US 11306994

I'll search for authoritative information on this patent number and any related litigation.

Let me verify the claim set and check for any litigation specifically involving this patent number.

US 11,306,994 B2 — Patent Analysis

Bibliographic Data (as it appears in the record)

Priority chain (per the specification): This patent is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 16/745,876, titled "Reset Mechanism for A Crossbow," filed Jan. 17, 2020, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional App. No. 62/949,294, titled "De-Cock Mechanism For A Crossbow," filed Dec. 17, 2019.

Family context (distinct patents — not to be conflated with '994): the record shows later continuations US 17/656,716 → US 11,592,258 B2 and US 18/175,083 → US 11,885,587 B2 ("Reset mechanism for a bow"). A separate patent, US 11,009,310, also carries the title "Reset mechanism for a crossbow." These are different patent numbers and should not be treated as '994.

Abstract (verbatim)

"A crossbow reset mechanism may be used to reset a safety activator and a de-cock activator. The reset mechanism may reset the safety and de-cock activators simultaneously."

Plain-Language Overview of the Independent Claims

The patent has 20 claims, organized into three independent-claim groups: claim 1 (apparatus — crossbow), claim 9 (method), and claim 14 (assembly for use with an associated crossbow). The dependent claims are substantively parallel across the three groups.

Claim 1 — A crossbow. The crossbow has a longitudinally extending main beam; a bow mechanism with a pair of transversely extending bow limbs and a bowstring movable from an un-cocked to a cocked position; and a string latch that holds the bowstring in the cocked position and is movable among three positions:

• first string latch position (latch engaged — bowstring held cocked),
• second string latch position (latch released — bowstring fired), and
• third string latch position (a de-cock mode position).

Three user-operated activators cooperate:

• a first activator (the safety) — a first position blocks the string latch from reaching the second position (cannot fire); a second position permits it;
• a second activator (the de-cock actuator) — a first position blocks the string latch from reaching the third position (cannot de-cock); a second position permits it; and
• a third activator (the reset mechanism) — moving it from its first to its second position simultaneously (a) returns the first activator from its second position back to its first position and (b) returns the second activator from its second position back to its first position.

So the core idea is a single, one-touch reset that re-arms both the safety and the de-cock feature at once.

Claim 9 — A crossbow method. A step-plus-environment method claim (A–D) reciting the same physical crossbow/string-latch environment and the same three-activator relationships described in claim 1.

Claim 14 — A crossbow assembly for use with an associated crossbow. Drafted as an assembly claim for use with an associated crossbow (main beam, bow mechanism, string latch movable among the three positions), comprising the same first, second, and third activators with the same simultaneous-reset relationship.

Representative dependent-claim limitations (parallel across groups):

• The crossbow can fire only when the first activator is in its second position, and can de-cock without firing only when the second activator is in its second position.
• Each of the three activators has a biasing device urging it into its first position.
• A first lock retains the first activator in its second position; a second lock retains the second activator in its second position; moving the third activator into its second position moves both locks out of the way.
• A housing with three openings; the manual contact surfaces of the three activators each extend through a respective opening (the reset surface is described as concave, upward-facing, and extending proximally for a user's finger).
• The string latch pivots among its three positions; the first and second activators move linearly; the third (reset) activator moves pivotally.
• As an interlock: when a trigger link is in its second position, it prevents the third (reset) activator from being moved — i.e., safety and de-cock can only be reset while the trigger link and string latch are in their first positions.

Litigation / CAFC Check — Important Caveat

I searched for a 2026 CAFC docket or proceeding involving US 11,306,994 specifically and did not find any. I want to be explicit rather than infer one.

What the searches did surface is a different patent between the same corporate parties:

• Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Squires, CAFC, decided August 6, 2026 — affirming a PTAB final written decision holding claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 9,354,015 unpatentable, and rejecting Ravin's narrow construction of "mounted to." The underlying IPR was brought by Hunter's Manufacturing Co. d/b/a TenPoint Crossbow Technologies (IPR2023-00407), with the USPTO Director intervening on appeal after TenPoint withdrew post-settlement.
• The underlying district court case is Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Hunter's Manufacturing Co., Inc., No. 5:23-cv-00598 (transferred to N.D. Ohio), a multi-patent dispute involving Ravin's crossbow/ham ("Helicoil") patents.

These concern US 9,354,015 and other Ravin patents — not US 11,306,994. I found no record of '994 itself being asserted in district court, put into IPR at the PTAB, or on a 2026 CAFC docket. If '994 is part of a larger asserted portfolio, I cannot confirm that from the available sources.

Sources and Confidence Notes

• High confidence on bibliographic data, title, abstract, assignee, inventors, dates, and family/priority relationships — these are consistent across Google Patents (https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11306994B2](/patent/US11306994B2)), Justia (https://patents.justia.com/patent/[11306994](/patent/11306994)), and the IPIQ record (https://ipiq.io/patents/[2084371](/patent/2084371)).
• Moderate confidence on the exact full text of independent claims 9 and 14 and the dependent-claim numbering: the authoritative Google Patents text provided was truncated mid-sentence ("One or more written indi…"), so the claim language above was cross-checked against secondary mirrors (Justia and IPIQ), which agree with one another. Verification against the USPTO PatentCenter/Patent Public Search full-text claims document is recommended before relying on exact claim wording.
• Uncertainty noted: no CAFC 2026 docket for '994 was located. The 2026 CAFC decision described above is for US 9,354,015 (Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Squires), not for US 11,306,994.
• One caveat on third-party estimates: a patent-analytics site lists an "approximate value" of ~$10.75M for '994. That is a commercial estimate, not an official USPTO or court figure, and I have no basis to validate it.

I'll search for litigation involving US patent 11306994.

Let me search more specifically for litigation involving the patent owner and crossbow competitors.

Let me run more targeted searches to confirm whether the '994 patent itself has been asserted.

Summary of Findings

No litigation specifically asserting U.S. Patent No. 11,306,994 appears in the results I was able to retrieve. I cannot confirm any case in which the '994 patent is named as a patent-in-suit, and I am not going to invent one.

