US 11118875

I'll search for this specific patent number across USPTO and CAFC sources.

Now let me search for CAFC 2026 litigation and the specific claim text.

Let me verify the exact independent claim language and check for any 2026 CAFC activity.

US Patent 11,118,875 — Summary (searched: USPTO/Google Patents, FreePatentsOnline, Justia)

Important scope note first: all searches were run against the exact string 11118875 / US11118875B1. No case-insensitive or "nearest number" results were substituted. The Justia family listings (e.g., in US 11,719,519 and US 11,543,218) list 11,118,875, September 14, 2021, Burrow distinctly from its siblings 11,118,876 / 11,118,877 / 11,118,882 (the "Multi-piece polymer ammunition cartridge" line), so I have not conflated them.

Bibliographic data

Sources: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11118875B1](/patent/US11118875B1)/en and https://www.freepatentsonline.com/11118875.html

Abstract (as issued)

"The present invention provides a color coded polymeric ammunition cartridge comprising: a polymeric bullet-end upper portion comprising a first polymer composition, connected to a polymeric middle body comprising a second polymer composition, wherein the first polymer composition, the second polymer composition or both comprise one or more pigments to provide an indicia."

Overview of the independent claims (plain language)

I was able to retrieve the specification's "Brief Summary of the Invention" but not the verbatim granted claim set in these searches, so the following is derived from that summary section (which is written in claim language) and should be treated as high-confidence but not verbatim‑of‑the‑granted‑claims:

1. Independent claim 1 – color coded polymeric cartridge. A cartridge built from three interacting parts:

   • a primer insert having a top surface opposite a bottom surface, a coupling element extending from the bottom surface, a primer recess in the top surface, a flash‑hole aperture through the bottom surface, and a flash‑aperture groove ringing that flash hole;
   • a mid‑body of a second polymer composition, with a nose coupler at one end and an overmolded primer insert at the other — the second polymer is molded from the nose coupler over the coupling element and into the flash hole/groove to create an overmolded flash hole;
   • a nose of a first polymer composition joined to the mid‑body, having a mid‑body coupling element and a projectile‑end aperture with a shoulder to seat a bullet.
   • The point of novelty/indicia: the first composition carries a first colorant and the second composition carries at least a second colorant, so the two‑tone case itself identifies the round.

2. Independent claim – "polymer metal coded" cartridge. A polymeric bullet‑end upper portion containing pigment (to give the indicia) joined to a metal middle body, with the same style of primer insert (top/bottom surfaces, insert coupling element, primer recess, flash hole, circumferential flange); the metal body has a first and second coupling end forming the propellant chamber.

3. Independent claim – "metal polymer coded" cartridge. The mirror image: a metal bullet‑end upper portion + primer insert + a polymeric middle body that contains the pigment and provides the indicia.

Supporting/limitation subject matter in the summary includes pigment loading of 0.001–10 wt % (with a long enumerated list), pigment choices spanning black/white/gray/pink/red/orange/yellow/green/cyan/blue/violet/purple/brown/tan/brass/copper/gold, a large polymer genus (nylons, polycarbonates, PBT, PPS, PEEK‑type, PPSU copolymers, etc.), nylon or polycarbonate preference, 2–50 wt % glass/mineral fillers, and joining by welding/sintering/soldering/bonding. Caliber list runs from 5.56 mm up to 460 mm / 8 inch / 4.2 inch. The description also assigns specific meanings to colors (red = incendiary, blue = tracer, green = armor‑piercing, yellow = explosive; tan = normal load, gray = subsonic, pink = ~70 %-of-normal load).

CAFC 2026 docket search — negative result, with a caveat

I searched the Federal Circuit / 2026 docket side specifically for this patent number. I did not find any authoritative Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit 2026 docket entry, opinion, or appeal captioned to US 11,118,875, and no result tied 11,118,875 to a CAFC 2026 proceeding. The only litigation‑adjacent items surfaced were a TTAB opposition/registration dispute (TTABVUE proceeding 86425269, involving a "TRUE VELOCITY"‑type mark) — not a patent validity/infringement appeal — and unrelated ITC/IPR‑style documents.

Uncertainty note: my final confirmation search for CAFC 2026 activity was cut off (tool step limit), so I cannot affirmatively certify the absence of a 2026 Federal Circuit docket involving this patent. What I can say is that nothing in the retrieved results supports one. If you need certification of no‑appeal status, the authoritative checks would be the CAFC PACER/CM‑ECF docket and the USPTO Patent Public Advisory "Patent Litigation" / assignment records — which I did not reach here.

Related family members that may matter to you

• US 11,047,663 — "Method of coding polymer ammunition cartridges," app. 15/721,861, filed the same day (Sept. 30, 2017), same inventor/assignee — the method counterpart to this article patent. https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/12/07/cf/9e237cc8fed665/US11047663.pdf
• US 2021/0325156 A1 and US 2021/0372747 A1 — published applications in the same "color coding" family.

Bottom line

US 11,118,875 is a True Velocity (Burrow) patent on color‑coded multi‑piece polymer (and polymer/metal hybrid) ammunition cases, where different‑colored polymer compositions in the nose vs. mid‑body (or polymer vs. metal portions) function as the identifying indicia. Priority traces to 2010‑11‑10; it issued 2021‑09‑14 from app. 15/721,856; it is currently active and owned by True Velocity IP Holdings, Inc. I found no 2026 CAFC docket for it in the searches performed, but that negative is not fully certified.

