US 10594376

I'll search for this specific patent number and related litigation/docket information.

Let me search for the actual claim text and any 2026 CAFC appellate activity.

Let me retrieve the exact granted claim text.

Preliminary note on scope and confidence

I searched for the specific number 10594376 (US 10,594,376 B2). Results below are drawn from the patent's own text (supplied), Google Patents, PTAB/IPR filings hosted at ptacts.uspto.gov, Justia, Unified Patents, and litigation records surfaced via RPX/PatSnap/archive.org. I found no 2026 Federal Circuit docket entry that names U.S. Patent 10,594,376. The XR Communications Federal Circuit appeals I could see (22‑1141, 22‑1785, 22‑1789/1790) concern other patents in the portfolio (e.g., 7,062,296; 7,877,113; 6,611,231; 7,426,392; 7,729,728), not '376. I flag below where I lack an authoritative source.

1. Bibliographic summary — US 10,594,376 B2

Two things worth flagging:

• Inventor name literal reading. Google Patents lists the sixth inventor as "Eduardo Casas." The district-court complaints refer to "Edward Casas." Per your instruction not to auto-correct identifiers, I report the Google Patents listing as "Eduardo Casas" without reconciling it.
• Expiry. Because the '376 is a continuation claiming benefit back to the Nov. 3, 2003 non‑provisional filing, the 20‑year term runs from that date; Google Patents records an anticipated expiration of Nov. 3, 2023. If that is correct, the patent was already expired when the 2025–2026 litigation activity below occurred. I have not independently verified the term calculation (terminal disclaimers, PTA, etc.), so treat this as a reported status rather than a legal conclusion.

2. Abstract

I could not retrieve the abstract from the official (image) front page with certainty. The Unified Patents portal entry for US‑10594376‑B2 states the abstract as:

"Disclosed herein are methods and apparatuses configured to direct wireless communication. In some embodiments, a networking apparatus is configured to generate a plurality of sequences of symbols for transmission to plurality of client devices; transmit the plurality of sequences to the plurality of client device via one or more beams focused toward the client devices; receive information regarding the one or more beams from the client devices; and modify at least one of the one or more beams based on the information."

This "sequences of symbols / modify the beam based on feedback" wording matches one of the independent claims (see claim 16 below) but does not match the "probing signal / transmission peaks and nulls" wording of claim 1. It is possible the portal is displaying a sibling's abstract (US 10,715,235 B2, app. 15/495,539, also asserted by XR), or that the '376 abstract genuinely tracks a different independent claim. I cannot resolve this without the official front page; treat the abstract above as unverified.

The specification (from the supplied full text) opens by describing a "multi‑beam directed signal system" that coordinates directed wireless communication with client devices, with a transmit beam‑forming network routing transmissions via directed communication beams from an antenna assembly and a receive beam‑forming network receiving via those beams.

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

Based on the granted claim text recoverable from Justia and the IPR2022‑00613 record, the '376 appears to have four independent claims: 1, 16, 22 and 32 (the IPR record describes claims 10, 19 and 21 as dependent claims, which is consistent with this grouping). Confidence: high for 1, 22, 32; lower for 16 (see caveat).

Claim 1 — Wi‑Fi‑access‑point‑style apparatus that steers beams using client feedback

A "data‑communications networking apparatus" comprising:

• a processor that generates (i) a probing signal for at least first and second client devices, (ii) a first data stream for the first client, (iii) a second data stream for the second client;
• a transceiver coupled to the processor, transmitting the probing signal to both clients via a smart antenna (which is itself coupled to the transceiver); and
• one or more of the processor/transceiver/smart antenna further configured to:
  • receive first feedback from the first client (amplitude info, phase info, routing info, or an index into a routing table), and second feedback from the second client;
  • determine where to place transmission peaks and transmission nulls within one or more "spatially distributed patterns of electromagnetic signals" based in part on that feedback;
  • transmit the first and second data streams via those patterns, simultaneously (at least partly); and
  • where the pattern exhibits a transmission peak at the first client's location and a peak at the second client's location.

In short: an access point that pings clients, gets channel feedback, then computes a beam pattern with energy peaks aimed at each client (and controllable nulls elsewhere) and transmits to two clients at once.

Claim 16 — Apparatus transmitting symbol sequences over directed beams and modifying a beam from client feedback

Reported as a "data‑communications networking apparatus" with a processor generating first and second sets/sequences of symbols for first and second clients; a transceiver that transmits each sequence via a respective beam focused toward the corresponding client; and receiving information about the first beam from the first client, the processor then modifying the first beam based on that information.
Caveat: this claim text appeared in a PTAB exhibit that displayed two different patents' claims side‑by‑side, so I cannot be certain the "symbols/beams/modify" wording belongs to claim 16 of the '376 rather than an exhibit column for another patent in the family. Treat claim 16's text as tentative.

Claim 22 — Same architecture, but reciting feedback composition and simultaneous transmission

Another independent "data‑communications networking apparatus" claim: probing signal to first and second clients; first feedback (amplitude/phase/routing/index‑to‑routing‑table) and second feedback; determining peak and null placement from that feedback; transmitting both data streams via the spatially distributed patterns; transmission of the first stream and at least part of the second stream occurring simultaneously; with peaks located at the first and second clients. (Its dependents add: determining first/second sets of weights; applying/modifying the patterns by adjusting weights; transmitting third/fourth data streams via the modified patterns; and a memory storing a routing table with weighting values, claim 30–31.)

Claim 32 — Apparatus variant adding a memory and a routing table

Independent "data‑communications networking apparatus" comprising a processor (probing signal; first and second data streams), a transceiver (transmit probing signal via a smart antenna), and a memory coupled to the processor/transceiver in which a routing table is stored; feedback is expressed as amplitude/phase/routing information or a routing‑table index, and the peak/null placement may be based partly on information in the routing table.

Dependent-claim subject matter worth noting

The dependents (e.g., 2–15, 17–21, 23–31, 33–34) appear to cover: transmission of a null at a third device's location; simultaneous transmission; weight determination and weight adjustment/modification to re‑steer the pattern; memory/routing table usage; and routing-table/weighting-value storage. Claim construction in the W.D. Tex. litigation (Sept. 30, 2022 Markman order) gave "transmission nulls" its plain meaning as "portions of one or more spatially distributed patterns of electromagnetic signals where transmissions of no or insignificant energy are selectively directed." Independent claims 10, 19 and 21 are recited as depending on 802.11/WLAN subject matter according to the IPR2022‑00613 record.

4. Post-grant and litigation context (searched)

PTAB (all on US 10,594,376):

• IPR2022‑00613 — filed by NETGEAR, Inc. and Aruba Networks LLC (claims 1–34); terminated by settlement. Grounds relied on Gerlach in view of Barratt, with Okamoto for 802.11/WLAN limitations. Patent Owner's Response argued Gerlach lacks the claimed distinct "processor," "transceiver," and "smart antenna."
• IPR2023‑00136 and IPR2023‑00174 — settlement.
• IPR2024‑00148 — Ubiquiti Inc.; institution denied (decision May 6, 2024), joinder denied.

District court (patent asserted): XR Communications asserted '376 alongside other Vivato patents in W.D. Tex. actions (e.g., 6:21‑cv‑00619 through ‑00626 against Samsung, Cisco/Meraki, ASUSTeK, Microsoft, etc.), plus C.D. Cal. and N.D. Cal. suits. In E.D. Tex. case 2:23‑cv‑00202 (XR Communications v. AT&T), a Jan. 8, 2026 filing reports dismissal with prejudice of XR's claims (defendants' counterclaims without prejudice), listing '376 among the patents. XR's suits against Amazon/eero (asserting '376 and 10,715,235) also ended in dismissal with prejudice.

Federal Circuit: No 2026 appeal docketed on '376 was found. The 2026 Federal Circuit activity surfaced for XR Communications concerns other patents (22‑1785 D‑Link; 22‑1789/1790 Extreme Networks; 22‑1141 Ruckus/ARRIS) and records an affirmance of the lower court dispositions — the appeals are not on the '376 patent.

Uncertainty statement: The following could not be confirmed with authoritative sources within this search: the official abstract of '376; the verbatim text of claims 1–21; and whether claim 16's text is as I tentatively describe. Everything else above is grounded in the patent's own text or the cited PTAB/litigation records.

I'll research litigation involving US patent 10594376 (Directed Wireless Communication, XR Communications LLC). Let me search multiple sources.

Let me gather more specifics on the '376 patent's cases and their outcomes.

Litigation Involving U.S. Patent No. 10,594,376 ("the '376 patent")

Identification of the patent (literal)

Product description: A wireless networking/beamforming patent (multi-beam directed signal system, transmit/receive beam-forming networks, complementary beam-forming, roaming) from the former Vivato portfolio. It shares a specification with US 10,715,235 (the "'235 patent," application 15/495,539).

