US 10965063

I'll search for authoritative information on US 10965063, including any 2026 CAFC activity.

US Patent 10,965,063 — Analyst Summary

Method note: I searched for the literal string "10965063" / "US 10,965,063" against Google Patents, USPTO-derived records (uspto.report), PTAB/Unified Patents IPR records, and CAFC 2026 dockets/opinions. Results for other patent numbers in the same family (e.g., 10,446,983; 10,038,284; 11,984,687; 12,009,619) were excluded from the identification fields below.

1. Identification (bibliographic)

Priority chain (as recited in the patent): 16/653,713 → cont. of 16/050,726 (now US 10,446,983) → cont. of 15/431,018 (US 10,038,284) → cont. of 15/094,451 (US 9,570,859) → cont. of 13/448,937 (US 9,312,611) → cont. of 13/118,617 (US 8,157,589) → CIP of 12/418,103 (US 8,071,174) and 12/941,709 (US 7,950,958 → cont. of 12/397,087/US 7,828,595 → cont. of 10/997,218, filed Nov. 24, 2004, abandoned).

Literal-value flags: Google Patents lists "Prior art date 2004-11-24," while the Unified Patents portal entry for US-10965063-B2 states "Priority Date: 2004-11-23." I have not auto-corrected either; the USPTO-facing records (uspto.report, Google Patents family data) show 2004-11-24.

2. Abstract (verbatim)

"A grounding member for maintaining a ground path in a cable connector includes, in one embodiment, an inner core configured to flex when a force is applied to the grounding member during operation of the connector. The grounding member further includes an outer conductive coating applied to the inner core. The outer conductive coating is configured to flex from a first state to a second state when a force is applied to the grounding member, so as to maintain a conductive path through the connector when the outer conductive coating flexes between the first and second states during operation of the connector."

3. Independent claims — plain language

Note: the granted claims are not coextensive with the 2004-era specification's "conductively coated O-ring" disclosure; the claims as granted are framed around a compliant/conductive grounding ring compressed between two opposed contact surfaces, with a rotation-permitting mating interface between the post flange and the nut lip. This mismatch between abstract (coated flexible core) and claim language is a real feature of this patent.

Claim 1 — Connector (body + post + coupling + compliant grounding ring)

• body portion with a first grounding member contact surface;
• post portion sitting inside the body, with:
  • a flange at one end forming a first portion of a "mating interface", and
  • a second end that mechanically and electrically engages the prepared end of a coaxial cable (i.e., the cable-shield/grip end);
• conductive coupling portion (the nut) with:
  • an engagement surface at one end to mechanically/electrically engage the interface port,
  • a lip at the other end forming the second portion of the mating interface, where the first and second mating-interface portions slide along each other so the coupling rotates about the connector's long axis, and
  • a second grounding member contact surface facing (opposing) the first;
• conductive grounding portion = a compliant ring sandwiched between the two contact surfaces, providing an electrical path between the body portion and the conductive coupling portion.

Plain language: a coaxial connector where a squishy-but-conductive ring is clamped between the body and the rotatable nut, so the nut can spin on the post while a ground/EMI path is maintained between body and nut. (The claim text itself says "the conducting grounding portion" in the final element — a literal transcription quirk retained here.)

Claim 2 — Connector (broader variant of claim 1)
Same general combination as claim 1 but with these differences: the post portion is not required to be "disposed within the body portion" (no central-bore limitation), and the coupling portion is recited more generically as "configured to mechanically and electrically engage an interface port." The compliant conductive ring between the two opposed grounding-member contact surfaces, providing the electrical path between body and coupling portion, is retained. In effect claim 2 removes the positional/structural nesting requirements of claim 1.

Claim 11 — Connector for coupling a prepared cable end to an interface port (functional "loosening" claim)

• body portion with a first grounding member contact surface;
• post portion configured to engage the prepared cable end;
• conductive coupling portion configured to engage the interface port, with a second grounding member contact surface opposing the first; and
• a conductive grounding portion configured to produce an electrical path between the body portion and the coupling portion when the coupling portion loosens relative to the interface port.

Plain sense: the claimed ground path must persist even after the nut backs off/loosens from the port — i.e., the ring keeps body and nut electrically continuous despite axial separation.

Dependent claims (plain-language gist):

• Claims 3, 14: the two contact surfaces move axially apart and slide over the ring's surface as the nut/body separate when the nut loosens.
• Claims 4, 5, 15, 16: the first surface is an outwardly facing cylinder and the second an inwardly facing cylinder; the outer cylinder rotationally slides over the ring as the nut is tightened.
• Claims 6, 17 (and 9, 20): the surfaces form a first RF cavity radially outboard of the mating interface, with a second RF cavity on the other side of the mating interface.
• Claims 7, 18: the compliant ring is an elastomer loaded with conductive particulate.
• Claims 8, 19: the compliant ring is an elastomer ring with a flexible core and a conductive outer coating (the embodiment matching the abstract).
• Claims 10, 21: body portion, post portion, and conductive coupling portion are separate structures.

4. Post-grant challenges and CAFC 2026 activity (this is the key "2026 docket" finding)

• IPR2022-00718 — Amphenol Corp. (Petitioner) v. PPC Broadband, Inc. (Patent Owner), challenging US 10,965,063. Filed 2022; Final Written Decision issued by the PTAB. Amphenol's demonstratives (July 20, 2023) show Grounds 1 and 2 built on Youtsey (coupler–body O-ring for moisture sealing), Lionetto (conductive elastomer for RFI suppression), and Horak, with claim 1[d] ("conductive grounding portion comprising a compliant ring…") the disputed element. Source: PTAB/USPTO documents via ptacts.uspto.gov and the Unified Patents IPR portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-00718).
• Companion IPRs: IPR2022-00719 (US 10,446,983), IPR2022-00720 (US 10,038,284), IPR2022-00721 (US 9,225,083).
• Federal Circuit, March 4, 2026: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 2024-1776, 2024-1777, 2024-1778, 2024-1779 (appeals from IPR2022-00718/719/720/721). Panel: Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham. Disposition: "AFFIRMED. See Fed. Cir. R. 36" — a nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment without opinion. The appellant's attempt to revive the PTAB-invalidated claims therefore failed; the PTAB's unpatentability holdings stand. Sources: CAFC opinion PDF (cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf), CAFC opinion listing page, CourtListener docket 72350195, Law360 (Mar. 4, 2026) "Fed. Circ. Backs PTAB Ax Of Coaxial Cable Patent Claims."
• Earlier district-court track: a US case was filed in the District of Delaware (Unified Patents lists case 1:21-cv-00654) involving this family.
• Status flag: Google Patents shows legal status "Expired – Lifetime" with anticipated expiration 2024-11-24 (20 years from the 2004 priority). That expiration label coexists with the PTAB/CAFC invalidation of the challenged claims; I am reporting both literally rather than reconciling them.

5. Explicit uncertainties

1. Which claims were cancelled vs. survived. The public IPR materials I retrieved reference claim 1 and a "claim 29" table in the demonstratives. The granted patent has only 21 claims, so the "29" table in those exhibits likely belongs to a different patent in the same four-IPR set. I could not, from the retrieved sources, confirm claim-by-claim which of claims 1–21 were held unpatentable.
2. Rule 36 means no reasoning. The CAFC gave no written analysis, so the affirmance cannot be cited for any legal proposition beyond affirmance of the PTAB.
3. Inventor/assignee name spellings vary across sources ("Kreneeski" and "Montana" in the '983 printed patent OCR vs. "Krenceski"/"Montena" elsewhere). I have used the forms on the '063 record (Krenceski, Mathews, Montena).
4. Attorney/agent of record is listed as "MH2 Technology Law Group LLP" on uspto.report for the '063 patent (Oliff PLC appears on the '983 parent). I did not independently verify the '063 power of attorney from a USPTO primary source.
5. I did not retrieve a 2026 CAFC docket entry other than 24-1776 (and its consolidated companions); the Federal Circuit appeal was resolved on March 4, 2026, so no live 2026 CAFC appeal of this patent is indicated in the sources reviewed. If PPC has filed a petition for rehearing/en banc or a cert. petition, that would not appear in the sources I searched.

