US 10962392

I'll verify the patent details against live sources, including any litigation or CAFC docket activity.

Verification note on sources

I searched for US 10,962,392 against Google Patents/Patents-Review/Justia mirrors and general web results, and probed for CAFC/§ 282 litigation involving Salunda. Findings:

• Patent bibliographic data: confirmed against the authoritative full text and a secondary mirror (wiki.golden.com).
• CAFC 2026 docket activity for this patent: none found. I could not locate any CAFC appeal, ITC action, or district-court docket tied to patent number 10,962,392. I cannot state authoritatively that none exists — only that my searches returned no evidence of one. USPTO Patent Center itself is a login-gated/walled interface that did not return directly indexable content for this number.
• One incidental USPTO PTAB/PTACTS petition document surfaced in results, but nothing in it ties it to 10,962,392, so I do not assert a connection.

US Patent 10,962,392 B2 — Summary

Prosecution context: this is the youngest of a four-member US family claiming the same 2014 GB priority — US 10,132,660 (14/856,197), US 10,247,586 (16/038,066), US 10,337,894 (16/006,237), and this patent. The earlier members claim the physical mounting/probe architecture; this member claims the latch-state determination logic. EP and SG counterparts exist (EP3009594B1, EP3460173B1, SG10201507702RA).

Abstract (as printed)

A sensor assembly for a fingerboard latch assembly (latch bracket, mounting bolts, latch, bracket pin) has a mounting arrangement that mounts to the bolts, holding a closed-position proximity sensor probe facing downwardly to sense the crank portion of the latch and/or the piston head in the closed position, and an open-position proximity sensor probe facing forwardly to sense the arm of the latch in the open position.

⚠️ Note on abstract vs. claims: the printed abstract describes the sensor assembly subject matter of the earlier family members. It does not describe what granted claim 1 actually covers. This is a real inconsistency in the document, not my error.

Independent claim 1 — plain language

A sensor system for a fingerboard latch assembly that has a latch. It includes:

• a processor; and
• a sensor assembly made up of (a) at least one sensor that senses the latch's position, (b) a sensor circuit that converts that into a signal representing the position, and (c) a communication circuit that communicates that signal.

The processor is configured to determine, from the signal, whether the latch is in the open position, in the closed position, or in a fault condition — i.e. stuck between the open and closed positions. The novelty hook is the three-way stuck-in-between fault determination, not merely open/closed detection.

Independent claim 8 — plain language

A method of sensing a fingerboard latch assembly:

1. sense the latch position and derive a signal representing it; and
2. determine from that signal whether the latch is open, closed, or in a fault condition stuck between the two.

Dependent claim structure (brief)

• 2–4: add the mounting arrangement; at least one proximity probe; and specifically a rigid sensor bracket bolted on opposite sides of the assembly, with a downwardly-facing closed-position probe (crank portion/piston head) plus a forwardly-facing open-position probe (latch arm).
• 5–6: processor external to the sensor assembly (with the communication circuit transmitting to it), vs. processor inside the sensor assembly.
• 7: the sensor system as a combination with the fingerboard latch assembly itself.
• 9–10: method variants — signal communicated to an external processor, vs. the sensing/deriving and the determining all performed within the sensor assembly.

Points of uncertainty / caveats

1. No litigation confirmed. I found no CAFC docket, district-court case, or IPR tied to 10,962,392. Treat that as "not found," not "nonexistent."
2. Abstract mismatch with claim 1, as flagged above — a genuine defect in the granted-front-page text.
3. Description artifact: the cross-reference paragraph in the specification text contains an apparent copy-paste error ("…is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety relates to a bead seater apparatus and a method for using the same"), which has no bearing on the fingerboard subject matter. Reported as-is, not corrected.
4. Commercial-readthrough: Salunda markets the "Latch Hawk 1303W/1303N" 4–20 mA latch monitor consistent with this family's described 14–16 mA / 16–18 mA / 18–20 mA open / intermediate / closed signaling, but I did not independently verify that the product is covered by this specific patent number rather than its sibling filings.

If you need the actual claim charts, the claims above are taken verbatim in substance from the authoritative granted text; the independent-claim gist I give is my own paraphrase.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 10962392 across patent litigation databases.

Initial results show patent details but no litigation. Let me search specialized litigation databases and the patent owner.

Litigation Search Report: U.S. Patent No. 10,962,392

Bottom Line

No litigation (district court, CAFC, ITC, or PTAB/IPR) involving U.S. Patent No. 10,962,392 was found in the sources searched. Based on the available search results, there is no known lawsuit, appeal, or administrative patent challenge naming this patent.

Patent Identification (for the record)

Per the authoritative patent text and Google Patents bibliographic data, the patent I was asked about is:

This is a continuation in a family of fingerboard-latch sensor patents owned by Salunda. That ownership matters: the patentee is a small UK operating company (commercial product: "Latch Hawk" latch monitor), not a litigious NPE — which is consistent with the absence of an assertion campaign around this patent.

What Was Searched

• General web queries for 10962392 combined with litigation / lawsuit / district court / complaint.
• Targeted queries for the assignee (Salunda) and its fingerboard-latch product line.
• Unified Patents portal references and RPX litigation-document results surfaced by the searches.
• Google Patents family/citation data for the patent.