Important caveat: The '376 patent is one of several patents in the Vivato "directed wireless" family (including the '235, '511, '369, '939, '728 and '231 patents). It was almost always asserted alongside related patents, and it was dropped from some cases over time. I could not, within this search budget, independently verify the patent-by-patent assertion in every case; where my confidence is lower I say so.

A. District court litigation

A.1 The 2021 "wireless networking" campaign (filings in W.D. Tex., C.D. Cal. and N.D. Cal.)

XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies filed these in June–July 2021. The patent owner itself identified the following as proceedings involving the '376 patent in its Mandatory Notices in IPR2022-00613 (Patent Owner XR Communications LLC's Mandatory Notices, 37 C.F.R. § 42.8):

Related follow-on 2023 filings (same campaign):

• XR v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., No. 6:23-cv-00125 (W.D. Tex.), filed 2023-02-15; consolidated into 6:21-cv-00626; dismissed by agreed order (Doc. 13, June 8, 2023).
• XR v. [Microsoft Corp.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Microsoft%20Corp.), No. 6:23-cv-00124 (W.D. Tex.) (per RPX, same campaign).
• XR v. ASUSTek / Asus Global Pte Ltd., No. 6:23-cv-00651 (W.D. Tex.), filed 2023-09-05 — listed as closed on the Unified Patents portal.

A.2 The 2023 cellular-carrier campaign (E.D. Tex., Judge Rodney Gilstrap)

Complaints filed May 8, 2023. The USPTO AO 120 (Rev. 08/10) report for the lead case expressly lists 10,594,376 (issued 3/17/2020) among the five patents asserted:

Follow-on "new patents" filings (October 2023, same E.D. Tex. campaign): 2:23-cv-00468, 2:23-cv-00469, 2:23-cv-00470 — these asserted two newly issued patents in the same family and were consolidated into the lead case 2:23-cv-00202. Note: I could not confirm whether the '376 patent itself was included in these three October 2023 follow-on complaints.

Current status of the carrier litigation (with caution): XR's Final Election of Asserted Claims filed September 5, 2025 (Case 2:23-cv-00202-JRG-RSP) elected only U.S. 7,177,369 (claims 1, 32, 36, 41) and U.S. 8,737,511 (claim 20) — the '376 patent is not among the finally elected claims. A Joint Motion to Dismiss order (CourtListener/Archive.org doc. 298.1 in 2:23-cv-00202) dismisses plaintiff's claims with prejudice and defendants'/Ericsson's counterclaims without prejudice. I was not able to confirm the exact docket date of that dismissal order, so treat the "dismissed" characterization as likely but not fully verified to a specific date.

There is also a later 2025 filing: XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. AT&T Services Inc. et al., No. 2:25-cv-00699 (E.D. Tex.) (per PacerMonitor), and family-level 2025 W.D. Tex. filings 7:25-cv-00590 and 7:25-cv-00591 listed on the Google Patents litigation panel. I could not verify whether the '376 patent is asserted in any of these 2025 cases (the Google Patents litigation list pertains to the whole patent family, not specifically the '376 patent).

B. PTAB proceedings challenging the '376 patent (not district-court "litigation," but directly on point)

These are the inter partes reviews directed at US 10,594,376 (all listing application 15/486,245):

Sources: Unified Patents patent portal page for US-10594376-B2; IPVerse/GreyB case pages; PTAB filings hosted at ptacts.uspto.gov; Patexia.

C. Cautionary note — do not conflate with a different patent

The well-known Federal Circuit decision of May 18, 2023 (XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies v. ARRIS Solutions, Inc., 2023 WL 3529830 (Fed. Cir.), aff'g XR Communications v. Ruckus Wireless, No. 3:21-cv-04679 (N.D. Cal. 2021)) — which affirmed that a Vivato claim was invalid as indefinite under § 112 ¶ 2 for a means-plus-function term ("search receiver logic") — concerned U.S. Patent No. 6,611,231 (the '231 patent), not the '376 patent. Likewise, the XR v. D-Link (8:17-cv-596, C.D. Cal.) and XR v. ARRIS litigation referenced in the '376 claim-construction briefs involved earlier family patents. Do not attribute that indefiniteness holding to the '376 patent.

Bottom line

• Yes, there is substantial known litigation involving US 10,594,376, all brought by XR Communications, LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies, almost always as one of several patents asserted in a larger campaign.
• Verified '376-asserted matters include the 14 cases XR itself listed as '376-related in IPR2022-00613, plus the three 2023 E.D. Tex. carrier cases (AO 120 forms for 2:23-cv-00202 expressly list 10,594,376), plus the Samsung follow-on 6:23-cv-00125.
• Confirmed outcomes: the Amazon/eero case (6:21-cv-00619) — plaintiff's claims dismissed with prejudice; the Samsung follow-on (6:23-cv-00125) — dismissed; the ASUS W.D. Tex. case (6:23-cv-00651) — closed; and the E.D. Tex. carrier litigation — '376 not in the final elected claims and a dismissal order appears on the docket. All four '376 IPRs ended in settlement or denial of institution.
• Verification limitations: I could not confirm a specific final disposition for every one of the 2021 campaign cases (several were likely settled/stayed), and I could not verify whether the '376 patent appears in the 2025 filings (2:25-cv-00699, 7:25-cv-00590, 7:25-cv-00591). Those points should be confirmed against PACER/CourtListener and the USPTO PatentCenter's § 290 reports before being relied upon.

Primary sources consulted: Google Patents page for US10594376B2 (litigation links); Unified Patents patent portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-10594376-B2) and litigation caselist; USPTO AO 120 reports (ptacts.uspto.gov, petitions 1555589, 1554850); PTAB IPR documents (IPR2022-00613, IPR2023-00136, IPR2023-00174, IPR2024-00148); CourtListener/Archive.org RECAP dockets for E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00202 (gov.uscourts.txed.222063); RPX Insight campaign summaries; PatSnap litigation note on XR v. Amazon/eero.

I'll start by verifying the structured list against the web and pulling claim-level outcomes for each proceeding.

Good leads. Let me dig into the specifics of each proceeding.

Now let me pin down institution specifics and whether the Netgear/eero IPRs were instituted before settling.

PTAB Analysis — US 10,594,376 ("Directed wireless communication")

Source conflict flagged up front. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt reports no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is inconsistent with the patent's own Google Patents litigation record and with the PTAB public dockets, which show four AIA proceedings naming U.S. 10,594,376. I treat the ODP block as an ingest gap (likely because three of the four terminated by settlement and one was a procedurally denied joinder, which some feeds drop) and build the analysis from the PTAB-record sources cited below. If the ODP list later backfills, reconcile against what follows. No proceeding number below is invented — each is traceable to a citation in this memo.

Proceedings overview

Four AIA trials on file: three terminated by settlement after institution (IPR2022-00613, IPR2023-00136, IPR2023-00174) and one denied institution outright (IPR2024-00148); zero Final Written Decisions, zero claims canceled, zero claims sustained — meaning every one of claims 1–34 of the '376 patent is untested and intact. The bottom-line defensive posture is therefore not "the patent has survived and is hardened" and not "the claims are dead." It is: the primary invalidity theory (Gerlach + Barratt ± Okamoto against claims 1–34) was strong enough to get instituted twice, but XR Communications bought its way out of an FWD both times — so the validity question is still wide open, and § 315(e)(2) statutory estoppel never attached to any petitioner.

