US 11039259

I'll search for authoritative records on this specific patent number and any 2026 appellate activity.

Let me verify the claim set and the appellate status.

I need the actual claim text and the IPR outcome. Let me pull those.

US 11,039,259 B2 — Verified Summary

Sourcing note: I searched for the exact number 11039259 and reviewed the patent's own front matter (as reproduced at patents.google.com/patent/US11039259/en and in the PTAB Exhibit 1001 copy of the printed patent), plus the IPR2022‑01106 record. I did not find any 2026 Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit docket entry specific to this patent. Where I could not verify something authoritatively, I say so below rather than inferring.

1. Bibliographic data

Continuity chain (from the patent's own Cross‑Reference section): Continuation of application 13/917,079 (filed Jun. 13, 2013, now US 10,419,863), which is a divisional of 12/555,570 (filed Sep. 8, 2009, now US 8,488,799), which claims benefit of provisional 61/096,128 (filed Sep. 11, 2008).

Current assignee record (per Google Patents, which explicitly disclaims accuracy): ST Famtech LLC; DM Staton Family LP; Strategic Portfolio Holdings LLC. The assignment chain recorded runs Staton Techiya → ST Portfolio Holdings (2024‑06‑21) → ST Case1Tech (2024‑06‑21) → ST FamTech (2025‑08‑26).

2. Abstract (verbatim)

A mobile communication environment (100) can include a mobile device (160) to measure and send sound pressure level data. The mobile device (160) can initiate the collection of audio information responsive to detecting a trigger event. Mobile device (160) can measure or calculate the sound pressure level from the audio information. Metadata including time information and geographic location information can be captured with the collected audio information. Mobile device (160) can send the sound pressure level data and metadata through a wired or wireless communication path to a database (614).

3. Plain-language overview of the independent claims

⚠️ Caveat on precision: the granted claim text of this patent was not returned in my searches. The following is grounded in (a) the specification/Figure 8 flow and (b) the IPR2022‑01106 briefing, which quotes the operative claim language. Treat claim wording below as functional paraphrase, not verbatim quotation. I could not independently confirm the exact set of independent claims.

• Claim 1 — method (mobile device / network). A method in which a mobile device listens to ambient acoustic information via its microphone, converts it to a digital signal, and monitors it for a trigger event. If a trigger event is detected, the device opens a communication channel with a remote server; it derives a sound pressure level from the signal; and it attaches metadata including time information and geographic location information identifying when and where the measurement was taken. The IPR briefing confirms claims 1 and 12 both recite a "trigger event" precondition and an "opening a communication channel" step, and that the parties dispute whether the trigger event alone must open the channel. Samsung argued claim 1 requires only that opening the channel follow detection of a trigger (with other preconditions permitted); Staton Techiya argued the claims require the channel to be opened whenever a trigger event occurs.

• Claim 12 — system/apparatus counterpart. Tracks claim 1 closely: a mobile-device system with a microphone, audio-processing circuitry and a processor configured to detect a trigger event, open a communication channel with a remote server, and compute/report a sound pressure level with time and geographic metadata. (Same "if a trigger event is detected / opening a communication channel" architecture as claim 1.)

• Claims 15 and 16. Also challenged in IPR2022‑01106, which usually indicates they are independent or separately‑scoped claims; I do not have verified text for them and will not guess. Note that claims 7–10 were not challenged in the petition (challenged set was 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16), which is itself a notable fact about the claim set.

Underlying disclosure themes across the claim set: SPL measurement with bypass of the AGC/equalizer/compression/feature-extraction audio chain so measurement isn't corrupted (plus compensation for microphone directionality, porting, felt covers, amplifier gain, and housing effects); a circular buffer that continuously overwrites and can be dumped before/after a trigger; sound levels below/above a 70 dB threshold as a trigger (example given); and GUI features for pixel/grid‑based SPL dosage contour maps over geographic regions, including the dosage formula D = 100 C/T.

4. Litigation and PTAB posture

• IPR2022‑01106 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. and Samsung Electronics America, Inc. v. Staton Techiya, LLC, filed June 9, 2022; institution decision Jan. 9, 2023; Final Written Decision Jan. 5, 2024; panel Cass, Engels, Ullagaddi (Cass writing). Challenged claims: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16. Real parties in interest: Samsung entities (petitioner); Staton Techiya, LLC and Synergy IP Corporation (patent owner). I could not verify the FWD's bottom line (which, if any, claims were held unpatentable) — one aggregated docket snippet mixes institution‑stage language ("decline to institute") with merits language, so I am not asserting an outcome.
• Federal Circuit appeal 2024‑1548 — the patent record links an appeal from IPR2022‑01106 at the Federal Circuit. I found no disposition and no 2026 activity for 2024‑1548.
• District court — asserted in Staton Techiya, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., E.D. Tex. The IPR papers cite No. 2:21‑cv‑00053, filed Feb. 14, 2022, consolidated with 2:21‑cv‑00413; the Google Patents litigation link instead shows Texas E.D. 2:22‑cv‑00053. Flagging that 21/22 discrepancy rather than reconciling it.
• Document-number discrepancy to note: one E.D. Tex. filing is captioned "Case IPR2023‑01106 — U.S. Patent No. 11,039,259 B2" while the docket it is filed under is IPR2022‑01106. Per your instruction I am reporting it literally; on its face it appears to be an error in the document, not a separate proceeding, but I cannot confirm that.

5. Cases that are NOT about this patent (please don't conflate)

Search results surfaced several Staton Techiya / ST Case1Tech appeals that concern different patents — notably US 9,609,424; US 9,270,244; US 10,405,082; US 9,126,982; and the ′839 patent series in ST Case1Tech, LLC v. Squires, Nos. 23‑2305/23‑2294/23‑2335 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 9, 2025), and appeal 24‑1917 (dismissed by joint stipulation). Those are not US 11,039,259, and none of their outcomes should be attributed to the ′259 patent.

6. Explicit uncertainties

1. Verbatim text of independent claims 1, 12, 15, 16 — not verified.
2. Outcome of IPR2022‑01106 final written decision — not verified.
3. Status/disposition of Fed. Cir. 2024‑1548 — not verified; no 2026 docket activity located.
4. Current titleholder — the record shows a four‑step reassignment chain ending at ST FamTech, LLC, but Google Patents' assignee data is self‑described as an unverified assumption.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11039259 across patent litigation sources.

Let me dig deeper into the specific PTAB, district court, and CAFC cases.

Let me confirm the outcomes of IPR2022-01106 and the appeal 24-1548.

I've gathered the available litigation records. One limitation up front: the search tool's step limit was reached before I could fully pull the substance of two documents (the PTAB Final Written Decision's claim-by-claim holdings and the June 18, 2024 Federal Circuit order). I flag those gaps explicitly below rather than guessing.

Litigation involving U.S. Patent No. 11,039,259

Patent: U.S. 11,039,259 B2, "Method and system for sound monitoring over a network," issued June 15, 2021 (app. 16/571,973, filed Sept. 16, 2019; priority Sept. 11, 2008). Inventors: Steven Wayne Goldstein, Marc Boillot, Jason McIntosh, John P. Keady. Original assignee Staton Techiya LLC; current assignees per Google Patents are ST Famtech LLC, DM Staton Family LP, and Strategic Portfolio Holdings LLC.

Litigation is known. It clusters in a single patent-infringement campaign by Staton Techiya, LLC (with Synergy IP Corporation) against Samsung, plus a related PTAB inter partes review and Federal Circuit appeal.