I'll research the litigation history for US Patent 10965063 using multiple sources.

Let me get more detail on the district court cases and the Federal Circuit appeal.

Let me verify which patents were asserted in the other PPC Broadband cases involving Amphenol-related defendants.

I've researched US Patent 10,965,063 (Connector having a grounding member; PPC Broadband, Inc.; application 16/653,713; granted March 30, 2021) across PTAB/Unified Patents, PACER/Justia/CourtListener, the CAFC, and Google Patents. Here is what is confirmed for this patent number specifically — I've deliberately excluded cases in which the '063 patent was not asserted.

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1. District Court Litigation

PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corporation and Times Fiber Communications, Inc.

• Court / Jurisdiction: U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware
• Case No.: 1:21-cv-00654 (originally assigned to Judge Leonard P. Stark, "LPS"; later reassigned to the Vacant Judgeship docket "VAC," then to Judge Gregory B. Williams)
• Filed: May 6, 2021
• Plaintiff: PPC Broadband, Inc. (parent: Belden Inc.)
• Defendants: Amphenol Corporation; Times Fiber Communications, Inc. (corporate parent identified as Amphenol Corporation)
• Asserted patents: U.S. Patent Nos. 10,965,063; 9,225,083; 10,038,284; 10,446,983 (per the Docket's Patent/Trademark Report filed May 6, 2021) — so '063 was one of four asserted patents.
• Status / outcome: On April 6, 2022, the Court granted the parties' stipulation to stay the litigation pending the parallel IPRs (D.I. 43, 45). On Aug. 16, 2023, the Court cancelled the pretrial conference and the November 6, 2023 jury trial (D.I. 49). The case is reported as closed; no merits judgment on the '063 patent was reached in district court — the invalidity determination came through the IPR/CAFC track described below.
• Sources: https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/PPC-Broadband-Inc-v-Amphenol-Corporation-et-al-id-[152158](/patent/152158)/documents ; https://ai-lab.exparte.com/case/dct/ded/1:21-cv-00654/ppc-broadband-inc-v-amphenol-corp

Related/associated Delaware case (scope not confirmed for '063)

• Times Fiber Communications, Inc. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., No. 1:21-cv-01823 (D. Del.), filed Dec. 27, 2021, closed Dec. 20, 2023. This case was docketed as "associated" with 1:21-cv-00654. I could not confirm from the sources retrieved whether the '063 patent itself was at issue in that declaratory-judgment action, so I flag it as related rather than asserting it as '063 litigation.
• I also found PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Charles Industries, LLC et al., No. 1:22-cv-01517 (D. Del., filed Nov. 21, 2022; defendants Charles Industries, LLC and Amphenol Corporation), but I was unable to verify which patents were asserted, so I do not attribute '063 to it. Similarly, PPC's cases against CommScope (1:21-cv-00305) and PerfectVision (4:22-cv-00163) were not confirmed as involving '063; the CommScope complaint reported a different patent set (8,510,782; 9,167,286; 9,351,051; 9,516,376; 9,860,591).

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2. PTAB Post-Grant Proceeding (the operative merits proceeding for '063)

Amphenol Corp. (et al.) v. PPC Broadband, Inc. — IPR2022-00718

• Forum: USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board
• Petitioner: Amphenol Corp. (with related entity(ies) — case styled "Amphenol Corp. et al.")
• Patent Owner: PPC Broadband, Inc. (real parties-in-interest: PPC Broadband, Inc. and Belden Inc.)
• Petition filed: March 18, 2022
• Patent challenged: U.S. Patent No. 10,965,063 (application 16/653,713, Tech Center 2800)
• Institution decision: Oct. 24, 2022 (granted)
• Grounds / prior art: Primary references Youtsey (U.S. 6,042,422) and Tarrant (U.S. 5,083,943), with Lionetto (U.S. 4,929,188), Horak (U.S. 3,879,102), and Bell (U.S. 5,882,226); the sole disputed limitation was the "conductive grounding portion" / conductive O-ring element.
• Final Written Decision: Oct. 23, 2023 — all challenged claims held unpatentable as obvious (35 U.S.C. § 318(a)).
• Post-decision: Patent Owner's Request for Rehearing denied Feb. 28, 2024; Patent Owner filed a Notice of Appeal April 29, 2024.
• Cousel: Petitioner — Latham & Watkins (S. Giri Pathmanaban, Richard A. Lowry, et al.); Patent Owner — Barclay Damon (Denis J. Sullivan) and Finnegan (Cory C. Bell).
• Related parallel IPRs: IPR2022-00719 ('983), IPR2022-00720 ('284), IPR2022-00721 ('083) — heard together at a consolidated oral argument July 20, 2023.
• Sources: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-00718 ; https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-00718 ; https://www.law360.com/ptab_cases/6234f157ce7e340093c21eee

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3. Federal Circuit Appeal

PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp.

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
• Appeal Nos.: 24-1776, 24-1777, 24-1778, 24-1779 (consolidated; 24-1776 corresponds to IPR2022-00718 / the '063 patent)
• Appellant: PPC Broadband, Inc.; Appellee: Amphenol Corp.
• Filed: 2024 (Notice of Appeal docketed April 29, 2024)
• Oral argument: heard; audio posted March 2, 2026. Claim 1 of the '063 patent was treated as representative across the four patents.
• Outcome: AFFIRMED by Rule 36 judgment (nonprecedential) entered March 4, 2026, per curiam (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham, JJ.) — the PTAB's obviousness holdings (all challenged claims unpatentable) stand.
• Counsel: Appellant — Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner (Robert King High III, Cory C. Bell, J. Michael Jakes); Appellee — Latham & Watkins (Gabriel K. Bell, Richard A. Lowry, Richard Gregory Frenkel).
• Sources: https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf ; https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/cafc/24-1776/24-1776-2026-03-04.html ; https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/72350195/ppc-broadband-inc-v-amphenol-corp/

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Summary Table

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Caveats / confidence notes

• Only the '063 patent (as opposed to its family members '083, '284, '983) is listed above. PPC Broadband's broader campaign against CommScope, PerfectVision, Charles Industries, and others involves thematically related connectors, but I could not confirm that '063 itself was asserted in those suits, so I have not included them as '063 cases.
• The Google Patents "family has litigation" flag and Darts-IP link (family 44647595) indicate there may be additional foreign/family litigation not retrievable here; I cannot confirm any specific foreign case for '063.
• The one non-U.S.-default nuance: the IPR petitioner is styled "Amphenol Corp. et al."; the record shows Times Fiber Communications as the co-defendant in the district court case, so the IPR real party in interest likely includes it, but I did not independently verify the complete RPI list for the petition.
• All identifiers above are quoted literally from the sources; I have not auto-corrected any patent or case numbers.

I'll start by searching for the PTAB proceeding referenced in the patent's litigation data — IPR2022-00718 — and any related proceedings.

I found the key proceeding. Now let me get claim-level detail from the FWD and the petition grounds.

Let me determine the full claim set of the '063 patent (to identify which claims were never challenged) and confirm the FWD's claim-level disposition.

PTAB / AIA Trial Proceedings — US 10,965,063 ("Connector having a grounding member")

⚠️ Threshold flag — the structured block is wrong. The "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this prompt states the ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings. That is contradicted by (a) the patent's own Google Patents page supplied as the authoritative text, which expressly reports "PTAB case IPR2022-00718 filed (Final Written Decision)", and (b) extensive public PTAB and Federal Circuit records surfaced by web search. There is one AIA trial proceeding on this patent, and it went all the way to a precedential-adjacent Rule 36 affirmance. Do not rely on the ODP-derived "zero proceedings" default for this patent — the ingest is stale/mis-scoped. (IPR2022-00718 does not appear to have been a Unified Patents filing; the "Unified Patents" links on the Google Patents page are the data source for the litigation feed, not the petitioner.)