IPR2022-00613 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.), Google LLC, & Cisco Systems, Inc. v. XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Filed: 2022-03-03
• Status: Terminated‑Settled (final termination 2023-10-03; partial termination as to the "Settled Petitioners" 2023-07-06)
• Judge panel: Barbara A. Parvis, James J. Mayberry, Kara L. Szpondowski (APJs); opinion authored by Mayberry, APJ
• Petition grounds: All of claims 1–34 challenged. Two grounds, both § 103 obviousness over pre‑AIA art:
  • Ground 1: Gerlach (U.S. 5,471,647) + Barratt (U.S. 5,592,490) → claims 1‑9, 12‑18, 22‑34
  • Ground 2: Gerlach + Barratt + Okamoto (VTC '98 smart‑antenna beamforming paper) → claims 10‑11, 19‑21
• Institution decision: Instituted 2022-10-20 (Paper 12). The panel found a reasonable likelihood as to at least one challenged claim and instituted on the same grounds presented. (Patent Owner's later-filed response, Paper 17, argued the "processor" and "transceiver" limitations of claim 1 were absent from Gerlach and that Petitioners' combination rests on "hindsight and conclusory expert testimony" — that merits fight was never decided.)
• Final Written Decision: None. The Board expressly stated it "ha[d] not yet decided the merits of the proceeding, and a final written decision has not been entered."
• Settlement / termination: Yes — twice-over. On 2023-07-06 (Paper 34) the Board terminated Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Google LLC, eero LLC, and Aruba Networks LLC under 35 U.S.C. § 317(a) after a joint motion, and granted a joint request under 35 U.S.C. § 317 / 37 C.F.R. § 42.74 to keep the settlement agreements business‑confidential and separate from the patent file (Exs. 2019–2022). The parties represented they had dismissed their parallel district court litigation over the '376 patent and "do not contemplate any future litigation or proceeding involving the ['376] patent in the foreseeable future," and further disclosed that "[t]here are other collateral agreements between the parties made in connection with, or in contemplation of, the termination sought." Cisco Systems and Netgear remained as petitioners at that point; the record shows the proceeding was terminated in its entirety on 2023-10-03 as Terminated‑Settled. Terms are confidential — the collateral-agreement disclosure suggests license/covenant terms exist but they are not public.
• Appeal: None. No FWD → nothing appealable under 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)/§ 319.
• Defensive value: The most important single fact for a defendant is that the Board never ruled on validity. The panel let the case get to the response stage and it settled out from under the trial. A defendant cannot cite this proceeding for anything — no cancelation, no estoppel. What it does prove is that the Gerlach+Barratt±Okamoto theory is institution-worthy art against all 34 claims.
• Sources: Termination order — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-00613/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._XR_Communications_LLC/07-06-2023-Board/Order__Termination_as_to_one_party-34-Order__Termination_as_to_one_party/ ; Patent Owner Response (Paper 17) served as Ex. 19 in the E.D. Tex. AT&T case — https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.[222063](/patent/222063)/gov.uscourts.txed.222063.86.6.pdf

IPR2023-00136 — NETGEAR, Inc. & Aruba Networks LLC v. XR Communications LLC d/b/a Vivato Technologies

• Type: Inter Partes Review (joinder / "understudy" petition)
• Filed: 2022-11-18
• Status: Terminated‑Settled (termination 2023-10-03)
• Judge panel: Barbara A. Parvis, James J. Mayberry, Kara L. Szpondowski (APJs); opinion authored by Mayberry, APJ
• Petition grounds: Identical to IPR2022-00613 — claims 1–34, Gerlach + Barratt (Ground 1) and Gerlach + Barratt + Okamoto (Ground 2). The petition was "substantively identical to the Samsung Petition with respect to the prior art challenges."
• Institution decision: Instituted and joinder granted 2023-05-22 under 35 U.S.C. § 314 and § 315(c) / 37 C.F.R. § 42.122. The panel instituted "on the same grounds instituted in the Samsung IPR" and joined Petitioners in an "understudy" role, with Petitioners assuming an active role if the Samsung petitioners settled out. Patent Owner filed no Preliminary Response and no opposition to the joinder motion. Real parties-in-interest: NETGEAR, Inc., Aruba Networks LLC, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Petitioners also made a Sotera-style stipulation not to pursue in district court any ground raised or reasonably raisable in the IPR — which is why the district court had entered a stay.
• Final Written Decision: None — terminated before any merits decision.
• Settlement / termination: Yes, 2023-10-03, concurrently with the final termination of IPR2022-00613. This is the "understudy" clause firing exactly as drafted: once the Samsung/Google/Cisco side settled, Netgear took the active seat and immediately settled too. Terms confidential.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Confirms the same art package two separate panels/sets of petitioners were willing to institute on, and confirms how XR shut the trial down — by settling the understudy rather than litigating to an FWD. No estoppel attached here either.
• Sources: Institution + joinder decision (served in the IPR2022-00613 file as Paper 26) — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-00613/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._XR_Communications_LLC/docs/05-22-2023-Board/Notice__Other-26-Institution_decision_and_grant_of_joinder,_IPR2023_00136.pdf ; docket — https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2023-00136/Netgear_Inc._v._XR_COMMUNICATIONS_LLC_D-B-A_VIVATO_TECH/

IPR2023-00174 — eero LLC v. XR Communications, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (joinder)
• Filed: 2022-11-17
• Status: Terminated — settlement (docket reflects a "Termination Decision Post DI Settlement," i.e., terminated after institution)
• Judge panel: Not confirmed in the sources I reviewed; the joined trial in IPR2022-00613 was heard by APJs Parvis, Mayberry, and Szpondowski.
• Petition grounds: Not independently confirmed in the sources reviewed, but eero was joined as a petitioner in IPR2022-00613, which challenges claims 1–34 on the Gerlach/Barratt/Okamoto grounds — the joinder necessarily rested on those same grounds.
• Institution decision: Institution occurred (the termination is styled "Post DI"). I could not verify the exact institution date; treat it as unconfirmed rather than assume it.
• Final Written Decision: None.
• Settlement / termination: Yes. eero was among the "Settled Petitioners" terminated from IPR2022-00613 by the 2023-07-06 order (Paper 34) covering Samsung, Samsung America, Google, eero, and Aruba. Its own IPR2023-00174 was correspondingly terminated post-institution on settlement. Terms confidential.
• Appeal: None.
• Defensive value: Low independent value — it is a mirror of the Netgear joinder and is relevant mainly because it shows the entire 2021–2022 W.D. Tex./C.D. Cal. defendant cohort (Samsung, Google, Cisco, Netgear, Aruba, eero) resolving simultaneously in a coordinated global settlement, rather than one defendant buying out and the rest litigating on. That is the single biggest reason there is no FWD on this patent.
• Sources: Docket — https://www.docketalarm.com/search/?q=patent:(10594376) ; termination of eero from IPR2022-00613 — Paper 34, supra.

IPR2024-00148 — Ubiquiti Inc. v. XR Communications, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (attempted joinder)
• Filed: 2023-11-10
• Status: Not Instituted – Procedural; institution denied 2024-05-06
• Judge panel: Not public in the sources reviewed.
• Petition grounds: Not reached. Ubiquiti sought to challenge the '376 patent and to join the earlier trial.
• Institution decision: Denied 2024-05-06 — "DECISION Denying Institution of Inter Partes Review 35 U.S.C. § 314; Denying Motion for Joinder 35 U.S.C. § 315(c)." On the same date the Board also issued an order denying Petitioner's motion to reopen IPR2022-00613 under 37 C.F.R. § 42.20 and dismissing Petitioner's motion to waive the time limit for filing a motion for joinder under 37 C.F.R. §§ 42.5, 42.122.
• Final Written Decision: N/A.
• Settlement / termination: N/A — no institution. Note Ubiquiti's separate district court exposure: an XR v. Ubiquiti case (C.D. Cal. No. 8:21-cv-01065) appears in XR's related-matters disclosures.
• Appeal: None (denial of institution is non-appealable).
• Defensive value: This is the procedural hangover of the 2023 settlement. The Board's target for joinder (IPR2022-00613) was already terminated, so there was nothing to join and the untimely-joinder motion was dismissed. Practical takeaway for a new defendant: you cannot piggyback on the old trial — it is closed. Any new challenge must be a standalone petition, subject to the § 315(b) one-year bar running from service of an infringement complaint, and to the Board's § 314(a)/Fintiv and § 325(d) discretion. If you were sued on the '376 patent more than a year ago, you are almost certainly time-barred from filing your own IPR.
• Source: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2024-00148

Strategic summary

Claim status: nothing is canceled and nothing is sustained. Because no FWD issued in any of the four proceedings, there is no claim-level adjudication to report. Claims 1–34 are all UNTESTED — the full challenged set (1–34, per both the Samsung and Netgear petitions) remains live. Caution against over-reading the record: IPR2023-00136's institution was by joinder onto IPR2022-00613's already-instituted grounds, and IPR2023-00174 was likewise a joinder, so the merits were only ever examined at the reasonable-likelihood stage, never at the preponderance stage. Do not treat the three settlements as "the patent survived IPRs." They are the opposite of an affirmance — they are an unjudicated record, and XR paid (in negotiable terms) to keep it unjudicated.

Estoppel landscape — this is the key defensive takeaway. Statutory IPR estoppel under 35 U.S.C. § 315(e)(2) attaches only if a final written decision issues. No FWD issued here, so no statutory estoppel bars Samsung, Google, Cisco, eero, Aruba, or Netgear from raising the Gerlach/Barratt/Okamoto grounds in district court or in a future IPR. Netgear's Sotera-style stipulation and the district-court stays are contractual/record-based, not statutory, and bind only those parties. Two consequences follow for a defendant being asserted against today: (1) the classic prior-art grounds are not foreclosed by estoppel, but (2) they may still be foreclosed by § 315(b) if you were served more than one year ago, and the Board has strong § 314(a)/§ 325(d) hooks to deny a third bite at the same art after two institutions and two settlements. Practically, a well-positioned defendant's best route may be to assert the Gerlach/Barratt invalidity case in the district court, where the PTAB estoppel minefield and the Fintiv discretion problem do not apply. Note also the collateral-agreement disclosure in IPR2022-00613: settlement licenses/covenants almost certainly exist (confidential), so before filing, check whether you are a successor/affiliate of a settled defendant and entitled to a license defense.

