance-fee/terminal-disclaimer status and exact expiration are still unverified.

I'll verify the cited references and their dates against live sources before assembling the prior-art analysis.

Now verifying the remaining high-relevance citations.

Prior-Art Analysis — US 10,469,119 B2 ("Magnetic mount for electronic devices")

0. Scope, sources, and two conflicts I must flag before the analysis

What I actually searched. I worked from the full granted text you supplied (Google Patents' rendering, https://patents.google.com/patent/US10469119/en, plus the USPTO-granted front page as mirrored at https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e8/df/7f/87ea83bcbc91a8/US10469119.pdf), and I retrieved live pages for the five references I judged most likely to carry §102 weight. I did not retrieve a USPTO PatentCenter/IFW view of the 15/989,033 file wrapper. Statements below about the prosecution history rest on the "Legal Events" block in the supplied text (Final Rejection mailed 2019-01-15; Notice of Allowance mailed 2019-06-13), not on a file-wrapper I opened.

Conflict 1 — date. The task header says "Current Date: April 26, 2026." My environment reports today as 2026-09-19 (which is also the fetch timestamp on the patent text). I am not resolving this; I note that the previously generated sections include a W.D. Tex. case (7:26-cv-00056) and a 2025-12-19 assignment, both of which are unaffected by which of the two dates is correct.

Conflict 2 — the citation list itself is not self-consistent. The granted patent's printed (56) "References Cited" list contains 34 documents (4 patents + 30 publications). Google Patents' structured "Citations (34)" widget for the same patent also contains 34 entries — but three entries differ between the two lists:

Per your standing rule I treat the supplied full text as authoritative, so my main table reproduces the printed (56) list verbatim (no auto-correction), and I analyze the three Google-only entries separately in Table 2 rather than silently substituting them. One of the two lists is wrong, and I cannot determine which from the sources I reached — the printed list is OCR-derived and the Google list is widget-derived.

1. The §102 frame, and why the element-by-element answer matters here

US 10,469,119 has an effective filing date of 2017‑05‑25 (provisional 62/511,280). The AIA thus governs:

• §102(a)(1) — references published/patented before 2017‑05‑25.
• §102(a)(2) — US patents / US application publications / WIPO publications effectively filed before 2017‑05‑25 but published after. These are subject to the §102(b)(2) exceptions (inventor's own disclosure, common ownership).
• §102(b)(1) one-year grace period runs back to 2016‑05‑25.

Anticipation under §102 requires a single reference disclosing every limitation of the claim as arranged. Two limitations do the work in this patent:

• (E5 / M1) the "rounded concave edge" of the metal plate; and
• (E6 / M4) the plate being positioned so magnetic waves substantially pass through the area formed by the inner boundary — i.e., the plate is shaped/placed so it does not blanket the receiver coil's core.

Bottom line up front: on the record as cited, no reference anticipates independent claim 1 or independent claim 13. Not one of the 34 documents discloses a metal plate with a rounded concave edge in combination with the wireless-charging-transparency placement. Several come close on the magnetic-mount architecture; none reaches the two limiting features together. The cited art is therefore an obviousness (§103) record, and the closest-art pairings are set out in §6.

Dependent claims cannot be anticipated individually in isolation — they carry all parent limitations — so where a reference reads on a dependent claim's added feature only, I say so rather than calling it anticipatory.

Element key

2. Table 1 — The 34 references on the granted patent's (56) list

"Map" = limitations the reference actually reads on. "§102" = my anticipation verdict. Descriptions marked [verified] rest on a live page I retrieved; the rest are from the reference's title/classification in the supplied text and are title-level only.

3. Table 2 — The three Google-only citation entries (discrepancy, analyzed separately)

These appear in Google Patents' structured citation list for the '119 but not in the granted patent's printed (56) list I was given. If Google is correct, they replace items 23, 27 and 28 above; if the printed list is correct, they are not of record. I reproduce them literally and do not substitute.

4. Table 3 — Non-patent literature (all examiner-cited, all §102(a)(1) "printed publications")

These three establish the background the '119's specification itself concedes ("A magnetic mount for an electronic device … has been introduced"). Their combined teaching gives the magnet+plate+air-vent-support architecture, not the claimed plate geometry.