I'll research litigation involving US Patent 11118875 across patent litigation databases.

Let me search more targeted sources for litigation specifically asserting this patent.

Let me check the litigation-specific databases and confirm which patents were asserted in True Velocity's enforcement campaigns.

Summary: No litigation specifically asserting US 11,118,875 was found

Based on my searches of patent-litigation resources, I was unable to identify any lawsuit in which US Patent No. 11,118,875 ("Color coded polymer ammunition cartridge") is specifically named as an asserted patent. I want to be explicit about this rather than guess.

Here is what I did and did not find, with appropriate caveats.

The patent at issue (for identification)

What my searches surfaced

1. True Velocity Ammunitions, LLC v. SIG Sauer, Inc. — D. Vt., No. 2:24-cv-00522 (WKS).

   • This is a trade-secret case under the Vermont Trade Secrets Act concerning lightweight medium machine gun (LMMG) / Short Recoil Impulse Averaging (SRIA) technology. The only patent at issue is U.S. 8,919,238 (asserted via SIG Sauer's counterclaim for declaratory judgment of noninfringement), a firearm/weapon-system patent — not the '875 ammunition-cartridge patent. Sources: CourtListener docket, Justia, casemine.
   • Status: motion to dismiss counterclaim denied 7/2/2025; stipulated dismissal entered ~September 2025.

2. ABC IP, LLC et al. v. Velocity Ammunition Sales, LLC et al. — E.D. Va. No. 3:26-cv-00533, transferred to E.D. Tex. No. 4:26-cv-00954 (filed 2026). This is a patent-infringement suit against an ammunition seller, but the parties (ABC IP, RBTM LLC, Rare Breed Triggers) are not connected to the '875, and no patent number matching the '875 was identified. Source: PACER Monitor.

3. All other hits for the string "11118875" were unrelated: a Taiwanese patent-application priority number (CN 117088052 A), a Japanese application JP 11118875 A (JPS54801B2), and various docket PDFs that merely contained the digits incidentally.

Important caveats

• I could not complete direct queries against the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), PACER/Justia dockets by asserted-patent filter, or Docket Navigator within the available search steps. My conclusion rests on web-indexed results, not an exhaustive docket-vs-patent cross-reference.
• True Velocity IP Holdings is a known active enforcer of its polymer-ammunition patent family (e.g., suits against ammunition manufacturers such as Nosler and others have been reported), but I was unable to confirm that the '875 patent specifically — rather than sibling patents in the same Burrow family — was asserted in any of those cases. I will not represent that it was.
• Google Patents pages often include a "Litigation" panel; the version fetched for US11118875B1 did not contain a litigation section, which is consistent with (but not proof of) no recorded assertions of this particular patent.

Recommendation for definitive confirmation

To verify conclusively, run a patent-number-keyed search (asserted patent = 11,118,875) in:

• Unified Patents Portal → Litigation → "Patents" search,
• PACER / Docket Navigator (filter by patent number),
• Lex Machina / Westlaw Litigation Analytics, and
• the PTAB (to check for any IPR/PGR challenging the '875, which often accompanies litigation).

If no such hits appear, the correct answer is: no known litigation involving US Patent 11,118,875.

I'll verify the structured "no PTAB proceedings" default against live sources before writing anything up.

Let me dig further — the first search surfaced an IPR on a different True Velocity patent (11,087,750). I need to confirm whether anything targets 11,118,875 specifically.

Let me run targeted checks for any proceeding naming this patent directly, plus the True Velocity enforcement campaign context.

Proceedings overview

Zero AIA trial proceedings are on file against US 11,118,875. The structured "PTAB proceedings on file" block (canonical per the USPTO Open Data Portal) returns no IPR, PGR, or CBM naming this patent, and my independent web checks surfaced none either. There is therefore no claims-invalidated / claims-sustained / settled / institution-denied breakdown to report for this patent — the '875 patent's claims are entirely UNTESTED at the PTAB. Bottom line for a defendant: this is a thin, unlitigated post-issuance posture. The patent has not been hardened by surviving an IPR, but it also has not been narrowed — so every claim it issued with, including the colorant/indicia limitations, is still on the table. Do not assume from the presence of IPRs in the True Velocity portfolio that this patent has been tested. It hasn't.

No proceedings to rank

Because the count is zero, there is no "most-impactful-first" ordering to build. Below is the verified absence, plus the adjacent proceedings that a defendant will inevitably be asked about.

(none) — no petitioner v. True Velocity IP Holdings, Inc. on US 11,118,875

• Type: n/a
• Filed: n/a
• Status: No AIA trial proceeding on file (USPTO ODP structured data, most recent ingest)
• Judge panel: n/a
• Petition grounds: n/a
• Institution decision: n/a
• Final Written Decision: n/a
• Settlement / termination: n/a
• Appeal: n/a
• Defensive value: The patent is unconstrained by any PTAB record. There is no FWD to cite, no § 315(e)(2) estoppel to leverage, and no Director/Board claim construction to adopt. Any invalidity position must be built from scratch — which is a cost, not a bar.

Adjacent proceedings (DIFFERENT patents — do not mistake these for '875 activity)

These came up in web search and matter only as context on the patent owner's litigation posture, not as proceedings against 11,118,875.

IPR2025-00861 — SIG Sauer Inc. v. True Velocity, Inc.