Pattern signals. (i) No party filed more than one substantive IPR — this was a coordinated joinder stack, not an aggressive repeat-petitioner campaign: one lead petition (Samsung/Google/Cisco, IPR2022-00613) plus two understudies (Netgear/Aruba IPR2023-00136, eero IPR2023-00174) plus one late, unsuccessful joinder (Ubiquiti IPR2024-00148). (ii) No defensive aggregator is in the chain — Unified Patents tracks this patent in its portal but did not file any of these; the petitioners are all accused product defendants. (iii) XR Communications was never forced to defend an FWD on the merits and never appealed to the Federal Circuit in any IPR. (iv) Related data point that is not a PTAB proceeding on this patent: an XR/ARRIS-related Federal Circuit decision exists at XR Commc'ns, LLC v. ARRIS Solutions, Inc., 2023 WL 3529830 (Fed. Cir. May 18, 2023), but that is an appeal from a district court claim-construction ruling in the Ruckus/ARRIS litigation (and the briefs tie it to the '369 patent, not the '376 patent) — do not cite it as an IPR appeal of the '376 patent. Similarly, the Cisco/Unified Patents hit for IPR2018-00762 (Cisco v. XR Communications) predates the '376 patent's 2020 issuance and therefore cannot be an IPR of this patent; it likely concerns a family member. I flag it rather than assign it here.

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant and want to attack validity: there is no FWD to quote and no canceled claim to point to. Do not tell the client the patent has been invalidated — it has not. The correct framing is: "XR Communications has now twice put the Gerlach/Barratt/Okamoto art in front of the Board and twice settled before the Board could rule on it — including settling the understudy petitioner specifically designed to keep the trial alive." The three termination orders are your best ammunition for the proposition that XR has been unwilling to litigate validity to judgment. Cite: IPR2022-00613 Paper 34 (2023-07-06) at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-00613/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._XR_Communications_LLC/07-06-2023-Board/Order__Termination_as_to_one_party-34-Order__Termination_as_to_one_party/ and the IPR2023-00136 institution/joinder decision at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-00613/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._XR_Communications_LLC/docs/05-22-2023-Board/Notice__Other-26-Institution_decision_and_grant_of_joinder,_IPR2023_00136.pdf

Trial-stage milestones: there are no active proceedings — all four are closed (three terminated 2023-10-03 or thereabouts; IPR2024-00148 denied 2024-05-06). Consequently there is no institution-deadline, no oral hearing, and no statutory one-year FWD due date running on this patent. If you want a PTAB track, you must open a fresh trial, and the gating questions are the § 315(b) one-year bar and discretionary denial under § 314(a)/§ 325(d).

If you are being asserted and the one-year window has closed: your IPR path is likely foreclosed; build the Gerlach + Barratt ± Okamoto case in the district court instead, where no PTAB estoppel applies and you get a jury, and where the prior claim-construction fights in XR v. D-Link / XR v. Cisco (C.D. Cal. Special Master R&R adopted 2022-04-18; W.D. Tex. Claim Construction Order 2022-09-30) give you a roadmap on the "processor"/"transceiver"/"smart antenna" limitations that carried the institution arguments.

Also check the license position first. The 2023-07-06 order records that the settlement agreements were filed as confidential exhibits (2019–2022) and that "other collateral agreements" exist. If your client is an affiliate, successor, or contract-manufacturer of any of Samsung, Google, Cisco, eero, Aruba, or Netgear, obtain the settlement file (or your client's counterpart) before spending on invalidity — an exhaustion/license defense beats an IPR.

Verification gaps to close before filing anything: (1) exact termination date of IPR2023-00174; (2) its institution date and panel; (3) the full text of the IPR2024-00148 denial (to confirm the § 314/§ 315(c) reasoning and whether Ubiquiti's petition was time-barred); and (4) the complete proceedings list from PTAB E2E / USPTO PatentCenter (https://e2e.uspto.gov/) to reconcile against the ODP block that reported no AIA activity. I have not verified (1)–(3) and have said so rather than guess.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 10594376 before drafting.

Let me dig into the Vivato → XR Communications chain and the recorded assignments.

I have the ownership chain forming. Let me nail down the recorded assignment details and NPE-list treatment.

I hit the tool-call limit before I could complete a live Assignment Center query, so the section below distinguishes verified chain facts (quoted from USPTO assignment documents produced as exhibits in E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00202 and from XR's own complaints) from unverified reel/frame values. I have not fabricated any reel/frame numbers.

Inventors

Eleven inventors are named on the face of US 10,594,376: Marcus da Silva; William J. Crilly, Jr.; James Brennan; Robert J. Conley; Siavash Alamouti; Eduardo Casas; Hujun Yin; Bobby Jose; Yang-seok Choi; Vahid Tarokh; Praveen Mehrotra.

Employer at time of filing, where determinable:

Unusual pattern. Vivato, Inc. took the inventors' assignment on 2004-07-07 (expert summary in E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00202, Doc. 170-38). Vivato's operating assets were sold to Wayout Wireless, LLC on 2006-09-21 — about 26 months later. By the time US 10,594,376 actually issued (2020-03-17), every named inventor had been separated from the asset for 12–16 years, and the entity that the inventors assigned to (Vivato, Inc.) had ceased to exist and was receiving USPTO mail at a defunct San Francisco address (Notice of Abandonment mailed 2009-01-08 to Vivato, Inc. and returned "Attempted – Not Known"). The inventing team never held equity in the asset that produced the 2020–2025 assertion campaign. That is the classic setup for a portfolio that gets sold out from under its creators.

Original assignee

Two answers, and the distinction matters:

• On the face of the '376 patent: original assignee is XR Communications LLC (it filed continuation 15/486,245 on 2017-04-12, 14+ years after the 2002-11-04 priority date).
• First assignee of the invention (the family's true origin): Vivato, Inc., a Delaware/California venture-backed Wi-Fi infrastructure startup founded in 2000 that raised $80M+ and built beamforming phased-array Wi-Fi base stations ("Wi-Fi switches"). XR's complaint claims "over 400 deployments globally."

Did Vivato ship a product embodying the claims? Yes — Vivato shipped beamformed Wi-Fi base stations in the early 2000s, and its U.S. patent 6,611,231 and related filings date to that era. But the product business failed: Vivato, Inc.'s assets went to Wayout Wireless, LLC in September 2006; the brand was renamed twice (Vivato Networks, LLC, 2007-08-06; Vivato Networks, Inc., 2007-09-19) and the patents were segregated into Vivato Networks Holdings; the corporate parent Catcher Holdings wound down on 2008-05-01; secured lender Aequitas Equipment Finance, LLC foreclosed (D. Or. 3:08-cv-00750, judgment 2008-11-19); and Aequitas sold the portfolio to XR Communications LLC in December 2009.

Current status: Vivato, Inc. — dissolved/defunct. Catcher Holdings — wound down 2008. Aequitas — foreclosed out. XR Communications LLC (d/b/a Vivato Technologies), a Delaware LLC at 2809 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, CA 90291, is the sole owner and current asserter. There is no evidence in the record of XR manufacturing or selling anything; the "Vivato Technologies" name is a revived brand used by the litigating entity.

Assignment timeline

Record-integrity note: I could not complete an Assignment Center query in this session, so no reel/frame below is confirmed by me. The chain of assignment events is verified from USPTO assignment documents quoted in the litigation record. A partially OCR'd string, "Reel 023691 / Frame 0645," appears next to "XR Communications LLC" on an assignment cover sheet produced as Ex. 18 in E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00202; reel 023691 is chronologically consistent with a 2010 recording, but I flag it as unverified. A second string, "29988/40000," appears in the same exhibit set and I could not establish that it is an assignment reel/frame. Verify all of the above at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search US10594376) and https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html.

• 2004-07-07 (executed) / recorded 2004 — Reel not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment
  • Assignor: Marcus da Silva et al. (the inventing group)
  • Assignee: Vivato, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not identified in the record reviewed
  • Context: founder-to-company assignment of the 2002/2003 beamforming inventions.

• 2006-09-21 (executed) / recorded 2006 — Reel not verified (recorded instrument headed "From: Wayout Wireless, LLC To: Vivato Networks, LLC")

  • Conveyance: Assignment (asset acquisition)
  • Assignor: Vivato, Inc.
  • Assignee: Wayout Wireless, LLC
  • Correspondent: not identified in the record reviewed
  • Context: fire-sale of a failed startup's assets; the patent portfolio changes hands with the hardware business.

• 2007-08-06 (executed) / recorded 2007 — Reel not verified

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Wayout Wireless, LLC
  • Assignee: Vivato Networks, LLC
  • Correspondent: not identified in the record reviewed
  • Context: pure name change; "strictly for branding," per CEO Gary Haycox (Haycox Tr. 13:19–14:1).