1. District court infringement — the core case

Context of the outcome: The lead case (2:21-cv-00413, filed Nov. 5, 2021) was consolidated with the '259 complaint. After a bench trial March 26–27, 2024, Judge Gilstrap issued Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law on May 9, 2024, holding Techiya's claims unenforceable under the unclean-hands doctrine. The court found that former Samsung IP head Seungho Ahn and former Samsung in-house patent attorney Sungil Cho obtained privileged Samsung materials and used them via their litigation entity Synergy IP, which held enforcement rights in Techiya's patents — conduct the court called "dishonest, unfair, deceitful and repugnant to the rule of law." The judgment:

1. Held the asserted claims unenforceable against Samsung and dismissed Techiya's infringement claims with prejudice;
2. Dismissed Samsung's non-patent counterclaims without prejudice (moot);
3. Dismissed Samsung's patent counterclaims (non-infringement/invalidity) without prejudice for lack of subject-matter jurisdiction;
4. Named Samsung the prevailing party entitled to costs.

Sources: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/60703630/992/staton-techiya-llc-v-samsung-electronics-co-ltd/; https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/texas/txedce/2:2021cv00413/210767/992/; https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01106/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Staton_Techiya_LLC/ (Exhibit 1024-26 = the 2:22-cv-00053 complaint, which expressly names the '259 Patent, attached as Exhibit D); ABA Journal coverage at https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/scheme-by-former-samsung-lawyers-was-dishonest-unfair-deceitful-and-repugnant-judge-says.

2. PTAB inter partes review

Sources: https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Samsung-Electronics-Co-Ltd-et-al-v-Staton-Techiya-LLC-et-al-id-164290; docket materials at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01106/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Staton_Techiya_LLC/.

Gap / caution: The Patexia summary's "Claims Invalidated" field rendered empty in my retrieval, so I could not verify which, if any, of the challenged claims the Board held unpatentable. I am not asserting a specific invalidity outcome for the '259 claims. That detail should be confirmed directly from the Jan. 5, 2024 Final Written Decision (Paper in IPR2022-01106).

3. Federal Circuit appeal

Sources: https://unicourt.com/case/pc-ap1-casegk976f7e8cb214-232344; CAFC order page https://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/06-18-2024-24-1548-staton-techiya-llc-v-samsung-electronics-co-ltd-order-24-1548-order-6-18-2024_2335834/.

Gap / caution: I retrieved the existence and date of the June 18, 2024 order but not its text, so I cannot state its holding. Note also that this is the appeal from the PTAB decision; a separate appeal from the district court's June 2024 judgment was noticed June 3, 2024 (see Dkt. 936, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/2--21-cv-00413/Staton_Techiya_LLC_et_al_v._Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._et_al/docs/936.pdf). I did not confirm the Federal Circuit docket number for that district-court appeal.

4. Related / possibly related proceedings (do not assume the '259 patent is asserted — flagged for caution)

These surfaced in searches as part of the same Techiya–Samsung/Synergy campaign, but I could not confirm the '259 patent was asserted in them:

• Staton Techiya, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al., 2:23-cv-00319-JRG-RSP (E.D. Tex., filed July 10, 2023) — later accused products (Galaxy S23, Galaxy Buds2 Pro, etc.). Stay order issued Oct. 30, 2024.
• Staton Techiya, LLC v. Harman Int'l Indus., Inc. et al., 1:23-cv-00802-JCG (D. Del., filed July 25, 2023).
• IPR2024-01015 (Samsung/Harman v. Staton Techiya, U.S. 11,665,493) — terminated by joint motion following a confidential Samsung–Techiya settlement (Exhibit 1023), which post-dates the district court judgment and may bear on the current status of the related appeals.
• Other Techiya PTAB cases on sibling patents (e.g., IPR2022-00282, IPR2022-00234, IPR2022-00243, IPR2022-00324, IPR2022-00302) — these concern the '839, '982, '591, '400 and related patents, not necessarily the '259 patent. IPR2022-01106 is the proceeding I confirmed covers the '259 patent.

Summary

The only litigation I can confirm that specifically involves U.S. 11,039,259 is the Staton Techiya/Synergy IP v. Samsung enforcement action — E.D. Tex. 2:22-cv-00053-JRG-RSP (consolidated into 2:21-cv-00413) — the corresponding IPR2022-01106, and the resulting Federal Circuit appeal 24-1548. The district court held the '259 claims unenforceable against Samsung (unclean hands) and dismissed the infringement claims with prejudice (June 21, 2024). The '259 patent's issued claims were also challenged at the PTAB, with a Final Written Decision on January 5, 2024, whose specific claim-level outcome I could not verify from the retrieved sources.

If you want, I can next pull the four documents I couldn't fully open: (a) the Jan. 5, 2024 IPR2022-01106 Final Written Decision (claim-level holdings), (b) the June 18, 2024 CAFC order in 24-1548, (c) the district-court appeal docket number, and (d) the 2:23-cv-00319 complaint to confirm whether '259 was asserted there.

I'll start by pulling the structured baseline and then searching for the proceeding referenced in the patent's litigation metadata.

Key proceeding identified. Let me verify the FWD specifics, check for any additional petitions, and confirm the appeal disposition.

Let me verify the FWD claim-level outcome, check for any second petition (including the "IPR2023-01106" reference I saw), and confirm settlement/appeal status.

PTAB Activity on US 11,039,259 — Analyst Memo

⚠️ Conflict flag, up front. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block states that the USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent. That is wrong as a factual matter for this patent — the patent's own Google Patents record (fetched 2026-09-29) carries a litigation entry for IPR2022-01106 (Final Written Decision), and the public PTAB record confirms it. I am overriding the ODP-derived "none" default with the web-verified proceeding and flagging the ODP ingest gap. Do not rely on the "no PTAB activity" default here.

Proceedings overview

There is one (1) AIA trial proceeding on US 11,039,259: IPR2022-01106, and its status is claims invalidated — the Board held every challenged claim (1–6, 11, 12, 15, and 16) unpatentable, the patent owner appealed, and the appeal was voluntarily dismissed on 2024-06-18, making the cancellations final. No claims were sustained, no proceeding settled at the Board, and no institution was denied. The bottom line for a defendant: this patent was not hardened — it was gutted. Any demand letter built on claims 1–6, 11, 12, 15, or 16 is citing claims that no longer exist. The only claims never tested (7–10, 13, 14) appear to be dependent claims hanging off the canceled independent claims, which is a further — though separate — problem for the owner.

IPR2022-01106 — Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. & [Samsung Electronics America, Inc.](/litigations/by-plaintiff/Samsung%20Electronics%20America%2C%20Inc.) v. Staton Techiya, LLC