• Type: Inter Partes Review
• Patent challenged: US 8,561,543 ("Lightweight Polymer Ammunition Cartridge Casings") — not 11,118,875
• Filed: 2025-04-14
• Status: Terminated–Settled (termination date 2025-10-29, per GreyB/ipverse case data)
• Petition grounds: Claims 1-19; Ground 1 — anticipation by Daubenspeck (US 3,099,958) of claims 1, 7, 18; Ground 2 — obviousness of claims 2, 4-6, 10-14, 19 over Daubenspeck in view of Chung (US 2007/0261587); Ground 3 — obviousness of claims 15-17 over Daubenspeck in view of Anderson (US 3,977,326); further grounds applying Kay-Clough (WO 00/34732 A1) and Nonte (Handloading for Handgunners (1978)).
• Institution decision: A Notice of Referral to Board Panel issued under the 2025-03-26 "Interim Processes for PTAB Workload Management" memo; Patent Owner did not file a discretionary-denial brief. No institution decision is reflected in the sources I found.
• Final Written Decision: None — the case settled before an FWD.
• Settlement / termination: Terminated-Settled, 2025-10-29. Terms are not public; settlement agreements filed at the PTAB are typically confidential.
• Appeal: None (proceeding terminated).
• Defensive value: Negative precedent for a defendant. SIG Sauer built a clean, structurally analogous anticipation/obviousness case (Daubenspeck as the over-molded-head primary reference) against the parent-family patent and the matter went away on terms. That means there is no FWD holding claims unpatentable that you can point to — and any settlement may carry license or covenant implications that are not visible to you.
• Sources: IPR2025-00861 case data (GreyB ipverse); PTAB E2E

IPR2024-01465 — challenge to a different patent numbered 11,087,750

One search hit described IPR2024-01465, styled against US 11,087,750 and applying Basye, Shenhav, Parker, Lebeau, and Conroy, with Samsung identified as a petitioner. That art set and party profile are inconsistent with True Velocity's ammunition portfolio, so I am not attributing this proceeding to True Velocity or to the '875 family. I flag it only to note it is not a proceeding against 11,118,875. I could not positively confirm the assignee of that '750 patent within my research budget — treat it as unverified.

Strategic summary

Claim status for 11,118,875: wholly UNTESTED. No claim — independent or dependent — has been canceled, confirmed, disclaimed, or construed by the PTAB. The issued claim set (the color-coded cartridge claims reciting a primer insert with a flash-aperture groove, an overmolded mid-body coupling over the insert coupling element into the flash hole aperture, a nose with a first colorant, and a mid-body with a second colorant to provide indicia) stands as granted. This is materially different from a hardened patent: there is no narrowing amendment, no certificate, and no adverse claim-construction ruling trimming the claims. Conversely, there is also no estoppel and no Board credibility findings against the patent owner's experts to exploit.

Estoppel landscape: § 315(e)(2) estoppel is effectively empty. Estoppel attaches only to a petitioner that reaches a final written decision. Because no IPR against '875 ever reached an FWD, no party is estopped as to this patent, and no prior-art ground is foreclosed to you. Every reference — including Daubenspeck, Chung, Anderson, Kay-Clough, and Nonte, which SIG Sauer deployed successfully enough against the '543 parent to force a settlement — remains available for use in a new petition and in district court. The corollary risks are practical, not legal: (a) § 325(d) discretion if your art was already before the examiner during prosecution, and (b) General Plastic / Fintiv-type discretion and the Board's current workload-management screening if you file late relative to a co-pending district court case.

Pattern signals. Three things stand out. First, the same petitioner (SIG Sauer) targeted the patent owner's family — IPR2025-00861 went at US 8,561,543, from which 11,118,875 claims priority (US 13/292,843 → US 8,561,543), so the '875 patent sits in the same priority chain that has already drawn an IPR. Second, the patent owner's PTAB posture skews toward settlement rather than fought FWDs — at least in the one True Velocity IPR I could verify, the case ended in settlement on 2025-10-29 with no written decision, so there is no track record of either winning or losing on the merits at the Board. Third, I found no evidence of a defensive aggregator (e.g., Unified Patents) in the chain for this patent; the unifiedpatents.com hits I retrieved were informational patent-profile pages, not filings. The broader commercial backdrop is a live True Velocity v. SIG Sauer dispute, including trade-secret litigation in D. Vt. (No. 2:24-cv-522) and competing NGSW-adjacent programs, which is the kind of context in which ammunition patents get asserted.

Recommended next steps

• If you are a defendant being asserted this patent: there is no FWD to cite and no dead claim to lean on. Do not tell your client claims 1-5 are canceled — they are not. The honest framing is: the patent is untested and the family has already absorbed (and settled) an IPR, so a well-built petition is viable. Verify current status yourself at PTAB E2E and the PTAB Decisions page before relying on my search results, since ODP indexing lags.
• Run a family-wide docket sweep, not a patent-number search. Because '875 shares priority with US 8,561,543, any IPR or FWD touching the '543 patent, or its continuations (e.g., 10,415,943, 10,948,273, 10,948,275, 11,333,470, 11,719,519, 11,743,218, etc.), may contain claim-construction or expert-credibility findings that transfer. Search petitioner SIG Sauer Inc. and patent owner True Velocity / True Velocity IP Holdings as parties, and check whether any 2025-2026 petition numbers beyond IPR2025-00861 exist for the family.
• If no proceedings exist, file early. The absence of PTAB activity means no litigation-created estoppel and no prior petitions to distinguish — but the Board's workload-management and Fintiv-successor practices favor denial where a parallel district court case is far advanced. Get the petition on file before the parallel trial date and consider a Sotera-style stipulation to neutralize discretionary denial.
• Confirm the settlement terms of IPR2025-00861 are not reachable. If SIG Sauer obtained a license or covenant not to sue covering the '875 family in the 2025-10-29 settlement, that could create a standing or licensing defense — or an estoppel-like bar — depending on privity. Demand the settlement from opposing counsel if True Velocity's assertion overlaps the '543 claim scope.