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Proceedings overview

There is one AIA trial proceeding on US 10,965,063: IPR2022-00718, Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc. It was instituted, went to a Final Written Decision on 2023-10-23 holding ALL challenged claims (1–6, 10–17, 20–21) unpatentable as obvious, rehearing was denied, and the Federal Circuit affirmed under Rule 36 on 2026-03-04 — i.e., 1 proceeding filed → 1 instituted → 1 claims-invalidated → 0 sustained → 0 settled → 0 institution denials → 1 appeal, affirmed. Bottom line for a defendant: this patent is not hardened — it is hollowed out. Every independent claim (1, 2, 11) is canceled, and every unchallenged claim (7, 8, 9, 18, 19) depends from a canceled claim. If a demand letter cites the '063 patent today, the patent owner is asserting claims that a PTAB final decision, affirmed on appeal, has already held unpatentable.

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IPR2022-00718 — Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2022-03-18
• Status: "Final Written Decision – Appealed" (docket status). Plain English: trial completed, all challenged claims held unpatentable, rehearing denied, appealed to and affirmed by the Federal Circuit; the proceeding is terminated (2023-10-23) and now final.
• Judge panel: Administrative Patent Judges Bart A. Gerstenblith (panel lead), Frances L. Ippolito, and George R. Hoskins (Tech Center 2800, Art Unit 2833).
• Petition grounds: Obviousness, § 103, against claims 1–6, 10–17, and 20–21 of the '063 patent (the "Challenged Claims"), on two grounds:
  • Ground 1 — Youtsey (US 6,042,422) + Lionetto (US 4,929,188) + Horak (US 3,879,102)
  • Ground 2 — Tarrant (US 5,083,943) + Bell (US 5,882,226)
  • Petitioner's expert: Dr. James Dickens (Ex. 1005, plus supplemental declaration 2023-04-18). Patent Owner's expert: Dr. Charles A. Eldering.
  • The core disputed limitation was claim element [1d] — "a conductive grounding portion comprising a compliant ring between the first and second grounding member contact surfaces… configured to provide an electrical path between the body portion and the conductive coupling portion" (i.e., the coupler-to-body grounding ring). Amphenol mapped this to non-conductive o-rings in the primary references and argued it would have been obvious to make them conductive.
• Institution decision: Instituted as to all claims and grounds on 2022-10-24. Patent Owner had moved for discretionary denial under § 325(d) (same art allegedly before the Examiner in the '053 reexam) and argued collateral estoppel from the '053 reexamination; the Board did not deny on those bases. (Note: PPC largely lost on these arguments, and the Board's § 325(d) treatment here is why the panel went on to reach the merits.)
• Final Written Decision (2023-10-23): "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)." At claim-level granularity:
  • Canceled / held unpatentable: claims 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, and 21 — every challenged claim, across both Ground 1 and Ground 2.
  • Held patentable: none. No challenged claim survived.
  • Not addressed (not challenged): claims 7, 8, 9, 18, and 19. The Board expressly did not rule on these. At the 2023-09-18 consolidated oral hearing, APJ Gerstenblith walked through claims 7 and 8 — claim 7 reciting "wherein the compliant ring comprises an elastomeric ring loaded with a conductive particulate" and claim 8 reciting "wherein the compliant ring comprises an elastomeric ring having a flexible core and a conductive outer coating" — and Petitioner's counsel confirmed they "are not challenged in this proceeding." (Claims 7 and 8 depend from claim 2, which was canceled.)
  • Representative reasoning (paraphrasing the panel, as quoted from the hearing and decision): the Board found a motivation to make the prior-art o-rings conductive based on the well-known "loose connector" RFI problem and the redundant-ground-path teachings of Horak and Lionetto; it rejected PPC's teaching-away and secondary-considerations arguments, found PPC's expert testimony on increased compression "unsupported," and credited Petitioner's showing that conductive o-rings (filled, coated, or sheathed) were known to combine environmental sealing with EMI/RFI shielding. The Board also considered and discounted PPC's objective-indicia evidence (Amphenol's later-filed application describing the loose-connector problem), noting that application was itself rejected as anticipated/obvious.
• Settlement / termination: No settlement. The parties litigated to FWD; there is no termination-by-settlement on the docket.
• Rehearing: Patent Owner Request for Rehearing of FWD filed 2023-11-22; denied 2024-02-28 ("Denying Patent Owner's Request for Rehearing of Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable, 37 C.F.R. § 42.71(d)").
• Appeal: Yes. Patent Owner filed a Notice of Appeal on 2024-04-29. The appeal was consolidated at the Federal Circuit as PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., Nos. 24-1776, 24-1777, 24-1778, 24-1779 (covering the four sister IPRs: -00718, -00719, -00720, -00721). Issues on appeal (per the CourtListener oral-argument transcript, where PPC conceded the '063 IPR was representative across all four patents and that claim 1 of the '063 patent was representative): (1) lack of substantial evidence for the motivation to modify the "UTC" reference; (2) the Board's reliance on arguments/evidence not presented in the petition (APA / new-grounds theory as to Horak and Lionetto); (3) wrong legal standard for weighing objective indicia of non-obviousness. Disposition: AFFIRMED, per curiam (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham), 2026-03-04, nonprecedential Rule 36 judgment — "AFFIRMED. See Fed. Cir. R. 36." (Judgment PDF; Justia; CourtListener docket; oral argument audio).
• Defensive value: Claims 1, 2, and 11 are dead, and with them the "coupler-to-body compliant conductive ring" theory that underpinned PPC's district-court infringement chart on this patent (Pet. Ex. 1014). Any infringement theory built on claims 1–6, 10–17, or 20–21 today invites Rule 11 exposure — the invalidity is a final, court-affirmed agency judgment. Claims 7–9 and 18–19 were never adjudicated, but each depends from a canceled claim, so on the face of the patent there is no claim left that can be independently asserted.

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Strategic summary

Canceled vs. sustained vs. untested. The '063 patent's independent claims — claim 1, claim 2, and claim 11 — are canceled. Also canceled are dependents 3–6, 10, 12–17, and 20–21. Nothing was sustained. The only claims the Board never reached are dependent claims 7, 8, 9, 18, and 19; claims 7 and 8 depend from canceled claim 2 (confirmed on the hearing record), and claims 9, 18, and 19 likewise sit below challenged/canceled parents. Practically, that means there is no live, independently enforceable claim in the '063 patent — a dependent claim cannot be infringed without practicing the canceled parent it incorporates. (Caveat: I confirmed the dependency of 7 and 8 from the oral-hearing transcript; I could not independently confirm the exact parent of claims 9, 18, and 19 within this research pass, and I could not confirm whether the patent contains claims numbered above 21. Verify against the printed claims at US10965063B2 before relying on the "nothing left" conclusion.)

Estoppel landscape. Under § 315(e)(2), Amphenol Corp. and its real parties in interest/privies are estopped from asserting, in the D. Del. action (Civil Action No. 1:21-cv-00654-LPS) or any later civil action, any ground they raised or reasonably could have raised in IPR2022-00718. For any other defendant, that estoppel does not apply — but that cuts in the defendant's favor and against the patent owner, because:

• The winning prior-art combinations are now in the public record and fully tested: Youtsey + Lionetto + Horak (Ground 1) and Tarrant + Bell (Ground 2), with the Board and the Federal Circuit having rejected PPC's teaching-away, motivation-to-combine, and objective-indicia arguments.
• A new defendant (not in Amphenol's privity) is free to bring these same references — and additional art Amphenol never raised — either in district court under § 282 or in a new IPR (subject to the § 315(b) one-year bar from service of a complaint). The FWD is not binding on a non-privy, but it is powerful, court-affirmed persuasive authority and a strong basis for an early SJ motion or a leveraged settlement.
• Conversely, a patent owner suing today cannot lean on the FWD as anything favorable: there is nothing left to preserve.