• Type: Inter Partes Review (35 U.S.C. §§ 311–319)
• Filed: 2022-06-09 (filing date accorded by the Board's Notice, Paper 6, mailed 2022-07-08)
• Status: Final Written Decision (verbatim from the structured/litigation record) — plain English: trial completed, all challenged claims held unpatentable, terminated 2024-01-05. Patent Owner's appeal was dismissed, so the FWD is now final and non-appealable.
• Judge panel: Reported panel for the Final Written Decision (Paper 32) is Russell E. Cass (opinion author), Nathan A. Engels, and Monica S. Ullagaddi. A Panel Change Order (2023-02-03) appears in the exhibit record, and one public docket aggregator also lists Scott B. Howard on the case. Caveat: I could not retrieve the signature block of the FWD itself, so treat the pre-institution panel composition as unconfirmed.
• Petition grounds: All § 103 obviousness; no § 102 or § 112 grounds. Challenged claims 1–6, 11, 12, 15, 16:
  • Ground 1 — Couper + Lemelson
  • Ground 2A — Couper + Lemelson + Jones
  • Ground 2B — Couper + Lemelson + Jones + Lagassey
  • Ground 3 — White + Soufflet + Comerford
  • (Grounds per Patent Owner's demonstratives, Ex. 2021, filed 2023-10-11.)
• Institution decision: Instituted 2023-01-09 on all grounds ("we institute an inter partes review on all grounds set forth in the Petition"). Two rulings matter:
  1. Fintiv / § 314(a): the Board declined discretionary denial despite the parallel E.D. Tex. case, applying the June 2022 Interim Fintiv Guidance — factor 2 (E.D. Tex. time-to-trial vs. the FWD deadline) and factors 3–5 weighed against denial, and Petitioner's merits were found sufficiently compelling.
  2. Claim construction: the Board rejected Patent Owner's proposed construction that "opening a communication channel with a remote server if [a]/[the] trigger event is detected" requires that a channel must always be opened whenever a trigger event is detected. That construction fight was carried into district court (see the 2023-01-10 Markman transcript in Staton Techiya v. Samsung, 2:21-cv-00413).
• Final Written Decision: Issued 2024-01-05 (Paper 32). Verdict: every challenged claim unpatentable. Patent Owner's Notice of Appeal characterizes the holding as the Board finding that "Petitioners have proven, by a preponderance of the evidence, that claims 1-6, 11, 12, 15, and 16 of U.S. Patent No. 11,039,259 are unpatentable." No challenged claim was held patentable. (I am relying on the Patent Owner's verbatim recitation of the disposition rather than inventing quotes from the FWD text I could not retrieve.)
• Settlement / termination: No PTAB settlement. The trial ran to an FWD. However, the Federal Circuit appeal was dismissed by joint agreement (Fed. R. App. P. 42(b)), which is consistent with a global resolution between Samsung and the patent owner around the same period. Terms, if any, are not public — treat as confidential/unknown.
• Appeal: Yes. Docket 24-1548, Staton Techiya, LLC v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. Notice of Appeal filed 2024-03-05 (one day under the 63-day clock). Issues noticed: substantial-evidence support for the obviousness conclusion, the Board's claim constructions, and all adverse underlying rulings. Disposition: DISMISSED under FRAP 42(b) on 2024-06-18, "each side shall bear their own costs," issued as mandate. → CAFC order, 24-1548
• Defensive value: Decisive. Claims 1–6, 11, 12, 15, and 16 are canceled and the cancellation is final. An infringement theory premised on any of those claims — the ones the owner actually asserted in E.D. Tex. — has no res to stand on. Because cancellation via a final, unappealed FWD is effective in rem, a new defendant does not need Samsung's estoppel to get the benefit of it.

Supporting sources: Unified Patents PTAB docket for IPR2022-01106 (linked from the patent page); Docket Alarm case file (institution decision, exhibits, Panel Change Order); Patent Owner's Notice of Appeal (2024-03-05) via Docket Alarm; CAFC 24-1548 dismissal order; FWD = PTAB E2E, Case IPR2022-01106, Paper 32 (2024-01-05) — retrieve via PTAB E2E.

Caption anomaly worth noting (do not mis-docket). Samsung's "Petitioners' Reply to Patent Owner's Response" and its "Updated Exhibit List" for this case bear the caption "Case IPR2023-01106" even though they appear in the IPR2022-01106 docket and concern the '259 patent. IPR2023-01106 is a different, unrelated case (DJI Europe BV v. Textron Innovations, institution denied, terminated 2024-02-13). I read this as a typo in the filed caption, not a second petition. I found no second IPR, PGR, or CBM against US 11,039,259.

Strategic summary

Claim status of US 11,039,259. CANCELED: 1–6, 11, 12, 15, 16 (all challenged claims, via IPR2022-01106 FWD, final as of the 2024-06-18 mandate). SUSTAINED: none — no claim survived challenge. UNTESTED: claims 7–10, 13, 14. This is the critical nuance. The untested claims appear to be dependents: the Patent Owner's own construction table maps "trigger event" to claims 1, 5, 12, 13 and "sound signature" to claims 1, 11, 12, 15, 16, indicating claims 13–14 depend from claim 12 and claims 7–10 from claim 1 — both canceled independent claims. If that dependency chain is as it appears, the entire claim set is effectively unenforceable, since a dependent claim cannot survive its canceled parent. Verify the actual claim text and dependency before relying on this in a demand-letter response — I could not pull the full claim set from the fetched record.

Estoppel landscape. Section 315(e)(2) bars Samsung and its real parties in interest/privies (Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd.; Samsung Electronics America, Inc.) from raising in district court any ground raised in IPR2022-01106 or that they reasonably could have raised — i.e., the Couper/Lemelson/Jones/Lagassey and White/Soufflet/Comerford § 103 combinations, plus any § 102 or § 112 theory available on the same references. That estoppel is now largely academic for the challenged claims (they're canceled), but it remains live for anything Samsung might try on claims 7–10, 13, 14. For a different defendant, no statutory estoppel attaches — § 315(e)(2) is petitioner-specific — and the Samsung grounds are freely usable. Note also that the real-party-in-interest disclosure identified Staton Techiya, LLC and Synergy IP Corporation as PO-side RPIs; those parties (and their privies) are bound on the PO side by the outcome.

Pattern signals. (1) Samsung was a serial petitioner against this patent family, not a one-off: IPR2022-00324 ('591), IPR2022-00302 ('424), IPR2022-00234 ('982), IPR2022-00243 ('839), IPR2022-01098 ('237), IPR2022-01099 ('666, denied), IPR2022-00410 ('836, denied) — a coordinated multi-front campaign run out of Arnold & Porter, with Staton Techiya's PV Law LLP responding. (2) Unified Patents is in the chain only as a data aggregator, not as a petitioner — the "Petitioner: Unified Patents PTAB Data" line in the patent record is a licensing attribution, not a defensive-aggregator filing. Do not describe IPR2022-01106 as a Unified Patents IPR. (3) The patent owner appealed aggressively across the family — e.g., CAFC Nos. 23-2294, 23-2305, and the '259-specific 24-1548 — but withdrew the '259 appeal, and the Federal Circuit affirmed against Techiya in a 2025-10-09 nonprecedential opinion on the sibling '839/'982 patents. (4) Ownership has churned: Staton Techiya → ST Portfolio Holdings → ST Case1Tech → ST Famtech, LLC (assignment recorded 2025-08-26). Any assertion today would come from ST Famtech or its designee — confirm chain of title before responding.

Separate but decisive: the district court killed the case on unclean hands. In the consolidated E.D. Tex. action (2:21-cv-00413-JRG-RSP, lead case; 2:22-cv-00053, the case asserting the '259), the court found Staton Techiya acted with unclean hands — the Synergy IP / Dr. Seungho Ahn / Mr. Sungil Cho conflicts and misappropriation of Samsung's privileged information — and dismissed Techiya's patent claims WITH PREJUDICE. That is in addition to the PTAB cancellations.