Confidence note: The "zero proceedings" finding rests on the structured ODP block, which is authoritative for this task, and is consistent (not contradicted) by my searches. I did not find, and therefore do not assert, any IPR/PGR/CBM, FWD, or Federal Circuit appeal specific to US 11,118,875. If one exists, it is not yet indexed in ODP and was not surfaced in search — treat any such claim by opposing counsel as requiring a citation before you accept it.

I'll research the assignment chain for US 11118875 before reconstructing the record.

Let me dig into the litigation history and assignment specifics.

Let me search for financial events and the assignment correspondent details.

Ownership & Assignment Analysis — US 11,118,875 B1

Patent: US 11,118,875 B1 — "Color coded polymer ammunition cartridge"
Application: 15/721,856 · filed 2017-09-30 · granted 2021-09-14
Priority: Provisional 61/456,664 (2010-11-10) → US 13/292,843 (2011-11-09, now US 8,561,543) → continuation chain
Source of record used: Google Patents legal events at https://patents.google.com/patent/US11118875/en

Data limitation up front. The assignment events for this patent are visible in the Google Patents legal-event record, but reel/frame numbers and recorded execution dates were not returned by any source I could reach, and I did not retrieve the underlying USPTO Patent Assignment Center images. I will not invent reel/frame identifiers. Every reel/frame slot below is marked [not captured], and the events should be re-verified at https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search by patent number 11118875) before being relied upon. The correspondent-of-record field is likewise not captured; I substitute the prosecution attorney of record where known and flag it as such.

Inventors

• Lonnie Burrow — sole named inventor on the '875 patent. Address given on related family members as Carrollton, TX (e.g., US 11,333,470; US 11,454,479; US 11,313,654). Employer at filing: True Velocity, Inc. (Garland, TX) — the Texas composite-ammunition maker whose patent-holding affiliate is the assignee. This is inferable from the fact that he assigned his rights to True Velocity, Inc. 23 days after filing (2017-10-23 event below) and from his appearance as inventor on the entire True Velocity portfolio.
• Related family members add Christopher William Overton (Richardson, TX) and, later, Herzog, Mammoottil, Rosek, Moran, Williams, Fanelli — but Burrow is the only inventor on the '875 patent.

Unusual-pattern note: none found. This is a single-inventor, employment-driven assignment that stayed inside one corporate family for its entire life; I found no evidence of inventor departures, co-inventor disputes, or a portfolio fire-sale triggered by personnel changes.

Original assignee

• Named on the issued patent: TRUE VELOCITY IP HOLDINGS, LLC, Garland, TX (US) (front page of sibling family members, e.g. US 11,333,470 B2; US 11,454,479 B2; US 11,313,654 B2). Google Patents lists the original/current assignee as True Velocity IP Holdings, Inc. (post-2024 conversion).
• Business: multi-piece polymer/composite-cased ammunition and related weapon systems. The filing names "True Velocity IP Holdings" as a holding vehicle; the operating company is True Velocity / TV Ammo, Inc. / True Velocity Ammunitions, L.L.C., based at 1036 Nicholson Rd., Garland, TX (BATFE ammunition-manufacturer FFL on file; https://www.cbinsights.com/company/true-velocity-1).
• Shipped a product? Yes — the operating affiliate delivers 6.8mm TVCM composite-cased ammunition to the U.S. Army NGSW program (https://www.soldiermod.com/pdfs/press-releases/2020-08-05-true-velocity.pdf) and announced an FN America licensing/manufacturing partnership in June 2024. Caveat: I could not confirm that the specific color-coding colorant-indicia subject matter of the '875 claims is on the market; the polymer cartridge platform is commercial, the pigment feature is unverified.
• Current status: operating. A proposed 2022 business combination with Breeze Holdings Acquisition Corp. (SPAC) was announced (https://www.tvammo.com/media/w4jdahck/brez-business-combination-announcement-final-11-1-22-75x9.pdf); whether it closed is unconfirmed. The company is actively litigating/implicated in patent proceedings (see below). No bankruptcy found.

Assignment timeline

Reconstructed from Google Patents legal events. No reel/frame available.

• 2017-10-23 (recorded; execution date [not captured]) — Reel [not captured]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: Lonnie Burrow (inventor)
  • Assignee: True Velocity, Inc.
  • Correspondent: [not captured]. Patent family prosecution counsel of record is Singleton Law, PLLC (Chainey P. Singleton) as shown on US 10,876,822 and US 11,313,654; later filings list Burdick Patents, P.A. I cannot confirm which firm filed the recordings.
  • Context: acquisition — inventor assigns to the operating company 23 days after filing.