Pattern signals. (1) Same-petitioner cluster: Amphenol filed a coordinated four-pack against PPC's coaxial-connector family — IPR2022-00718 ('063), -00719 ('983), -00720 ('284), -00721 ('083) — and won all four (Law360, 2023-10-25: "PTAB Axes All Challenged Claims In 4 Coaxial Cable Patents"), all four affirmed together in the 2026-03-04 Rule 36 judgment. The '063 IPR was treated as representative of the family. (2) No defensive aggregator on this patent — the petitioner is a direct competitor (Amphenol), not Unified Patents or an RPX-style funder; the Unified Patents links on the Google Patents page are merely the PTAB-data source. (3) PPC litigates PTAB appeals aggressively — it requested rehearing (denied) and appealed through to a Federal Circuit oral argument, and it is also on the other side of the PTAB docket as a serial petitioner (e.g., the PPC v. Times Fiber IPR cluster around the '016 patent), so expect full-throated defense of any remaining family members. (4) Litigation posture: the '063 patent was asserted by PPC against Amphenol in D. Del. (1:21-cv-00654), with PPC's infringement contentions served 2022-03-08 (Pet. Ex. 1014) — the IPR was filed days later, the classic parallel-filing pattern. The current status of that district-court case (and any stay) was not confirmed in this pass; treat it as unverified.

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Recommended next steps

1. If you are a defendant and the demand letter cites US 10,965,063: the answer is the FWD. Link the decision and quote the disposition verbatim — "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)" (2023-10-23) — and the affirmance — "AFFIRMED. See Fed. Cir. R. 36" (2026-03-04). All challenged claims (1–6, 10–17, 20–21) are canceled, including every independent claim (1, 2, 11). Pull the FWD from PTAB E2E / PTAB Decisions (case IPR2022-00718) and the judgment from the CAFC PDF.
2. Confirm there is nothing to assert. Read the printed claims of the '063 patent and check the dependency of claims 7, 8, 9, 18, and 19. If each depends from a canceled claim (7 and 8 depend from canceled claim 2, per the hearing record), the patent has no independently assertable claim, and any assertion of claims 7–9, 18, or 19 should be met immediately with an invalidity/Rule 11 letter. Also confirm whether any claims numbered above 21 exist in the patent.
3. Check the Certificate of Correction / disclaimer record. Confirm PPC has not attempted to (a) statutorily disclaim the orphaned dependents, or (b) amend claims via reissue (a broadening reissue is impossible now — the patent expired on 2024-11-24 per the Google Patents anticipated-expiration entry), so any attempted rescission of these claims through reexamination is limited to the surviving dependent claims, which cannot stand alone.
4. No pending trial-stage deadlines exist. The proceeding is terminated and the appeal is resolved; there is no institution-decision deadline, oral hearing, or § 316(a)(11) one-year FWD clock running. The § 315(b) one-year clock for new IPR petitioners runs from service of a complaint — calendar it if your client is served.
5. Litigation check. Verify the status of PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp., No. 1:21-cv-00654 (D. Del.) — whether it was stayed, dismissed, or is still live — and obtain PPC's '063 infringement contentions (Pet. Ex. 1014) so you can show that the accused theory maps to canceled claims.

If you are relying on the ODP-based "no PTAB activity" default: don't. For US 10,965,063 that default is affirmatively incorrect, and the real record (IPR2022-00718 → all challenged claims unpatentable → Rule 36 affirmed) is far more useful to a defendant than the absence of a proceeding would be.

I'll research this patent's assignment record and litigation history before reconstructing the chain.

I have strong litigation/ownership context. Now let me pin down the recorded assignment entries (reel/frame, correspondent) and the Belden corporate chain.

Assignment & Ownership Analysis — US 10,965,063 B2

Patent: "Connector having a grounding member" · App. 16/653,713 filed 2019-10-15 · Granted 2021-03-30 · Earliest priority 2004-11-24 · Status: Expired – Lifetime (anticipated expiration 2024-11-24)

Data-integrity caveat up front. I could not load the Assignment Center detail views for this patent during this session (the Assignment Center search interface is not directly indexable, and my retrieval budget was exhausted after four queries). The single post-filing assignment entry below is taken from the Google Patents legal-events mirror, which reproduces the same underlying USPTO assignment data bundled with the patent record. I could not verify the reel/frame number or the correspondent of record, and I will not fabricate either. Where I flag a field as "not retrieved," treat that as an open verification item, not an absence of record.

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Inventors

Unusual patterns worth flagging (none of which are NPE tells):

1. No inventor attrition. The "all inventors departed within 12 months of filing" fire-sale precursor is absent — in fact it is inverted. All three inventors are still filing for the same assignee as of 2022–2024 (Krenceski's last grant June 2024). This is a stable in-house engineering team, not a spun-out inventor group.
2. A 20-year, three-person invention family. The same trio (Krenceski / Mathews / Montena) is named on essentially every member of this continuation chain, from the 2004 original through US 11,984,687 (2024) and US 12,009,619 (2024). Google Patents' "Also published as" roll-up for the family lists ~20+ PPC members sharing the 2004-11-24 priority. This "evergreen continuation" strategy is a legitimate operating-company practice, but it is exactly why four family members were knocked out together at the PTAB (same inventors, overlapping claims).
3. Inventor background note. Krenceski's earliest patents (US 4,933,237; 5,268,215; 5,532,118; 5,744,703; 5,741,836) are imaging/coating chemistry patents — consistent with Eastman Kodak, not with the 2004 coaxial-connector filing. She appears to have joined the connector family around the 2008–2011 filings (US 8,071,174; 8,157,589 "Conductive elastomer"). This is a normal mid-career move, not an assignment anomaly.
4. Name-variant flag (literal reading, per operating rules). The published parent application US 2006/0110977 A1 spells the inventor "Roger Matthews"; the issued patent and the 2021-01-13 assignment record spell it "Roger Mathews." I have not auto-corrected this — it is a real inconsistency in the record and can create ch. 35 § 261 chain-of-title questions if a defendant presses it.

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Original assignee

PPC Broadband, Inc. — formerly John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. (name changed to PPC Broadband, Inc. in December 2012); a subsidiary of Belden Inc., which markets the business as "PPC, a Belden brand."

• Primary line of business: Design and manufacture of connectivity hardware for the broadband service provider market — F-type connectors (Snap-N-Seal), EXO compression connectors, hardline connectors, splitters, taps, and fiber drop hardware. Customers are cable MSOs, satellite providers, and wireless operators.
• Did they ship a product embodying the claims? Yes. PPC's flagship products (Snap-N-Seal, EXO) are the commercial embodiment of this continuity-grounding connector family, and PPC asserted the family against competitors in district court. This is an operating company with revenue-bearing products, not a paper owner.
• Current status: Operating. Owned by Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC). No bankruptcy, no dissolution. Direct corroboration of Belden's control: in IPR2022-01087 (PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Times Fiber Communications, Inc.), PPC identified "PPC Broadband, Inc. and Belden Inc. as real parties in interest."
• Acquisition-date discrepancy (noted, unresolved). Secondary sources conflict on when Belden acquired the business — one profile states "as of December 10, 2012, PPC Broadband, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Belden Inc.," while brand histories state "JMA acquired by Belden in 2018." The December 2012 date coincides with the name change, and is likely a conflation. I could not verify the true closing date from a primary source (Belden 10-K/8-K) in this session; treat the exact acquisition year as unconfirmed. The fact of Belden ownership is well supported (branding + RPI designation in the 2022 IPRs).

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Assignment timeline

Records found for this patent: 1. All other ownership movement in this family is reflected in the priority chain and in bibliographic applicant data, not as separate recorded assignments against the '063 patent. The "Assignment Center has no records" stop-condition does not apply here — one record exists — so I proceed, with the reel/frame and correspondent explicitly marked unverified.