The only hits for 10962392 were patent bibliographic and prosecution records (Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Golden wiki, Justia, Onscope, patentimages) — no docket, complaint, judgment, appeal, or PTAB proceeding. Results matching "similar" numbers and unrelated cases (e.g., Sockeye Licensing / cell-phone-streaming patents, various pro se district court matters) were excluded as non-responsive.

Important Caveats — Read Before Relying On This

I want to be precise about the limits of this answer rather than overstate confidence:

1. Negative finding ≠ proof of no litigation. Some district court complaints (especially recent ones) are not fully indexed by general web search engines, and I was unable to directly open the Unified Patents litigation caselist, PACER, or Docket Navigator case pages for the specific patent within this session.
2. No PACER/CAFC record was directly retrieved. I did not obtain a PACER docket report or a CAFC docket for this patent number. My conclusion rests on the absence of indexed results, not on a docket-level confirmation.
3. Family-level and foreign activity is possible. Salunda and its competitors (e.g., National Oilwell Varco, MHWirth, American Block, Nabors) operate in this fingerboard-latch space, and counterpart patents in the family (EP 3009594 B1, EP 3460173 B1, etc.) could be subject to proceedings (e.g., EPO opposition or UPC actions) that would not appear in a U.S.-patent-number search. I found none in these results, but I did not specifically search foreign registers for the family.

Recommended Confirmation Steps

To definitively confirm "no litigation," a follow-up should query, for 10962392 (and the family numbers 10132660, 10247586, 10337894):

• Unified Patents litigation portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist?patents=10962392
• Unified Patents PTAB portal: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/caselist?patents=10962392
• PACER (Case Locator, nationwide) for "10962392" as a patent-in-suit.
• CAFC docket search (cafc.uscourts.gov) for appeals referencing the patent.
• USPTO Patent Center / PTAB for any IPR/PGR/post-grant review of the patent.

Statement of Findings

Conclusion: On the evidence available, I found no known litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 10,962,392. I cannot rule out unindexed or foreign proceedings, and I have flagged the specific sources that should be checked to confirm the negative finding with high confidence.

PTAB proceedings overview

Zero (0) AIA trial proceedings are on file for US 10,962,392. The USPTO Open Data Portal returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM petitions naming this patent as the challenged patent, and web searching for petitioner-side challenges (search terms: "10962392" + IPR/PTAB, "Salunda" + IPR/Final Written Decision) surfaced no PTAB docket entries, FWDs, or Federal Circuit appeals arising from a PTAB trial on this patent. The defensive posture is therefore "untested, not hardened": no claim of US 10,962,392 has been canceled, narrowed, or construed by the Board, which means a defendant has a clean slate — every claim (1–10) is live and every § 102/§ 103 theory is still available, with no § 315(e)(2) estoppel attaching to anyone.

No proceedings to itemize

There are no proceeding numbers to report. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block is empty, and I did not find any IPR/PGR/CBM serial number in any public source that names US 10,962,392 (or its family members US 10,132,660, US 10,337,894, US 10,247,586) as the patent under challenge. I am deliberately not generating placeholder proceeding numbers — see the constraints on fabrication.

What I could and could not verify

One caveat on the "no appeal" line: because a notice of appeal can post to E2E/CourtListener within days while ODP ingest lags, the correct statement is "no PTAB trial exists, and therefore no PTAB appeal exists" rather than "the patent has never been to the Federal Circuit" on some other basis.

Strategic summary

Claim status. All ten claims of US 10,962,392 are UNTESTED before the PTAB. Nothing is canceled. Nothing is sustained by a Board decision either — "sustained" would be the wrong word here, because a patent that has never been challenged has not been validated by the Board. The claims break down as: claim 1 (independent, the open/closed/fault-condition trio), claims 2–7 (dependent, adding the mounting arrangement, proximity probes, the rigid bracket mounted to the bolt pair with the downwardly-facing closed-position probe and forwardly-facing open-position probe, and the processor location variants of claims 5–6), claim 7 (combination with the fingerboard latch assembly), and claims 8–10 (independent method claim 8 plus dependent method claims 9–10). Note the claim structure is unusual and worth exploiting: claim 1's fault-condition limitation is a processor function reconstructed from a position signal, which invites a § 112 written-description/enablement attack for the "stuck between open and closed" determination, and an obviousness attack built on prior art that merely reports latch position. Also note that the broadest claim family here (US 10,132,660 / US 10,337,894 / US 10,247,586) shares the same 2015-09-16 priority — an earlier continuations chain that a petitioner could mine for prosecution-history admissions.

Estoppel landscape. There is no § 315(e)(2) estoppel against any party, because no IPR/PGR was ever instituted. That is unambiguously good for a defendant: you may raise any § 102/§ 103 ground, in the PTAB or in district court, from the full universe of art, including art you would have been barred from re-litigating had a prior petitioner run and lost. Conversely, there is no prior petitioner whose ground you could inherit — you would be first-mover and would bear the full cost of the invalidity case yourself. If you file, the § 315(b) one-year bar runs from service of a complaint alleging infringement of this patent (or a family member, per Click-to-Call), so docket the service date immediately.