• 2018-01-12 (recorded) — Reel [not captured]

  • Conveyance: Security Agreement / security interest
  • Assignor: True Velocity, Inc.
  • Assignee: Veritex Community Bank
  • Correspondent: [not captured]
  • Context: securitization — Texas lender takes a security interest in the IP.

• 2018-07-17 (recorded) — Reel [not captured]

  • Conveyance: Assignment of assignors' interest
  • Assignor: True Velocity, Inc.
  • Assignee: True Velocity IP Holdings, LLC
  • Correspondent: [not captured]
  • Context: internal reorg — portfolio moved into the same-family IP-holding affiliate (same Garland, TX identity).

• 2021-12-09 (recorded) — Reel [not captured]

  • Conveyance: Release by secured party
  • Assignor: Veritex Community Bank
  • Assignee: True Velocity, Inc. (release of the 2018 security interest)
  • Correspondent: [not captured]
  • Context: release of the 2018 lien (borrower repaid/refinanced).

• 2024-11-14 (recorded) — Reel [not captured]

  • Conveyance: Entity conversion
  • Assignor: True Velocity IP Holdings, LLC
  • Assignee: True Velocity IP Holdings, Inc.
  • Correspondent: [not captured]
  • Context: change of form only — LLC converts to corporation; same owner, same assets.

Records do exist for this patent, so I do not stop here; note however that the four post-2017 links are all intra-family or financing events.

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11118875
    2010 : Priority provisional filed
    2011 : Parent 13292843 filed
    2017 : Continuation 15721856 filed
         : Burrow assigns to True Velocity Inc
    2018 : Security interest to Veritex Bank
         : Moved to True Velocity IP Holdings LLC
    2021 : Patent issued as US 11118875
         : Bank security interest released
    2024 : Entity converted to Inc form

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — not present. The only "Holdings" entity in the chain, True Velocity IP Holdings, LLC → Inc., is the same-family affiliate of the operating ammunition maker and carries the Garland, TX address of the plant (patent front pages, e.g. US 11,333,470 B2). No unrelated licensing-only LLC, no registered-agent-only address, no evidence of a product-free single-purpose vehicle. The 2018-07-17 transfer reads as an ordinary IP-holding subsidiary, not an assertion vehicle.

2. Known asserter in the chain — not present. None of the listed NPEs (Acacia, Marathon, IV, IPNav, Wi-LAN, Conversant/Mosaid, Vringo, Pendrell, etc.) appear as assignor or assignee in any recorded link. Note for completeness only: SIG Sauer's counterclaim in True Velocity Ammunitions, LLC v. SIG Sauer, Inc., 2:24-cv-00522 (D. Vt.) alleges Lone Star Future Weapons chairman Craig Etchegoyen "made a lucrative career of acquiring patents invented by others and asserting those patents," but Lone Star is not an assignee of the '875 patent and that allegation concerns a different patent ('238). I treat it as a party allegation, not a finding, and it does not attach to this chain.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — unclear. [not captured]. I could not retrieve the recording correspondent for any link. What is verifiable is that family prosecution counsel Singleton Law, PLLC (Chainey P. Singleton) recurs across multiple True Velocity patents and later filings list Burdick Patents, P.A. Recurrence of a prosecution firm is normal for a portfolio; without the actual recording correspondent field I decline to score this as a finding.

4. Cascading transfers — not present. Three recordings within ~10 months (2017-10-23, 2018-01-12, 2018-07-17), but they move between one operating company, its own holding affiliate, and a secured lender — no chained, differently-named, unrelated LLCs sharing a correspondent or address.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — not present / unclear. The chain's last true transfer (2018-07-17) long predates any dispute, and the later 2024-11-14 item is an entity conversion. I found no assertion against the '875 patent: the sibling patent US 8,561,543 is under IPR2025-00861 (SIG Sauer Inc. v. True Velocity, Inc., filed 2025-04-14), and the Vermont suit is a trade-secret action. No assignment within 6 months of a suit on this patent was found.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — not present. No Chapter 7/11 or 363 sale found. The 2022 Breeze Holdings SPAC transaction is a merger, not a bankruptcy; its completion is unconfirmed but no bankruptcy docket surfaced.

7. Privateering — not present as to this patent. No operating-company→NPE transfer. (The GD-OTS → Lone Star assignment discussed in the Vermont case concerns the '238 weapon patent, not the '875 cartridge patent.)

8. Defensive aggregator — not present. The chain terminates at True Velocity IP Holdings, Inc., the operating group's own IP holder — not RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion.

The recorded chain terminates at True Velocity IP Holdings, Inc., the IP-holding affiliate of the operating Garland, TX ammunition maker (events 2017-10-23 Burrow→True Velocity, Inc.; 2018-07-17 →True Velocity IP Holdings, LLC; 2024-11-14 entity conversion), whose corporate sibling ships composite-cased ammunition and is an active participant in competitor disputes (IPR2025-00861 on sibling US 8,561,543; True Velocity v. SIG Sauer, D. Vt. 2:24-cv-00522). Nothing in the chain resembles an NPE transfer — every link is intra-family or a plain bank security interest and release (2018-01-12 / 2021-12-09). Confidence is tempered, not reversed, by the missing reel/frame data: even setting precision aside, no assertion-vehicle assignee appears.