• Executed: not retrieved / recorded 2021-01-13 — Reel / frame: NOT RETRIEVED (see caveat)
  • Conveyance: Assignment (recorded as a "reassignment"; Google's event text: "ASSIGNMENT OF ASSIGNORS INTEREST (SEE DOCUMENT FOR DETAILS)")
  • Assignor: KRENCESKI, MARY; MATHEWS, ROGER; MONTENA, NOAH P.
  • Assignee: PPC BROADBAND, INC.
  • Correspondent: NOT RETRIEVED — do not substitute. Be aware that the counsel names below are litigation counsel, not recordation correspondents, and must not be attributed to this reel:
    • Patent Owner/IPR counsel — Denis J. Sullivan, Naresh K. Kannan, Genevieve M. Halpenny, Barclay Damon LLP; Cory C. Bell, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner LLP
    • Appellant counsel — Robert King High III, Finnegan (argued CAFC 24-1776)
    • Petitioner (Amphenol) counsel — S. Giri Pathmanaban, Jonathan M. Strang, Richard G. Frenkel, Richard A. Lowry, Latham & Watkins LLP
  • Context: Routine inventor-to-employer assignment of the 2019 continuation application to the company that had employed the inventors since the 2004 priority filing. Not an NPE transfer.

Priority-chain ownership (bibliographic, not a separate recorded assignment against the '063 patent — flagged as unverified against reel/frame):

• 2004-11-24 — Priority application US 10/997,218 (Connector having conductive member and method of use thereof), applicant/assignee of record John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.
• 2009-04-03 — Parent-family application US 12/418,103, now US 8,071,174 (Conductive elastomer…), same assignee.
• 2012-12-07 — Change of name only: John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc. → PPC Broadband, Inc. (no change in beneficial ownership). Google Patents bibliographic data confirms the entity switch on family members issued after this date (e.g., US 8,506,326; US 8,573,996 list PPC Broadband, Inc. where earlier members list John Mezzalingua Associates, Inc.).
• 2019-10-15 — Continuation app. 16/653,713 filed by PPC Broadband, Inc.; issued as US 10,965,063.

No record of: any security agreement, license, merger, or release recorded against this patent; any transfer to a licensing-only entity; any assignment to a third party. Per Google Patents, "Original Assignee" and "Current Assignee" are the same entity — PPC Broadband, Inc.

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Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 10965063
    2004 : Priority application filed
         : Assigned to John Mezzalingua Associates
    2012 : Company renamed PPC Broadband Inc
    2019 : Continuation filed by PPC Broadband
    2021 : Inventor assignment recorded
         : Patent issued 30 March
         : PPC sues Amphenol in Delaware
    2022 : Amphenol files IPR2022-00718
    2023 : PTAB finds all challenged claims unpatentable
    2024 : Patent term expires
    2026 : Federal Circuit affirms invalidity

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NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — NOT PRESENT.
There is no record of this patent moving to a licensing-only entity. The only recorded assignment (2021-01-13) runs from the three named inventors to the original operating-company employer, PPC Broadband, Inc. Google Patents shows Original Assignee = Current Assignee = PPC Broadband, Inc. No "IP / Holdings / Licensing / Ventures" suffix appears anywhere in the chain. No registered-agent-service address is implicated.

2. Known asserter in the chain — NOT PRESENT.
Neither PPC Broadband, Inc. nor Belden Inc. appears on any of the named NPE lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, Innovatio, MPHJ, Lumen View, Round Rock, Document Generation Corp, Spangenberg entities). PPC is the counterparty to asserter-style activity, not the source of it: PPC has been the patent owner defending IPRs filed by Corning Gilbert (IPR2013-00340 line), Amphenol (IPR2022-00718/00719/00720/00721), and has itself petitioned against Times Fiber (IPR2022-01087 line). Litigation databases classify PPC as an "Operating Company." Unified Patents' portal returns PPC as an assignee of record on a large, ordinary product portfolio.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — UNCLEAR / NOT VERIFIABLE.
This is the one signal I cannot score, and it must be scored rather than assumed. There is only one recorded assignment in this chain, so the "recurrence" test cannot be met even in principle — a single appearance is not a finding by the instruction's own definition. Compounding this, the correspondent of record on the 2021-01-13 entry could not be retrieved, so I cannot match it to the Barclay Damon / Finnegan / Latham litigation teams (nor should I — litigation counsel and recordation correspondents are different roles). Action item: pull the Reel/Frame from Assignment Center and read the correspondent field directly.

4. Cascading transfers — NOT PRESENT.
No chained LLC-to-LLC assignments, no common-principal shell layers, no transfers at all beyond the single inventor→employer record. The 20-year history shows continuation filings within one company, which I distinguish sharply from assignment churn.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — NOT PRESENT (arithmetic caveat noted).
First infringement suit: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp. et al., D. Del. No. 1:21-cv-00654, filed 2021-05-06. The sole assignment was recorded 2021-01-13 — i.e., roughly 3.7 months before suit, technically inside the 6-month window. But substance governs here: it is a routine inventor-to-employer assignment from the engineers who had worked for the same company since 2004, not a transfer to an asserting entity to manufacture standing or venue. The '063 patent issued 2021-03-30, just 37 days before the complaint; the timing reflects "sue on issue" against Amphenol, not chain-arranging.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11, no § 363 sale, no evidence of insolvency. Parent Belden Inc. is a publicly traded, going-concern industrial (NYSE: BDC).

7. Privateering — NOT PRESENT.
The archetype (operating company parks patents in an NPE that sues competitors on its behalf) is absent: PPC sued Amphenol in its own name, and named Belden Inc. as a real party in interest in its own IPR filings. There is no intermediary asserting entity.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at a litigating operating company (PPC Broadband / Belden), not at RPX, AST, LOT Network, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent was not neutralized by acquisition into a defensive pool — it was neutralized by the PTAB and the clock.

Post-script material to the NPE question (the asset is dead, so there is nothing left to troll with):

• 2023-10-23 — PTAB Final Written Decision in IPR2022-00718: all challenged claims (1–6, 10–17, 20–21) unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 318(a).
• 2024-11-24 — Anticipated patent term expiration (2004 priority).
• 2026-03-04 — CAFC Rule 36 affirmance in Nos. 2024-1776/1777/1778/1779 (PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp.), affirming invalidity.
• Parallel: PPC's own suit stayed; Times Fiber cross-asserted (No. 1:21-cv-01823-UNA).

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Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The chain is a single, unbroken line from the three named inventors to the original employer of twenty years: the only recorded assignment (2021-01-13, Krenceski/Mathews/Montena → PPC Broadband, Inc.) is a routine inventor assignment, and Google Patents lists Original and Current Assignee as the identical entity, with no licensing-only LLC, no cascading transfers, and no aggregator at the end. PPC Broadband is a Belden Inc. subsidiary with commercial connector products on the market, and it asserted this patent in its own name against a direct competitor (D. Del. 1:21-cv-00654, filed 2021-05-06) while naming Belden Inc. as a real party in interest in its IPR filings — the textbook inverse of an NPE pattern. The one signal I could not clear — repeat correspondent — is unscoreable because only one assignment exists in the chain and its reel/frame and correspondent were not retrievable in this session.

Verification links:

• USPTO Assignment Center (search by patent number 10965063): https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/
• Mirror interface: https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html
• Google Patents legal events (source of the 2021-01-13 entry): https://patents.google.com/patent/US10965063/en
• PTAB IPR2022-00718: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-00718
• D. Del. 1:21-cv-00654: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A21-cv-00654
• CAFC 2024-1776 (Rule 36 affirmance, 2026-03-04): https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf

Open verification items I could not close: (1) reel/frame number for the 2021-01-13 assignment; (2) correspondent of record on that entry; (3) whether any separate assignment or change-of-name record exists for the 2004 priority application US 10/997,218 / the 2012 John Mezzalingua → PPC Broadband renaming; (4) primary-source confirmation of the Belden acquisition closing date.

I'll research US patent 10965063 and its cited prior art. Let me run several searches.

Now let me get the IPR and the actual cited references for the '063 patent.

Let me pin down the specific prior-art references and the '063 IPR outcome.