Pattern signals. None to read. No repeat petitioner, no serial-IPR pattern, no Salunda appeal of an adverse FWD, and no defensive aggregator (Unified Patents, RPX, Open Invention Network) appears anywhere in the chain. Salunda Limited is the original and current assignee with an unbroken chain (assignment recorded 2020-05-20 from inventors Finlay and Newton), and it has been building a family around this technology (US 11,015,403, US 10,240,408, US 10,597,953, plus the wireless Latch Hawk line). That is a commercial signal of active enforcement-adjacent IP rather than a PTAB signal.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant: the absence of PTAB activity is the finding. Do not represent to a court or to opposing counsel that any claim has been invalidated — none has. Your invalidity case is greenfield.
• Build the IPR record now, not later. Two grounds worth scoping: (1) § 103 over U.S. 7,083,007 / US 2005/0092524 (Varco, pneumatically actuated fingerboard latches) combined with WO 2012/012326 A1 (Pondhop, Fingerboard latch detection system) and/or EP 2 554 784 A2 (Invensys, Offshore drilling rig fingerboard latch position indication) — the Invensys reference is cited on the face of the patent and is squarely about latch position indication; (2) § 112(a)/(b) on claim 1's "fault condition stuck between the open position and the closed position," which the specification supports only with a functional assertion rather than a described detection algorithm.
• Verify independently before you rely on this. Confirm on USPTO Patent Center / PTAB E2E (https://ptab.uspto.gov) and CourtListener (https://www.courtlistener.com) by searching the patent number and the "Salunda" party name; I was unable to complete a CourtListener and CAFC docket sweep within this session, so treat the "no appeal" row as medium-confidence.
• Docket the § 315(b) clock. If a complaint asserting this patent has been served, the one-year IPR window is running. If you intend to file, the statutory timeline from institution is one year to FWD (§ 316(a)(11)), with the institution decision due within six months of the petition's filing date (§ 314(b)).
• No trial-stage milestones to track, because no proceeding is pending. If ODP later indexes a petition, the milestones to diarize are: notice of accord filing date → PO preliminary response (3 months) → institution decision (6 months) → PO response (3 months from institution) → oral hearing → FWD (12 months from institution).

I'll search for the assignment/ownership records for this patent across the USPTO assignment databases and related sources.

I could not directly open the USPTO Assignment Center / assignment.uspto.gov record for this patent in this session (the search interface did not return an indexable record page for this number). My findings below rely on the Google Patents legal-events feed plus corroborating corporate and product records; where a field is not verified, I say so rather than guess.

Inventors

• Both inventors are named on the sibling family members (US 10,132,660; US 10,247,586; US 10,337,894) and on later Salunda filings such as US 11,015,403 B2 and US 12,644,482 B2.
• No unusual departure pattern. Neither inventor appears to have left Salunda around filing; Finlay remains a Salunda director/CEO and the named inventor on Salunda's newer 2020–2021 filings. There is no "all inventors departed within 12 months → fire-sale" signal. This is a founder/inventor-led, still-controlled portfolio.

Original assignee

• Salunda Limited (legal name), formerly Oxford RF Sensors Limited (company name changed 9 July 2013). UK private limited company, no. 05230854, incorporated 14 September 2004; registered office Bicester, Oxfordshire (6 Avonbury Business Park / 1 Cabot Park, Empire Road); status Active. SIC 72190 – research & experimental development on natural sciences and engineering. LEI 2138004VI6TON7W8WJ34 (listed as lapsed).
• Product read-through: yes. Salunda markets the Latch Hawk 1303W / 1303N fingerboard-latch monitor — a 4–20 mA latch-position sensor with an M12 connector, stated "300,000 latch cycles" testing, IECEx/ATEX certified — matching this family's described architecture and its 14–16 mA (open) / 16–18 mA (between) / 18–20 mA (closed) signaling. Salunda actively sells/deploys it (e.g., 2025 semi-submersible rig deployment with OEM DCS integration).
• Current status: operating, private, VC-backed (investors include IP Group, Parkwalk, University of Oxford Innovation Fund). Not acquired, not dissolved, no bankruptcy found. Funding/accounts indicate a going concern.

Assignment timeline

Direct Assignment Center reel/frame and correspondent-of-record fields could not be retrieved in this session — I am reporting the recorded event as surfaced by Google Patents legal events and explicitly not inventing a reel/frame or correspondent.

• 2020-05-20 (recorded) — Reel/frame NOT VERIFIED (Assignment Center record not retrieved)

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest ("Assignment of Assignors Interest — see document for details")
  • Assignor: FINLAY, ALAN PATRICK JOHN and NEWTON, JOHN MARK (inventors)
  • Assignee: SALUNDA LIMITED
  • Correspondent: NOT VERIFIED / not retrieved. I will not state a correspondent name because I could not read it from the record.
  • Context: Original invention assignment (inventors → their employer), i.e., the initial vesting of title in Salunda — not an acquisition, fire-sale, or NPE transfer.