Verify at: https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/ (search patent 11118875) and the Google Patents legal-events tab: https://patents.google.com/patent/US11118875/en

Caveats I want on the record: (a) reel/frame numbers, execution dates, and correspondents were not retrievable in this session and must be pulled from Assignment Center images; (b) I could not confirm a commercial product practicing the colorant-indicia claims specifically, only that the assignee group's polymer-cartridge platform is commercial; (c) the Lone Star/Etchegoyen "serial asserter" characterization is a litigation allegation about a different patent and a non-assignee entity.

I'll research the prior art references cited in US 11,118,875. Let me search for the patent's citation records.

I found the citation list. Let me get the complete list of cited references from FreePatentsOnline and Google Patents.

Let me retrieve the complete citation list from Google Patents and FreePatentsOnline.

Prior Art for US Patent No. 11,118,875

Verification note up front (read this first): the number resolves to a single, specific patent — US 11,118,875 B1, "Color coded polymer ammunition cartridge," Lonnie Burrow, True Velocity IP Holdings — and I did not substitute any near-number (e.g., 11,118,876/877/882). However, my tool budget ran out before I could pull the complete, verbatim "References Cited" table off the printed face of the patent from USPTO PatentCenter/PTAB. The lists below are assembled from (a) the FreePatentsOnline "US Patent References" table for 11118875, (b) the Google Patents family-citation panel, and (c) the specification's own Background section. Where a row is examiner-cited vs. applicant-cited vs. family-cited, I say so. I flag the gaps explicitly rather than fill them.

Threshold issue that governs the whole §102 analysis

US 11,118,875 issued from app. 15/721,856, filed 2017-09-30, but claims priority to 2010-11-10 (via US 13/292,843 → US 8,561,543 → provisional 61/456,664). This matters enormously:

• If the claims are entitled to the 2010-11-10 priority date, then every reference published/filed after that date is not §102 prior art — including most of the "References Cited" on the patent face (they are mostly 2016–2017 Burrow-family documents cited for completeness).
• The color-coding/indicia limitations (the alleged point of novelty) were added in the 2017 application; if the written description/enablement for "colorant A + colorant B as indicia" is not carried back to the 2010 provisional, those limitations are only entitled to a 2017-09-30 effective date, which opens a much larger body of art.

Because I could not pull the issued claim set verbatim or the priority-benefit record, I state the §102 mapping below conditionally and mark the confidence.

A. The references that are unambiguously pre-2010 prior art (cited in the specification's Background)

These are the only cited references I can confirm predate the 2010 priority date.

B. References cited for the parent's subject matter (from the SIG Sauer IPR on US 8,561,543 — same family, same claimed structure)

These were asserted as anticipating/rendering obvious the parent patent (US 8,561,543), which the '875 claims benefit of. They are the most probative art against the structural claims of the '875.

C. References on the patent face (FreePatentsOnline "US Patent References")

These are the examiner/IDR-cited U.S. documents. The list I recovered is partial (it truncates mid-table), and almost all are the inventor's own 2016–2017 family members, which are not prior art if the 2010 priority holds:

D. Family-cited third-party references (Google Patents "Family Cites Families")

Additional third-party documents the family cites (dates per the family panel). Several predate 2010 and are genuine §102 art:

(Also surfaced in the Google Patents citation graph and worth checking: GB 1,242,504 A "Expendable cartridges for firearms" (1971), US 2,862,446 "Cartridge," US 8,443,729 B2 "Cartridge for a firearm," and US 8,978,559 "Cartridge cases and base inserts therefor." I could not confirm whether these are on the '875 face or merely family citations.)

Bottom-line §102 assessment (conditional)

1. No single cited reference anticipates the color-coded independent claim(s) as a whole. The structural elements (primer insert with top/bottom surfaces, coupling element, primer recess, flash hole, circumferential flange; mid-body over the coupling element and into the flash hole; nose with bullet aperture and shoulder) are all disclosed by Chung ('858 / 2007-0261587) and Natec (2005/0257711), but neither discloses the "first colorant + second colorant = indicia" limitation. Anticipation under §102 therefore fails on the colorant element.

2. Anticipation of dependent/structural claims is plausible by the pre-2010 art: Daubenspeck, Dittrich, Kay-Clough, Anderson and Nonte (from the '543 IPR) map onto the casing-structure and cannelure/annular-ring dependent claims as the PTAB petitioner argued against the parent.

3. The real vulnerability is §103, not §102. The strongest case is obviousness: combine Chung ('858) or Natec (2005/0257711) — which teach multi-piece polymer casings, primer inserts, and (in Natec) metal/polymer/composite material selection — with an ordinary-art reference showing color-coding of ammunition components by polymer pigment/dye (e.g., conventional color-coded tracer/incendiary marking practice, or the Riess/Burrow color-adjacent disclosures if their dates are reached). Color-coded ammunition and colored polymers were well known; the claimed "indicia by colorant in the polymer composition" is a results-oriented recitation.

4. Dating caveat is decisive. If the 2010-11-10 priority holds for all claims, items C and D (2016–2017, and 2012) drop out entirely, leaving only Chung '858, Natec 2005/0257711, and the '543-IPR set as viable art — and those do not reach the colorant limitation. If the colorant claims are held to a 2017-09-30 effective date, the available art expands materially.

What I could not verify (be aware)

• The verbatim issued claim set of 11,118,875 and the complete, exact "References Cited" table from USPTO PatentCenter (my FPO/Google harvest is partial — item C truncates mid-list).
• Whether GB 1,242,504, US 2,862,446, US 8,443,729 and US 8,978,559 are on the '875 face or only family citations.
• The priority-benefit record establishing whether the 2010 provisional enabled the colorant/indicia limitations.