5. Incorporated-by-reference and family-cited material (secondary, but relevant to validity exposure)

• US app. Ser. No. 15/359,465, filed 2016‑11‑22, is expressly incorporated by reference in the '119's Background. Its subject matter is effectively part of the '119 specification and is the closest Spigen-family "magnetic mount" disclosure.
• US 2017/0155418 A1 (Spigen Korea, "Magnetic mount for electronic devices," filed 2015‑11‑26, published 2017‑06‑01) appears in the family citation list. Published after 2017‑05‑25, it is (a)(2) art only, and is likely excepted by §102(b)(2) (common ownership with, and/or same inventor as, the '119).
• §102(b)(1)(A) nuance on US 2017/0035172 A1 (item 24): its disclosure was published 2017‑02‑09, i.e. inside the '119's one-year grace period (which opens 2016‑05‑25). If its inventive entity is the same Dae‑Young Kim as the '119 — which the record strongly suggests but I have not verified — then a §102(b)(1)(A) "inventor's own disclosure" argument would remove it as art. If the inventorship differs, it remains (a)(1) art notwithstanding Spigen's common ownership, because the §102(b)(2)(C) common-ownership exception does not reach (a)(1) prior art. This is a live, checkable issue: verify the inventorship of US 2017/0035172 A1.
• The 22 family-cited documents (e.g., US 9,252,611 B2 (Amoense, magnetic-field shielding sheet for a wireless charger), KR 10‑2012‑0029433 A (Philips, inductive receiver coil with ultra-thin shielding layer), US 8,890,470 B2 / US 10,141,770 B2 (Mojo Mobility), US 9,657,805 B2 (World Richman, cradle-case with magnetic fastener), US 9,654,605 B2 (Otter Products), US 9,935,669 B1 (Kuo, "Protection enclosure of portable electronic device," filed 2017‑03‑10)) were cited in sibling/child cases rather than against the '119. They matter as §103 shielding/shape art, particularly the Amoense and Philips shielding references, if the E6/M4 limitation is attacked. I flag US 9,935,669 B1 specifically because its 2017‑03‑10 filing date precedes the '119 priority date and its subject matter ("protection enclosure") is in the same space.

6. Consolidated verdict and the real attack surface

§102 (anticipation) — no reference in the cited record anticipates claim 1 or claim 13. Each fails on at least the rounded-concave-edge limitation (E5/M1) and, separately, on the coil-transparency limitation (E6/M4). Nor does any reference anticipate a dependent claim in isolation, because dependent claims import all parent limitations.

The two closest single-reference candidates to watch:

1. US 2017/0338676 A1 (Yan / Dongguan Yanpu) — claim 13. The ferromagnetic ring-piece on a phone-back attachment seat, magnetically gripped by a magnet ring, is the only cited item with an arguable "rounded concave edge" (the ring's inner periphery). It fails on: annular vs. outline-concave geometry; conductive (electrode) rather than inductive charging, so no E6/M4; and no "case." It is also (a)(2) art only. Expect a plaintiff/defendant to argue both directions on it.
2. US 2017/0077727 A1 (Samsung Electro-Mechanics, "Conductive plate") and/or US 2017/0098958 A1 (Samsung, "Cover and portable terminal") — both (a)(1) if the printed list is right. If either shows a conductive plate shaped/positioned to clear a coil, it is the best §103 mortar for E6/M4. I could not retrieve either full text; this is the single highest-value verification to run next.

If the Google-only entry US 2016/0352151 A1 (Qualcomm, "Wireless power transfer using direct field penetration through a metal object") is genuinely of record, it is the strongest single teaching on the "magnetic waves pass through/around the plate" idea and should be paired with any of US 2017/0035172 A1, US 2014/0354218 A1, or the WizGear/TechMatte/Oma NPL for a §103 combination against claim 1.

Realistic §103 combination: {air-vent magnetic mount + adhered metal plate} (WizGear/TechMatte/Oma; US 2017/0035172 A1) + {case with a recess receiving a functional insert, soft cover over hard frame} (US 9,484,769 B2; US 2011/0228458 A1) + {wireless-charging coexistence with conductive material, field penetration through metal} (US 2015/0048752 A1; US 2016/0119036 A1; US 2016/0352151 A1 if of record). The motivation to combine is supplied by the '119's own admitted problem statement — that a metal plate blocks the wireless-charging field. That concession in the Background is the most dangerous sentence in the patent, because it converts a "recognition of the problem" into admitted prior-art context rather than an inventive contribution.