• Related but not a patent assignment: the assignee's own name history (Oxford RF Sensors Limited → Salunda Limited, 2013-07-09) is a Companies House change-of-name, recorded at the corporate level; it does not appear as a USPTO assignment entry and does not alter the chain of title to this patent.

No post-issuance assignment, security interest, merger, or license record to any third party was found. On the available evidence the chain is a single link: inventors → Salunda Limited, and Salunda still owns it. (Note: the family members US 10,132,660 / 10,247,586 / 10,337,894 are the same owner; per prior analysis, no litigation or IPR was found on any of them.)

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10962392
    2014 : GB priority filed by Finlay and Newton
    2019 : US continuation filed by Salunda
    2020 : Inventor assignment recorded to Salunda Limited
    2021 : Patent granted to Salunda Limited

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. No LLC with "IP / Patents / Holdings / Ventures" suffix appears; the only recorded assignee is Salunda Limited, a genuine UK operating company with a physical registered office, employees, filed accounts, and a marketed product (Latch Hawk).
2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. No assignee matches Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN/Conversant, Vringo, Pendrell, Round Rock, Spangenberg entities, or any Unified Patents / RPX high-frequency plaintiff list. Assignee is Salunda throughout.
3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear (not determinable). I could not retrieve the correspondent of record from the Assignment Center, so I cannot assess recurrence. Reporting it as unclear rather than inferring.
4. Cascading transfers (<24 months, chained LLCs) — Not present. Only one recorded transfer (inventors → Salunda), executed at the outset and recorded 2020-05-20 on this continuation; no chained-LLC sequence.
5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No infringement suit naming this patent was found (per the earlier litigation sweep), so no transfer is chronologically tied to an assertion.
6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present. No bankruptcy or insolvency proceeding for Salunda; it is active and growing (net assets up year over year per Companies House data).
7. Privateering — Not present. No transfer from an operating company to an NPE asserting on its behalf; the operating company retained title.
8. Defensive aggregator — Not present. Chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN.

Verdict

Insufficient data. Under the strict rubric, the chain contains effectively only the original assignment (inventors Finlay and Newton → Salunda Limited, recorded 2020-05-20), which is the explicitly listed "only the original assignment" case — and I could not retrieve the Assignment Center reel/frame or correspondent of record to complete the record. Substantively, no NPE signal is present: the sole owner is a verifiable operating company (Salunda Limited, Companies House 05230854, active) that ships a product embodying the claims (Latch Hawk), and no shell transfer, known asserter, cascading transfer, pre-litigation transfer, bankruptcy sale, privateering, or defensive-aggregator endpoint was found.

Verify directly at the USPTO Assignment Center: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent number 10962392) — and specifically capture the reel/frame and correspondent on the 2020-05-20 recording, which I was unable to read here.

Flagged limitation / contradiction check: This section finds no third-party assignment, which is consistent with the earlier "no litigation, operating-company ownership" findings and does not contradict them. The one open gap is that the reel/frame and correspondent fields are unverified — do not treat the 2020-05-20 entry as a full assignment-record citation until the Assignment Center page is captured.

I'll research the prior-art citations for US 10,962,392, grounding against live sources.

Let me ground the highest-relevance references with targeted searches.

Prior-Art Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,962,392 B2

Source note (read first)

I could not directly open the USPTO PatentCenter "References Cited" field for this patent — PatentCenter is a login-gated interface that does not return indexable content for a bare patent number. Instead I grounded the citation list in two authoritative reproductions of the USPTO/EPO record:

• The granted patent's own text, which reproduces the front-page "(56) References Cited" listing (fetched from Google Patents, patents.google.com/patent/US10962392B2/en), and
• The EPO search-report relevance coding for the family's EP counterpart (EP 3 009 594 A1), which is the clearest examiner signal available on this exact subject matter (data.epo.org/gpi/EP3009594A1).

⚠️ Caveat on classification: The task asks which references "potentially anticipate under 35 U.S.C. § 102." Strictly, anticipation requires a single reference disclosing every element of a claim as arranged. Most of the 60+ citations here are directed to the mechanical environment (fingerboards, latches, racks) or to unrelated sensing arts (accelerometers, atherectomy devices) and therefore cannot anticipate independent claims 1 or 8. Where a reference is better characterized as a § 103 combination, I say so explicitly rather than overclaiming § 102.

⚠️ Cross-reference to prior sections: Nothing here contradicts the earlier-generated summary/litigation sections. The claim-1 gist (three-way open / closed / stuck-in-between fault determination) and the flagged abstract-vs-claims mismatch remain accurate and drive the relevance ranking below.

Why the relevance ranking looks the way it does

Claim 1's novelty hook is not mere open/closed detection — it is the processor determining a third state: the latch is in a fault condition stuck between the open and closed positions. Claim 8 is the method mirror. Dependent claims 2–4 add the mounting arrangement / proximity probe / dual downward+forward probe architecture; claims 5–6 allocate the processor externally vs. internally; claim 7 claims the combination with the assembly.

So the references divide cleanly into (a) those that touch the fault/three-state determination (the only ones that can seriously threaten claims 1/8), and (b) those that only bear on the mechanical or sensing sub-claims.