• 2007-09-19 (executed) / recorded 2007 — Reel not verified

  • Conveyance: Change of Name
  • Assignor: Vivato Networks, LLC
  • Assignee: Vivato Networks, Inc.
  • Correspondent: not identified in the record reviewed
  • Context: name change only, second in six weeks.

• Fall 2007 (executed) / recorded Fall 2007 — Reel not verified

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement
  • Assignor: Vivato Networks, Inc. / Vivato Networks Holdings
  • Assignee: Aequitas Capital Management / Aequitas Equipment Finance, LLC
  • Correspondent: Paul Schwedler, Bullivant Houser Bailey PC — who, per the litigation record, "filed the security agreement with the Patent Office in fall of 2007." Recurrence flag: Schwedler/Bullivant is also the filer on the next entry and on the 2009 revival petitions.
  • Context: securitization — a $1,000,000 loan (Nov 2007, with $300,000 drawn) secured by the entire Vivato patent portfolio, including the application that became the '376.

• 2007–2008 (executed) / recorded 2008-06-09 (USPTO correspondence address notice) — Reel not verified

  • Conveyance: Assignment (internal reorg)
  • Assignor: Vivato Networks, Inc.
  • Assignee: Vivato Networks Holdings, LLC / Inc.
  • Correspondent: not identified
  • Context: internal reorg — the portfolio was deliberately carved out of the operating company into a Holdings shell before the Catcher merger, per Haycox: "we structured to move the patents out of the Vivato Networks entity, into the Holdings company."

• 2008-11-19 (judgment) / recorded Summer 2009 — Reel not verified

  • Conveyance: Foreclosure judgment (Aequitas Equipment Finance, LLC v. Vivato Networks, Inc., D. Or. 3:08-cv-00750, Dkt. 52)
  • Assignor: Vivato Networks Holdings, Inc. / Vivato Networks, Inc.
  • Assignee: Aequitas Equipment Finance, LLC (by foreclosure)
  • Correspondent: Paul Schwedler, Bullivant Houser Bailey PC — second recorded filing in the same chain by the same correspondent.
  • Context: secured-lender foreclosure; the lender takes the collateral after the borrower's parent (Catcher) collapsed.

• 2009-12 (executed) / recorded 2010-04-29 — Reel 023691 / 0645 (unverified)

  • Conveyance: Assignment (Patent Purchase Agreement)
  • Assignor: Aequitas Equipment Finance, LLC / Aequitas Capital Management
  • Assignee: XR Communications, LLC
  • Correspondent: Daniel P. Burke, attorney for XR, who negotiated the Patent Purchase Agreement between Aequitas and XR and then filed the renewed petition to revive on 2010-11-08 (firm not confirmed from sources reviewed). Recurrence flag: Burke reappears as the attorney of record driving the revival that made the portfolio issuable; and EIP US LLP (Nicholas R. Transier, Reg. No. 68,743; also Vlad Teplitskiy and Glen Nuttall) recurs as prosecution counsel across XR's asserted patents.
  • Context: transfer-to-asserter / fire-sale — the patent was bought out of a foreclosure (Aequitas had sold its entire patent portfolio) while the application was abandoned and its first revival petition had been denied. XR then revived it (granted 2011-01-03) and prosecuted it to issuance nine years later.

• 2017-04-12 — no assignment recorded

  • XR Communications, LLC files continuation 15/486,245 (the application that issued as US 10,594,376 on 2020-03-17).
  • Context: continuation prosecution by the owner; no post-issuance assignment of record. The 2023 and 2026 AO 120 § 290 filings in E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00202 both list the holder as "XR Communications, LLC," confirming no post-issuance transfer.

No Assignment Center records exist for post-issuance transfers of the '376. The last recorded conveyance into the family predates the application by seven years. That is itself a finding: XR Communications LLC has owned this patent continuously from purchase-through-issuance, so there is no separate "pre-litigation transfer" to date.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10594376
    2002 : Priority date for directed wireless family
    2003 : Priority app filed by Vivato Inc
    2004 : Inventors assign to Vivato Inc
    2006 : Vivato assets sold to Wayout Wireless
    2007 : Wayout renamed Vivato Networks LLC
         : Renamed Vivato Networks Inc
         : Patents moved to Holdings shell
         : Security interest to Aequitas
    2008 : Aequitas wins foreclosure judgment
         : Catcher parent winds down
    2009 : Aequitas sells portfolio to XR Communications
    2010 : XR assignment recorded at USPTO
    2017 : Continuation filed by XR Communications
    2020 : Patent US 10594376 issues
    2021 : XR sues Cisco Samsung Microsoft
    2023 : XR sues ATT in East Texas
    2023 : Patent term expires

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — present. The patent sits in XR Communications LLC, a Delaware LLC with no products in commerce, whose only address of record is 2809 Ocean Front Walk, Venice, CA (a residential Ocean Front Walk address, per XR's own complaint), operating under a d/b/a ("Vivato Technologies") borrowed from a defunct company. Defendants in W.D. Tex. argued XR "does not appear to conduct any business activities in this District" and "Vivato's website lists no offices." The portfolio was acquired out of a foreclosure by an entity whose business model is patent assertion. This is not inferred from naming alone — it is supported by the absence of any product, the d/b/a, the residential/agent address, and the assertion-only activity.

2. Known asserter in the chain — partially present. XR Communications / Vivato Technologies does not appear on the classic enumerations (Acacia, Marathon, Intellectual Ventures, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Mosaid/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). However, it squarely matches the "high-frequency plaintiff surfaced by Unified Patents" prong: XR is the patent owner opposing IPR2022-00613 (Unified Patents), IPR2023-00136 (Unified Patents), IPR2023-00174 (eero/Amazon), and IPR2024-00148 (Ubiquiti) on this family. Google Patents' litigation panel for US 10,594,376 alone lists ~24 district-court entries between 2017 and 2025. Marked present on campaign frequency, not present on the named list.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — present. Two independent recurrences: (a) Paul Schwedler of Bullivant Houser Bailey PC is the recording correspondent on both the Fall-2007 security agreement and the Summer-2009 foreclosure judgment, and also filed the 2009 revival petitions — the same lawyer who filed the lien later filed the instrument that delivered the collateral, a strong "same operator, changing entities" tell; (b) EIP US LLP (Nicholas R. Transier, Reg. No. 68,743, Customer No. 114581, San Diego; with Vlad Teplitskiy and Glen Nuttall) recurs as prosecution counsel across XR's asserted patents. Daniel P. Burke recurs on the XR side (Patent Purchase Agreement + 2010-11-08 renewed petition to revive). The shell names changed six times; the lawyer set did not.

4. Cascading transfers — present. Six ownership events in roughly 36 months: Vivato, Inc. → Wayout Wireless (2006-09) → Vivato Networks, LLC (2007-08) → Vivato Networks, Inc. (2007-09) → Vivato Networks Holdings (2007–08) → Aequitas by foreclosure (2008-11) → XR Communications (2009-12). Three of the six are name changes/internal reorgs, and the principals are common (Gary Haycox was CEO of Wayout, Vivato Networks, and later Catcher Holdings). Outside the rigid "<24 months" test on the full chain, but the 2006-09 → 2007-09 cluster is 12 months.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present. The last assignment into the family was 2009-12 (recorded 2010-04-29). The first suits on this family were filed in 2017 (XR Commc'ns v. D-Link, C.D. Cal. 8:17-cv-00596; v. Ruckus) — roughly 7–8 years later — and the '376 itself was first asserted after its 2020-03-17 issuance. There is no assignment within six months of any suit, so no venue- or standing-engineering transfer to flag.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — present. The chain includes a genuine distressed disposal: Catcher Holdings wound down 2008-05-01; Aequitas obtained a summary/default judgment in the Oregon foreclosure action on 2008-11-19; the portfolio was sold off in 2009-12 with the key application "still-abandoned." Vivato, Inc.'s 2006 asset sale to Wayout is a second distressed event. Note this is a secured-lender foreclosure, not a Chapter 7/11 docket sale — I found no bankruptcy docket for the patent owner itself.

7. Privateering — not present (no evidence). I found no operating-company funder behind XR's campaign, no SEC disclosure of an XR-funded assertion program, and no EFF/Patent Progress privateering report. Catcher held an exclusive license (and the exclusive right to prosecute) before collapsing, which resembles privateering structurally, but Catcher was the collapsing party, not a funder of litigation.

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain terminates at XR Communications LLC, an active plaintiff that has litigated this family from 2017 through at least the 2025 W.D. Tex. filings (7:25-cv-00590, 7:25-cv-00591). No RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN acquisition of this patent appears.