Recommended next steps

1. If you received a demand citing the '259, lead with the FWD. Quote the disposition directly: claims 1–6, 11, 12, 15, and 16 of US 11,039,259 were held unpatentable by the Board on 2024-01-05 (Paper 32), the Patent Owner appealed (CAFC 24-1548, notice filed 2024-03-05), and the appeal was DISMISSED on 2024-06-18 under FRAP 42(b) with mandate issued. Cite the CAFC dismissal order and pull the FWD from PTAB E2E. A demand letter asserting canceled claims is a Rule 11 / § 285 exposure problem for the sender.
2. Pin down claims 7–10, 13, and 14 before you file anything. Pull the patent's claim set, map each untested dependent claim to its parent, and confirm that the parents are canceled claims 1 and 12. If so, note in your response that no enforceable claim remains. If any untested claim is independent, it is genuinely untested and is the only remaining exposure — that is where your invalidity work should go.
3. There are no active PTAB milestones to track. IPR2022-01106 is terminated (FWD 2024-01-05; appeal dismissed 2024-06-18). There is no pending institution deadline, no scheduled oral hearing, and no FWD due date. The statutory 1-year clock (§ 316(a)(11)) expired with the FWD.
4. Check whether cancellation has been reflected in the file. Because the ODP ingest shows no AIA proceedings for this patent, treat USPTO systems as possibly stale as to the '259 and confirm the current claim status in PatentCenter/the official file before relying solely on Google Patents, which still shows the patent "Active" with an anticipated expiration of 2029-09-08 — that reflects fee/term status, not claim survival, and should not be read as a suggestion that claims 1–6, 11, 12, 15, 16 are alive.
5. Chain of title. Confirm whether ST Famtech, LLC (assignment recorded 2025-08-26) holds the '259 and whether any enforcement is being coordinated with Synergy IP Corporation — the same RPI structure that produced the unclean-hands finding in E.D. Tex.

Confidence and gaps (stated explicitly): high confidence on the proceeding number, petitioner, filing/institution/FWD dates, the challenged-claim set, the all-claims-unpatentable outcome, and the appeal dismissal (multiple corroborating public sources). Not verified: the exact FWD signature-block panel composition, the FWD's verbatim reasoning language, the full claim text/dependency map for claims 7–10 and 13–14, and the precise terms of any settlement between Samsung and the patent owner. I did not locate any second AIA proceeding against the '259, and I am not asserting one exists.

I'll research the assignment chain, litigation, and PTAB history for this patent.

Let me dig into the specific assignment records and the litigation history.

Let me search for the recent ownership cascade and the litigation details.

I was able to retrieve substantial data on this chain, but note one methodological caveat up front: the USPTO Assignment Center is a JavaScript application that my search tooling cannot render directly. I therefore reconstructed the chain from documents that quote the recordation data — principally the 37 CFR 3.73(c) chain-of-title statements filed in IPR2022-01106 (Samsung v. Staton Techiya), the recorded IP Assignment Agreement filed as an exhibit in Staton Techiya v. Samsung, No. 2:21-cv-00413 (E.D. Tex.), and Google Patents' legal-events feed. Where I could not obtain a reel/frame, I say so rather than invent one.

Inventors

Notable patterns:

• Inventor is also the prosecuting attorney. John P. Keady signed the family's provisional filing as a registered practitioner (Reg. No. 56389, docket "TECHIYA-0001-PR"). An inventor acting as attorney of record is a hallmark of a small, closely held portfolio where the inventors and the monetization entity are the same people.
• All four inventors assigned away to a single holding entity in the same batch. Google Patents records inventor→Personics Holdings (Inc. and LLC, jointly) assignments all on 2021-05-12, while the underlying invention predates 2008. These look like confirmatory / chain-of-title cleanup assignments recorded ~6 months before the first infringement complaint (2021-11-08) rather than contemporaneous employment assignments. That is a standard standing-perfection move before assertion.
• Departure-within-12-months signal: unclear / cannot confirm. I found no reliable evidence on when each inventor left Personics. I am explicitly not filling that gap by inference.

Original assignee

Two different answers depending on which "original" you mean:

• Named on the issued patent (US 11,039,259 B2): Staton Techiya LLC, 16193 Bridlewood Circle, Delray Beach, FL 33445. This is the assignee Google Patents lists as "Original Assignee" and the entity that filed application 16/571,973 on 2019-09-16.
• Original assignee at priority (2008-09-11 provisional 61/096,128 / 2009 parent 12/555,570): Personics Holdings, LLC (customer no. 117822, 4800 N Federal Hwy, Ste A205, Boca Raton, FL 33431), later appearing as Personics Holdings, Inc. The '259 patent is a third-generation continuation (provisional → 12/555,570 → 13/917,079 → 16/571,973). Staton Techiya inherited the family via DM Staton Family Limited Partnership in 2017.

Primary line of business / product:

• Personics Holdings was an audio/hearing-technology company (Boca Raton, FL) holding a portfolio of personal-audio, earpiece, sound-signature-detection and "always-on recording" patents. Its status today is not determinable from the records I retrieved — its IP was conveyed onward to DM Staton Family Limited Partnership, and no SEC-registered operating successor appears.
• Staton Techiya LLC — I found no evidence in any retrieved record that it ships a product embodying the claims. Its documented activity is licensing and litigation: it granted Synergy IP Corporation authority to license and litigate the family, and the E.D. Tex. court found (post-trial findings, Staton Techiya v. Samsung, Dkt. 928) that Techiya "instructed Synergy to file suit against Samsung," "planned settlement offer numbers," and "provided written consent to sue Samsung." Techiya is a Delaware LLC — the entity type the task flags — at a residential Delray Beach address.
• The DM Staton Family Limited Partnership is a Wyoming partnership with a Boca Raton, FL business address (6800 Broken Sound Parkway, Suite 200). The "DM Staton" / "Staton Techiya" naming pairs a family limited partnership (the asset holder) with a single LLC (the collector).

Assignment timeline

Recorded assignments affecting the '259 patent and its immediate parents. Execution dates are given where the record discloses them; otherwise the recordation date is shown. I could not retrieve reel/frame numbers for the 2024 and 2025 links — the Assignment Center requires an interactive session — so those are flagged.

2008→2009 (date not disclosed) / recorded per file history — Reel not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (employment/invention assignment)
• Assignor: Steven Wayne Goldstein, Marc Boillot, Jason McIntosh, John P. Keady
• Assignee: Personics Holdings, LLC (and Personics Holdings, Inc.)
• Correspondent: customer no. 117822, Personics Holdings, LLC, Boca Raton, FL; Akerman LLP appears as the family's prosecution correspondent (customer no. 150139)
• Context: formation of the original operating-company portfolio.

Item 6 of the 3.73(c) chain (Personics Holdings → DM Staton Family LP) / recorded per file history — Reel 034170/____

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Personics Holdings, LLC / Personics Holdings, Inc.
• Assignee: DM Staton Family Limited Partnership, as assignee of Staton Family Investments, Ltd.
• Correspondent: not disclosed in the excerpt I retrieved
• Context: transfer of the operating company's IP into a family limited partnership — a wind-down / asset-segregation step, not a securitization.

2017-06-21 (recorded) / executed date not disclosed — Reel 043393/0001

• Conveyance: Assignment (Intellectual Property Assignment Agreement)
• Assignor: DM Staton Family Limited Partnership, assignee of Staton Family Investments, Ltd. (Wyoming partnership, 6800 Broken Sound Parkway, Suite 200, Boca Raton, FL)
• Assignee: Staton Techiya, LLC (Delaware LLC, 16193 Bridlewood Circle, Delray Beach, FL)
• Correspondent: Akerman LLP — the assignment was carried under Akerman docket "11472-25_Assignment_-_Staton_Techiya", matching the 11472-xx docket prefix used across the whole Staton Techiya family (customer no. 150139, 777 South Flagler Dr., Suite 1100 West Tower, West Palm Beach, FL 33401). Same Akerman docket prefix (11472-15-2, 11472-37-2) appears on the family's prosecution filings — a recurring correspondent. Attorney of record on the filings: Peter Allen Chiabotti (authorized by), with Angela Martin / Gabriela Batteiger as filers.
• Context: transfer-to-asserter — the DM Staton family partnership and the inventor-controlled team stand up Staton Techiya, LLC as the single collecting entity for the entire Personics family, including the '259.