TIER 1 — Primary references (the ones that actually matter)

1. WO 2012/012326 A1 — Pondhop Automation & Controls Inc.

• Full citation: WO 2012/012326 A1, "Fingerboard latch detection system"; US counterpart US 2012/0038486 A1 (Sinclair).
• Dates: PCT filed 2011-07-18; published 2012-01-26; priority 2010-07-19.
• Description: A fingerboard latch-detection system with a sensor operably connected to the latch to detect open and closed positions, and a control system that notifies the user of the latch position. Uses rare-earth magnets in the latch + Hall-effect sensors on urethane-encapsulated sensor strips. Critically, it discloses that "if a latch fails to be confirmed 'open' or 'closed' within a preset time, an audio and/or visual indication will be raised and other latches prevented from opening."
• Potential § 102 mapping: This is the single most relevant reference. The failure-to-confirm-within-a-preset-time logic is a direct functional analogue of claim 1's "fault condition stuck between the open position and the closed position," and it discloses the sensor/sensor-circuit/control-system architecture.
  • Claims 1, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9 are the strongest § 102 candidates.
• Confirming citation: Cited "[X]" (alone destroys novelty/inventive step) in the EP 3 009 594 search report — examiner's own highest relevance rating.

2. EP 2 554 784 A2 / US 9,016,382 B2 — Invensys Systems, Inc.

• Full citation: EP 2 554 784 A2 (B1), "Offshore drilling rig fingerboard latch position indication"; US counterpart US 2013/0032405 A1, granted as US 9,016,382 B2 (Braxton).
• Dates: Filed/published 2011-08-05 → 2013-02-06; priority 2011-08-05.
• Description: A fingerboard latch assembly with a positioner carrying position sensors (limit switches, potentiometers, and "non-contact devices such as conventional inductive, capacitive, magnetic, and photoelectric sensors"). It communicates a feedback signal indicating the specific position of the latch, "e.g., open, closed, or positions therebetween," over a process control network using HART, Ethernet, and conventional 4–20 mA analog signal.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Directly discloses the sensor → sensor circuit → communication circuit → processor chain of claim 1 and the explicit "open, closed, or positions therebetween" language that underlies the fault state.
  • Claims 1, 5, 8, 9 — strong § 102/§ 103 candidate (the "positions therebetween" disclosure maps closely onto "stuck between the open and closed positions").
• Confirming citation: Cited "[Y]" in the EP search report.

3. US 4,042,123 A — Sheldon et al. (Automated pipe handling system)

• Full citation: US 4,042,123 A, "Automated pipe handling system"; inventors Sheldon, Tomashek, Thale, Shah, Ward, Kelly.
• Dates: Filed 1975-02-06; published 1977-08-16.
• Description: A computer-controlled hydraulically powered pipe-racking system including a rack and finger board assembly with a finger latch control apparatus and latch or claw means engaging drill pipe/drill collar.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Bear principally on the environment and combination claims, not the fault logic.
  • Claim 7 (sensor system in combination with the fingerboard latch assembly) and claim 2 (mounting to the assembly).
• Confirming citation: Cited "[X]" in the EP search report.

4. DE 3 115 587 A1 — SERANIA AG

• Full citation: DE 3 115 587 A1, "Device for holding a magnetically operable tongue contact" (Patentverwertungs- und Finanzierungsgesellschaft SERANIA AG).
• Dates: Filed 1981-04-16; published 1982-11-04.
• Description: A mounting device for holding a magnetically operable (reed/tongue) contact element.
• Potential § 102 mapping: Bears on the proximity-sensor mounting/positioning concept, not the state logic.
  • Claims 3 and 4 (proximity sensor probe; mounting arrangement positioning the probe).
• Confirming citation: Cited "[XY]" in the EP search report (X alone for the mounting aspect; Y in combination).

5. US 9,404,346 B2 — Gray et al. (Weatherford Technology Holdings)

• Full citation: US 9,404,346 B2, "Latch position indicator system and method."
• Dates: Priority 2004-11-23; granted 2016-08-02.
• Description: A latch position indicator system and method for oilfield equipment — a sensor-based latch position indication scheme.
• Potential § 102 mapping: A general-purpose "latch position indicator" teaching. Given its earlier effective filing date it qualifies as prior art notwithstanding its 2016 grant.
  • Claims 1, 8 as a § 102(a)(2)/§ 103 reference on the "determine latch position" concept; weaker than Tier-1 refs on the fault state.

TIER 2 — References bearing on the sensing sub-claims (3–4)

These do not anticipate claims 1 or 8; they are cited for the type of proximity/position sensor or the mounting of a sensor.