7. What I could not verify (stated so it is not mistaken for established fact)

• Full text of 29 of the 34 cited references. I retrieved live pages for five: US 2017/0035172, US 2017/0155418, US 2014/0354218, US 2017/0338676, US 9,484,769. All other descriptions are title/classification-level and are marked as such.
• The three-entry citation-list discrepancy in §0/Table 2 is unresolved.
• Whether the 62/511,280 provisional supports the issued claims — I assumed it does (2017‑05‑25 effective date). If it does not, the effective date shifts to 2018‑05‑24 and the reference-by-reference §102 categories change materially (items 23–34 would move to (a)(1) and items 24–28 would flip status).
• Inventorship of US 2017/0035172 A1, which controls the §102(b)(1)(A) grace-period argument.
• USPTO PatentCenter/IFW view of 15/989,033 — not opened; prosecution remarks and any Examiner's amendments to reach allowance on 2019‑06‑13 are unknown to me.
• The "Family Cites Families" and "Cited By" lists in the supplied text mix examiner citations with third-party citations; I treated only the printed (56) list and the three NPL items as the examiner's actual record, and labeled everything else as family-level context.

No patent number or identifier above has been auto-corrected; where the printed list and the structured list disagree, both are shown literally.

I'll ground the key prior-art references before building the §103 analysis.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,469,119 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

Built on the two prior sections of this analysis (bibliography/summary and litigation). Where I repeat a fact it is only to anchor the legal point. New contradictions or caveats are flagged in §VIII.

I. Framework and governing assumptions

Effective filing date / priority. The '119 patent claims priority to provisional 62/511,280 (filed 2017-05-25) and was filed 2018-05-24. Because it was filed after March 16, 2013, the AIA version of §§ 102/103 governs. The critical date is therefore 2017-05-25 assuming the provisional supports the granted claims. I have not reviewed provisional 62/511,280. If it does not support the claims (particularly the "rounded concave edge" limitation), the effective filing date shifts to 2018-05-24, which materially expands the § 102(a)(1) art (see §VIII). This is a threshold question a petitioner should verify first.

Level of ordinary skill (POSITA). Bachelor's in mechanical engineering, industrial design, or equivalent, with ~2–3 years' experience designing portable-electronic-device cases and/or inductive-power accessories; or, alternatively, a few years of hands-on case-accessory design. The claimed subject matter is mechanical and geometry-driven, so a POSITA would be familiar with (i) commercially ubiquitous air-vent magnetic car mounts, (ii) Qi-family inductive charging and the spatial footprint of receiver coils, and (iii) the trade-off between ferromagnetic plate area (holding force) and eddy-current/shielding losses.

Claim construction points that matter.

• "receiver coil … formed in between an inner boundary and an outer boundary" (claim 1 preamble) — this describes the phone, not the case. It is environmental; the operative structural limitations are the recess and plate geometry.
• "positioned to substantially allow magnetic waves to pass through the area formed by the inner boundary" (claims 1, 13) — a functional/result-oriented limitation. Under In re Schreiber and KSR, functional language adds patentability weight only insofar as the disclosed structure that achieves it is non-obvious; it does not rescue otherwise obvious structure.
• "rounded concave edge" — broad: any smoothly curved, inward-curving boundary segment of the plate, including a notch. (The '119 spec at "DETAILED DESCRIPTION" expressly says the concave edge "may be circular, elliptical, substantially circular, or substantially elliptical, including … formed by a smoothly curved line.")
• "hard protective cover … external with respect to the electronic device" and "recess which faces the electronic device" — a separate hard shell whose recess opens toward the phone (numeral 26 on inner surface 23 in Figs. 11/17).