What I searched

I ran multiple targeted queries against litigation-oriented sources (Google Patents, Justia dockets, CourtListener, Docket Alarm, Unified Patents-related results, IPWatchdog, govinfo.gov court PDFs, and general web search) for:

• US 11306994 litigation
• "11306994" patent infringement lawsuit
• "11,306,994" ... case number
• Hunter's Manufacturing / TenPoint Crossbow patent infringement lawsuit defendant
• crossbow de-cock infringement complaints

None returned a docket, complaint, IPR, or judgment that identifies U.S. 11,306,994 as the asserted patent. The results that did surface were either the patent itself (Google Patents, IPIQ, PatentLeaderboard) or litigation involving different crossbow patents owned by other parties.

Important caveat on my search

I hit a tool/step limit before I could exhaustively check the Unified Patents litigation portal (portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist), PACER directly, or Docket Navigator. My conclusion is therefore "not found," not "definitively none exists." Litigation that is recent, sealed, or docketed only in PACER could exist without appearing in my searches.

---

Related crossbow patent litigation I did find (for context — NONE of these assert the '994 patent)

To be clear, the '994 patent does not appear as a patent-in-suit in any of the following. These are simply the crossbow-industry cases that share the same parties/technology space, and I flag them so the distinction is explicit:

---

Bottom line

• Known litigation involving US 11,306,994: none that I could confirm.
• The '994 patent (application 17/199,714; priority Dec. 17, 2019; assignee Hunter's Manufacturing Co., Inc. d/b/a TenPoint Crossbow Technologies) appears in my results only as an issued patent, not as an asserted patent in any case.
• There is a known security-interest reassignment to Peoples Bank (recorded July 10, 2023), which is a financing lien, not litigation.

Recommended verification before relying on this

To close the gap left by my search limits, you should confirm directly in:

1. Unified Patents Portal — https://portal.unifiedpatents.com/litigation/caselist (search by patent number)
2. USPTO Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) — check for any IPR/PGR petition against 11,306,994
3. PACER / CourtListener RECAP — full-text search of complaints for "11,306,994"
4. Docket Alarm / Docket Navigator — patent-number litigation lookup

If any of these shows a case, I'd want to see the docket entry to report plaintiff, defendant, jurisdiction, case number, filing date, and status accurately — I won't supply those details from inference.

I'll verify the "no PTAB activity" default with targeted searches before writing up.

Let me do a couple more targeted checks on PTAB dockets and related family members.

One more check: whether TenPoint's own patents (as patent owner) have been challenged.

Proceedings overview

Zero. There are no AIA trial proceedings on US 11,306,994 — no IPR, no PGR, no CBM, no derivation proceeding — in the structured PTAB/ODP record provided, and four independent web searches (PTAB decisions, docket aggregators, party-name searches, and patent-number searches) surfaced none. The breakdown is therefore: 0 active, 0 claims invalidated, 0 claims sustained, 0 settled, 0 institution denials.

Bottom line for a defendant: every claim 1–20 of '994 is untested at the Board. There is no FWD to point to, no cancellation to ride, no IPR estoppel binding anyone, and no PTAB-driven narrowing of the claim scope. Contrast this with the surrounding crossbow art, where the Board has been active — but always on other parties' patents (see the adjacent-proceedings table below). A demand letter citing '994 is citing a patent that has survived with its full original scope intact and never been exposed to a § 102/§ 103 attack — which cuts both ways: the patent is not "hardened" by a win, and the claims have not been narrowed by adverse claim construction either.

---

Proceedings on US 11,306,994

None. No proceeding can be listed, and I will not invent a docket number to fill the template.

Methodology / confidence. The canonical "PTAB proceedings on file" block in this analysis prompt states: "The USPTO ODP API returns no AIA trial proceedings for this patent as of the most recent ingest." I treated that as the starting default per the operating instructions and then attempted to falsify it. Searches run: patent number in both 11,306,994 and 11306994 forms combined with IPR/PGR/PTAB terms; assignee/petitioner-name searches for Hunter's Manufacturing and TenPoint; and docket-aggregator queries on the crossbow patent space. All returned PTAB activity only on Ravin and MCP IP patents, never on '994. Confidence: high that no proceeding exists, with the standard caveat that a very recently filed petition (weeks old, pre-institution) may not yet be indexed in third-party aggregators.

Why the absence is real, not just unindexed

Two independent signals corroborate it:

1. '994 has never been asserted. The multi-patent crossbow war in N.D. Ohio — Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Hunter's Manufacturing Co., Inc., No. 5:23-cv-00598 (transferred from D. Nev. No. 2:21-cv-02213) — was Ravin suing TenPoint over Ravin's patents ('379, '936, '073, '728; the '015 patent was voluntarily withdrawn mid-case). TenPoint's '994 was not put in play there. IPRs follow assertions; no assertion, no IPR.
2. The parties' PTAB footprints point elsewhere. TenPoint is a serial PTAB petitioner against Ravin, never (in anything I found) a patent owner defending an IPR. A patent owner that has never had a patent challenged in an IPR is exactly what you'd expect for a continuation-family member kept in reserve.

---

Adjacent PTAB proceedings (NOT on '994 — context only)

These are included because a defendant evaluating '994 needs to know what the Board has actually done in this technology space and with these parties. Do not cite any of these as a proceeding on '994.

IPR2023-00407 detail (for the panel's reasoning on "mounted to"): the Board, per the Federal Circuit's recitation, adopted petitioner TenPoint's construction of "mounted to" as "connected to, either directly or indirectly" rather than the district court's plain-meaning approach, and invalidated claim 1 as anticipated by Stanziale — without reaching any other ground in the petition. Ravin appealed; TenPoint withdrew from the appeal after the parties settled, and the Director intervened to defend the Board. The CAFC affirmed on 2026-08-06 (Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Squires). Note the significance: the estate outcome for the crossbow industry is that the Board and the Federal Circuit will read attachment/orientation language broadly, which is generally unfavorable to patent owners in this space — including, if '994 were ever construed, TenPoint.

Flag for consistency: the previously generated section of this analysis already identified Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Squires (CAFC, 2026-08-06, US 9,354,015). My searches agree with that record on patent number, date, parties, and disposition. No contradiction found.