TIER 3 — Bulk citations (mechanical environment / non-analogous)

The remaining citations in the US 10,962,392 front page (~40 of them) are best described as environmental or non-analogous art and, in my assessment, cannot anticipate any claim of this patent. They are grouped below with their character:

• Fingerboard / rack structures: US 1,804,962 (Thorpe, finger board, 1931); US 2,619,234 (Standard Oil, pipe latching means, 1952); US 3,761,863 / US 3,501,017 (Byron Jackson, finger board and packer; control for well pipe racks); US 3,799,364 (Borg Warner, automatic racker board finger pivot); GB 1,588,849 (BJ Hughes, latching apparatus, 1981); GB 2,175,629 (Haugham, racking system, 1986); US 8,631,949 / US 9,206,656 (Itrec, tubulars storage device); US 2009/0238663 (Longyear, drill rod handler); US 2010/0104401 (Hopkins, automated rod handling); US 2010/0303586 (Hankins, pipe stand transfer); US 2012/0020758 (National Oil Varco); US 2016/0201408 (Little, pipe loader); US 2008/0173480 (Annaiyappa, drilling rig modification); US 2009/0159294 (Abdollahi). → Claim 7 environment only.
• Borehole telemetry (attributed to Scherbatskoy): US 5,079,750; US 5,113,379; US 5,182,730; US 5,390,153 — cited for signal discrimination/communication in a borehole; not analogous to the fault-state determination.
• Unrelated sensing/handling: US 4,608,045 (water-well screen cleaning); US 4,741,231 (tool force sensor); US 4,401,981 (switch-gear abnormal-condition detection); US 4,654,643 (pressure sensor-monitor); US 2006/0249205 (rotational atherectomy fluid control); US 6,892,812 (Noble Drilling, well-operations state determination); US 4,914,263, US 6,533,494, US 6,614,016, US 6,851,306, US 7,510,028 (assorted — these appear in the sibling US 10,132,660 listing). → No § 102 mapping to claims 1/8; at most generic "detect and communicate a state" background for claim 5.

Bottom-line assessment

The defensible novelty position for US 10,962,392 rests on the combination in claim 1/claim 8 — a single sensor assembly that both detects open/closed and derives an explicit stuck-in-between fault state — against a field (WO 2012/012326; EP 2 554 784) that taught open/closed detection and "positions therebetween" but framed the intermediate condition as positional feedback rather than a fault per se.

Explicit limitations of this analysis

1. I could not retrieve the USPTO PatentCenter "(56)" field directly; the citation list is from the granted text and the EPO search report, which are reliable but are reproductions.
2. I have not verified, claim-by-claim, the full text of every Tier-3 reference against each claim element — my Tier-3 characterization is based on title, assignee, and field, and should be confirmed by full-text review if a validity opinion is required.
3. A few cited items are US applications that published after the 2014-09-17 priority date (e.g., US 2016/0201408; US 2016/0249205); these qualify only via their earlier effective filing dates under § 102(a)(2)/§ 102(e), which I have assumed but not docket-verified.
4. No statement here should be taken as a legal conclusion of invalidity.

I'll ground the key prior-art references before building the §103 analysis, since I only have their titles from the citation record and want to confirm their disclosures.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 10,962,392 B2 (35 U.S.C. § 103)

0. Scope, standard, and an important caveat on my sources

This analysis builds on the earlier sections (summary, claim gist, litigation screen). I will not repeat the bibliographic table. What I add here is an element‑by‑element § 103 treatment grounded in the reference set printed in the patent's own front‑matter ("Citations (62)" / "Patent Citations (77)"), supplemented by the live text I retrieved for the four most material references.

Caveat (stated up front, per the strict rule against fabrication): I retrieved the full text of only four references — EP2554784A2/US 9,016,382 (Invensys), WO2012012326A1 (Pondhop), US 9,404,346 B2 (Weatherford), and WO2015015150A1/EP3028010B1 (Salunda). For the remaining cited art (e.g., US 4,739,264; DE3115587; US 5,668,533) I have titles and assignees only. Where I rely on a title alone I flag it as such and do not treat it as a verified disclosure. The legal reach of any combination is bounded by whether the reference text actually says what its title promises, and I could not verify every one.

Governing law / standard. The parent application (14/856,197, filed 2015‑09‑16) post‑dates the AIA first‑inventor‑to‑file effective date (March 16, 2013), so AIA § 103 governs, with KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007) supplying the "predictable combination / known technique" framework. Prior‑art cutoff is the earliest effective filing date of the claims at issue — the 2014‑09‑17 GB priority, and 2015‑02‑13 for subject matter added by GB1502446.6. This matters a great deal: two of the most "on‑point" references in the citation list (US 9,609,704 Lutron, priority 2015‑03‑31; US2017/0047186 and US 10,424,444 Eaton, priorities 2015‑08‑13 and 2015‑12‑10) post‑date the priority date and therefore are NOT § 102/103 prior art against this patent. I exclude them. Any analysis that leans on the Eaton "circuit breaker open/close failure prediction" reference as prior art is legally wrong on these facts.

1. Person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) and the point of novelty

A POSITA here is a mechanical/electrical engineer (or mechatronics engineer) with ~2–4 years' experience in oilfield tubular‑handling equipment, familiar with (a) pneumatically actuated fingerboard latch mechanisms, (b) industrial position/proximity sensors (inductive, capacitive, Hall, photoelectric), and (c) standard process‑control signaling (4–20 mA loops, HART, fieldbus). This is a combination art, not an unpredictable one — the Federal Circuit's "predictable results" reasoning applies with force.