2021-05-12 (recorded) — reel/frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment (confirmatory)
• Assignor: Steven Wayne Goldstein; Marc Boillot; Jason McIntosh; John P. Keady (individually, recorded as separate links)
• Assignee: Personics Holdings, Inc. and Personics Holdings, LLC (recorded both ways)
• Correspondent: Akerman LLP (customer no. 150139) — the same repeat correspondent
• Context: chain-of-title cleanup ~6 months before the 2021-11-08 Samsung complaint; a standing-perfection move.

2021-05-12 (recorded) — reel/frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Personics Holdings, Inc. / Personics Holdings, LLC
• Assignee: DM Staton Family Limited Partnership
• Correspondent: Akerman LLP
• Context: internal reorg — completion of the Personics → DM Staton transfer.

2021-05-12 (recorded) — reel/frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: DM Staton Family Limited Partnership
• Assignee: Staton Techiya, LLC
• Correspondent: Akerman LLP
• Context: internal reorg — completion of the DM Staton → Techiya transfer for the remainder of the family (the '259 included).

2024-06-21 (recorded) — reel/frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: Staton Techiya, LLC
• Assignee: ST Portfolio Holdings, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrievable from the records I obtained
• Context: post-judgment restructuring — this is the same date on which the E.D. Tex. litigation against Samsung reached final judgment, and shortly before ST Case1Tech, LLC was substituted for Staton Techiya as appellant in the Federal Circuit (Nos. 23-2294, 23-2305, 23-2306).

2024-06-21 (recorded) — reel/frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: ST Portfolio Holdings, LLC
• Assignee: ST Case1Tech, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrievable
• Context: cascading transfer — second hop in the same 24-hour window, creating a clean appellant entity of record (the Federal Circuit opinions confirm Case1Tech was substituted as appellant).

2025-08-26 (recorded) — reel/frame not retrieved

• Conveyance: Assignment
• Assignor: ST Case1Tech, LLC
• Assignee: ST FamTech, LLC
• Correspondent: not retrievable
• Context: third hop in the same family of shell-style renamings, ~6 weeks before the Federal Circuit affirmed the Board (Oct. 9, 2025). Consistent with re-papering the title ahead of further assertion or sale, not with an operating business.

Name discrepancy to watch: Google Patents' header lists the current assignees as ST Famtech LLC, DM Staton Family LP, and "Strategic Portfolio Holdings LLC" — but the legal-events feed names "ST Portfolio Holdings, LLC." These may be the same entity under two renderings, or two separate entities. I could not resolve this from the records retrieved; treat "Strategic Portfolio Holdings LLC" as unverified.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11039259
    2008 : Provisional filed by Personics Holdings
    2009 : Parent application 12555570 filed
    2013 : Continuation 13917079 filed
    2017 : DM Staton Family LP assigns to Staton Techiya
    2019 : Application 16571973 filed
    2021 : Inventor confirmatory assignments recorded
         : Issued as US 11039259
         : Samsung suit filed in EDTX
    2024 : Staton Techiya to ST Portfolio Holdings
         : ST Portfolio Holdings to ST Case1Tech
    2025 : ST Case1Tech to ST FamTech

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — PRESENT.
Staton Techiya, LLC is a Delaware LLC with a residential Delray Beach address (16193 Bridlewood Circle) and, on the record retrieved, no products in commerce. The 2017 assignment at Reel 043393/0001 moved the entire Personics family out of a family limited partnership into this single-purpose LLC, and the 2024–2025 chain then hops through ST Portfolio Holdings, LLC → ST Case1Tech, LLC → ST FamTech, LLC — three newly named holding LLCs in ~14 months with no operating substance evidenced. The Federal Circuit describes Case1Tech merely as "a related entity" to which the patents were assigned.

2. Known asserter in the chain — PRESENT.
The current/prior assignee Staton Techiya, LLC is the plaintiff in a multi-patent E.D. Tex. campaign (ten asserted patents listed on the AO-120 attachment in 2:21-cv-00413, including 8,111,839; 8,254,591; 8,315,400; 9,124,982; 9,270,244; 9,491,542; 9,609,424; 10,405,082; 10,966,015; 10,979,836) against Samsung. It is a high-frequency patent plaintiff appearing in Unified Patents' and PTAB trackers (IPR2022-00234, -00242, -00243, -00388, -01106, -2024-00559). Its exclusive licensing agent Synergy IP Corporation is itself a recurring patent-monetization counterparty. I did not verify these entities against the specific named lists (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, etc.) — no match found, no match excluded.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — PRESENT.
Akerman LLP (customer no. 150139, 777 South Flagler Dr., Suite 1100 West Tower, West Palm Beach, FL 33401), attorney Peter Allen Chiabotti, with filers Angela Martin / Gabriela Batteiger / Edward Mercier, appears across the family's prosecution and on the recorded assignment itself (Akerman docket "11472-25_Assignment_-_Staton_Techiya", filed as Dkt. 469-3 in 2:21-cv-00413). The shared 11472-xx docket prefix ties the 2017 DM Staton→Techiya assignment, the 2019–2021 continuations (11472-15-2, 11472-37-2), and the family's power-of-attorney filings to one firm running the whole chain. Caveat as instructed: Akerman is a large general-practice firm that does substantial operating-company work, so the finding rests on recurrence across this chain, not on a single appearance.

4. Cascading transfers — PRESENT.
Three consecutive assignments inside ~14 months: Staton Techiya → ST Portfolio Holdings (2024-06-21) → ST Case1Tech (2024-06-21) → ST FamTech (2025-08-26). Two of the three share the identical recordation date 2024-06-21, indicating pre-packaged simultaneous conveyances with a shared correspondent/principal, exactly the pattern this signal targets.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — PRESENT (moderate).
The DM Staton Family LP → Staton Techiya, LLC recordation appears on Google Patents' legal-events feed for this patent as 2021-05-12, i.e. ~6 months before the first infringement complaint (2021-11-08, 2:21-cv-00413). Note the conflict: the 3.73(c) statement in the IPR file history recites Reel 043393/0001 recorded 06/21/2017 for the same conveyancer/conveyee pair. The most consistent reading is that the 2017 recordation covered part of the family and a 2021-05-12 batch perfected the rest — including this patent — in the six-month run-up to suit. I flag the ambiguity rather than resolve it.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — NOT PRESENT.
No Chapter 7/11 proceeding involving Personics Holdings, DM Staton Family LP, Staton Techiya, or the successor LLCs appears in any record retrieved. The 2017 transfer reads as a family-partnership asset segregation, not a court-supervised sale.

7. Privateering — UNCLEAR.
There is no operating-company asserter upstream here (Personics appears to have been defunct or winding down before the assertion campaign), so the classic "operating co. hires NPE to sue competitors" structure is absent. What is documented instead is a contingency-licensing arrangement (Synergy IP granted "sole control" of licensing/litigation, with Techiya retaining de facto control per the court's agency findings). That is monetization-by-contract, not privateering. No SEC 10-K/8-K disclosures exist because no entity in the chain is SEC-registered.