---

Strategic summary

Claim status of '994. All 20 claims are UNTESTED — claims 1–8 (apparatus), 9–13 (method), 14–20 (assembly). Nothing is canceled; nothing has been confirmed. There is no surviving-claims list to report because no claim has been adjudicated. Every limitation — including the three-position string latch, the simultaneous-reset third activator, the first/second lock pairing, and the trigger-link interlock of dependent claim 4/11/17 — remains exactly as issued on 2022-04-19, and the patent is Active with an anticipated expiration of 2040-01-17.

Estoppel landscape — nothing is foreclosed. Because no IPR, PGR, or CBM was ever instituted against '994, § 315(e)(2) estoppel applies to no one. There are no privies, no joined parties, and no petitioner to inherit a bar. A newly-sued defendant can:

• file an IPR on any § 102/§ 103 ground over patents and printed publications, § 311(b);
• keep § 101, § 112 (written description, enablement, indefiniteness), on-sale bar, public-use, and system/device prior art entirely free of PTAB exposure; and
• raise anticipation/obviousness in district court unconstrained by anything the Board has said about this patent, because the Board has said nothing.

The only clock running is the ordinary one: 35 U.S.C. § 315(b) bars an IPR filed more than one year after the petitioner is served with a complaint alleging infringement of '994. A demand letter alone does not start that clock. The pre-suit window is the window to file. PGR is no longer available — the nine-month § 321(c) post-grant window for a patent granted 2022-04-19 closed approximately 2023-01-19.

Pattern signals.

• Same-petitioner multiplicity: none, because there are zero petitions.
• Defensive aggregator: no evidence of Unified Patents or any other aggregator in the chain for '994. This is not a patent that has attracted serial third-party challenges.
• Patent-owner appellate aggression: TenPoint's aggressive PTAB/appellate conduct runs in the other direction — it is a petitioner (IPR2023-00407) and it litigates hard in district court (surviving a motion to strike, two motions for reconsideration, an extensive discovery fight in 5:23-cv-00598). Ravin, not TenPoint, was the party appealing a PTAB loss. If TenPoint ever asserts '994, expect well-funded, experienced, and un-settled-early defense of its own patent.
• Portfolio context: '994 sits in a dense TenPoint continuation family — US 11,002,505 B1 (de-cock), US 11,009,310 B1 (also titled "Reset mechanism for a crossbow"), US 11,428,499 B2 (de-cock), US 11,592,258 B2, and US 11,885,587 B2 ("Reset mechanism for a bow"). A defendant facing '994 should assume the family may be asserted in parallel, and that the § 315(b) clock will start on all asserted family members at once. I found no IPR/PGR against any of these family members either.

The most probative art is already printed on the family's own face. The '994 family's cited references include the natural IPR starting points for a reset/de-cock trigger system:

• US 9,383,159 B2 — Ravin Crossbows, "De-cocking mechanism for a bow" (2016)
• US 9,726,454 B2 — MCP IP, "Crossbow trigger with decocking mechanism" (2017)
• US 9,303,944 B2 and US 8,752,535 B2 — Archery America, integrated de-cocking device / device for de-cocking a crossbow
• US 9,494,381 B1 — Jeske, crossbow de-cocking device and method (2016)

These are patents, hence § 311(b)-eligible, and they are in the patent owner's own IDS record. That is the first place a petition should be built.

---

Recommended next steps

If you are a defendant receiving a demand letter or complaint on '994:

1. Verify the null result yourself before relying on it. Run Patent Public Search / PTAB E2E for application 17/199,714 and patent 11,306,994, and check the "PTAB Trials" tab on the Google Patents / IPIQ / Justia records. My finding is high-confidence, but a pre-institution petition filed in the last few weeks may not yet be indexed. The canonical check is USPTO PTAB E2E: https://ptab.uspto.gov and https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11306994B2](/patent/US11306994B2) (which shows no PTAB "Trials" data for this number, unlike siblings of actively-litigated patents).
2. Calendar § 315(b) immediately. If a complaint asserting '994 (or a family member) has been served, you have one year to file. Note the CAFC's 2026-08-06 affirmance in Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Squires is an indirect timing/realism warning: TenPoint settled out of that appeal, so no party has appellate precedent forcing the Board onto TenPoint's own claim constructions.
3. Build the petition off the family's IDS art listed above — '159, '654, '944, '535, '381 — and treat the three-position string latch / simultaneous-reset interlock as the nexus limitation to attack. Grounds are unconstrained: no estoppel, no Fintiv-style history on this patent, and no prior IPR the Board can point to as a reason to discretionarily deny a first petition.
4. Keep the non-IPR defenses intact. Because no IPR exists, you retain the full menu of district-court invalidity theories — § 112 indefiniteness (a live risk given the "first/second/third activator" and "retains"/"permits" functional language), system art, on-sale bar, and § 101. Under current Director-era practice, expect discretionary-denial risk generally (institution rates have fallen sharply, and "settled expectations" is now a standalone denial basis for older patents) — but note '994 is only ~4.5 years old as of 2026-09, which cuts against a settled-expectations denial.
5. Check the chain of title and the security interest. PEOPLES BANK holds a security interest recorded 2023-07-10 (REEL/FRAME 064238/0306). Confirm standing and any licensee/assignee not reflected in the ODP record before assuming Hunter's Manufacturing is the only party who can sue.

If you are the patent owner: the absence of IPRs is a position of strength to preserve, not a guarantee. The '994 family is crowded with prior art in the de-cock/reset trigger space, including a directly-on-point Ravin de-cocking patent ('159) and an MCP IP decocking-trigger patent ('654). Any assertion will likely draw an IPR, and the Board has shown no reluctance to institute on crossbow trigger art (IPR2024-00522). Consider the family's claim-scope diversity before choosing which member to put at risk.

Caveat, stated plainly: I found no PTAB proceeding, no FWD, no judge panel, no settlement, and no Federal Circuit appeal for US 11,306,994, because none exists in the record available to me. Everything in the "adjacent proceedings" table concerns different patent numbers and must not be represented to a court or an adversary as a proceeding on '994.

I'll research the assignment record for US 11,306,994 through the USPTO Assignment Center and related sources.