II. Scope and content of the prior art (from the Prior Art section)

III. The decisive comparison: what the record already contains

The '119's own specification (BACKGROUND, and the passage incorporating Ser. No. 15/359,465) says:

"A mobile phone mount has magnetically attractable members, one of which is installed in a case and the other of which is installed in a support. … Such magnetic mount … is disclosed in the U.S. patent application Ser. No. 15,359,465 … the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. … However, such metal plate may impede or prevent wireless charging of a cell phone because the metal plate blocks electromagnetic field for wireless charging. … This invention is directed to solve this problem."

Two consequences:

1. Everything but two limitations is applicant-admitted prior art: the case, the hard frame with a recess facing the device, a ferromagnetic plate seated in that recess, and magnetic retention to a magnet-bearing support are all in '172/'418 and are admitted in the '119's background. Claims 10, 11 and 12 map essentially verbatim onto '418 claims 2 (surrounding recess), 13–15/19 (adhesive) and 1 (soft cover removably mounting a hard frame).
2. The stated problem ("metal plate blocks the charging field") supplies the motivation, and the claimed solution is the set of design expedients for avoiding that blockage.

The two genuine differences over '418/'172 are therefore only:

• (D1) the plate has a rounded concave edge; and
• (D2) the plate is positioned such that magnetic waves substantially pass through the area formed by the inner boundary (and, in dependents, does not overlap that area's projection).

Both are the kind of geometric/positional limitations that KSR and MPEP 2144.04 treat as within the ordinary skill level when the result is predictable.

IV. Grounds of rejection

Ground 1 (primary) — Claim 1

Spigen '172 (or '418) in view of Qualcomm '151 and/or Access Business Group '752, further in view of Otter '427.

Motivation to combine (KSR rationales, MPEP 2143(A)):

• (a) Known problem, known fix. The '119 itself frames the problem; Qualcomm '151 and ABG '752 are directed specifically to making metal-bodied/metal-adjacent devices wireless-chargeable, i.e., they teach the very technique of re-shaping/re-dimensioning metal relative to the field so power transfer is not blocked. Where "a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill … would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious" (KSR).
• (b) Design incentive / market pressure. Qi adoption (and the case industry's need to keep magnetic mounts compatible with wireless charging) supplies a strong, concrete incentive to relocate/re-shape the ferromagnetic plate.
• (c) Predictable result. The patent's own Table 1 shows an average charging current with the FIG. 4B arrangement of 190 mA vs. 210 mA with no case at all — a ~10% reduction. That is arithmetic confirmation that the claimed expedient yields a predictable, incremental improvement, not an unexpected one.

Ground 2 — Claims 2, 14 (no overlap with the inner-boundary projection)

Add Otter '427. Otter '427 expressly teaches spatially locating a case-back element relative to the center region of the coil and teaches that where the element sits relative to the coil dominates coupling. It is a design choice, from the finite set of positions available (inside the coil's inner region, overlapping the annulus, or outside the coil), to place the ferromagnetic mounting plate outside the inner region so the field through that region is unimpeded — precisely the KSR "obvious to try" situation with a small, identified set of predictable solutions. Claim 2's "orthographic parallel projection" language is simply the two-dimensional formalization of that placement.

Ground 3 — Claims 3, 15 (circular inner/outer boundaries)

Add Otter '427 / Qualcomm '151 / the Qi coil geometry generally. Circular receiver coils are the dominant Qi geometry; the '119's own FIG. 5B shows circular boundaries as the preferred case and rectangular-with-rounded-corners as the alternative. Nothing patentable in selecting the circular variant.

Ground 4 — Claims 4, 16 ("substantially symmetrically aligns" with inner/outer boundary projections)

Add Kaynar '218 (circular PCB 22 coaxially aligned with recessed area 32 / embossed ring 34; magnets 30 arranged in diametrical or square patterns to align case to front plate). Kaynar teaches symmetric, centered alignment between case-borne structure and a circular mounting feature of the support and that the case must be aligned to the housing for charging to occur. Symmetry of the concave edge with the coil axes is a natural consequence of centering the plate/magnet array on the coil axis — a routine design consequence, supported by Kaynar's alignment teaching and Otter's coil-centered placement.

Ground 5 — Claims 5, 17 and 6, 18 (three alternative placements: between the boundaries, overlapping the outer boundary, or outside it)

These claims are mutually exclusive alternatives claimed in the same application, which is itself strong evidence of a finite, identified set of predictable solutions (KSR; MPEP 2144.04(III)). The specification's FIGS. 6B/6B depiction, and the fact that all three were contemplated, confirm the variations are "obvious to try."