8. Defensive aggregator — NOT PRESENT.
The chain terminates at ST FamTech, LLC (2025-08-26) — a private holding LLC, not RPX, AST, LOT, Unified Patents, or OIN. The patent has not been neutralized by a defensive aggregator. Related patents in the family were, however, largely invalidated: the Board held claims 1–4 and 14–17 of 8,111,839 and claims 17–20 of 9,124,982 unpatentable, affirmed by the Federal Circuit on Oct. 9, 2025 — economic neutralization by litigation, not by acquisition.

Verdict

NPE — high confidence.

Two or more strong signals are independently documented: (a) shell-entity transfer — Reel 043393/0001 (recorded 2017-06-21) moved the entire Personics family into Staton Techiya, LLC, a Delaware LLC at a residential Delray Beach address with no products evidenced, and the 2024–2025 cascade Staton Techiya → ST Portfolio Holdings → ST Case1Tech → ST FamTech (recorded 2024-06-21 and 2025-08-26) continued that pattern; and (b) cascading transfers plus repeat correspondent — three hops, two on the same date, all inside a family whose filings and recorded assignment carry the same Akerman LLP docket prefix 11472-xx (customer no. 150139, Peter A. Chiabotti). The asserter history is unambiguous: Staton Techiya asserted ten patents against Samsung on 2021-11-08 in No. 2:21-cv-00413 and litigated through the PTAB and Federal Circuit, with the court finding it directed its licensing agent Synergy IP to sue. The only significant gap is that I could not open the Assignment Center directly, so reel/frame numbers for the 2024 and 2025 links are unverified.

Verify at:

• USPTO Assignment Center — https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent no. 11039259)
• USPTO Patent Assignment Search (same underlying records) — https://assignment.uspto.gov/patent/index.html (search 11039259)
• Google Patents legal events — https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11039259B2](/patent/US11039259B2)/en (see Legal Events)

I'll research US Patent 11,039,259 and its cited prior art references.

Let me get the specific cited references and the IPR prior art for this patent.

Let me get details on the specific IPR prior art references and the Final Written Decision.

Analysis of U.S. Patent No. 11,039,259 (US11039259B2)

Important scope note first: I ran USPTO-facing searches (Google Patents' USPTO mirror, PTAB/USPTO records, and patent-litigation databases). I want to be transparent about three limits on what I could verify, because your question asks for claim-by-claim §102 mapping and I would rather flag gaps than fabricate:

1. The patent's own "References Cited" (56) list for the '259 application (16/571,973) is not reproduced in the sources I retrieved. The examiner citations I can see belong to the grandparent U.S. Pat. No. 8,488,799, which shares the same specification and effective filing date (2008-09-11) but is a different document. I have labeled those as family citations, not as '259-face citations.
2. The full claim text of the '259 patent was not returned (the Google Patents description text I retrieved is cut off before the claims). I therefore map references to claim themes/limitations reconstructed from the PTAB record, not to verbatim claim language.
3. The genuinely most probative prior art for this patent is not the examiner citations — it is the art asserted by Samsung in IPR2022-01106, which reached a Final Written Decision. That is where I focus.

1. Patent identification (confirmed literal match)

Link: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11039259/en

2. Prior art cited on the face of the patent family

The examiner citations I was able to retrieve are from the grandparent U.S. 8,488,799 (same specification). These are the closest thing to "cited references for 11039259" that I can verify, but caveat: they appear on the '799 face, not confirmed on the '259 face.

Because these are carried over from the parent's prosecution and are largely background art, none of them individually maps cleanly onto the '259 independent claims for a §102 anticipation theory. They were cited for general context, and I would not assert §102 anticipation on any of them without the actual '259 claim text.

3. The most relevant prior art — IPR2022-01106 (Samsung v. Staton Techiya)

This is the dispositive source. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. / Samsung Electronics America, Inc. petitioned for IPR on the '259 patent; the Board instituted Jan 9, 2023 and issued a Final Written Decision Jan 5, 2024. Claims challenged in the petition: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 15, 16.

Asserted grounds (per Petitioner's Demonstratives, IPR2022-01106):

Sources:

• https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01106/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Staton_Techiya_LLC/docs/10-11-2023-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2021-Patent_Owners_Demonstratives.pdf
• https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01106/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Staton_Techiya_LLC/docs/06-30-2023-Petitioner/Pet_Reply_to_PO_Resp-21-Petitioners_Reply_to_Patent_Owners_Response.pdf
• https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Samsung-Electronics-Co-Ltd-et-al-v-Staton-Techiya-LLC-et-al-id-[164290](/patent/164290)

References and what I could verify:

• Couper — U.S. Patent No. 9,135,797. Per the petition record, Couper is the primary reference and was relied on for: detecting a "trigger event" and detecting a "sound signature" at a remote server; transmitting metadata and an acoustic signal "to the server via the communication channel"; and transmitting metadata "as a package." I could not independently verify Couper's title/assignee from the returned results, so I am not stating one.
• Lemelson — a secondary reference (Ground 1). I could not verify the specific patent number or title for this "Lemelson." (Flagged: do not assume it is any particular Jerome Lemelson patent without the petition exhibit.)
• Jones — added in Ground 2A. Number/title not verified.
• Lagassey — U.S. Patent Application Publication 2006/0092043 A1 (added Ground 2B). Number/date verified from Samsung's own prior-art list; I could not verify the title, so I am not asserting one.
• White — Ground 3 lead reference. The record shows White discloses "opening a communication channel with a remote server if a trigger event is detected," including a "wake-up"/"keyword" command that "initiates communication" with a remote server (cited as Ex. 1012, 2:18-25, 2:45-50, 14:2-6). Number/title not verified.
• Soufflet — Ground 3. Number/title not verified.
• Comerford — Ground 3. Number/title not verified.

4. Claim-level §102 vs. §103 analysis

Critical procedural point: every ground against the '259 patent was brought under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (obviousness), not § 102 (anticipation). No reference or combination was asserted as a standalone §102 anticipatory reference. So the honest answer to "which claim does each reference anticipate under §102" is: under the record as it stands, none of them were established as anticipatory; they were relied on to render claims obvious. A single-reference §102 theory would require each reference to disclose every limitation — Couper, for instance, was expressly combined with Lemelson because Couper alone was not treated as disclosing all limitations.

Mapping references to the claim limitations they were aimed at (from the petition/reply record, reconstructed — not verbatim claim text):

Result of the proceeding: the Board instituted on all grounds (Jan 9, 2023) and the case reached a Final Written Decision on Jan 5, 2024; the patent is flagged as having been in a "Final Written Decision" PTAB case, and the matter is on appeal to the Federal Circuit as No. 24-1548. I was not able to retrieve the operative validity outcome of the FWD text in the sources returned, so I am not stating which claims were or were not held unpatentable — that would be speculation.

5. Forward citations (later patents citing the '259 patent — for completeness only)

These cite the '259 patent and are not prior art against it:

US 20200236463A1; US 9,602,938 B2; US 8,614,731 B2; US 9,703,524 B2; US 10,275,209 B2; US 10,853,025 B2; CN101820474B; CN108391206A; CN105519138B; CN103688531A; CN105580389A; WO2017195616A1; CN111081275B; CN113709291A; JP2011205353A; KR101660306B1; JP2010233164A; KR102113572B1; JP2010266880A; CN107209901A; JP7302559B2; JP7087745B2; JP5181991B2; JP6881477B2.

Family members: US 20130279703A1; US 8,488,799 B2; US 10,419,863 B2; US 20200015025A1; EP 2332345 A1/A4; JP 2012502596 A.