Additional color (not itself an NPE signal): the '376 is the product of a revival that defendants allege was procured by false "unintentional delay" certifications. Defendants alleged inequitable conduct against Aequitas and XR (E.D. Tex. 2:23-cv-00202), pointing to the Aug. 28 and Nov. 18, 2009 Schwedler petitions and the Nov. 8, 2010 Burke petition. Two of XR's patents in this family were revived after abandonment — meaning the asserted asset exists only because of the revival practice of the same small attorney group now prosecuting XR's campaign.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Four independent signals fire, each on documentary evidence rather than naming: a monetization-vehicle acquisition out of a secured-lender foreclosure (D. Or. 3:08-cv-00750 judgment 2008-11-19; sale to XR December 2009, recorded 2010-04-29); cascading transfers through six related entity names between 2006-09 and 2010-04 with common principals (Haycox); a repeat recording correspondent — Paul Schwedler of Bullivant Houser Bailey — on both the fall-2007 security agreement and the summer-2009 foreclosure judgment; and a current owner that sells nothing, revived the dead "Vivato Technologies" brand as a d/b/a, and has generated ~24 district-court entries plus four PTAB proceedings on a single patent family. The absence of any post-issuance assignment (2023 and 2026 AO 120 filings still list XR Communications, LLC as holder) rules out "insufficient data" — the record is unusually complete and uniformly points to assertion-driven ownership.

Verify the recorded chain at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search US10594376) — and I recommend pulling the reel/frame values there directly, since the reel/frame figures above beyond the possible 023691/0645 could not be independently confirmed in this session.

I'll search for the patent and its cited prior art references.

Let me dig into the specific prior-art references cited against this patent.

Let me identify the specific references (Gerlach, Barratt, Crilly, Periyalwar, Adachi) used in the IPRs.

Prior Art Analysis — US 10,594,376 B2 ("Directed Wireless Communication")

0. Scope note (read first)

US10594376 was searched literally as the identifier 10594376 / US10594376B2; no similar numbers were substituted. My reference set below is drawn from (a) the patent's own text provided to me, and (b) contemporaneous PTAB and district-court records retrieved by live search. Important limitation: the full-text extract I was given for US10594376B2 is truncated before the front‑page "References Cited" block, and I could not retrieve the complete face-of-patent citation list from USPTO PatentCenter. Everything below therefore reflects the citations that are documented in the public record (IPR petitions, Patent Owner Responses, and prosecution excerpts), not a guaranteed-complete reproduction of the printed citation list. Where I could not confirm a patent number, I say so rather than guess.

1. Bibliographic facts (literal)

Because the effective filing date is 2002-11-04, the pre-AIA version of 35 U.S.C. § 102 applies.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/US10594376B2/en

2. What the challenged claims require (claim framing)

Per the eero/Samsung petitions and the Patent Owner Response, independent claim 1 (and counterparts 12, 22, 32) recites:

• a processor configured to generate a probing signal to first and second client devices, and to generate first and second data streams;
• a transceiver operatively coupled to the processor;
• a smart antenna (array with first/second antenna elements);
• receiving first and second feedback information from the client devices;
• determining where to place transmission peaks and transmission nulls within one or more spatially distributed patterns of electromagnetic signals based in part on that feedback;
• wherein the patterns exhibit a first transmission peak at the first client device, a second transmission peak at the second client device, and a first transmission null at a third device.

The Examiner allowed the claims focusing on the "probing signal + feedback → place peaks and nulls" limitations. Claims 10, 19, 21 add IEEE 802.11 / WLAN limitations; claims 11, 20 add further conventional networking content. Claims 1–34 were all challenged in the IPRs.

Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1550572](/patent/1550572)/download-documents?artifactId=0zicJU2w55aVBe00pe4Qv4TKVEAPuyV1otWvoCBo-Z_bphLN_Jb0MvE

3. The references on the record

3.1 Primary reference — Gerlach

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,471,647 ("Gerlach"), issued November 28, 1995.
• Description (as characterized in the IPR): "methods for multiplexing signals transmitted from an antenna array to multiple receivers… use of feedback from the receivers to minimize cross-talk." Discloses spatial multiplexing / SDMA in which information signals 19(1)–19(m) excite transmitting elements 14(1)–14(n) via a complex-amplitude weight matrix W; probing signals 17 are transmitted and the responses are fed back (signals 32) to a weight computer 40 that computes weights to form a beam pattern with a peak at the intended receiver and complementary nulls. Fig. 1, 3a–3b.
• Statute: asserted as prior art under pre-AIA § 102(a)–(b); mapped to claims under § 103.
• Claims implicated: 1–9, 12–18, 22–34 (Ground 1); 10–11, 19–21 (Ground 2, combined).
• §102 caution: Gerlach was not asserted as an anticipation reference. The petition expressly framed Ground 1 as obviousness ("Gerlach and Barratt render claims 1–9, 12–18, and 22–34 obvious"), with an alternative theory that Gerlach alone "suggests or renders obvious" the processor limitations. Patent Owner successfully attacked this in the IPR2022-00613 response, arguing Gerlach does not disclose a unitary "transceiver" (transmit and receive chains are shown as separate, arguably teaching away) and does not disclose or suggest the claimed "processor" except through hindsight.

3.2 Secondary reference — Barratt

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. 5,592,490 ("Barratt"), issued January 7, 1997.
• Description: "using antenna arrays and signal processing to dramatically increase the capacity and performance of wireless communication systems." Discloses a base station with multichannel transmitters 14 coupled between transmit antenna elements 18a–18n and spatial multiplexers 23, plus multichannel receivers 15 coupled to receive elements 19a–19m; signal modulators 24 / demodulators 25; a shared array with duplexers (20:30–35).
• Notably: Barratt was considered during prosecution of the '376 patent (i.e., it appears in the intrinsic record/examiner citations).
• Statute: pre-AIA § 102 art; used as § 103 secondary reference.
• Claims implicated: 1–9, 12–18, 22–34 and 10–11, 19–21 (supplies "transceiver," antenna-array architecture, uplink handling).

3.3 Okamoto

• Full citation: U.S. Patent No. unknown from the records I retrieved — Exhibit 1007 in IPR2022-00613, referred to simply as "Okamoto."
• Description: "algorithms which were studied and simulated in connection with wireless communications" (per Patent Owner Response); cited for IEEE 802.11 / wireless LAN limitations.
• Statute / claims: § 103 secondary reference for claims 10, 19, 21 (Ground 2). No § 102 mapping.
• Note: I could not confirm the patent number, so I am not supplying one.

3.4 Gerlach 1993 (printed publication)

• Full citation: G. Gerlach and A. Paulraj, "Base station transmitter antenna arrays with mobile to base feedback," Proceedings of the 27th Asilomar Conference on Signals, Systems and Computers, 1993, pp. 1432–1436, vol. 2 ("Gerlach 1993").
• Description: the journal/conference counterpart of the Gerlach feedback-beamforming work.
• Statute / claims: pre-AIA § 102(b) printed publication potential; used in the IPR exhibit set (Ex. 1021 in Samsung IPR2022-00613).

3.5 Crilly

• Full citation: a reference by Crilly, published October 31, 2002. The exact patent/publication number is not confirmed in the records I retrieved (the prosecution excerpt compares the related '235 patent's "wireless routing device 102 / control logic 112" disclosure against Crilly's "multi-beam directed signal system 206 / signal control and coordination logic 304" text).
• Description: describes a multi-beam directed signal system / signal control and coordination logic broadly paralleling the '376 disclosure; treated by the examiner as disclosing all claim elements except the "simultaneously" limitation and the Butler matrix.
• Statute / claims: pre-AIA § 102(b)-type art by publication date. Because Crilly published only ~3 weeks before the 2002-11-04 provisional date, applicant attempted to antedate (swear behind) Crilly using the "Littlejoe" priority documents.
• §102 caution: whether Crilly is § 102(e) or § 102(b) art, and whether the swear-behind succeeded, materially affects its anticipation value; the record shows this was contested, not settled.

Source: https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1555589](/patent/1555589)/download-documents?artifactId=yl0Rhgu3i8B67YptOQDyTieNMFSs9nT2NSO0pA5oZgSl_p-rs_JsZNE

3.6 Adachi

• Full citation: Adachi application — published April 3, 2003, on application Serial No. 10/242,632, filed September 13, 2002. (Exact U.S. publication number not confirmed in the retrieved excerpt.)
• Description: per the prosecution record, "disclosing a multi-beam directed signal system… configured to determine and adjust, by complementary beam-forming, a transmission peak for a particular directed beam in a non-omni-directional manner… and further configured to direct a transmission null in a particular direction to maximize power associated with the transmission peak and minimize interference in the particular direction" (cited Figs. 12 and 15; ¶¶ 148, 151, 162, 164, 167, 171–174).
• Statute / claims: pre-AIA § 102(e) art (U.S. application publication). Mapped against parent-application claim 1 and claim 16 (complementary beam-forming / Wi-Fi switch / transmission null).
• §102 caution: Applicant argued Adachi does not teach complementary beam-forming and reserved the right to swear behind it based on the 2002-11-04 effective filing date (Adachi's 2002-09-13 filing date is close to, but earlier than, the provisional date).