The Google Patents legal events showed two assignment records. Let me try to retrieve the actual reel/frame numbers and correspondent details.

Let me try more targeted searches for the actual assignment records.

I was unable to retrieve the individual reel/frame numbers or correspondent-of-record fields for this patent through the search tools available to me. The Assignment Center's per-record detail (reel/frame, correspondent name, address) is served from a query interface I could not reach, and no third-party mirror surfaced the '994 abstract of title. I will not invent those values. What follows distinguishes verified facts (from the authoritative patent text's legal-events record) from the fields I could not confirm.

Inventors

All eight are named both as inventors on the '994 face and as assignors in the recorded 2021-05-11 assignment to Hunter's Manufacturing, so I can state their employer with confidence. Three of the eight share the Bednar surname (Richard, Steven, Phillip), a common pattern in family-held Northeast-Ohio manufacturing firms. No unusual departure pattern is evident — there is no recorded inventor-side assignment away from the operating company, and no evidence any inventor conveyed to a separate entity. The "all inventors leave within 12 months" fire-sale tell is not present.

Original assignee

Hunter's Manufacturing Company, Inc. d/b/a TenPoint Crossbow Technologies, Suffield, Ohio. This is a genuine operating company: TenPoint is one of the largest U.S. crossbow manufacturers and, per its own owner's manuals and catalogs, ships crossbows with safety, dry-fire-inhibitor, and de-cock/reset subsystems of exactly the type claimed in '994 (see the TenPoint general owner's manuals at tenpointcrossbows.com, which describe the safety, DFI, and de-cock behavior). The patent was originally assigned to this entity and the operative assignment is an inventor→company assignment, not a sale.

Current status: operating. A security interest in favor of Peoples Bank was recorded 2023-07-10, i.e., the company has pledged its IP as collateral for secured debt — a sign of an active, borrowing business, not a liquidation. (Compare the earlier index entry: "Assigned to PEOPLES BANK … SECURITY INTEREST … Assignors: HUNTER'S MANUFACTURING COMPANY, INC.") The company is also an active litigant in the crossbow space (see below).

Assignment timeline

Two events appear in the record. I could retrieve the conveyance type, parties, and recording dates but not the reel/frame or the correspondent of record.

• ~2021 (executed, date not retrieved) / recorded 2021-05-11 — Reel

  • Conveyance: Assignment of Assignors' Interest (pre-issuance, from inventors)
  • Assignor: BARTELS, KEITH; Bednar, Phil; BEDNAR, RICHARD; Bednar, Steven; SEYMOUR, ROBERT; SHAFFER, MICHAEL; SMITH, GARY, JR; VANKEULEN, ERIC
  • Assignee: Hunter's Manufacturing Company, Inc. d/b/a TenPoint Crossbow Technologies
  • Correspondent:
  • Context: Routine inventor-to-employer assignment perfecting title in the operating company (not a sale, not a reorg).

• 2023-07-10 (recorded) / execution date not retrieved — Reel

  • Conveyance: Security Interest (grant of security interest in IP as loan collateral)
  • Assignor: Hunter's Manufacturing Company, Inc.
  • Assignee: Peoples Bank
  • Correspondent:
  • Context: Securitization — the operating company pledging its patent estate to a lender; a financing transaction, not a transfer of beneficial ownership.

No assignment to any third-party acquirer, holding LLC, or licensing entity exists in the record. That is itself the finding.

Data-gap disclosure: the Google Patents legal-events block (the authoritative text supplied) gives parties, conveyance, and dates for both events but pairs them with no reel/frame and no correspondent. My attempts to pull the reel/frame and correspondent fields — including search strings combining "Hunter's Manufacturing," "Peoples Bank," "security interest," and "reel/frame" — returned only unrelated records (e.g., the X Corp./Twitter assignment chain) and the Ravin litigation docket. Verify at the Assignment Center by searching patent number 11306994:
https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

Timeline diagram

timeline
    title Ownership of US 11306994
    2019 : Provisional filed Dec 17
    2020 : Non-provisional filed Jan 17
    2021 : Continuation filed Mar 12
         : Inventors assign to TenPoint May 11
         : Pre-grant publication Jul 22
    2022 : Patent issued Apr 19
    2023 : Security interest to Peoples Bank Jul 10

NPE / troll-pattern signals

1. Shell-entity transfer — Not present. The only recorded ownership link runs from the inventors to the operating company; no "IP / Patents / Licensing / Holdings / Ventures" entity appears anywhere in the chain. The 2023-07-10 event is a security interest held by a bank, which is not an ownership transfer.

2. Known asserter in the chain — Not present. Neither Hunter's Manufacturing Company, Inc. nor Peoples Bank appears on the Acacia / Marathon / IV / Wi-LAN / Conversant / Vringo / Pendrell / Round Rock type lists. TenPoint is the target of the well-publicized Ravin campaign, not a listed plaintiff-side asserter.

3. Repeat correspondent across the chain — Unclear / insufficient data. I could not retrieve the correspondent-of-record field for either event, so I cannot assess recurrence. This is the single most valuable field the task asks for and it is the one I could not verify — treat it as an open item requiring an Assignment Center pull.

4. Cascading transfers — Not present. One assignment plus one security interest across roughly two years, both with the same operating company as the party in interest. No chained LLC hops.

5. Pre-litigation transfer — Not present. No assignment to a plaintiff predates any suit. The 2023-07-10 security interest postdates the start of the Ravin dispute (originally filed in Nevada on 2021-12-17) and does not create standing for the secured party.

6. Bankruptcy fire-sale — Not present (no evidence). There is no record of a Chapter 7/11 proceeding or a court-supervised patent sale. The Peoples Bank security interest is ordinary secured lending and could, in a downside scenario, become a foreclosure vector — but speculation about that would exceed the evidence.

7. Privateering — Not present. No operating-company-to-NPE transfer exists in the record, so there is nothing to characterize as privateering.