6. Bottom line and honest caveats

• The most relevant prior art for US 11,039,259 is the IPR2022-01106 set: Couper (U.S. 9,135,797), Lemelson, Jones, Lagassey (US 2006/0092043 A1), White, Soufflet, and Comerford — not the examiner citations.
• None of this art was asserted, or (on the record I retrieved) established, as §102 anticipation. All grounds were §103 obviousness. A proper §102 analysis would require the actual '259 claim text plus the full text of each reference, which the retrieved sources did not provide.
• I could not verify the patent numbers/titles for Lemelson, Jones, White, Soufflet, or Comerford, nor the titles/assignees of Couper and Lagassey. I am flagging these rather than guessing. If you need the exact U.S. patent numbers for the White/Soufflet/Comerford/Lemelson/Jones references, they are in the IPR2022-01106 Petition exhibit list (Ex. 1003–1012 and the Ground 3 exhibits), which I would need to pull in a follow-up step.
• The patent is currently Active and under Federal Circuit appeal (24-1548); the FWD text outcome was not retrievable here.

If you want, I can run a targeted follow-up to pull the exact citation numbers for White, Soufflet, Comerford, Lemelson, and Jones from the IPR petition exhibits, and pull the verbatim '259 claim set so the §102 mapping can be done limitation-by-limitation rather than thematically.

I'll start by gathering the prior-art references and claim text for US11039259, plus the PTAB proceeding that challenged it.

Now let me pull the actual prior-art references applied against these claims in the PTAB record, and check the outcome of the Final Written Decision.

I have the claim-1 skeleton and the IPR grounds. Let me now retrieve the full claim text and the outcome of the PTAB/CAFC proceedings.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,039,259 B2 ("Method and system for sound monitoring over a network")

1. Bottom line

The challenged claims of the '259 patent sit at the intersection of several very crowded pre-2008 arts — (i) mobile/portable sound-level metering, (ii) network/server-based aggregation and mapping of measured noise, (iii) audio-event ("sound signature") detection, and (iv) trigger-based capture/transmission from a battery-constrained device. The PTAB has already tested these claims under § 103: in IPR2022-01106 (Samsung v. Staton Techiya), the Board instituted all grounds against claims 1–6, 11, 12, 15, and 16, under four obviousness combinations (§ 103), and a Final Written Decision issued January 5, 2024. The combination theories below are therefore not hypothetical — they are the record-based combinations Petitioner actually advanced, plus one additional combination built from the examiner-cited art on the face of the patent.

Caveat on outcome: I could not verify from the retrieved material how the FWD resolved each claim (Patexia's docket summary lists the challenged claims but shows the "Claims Invalidated" field empty — https://services.patexia.com/lawsuits/Samsung-Electronics-Co-Ltd-et-al-v-Staton-Techiya-LLC-et-al-id-[164290](/patent/164290)), and an appeal is docketed at the Federal Circuit as No. 24-1548. Treat any statement about the result as unverified; the grounds are verified.

2. Transparency on the "Prior Art section" of the page

The scraped Google Patents text you supplied contains only the Prior-art keywords field (acoustic signal; sound; mobile device; pressure level; sound pressure) and the Definitions block — it does not contain a populated citation list ("References Cited" / "Cited By" / "Similar Documents"). I therefore used two verified prior-art sets instead:

1. Examiner-cited art on the face of the '259 patent (from the patent front page reproduced at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/Texas_Eastern_District_Court/2--21-cv-00413/Staton_Techiya_LLC_et_al_v._Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._et_al/docs/463/2.pdf): Stearns US 4,484,345; Andrea US 6,061,456; Davidson US 6,601,456; Dalton US 6,654,652; Revit US 2001/0040969; Apostolos US 2003/0210184; Neuhauser US 2004/0064319; Iriyama US 2005/0052285; Donner US 2005/0079880; Battenberg US 2005/0244013; Goldstein US 2008/0130906; Schuler US 2008/0159547; Lee US 2009/0323914; EP 1128693; EP 1388823; JP 2004-133895; JP 2006-092381; JP 2008-170415; and the NPL item Czyzewski et al., "Web-Based Acoustic Noise Measurement System," AES Convention Paper 6006, 116th AES Convention (May 1, 2004).

2. The IPR2022-01106 ground references (verified from the Institution Decision excerpt at https://www.docketalarm.com/patentapps/US/16-571,973/METHOD_AND_SYSTEM_FOR_SOUND_MONITORING_OVER_A_NETWORK/LCP008NRXBLUEX0/ and Patent Owner's Response at https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01106/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Staton_Techiya_LLC/docs/04-10-2023-Patent_Owner/PO_Response_to_Pet-17-Patent_Owners_Response.pdf).

3. Posture, governing law, and the claim at issue

• Priority / statute: Effective filing date of September 8, 2009 (app. 12/555,570, now US 8,488,799), claiming benefit of provisional 61/096,128 (Sept. 11, 2008); the '259 is a continuation of 13/917,079 (June 13, 2013), itself a divisional of 12/555,570. Assuming proper continuity, pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) governs. Anticipated expiration: September 8, 2029.
• Claim 1 (reconstructed — the FWD excerpt gave only the preamble and elements [a]–[e]; the balance is inferred from the Petitioner's-Reply headings): a wearable device comprising [a] a microphone; [b] memory storing instructions; [c] a processor executing instructions to: [d] receive an acoustic signal from the microphone configured to measure an ambient environment; [e] analyze the acoustic signal to detect a trigger event; [f] open a communication channel with a remote server if the trigger event is detected; [g] transmit metadata and the acoustic signal to the server via the communication channel; and server-side operations including detecting a sound signature, generating a report (identifying the sound signature and/or SPL), and transmitting the report. Claim 12 is the second independent claim; claim 5 adds a "sound level switch"; claim 2 adds transmission of metadata and acoustic signal "as a package."
• Claim-construction disputes that drive the § 103 outcome (from Patent Owner's demonstratives, https://www.docketalarm.com/cases/PTAB/IPR2022-01106/Samsung_Electronics_Co._Ltd._v._Staton_Techiya_LLC/docs/10-11-2023-Patent_Owner/Exhibit-2021-Patent_Owners_Demonstratives.pdf): whether the "wearable device" preamble is limiting; whether "the acoustic signal" requires all operations to run on the same signal; whether "the server"/"the remote server" requires one server to perform every server-side function; and whether "opening a communication channel … if [the] trigger event is detected" requires the channel to open whenever a trigger is detected. These constructions are outcome-determinative, because the strongest combinations spread capture, detection, and reporting across multiple devices/servers.

Note on identifiers: one document header in the docket reads "Case IPR2023-01106"; every other source (Patexia, USPTO PTAB docket, the Board's own institution decision) identifies the proceeding as IPR2022-01106. I have not auto-corrected the patent numbers cited in the grounds below.

4. Level of ordinary skill (POSITA)

A reasonable formulation for this art (and the one I would expect a petitioner to advance) is a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, or acoustics, plus about 2–4 years of experience in digital audio signal processing, mobile/handset audio, or noise dosimetry — or equivalent experience. The POSITA would be familiar with: SPL/LEQ/dose measurement and meter calibration; AGC, equalization, and ADC dynamic range in handset audio paths; feature extraction (mel-cepstral, LPC); GMM/HMM classifiers; GPS/geotagging; and cellular/WLAN packet data. Nothing in the challenged claims requires more.

5. The prior-art references at issue

Important limitation on this table: I verified the identifiers, dates, and the roles the parties assigned to each reference from the PTAB documents quoted above. I did not retrieve the full text of Couper, Lemelson, Jones, Lagassey, White, Soufflet, or Comerford, so my characterization of their substantive disclosures is an inference from the parties' arguments, not an independent reading of the references. Verify each against its specification before filing.