Claim 1's only meaningful point of novelty over the field is the three‑way determination logic: the processor must decide open, closed, or a fault condition where the latch is stuck between open and closed. Everything else (sensor → sensor circuit → communication circuit → processor) is amply disclosed in the fingerboard‑latch sensing art of record.

2. Claim 1 — element mapping against the two primary references

Reading: Invensys supplies every structural and signaling element of claim 1 plus the express factual predicate for a stuck‑between state (it senses the latch anywhere in its range of motion, not merely at the endpoints). Pondhop supplies the decision rule that converts "neither open nor closed" into a fault output with alarm/interlock. The combination meets claim 1 as a matter of element‑wise correspondence.

(URLs: Invensys — https://patents.google.com/patent/EP2554784A2/en and https://www.patents-review.com/a/20130032405‑offshore‑drilling‑rig‑fingerboard‑latch‑position‑indication.html ; Pondhop — https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2012012326A1/en )

3. The primary obviousness combination

Combination A (strongest): Invensys + Pondhop

Motivation to combine — supplied by the references themselves (KSR factor: "the problem the inventor faced is not novel").

1. Same field, same problem, same hazard. Both references are fingerboard‑latch monitoring systems for drilling rigs; both were cited on the face of this patent as the two most structurally analogous references in the field.

2. The exact "stuck‑between" failure scenario is recited as the problem in both. Invensys's background: "in some cases the latch will not raise fully… the operator will press the button again, without first determining the latch position… This may cause the second latch behind the first to open, releasing its pipe string which may then collide with the unreleased drill pipe." That is the intermediate/stuck latch hazard verbatim. Pondhop opens with the same motivation: "confirm if a latch is open and prevent a second latch from being opened inadvertently." A POSITA seeking to reduce dropped‑pipe risk is expressly taught to combine a position‑sensing latch monitor with a not‑confirmed‑open/closed alarm.

3. Predictable result, no new mechanism. Combining a continuous position sensor (Invensys) with a logic rule that flags "not open and not closed" + interlock (Pondhop) is the paradigm "arrangement of old elements, each performing its known function, yielding only predictable results" (KSR). No physical redesign of the latch or sensor is required — it is a firmware/logic addition to an already‑disclosed sensing chain.

4. Examiner corroboration in the equivalent family. The EPO register/GPI record for Salunda's own EP 3009594 A1 (the EP member of this family) lists "[X] WO 2012012326 A1 — PONDHOP AUTOMATION & CONTROLS INC" as the citation against it (http://data.epo.org/gpi/EP3009594A1 ). An "X" citation is the EPO's designation for novelty‑ or inventive‑step‑destroying art. That is direct evidence that a USPTO/EPO examiner of ordinary skill in this art regards Pondhop as dispositive against the family's core sensing‑position claims — which undercuts any argument that the open/closed sensing elements are inventive.

Combination B (alternative primary order): Pondhop + Invensys

Same references, reversed primary/ancillary roles, in case the examiner or a court finds Pondhop's Hall‑effect/magnet strip to be the closer base. Invensys then supplies the "capture position at a plurality of points within the range of motion" limitation and the HART/4–20 mA communication circuit. Result is the same.

Combination C (for claim 1's sensor‑circuit limitation, if construed narrowly): A or B + Salunda WO2015015150A1

The specification of the patent at issue expressly incorporates by reference "PCT/GB2014/051886" — which is WO2015015150A1 / EP3028010B1 ("Sensing using a marginal oscillator"), itself cited on the face of the patent (priority 2013‑07‑31, published 2015‑02‑05; the underlying Robinson marginal oscillator with differential drive and a frequency‑band fault detector is fully disclosed there). This is Salunda's own earlier work. It discloses: (i) a marginal oscillator driving a tank circuit; (ii) a detection circuit deriving a frequency signal; and (iii) a fault detection unit that emits a fault signal "when the frequency is outside a predetermined band." A POSITA combining Invensys + Pondhop with the Salunda oscillator circuit would arrive at claim 1's "sensor circuit… derive a signal representing the position" with no inventive contribution — and the applicant's own incorporation by reference is a powerful admission that this circuitry is not the invention. (URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2015015150A1/en )

4. Dependent claims

Claim 2 (mounting arrangement), claim 3 (proximity probe). Invensys teaches mounting the positioner/sensor assembly to the latch structure (L‑bracket 32, clamp 34) and expressly teaches non‑contact inductive/capacitive/magnetic proximity sensing. Weatherford US 9,404,346 B2 (priority 2004‑11‑23, well before priority) independently teaches "a latch position indicator sensor, preferably an analog inductive proximity sensor, positioned with, but without contacting, a piston or a retainer member," whose output "may be interpreted to remotely determine the position and/or movement" — i.e., an inductive proximity probe bolted to a latch assembly with remote interpretation. (URL: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US9404346B2](/patent/US9404346B2)/en ) Adding claims 2–3 to Combination A is routine.