8. Defensive aggregator (anti-NPE) — Not present. The chain does not terminate at RPX, AST, LOT, Unified, or OIN.

Verdict

Operating-company assertion. US 11,306,994 has never left its original owner: Hunter's Manufacturing Company, Inc. d/b/a TenPoint Crossbow Technologies holds title as of the 2021-05-11 inventor assignment, and the only later recorded event is a 2023-07-10 security interest to Peoples Bank — a financing pledge, not a sale to an NPE. TenPoint is a genuine crossbow manufacturer that ships products practicing the claimed safety/de-cock/reset subject matter, and it is an active litigant against a direct competitor in the crossbow market (Ravin Crossbows). The one caveat to flag honestly: none of the sources I reached confirms that '994 itself is asserted in any suit — the Ravin v. Hunter's / TenPoint litigation centers on other patent numbers — so the "assertion" component rests on the owner's demonstrated litigation posture in this exact technology space rather than on a complaint citing '994.

Verification link (search patent number 11306994; confirm reel/frame + correspondent that I could not retrieve):
https://assignmentcenter.uspto.gov/

I'll research this systematically, starting with the patent's own citation record and then examining each cited reference.

Let me pull the citation tables from the patent record directly.

The citation table is what I need. Let me retrieve the granted patent's own "References Cited" front-page section.

Bottom line up front

I attempted to pull the citation record for US 11,306,994 B2 directly from the patent record (Google Patents front page → USPTO/Justia mirrors). Two things limit what I can state with certainty, and I want to flag them before the analysis rather than paper over them:

1. The authoritative Google Patents full text supplied to me is truncated (it ends mid-sentence at "One or more written indi…"), and my attempts to pull the face-of-the-patent "References Cited" table from the patentimage PDF hit a retrieval/step limit. The citation list below therefore comes from the Justia-derived record at companyprofiles.justatic.com/patent/11306994 ("Referenced Cited → U.S. Patent Documents"), which mirrors the patent's own citation table.
2. That retrieved list is itself truncated. It cut off mid-entry at "10082359…", so at least one further cited reference (and possibly foreign patent documents / non-patent literature) is missing. Treat the list as substantially complete but not verified complete.

I did not fabricate descriptions to fill the gap — where I could not verify a reference's subject matter within this session, I say so explicitly.

---

1. The patent being analyzed (recap anchors, not repeated)

• US 11,306,994 B2, "Reset mechanism for a crossbow," app. 17/199,714, filed 2021-03-12, granted 2022-04-19, priority 2019-12-17 (prov. 62/949,294), continuation of Ser. No. 16/745,876 (which issued as US 11,009,310 B1).
• Effective filing date is post-March 16, 2013 → AIA § 102 applies.
• Critical claim architecture for the § 102 analysis: independent claim 1 (crossbow), claim 9 (method), claim 14 (assembly). The novelty driver is the third activator which, in moving first→second position, simultaneously returns both the first activator (safety) and second activator (de-cock) to their first positions.

Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11306994B2](/patent/US11306994B2)

---

2. References cited in / for US 11,306,994 (as retrieved)

All are U.S. patent documents. "Date" is the date shown in the citation record (issuance date for granted patents).

Sources for the citation table: https://companyprofiles.justatic.com/patent/[11306994](/patent/11306994) · https://patents.justia.com/patent/11306994
Source for the verified description of 5,598,829 / 6,205,990 / 6,286,496 manner of citation in crossbow art: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/66/94/43/682931c99da5cf/US9140516.pdf

Explicit non-auto-correction note: the record renders entry 4 as "Adkins." I have reproduced it literally. I am flagging — not silently correcting — that the corresponding dry-fire reference in this art is usually indexed as "Atkins." Independently confirm the identity of 6,205,990 before relying on it.

---

3. The § 102 framework I applied

Three rules govern the mapping below:

(a) Anticipation requires every element. Under § 102, a single reference must disclose all limitations of the claim as arranged. For dependent claims this includes all limitations of the claim(s) from which they depend. So no cited reference can "anticipate claim 5" or "claim 7" unless it also discloses the entire claim-1 combination.

(b) Which subsection applies (AIA):

• § 102(a)(1) — patents/printed publications publicly available before the effective filing date (12-17-2019 for the '994 disclosure). Every reference in the table above qualifies as § 102(a)(1) art on its face, since all issued before 12-17-2019.
• § 102(a)(2) — U.S. patents/applications effectively filed before the effective filing date but published later. Relevant for art that published after 12-17-2019 with an earlier priority (see § 5 below).
• § 102(b)(2)(C) — common-ownership exception. This is why the family members (US 11,009,310 B1; US 11,002,505 B1 / US 11,428,499 B2; US 11,592,258 B2; US 11,885,587 B2) are not § 102 art against '994; they share Hunter's Manufacturing ownership and the same inventive entity/priority chain.

(c) Cited ≠ anticipating. Appearance in the "References Cited" list means the examiner considered it. It does not mean the reference anticipates any claim. The '994 issued over this art, which is consistent with (though not proof of) the examiner finding no § 102 rejection that stuck.

---

4. Relevance assessment — which citations actually matter

Tier 1 — the genuinely relevant citations

A. US 5,598,829 (Bednar, Feb 4, 1997) — "Crossbow dry fire prevention device."
This is the most on-point citation for the anti-dry-fire sub-system that '994's specification integrates (dry-fire link 192; FIGS. 26–27). Potential § 102 exposure: only to those dependent claims whose added limitation reads on a bowstring/bolt-sensing link that blocks the trigger link. It does not reach claim 1, 9, or 14, because it lacks the three-position string latch, the de-cock activator, and above all the single reset activator that resets two activators simultaneously. Confidence: moderate-high on the description; high on the non-anticipation conclusion.

B. US 6,205,990 (Mar 27, 2001) — "Dry-fire prevention mechanism for crossbows."
Same analysis as A: relevant to the dry-fire/dependent-claim layer only. Confidence: moderate (spelling discrepancy flagged above).

C. US 6,286,496 and US 6,913,007 and US 8,375,928 (Bednar) — Hunter's/TenPoint crossbow trigger & latch lineage.
These are the applicant's own prior-generation trigger/string-latch mechanisms. They are the most plausible § 102(a)(1) art for the environmental elements of claim 1 (main beam, bow mechanism, string latch holding a bowstring in a cocked position). They do not disclose: (i) a string latch movable into a third, de-cock-mode position, (ii) a de-cock activator, or (iii) a reset activator performing the simultaneous dual reset. Confidence: moderate.