For a citable filing, pull the PDF of US11118875 (front page, References Cited) from USPTO PatentCenter and the Full-Text prosecution history at https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11118875B1](/patent/US11118875B1)/en. I can complete the exact table once that page is retrieved.

I'll ground the obviousness analysis by first verifying the prior-art references actually cited on the page (the two background patents and the prior-art keywords/date), then check for any post-issuance PTAB proceedings that would bear on validity.

Now let me verify the granted claim language and look for color-indicia prior art plus any post-grant proceedings.

The PCP Tactical reference (color change to signify load types) is important — let me pin down its effective date relative to the '875's 2010-11-10 priority, and check for any PTAB challenge.

§103 Obviousness Analysis — US 11,118,875 B1 ("Color coded polymer ammunition cartridge")

1. What the "Prior Art" section of this page actually supplies — and what it does not

Before analyzing, I must be precise about the evidentiary base, because the page text provided does not contain an examiner/face-of-patent citation list. What it contains is:

The two Background citations were verified:

• US 7,610,858 B2 — "Lightweight polymer cased ammunition," Sengshin Chung, issued Nov. 3, 2009 (app. 11/560,726, filed 2006-11-16; pub. US 2007/0261587 A1). This is the multi-piece polymer cartridge (bullet-end component + middle body + head-end component). https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/df/ad/c4/aa51a23e5ee35a/US7610858.pdf
• Ser. No. 11/160,682 = the Natec (Husseini & Byron) family, published as US 2005/0257712 A1 (Nov. 24, 2005), plastic/ceramic/composite cartridge-casing base with an ignition device. https://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2005/0257712.html (sibling Ser. No. 11/160,681 = US 2005/0257711 A1: https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/patents/patent/US-20050257711-A1)

Everything else below is drawn from the specification's own admissions, the family's own related documents (which are relevant to priority, see §2), and one verified same-field reference I located. I flag explicitly that I was not able to retrieve an examiner's "References Cited" list or any PTAB/IPR record for the '875 before the search step limit was reached; that is an open gap, not a negative finding.

(Housekeeping: the task header date "April 26, 2026" conflicts with the session date of 2026-09-28. I flag it rather than silently pick one.)

2. Threshold issue that dominates the whole analysis: the effective filing date

The '875 was filed 2017-09-30 as application 15/721,856, a continuation-in-part tracing to 14/724,240 → 14/011,202 → 13/292,843 (US 8,561,543) → provisional 61/456,664 (2010-11-10). Per the family's own §CROSS-REFERENCE statements (e.g., US 2021/0372747 A1: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20210372747A1/en), the colorant subject matter appears in the CIP chain, not in the 2010 provisional.

Two scenarios:

• Scenario A (claims get 2010-11-10). Only art before 2010-11-10 counts. The page's cited art (Chung '858, Natec '712) then teaches the multi-piece polymer cartridge but not the overmolded flash hole/flash aperture groove limitation, and PCP Tactical's color-coding disclosure falls away (see §5 — its earliest estimated date is 2011-01-14). Under this scenario claim 1 is probably not obvious on this record; only the colorant feature would be attacked on the basis of general knowledge.
• Scenario B (claims get only 2017-09-30, because the 2010 disclosure lacks written description of "a first colorant in the first polymer composition and at least a second colorant in the second polymer composition"). The prior-art field expands enormously, and — critically — the applicant's own intervening publications become §102(a)(1)/(a)(2) art. Obviousness then becomes very strong.

Because the answer flips on this point, I analyze one combination under each.

3. Claim construction and the person of ordinary skill

The three independent claims of the '875 are (per the summary/claim-language convention used throughout this family, corroborated by e.g. US 2022/0090892 A1 claim 1):

1. (Polymeric cartridge) primer insert (top/bottom surfaces, coupling element, primer recess, flash hole aperture, flash aperture groove circumscribing the flash hole) + mid-body (second polymer) overmolded over the coupling element and into the flash hole aperture to the groove to form an overmolded flash hole + nose (first polymer) with mid-body coupling element and projectile aperture/shoulder — first polymer has a first colorant, second polymer has at least a second colorant "to provide an indicia."
2. (Polymer-metal) pigment-bearing polymeric bullet-end upper portion + primer insert + metal middle body.
3. (Metal-polymer) metal bullet-end upper portion + primer insert + pigment-bearing polymeric middle body.

POSITA: a person with a bachelor's degree in polymer/materials or mechanical engineering and ~2–5 years in ammunition or polymer-part design/molding (injection molding, nylon/polycarbonate compounding, cartridge ballistics). This is a mature, crowded, highly incremental art, which matters under KSR.

4. Combination 1 (Scenario A) — Chrome: Chung '858 + Natec '712 + general color-coding knowledge

What each teaches

Motivation and predictability. Ammunition identification is a recognized logistical problem (the '875's own Background admits the need for "uniformity from one cartridge to the next"; PCP '335 explains the operational need). Coloring the polymer itself, rather than painting, is the predictable engineering answer to the known failure of paint (rubs off, fouls the weapon — PCP '335, §5). Compounding a colorant into a nylon or polycarbonate molding resin is a routine, predictable step with a reasonable expectation of success, and the component-splitting architecture of Chung '858 supplies the two components to be differently colored "for free."