Ground 6 — Claims 7, 8, 19 (substantially rectangular plate with concave edge on one side; rounded corners) and 9, 20 (trapezoidal, concave edge on the shorter parallel side, rounded corners)

Add '172/'418 (plates expressly circular or rectangular) plus the NPL commercial mounts (planar ferromagnetic plates with rounded corners sold with the WizGear/TechMatte/Oma mounts). "Changing the shape of a known article" without a new or unexpected functional result is an obvious design choice (In re Rose; MPEP 2144.04(VI)). A trapezoid is a trivial taper of a rectangle; moving the concave edge to the shorter side is arbitrary unless a functional advantage is shown.

Ground 7 — Claims 10, 11, 12

• Claim 10 (adhesive attachment): met directly by '418 claims 13–15 and 19 and '172 ¶¶ [0043]–[0048] (double-sided adhesive tape/sheet in the recess); also disclosed in Mophie-type case construction.
• Claim 11 (surrounding recess sloping from the flat surface to the recess): met verbatim by '418 claim 2 ("surrounding recess (28) which surrounds the recess (26) and gradually recesses from a flat surface (23) … to the recess (26)").
• Claim 12 (soft protective cover; hard cover removably mounts over it): met verbatim by '418 claim 1.

For claims 10–12 there is no meaningful difference to explain beyond the primary reference itself — the motivation is "using a known technique (adhesive/recess retention) in the same way."

Ground 8 — Claim 13 and dependents 14–20

Claim 13 is the plate per se. It requires only: a rounded concave edge; attachability to the device/case; magnetic retainability to a magnet-bearing support; and the same functional pass-through positioning. The identical combination as Grounds 1–6 applies. Note the previously flagged drafting artifact: claims 14–20 recite "The case of claim 13" although claim 13 is directed to a plate; I report this literally, and it does not affect the analysis.

V. No single-reference anticipation identified

I found no single reference that discloses the rounded concave edge together with the coil-relative positioning. '172/'418 disclose circular and rectangular plates only; Kaynar '218 discloses plural metal plates and case cutouts (28a–c) for phone features, not a concave plate edge; the NPL mounts disclose plates but not a wireless-charging geometry. The case is therefore properly a § 103 case, not § 102 — which also explains why the Examiner allowed after citing '172, '418, Qualcomm '151 and Otter '427.

VI. Graham factor 4 — secondary considerations, and why they look weak on the current record

• Unexpected results. The only objective data in the patent is Table 1. Its three columns are "No Case" (210 mA avg), "FIG. 4B" (190 mA), and "FIG. 4C" (80 mA). The specification says FIGS. 4B and 4C correspond to the plates of FIGS. 3A and 3B respectively, but never states which geometry produced 80 mA vs. 190 mA, nor provides a control using a plain (prior-art-style) rectangular plate of comparable area. Without that mapping and control, the data cannot reliably establish that the rounded concave edge (as opposed to plate area or position) caused the difference. This is a developable evidentiary gap rather than a demonstrated unexpected result.
• Commercial success / long-felt need / copying. Any such showing (Spigen case sales, the MagSafe ecosystem) will have to confront nexus: Apple's accused MagSafe case architecture and Spigen's brand/market position are alternative explanations. Post-KSR, nexus must tie the success to the claimed feature.
• Solving the stated problem. The '119's background and its own characterization of Ser. No. 15/359,465 as the starting point make this look like an incremental, predictable improvement to an admitted prior-art mount.

VII. Bottom line

The '119 patent is vulnerable to a § 103 attack because its only differences over the admitted/incorporated Spigen disclosure are a plate shape and a positional result, both dictated by the known problem of wireless charging and both resolved by predictable, finite design choices.