D. US 9,435,605 (McPherson) and US 9,494,379 (Yehle).
Representative of the modern compound-crossbow trigger/safety prior art that would have been the examiner's obviousness pool. Relevant to dependent-claim features (biasing devices, housing openings, pivot-vs-linear kinematics) but not to the claim-1 combination. Confidence: low-moderate on descriptions; moderate-high on the non-anticipation conclusion.

Tier 2 — background/general-art citations

Entries 1, 2, 6, 8–12, 14–17, 20–27 (Waiser, Choma, Malucelli, Kempf, Choma, Shepley, Matasic, Kronengold, Barber, Barber, Wohleb, Pulkrabek, Jeske, Barber, Yehle, Barnett, Egerdee, Langdon, Yehle, 10,082,359) are, on the record I retrieved, crossbow-art citations in the general trigger/safety/latch/cocking field. I could not verify their specific disclosures in this session and I will not characterize them beyond that. None of them, to my knowledge, discloses the claim-1 "third activator resets two activators simultaneously" structure.

Aggregate § 102 conclusion on the cited references

Practical takeaway: the cited art supplies the background environment (main beam, bow mechanism, string latch, safety, dry-fire inhibitor) but none of it supplies the point of novelty (dual, simultaneous safety-and-de-cock reset). I read the citation set as consistent with a § 103 obviousness discussion during prosecution, not a § 102 anticipation event.

---

5. Art that is NOT on the face of '994 but is § 102-relevant

This is where the more interesting anticipation question lies, and I'd be doing you a disservice by limiting the analysis to the citation table.

US 2022/0282946 A1 — "Firing system for a crossbow" (Feradyne Outdoors, LLC; Blosser et al.)

• PCT filed Aug 3, 2020; § 371 date Feb 7, 2022; published Sep 8, 2022; benefit of provisional 62/883,411 filed Aug 6, 2019.
• Discloses a bowstring carrier, trigger assembly, dry-fire inhibitor, safety, and a "safety reset" that de-activates the safety when the bowstring carrier displaces past it, and re-activates it on the return stroke (claims 6 and 11 of that publication).
• § 102 analysis: because its provisional priority (Aug 6, 2019) predates '994's effective filing date (Dec 17, 2019), it is a candidate § 102(a)(2) reference (U.S. application publication effectively filed before '994's effective filing date, naming different inventors, no common ownership).
• However: it discloses an automatic safety reset driven by carrier travel. It does not disclose a de-cock activator, and it does not disclose a reset activator that simultaneously returns two separate activators. So even Blosser does not anticipate claims 1, 9, or 14.
• Source: https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/61/0f/7a/b83e6790080406/US20220282946A1.pdf · https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220282946A1

Family members excluded by § 102(b)(2)(C) (common ownership), listed so they aren't mistaken for art: US 11,009,310 B1 (parent, issued 2021-05-18); US 11,002,505 B1 / US 11,428,499 B2 (de-cock mechanism, filed 2020-01-17); US 11,592,258 B2; US 11,885,587 B2 ("Reset mechanism for a bow"). Source: https://patents.google.com/patent/[US11009310B1](/patent/US11009310B1)

---

6. What I could not establish, and what would close the gap

1. The complete citation list. Entry 27 was truncated at "10,082,359" and at least one further entry is missing; I also could not confirm whether '994's face lists foreign patent documents or non-patent literature. To close: pull the "References Cited" block from USPTO Patent Center / Patent Public Search for 17/199,714, or the front page of the granted PDF.
2. Per-reference descriptions. For the entries marked "Not verified," I have the citation data but not a verified disclosure summary. To close: full-text review of each reference against the element list in claim 1.
3. Whether the examiner ever made a § 102 rejection over any of these. I did not retrieve the file wrapper / office actions for 17/199,714. To close: USPTO Patent Center "Documents" tab for application 17/199,714.
4. Any pending IPR/PGR or litigation directed at '994. My prior work-up found none for '994 specifically (the 2026 CAFC activity I located, Ravin Crossbows, LLC v. Squires, concerns US 9,354,015 — a different patent). That conclusion stands; I found nothing new here.

---

7. Confidence summary

Caveat on the § 102 labels: everything in § 4 above is an analytical anticipation assessment based on claim scope versus reference scope, not a legal opinion. The definitive § 102 determination requires element-by-element comparison against the full text (and preferably the figures) of each reference — which is exactly the step I could only complete for the three Tier-1 references whose subject matter I could verify.

I'll ground this analysis in the actual prior-art record for this patent. Let me pull the cited references and related crossbow art.

Good — I now have the face-of-patent cited references. Let me characterize the most probative ones and check the family relationships carefully.

Let me pin down what the most relevant face-of-patent references actually disclose.

Obviousness Analysis — U.S. Patent No. 11,306,994 B2

("Reset mechanism for a crossbow") under 35 U.S.C. § 103

---

0. Scope note on the "Prior Art" record used

Two disclaimers before the analysis, so the evidentiary base is transparent:

1. The authoritative Google Patents text supplied to me was truncated and did not itself include a citations/"Cited By" list. I therefore built the prior-art set from (a) the "Referenced Cited" U.S. patent list on the Justia/company-profile page for 11306994 — the face-of-patent citations — and (b) closely related crossbow trigger/safety art surfaced in follow-up searches. The face-of-patent list I retrieved is:
   Waiser 4,699,117 · Choma 5,220,906 · Bednar 5,598,829 · Adkins 6,205,990 · Bednar 6,286,496 · Malucelli 6,799,566 · Bednar 6,913,007 · Kempf 7,174,884 · Choma 7,748,370 · Shepley 7,810,480 · Matasic 8,091,540 · Kronengold 8,240,299 · Bednar 8,375,928 · Barber 8,752,535 · Barber 9,303,944 · Wohleb 9,341,432 · Pulkrabek 9,383,159 · McPherson 9,435,605 · Yehle 9,494,379 · Jeske 9,494,381 · Barber 9,797,674 · Yehle 9,879,936 · Barnett 9,945,646 · Egerdee 9,958,232 · Langdon 10,041,755 · Yehle 10,077,965 · Yehle 10,082,359 · Yehle 10,126,088 · Yehle 10,175,023 · Yehle 10,254,073 · Kempf 10,458,743 · Shaffer 10,605,555 · Hensel 10,866,055 · Jessup 11,015,892; plus publications incl. Bednar 2002/0059924, Rasor 2010/0170488, Kempf 2010/0269807.
   (Source: https://companyprofiles.justatic.com/patent/11306994)

2. Mapping depth is uneven. For several references I have verified title, date, and abstract/claims snippets; for others I have only title/date. I flag which is which. I have not re-verified the full claim sets of Pulkrabek '360/'159, the Yehle references, Langdon '755, Barnett '646, or Egerdee '232. Statements about those are labeled as inferred.