Claim 4 (rigid bracket bolted on opposite sides; downward‑facing closed probe sensing crank/piston head; forward‑facing open probe sensing the arm). This is the physical subject matter of the earlier family members (US 10,132,660 / US 10,247,586 / US 10,337,894), which are themselves § 102(a)(2)/§ 103‑eligible prior art to this continuation (same applicant, earlier effective filing, published as US2016/0076920 and related). A continuation cannot re‑claim, as inventive, structure it already secured in a parent. Additionally, the plural‑coil/spaced‑antenna concept is taught in US 4,739,264 ("Magnetic sensor using a plurality of Hall effect devices," Seiko) and US 5,668,533 (balanced magnetically‑actuated proximity switch), and plural spaced Hall switches appear directly in Pondhop's "four Hall Effect switches A, B, C, and D… though may include any number." — source: Pondhop full text. (These last three I cite on title/abstract only — flagged.)

Claims 5–6 (external vs. internal processor). Invensys discloses determination at a host/PCN (external) and at the positioner (onboard) — either side of the wire is expressly contemplated ("setup and diagnostics may be accomplished remotely… via a PCN connection" vs. onboard processing). Claims 5 and 6 are therefore each separately obvious over Combination A alone.

Claim 7 (in combination with the fingerboard latch assembly). Invensys claims the latch assembly itself; mere combination claiming adds nothing.

Claims 8–10 (method). Invensys's Table I/II method steps ("latch position data captured… transmitted via the PCN") plus Pondhop's confirm‑open/closed‑or‑alarm logic map 1:1 onto claim 8; claims 9–10 are the external/internal‑processor split already addressed.

5. Rebuttal of likely secondary‑consideration arguments

• "Teaching away." Not available. Neither Invensys nor Pondhop disparages intermediate‑position detection; Invensys encourages it ("positions therebetween"). No reference teaches that a stuck‑latch output is undesirable or unworkable.
• "Unexpected results." None identified. The patent itself frames the benefit of dual/multi‑state detection as a natural consequence: "[b]y providing both… the sensor assembly can determine both positions of the latch. This allows fault detection…" and, in the Summary, "if only the open position is sensed then absence of detecting the open position risks a failure if the latch is stuck between the open and closed positions." These are applicant admissions of the problem and of the predictable solution — the hallmark of a § 103 case, not a § 102 escape.
• Commercial success (Latch Hawk). The Salunda DROPS presentation (https://www.dropsonline.org/assets/documents/Salunda‑LatchHawk.pdf ) confirms a real product ("Confirm both open, closed and in‑between positions… Patented design"). But for secondary considerations to rebut obviousness, there must be nexus to the claimed three‑way fault logic, not merely to the commercial embodiment. Given that the open/closed sensing and communication circuitry originate in Invensys/Pondhop, the nexus is weak and likely insufficient absent proof the product's success flowed from the specific stuck‑between determination.

6. A related, likely stronger ground to note (not § 103, but it interacts)

Because this patent is a continuation of US 16/006,237 (US 10,337,894), which is a continuation of US 14/856,197 (US 10,132,660), and a further sibling issued as US 10,247,586 — all claiming the same 2014‑09‑17 priority and (for the most part) the same specification — obviousness‑type double patenting (OTDP) is a live vulnerability across the four‑member family if any of the members expire later than the others or claim overlapping subject matter without a terminal disclaimer. The presence of four U.S. patents on this narrow invention increases both the § 103 surface area (each can be prior art to the others under § 102(a)(2)) and the OTDP exposure. I flag this because it is often the dispositive validity lever in continuation families of this kind.

7. Bottom line

• Claim 1 and claim 8 are most likely obvious over Invensys (US 9,016,382 / EP2554784) in view of Pondhop (WO2012012326A1) — two fingerboard‑latch references that together disclose every element and that expressly recite the stuck‑between fault scenario as their shared motivation. Optionally further in view of Salunda's own WO2015015150A1 marginal‑oscillator disclosure (expressly incorporated by reference into this patent's specification).
• Claims 2–4 are obvious over that base combination plus Weatherford US 9,404,346 (inductive proximity sensing of a latch piston) and the earlier same‑family patents; the spaced plural‑antenna concept is also shown in Pondhop's multi‑Hall‑switch strip and in Seiko US 4,739,264.
• Claims 5–7 and 9–10 fall to Invensys alone (external vs. onboard processing) or to the mere‑combination/continuation structure.
• The strongest single attack is the Invensys + Pondhop combination, reinforced by (a) the applicant's own in‑specification admissions identifying the stuck‑latch problem, and (b) the EPO's "X" citation of Pondhop against the family's EP member.

Confidence and limits: I am high‑confidence on the Invensys and Pondhop disclosures (full text read) and on the priority‑date exclusion of the Eaton/Lutron references. I am moderate‑confidence that a court would find the "fault condition stuck between" limitation obvious rather than patentable — the counter‑argument is that neither reference labels the condition a "fault condition" as such (Pondhop frames it as a timeout/confidence failure), so a patentee could argue the specific fault‑determination is a non‑obvious design choice. I have not verified the full text of US 4,739,264, DE3115587, US 5,668,533, or the sibling family patents, and I have not produced formal claim charts; the mappings above are my own element‑by‑element reading, and any assertion‑grade analysis should confirm each reference's actual disclosure before reliance.