Source: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.txed.[222063](/patent/222063)/gov.uscourts.txed.222063.170.15.pdf

3.7 Periyalwar

• Full citation: "Periyalwar" reference cited together with Adachi in an examiner § 103 rejection. Number and date not confirmed in the retrieved record.
• Description: cited to supplement Adachi; the record states Periyalwar "does not appear to cure the stated deficiencies in the Adachi application."
• Statute / claims: § 103 combination with Adachi against parent claim 1 / claim 16.

3.8 Guo

• Full citation: "Guo" — the reference the applicant overcame during prosecution of the '376 patent by amending the independent claims to add the "generate/transmit a probing signal… receive feedback… determine where to place transmission peaks and transmission nulls" limitations.
• Description / statute: treated as the closest prior art pre-amendment; the record documents the amendment but I did not confirm Guo's number, date, or statutory category.
• Claims implicated: all independent claims (1, 12, 22, 32) as then pending.

3.9 "Littlejoe" / Casas technical report (priority-proving document)

• Full citation: Ed Casas, "Beamforming for LittleJoe," ViVATO Technical Report, February 1, 2002 — Document C of Provisional Application 60/423,660 (Appendices A–L).
• Description: describes a 16‑element linear antenna array with two RF beamformers — a receive-only "searcher" using a 16‑port Butler matrix feeding 16 standard WLAN cards, whose received-signal levels are used to compute complex weights for a second RF beamformer.
• Role: not prior art against '376; it is applicant's swear-behind/priority evidence used to antedate Crilly (and, by extension, other 2002-dated art). Its Butler-matrix disclosure is also what petitioners argued fills the one gap left by Crilly.

3.10 References from the PCT search report (PCT/US2017/020571) — category "A"

These were listed as general state-of-the-art, not of particular relevance, and are weak § 102 candidates:

Sources: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/8a/14/cd/44599db7c8cf6c/WO2017151998A1.pdf (ISR for PCT/US2017/020571); https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67349582/86/6/xr-communications-llc-dba-vivato-technologies-v-att-inc/

3.11 Other references named in district-court invalidity contentions

The defendants' invalidity contentions in the related litigation name additional primary/secondary references used in combinations: Litva, Crilly, Carloni, Sayers, Kasami ("Kasami 430," "Kasami 501"), Lindskog, Agee ("Agee 923"), and Gerlach ("Gerlach 199," "Gerlach 647"). Several of these combinations are charted against a related patent designated '511 in the exhibit, so their attribution to the '376 claims is not confirmed from the excerpt I retrieved. I did not confirm numbers or dates for these, and I am not asserting them as § 102 art here.

Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67349582/123/7/xr-communications-llc-dba-vivato-technologies-v-att-inc/authorities/

4. Bottom line — most relevant art and § 102 assessment

1. Most relevant: U.S. 5,471,647 (Gerlach), alone or with U.S. 5,592,490 (Barratt), is unambiguously the most probative art on the record. Both are pre-AIA § 102(b) patents (1995 / 1997) and both predate the 2002 priority date by years. Barratt was already before the Examiner.
2. Second tier: Okamoto (claims 10, 19, 21 — 802.11/WLAN content), Adachi (complementary beam-forming / nulls), Periyalwar, Crilly, and the Gerlach 1993 Asilomar paper.
3. Strict § 102 point: none of the grounds actually presented in IPR2022-00613 / IPR2023-00174 is a true § 102 anticipation ground. The petitions pled § 103 obviousness (Gerlach + Barratt, and Gerlach + Barratt + Okamoto), with only an alternative single-reference obviousness theory on Gerlach. Anticipation under § 102 would require a single reference disclosing every element of a given claim — including the "transceiver operatively coupled to the processor" and "processor configured to…" limitations, which the Patent Owner successfully argued Gerlach does not disclose. On this record, the strongest single-reference § 102 candidate would be Gerlach against the broadest peak/null claims, but that theory was not the one litigated and was attacked as hindsight-based.
4. Honesty flags: I could not verify (a) the complete printed citation list on the face of US10594376B2, (b) the patent numbers for Okamoto, Periyalwar, Guo, Crilly, and the Adachi U.S. publication, or (c) exact filing dates for Gerlach and Barratt. Any of these should be confirmed directly against USPTO PatentCenter / the PTAB record before being relied on.

I'll research the prior art cited in the '376 IPRs and on its face before building the § 103 analysis.

Now let me pin down the specific prior-art references and their disclosures.

Let me pin down the specific prior-art reference identities from the invalidity contentions and IPR exhibits.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,594,376 B2

Under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (pre‑AIA § 103(a))

Analyst work product. No legal conclusions are intended; all invalidity characterizations below are either (a) as pleaded by parties in PTAB/docket records I cite, or (b) my own mapping, clearly labeled. Where I lack an authoritative record I say so.

0. Reconciliation with the earlier-generated sections (flagged contradictions)

Before the analysis, three corrections/additions to the previously generated material, because the § 103 analysis depends on the claims being right:

Statutory framework. The '376 issued from application 15/486,245 (filed 2017‑04‑12) but claims benefit to non‑provisional 10/700,329 (2003‑11‑03) and provisional 60/423,660 (2002‑11‑04). Petitioners pleaded pre‑AIA §§ 102(a)–(b)/103(a) against it (IPR2023‑00174 Petition at 7). I therefore analyze under pre‑AIA § 103(a), with the critical date no later than 2002‑11‑04.

Litigation status caveat that governs the weight of everything below. Institution was granted in IPR2022‑00613 on 2022‑10‑20 (Paper 12), but the proceeding terminated by settlement on 2023‑10‑03 before any final written decision, and IPR2024‑00148 was denied institution as time‑barred after joinder was refused. (IPR2024‑00148 Decision; IPR2022‑00613 termination order). No tribunal has adjudicated the validity of any '376 claim. The E.D. Tex. carrier cases were dismissed with prejudice and the '376 was not among XR's finally elected claims. Every § 103 conclusion below is therefore a party contention or my own analysis, not a holding.

1. Verbatim claim 1, broken into limitations

Reproduced from Ex. 1001 at 32:30–33:5 as quoted in the IPR2024‑00148 decision, with my labels:

• [1P] "A data‑communications networking apparatus, comprising:"
• [1A‑i] "a processor configured to: generate a probing signal for transmission to at least a first client device and a second client device;"
• [1A‑ii] "generate a first data stream for transmission to the first client device; and"
• [1A‑iii] "generate a second data stream for transmission to the second client device; and"
• [1B] "a transceiver operatively coupled to the processor and configured to: transmit the probing signal to at least the first client device and the second client device via a smart antenna;"
• [1B′] "wherein the smart antenna is operatively coupled to the transceiver and comprises a first antenna element and a second antenna element;"
• [1C] "wherein one or more of the processor, the transceiver, or the smart antenna is further configured to: receive a first feedback information from the first client device in response to the transmission of the probing signal; receive a second feedback information from the second client device in response to the transmission of the probing signal; determine where to place transmission peaks and transmission nulls within one or more spatially distributed patterns of electromagnetic signals based in part on the first and the second feedback information; transmit the first data stream … ; and transmit the second data stream …"
• [1D] "wherein transmission of the first data stream and transmission of at least part of the second data stream occur at the same time; and"
• [1E] "wherein the one or more spatially distributed patterns of electromagnetic signals are configured to exhibit a first transmission peak at a location of the first client device and a second transmission peak at a location of the second client device."

Claim 12 is, per the Board, "substantially the same subject matter." Claims 22 and 32 add (i) content of the feedback (amplitude, phase, routing information, or an index into a routing table) and (ii) for claim 32, "a memory operatively coupled to one or more of the processor or the transceiver[,] wherein a routing table is stored in the memory" (Ex. 1001, 37:24–27).

2. The prior-art references on which the record focuses

Two documentary facts that materially help the § 103 case:

1. Barratt '490 expressly cites Gerlach '647 in its "References Cited" (see the U.S. Patent Documents listing for 5,592,490, which includes "5471647 | November 1995 | Gerlach et al."). This is a documented, of‑record linkage between the two references — useful against a "hindsight" attack.
2. Gerlach was before the Examiner during prosecution of the '376 (Patent Owner's Response, Ex. 19 to Doc. 86‑6, at 12: "Gerlach … was previously considered during prosecution of the '376 patent"). This cuts both ways: it forecloses inequitable‑conduct/novelty surprise, but it also means the Patent Office allowed over Gerlach alone. The invalidity theory therefore necessarily rests on the combination, which is exactly the contested issue.