---

1. Threshold: effective filing date and which references even count

• '994 claims benefit of App. 16/745,876 (filed Jan. 17, 2020) which claims benefit of Provisional 62/949,294 (filed Dec. 17, 2019). '994 itself was filed Mar. 12, 2021. For § 103 purposes the effective filing date is presumptively Dec. 17, 2019, and the AIA's 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) framework governs.
• Everything on the face-of-patent citations list predates Dec. 17, 2019 and is therefore available as 102(a)(1) prior art. That is a clean art set.

⚠️ Critical trap to avoid: the family is NOT prior art

This is the single most important point for anyone actually challenging or defending '994. The record shows '994 is a continuation of 16/745,876, which issued as U.S. 11,009,310 B1 ("Reset mechanism for a crossbow"), with a sibling application 16/745,845 that issued as U.S. 11,002,505 B1 ("De-cock mechanism for a crossbow"), and further continuations 17/656,716 → 11,592,258 B2 and 18/175,083 → 11,885,587 B2 ("Reset mechanism for a bow").
(Verified: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20220214133A1/en shows "US16/745,876 … US11009310B1 — Reset mechanism for a crossbow" under Family Applications Before.)

Those documents describe the identical embodiment — same reference numerals (activators 132/222/322; locks 136/228; string latch 62; trigger link 64). But they share the same inventive entity (Shaffer, Bednar ×3, VanKeulen, Smith, Seymour, Bartels) and the same priority. Accordingly:

• They are not "by another inventor" → not 102(a)(2) art;
• They are commonly owned → 102(b)(2)(C) exception applies.

Consequence for the § 103 analysis: the obviousness case must be built from third-party art. The family documents are only evidence of what the applicant considered disclosed, not citable prior art. I flag this explicitly because a superficially attractive argument ("the parent already discloses it, so claim 1 is obvious") fails as a matter of law.

The one real delta over the family

Compare the claim language across the family (as retrieved from secondary mirrors; exact wording should be confirmed against USPTO full-text):

So the only substantive apparatus-level addition in '994 relative to its own family is the word "simultaneously." That framing matters enormously for § 103: if a single pivoting reset member drives two lock members, simultaneity is an inherent mechanical consequence of the disclosed structure (surface 338 sliding on surface 340 of safety lock 136, and surface 342 engaging surface 344 on extension 346 of de-cock lock 228). An inherent result of a structure does not patentably distinguish over art showing the same structure. See In re Napier / In re Swinehart line of authority on inherency of results.

That is the analytical hinge for everything below.

---

2. Level of ordinary skill (PHOSITA)

A person of ordinary skill in the art at Dec. 2019 would have: a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering (or equivalent practical experience), plus roughly 2–5 years of experience designing crossbow or firearm trigger, sear, safety, and interlock mechanisms, including familiarity with multi-position string latches, linearly-sliding buttons operating pivoting links, and spring-biased detent/lock arrangements. The field is mature and highly incremental — the face-of-patent list shows 35+ crossbow trigger/latch/safety patents spanning 1987–2019, most sharing a handful of repeat inventors (Bednar, Kempf, Yehle, Choma, Barber). This matters: KSR instructs that in a mature, crowded art, a combination of known elements is more likely obvious, and the scope of the "motivation to combine" inquiry broadens.

All references are analogous art — same field of endeavor (crossbow trigger/safety mechanisms) or reasonably pertinent to the problem the inventor faced (resetting user-actuated interlocks without firing).

---

3. Claim 1 element-by-element mapping and obviousness

Why (e) is obvious as a matter of law and engineering

1. Single-actuator / plural-lock is an ancient mechanical expedient. Using one lever, yoke, or yoke-and-cam arm to drive two spring-biased detents is routine in everything from dual hood latches to firearm dual-safety blocks to vehicle seat interlocks. Where a reference (e.g., '1955) already teaches one motion cascading into two distinct interlock state changes, substituting a single pivoting lever (the '994 reset activator 322) for two separate manual inputs is a predictable variation using a known technique to improve a similar device in the same way — the KSR formulation.

2. The problem statement supplies the motivation, and it is on the face of the patent. '994's own Background: "It is known to provide crossbows with safety devices. It is desirable to provide an effective yet easy way to reset safety and de-cock devices." A problem identified in the applicant's own specification is a permissible source of motivation. See K/S HIMPP v. Hear-Wear Techs. (a statement of the problem in the specification can supply motivation).

3. Design incentives / market forces. Two independent user-actuated actuators (safety + de-cock) that each latch in the "armed" position and must each be undone by hand is a two-step, error-prone operation on a cocked, 150+ lb. weapon. Consolidating reset into one movement reduces the chance the user leaves the de-cock actuator armed, and reduces the chance of an unintended discharge during unloading. That is a safety-driven motivation of the strongest kind in this art.

4. The "simultaneously" limitation is inherent. The '994 reset activator is a single pivot arm on pin 330 whose surface 338 bears on the planar surface 340 of safety lock 136 while surface 342 drives extension 346 of de-cock lock 228 (spec., and FIGS. 24–25). Two engagements driven by one rigid pivoting member displace both locks in the same single stroke. Where a reference shows one reset member contacting both lock members, simultaneity is necessarily present → inherency defeats the only added limitation.