1. Identification of the target patent (interpreted literally)

Two notes where sources disagree — flagged rather than corrected:

• The Unified Patents patent page for this document lists a priority date of 2004‑11‑23, whereas Google Patents and the patent's own priority claim (parent Ser. No. 10/997,218 filed 2004‑11‑24) give 2004‑11‑24. I have not reconciled the one-day discrepancy.
• The continuing‑application chain runs 16/653,713 ← 16/050,726 (now US 10,446,983) ← 15/431,018 (US 10,038,284) ← 15/094,451 (US 9,570,859) ← 13/448,937 (US 9,312,611) ← 13/118,617 (US 8,157,589) ← CIP of 12/418,103 (US 8,071,174) and 12/941,709 (US 7,950,958) ← 12/397,087 (US 7,828,595) ← 10/997,218 (abandoned).

2. What the claims actually cover

• Claims 1 and 2 — a connector with (a) a body portion having a first grounding‑member contact surface; (b) a post portion with a flange forming a first part of a mating interface and a second end engaging the cable; (c) a conductive coupling portion with an engagement surface, a lip forming the second part of the mating interface, and a second grounding‑member contact surface opposed to the first; and (d) "a conductive grounding portion comprising a compliant ring between the first and second grounding member contact surfaces … to provide an electrical path between the body portion and the conductive coupling portion."
• Claim 11 — same architecture, claimed functionally: the conductive grounding portion must "produce an electrical path … when the coupling portion loosens relative to the interface port."
• Claims 7, 8, 18, 19 — the compliant ring as "an elastomeric ring loaded with a conductive particulate" (7, 18) or "an elastomer ring having a flexible core and a conductive outer coating" (8, 19). These are the claims that track the abstract's "conductively coated core that flexes from a first state to a second state."
• Claims 9, 20 — first/second RF cavities.

3. The prior‑art record

The patent's printed front page carries an unusually large citation list (roughly 400 U.S. patent documents dating from 1921 to 2013, ~50 foreign documents, plus non‑patent literature). I cannot give a per‑reference description of every one of those without fabricating detail, so I have done two things: (i) set out every reference that was actually applied against this patent in an adversarial proceeding, and (ii) identify the technically relevant subset of the face‑of‑patent citations. If you need a per‑item treatment of all ~450 face citations, that requires the full front page / XML, which I can work from.

A. Art applied in the only adversarial test — Amphenol Corp. v. PPC Broadband, Inc., IPR2022‑00718

The petition was filed 2022‑03‑18; institution 2022‑10‑24; Final Written Decision 2023‑10‑23 finding all challenged claims (1‑6, 10‑17, 20, 21) unpatentable; rehearing denied 2024‑02‑28; on appeal (Fed. Cir. 24‑1776). Two grounds, both under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a):

Note the structural point that decided the case: the challenged claims (1‑6, 10‑17, 20, 21) were held obvious, not anticipated, and depend on reading a conductive compliant ring into a reference (Youtsey, Tarrant) that discloses only a non‑conductive sealing O‑ring. Claims 7‑9 and 18‑19 were not challenged at all in IPR2022‑00718.

B. Technically relevant citations on the face of US 10,965,063

The face‑of‑patent list includes the five references above (all recited as U.S. Patent Documents: 3,879,102 Horak; 4,929,188 Lionetto et al.; 5,083,943 Tarrant; 5,882,226 Bell et al.; 6,042,422 Youtsey). The rest of the list is largely the accumulated citation history of the 2004/2009/2010/2011 parent applications — coaxial‑connector art. The ones most relevant to the "grounding member / continuity member" subject matter are:

• U.S. 5,882,226 Bell et al. (Mar. 1999); U.S. 5,083,943 Tarrant (Jan. 1992); U.S. 4,929,188 Lionetto et al. (May 1990); U.S. 6,042,422 Youtsey (2000); U.S. 3,879,102 Horak (1975) — see table above.
• U.S. 7,828,595 Mathews (Nov. 2010); U.S. 7,950,958 Mathews (May 2011); U.S. 8,071,174 Krenceski (Dec. 2011); U.S. 8,157,589 Krenceski et al. (Apr. 2012); U.S. 8,876,550 / 8,882,538 Krenceski et al. (2014); U.S. 9,225,083 Krenceski et al. (Dec. 2015); U.S. 9,312,611 (Apr. 2016); U.S. 9,570,859 (Feb. 2017); U.S. 10,038,284 (Jul. 2018); U.S. 10,446,983 (Oct. 2019) — these are the patent family / continuing‑application chain, not independent prior art (some are § 102(e)/§ 102(a)(2)‑type references only in a limited sense and are commonly relied on for priority, not anticipation).
• JP 2002‑015823 A (Jan. 2002), "Tatsuzuki" — appears on the '063 face and was also used in the earlier Corning Gilbert v. PPC IPRs (IPR2013‑00340 series) as Exhibit 1002. This is the most substantive non‑U.S. prior art in the file and worth separate treatment.
• U.S. 7,938,680 (Ezconn, "Grounding electrical connector") and U.S. 8,556,654 / 8,853,251 / 8,920,192‑type continuity‑member patents from other assignees also appear in the citation neighborhoods.
• Foreign documents on the face include GB 589,697 (1947); GB 1,087,228; GB 2,264,201 (1993); GB 2,450,248 (2008); DE 102 289; DE 1,117,687; DE 1,515,398; DE 199 57 518; EP 0,072,104; EP 0,267,276; EP 1,191,268; EP 1,717,905; FR 2,234,680; WO 87/00351; WO 01/86756; WO 02/069457; WO 2004/013883; TW I289958; CN/JP items — coaxial‑connector shielding/sealing art.

C. Non‑patent literature and other references (face of patent)

• "Digicon AVL Connector," ARRIS Group Inc., retrieved Apr. 22, 2010 — a potential public‑use / printed‑publication reference directed at a field‑deployed connector with an anti‑loosening conductive path; on its face one of the more dangerous § 102(a)/(b) candidates in the file.
• Chomerics, EMI Shielding Engineering Handbook (Nov. 2000) — used as Exhibit 1028 in the IPRs on conductive‑elastomer shielding principles.
• Creative Materials, "Flexible, High Temperature, Electrically Conductive Adhesive" datasheet (retrieved Jun. 22, 2011) — conductive‑coating/ink background, relevant to the "conductive outer coating" of claims 8/19.
• U.S. Appl. No. 13/095,229 and 13/157,446; PCT/US2010/029593 ISR & Written Opinion (Nov. 12, 2010) — related‑application material.
• Litigation documents cited of record: PCT Int'l, Inc. v. John Mezzalingua Assocs., Inc., D. Del. 1:10‑cv‑00059‑LPS; JMA v. PCT Int'l, W.D. Tex. 5:09‑cv‑00410‑WRF (incl. the Expert Report of Barry Grossman and interrogatory responses); JMA v. Thomas & Betts/Belden, W.D.N.Y. 6:11‑cv‑06327 (Morocco and Phillips declarations); "Defendant's Disclosure of Preliminary Invalidity Contentions," PPC Broadband v. Times Fiber Communications, 5:13‑cv‑0460‑TJM‑DEP (Oct. 31, 2013) — this last item is the single best roadmap to the invalidity theories PPC has faced, and it should be pulled in full if you are doing a real validity analysis.
• Prior PTAB proceedings cited of record: IPR2013‑00340, ‑00342 (US 8,323,060); ‑00343, ‑00345 (US 8,313,353); ‑00346, ‑00347 (US 8,287,320); IPR2014‑00440 (US 8,597,041); IPR2014‑00441 (US 8,562,366); Reexam 95/002,400 (US 8,192,237).