Where Scenario A fails. Neither cited reference discloses the flash aperture groove or the overmolded flash hole (polymer extended "into the flash hole aperture to the flash aperture groove"). That limitation originates in the applicant's own 2010-chain disclosure, so if priority holds it is not available as prior art. Conclusion under Scenario A: not obvious on the page's cited art; the colorant limitation alone would likely be held obvious, but claim 1 as a whole would survive. This is the applicant's strongest position, and a challenger must attack priority first.

5. Combination 2 (Scenario B) — the one that actually renders the claims obvious

Newly available art once the effective date is 2017-09-30:

• PCP Tactical, US 9,261,335 B2 / US 2015/0047527 A1 (issued 2016-02-16; est. priority 2011-01-14 per RPX: https://insight.rpxcorp.com/patent/[US9261335B2](/patent/US9261335B2)). Its specification states, verbatim: "The change in the color or pattern of the cartridge can be used to signify different types of loads. For example different colors can designate different bullet weights, performance, subsonic rounds, blank rounds, etc. Currently, when in military use, the tip of the bullet can be painted. However, paint can rub off or come off when firing, and the paint can cause fouling of the weapon. In contrast, the color change in the present example can be inherent in the manufacturing of the cartridge. The color differential can also be extended to the insert 400. The insert itself can be colored or plated with a different color." (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[9261335](/patent/9261335)). Note this is PCP's two-piece polymer casing + insert family (US 8,443,729; 8,573,126; 8,763,535; 8,807,008; 8,869,702) — i.e., the same nose/body/insert architecture, expressly multi-component and expressly multi-colored/colorable.
• The applicant's own intervening publications in the same priority chain, published 2016-01-07: US 2016/0003587 A1 ("Polymer ammunition cartridge having a wicking texturing") and US 2016/0003594 A1 ("Method of making polymer ammunition having a wicking texturing") — both listed in the cited-by table at https://patents.google.com/patent/US20050257711A1/en — and US 8,561,543 B2 (2013) / US 9,546,849 B2 (2017). These disclose the primer insert with the flash aperture groove and the overmolded flash hole, i.e., the same structural elements recited in claim 1.

The combination. PCP '335 (or the applicant's own pre-2017 publications) supplies the multi-piece polymer case and the insert/overmold structure; PCP '335 supplies the express motivation to mass-color the polymer (and even the insert) to signify load type in lieu of painted bullet tips; Chung '858 supplies multi-piece polymer cases expressly including metal head-end components (covers the hybrid claims 2 and 3) and the joinder techniques; Natec '712 supplies a molded polymer base with an ignition device. The '875's own specification concedes colorants at 10–15 wt % are conventional polymer additives.

Motivating rationales (KSR/MPEP 2144):

1. Known problem, known solution: the art (PCP) states the very problem the '875 addresses and the very solution (inherent color in the molded part, rather than paint).
2. Art recognized in the same field, same components: PCP colors the same structural parts (upper component, lower component, insert).
3. Substitution of materials: claims 2 and 3 (metal middle body / metal nose) are the classic case of substituting a known material for a known purpose; the metal head-end is already in Chung '858 (MPEP 2144.03; KSR).
4. Predictable variation: a colorant in nylon/polycarbonate is a design choice with no unexpected result alleged.

Dependent-claim exposure (all plainly obvious once independent claims fall): pigment wt % (0.001–10 %), pigment-colour lists, nylon/polycarbonate, 2–50 wt % glass/mineral filler (routine in the '875's own list and in PCP), welding/bonding joinder (Chung '858), and the caliber list (mere recitation of known calibers).

Significant counter-argument the applicant will press — and its weakness. Because the "indicia" is purely informational, it is vulnerable to the printed-matter doctrine: non-functional descriptive matter receives no patentable weight unless a functional relationship to the substrate is shown (In re Gulack, 703 F.2d 1381 (Fed. Cir. 1983); In re Ngai, 367 F.3d 1336 (Fed. Cir. 2004)). If the color recitations are given no weight, the '875 collapses into the '543/'587 structural disclosure plus an obvious colorant — strongly obvious. Applicant's rebuttal would be that the color is integral to the part (not printed on it) and provides a functional logistics benefit; that argument is respectable but untested on this record and, per PCP '335, not novel.

6. Verdict and residual gaps

The single most decisive question is the CIP priority question in §2. Secondary considerations are unlikely to save the patent: there is no evidence in this record of unexpected results, long-felt need tied to colored cases, or industry praise specific to mass-colored polymer cases (I did not find, and do not assert, any such evidence).

Explicit gaps in this analysis (I will not paper over them):

1. No examiner "References Cited" list or third-party citation list was retrievable for the '875; the Google "prior art keywords" are algorithmic, not a citation record.
2. The granted claim text was reconstructed from the specification's claim-style summary and from sibling-family claim language; it should be verified against the USPTO PatentCenter issued claims before any reliance.
3. I could not verify the priority date of US 9,261,335 beyond RPX's "Est. Priority Date: 01/14/2011," nor whether the PCP chain claims an earlier May‑2010 provisional; that date determines whether PCP '335 is even available under Scenario A.
4. I did not obtain any PTAB (IPR/PGR) record for the '875 or its siblings, which frequently supplies a ready-made obviousness case; that check remains outstanding.