---

4. The three strongest § 103 combinations

Combination A (primary — the "core" case)

[Bednar 6,913,007 or Bednar 8,375,928] + [Pulkrabek US 9,383,159 / US 2014/0261360] + [Kempf US 9,551,544]

• Primary (Bednar): crossbow with main beam, limbs, bowstring, multi-position string latch (sear), trigger link, and a manually-movable safety blocking release. Supplies elements (a), (b) [first two latch positions], (c), and the trigger-link/latch architecture.
• Secondary (Pulkrabek): teaches a de-cocking mechanism for a bow — i.e., a latch arrangement with a dedicated de-cock position and an actuator that must be enabled to reach it. Supplies element (d) and completes (b)'s third position.
• Secondary (Kempf '544): teaches an auto-safety in which a lever arm and lock reposition the safety automatically via linkage rather than only by direct manual input. Supplies the mechanical teaching for element (e) — a linkage-driven, non-manual repositioning of a safety into its "safe"/first state.
• Motivation: Both references are in the same field and address the same safety problem; the art is crowded and incremental; the applicant's own specification identifies "an effective yet easy way to reset safety and de-cock devices" as the unmet need. A PHOSITA seeking to simplify post-cocking handling would (i) add the Pulkrabek de-cock capability to the Bednar fire-control group, and (ii) implement the reset via the Kempf-style linkage already used to auto-position a safety — a predictable combination with no change in the principle of operation of any element (In re Keller; KSR).

Combination B (independent corroboration using the Ravin/Yehle line)

[Yehle 9,494,379 + Yehle 9,879,936 and/or Yehle 10,126,088] + [US 2018/0051955 A1] + [Pulkrabek '159]

• The Yehle set supplies a crossbow with a string latch, sear, safety, and dry-fire lockout, plus cocking/de-cocking capability.
• US 2018/0051955 A1 is the key teaching for element (e), verified verbatim: engagement of the string carrier with the draw string causes the mechanism to simultaneously "(i) couple the sear…to retain the catch…, (ii) move the safety 522 to the safe position 509, and (iii) move the dry fire lockout 542 to the lockout position 541." One input → two separate interlock state changes. That is the same architectural idea as '994's reset activator (one input → two lock state changes), merely applied to different interlock members.
• Motivation: KSR — "[i]f a technique has been used to improve one device, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that it would improve similar devices in the same way, using the technique is obvious." Applying a one-input/two-interlock cascade already used in a cocking context to a reset context in the same trigger housing is the paradigmatic predictable variation.

Caveat: I have not confirmed the assignee/inventor of US 2018/0051955 A1 from the record retrieved (the reference numerals and the "string carrier"/spool cocking architecture are consistent with Ravin-style designs, but I will not assert the assignee as fact). Verify before relying on it.

Combination C (for the interlock dependent claims)

[Any of A or B] + [Kempf 9,551,544 (safety lock/lever-arm lock)] + [US 10,401,117 B1 (dry-fire link / safety lever actuating link)]

• Supplies the "first lock / second lock" retainers, the linkage between them (surface 342 → surface 344 → extension 346), and the trigger-link-blocks-reset interlock of claim 4/'994 spec: "whenever the trigger link 64 is in the second trigger link position, the reset activator 322 may be prevented from being moved into the second reset activator position."
• Motivation: Preventing a reset while the sear/latch is in its released state and the string is not held is a safety interlock, and interlocks between trigger state and every other user control are the settled design convention in this art (dry-fire links, safety blocks, lockout arms across the cited references). Abbott Labs / KSR: an explicit safety-driven motivation.

---

5. Dependent claims — separate § 103 notes

---

6. Counterarguments the patent owner would (and should) press — and how they fare

---

7. Bottom line

• Claim 1 is, in my assessment, vulnerable on § 103 — but only through careful third-party-art combinations, and the vulnerability rests almost entirely on the proposition that "simultaneously" is an inherent consequence of a single pivoting reset member acting on two lock members. If a tribunal instead treats "simultaneously" as a distinct, structure-imparting limitation not shown in the art, claim 1 survives. That is the whole ballgame.
• The strongest combination is Bednar fire-control primary + Pulkrabek de-cocking mechanism + a single-input/two-interlock cascade teaching (US 2018/0051955 A1 or Kempf US 9,551,544). Combination B using the Yehle/Ravin references plus '1955 is an independent path to the same conclusion.
• Dependent claim 6 (dual locks driven by one reset activator) is the weakest claim in the set from a validity standpoint and claim 7 (three housing openings) / the labeling claims add essentially nothing.
• Do not use the '994 family (US 11,009,310; US 11,002,505; US 11,592,258; US 11,885,587) as prior art. Same inventive entity, common ownership, common priority — disqualified under AIA 102(a)(2)/102(b)(2)(C). This is the most likely error a challenger would make against this patent.

---

8. Confidence and verification gaps (stated plainly)

• High confidence: bibliographic data; the family/priority relationships; the parent = US 11,009,310 B1 and sibling = US 11,002,505 B1 identification; the existence and identity of the Pulkrabek "De-cocking mechanism for a bow" publication (2014/0261360, pub. 2014-09-18); the existence of Kempf's "Crossbow Lock Mechanism" auto-safety (US 9,551,544 B1); the verbatim text of US 2018/0051955 A1's one-action/two-interlock cascade; the verbatim "desirable to provide an effective yet easy way to reset safety and de-cock devices" problem statement in the patent's own Background.
• Medium confidence: the substantive claim scope of Pulkrabek US 9,383,159, the Yehle references, Langdon 10,041,755, Barnett 9,945,646, and Egerdee 9,958,232 — mapped from titles/abstracts/snippets only. A full-text claim pull for each is required before any of these are relied on in a petition or invalidity contention.
• Not verified and expressly flagged as uncertain: the assignee/inventor of US 2018/0051955 A1; the exact full claim text of '994's claims 9 and 14 (the authoritative text I was given truncated at "One or more written indi…"); and any secondary-considerations evidence.
• No litigation or PTAB proceeding against '994 was located in the earlier sections of this analysis, so no estoppel or IPR-time-bar posture is established. If '994 has since been asserted, the § 315(b) one-year clock and any 315(e) estoppel would materially change the strategic picture — that should be re-checked against PACER, the PTAB, and the Unified Patents litigation portal before acting.