VIII. Caveats, contradictions, and things I could not verify

1. ⚠️ The most important issue: § 102(b) exceptions may disqualify the two closest references. The '119 patent names Dae-Young Kim as sole inventor, and the '172 and '418 references are Spigen Korea applications whose listed inventor is "Kim." If the '172/'418 inventive entity is the same person (which I could not definitively confirm from the retrieved materials — the examiner's citation table shows only the surname "Kim"), then:

   • '172 (published 2017-02-09, i.e., within one year of the 2017-05-25 effective filing date) is likely excepted from § 102(a)(1) by § 102(b)(1)(A) (disclosure obtained from the inventor); and
   • '418 (published 2017-06-01, after the critical date) is § 102(a)(2) art only via its 2015-11-26 effective filing date, and is likely excepted by § 102(b)(2)(A) (obtained from the inventor) and § 102(b)(2)(C) (common ownership — both Spigen Korea).

   If those exceptions apply, a petitioner must run Ground 1 on non-commonly-owned art: Kaynar '218 + the NPL car mounts for the case/metal-plate/magnet combination, plus Qualcomm '151 / ABG '752 / Otter '427 for the coil-relative geometry. That is a viable but harder combination (notably, no non-Spigen reference in the record clearly discloses a recess facing the device in a hard case back — that element would have to come from Kaynar's recessed-area/alignment structure or an unverified reference such as Mophie '052). The applicant-admitted-prior-art statements in the '119 BACKGROUND remain usable regardless of the § 102(b) exceptions, and the express incorporation of Ser. No. 15/359,465 makes that disclosure part of the '119 specification for § 112 and for framing "the differences."

2. Priority-date risk. I have not reviewed provisional 62/511,280. If it does not support the rounded-concave-edge and positioning limitations, the effective filing date moves to 2018-05-24, which makes '418's 2017-06-01 publication plainly § 102(a)(1) art (a one-year-plus publication) and largely moots the exception problem in caveat 1.

3. Unverified reference contents. I did not retrieve the full texts of Access Business Group '752 (search exhausted the tool budget), Samsung Electro-Mechanics '727 and '958, Motorola '952, or the LG Innotek references. My characterization of those relies on their titles and bibliographic data as listed in the '119's "Citations" section; they should be charted before being relied upon. By contrast, I did retrieve and verify the substance of '172, '418, Kaynar '218, Otter '427/10,326,488, and Qualcomm '151.

4. No internal contradiction with the earlier sections was found. Two prior caveats carry forward: the "hard protective frame" vs. "hard protective cover" wording discrepancy (claim 1 uses "cover"; the spec and '418 use "frame" for numeral 20), and the "The case of claim 13" drafting artifact in claims 14–20.

5. Litigation relevance. The only known suit is Magnova LLC v. Apple Inc., No. 7:26-cv-00056 (W.D. Tex., filed 2026-02-19, Judge Albright), pending with Apple's answer and counterclaim. Because the co-asserted US 11,863,223 is a continuation in the same family sharing the 2017-05-25 priority and substantially the same disclosure, any successful § 103 challenge to the '119's plate-geometry claims would likely bear directly on the '223 claims as well. The § 102(b) ownership/inventorship question in caveat 1 also interacts with the standing question raised earlier (record owner Intellectual Discovery Co. Ltd. vs. plaintiff Magnova) — both turn on the family's chain of title and inventorship, which I could not fully resolve from the sources retrieved.

Sources

• US 10,469,119 B2 full text, claims, citations and family: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10469119/en
• '119 PDF (front-page "References Cited," incorporation-by-reference language): https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/e8/df/7f/87ea83bcbc91a8/US10469119.pdf
• US 2017/0155418 A1 (Ser. No. 15/359,465) claims and description: https://uspto.report/patent/app/20170155418 ; https://www.patentsencyclopedia.com/app/20170155418
• US 2017/0035172 A1 (Spigen magnetic mount) description: https://www.sumobrain.com/patents/usapp/Magnetic-mount-electronic-devices/20170035172.html
• US 2014/0354218 A1 (Kaynar) claims/description: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20140354218A1/en ; https://www.patentsencyclopedia.com/app/20140354218
• US 2016/0294427 A1 / US 10,326,488 (Otter Products, inductive coupling features): https://patents.google.com/patent/US10326488 ; https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160294427A1/en
• US 2016/0352151 A1 (Qualcomm, field penetration through metal): https://patents.google.com/patent/US20160352151A1/en ; WO 2016/196372
• Google Patents family/litigation flag and Darts-IP entry: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10469119/en