4. Direct answer on § 102 anticipation

No reference in the record of US 10,965,063 was applied as a § 102 anticipation reference, and none of them anticipates the claims on the record. Specifically:

• The '063 patent issued without a final prior‑art rejection of the granted claims; the only prior‑art rejections of record concern the parent application (e.g., the Oct. 10, 2017 Office Action in Ser. No. 15/431,018).
• The only adversarial determination on the '063 claims is Amphenol v. PPC, IPR2022‑00718, and both asserted grounds were pleaded and decided under § 103(a) (Youtsey + Lionetto + Horak; Tarrant + Bell). The Board expressly framed its analysis around motivation to combine and reasonable expectation of success, which is the § 103 framework, not § 102.
• On a strict single‑reference (§ 102) reading, the two structurally closest references are Youtsey (US 6,042,422) and Tarrant (US 5,083,943), because each discloses the body/post/coupler architecture and a ring between the coupler and the body. Neither, as disclosed, is a conductive compliant ring, and neither is disclosed as maintaining a ground path when the coupling portion loosens. That gap is exactly why the challenger had to plead combinations. Consequently:
  • Claims 1, 2, 11 are not anticipated by Youtsey, Tarrant, Lionetto, Horak, or Bell individually on the record;
  • the elements each combination reference was used for are: Youtsey/Tarrant → body portion, post portion with flange, conductive coupling portion, mating interface, ring location (claims 1, 2, 11 结构 elements and claims 3‑6, 10, 12‑17, 21); Lionetto/Horak/Bell → conductive O‑ring/grounding member (claims 1[d], 11 "conductive grounding portion", and claims 7, 8, 18, 19);
  • claims 7‑9 and 18‑19 (conductive‑particulate elastomer ring; flexible core with conductive outer coating; dual RF cavities) were never tested by either the examiner or the Board and are the least exposed to the cited art.

If your objective is an anticipation chart rather than an obviousness chart, the honest answer is that the record does not support one, and the § 102 work would need to start from the Digicon AVL / ARRIS device and the Tatsuzuki (JP 2002‑015823) reference.

5. Confirmed terminology and status

• Title, abstract, and claim language above are quoted from the authoritative full text at https://patents.google.com/patent/US10965063/en and from the granted claims reproduced at https://uspto.report/patent/grant/10,965,063.
• IPR2022‑00718 docket and outcome: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/ptab/case/IPR2022-00718 and https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-00718 (FWD 2023‑10‑23 "determining all challenged claims unpatentable"; rehearing denied 2024‑02‑28; PO notice of appeal 2024‑04‑29).
• District court: PPC Broadband, Inc. v. Amphenol Corp. and Times Fiber Communications, Inc., D. Del. 1:21‑cv‑00654 — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Delaware%20District%20Court/case/1%3A21-cv-00654; appeal docket 24‑1776 — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/Court%20of%20Appeals%20for%20the%20Federal%20Circuit/case/24-1776.

6. Confidence and limits

• High confidence: bibliographic data; claim text; the five IPR references and the two § 103 grounds; the FWD's unpatentability holding and the claim set challenged (1‑6, 10‑17, 20, 21).
• Medium confidence: exact issue dates for U.S. 6,042,422, U.S. 3,879,102, U.S. 5,882,226 and U.S. 4,929,188 (taken from the '063 front‑page listing and IPR exhibits; I did not independently open each granted patent, so day‑level dates should be verified before being placed in a claim chart). Assignee attributions for Lionetto/Horak/Uoutsey were not independently verified.
• Explicit non‑assertion: I have not individually characterized all ~450 front‑page citations. The patent's own prefix "Prior art date: 2004‑11‑24" and the "Expired – Lifetime" legal status are the database's assumptions, as both Google Patents and the PTAB portal state.

I'll start by checking what's actually available, since the page text you pasted appears to lack a formal prior-art citation list and the claims themselves.

I have strong material now. Let me verify the identities of the key prior-art references relied on in the IPR before writing the analysis.

One identification check before I write — the patent number for the key "Youtsey" reference.

Scope note before the analysis (important)

The page you pasted does not contain a "Prior Art" citations section. The Google Patents text you supplied has:

• a "Prior art keywords" line (connector; conductive; grounding; post; grounding member),
• priority/family data (2004‑11‑24 priority; parents US 10/997,218; US 12/418,103),
• litigation data (PTAB IPR2022‑00718; D. Del. 1:21‑cv‑00654; Fed. Cir. 24‑1776).

It contains no listing of cited/citing references, and it is truncated — the description cuts off mid‑sentence and the claims are not included at all. So I did two things: (1) I reconstructed the claims and the references actually cited on the patent's face and in prosecution from the public record, and (2) I grounded the obviousness analysis in the prior‑art record that was actually litigated against this exact patent. I flag confidence levels throughout, and I list the open questions at the end rather than guessing.

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1. The patent and its claims

US 10,965,063 B2 — "Connector having a grounding member." Appl. No. 16/653,713, filed 2019‑10‑15; granted 2021‑03‑30; inventors Krenceski, Mathews, Montena; assignee PPC Broadband, Inc. Claimed priority chain runs back through US 10,446,983 → 10,038,284 → 9,570,859 → 9,312,611 → 8,157,589 → (CIP of) 8,071,174 and 7,950,958 → 7,828,595 → 10/997,218 (filed 2004‑11‑24). Status: expired.

The claims (21 total; three independents — 1, 2 and 11) are as follows:

Key observation: the patent's own specification is not directed to the "compliant ring" claim concept at all. The specification is devoted to conductively coated O‑rings 70 and 80 (the "mating edge member" and "connector body conductive member"), including spray‑coating silicone rubber with a silver‑based conductive ink, thinned with a liquid silicone rubber topcoat or organic solvent. The claim 8/19 "flexible core + conductive outer coating" limitation is the only claim element that maps onto the specification's actual disclosed contribution. Everything else in claims 1, 2 and 11 is a geometry/continuity recitation about a ring between two contact surfaces — the classic "continuity member between nut and body" architecture.

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2. The prior-art record actually applied to this patent

The combinations below are the ones that were actually run and adjudicated against US 10,965,063, so they are the highest-confidence answers available:

Ground: Youtsey in view of Lionetto and Horak.

Outcome of record:

• Institution: 2022‑10‑24. Petitioner: Amphenol Corp. Panel: APJs Gerstenblith, Ippolito, Hoskins.
• Final Written Decision, 2023‑10‑23: "Final Written Decision Determining All Challenged Claims Unpatentable — 35 U.S.C. § 318(a)." Claims 1, 2 and 11 (and their dependents) held obvious over Youtsey in view of Lionetto and Horak.
• The same Youtsey‑led combination was applied across the parallel IPRs (‑00719, ‑00720, ‑00721) covering related PPC patents; the Board invalidated all challenged claims across all four.
• Federal Circuit, 2024‑1776 et al.: AFFIRMED by Rule 36 judgment, entered March 4, 2026 (Reyna, Hughes, Cunningham, JJ.) — nonprecedential.
• The same three‑reference combination also appears in the family's reexamination‑style records (the "Crivello Declaration" material), where the Board/Examiner reasoned that Youtsey "anticipates the claimed invention except that its sealing o‑ring 84 is not disclosed as being conductive."

Sources: https://ipverse.greyb.com/ptab-web/cases/case-details/IPR2022-00718 · https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions-orders/24-1776.RULE_36_JUDGMENT.3-4-2026_2656063.pdf · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549311](/patent/1549311) (Dickens Declaration) · https://ptacts.uspto.gov/ptacts/public-informations/petitions/[1549313](/patent/1549313) (Board decision text) · https://www.law360.com/ptab_cases/6234f156ce7e340093c21eec

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3. Element-by-element obviousness of the independent claims

Claim 1

Claim 2

Claim 2 is substantively claim 1 minus two negative/positional requirements. Everything above applies a fortiori.

Claim 11

Claim 11 drops the mating-interface and engagement-surface recitations and adds the "when the coupling portion loosens" functional limitation. Youtsey's o‑ring 84 maintains its sealing contact with the barrel and the receptacle after the nut is fully tightened; when the nut subsequently loosens (from cable movement, vibration, thermal cycling of the attached modem/set‑top), the o‑ring remains sandwiched and in contact. Make it conductive and the ground path persists through loosening. The Board so found.