6. Ground-by-ground § 103 analysis

Ground 1 — Couper + Lemelson (claims 1–4, 6, 8–13)

Petitioner's reply is captioned: "THE COUPER-LEMELSON COMBINATION RENDERS OBVIOUS CLAIMS 1-4, 6, AND 8-13," and the reply argues that Couper+Lemelson discloses (i) trigger-event and sound-signature detection, (ii) the remote-server limitations of 1[f], 1[h], 1[i], (iii) transmitting metadata and an acoustic signal "to the server via the communication channel," and (iv) transmitting metadata as a package.

Proposed mapping. Couper supplies the wearable/ear-worn acoustic-capture device with a microphone, processor, memory, and a communication path; Lemelson supplies the remote, network-connected processing node that receives the transmitted signal plus metadata and performs detection/reporting. Together they disclose every element of claim 1.

Motivation to combine (MPEP 2143 rationales (A), (C), (D), (F)).

• Both references are in the same field of endeavor — monitoring acoustic information from a portable device and acting on it over a network — so their combination is a combination of prior-art elements "according to known methods" (KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007)) yielding the predictable result of remote acoustic analysis (rationale A).
• Using a known technique (offloading recognition/classification to a networked server) to improve a known device (a wearable acoustic monitor) is rationale (D); the improvement is a design choice driven by well-understood constraints on wearables — battery, memory, thermal, and form-factor budgets make local GMM/HMM scoring and long-term storage undesirable. The '259 specification itself concedes the point, noting that the "sound pressure level measurement and associated metadata requires only the transmission of a small amount of data" and that uploads can occur "when mobile device 160 is idle."
• The references themselves supply the suggestion (rationale G): Couper's device is already network-capable, and Lemelson already discloses remote capture-and-report, so no change in the principle of operation of either is required.

Counter-arguments Patent Owner pressed (and which a litigator should expect again): that the combination fails because trigger detection must occur at the wearable device while the sound signature must be detected at the server; that "the same remote server" must perform every server-side step (POR at 28–32); and that transmission must be "via the communication channel" (POR at 32–34). Note that the PTAB construes claims under Phillips in IPR, and Patent Owner advocated the district court's narrower construction of the "opening" limitation — the Board expressly considered whether to adopt it (Reply § V.B, "The Board Should Not Adopt the District Court Construction").

Ground 2A — Couper + Lemelson + Jones (claim 5)

Claim 5 adds a sound level switch. Jones discloses a sound-level-actuated switch, and the rationale is a classic (C)-(D) combination: substituting a known, field-adjacent trigger mechanism for Couper-Lemelson's trigger improves the system in a predictable way — it conserves battery and bandwidth by only waking the radio when the sound level justifies collection. Both references relate to detecting and responding to acoustic level, so the artisan would have seen the substitution as an improvement, not a departure.

Patent Owner's best argument here (POR § VI.E): no articulated motivation, and the modification would change Couper's principle of operation. Expect this to be litigated on whether the change renders the primary reference unsatisfactory for its intended purpose (In re Ratti) or merely enhances it (In re Keller / KSR).

Ground 2B — Couper + Lemelson + Jones + Lagassey (dependent claims including 13)

Lagassey supplies the event recordation/reporting and metadata features (timestamped, location-associated records of a sensed event) that map onto the metadata limitations. Motivation: a fourth reference in the same data-logging/telemetry field; adding standardized event metadata is a predictable, routine data-handling improvement (rationales A, C).

Ground 3 — White + Soufflet + Comerford (claims 1 and 12)

Petitioner used these as an independent ground, primarily to reach the "opening a communication channel with a remote server if a trigger event is detected" limitation (Reply § V). White supplies the conditional channel-opening behavior; Soufflet US 2005/0102142 A1 supplies the acoustic-measurement aspect; Comerford supplies the wearable/earpiece-side processing. Motivation: all three are in the same acoustic-monitoring/telephony-adjacent field; combining them solves the same recognized problem (automated capture, measurement, and reporting of acoustic events) with predictable results (rationale F). The linchpin is the construction of "if" — Patent Owner argued "the proper interpretation of 'if' is not 'sometimes if'" (POR § VI.F.2). If the Board accepts that the channel must open on every trigger, Ground 3 narrows; if it adopts the plain meaning, the ground is materially broader.

7. Independent combination not yet asserted (from examiner-cited art)

Czyzewski (AES 6006, 2004) + Schuler US 2008/0159547 + White/Comerford. Czyzewski's "Web-Based Acoustic Noise Measurement System" is an examiner-cited, indisputably prior-art teaching of distributed acoustic measurement uploaded over a network for noise assessment — i.e., it discloses the architectural core (measure → transmit to server → aggregate/map). Schuler supplies the mobile-device sound/ambient measurement implementation. A POSITA seeking a scalable, crowd-sourced noise database — precisely the motivation recited in the '259 Background ("the sonic toxicity of regions has not been mapped"; a "global and time continuous database … for mapping noise levels worldwide") — would have been motivated to combine a networked noise-measurement system with a portable, GPS- and clock-equipped measuring device. The Stated Problem in the patent's own Background is itself usable as evidence of motivation. This combination is attractive because it does not depend on construction of "wearable device," and it squarely reads on claims 3–4-style trigger conditions (SPL threshold, time window, geographic location) which the '259 specification itself discloses as alternatives (e.g., "Setting sound pressure level threshold 706 at 70 dB").

Also note: the specification concedes the core features as known — e.g., the SPL-bypass concept ("the audio processing circuitry is bypassed when taking a sound pressure level measurement"), compensation for microphone directivity/porting/felt covering, and the entire FIG. 8 method (steps 802–820). These are the strongest admissions to use against any claim that recites them.

8. Dependent-claim vulnerability summary

9. Where non-obviousness arguments retain the best chance

1. Claim construction, not evidence. Grounds 1 and 3 were contested almost entirely on construction: "the same server," "the same acoustic signal," the conditional "if," and the limiting nature of the "wearable device" preamble. Under Patent Owner's constructions, several grounds collapse.
2. Teaching away / change in principle of operation for the Jones combination at claim 5 (weak-to-moderate; In re Ratti is a demanding standard).
3. Objective indicia. The record in this family shows heavy commercial assertion (the '259 was asserted in the consolidated E.D. Tex. cases 2:21-cv-00413 and 2:22-cv-00053, including against Samsung Galaxy Buds+), but I found no evidence of a nexus-based commercial-success showing in the material retrieved. If objective indicia were presented (near-simultaneous invention, industry praise, licensing), they would need a nexus to the server-side limitations, not to wearables generally.

10. Explicit uncertainties

• I do not know the holding of the Jan. 5, 2024 FWD in IPR2022-01106, nor the disposition of CAFC No. 24-1548. Verify via the PTAB docket before relying on any invalidity conclusion.
• I did not read Couper, Lemelson, Jones, Lagassey, White, Soufflet, or Comerford directly; their disclosures are characterized above only insofar as the parties' briefs (as quoted in retrieved snippets) describe them.
• Claim 1 is partially reconstructed; elements [f]–[j] are inferred. Pull the granted claim set (US11039259B2, cols. 13–15) to confirm before using this analysis as a claim chart.
• The "Prior Art" section of the Google Patents page as supplied to me did not contain a citation list; if you have the expanded page with the Cited By set, that would add third-party prior art (e.g., the numerous Samsung/Park/Wong/Liron/Liron-type references appearing in sibling Goldstein-family patents) worth screening.