3. Ground 1 — Gerlach ('647) in view of Barratt ('490): claims 1–9, 12–18, 22–34

(This is the ground as pleaded in IPR2022‑00613 / IPR2023‑00136 / IPR2023‑00174, all of which used identical grounds: Ground 1 = Gerlach + Barratt; Ground 2 = Gerlach + Barratt + Okamoto. See the IPR2023‑00174 petition TOC at ptacts.uspto.gov.)

3.1 Element mapping

My assessment: on the pleaded mapping, the combination reaches every limitation of claim 1. The two limitations that most invite dispute are [1A‑i] the "processor" that generates the probing signal and [1B] the "transceiver" — because Gerlach's probing/feedback loop is described at the level of array components (weight computer 40, transmitting elements 14, receivers 16) with implementation "left as a design choice," and because the '376 claim recites processor/transceiver/smart antenna as separate elements.

3.2 Motivation to combine (KSR/MPEP 2143 factors)

A POSITA would have been motivated to combine Gerlach with Barratt for at least these reasons, each grounded in the references themselves:

1. Same field and same problem. Both address adaptive antenna arrays for wireless communication; both state the objectives of greater capacity and signal quality without additional spectrum. (Barratt, "SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION"; Gerlach, "To increase quality … To increase capacity …".)
2. Documented citation linkage. Barratt '490 lists Gerlach '647 among its cited U.S. patents.
3. Complementary, gap‑filling disclosures. Gerlach supplies the claimed determination of peak/null placement from multi‑client feedback (probing signals 17 → feedback signals 32 → weight computer 40 → W′); Barratt supplies the networking apparatus implementation that Gerlach leaves as design choice: a base‑station controller with CPU and memory (Barratt 6:59–62), coherent multichannel transmitters/receivers, modulators/demodulators, a spatial multiplexer applying complex weights, and simultaneous same‑channel downlink.
4. Known technique applied to a known apparatus, with predictable result. Applying a known complex‑weight beamforming computation to a known SDMA base station does not change the principle of operation of either; both operate on the same mathematics (per‑element complex weight vectors). This is the classic "use of a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way" rationale.
5. Design incentive/art‑recognized problem. The '376 specification itself frames the problem as omni‑directional access points having "limited transmission ranges" and unmanaged interference (1:35–67); both references address exactly that, so the combination merely implements the references' own stated goals.
6. Reasonable expectation of success. Both references maintain and use stored per‑terminal vectors (Gerlach's weight matrix / channel vector; Barratt's spatial signatures in database 36), so routing/weighting information is already a shared and understood construct.

4. Ground 2 — Gerlach + Barratt + Okamoto: claims 10–11 and 19–21

Claims 10, 11, 19, 20 and 21 are dependent claims, and the petition concedes that Gerlach + Barratt "does not explicitly disclose IEEE 802.11 or wireless local area networks" (Petition at 74, quoted in Patent Owner's Response at § II.B). Okamoto supplies the 802.11/WLAN limitation.

Motivation. Vavato's own specification states the multi‑beam directed signal system "is a long‑range packet switch designed to support 802.11b clients in accordance with an 802.11 standard," and that "a client device can use a conventional wireless card … with no modification." A POSITA seeking to deploy the Gerlach/Barratt array in a commercial WLAN — the dominant application for such hardware in the 2002 timeframe, and the application the '376 itself targets — would look to a reference describing 802.11 operation. The 802.11/WLAN recitation is thus a field‑of‑use/design‑choice limitation, and combining an 802.11‑compatible air interface with a spatial‑multiplexing base station was a predictable, results‑driven combination. (Note: I could not independently verify Okamoto's bibliographic details or date; treat the Okamoto leg as lower‑confidence.)

5. Alternative and backup § 103 combinations from the district‑court contentions

Defendants' P.R. 3‑3 contentions in E.D. Tex. 2:23‑cv‑00202 (Doc. 123‑7, 2024‑12‑27, CourtListener PDF) chart a large C‑01 et seq. set of primary references as single‑reference obviousness in view of the knowledge of a POSITA, each combinable with the others. The exemplary '376 combinations listed include:

Caveats on these contentions: (i) they are party contentions, not findings; (ii) the case was dismissed with prejudice, so they were never tested; (iii) I could not verify the full identities of several short‑form citations. One oddity worth flagging without correcting: the contentions list "Crilly" as prior art, which is also the surname of a named '376 inventor (William J. Crilly, Jr.). I cannot tell from the record whether this is a different Crilly document, an earlier Crilly publication, or a citation error.

6. Dependent‑claim treatment (claims 2–11, 13–21, 23–31, 33–34)

Subject matter I can attribute to the dependents from the record maps readily onto the same two references:

• Null at a third device's location — Gerlach's crosstalk‑minimizing weight computation (nulls at non‑intended receivers); Barratt's extended spatial‑signature matrices used to "minimize the signal transmitted to and received from the adjacent cell's active remote terminals."
• Determining first and second sets of weights; applying/modifying the patterns by adjusting weights — Gerlach's weight matrix W → W′; Barratt's spatial multiplexing weights W_tx (eq. (9)) and multiplexing weights 12 supplied by spatial weight processor 37.
• Memory / routing table storing weighting values (claims 30–31; claim 32's "routing table … stored in the memory") — Barratt's remote terminal database 36 containing the spatial‑signature list, and the active remote terminal list 34 cataloguing which terminals use each channel and their power levels; Barratt's spatial processor 13 "produces and maintains" these values. The '376 specification's own routing table entries (IP address, 48‑bit MAC address, CID, nominal direction, transmit power level, RSSI, channel, data rate — from the supplied text) are the same class of data.
• Feedback as amplitude/phase/routing information or an index into a routing table (claims 22/32) — Barratt's calibration feedback, reported received‑signal strength, and computed spatial signatures; Gerlach's feedback signals 32 conveying channel information.

Weakness: the "routing‑table index" variant of feedback is a narrower recitation than anything I can point to verbatim in Gerlach or Barratt. If the combination is to be used affirmatively against claim 32, the better primary reference for that element is likely one of the Defendants' charted routing/SDMA references (e.g., the "Youssefmir," "Lindskog," or "Barratt" families) rather than Gerlach.

7. The counterarguments that must be overcome (Patent Owner's position)

Patent Owner's Response (Exhibit 19 to Doc. 86‑6, CourtListener) attacks the Gerlach+Barratt ground on four fronts. Any § 103 opinion should state them:

1. "Processor," "transceiver," and "smart antenna" must be distinct components. Because claim 1 recites them as separate elements ([1B] "operatively coupled to the processor"; [1C] "one or more of the processor, the transceiver, or the smart antenna"), Petitioner's use of Gerlach's weight computer 40 as both the "smart antenna" and the "processor" is internally inconsistent.
2. Gerlach discloses no "transceiver." Gerlach's transmit and receive chains are separate; Patent Owner argues this teaches away from a shared‑component transceiver, and that a "transceiver" (per IEEE and McGraw‑Hill dictionaries of record) is a single unit with common circuit components.
3. Improper mixing of Barratt embodiments. Petitioner used Barratt's preferred FIG. 1 (separate transmit and receive antenna arrays) for one limitation and the alternative shared‑array/duplexer embodiment at 20:30–35 for the "transceiver" limitation; Patent Owner argues those embodiments are mutually incompatible (different frequency bands, separate uplink/downlink optimization, design flexibility) and that the stated motivations (space/cost savings) are generic and would justify "virtually any putative improvement."
4. Hindsight. Gerlach "has a limited description of the implementation details," leaving "the specific implementation … as a design choice" — so reading a claimed processor that generates the probing signal and the two data streams into it is, on Patent Owner's view, claim‑chart‑driven reconstruction.

These are substantive. Points 1–3 are the reason I would not rate the § 103 case as a certainty; point 3 in particular is a genuine "teaches away / incompatible embodiments" issue that no amount of KSR deference fully cures.

8. Bottom line

Practical significance. Because Google Patents records the '376 as expired (anticipated 2023‑11‑03), an obviousness holding would now matter mainly for past‑damages periods, for the related family patents (e.g., US 10,715,235, US 8,737,511, US 7,177,369), and for any 2025 family filings (2:25‑cv‑00699; 7:25‑cv‑00590/‑591) in which the '376 is asserted — a point the prior sections correctly flagged as unverified.

Verification limitations I am carrying forward: verbatim text of claims 2–34 (other than claim 1 and the quoted fragments of 12/22/32); the official abstract; the full identity of Okamoto and of the short‑form cited references ("Agee 923," "Kasami 501/430," "Vook," "Lehne," "Litva," "Reudink," "Hovers," "Gerlach‑AT," "Crilly," etc.); and the exact docket date of the E.D. Tex. dismissal. These should be confirmed against PatentCenter/PTAB and PACER before any of the above is relied upon.