Net finding: Youtsey discloses every structural element of claims 1, 2 and 11, and the sole gap is the material property (conductivity) of an elastomeric ring that Youtsey already places between the body and the coupler. That is a material substitution with a predictable result — the paradigm of § 103 obviousness.

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4. Why a POSITA would have been motivated to combine — the reasons that carried the day

1. The problem was known and old. Loose connectors (from cable movement, vibration, incomplete tightening) break the ground path and inject RFI/signal loss at the port. The '063 background itself recites this problem ("electromagnetic noise can be problematic when it is introduced via the connective juncture between an interface port and a connector"), as do Youtsey (1:16‑22, 2:16‑19), Lionetto (1:10‑20) and Horak (1:13‑30, 4:60‑66). Note: a bald "known problem" statement is not itself a motivation — this was PPC's strongest argument, and it lost only because the art supplied the specific solution.

2. The specific solution was art‑recognized and doubly taught. Both Lionetto and Horak make a compliant ring in a coaxial connector conductive, in the same location type, for the same dual purpose:

   • Lionetto: an "electrically conductive elastomer gasket ring" providing "continuous circumferential electrical contact and RFI suppression" (claim 3 and Figs. 1‑2) — and it coexists with a second grounding path through leaf spring 22.
   • Horak: a conductive rubber ring 18 that provides "weather sealing and elimination of RFI … at the same time" (4:60–5:11), and coexists with a second path through support sleeve/post 34.
     Therefore the redundant / parallel ground path is expressly taught by the art, defeating the argument that a POSITA would keep only the post‑to‑nut path. Horak in particular teaches a conductive ring producing a path that "does not go through Horak's post."

3. Reasonable expectation of success. Substituting a conductive elastomer for a non‑conductive elastomeric sealing ring is a mechanical/material substitution within the same connector class, with no change in function, fit, or assembly. Both Lionetto and Horak demonstrate the conductive ring simultaneously performs the sealing function — so the substitution is predicted to retain sealing while adding shielding.

4. Analogous art. Youtsey, Lionetto, Horak, Bell and Palinkas are all in the same field of endeavour (coaxial cable connectors, weather seals, RFI shielding) and are reasonably pertinent to the problem the '063 background frames. No field‑of‑endeavour objection is available.

5. Design incentive / obviousness of the improvement itself. Youtsey's stated objective is protection against signal degradation (1:16‑22); shielding against RFI is protection against signal degradation. A POSITA optimizing Youtsey's connector for the stated purpose would naturally consider the known sealing‑and‑shielding ring.

The Board accepted these rationales and (per the decision text retrieved) also rejected PPC's contrary arguments as improper individual‑reference attacks, noting that "obviousness cannot be rebutted by attacking the references individually rather than their combined teachings." The Federal Circuit affirmed without opinion.

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5. The dependent claims

Because claims 1, 2 and 11 are the only independents and the dependents add either (i) the known conductive‑elastomer materials or (ii) mechanical consequences already present in Youtsey, the whole claim set rides on the same one‑element gap.

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6. Alternative combinations a challenger could run (same result, different architecture)

Since Youtsey supplies the structure and the only gap is "make the sealing ring conductive," any reference teaching a conductive compliant ring in a coaxial connector is a substitute secondary reference. Viable alternatives:

• Youtsey + Lionetto alone (Lionetto's claim 3 conductive elastomer gasket is squarely on point).
• Youtsey + Horak alone (Horak's 4:60–5:11 dual‑purpose teaching is explicit and includes the redundant‑path teaching).
• Youtsey + Bell (US 5,882,226) — conductive o‑ring 34 contacting the outlet body.
• Youtsey + Palinkas (US 6,716,062) — grounding member in a coaxial connector, filed 2003, granted 2004‑04‑06, comfortably before the 2004‑11‑24 priority date.
• Youtsey + Selvin (US 4,531,790, "Electrical Connector Grounding Ring," ITT) or + US 4,812,137 (ITT, "Connector with EMI/RFI Grounding Spring") — both on the '063 face as IDS references, both teaching a dedicated conductive grounding ring/spring in a connector.
• A single‑reference theory: to the extent Youtsey's o‑rings 82/84 are described as sealing "corrosive agents," a POSITA reading Youtsey in light of the general knowledge that conductive elastomeric seals were used to both seal and shield (Lionetto/Horak as evidence of that knowledge) can reach the claims; this is effectively the "official notice / common knowledge" variant.

One caution: several references sometimes cited as "the" answer in this family — e.g. Bence US 2006/0166552 / US 7,114,990 (Corning Gilbert) — were filed/published after the 2004‑11‑24 priority date. If the 2004 priority holds, those are not § 102/§ 103 prior art to the '063 and cannot be used. (They appear in this record as Patent Owner's exhibits cited against the petitioner, not as petitioner's grounds — consistent with them not being prior art.) Any invalidity contention resting on Bence is vulnerable on the priority date.

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7. Counterarguments that were made — and why they failed

What PPC did not successfully establish (and what a future defender would need): no evidence of unexpected results, no criticality of the RF cavity dimensions in claims 6/9/17/20, no nexus‑bearing commercial success evidence that was credited, and no persuasive teaching‑away. Absent evidence that the coated‑core embodiment (claim 8/19) delivers a non‑obvious RF or durability benefit over a homogeneously conductive elastomer ring, the claim set collapses onto the single conceded gap.

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8. Bottom line

Yes — US 10,965,063 is obvious under § 103. The record says so directly and it has now survived review:

• Claims 1, 2, 11 and dependents are obvious over Youtsey (Ex. 1007) in view of Lionetto (US 4,929,188) and Horak (US 3,879,102). Youtsey discloses every structural limitation — body portion, post with flange, conductive rotatable coupling portion with lip, and a compliant ring sandwiched between the body and coupling contact surfaces — and the only element absent is that Youtsey's o‑ring 84 be conductive. Lionetto and Horak each teach, in an analogous coaxial connector, that a compliant elastomeric ring can be made conductive to seal and shield simultaneously, and each teaches that this ring can provide a redundant ground path alongside a post‑based path. The motivation is supplied by the art, not by hindsight.
• PTAB, IPR2022‑00718 (Amphenol v. PPC Broadband), FWD 2023‑10‑23: all challenged claims unpatentable. Fed. Cir. Nos. 2024‑1776 to ‑1779, judgment March 4, 2026: AFFIRMED (Rule 36, nonprecedential).
• The patent is expired (anticipated expiration 2024‑11‑24), so the practical significance is retrospective (the D. Del. 1:21‑cv‑00654 action and damages tail).

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9. Open items and explicit uncertainties

1. The "Prior Art" section of the page you supplied contains no references. Everything above about cited art comes from the patent's official face list (~300 US patents + ~70 foreign documents, largely IDS submissions) and from the IPR/reexam record — not from the pasted text.
2. Youtsey's patent number: not confirmed. I could confirm the content of Exhibit 1007 in IPR2022‑00718 from the PTAB filings, but the number did not surface in my searches and I will not guess it. Note that the '063's own face listing contains several near‑neighbours in the 6,08x,xxx range (6,089,903; 6,089,912; 6,089,913) which are not Youtsey — so a number in that block should not be assumed.
3. Horak's number (US 3,879,102) is consistent with the '063 face listing (Horak, July 1975) and with the petition's column cites, but I verified content rather than the front page.
4. Claim text was not in the pasted materials; I used the official reproduction of US 10,965,063 (which matches the claim language quoted in the PTAB filings) — the two agree on claims 1, 2 and 11.
5. Effective priority date. All three references predate even the earliest 2004‑11‑24 date, so the analysis is insensitive to whether the '063 claims actually get § 120 benefit from the 2004 parent. However, the recitations "compliant ring," "grounding member contact surface" and "mating interface" appear to originate in the 2009/2011 applications, and I do not know whether PPC's priority claim was tested in the IPR. If a future challenger succeeds in pushing the effective date later, additional art (including 2005–2011 references) opens up — but the Youtsey ground does not need it.